Is it not also somewhat disheartening how the decline of the middle class in this country over the last 30 years or so has been paralleled by the decline of the unions? Could that mean that those very same unions were one of the greatest contributors to the prosperity of that very middle class?
It seems that even conservatives in this country are more than willing to admit that the years from the middle of the 1930’s through the middle of the 1970’s were far better years for the great American middle class, but are not willing to admit that one major factor in that prosperity was the rise of the union movement!! The blindness of such people to the realities of history and economics is really kind of sad!
I hate those plastic bags. They are formless and let stuff slip out. They are made from oil and don’t biodegrade in landfills. You see them trashing up our neighborhoods and roads, blowing all over the place. Paper bags are biodegradable, hold a lot without spilling stuff, and are renewable. In practice they are reused more and recycled. A much better product to use and for the environment. I would happily pay the few cents more they cost the store.
Before you go to vote, do your homework and find out who is working for you. If your rep is voting for the Middle Class, keep him, otherwise try the other party’s candidate. Keep at it until you find one who will actually vote for the Middle Class. If enough people did that, eventually there would be no selling out to the rich folks, because they would know it would mean they were getting voted out next election.The only thing that is going to save the Middle Class is the Middle Class. We are the 99%—- that means we have the votes to elect people who will actually represent middle class workers and provide a safety net for those who are trying to get into the middle class.We all need to know who is supporting the candidates. That is who they will be working for. They have no choice if they want to stay in office. You have to do the bidding of whoever is paying your way, just the same as we all do in our jobs. So, before going to vote, look it up on the internet. Open Secrets is a good site, but there are plenty.If the candidate is getting their money from small donors or from unions, they are going to be working for middle class working people. If their donations are from corporations or from 1%ers, that’s who their votes are going to be working for. They are not going to go against them and do anything to help the middle class.It would be political suicide.
What goes unsaid here is that is was a California law that forced the use of plastic bags by placing a virtual ban on paper bags because they were “bad for the environment by destroying trees”.
First of all, I will admit that when FDR unwisely listened to the Republicans in Congress and made cuts which then gave the country a mini recession in the middle of the Great Depression it did cause a pause in the recovery from the Great Depression of the early 1930’s. But being the great president he was, he then realized his mistake and brought back the policies of the New Deal which then continued the recovery. This recovery then continued up until the end of 1941 when we entered WWII. While the war effort itself certainly helped continue the recovery, if the recovery had not been already well underway, this country could never have become the Arsenal of Democracy that it become during the war. So, I will modify what I stated and make it from 1937 onward for the recovery and the rise of the middle class.
Further, not only was the union movement at least somewhat responsible for the rise of the middle class in this country, if you go back further to the beginning of such a movement of workers at the beginning of the last century banding together, you will find that that movement itself was also responsible for many of the improvements in the lot of the average working Middle Class, generating laws against such horrors of the monopolistic robber baron corporations of the beginning of the last century as child labor!
In fact, it is only when the labor unions themselves become as politically powerful as the corporations they bargain against that the kind of excesses that give them a bad name with Middle Class workers they are supposed to be representing occur. Besides which, it is utter bull that it is any union that is causing the markets to drop the highly polluting plastic bags for the much less polluting paper ones. As a person with children and grand children, I am personally very pleased to be living in a state where efforts are being made to allow future generations to be able to live in a relatively pollution free environment. Hopefully, your state is doing the same for your descendants!!
When I visited my daughter, civil services in Germny I 2008, in three weeks we saw three plastic bags on the highways using bad info\r we saw stores cost fifteen cents, and you had to use your own bags to not pay extra. Every time I drive on the inter sate, particularly on the on and off ramps, I see trash and ample amounts of it in plastic, plastic, aluminum, and paper/ I visited my daughter in CA last year and saw what kind of inmprovement this cartoon’s results would show. Ms. Benson should focus more on CA’s droughts and fires rather than what improvements plastic bags’ removal would create.Respectfully, C.
Hmm, had a different take: back in the late ’50’s I worked one summer break as a bagger at Market Basket, barely followed this current thing of Market Basket being subject to paying fair benefits and wages. I don’t think the company changed much, work your rear-end off for the lowest pay they can get away with, and they didn’t like unions back then either…
frodo1008 over 9 years ago
Is it not also somewhat disheartening how the decline of the middle class in this country over the last 30 years or so has been paralleled by the decline of the unions? Could that mean that those very same unions were one of the greatest contributors to the prosperity of that very middle class?
It seems that even conservatives in this country are more than willing to admit that the years from the middle of the 1930’s through the middle of the 1970’s were far better years for the great American middle class, but are not willing to admit that one major factor in that prosperity was the rise of the union movement!! The blindness of such people to the realities of history and economics is really kind of sad!
Theodore E. Lind Premium Member over 9 years ago
I hate those plastic bags. They are formless and let stuff slip out. They are made from oil and don’t biodegrade in landfills. You see them trashing up our neighborhoods and roads, blowing all over the place. Paper bags are biodegradable, hold a lot without spilling stuff, and are renewable. In practice they are reused more and recycled. A much better product to use and for the environment. I would happily pay the few cents more they cost the store.
Diane Lee Premium Member over 9 years ago
totallygomer over 9 years ago
What goes unsaid here is that is was a California law that forced the use of plastic bags by placing a virtual ban on paper bags because they were “bad for the environment by destroying trees”.
frodo1008 over 9 years ago
First of all, I will admit that when FDR unwisely listened to the Republicans in Congress and made cuts which then gave the country a mini recession in the middle of the Great Depression it did cause a pause in the recovery from the Great Depression of the early 1930’s. But being the great president he was, he then realized his mistake and brought back the policies of the New Deal which then continued the recovery. This recovery then continued up until the end of 1941 when we entered WWII. While the war effort itself certainly helped continue the recovery, if the recovery had not been already well underway, this country could never have become the Arsenal of Democracy that it become during the war. So, I will modify what I stated and make it from 1937 onward for the recovery and the rise of the middle class.
Further, not only was the union movement at least somewhat responsible for the rise of the middle class in this country, if you go back further to the beginning of such a movement of workers at the beginning of the last century banding together, you will find that that movement itself was also responsible for many of the improvements in the lot of the average working Middle Class, generating laws against such horrors of the monopolistic robber baron corporations of the beginning of the last century as child labor!
In fact, it is only when the labor unions themselves become as politically powerful as the corporations they bargain against that the kind of excesses that give them a bad name with Middle Class workers they are supposed to be representing occur. Besides which, it is utter bull that it is any union that is causing the markets to drop the highly polluting plastic bags for the much less polluting paper ones. As a person with children and grand children, I am personally very pleased to be living in a state where efforts are being made to allow future generations to be able to live in a relatively pollution free environment. Hopefully, your state is doing the same for your descendants!!
chazandru over 9 years ago
When I visited my daughter, civil services in Germny I 2008, in three weeks we saw three plastic bags on the highways using bad info\r we saw stores cost fifteen cents, and you had to use your own bags to not pay extra. Every time I drive on the inter sate, particularly on the on and off ramps, I see trash and ample amounts of it in plastic, plastic, aluminum, and paper/ I visited my daughter in CA last year and saw what kind of inmprovement this cartoon’s results would show. Ms. Benson should focus more on CA’s droughts and fires rather than what improvements plastic bags’ removal would create.Respectfully, C.
Dtroutma over 9 years ago
Hmm, had a different take: back in the late ’50’s I worked one summer break as a bagger at Market Basket, barely followed this current thing of Market Basket being subject to paying fair benefits and wages. I don’t think the company changed much, work your rear-end off for the lowest pay they can get away with, and they didn’t like unions back then either…