Occupy Wall Street

 I'm not sure why everyone is excited about this now. Pretty much everything people have worked their whole  lives for is gone. Are the people responsible going to pay us all back once everyone finally has figured out what they should have known all along? They've been ripped off, a little bit at a time over a much longer span the just four, or even twenty years.

 I don't need a Rachel Maddow, an Ed Shultz, or a Lawrence O'Donnell, or anyone else for that matter to show me graphs and tables, and give me history lectures to explain what has gone on with the financial institutions  in this country. I've lived it, watched it, and so have you.

 The people you and I work for have done it gradually, and not because they're all that bright and had some ominous plan to screw over the American working class, they were just fortunate enough to kill two birds with one stone, and created this little rich man poor man scenerio.

 So here we are. They got rich with money we earned, along with the money we helped them earn. Unfortunately for these individuals, there is also the fact that while they might have some skill with finance, numbers, and such. What other skills do these Wall Street wizards have? Can they do their own plumbing, are they electricians, can they put out their own fires, build, as well as protect their own homes, repair their own furnaces and air conditioners, fly themselves from one country to the other, or nurse themselves back to health and educate their children? And I've yet to even reach the tip of that iceberg. I could just add to the list.

 While it's not an original idea, and the unions have been doing it for years. Rather than, or in addition to standing out in front of their offices with signs, it would probably be a much more effective demonstration if for one or two days we all just stayed home and gave them an effective demonstration of what it would be like with one hundred percent unemployment. I believe my union brothers call that a strike. And I really don't think it would take one hundred percent of the working class of this country to make that point. Like you, I thinkWall Street and their congressional sympatizers should pay for what they've done to the country, but would punishing them help us? I doubt it. It won't make any of us any richer. But it might be gratifying to take a couple days off and watch the lines on Rachel and Eds graphs come together.

 Just a thought...

UMWA, Democratic Party different from father's day (An online letter)

Published: October 14, 2011 Writer unknown...

My father, a miner disabled by black lung, was a proud member of both the Democratic Party and the United Mine Workers’ of America. In the early ’70s, my father filed for and was awarded federal black lung benefits. Those benefits allowed my parents to live comfortably and have definitely been a much-needed addition to my 96-year-old mother’s monthly income.

One can only imagine my father’s dismay, were he alive, to realize that the UMWA he fought for is now supporting a candidate for Virginia state delegate who not only works for a law firm that defends coal operators against miners seeking black lung benefits, but the candidate also represents employers fighting black lung claimants.This is not my father’s UMWA!

I personally would have never believed that I would see the day that the UMWA would make the choice to financially support a candidate who “defends” coal operators and insurance companies against black lung claimants; and, choose to give no financial support to black lung associations that advocate for equitable black lung legislation and also assists black lung claimants.This is not my father’s UMWA!

Moreover, if the UMWA is supporting the Democratic candidate because he is a Democrat, then, you know what – this isn’t my father’s Democratic Party either!

Sparkle Bonds

Bandy, Va.