"I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore"

The line, of course, is from the diatribe delivered by anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in the 1976 film "Network". Replace the bogeyman reference to the Russians with "terrorist", add the internet and the Beale rant seems amazingly prophetic:

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.

You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,

"I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Yesterday, someone left a comment that referred to me as a Nazi and I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the utter stupidity of the comparison. I would suggest something more original next time, perhaps "contemptible, unholy spawn of the devil" rather than Adolf Hitler. At least someone was angry enough to leave a comment so I don't consider the day wasted.

As a side note, I was able to visit Dachau some 42 years ago and it was an eerie place at best. I might suggest actually reading the Holocaust accounts and at least looking at pictures of Dachau, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, etal. before throwing around terms like Nazi.

Based on the post that was commented on, I'd suspect that the anonymous poster was a UFCW Local 7 union toady and so, once more, I'll state: First Transit Employee Rights Blog is not anti union, anti Democrat government nor is it pro big business. I'm scared and and I don't know what to do other than write about something I believe, based on personal experience, is a little piece of the problem. Pissing into the wind? Perhaps, but I have to do something.

I'm not an economist and I don't know what all the indicators mean or if we're in a recession, depression, the beginning of a recovery or whatever. I do know that there are a lot of good hard working Americans families in dire straights and that government, the labor movement and business are failing those workers. Common sense tells me that the pie is only so big and too many greedy special interest want it all for themselves; the workers be damned!

I'm getting old and I'll be fine but what about my daughter, grandkids and the rest of the current and future generations? The America I love and went to war for is changing in ways I hate to the very core of my existance and I'll protest those changes as long as I can draw a breath.

You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"

Colorado News - Safeway, King Soopers & UFCW Local 7

The contract between Colorado Safeway and UFCW Local 7 expired May 9th, 2009. The "members" authorized a strike but agreed to continue working until May 30th while talks continued. Safeway and King Soopers have a lock-out agreement and King Soopers has stated they will lock-out if the Safeway workers walk out.

That's the news synopsis and we have one more little wrinkle. King Soopers went on strike in 1996 and Safeway locked-out it's employees. Colorado/Safeway paid more than $5 million in unemployment to the locked-out workers during the strike. Safeway challenged the claims and finally, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the workers right to unemployment during a lock-out.

Enter the republican legislation and we have the law that currently exists: locked out workers can draw unemployment if it's an "offensive" lock-out but cannot draw benefits if it's a "defensive" lock-out. A King Soopers lock-out because of a Safeway walk-out be considered a "defensive" lock-out and the locked-out employees WOULD NOT receive unemployment benefits.

Colorado now has a democrat Governor and democrat legislation so HB-1070, that would allow ALL locked-out workers to receive unemployment benefits, was introduced. The original effective date was in 2010 and it wouldn't affect (unless there were a really looong strike) any current labor negotiations but in the final days of the legislative session that ended May 6th, the effective date was changed to July 1st, 2009 and sent to the Governor. Interesting timing!

Surprise! Much to the consternation and dismay of the UFCW, democrat Governor Bill Ritter vetoed HB-1070 at 4:55 PM on  May 19th and issued a press release stating:

"I believe it is ill-advised and counterproductive to enact legislation that materially impacts the relative bargaining position of parties in the midst of ongoing negotiations."

It's obvious our first term governor wants to be re-elected in 2010; I'll leave the discussion of the Governors true motives and political future to the pundits and applaud the Governor for his veto - Drive a wooden stake through it's black heart and kill it forever! And while you're at it, let us Coloradoans have our deserved right-to-work and banish union protection clauses to the dark pits of hell where they belong.

Colorado Safeway, King Soopers and Albertson's workers - grow up. You absolutely have the right to walk off the job and the other employers absolutely have the right to lock-out their employees if there is a strike going on. If you get locked out, it's exactly what you agreed to and paid for! If you buy into the load of horse poop the UFCW bosses have been trying to sell you, you have no one to blame but yourselves when you no longer have a job; I suspect there are at least two unemployed Coloradoans (and likely some out-of staters willing to move) waiting for every job the UFCW Local 7 members throw away.

You're getting some bad advice from Ernie, Kania, John and the rest of the bosses. Ask them how much of their comfortable salaries they're going to give up to help you out when you're unemployed and can't even collect unemployment.

Any organization that needs Federal and State protection to simply stay alive needs close watching!

It's 10 o'clock - do you know where your money is?

Image courtesy of the AnimationLibrary