Expose The Tea Baggers

The Tea Baggers are a one stop political center of the ignorant ugly American. States Rights is one of their weapons against progress. The term “states’ rights,” some have argued, has long been used as a code word by defenders of segregation. It was the official name of the “Dixiecrat” party led by white supremacist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond. George Wallace, the Alabama governor—who famously declared in his inaugural address, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”—later remarked that he should have said, “States’ rights now! States’ rights tomorrow! States’ rights forever!” Wallace, however, claimed that segregation was but one issue symbolic of a larger struggle for states’ rights; in that view, which some historians dispute, his replacement of segregation with states’ rights would be more of a clarification than a euphemism. The Flat tax: The dissenting voices seem to be made up of “special interest” groups–the real estate industry, charitable organizations, tax attorneys and tax accountants. The general public needs to learn when it becomes understood that the various flat tax proposals will significantly increase the tax burden of Americans earning less than $100,000 per year. This method of tax punishes working class and poor and allows the wealthy more breaks. Capitalism will save us/ Less Government: Another worry is how the chemical dispersants being used to break up the undersea oil will impact the Gulf’s ecosystems and inhabitants. The dispersant’s ingredients are a trade secret closely held by the company that makes it, and therefore have not been vetted by marine biologists to determine their safety for use in such a large application. It also remains to be seen what impact the tiny oil droplets left in the dispersant’s wake will have. It could actually be worse for the undersea environment to break the oil up into tiny droplets (which is done to try to make it easier for microbes to digest them). Beyond all these undersea environmental effects, the oil is also starting to wash up into coastal wetlands already besieged by overdevelopment, pollution . If there can be any silver lining to this catastrophe, it may be that it is the wake-up call we’ve needed to start moving more rapidly away from fossil fuels to a clean, renewable energy future. For starters, we can all begin to reduce our own oil consumption and opt for clean and green energy sources whenever possible. So far Capitalism supports sweatshops, pollution, endless wars, inequality, and poverty. Also, Capitalism is responsible for un-nutritious genetically modified foods. Lees Government means smaller weaker government for the people. Egregious culture of ignorance and selfishness. They like author Ayn Rand for instance. She was a Author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “Fountainhead.” In Atlas Shrugged the wealth go off to start there own Nation because workers and the poor are leaches and the wealthy should keep their money. In Fountainhead a architect blow up a building claiming it is his and the corporation bastardized it. Of course it isn’t and the judge renders it OK to perform acts oif sabatage, Terrorism, and reckless endangerment, and more. It was his creation it belonged to him. They hate the United Nation because they fear Internationalism and crave isolation and wish to bring the world into the past. And Impose there values on people. They hate socialism and confuse Communism with Socialist. Here is a good site: http://www.bidstrup.com/politics.htm Their mantra is that The top one percent gets everything, and Obama the Socialist supports them with mass money. Capitalism will save us. The top one percent are Capitalists. (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are also Socialist. TV personalities who are expected to incite America Cult of Ignorance. On TV shouting and screaming and suggesting that this country is becoming Socialist. – Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter etc are not ‘average Americans’ they are rich people who make millions and part of the ‘elite’ they pretend to rail against. It is their personal interests they are trying to protect while using the ignorance of poor and working class people to do be manipulated in there Cult. The 2009 Tea Parties are merely an updated version of what took place once upon a time with corporate media being the tool that has violated our trust and replaced trust with psychological techniques and discussions designed to manipulate folks who cannot think in the first place. If they told some of these people whiz was champagne, they would drink it. Fear, greed, ignorance, hate. And using the constitution to do it.

Cheddi Jagan

This is a biography of Cheddi Jagan. We recently celebrated Allendes aniversary and I think on equal par we should look into someone we should never forget.
Here is the bio of a hero who tried to find a accord with labor and capital. I’ve been working on this one quite a while.
 Cheddi Jagan was born on March 22, 1918 on a sugar plantation in Port Mourant, Berbice, the  son of indentured sugar workers. His parents Bachoni (mother) and Jagan (father) had arrived in the then British Guiana as young infants with their mothers from the district of Basti in  Uttar Pradesh, India. Both his grandmothers came as indentured immigrants in 1901 and
were “bound” by five year contracts to different sugar plantations in the county of Berbice. Life was very hard and both his parents had to start working in the canefields at a young age to  supplement the family income.

     His mother never went to school, but his father was a bit more fortunate, attending school for three
years! Because his father worked very hard, he earned the reputation of being the best canecutter and
was promoted to “driver.” But still his pay was very small and because he was non-white there was no
further avenue of promotion. He thus saw the need for formal education, and made sure that his son,
Cheddi Jagan attended school.

     Cheddi Jagan attended primary school and two years of secondary school in his area. At the age of fifteen his father decided to send him to Queen’s College, a government secondary school in the capital city of Georgetown, about one hundred miles away. There he boarded with three families.

     In Georgetown, Cheddi found life very different from life at home where poverty had been intense and
he often had to stay home from school to work in the rice fields and to cut and fetch canes. He also
helped his mother keep a kitchen garden and to sell produce from it. His mother allowed him to keep a
part of the proceeds for his share of the work. Cheddi Jagan wrote that he learned the elements of
finance from his mother and acquired any of his leadership qualities from his father, who was bold and
flamboyant.

     Trying to find a job after graduating high school, became almost impossible. The civil service was
closed, to be a school teacher you had to become a Christian, something that his Hindu parents would
have none of, and his father could not bear the thought of him working on the plantation. Finally his
father decided to send him to the United States to study dentistry at Howard University in Washington,D.C.

 Cheddi left for the United States in September 1935 with two friends and returned to British Guiana in October 1943. He lived in Washington, D.C for two years and attended Howard University, taking a pre-dental course, worked two summers in New York and  spent the last five years in Chicago, Illinois at Northwestern University.

     Cheddi Jagan was a dedicated student and his hard work earned him a free tuition scholarship for his
second year at Howard and in 1938 entry into Northwestern University for a four year dental program.

     But he was not satisfied to become only a dentist, he wanted to find to find out more about things going
on in the world and enrolled in classes in social sciences. When he graduated from Northwestern
University in 1942 with his degree in Dental Surgery (DDS), he also received his Bachelor of Sciences
     (B.Sc.) degree.

     Because his parents could not afford to support him financially, Cheddi Jagan had to work while
attending school. He had many jobs – tailor (he had “picked” up at home from a friend) in a hock shop;
salesperson selling patent medicines; dishwasher; delivering evening newspapers; presser in a laundry
and an elevator operator.

     On August 5,1943 he married Janet Rosenberg, whom he had met only six months before, at a simple
ceremony at the Chicago City Hall without the consent of parents on both sides. In October 1943, he
returned home. His wife Janet, arrived in British Guiana just before Christmas of 1943.

                                 Getting into Stride

     Cheddi Jagan’s first task was to establish a practice in Georgetown, the Capital.  His fees
were low as he did not want to exploit his patients but this led him into a public battle with
the Dental Association for a principle he believed in. He brought four of his brothers and one
sister to live with them, so that they could further their education. 

     Although he liked his profession, at the same time he longed to identify himself with something more
meaningful. In those days, there were no political parties. The planter class dominated the Legislative
Council and though some union leaders such as Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow, who formed the BGLU in
1922, spoke in the legislative Council on behalf of workers, they had no mass political organization. In
existence then were the League of Colored People and the British Guiana East Indian Association.
The LCP did not interest him much since they opposed adult suffrage. The BGIEA supported
constitutional changes and universal adult suffrage but was unsympathetic to the plight of the working
man.

 The dental surgery became a hive of activities and through it he made many important contact, many
patients being ordinary rural and urban workers. Cheddi’s name began to spread in the sugar belt
–coming from a sugar estate and as well a doctor who listened to ordinary people. On many occasions he
would be invited by workers to speak and advise them on industrial matters in various parts of the
sugar belt. Due to his increased contacts with workers, he became involved in the two trade unions in
the sugar industry, one of them being the ManPower Citizen’s Association.

 In 1945 he became treasurer of that union, but was removed after a year when he objected to the
glaring reluctance of the union to defend the interests of the sugar workers. It was, he discovered, a
company union. Those were the days when many things were happening. The Royal Commission on
The West Indies headed by Lord Moyne had published its report, which horrified many as it related in
concrete terms the miserable conditions of the workers and farmers. The war had created its own
difficulties in Guyana and the region. These difficulties had stirred widespread debate in which Cheddi  and his wife Janet, took an active part. They used to take part in discussions over a wide range of
subjects at the Carnegie (now National) Library. An important event in that year was the convening in
Georgetown of West Indian Conference attended by such leaders as Grantley Adams of Barbados,
  Norman Manley and Richard Hart of Jamaica, Albert Gomes of Trinidad and H.N. Critchlow of Guyana.
The Labour Party had just won the elections in England and many were openly talking of socialism.

     In 1946, H.J.M Hubbard, an avowed Marxist who was at that time the General Secretary of the British
Guiana Trades Union Council, Ashton Chase assistant secretary in the British Guiana Labour Union,
Janet Jagan who was at that time in the Clerical Worker Union,  along with Cheddi Jagan formed the
Political Affairs Committee and established a PAC Bulletin, with Janet as the editor. The PAC was
labour oriented. All four  were working in trade unions. In the same year, the Women’s Political and
Economic Organisation headed by Janet Jagan, Winifred Gaskin and Frances Van Stafford, was formed.

     In 1947 the first elections since World War II were held. There were 14 elected seats to be contested.
Apart from the middle class organizations, the LCP and the BGEIA, a Labour Party was formed but this
organization was a group of individuals put together quickly and without any mass base.

     Janet and Cheddi Jagan ran as independent labour candidates -Janet contested in Georgetown and
Cheddi on the East Coast of Demerara. Janet lost to John Fernandes, a businessman and catholic,