Calvin Coolidge

The Symbolic Decline Of Labor: Thirty Years Ago Today, Ronald Reagan Fired The Air Traffic Controllers For Going On Strike

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On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers for going on strike, and this marked the symbolic decline of labor unions in America ever since, with Republican governors now having declared war on public workers in labor unions in 2011!

Ironic that a former labor leader as head of the Screen Actors Guild became the image of an anti labor President, and even more ironic that tens of thousands of workers working for the Federal Aviation Administration are now out of work over a funding dispute between the Republicans in the House and the Democrats in the Senate. There is absolutely no concern by the Republicans over workers not getting paid, losing their homes, and disrupting the economy, as long as they win the point that only big business matters, as under Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s.

The coming to power of Calvin Coolidge to the Presidency on this day, a leader who thought big business corporations were not “special interests”, but that labor and farmer and small business were such, and did not deserve any government favoritism, demonstrates that the Republican Party has not changed its image despite it being nearly a century later!

Back To The Era Of Calvin Coolidge On The 88th Anniversary Of His Ascendancy To The Presidency!

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On August 3, 1923, Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States upon the death of President Warren G. Harding.

While everyone who studies the era of the 1920s sees Coolidge as an improvement on Harding (regarded the worst President of the 20th century and one of the bottom two or three in all of American history), the fact is that the Coolidge Administration ushered in a full return to the mentality of the Gilded Age, leading to a revival of monopoly capitalism, exploitation of labor, a growing maldistribution of wealth,and the lowest level of taxation of the rich and the corporations in the entire 20th century!

And we all know what that led to: the Great Depression, which lasted ten years, and was only overcome by World War II and the highest level of taxation of the rich and corporations in the century, followed by very high levels of taxation under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, and lower but substantial rates even under Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and Democrat Bill Clinton, among others.

And the country prospered even when Bill Clinton RAISED taxes in the early 1990s, and we had a balanced budget in the last years of the Clinton Presidency.

But then, we moved in the opposite direction under George W. Bush, the lowest taxation levels of the rich and corporations since 1928, the last full year of Calvin Coolidge in office and the year before the Great Depression occurred under Herbert Hoover.

Now we are faced with the strong likelihood of a revival of the Great Recession, but the Republicans have made low taxation a religion that is ultimately going to destroy the social fabric of this nation, and endangers all of us with the possibility of violence and bloodshed as conditions deteriorate to the worst since the 1930s!

This is a terrifying time, and one has to ask, what happened to patriotism, the idea that we sacrifice for each other, and that the rich and corporations pay their fair share of taxation to sustain the country’s economy! Apparently, greed and selfishness rule as they did in the Gilded Age and the 1920s, as if we have made no progress in the 80 plus years since the beginning of the Great Depression!

In Times Of Disillusionment About Government, Something To Be Proud Of!

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In this time, when disillusionment about our national government is at its peak, it is nice to stop and reflect about something government does that we can all be proud of!

One might ask: What can that possibly be? The answer is today is the 211th anniversary of the creation of the Library of Congress, our national library in Washington, DC, which holds our most significant national treasures, along with the Smithsonian Institution and the National Archives!

Approved under John Adams for its first appropriation, the Thomas Jefferson personal library became the basis of much of the early library holdings.

Despite two major fires in the War of 1812 by the British and in the 1850s by pure coincidence, the library continued to grow, and is considered the largest library in the world, as well as the national library of the United States, containing the manuscript collections of most of the Presidents through Calvin Coolidge, as well as thousands of other famous Americans in all fields of endeavor.

Additionally, more than 17 million books are contained within the Library, which has three major buildings, and includes all published monographs in the nation, as well as many from overseas, with all published books having a Library of Congress number.

Also, there are millions of maps, photographs, audio and video recordings, prints, and drawings within the various departments of the Library of Congress, and the Congressional Research Service does heavy duty work for all members of the legislative branch.

Some of the best days of the author’s life were spent years ago doing research in the Library of Congress, spending many months researching for eight hours a day for the book he published, with the hours going by very quickly, often forgetting lunch, being fascinated by the documents and manuscripts one was holding in his own hand!

The quest for knowledge goes on, and it is the best part of what American government does, and as one thinks about the problems and crises of the past, it gives one hope that somehow we will deal with the future as we coped with the past!

In any case, knowledge is power, and one must NEVER forget that!

History, Losing The Vice Presidency, and Sarah Palin: A Reality Check!

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Many people seem to think that Sarah Palin, the losing Vice Presidential nominee in 2008, has a real shot at being elected President of the United States in 2012.

The fact that Sarah Palin is ill qualified to be President, and the thought of what a nightmare it would be if such an ill informed, ignorant person such as the former Alaska Governor were to be elected, is also mollified by historical reality.

What is that historical reality? Only ONCE in American history has a LOSING Vice Presidential nominee gone on later to be elected President!

And what is that one exception to the rule that losing candidates do not go on to become President? FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, who ran with Governor James Cox of Ohio, in the worst ever defeat of a Presidential candidate until that time, in the Election of 1920, which brought us Warren G. Harding to the Presidency and Calvin Coolidge to the Vice Presidency! Franklin D. Roosevelt went on to be elected President TWELVE years later, in the worst depths of the Great Depression.

But that is indeed the only time a losing VP candidate has been elected President, and when one looks at all of the losing Vice Presidential candidates since 1960, Sarah Palin pales by comparison!

The list includes, chronologically by election, the following:

Henry Cabot Lodge
William E. Miller
Edmund Muskie
Sargeant Shriver
Bob Dole
Walter Mondale
Geraldine Ferraro
Lloyd Bentsen
Dan Quayle
Jack Kemp
Joe Lieberman
John Edwards

And only Dole and Mondale were nominated by their parties to run for President.

So the Palin lovers out there–it is time to face reality, as Sarah Palin has no chance to become President, and she certainly is no Franklin D. Roosevelt! 🙂

Glenn Beck Becomes The Leading Demagogue In America! :(

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Glenn Beck has been on a rampage lately, condemning Christianity that promotes social and economic justice, rewriting American history to such an extent that it is unrecognizable, and critical of movements that promoted advancement of equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities, women, and gays! 🙁

When ignorant people think they are being educated about American history and religion from Glenn Beck, including on his web based university (a great money maker), we are in a sad state, as Beck totally distorts reality, and has the ability to manipulate and sway people who have no clue as to what is the truth about everything Beck enunciates!

Beck distorts the Founding Fathers, and condemns any President who promotes reform, and hails conservatives such as Calvin Coolidge, Warren G. Harding, and Ronald Reagan who set back progress in so many ways!

When Beck tried to claim, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I have a dream speech, that he was reviving what King did, it was a total fabrication, as King denounced states rights, which had led to discrimination, nullification and interposition claims, and Jim Crow segregation in the South! But now Beck and his Tea Party and Fox News followers glorify exactly what King denounced! 🙁

Beck is a very dangerous man, as he stirs up mostly older white people to hate everyone else, and to try to “take back” America! If those who believe in progressive reform and change, and advancement of civil rights and civil liberties remain silent, then lunatics such as Beck will succeed in distorting our freedom of religion, our education system, and our civil harmony! 🙁

Beck is exploiting for his own financial benefit and his own sick ego, and he must be answered and challenged, rather than ignoring him and giving him slack!

Beck is coming close to the Supreme Court definition in Schenck V. US (1919) of speech becoming a “clear and present danger”–that is, speech which provokes and endangers, as in the concept of shouting fire in a crowded theater! He could very well incite loony followers to engage in violence, with him having no motivation except his own aggrandizement! 🙁