Oscar Night

As I sit down to watch the Oscars I wonder if any of the awardees will mention the Employee Free Choice Act. With the dramatic increase in reality television and web content I think it would be wise for SAGs top-paid actors to keep in mind that “a rising tide raises all ships” and use the format to advocate for the right of writers and talent (and I use that term very lightly) to organize into unions via cardcheck if they so choose. And why not use the show to advocate for the Act? After the Guild’s vote yesterday to reject the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ most recent and regressive take-it-or-leave-it offer, it is a reminder their union sisters and brothers in the audience and the viewers at home all need.

No Doubt About the Link Between Gays and Global Warming (Says the Pope, While Wearing a Dress)

I went to a Catholic grade school. Many of my teachers were nuns. The nuns were a group of women with different personalities who were, generally, educated, travelled, and dedicated to justice. I was drawn by the sisters’ stories of other places, other struggles and their life of reading and contemplation. I benefitted from their tireless committment of their teaching. I liked that, even when,by the second grade, I was almost (but not quite) sure I didn’t believe in God, I was comfortable expresing that doubt while still developing a deeper belief in living and working in the service of others with passion and conviction. Certainly though, I was insulated. In a small town. In a small school. I certainly did not live in the Bronx, which is the setting for “Doubt”.

Last week, Tefere and I went to see “Doubt” It was a good movie. Great actors. Excellent performances. Doubt is set in 1964 and is about a nun who confronts a priest who she suspects of abusing an alterboy who is a student at the school of which she is the principal. One aspect of it that I thought was interesting (and I haven’t read or seen the play so I don’t have that comparison) was the portrayal of St. Nicholas—a school that is seemingly a world onto itself. The school was an almost-prison full of potential and hope, seemingly disconnected from the world beyond its walls. Doubt is like a part of the set. Doubt is a wall, constructed to allow the school-world to rub against the Bronx, for curriculum to be changed and developed, for the penguin-suited nuns and steak-eatting priests to struggle with power and hierararchy on a set closed to the outside world.

Doubting the audience ability to deal with a school-world removed from the Bronx or, more likely, hyper-cognizant of the public embarressment over the Catholic Church sexual abuse cover-ups, Shanley brings the outside world into the school with a literal metaphor when a cat catches a mouse in the school. He also uses weather. Rain and thunder and whipping winds rattle windows and scatter leaves. Oh yes, Shanley reminds us, the weight of the world is not doubt but certainity. The awful feeling that doubt has led you to certainity.

For me, the most powerful scene in the movie takes place outside the school. Sister Aloysius walks with Mrs. Miller, the mother of the boy (the only black boy in the school) whom the sister suspects is being sexually abused by Father Flynn, the church’s new priest. The scene is powerful because more than overwrought weather or cat-and-mouse antics, the school-world and outside world rub against one another and crack and leak and everything is much more complicated than we thought. All our prejudices and beliefs are in play, and the stage of doubt expands.

In the conversation between the Sister and the mother, we learn that Mrs. Miller also knows, the way mothers know, that the relationship between Father Flynn and her alterboy son may not be appropriate. We, too, learn that the Miller boy is “inclined” toward gay-ness. Mr. Miller is enraged by his sons sexuality. Hence, Mrs. Miller tells Sister Aloysius that her son just has to make it through June (the end of the school year and his last year of grade school) because getting sexually abused is better than being killed by your father. Cat-and-mouse and nasty weather were certainly a much more straight-forward intrusion of the outside into the the school-world than this scene. Now, in the embodiment of this runny-nosed domestic worker/ mother we movie-goers are positioned to view many forms of oppression systematically working together. We suddenly feel uncomfortable in our seats and wonder “where is this going?” We are less powerful, more doubtful, more helpless. The movie-goer wonders: Might I have to confornt my own rape? What about homophobia at my church? The violence in my home? What is my responsibility in all this? We don’t want to think about such things while chomping popcorn at the theater on a Friday night.

Yet, think we do. Homophobia, and homophobic opprenssion, have taken a special centrality in California in the past couple of months. Let’s take a little heuristic jump from the big screen to the ballot box. On November 4th Californians passed Proposition 8 that amended that state constitution to narrow civil rights for gay and lesbians couples by defining marriage as only being between a man and a woman. There was much activism by black pastors to pass Prop. 8 in an election year when many progressive and “change” candidates won public office. Post-election polling showed that in communities of color where Barack Obama won overwhelmingly, so, too, did Proposition 8 pass overwhelmingly. What does it mean to elect a black community organizer as President and, at the same time, vote to use the constitution to remove civil rights?

It is interesting that during the Bush administration and the uncovering of the sexual scandals in the Catholic Church, we also witnessed a disproportionate number of homophobes in postions of power who were likely to be gay and closeted (some of whom were uncerimoniously un-closeted in places like airport bathrooms). Not since I saw Tony Kushner’s excellent stage-outing of Roy Cohn in Angels in America, a play that connected homophobes and red-baiting to poltical realities of post-Regan America, had such a sad and funny and poignoint inquiry into sexual politics unfolded before my eyes.

Now, not to be outdone, the Pope, has come out comparing the effort to save the planet with sancticty of heterosexual sex. Pope Benedict said that just as the earth, water and air are gifts from God, so to is the intended role of man and woman. Neither the rainforest or hetrosexuality should be destroyed. Quite the dialectic your holiness! Looks like the Pope checked out popular opinion polling, and, accordingly, the pontiff made his talking points. He argues that marriage between a man and woman is objective and logical, and, just like nature, it is valuable. If the rain forests and straight-sex have implicit god-given value, than gays well, you just gotta fend for your value-less selves.

Hopefully we won’t wait for a Pope to help alleviate us of doubts that we are connected to the planet in a more wholelistic way, that we are ecologically derived. Such a wholisitic view might just lead one to think that gays and lesbians should have civil rights. I doubt we can afford to ignore the needs of one another and exploit each other for too much longer without suffering together (though some much more than others) disasterous consequences. Just like the weight of certainity on Sister Aloysius’s shoulders, doubt can lead to a conviction of non-belief that challenges the open secrets keeping our ecological St. Nicholas intact. The crisis of our environment, derived from the same economic “values” the Pope gave to straight-sex and rainforests, need to be confronted with certainity by all of us, including organizers and forward thinking nuns and black ministers. (And a few “out” staff people or appointees from the Obama team would help too) .

Shame on the ABC

 

                  On November 20, the Union Tribune reported on the blast that seriously injured 3 insulators, 10 other construction craftspeople, and 1 firefighter at the San Diego Hilton Bayfront.  They reported that “Sherwood Mechanical Inc., a plumbing and heating contractor based in Mira Mesa, received most of the blame for the blast, which knocked out a portion of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel on May 19.”

 

                  This is a quote from Mitchell C. Roberts of Sherwood Mechanical that is in the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) of San Diego Member Resources Guide:

 

The Associated Builders and Contractors has developed

superior safety programs I can use in my business. Combining

national and local expertise, ABC is staying at the top of the safety

training curve. That helps me do the same thing. A safer

contractor is a more profitable contractor. That’s good for my

employees on both ends of the scale.

 

Except, ABC practices are not good for employees, they are only good for company bottom lines.  When the ABC endorsed John McCain for his presidential bid, their press release said “John McCain is the candidate that best represents the free enterprise values of the Associated Builders and Contractors.”  On the ABC San Diego website, they say “the stronger ABC is, the better it is at helping you defend the right to run your business as you chose.” Running your business as you choose leaves your employees behind, and in the case of Sherwood Mechanical, it seriously injured workers.

 

                  Most of the injured didn’t even work for Sherwood.  But that is the nature of the construction industry where craftspeople from many different trades and working for various employers have to work in close proximity to one another.  Sherwood’s negligence– their pursuit of maximizing profits in accordance with the ABC free enterprise philosophy, jeopardized the health and careers of other workers whose employers were taking appropriate safety measures.  In California, the ABC spends tens-of-thousands of dollars annually lobbying against bills that would improve construction workers lives and improve health and safety on the job.  Their goal is exactly what they said in their press release endorsing McCain: to promote a philosophy of free enterprise that can only be achieved on the backs of the workers they claim to care about while they testify against their best interests at city hall or at the state capital. 

 

                  There are easy and proven ways to make sure constructions craftspeople are safe on jobs.  Construction will always be dangerous work but lives can be saved and accidents can be minimized through the use of pre-hire agreements with strong safety protocols that require employers and employees to monitor and implement a safety program.  Lives can be saved by making sure inspectors are trained on the latest construction technologies so they know what a safe installation is when they are approving construction work that has been completed.  OSHA and CalOSHA must  come to jobsites and enforce safety regulations before an accident happens. 

     

        Construction workers deserve safe workplaces.  End users, tenants, and the public have the right to know that the buildings they work-in and live-in are safe for them.  As our newly elected leaders take office over the next few weeks, we must demand that they join with working families in their communities, stand up to the ABC lobbyists, and implement policies that put the health, safety, and sustainability of the families they represent first.

On the road again…

I exercised today for the first time in a couple of months this morning.  I jogged and walked alternately for 45 minutes.  Admittedly, I mostly walked. 

Rescuing Kelly Cherry

 

Before a meeting ad the San Diego Building Trades this afternoon I stopped at the Adams Avenue Bookstore to peruse their excellent and well organized (inappropriate cross-genre-ization very much annoys me) selection of used books.  In the poetry section I came across Kelly Cherry’s book of poetry, God’s Loud Hand.  Since I am trying to become financially responsible and support my local library I hadn’t intended on making a purchase.  But, I couldn’t resist.  Sure, I have a copy of the book at home but here was this book, this beautiful book, penned by this amazing and prolific author…I mean how could anyone sell it?  There is so much intentionality in packing up books and bringing them to a used bookseller.  Sure, I go to used bookstores and always find hidden treasures.  Treasures I am glad others sold.  I have become acquainted with authors and works I no doubt would never stumble across on the racks at Borders  or at the library, and there is just something about touching and smelling books that beats browsing online.   Some used books, no doubt, do not warrant the title as they have been neglected and gone unread.  Many, however, are well-read.  Maybe they are early copies sent to a reviewer and quickly sold to supplement your meager income.  Maybe there is not enough room in your apartment for your books and your new baby.  Maybe you caught the feng shui bug and cleared out your space.  Maybe you died and your distressed lover filled boxes and called someone to take your most beloved books away.  So many maybes.  But today, for whatever reason, I was compelled to rescue this book. Like that cat at the shelter that melts your heart and robs your will without so much as a soft meow, I simply had to rescue God’s Loud Hand.  I had to adopt it, give it a second home alongside its twin.  At worst, I had a gift to pass along to someone special.    I grabbed up the book and carried it with me as I browsed.   You see, years ago, when I was slogging through a dark period, I had a bright spot once a week when I took a poetry workshop with Kelly Cherry.  She was never selfish with her writing and took the time she could have given to her own work to read and engage and critique. It wasn’t until I got to the checkout that I realized I had left it behind.  I must have set it down to open another book.  I did not go back for the book.  For better or worse I left it, somewhere unknown, for an employee to find and re-shelf, to put back in the poetry section for someone else to discover.

Suing God?

So, I was just sent this news blurb about former Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chamber’s lawsuit against God.  It was meant to make me smile and it did, but it also made me curious.  A Google search led me to this 2006  article in Mother Jones about Chambers and his long tenure in Nebraska’s legislature. 

Here is the lawsuit Chambers filed in 2007 seeking a permanent injunction against God claiming God  caused “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts … resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions.”

Despite the fact that God responded to Chamber’s suit and an agent of God filed a counter-suit, the Chambers case was thrown out with prejudice because God doesn’t have an address and couldn’t be served legal notice. Not to be deterred, Chambers is now appealing to the Nebraska Supreme Court. 

Apparently, Chambers filed the 2007 suit to make the point that everyone should get their day in court, even if the lawsuit might be called frivolous.  Given Chambers record as a champion of social justice, I think it is appropriate to consider his case against God in light of the unbridled power corporations have amassed in recent years. 

 

Unlike working people, corporations have limited liability and unlimited life times.  If I steal your wallet, file bankruptcy, or get caught drinking and driving, I will, quite likely, meet my legal comeuppance. On the other hand, corporations, in the body of fictional personhood, can shield real corporate executives who escape the law by hopping aboard private jets and floating safely into early retirement with the help of golden parachutes.   An individual who finds him or herself going head to head with corporate power will usually end up villified, psychologically broken, or at least find s/he is holding the short end of the stick.  Corporations have built tremendous wealth and power under the Bush Administration. 

 

 

Like labor unions and government regulations, the right to sue is a check  on the power accumulated by corporate fat cats.   The law, while revered, is influenced, coerced and shaped by corporate persons and  is used to torments worker just as it assaulted Franz Kafka’s imagination.  Unknowable and inaccessible, the law often seems neither fair nor just.  Just like the country simpleton who asks to be admitted to the law in Kafka’s “Before the Law”, workers have confronted the man in the fur coat preventing them access.

 It is not the letter of the law that is elusive, but the anatomy of the power that guards the law.  We know the corporations and the lobbyists, the union busters and prescription peddlers matter more than the laws that are created and then are enforced or not enforced.  The close of this election season reminds me that the law is still a source of hope for US workers.  Yet, the machinists whose union was decimated by NAFTA  or the  farmworkers poisoned in the fields serve to remind me, often the power of the law displays its feathers in a show of status for workers who need the right to sue, to have their day in court, in order to penetrate the power of corporate capital. 

 

 

Daily Reason to Volunteer and Vote for Union Endorsed Candidates

October 28- Because you are part of something big!:

 

Union families are getting out the vote.  For the next six days, IBEW members are joining with a quarter-of-a-million other union volunteers in the U.S. to win the Presidency, increase pro-worker majorities in the House and Senate, and make a difference in important state and local races.   

 

IBEW 569 members have reached out to one another and our communities.  Despite high gas prices and low employment, many of you have made it a priority to come and volunteer.  The next six days is where we see how effective we have been.  This is our Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort.  This is the last push to get all those people we talked to at their homes, on the job, and on the phone, out to vote.

 

IBEW 569 members have stood with our union sisters and brothers and played a deciding role in the most competitive elections in our jurisdiction in the past eight years.  Across the country, IBEW members have worked with candidates and through the Building Trades and Central Labor Councils and have successfully reached millions of voters and educated them on where the candidates stood on issues like healthcare and good middle-class jobs.  Now, we must make sure all those people cast a ballot for union endorsed candidates.  You may not be getting as much attention and recognition for your efforts here in California as volunteers are in swing states but union members efforts in our targeted races here are just as important and valuable.  Afterall, having just one more phone conversation or knocking on just one more door, might well be the key to victory on November 4^th.

Daily Reason to Volunteer and Vote for Union Endorsed Candidates

October 25- Because we are energizing other voters:

 

Today when we were walking precincts I spoke to a woman who said, “Boy, there are a lot of union people involved in this election.”  Indeed there are.  Whether it is Marti Emerald’s race, or any other race, people are energized about this election.  They are talking about it at work and at home.  A lot of that excitement has to do with the involvement of union members. Just look at the audience behind the candidates at any speech or rally.  There will be a sea of union t-shirts.  Hundreds of union members walked precincts in San Diego and Imperial County today. By the close of polls on election night we will have knocked on tens of thousands of doors and made even more phone calls.  We will have talked to each other at work and at school about the candidates and the issues facing us in this election.  Because we understand what is on-the-line for workers, we are in a powerful position to make sure everyone understands why we are working so hard to get out the vote.

Quickies: Daily Reason to Volunteer and Vote for Union Endorsed Candidates

October 24- Because humans are not stranded costs:

 

I keep coming back to this one. But we all know someone, probably love someone, whose life has been or is jeopardized by the healthcare system.  Maybe you have employer sponsored insurance but have been out of work so long your benefits have run out. Maybe your son or daughter is transitioning to adulthood and is no longer covered by your plan.  Maybe you worked without healthcare before joining a union. There is no shortage of nightmarish tales of dealing with the healthcare insurance industry.  There is no doubt the healthcare system in the US is broken and the American people are demanding that the next administration address the issue.

 

Yet, McCain plans to get rid of state regulations and introduce interstate competition into healthcare.  He has the audacity to tout this plan while we are living in the midst of a credit crisis that has resulted from the removal of regulatory protections.  We are losing jobs in San Diego, and many of us owe more on our homes than what they are worth.  Is that really the model we want to export to health care?   

 

That is what McCain wants to do.  McCain’s health care plan will increase taxes on employer based healthcare like ours and, in doing so, price tens of millions of Americans out of their current coverage.  First you get a tax credit that is in no way tied to healthcare costs. Then you will be pushed into a market in which the minimum levels of benefits have been dismantled.

 

California’s electrical workers are intimately familiar with deregulation and most consumers remember the summer of 2000, when our electricity rates tripled while IBEW members were losing their jobs and pensions and IBEW employers were going bankrupt.  Ratepayers paid billion of dollars as stranded costs to utlities.  Now underinsured and uninsured Californians will become stranded costs for insurance compainies. 

We are living a credit crisis.  Deregulation created our energy crisis.  Every day presents a possible healthcare crisis to 47 million uninsured Americans.  We cannot afford to pay with our hard earned wages or with the lives of loved one, for deregulating healthcare any further.

 

(continued) Quickies: Daily Reason to Volunteer and Vote for Union Endorsed Candidates

October 23^rd- Because lots of union members are leading the way and voting early:

 

Tonight we are at the union hall calling permanent absentee voters.  Many union members have already cast their ballots for endorsed candidates and are committing to coming in and volunteering one more time before election day.

 

The AFL-CIO has more information about early voting and more reasons to vote now on their website.