Tag: Jobs

SOMETHING SNOUT RIGHT IN THE PHOTOS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Is it an affliction?

Karl Rove looks like a pig.

Chris Christie looks like a pig.

Rush Limbaugh looks and sounds like a pig.

What about Roger Ailes or Haley Barbour or Newt Gingrich or …

Dashing out from the pack, grunting something, and then trotting back?

As for Donald Trump, more and more?

Anyone else getting whiffs of pork-stuffed budgets or bringing home the bacon?

Sorry for any offense to real pigs, who can be smart, tasteful, and charming in the right conditions. Now I’m thinking of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Oh, what an Animal Farm!

DRIVING INTO THE SUNSET OF PUBLIC SERVICE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

When I first entered the newspaper business, profit margins of 20 percent to 30 percent were not uncommon. Some papers were even reported to take 40 percent of their earnings down to the bottom line.

Not that much of that income went to the reporters or editors, who as a group ranked at the bottom of professional categories. Below school teachers and ministers, in fact. In addition, we worked nights and weekends and holidays – no wonder the divorce rate was high. The field could be depressing, as other surveys acknowledged. Or maybe it just attracted depressed individuals.

When right-wingers rub their “liberal media” smear across us, they mock the sacrifices we’ve made in trying to serve the public. For accuracy, the mass media  are ultimately capitalist machines – or, as they used to say of newspapers when I began, they were machines for printing money. That’s anything but leftist. Can’t be more conservative than that money-grubbing side, can you?

Some of the more astute critics at the time argued that the industry wasn’t reinvesting enough in growth and development, that it was in fact “eating its seed corn” when it came to salaries and wages, especially. How could we attract talented minorities at this pay, for one thing, when there were far more lucrative alternatives such as law? How could we build new audiences and new products without them – much less support these as they grew?

In the past decade or so, the business model has essentially collapsed in the advent of the Internet. Why should anyone pay for something they can get for free? The need for detailed coverage of public affairs remains, more than ever, but there are fewer and fewer professionals on the job, and most of those who remain are approaching minimum wage. You can’t live on that, especially not if you have a family.

I keep thinking of a skilled colleague, one of the best, an editor who quit to become a bus driver. The shift had better hours and better pay, even for a college graduate.

THIS UNREST IN ITS WIDER FRAMEWORK

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Oh, these polemic rants! Maybe they become endless? There’s always injustice and inequality and those who would cheat us.

Sin, in other words, inflicted on the public. Bring on the repentance and cleansing.

So that’s the underlying struggle, it’s over spiritual values and action in motion or their lack, whether the candidate and the party are pressing for the greater good of all or the private enrichment of a few alone.

In the face of overwhelming odds, that’s the equation. But remember little David facing Goliath.

And then the way preaching, even to the choir, does renew the soul and prepare the faithful for spiritual battle.

As well as prophets, who often sound like Woodpecker, off in the wilderness somewhere.

One thing I’ve found in releasing Woodpecker’s drumming is a breakout from a feeling of helplessness. A cry as a kind of prayer. Now, back to the fray, together …

SELF-DEFENSE IN THE POLITICAL ARENA

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

There’s one way to stop those nasty campaign attack ads. Vote FOR the candidate they’re attacking. You can bet it’s the better choice.

~*~

At least that’s what I wrote before Trump entered the picture. How do you categorize any ad against a nasty candidate?

Still, I want to hear positive, detailed programs from candidates across the board, not half-truth smears on the opponent.

IT WOULDN’T BE WHAT THEY EXPECTED

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In politics, especially, it’s wise to keep an eye open for unintended consequences when changing a policy or regulation. A law can be a two-edged sword that turns back on the side that created it. Or the shot they fire can ricochet or boomerang.

For instance, those who think a balanced-budget amendment would cap federal government spending need to see where the bulk of it’s been going before they swirl the blade or press the trigger.

In effect, the cap would mean America could no longer wage war. And it would require taxing the super-rich far more than they’ve been paying. The rest of us can’t keep carrying the burden with less than half of the resources.

Yes, they’re hoping it will be the excuse to eliminate the remaining social services – the part of public spending that serves real people like us. Just look at the ones who claim to be tax-cutters when it comes to voting for budgets – they’re always increasing military spending.

Think about it. How do you think we got the national debt?

We were doing fine, under Clinton, until the Second Bush Iraq War. Just look.

And if you make an exception? That would fail the purpose altogether. Utterly.

Pay to play, then.

Some of us have had enough casino-style politics.

Some of us even want our money back, with interest.

JOHN BROWN’S BODY IN PERSPECTIVE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Yes, most American kids know the song, or did, but few know the fuller history.

What most shocked the nation at the time of the 1859 raid John Brown led on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, wasn’t so much that it happened as the fact it happened from the antislavery side of the struggle.

Slavery, after all, is a violence-prone institution. Most of the nation’s military officers, in fact, came from slaveholding states, for good reason.

The admission to Kansas as a state of the union threatened to tip the balance of power in the nation to the slave owners, who already had more congressmen per voter than did those in the free states. The conflict grew fierce in what became Bloody Kansas. This was, let’s not forget, class warfare pitting cheap slave labor against working-class white families. Sound familiar? The entire frontier was at stake.

When a proslavery posse led by the sheriff sacked the free-soil settlement of Lawrence in 1856, the injustice was too much for abolitionist Brown, who parted ways with the majority of the antislavery side, the ones who expected to prevail through peaceful democratic persuasion. In response, he led an attack that killed five slavery supporters.

His opponents throughout the South were startled by violence in response to violence. Makes me wonder about the current gun-control debate in our own time, for one thing. Throughout the nation, this was a wakeup call, one that led to great panic as well.

After the assault at Harpers Ferry failed, Brown was convicted and executed on charges of treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia (note the imposition of sovereignty by the state rather than the nation) and for inciting a slave insurrection. Plantation owners had every reason to fear as a racial minority in some districts.

There are those who call Brown our first domestic terrorist, though that conveniently overlooks those who sacked Lawrence. What he did do most effectively was raise the emotions that erupted in secession and civil war.

As we’re seeing, emotions and politics can be a volatile mixture, especially when a nation and its wealth are so divided.

A WAKE-UP CALL FOR SELF-DEFEATING IDEALISTS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The realm of politics, as has been observed, has much in common with making sausage. It’s messy, even bloody, seldom includes premium ingredients. And there’s butchery at points.

Look, if Donald Trump wins the White House, everything Jill Stein stands for in a Green Revolution’s toast. It doesn’t take long to destroy the hard-gained agencies we have, much less to strip-mine hillsides and rip up forests. That’s why a vote for Stein is a vote against a Green agenda — it’s blatantly a vote against Hillary Clinton. If you think there’s no difference in the major parties on this issue, you’re deluding yourself. Or listen to what Trump thinks about real women like Clinton and Stein.

There’s a huge gap, too, between articulating policy and implementing it, as well as moving from the ivy tower into nitty-gritty management overseeing a host of federal agencies. You want to get anything done, you’re going to get dirty. It’s the nature of working with others. It’s the reality of winning battles, too.

Radical movements have a history of fragmenting, as Christopher Hill notes looking at the waves of ferment during the English civil wars and Protectorate.

Let’s not do it again. Rally around Hillary Clinton and regroup later, on the high ground.