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Eugene V. Debbs, c. 1897 (source: Wikipedia)
With 4,800 jobs in Indiana’s 8th District (where I live) going to China in the last decade, and Hoosier taxpayers feeding J.P. Morgan close to $200,000 monthly to handle our food stamps, Governor Mitch Daniels’ attempt to turn non-union workers against the teachers and other union members isn’t working. Thousands of workers have descended on the Indiana Statehouse to show Daniels that what goes around comes around.
As in Indiana, Republicans across the land are swelling in their psychopathic ways, from Wisconsin to Ohio. In Missouri, in fact, Republicans are even attempting to overthrow child labor laws, laws first fought for by Indiana’s Albert J. Beveridge and Terre Haute’s Eugene V. Debs, the great Socialist and union leader, at the turn of the last century. Is child slave labor the next path Republicans in Indiana will take? You’ve failed your I-STEP test, son. Now it’s off to McDonald’s, 24/7.
Let’s be clear about all of this. The hysteria over pensions bankrupting the states is just another sociopathic exaggeration by people like Daniels to destroy the unions. As economist Dean Baker has noted, the shortfalls that do exist can be easily overcome and are the fault of Wall Streets crooks who, during the housing bubble crimes, gambled away our money. Instead of rotting in the Terre Haute Federal Prison, these gamblers are making tax-funded million dollar bonuses or working for the Obama administration.
Maybe it’s time for a history lesson for Mr. Daniels. In January of 1922, after Indiana Governor Warren T. McCray tried to incite a group of American Legion members to hunt down and bruise up Eugene V. Debs at his home in Terre Haute and to thump unions members to “teach them a lesson,” Debs fired off a letter to the governor to bring them on. The Terre Haute miners and workers were ready if the governor was going to make good on his promise. Beautifully, a few years later McCray ended up doing time for mail fraud in the same prison Debs a few years earlier was incarcerated in for protesting the First World War. . . .
If we remember, it wasn’t too long ago that the current Indiana governor sweated his way out of prosecution and civil lawsuits. In 2001, Daniels was on the board of the Indianapolis Power and Light Company, which merged with Dennis Bakke’s then-company AES, a monster utility corporation. Daniels and others on the IPALCO board dumped their own stock before the merger took place. Afterwards, IPALCO stockholders and workers lost millions, including their 401k packages. Now Dennis Bakke, a member of The Family, is counting on Mitch to give him some more taxpayer money for his newest Indiana scam, Imagine Charter Schools.
Indiana workers, don’t let our governor, our president, our senators, and the oligarchs steal your money and then turn you against each other. Instead of asking why teachers get paid a tadbit more than you, ask why you and the teachers both aren’t making more money. Ask, as Eugene V. Debs did, why “it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.” And email the governor and the state Republicans to let them know that we are ready to make every single day in Indiana Eugene V. Debs Day.
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Recommended. It is way past time for Midwesterners to remember their working class and progressive roots, to remember what their ancestors inherently knew generations ago: the boss man’s got it, and he’s not about to share any unless you make him, and YOU will NEVER be the boss man, son.
Too many Americans think that maybe, just maybe, they will make it to the top of the heap and be able to treat everyone else like dirt and show everybody else up, like some damned Survivor show. It will never happen. Time to admit it and unite to oppose the common enemy: the ruling corporate class.
Thanks for recommending this, OhioGringo. Hope you are well.
Thanks so much for writing about Eugene V Debs. I spent about 20 years in Terre Haute (which deserves its various reputations, and yes, it really does smell like that all the time, except when it smells worse or differently). But one this I realize now — after having been away from TH for around 20 years — is how much Debs’ influence remained active in the minds of working-class folks there (of which I was one).
And yes, it burns me too that JPMorgan gets all those Food Samps dollars — while its service/phone centers are outsourced to India. Why not regional phone centers in Indiana, to service Indiana customers and bring good-quality, high-tech jobs to this eternally impoverished state?
And then there’s Daniels selling the Toll Road to whatever country that was — and giving away a reliable income-generator for the state.
And don’t even get me started on Daniel’s abortive privatization of the state’s Family and Social Services (FSSA) department, that handles (or did handle)both Food Stamps and Medicaid. Daniel’s first attempt at privatization failed when it was discovered that there were financial linkages between the proposed ‘new owner’ and Daniel’s program director for the transition (as well as the fact that the ‘new owner’ had falied miserably in Texas). So, on the second attempt, Daniels sold the FSSA ‘franchise’ to IBM and closed all the local (county) offices (displacing the workers who knew the system and their clients), where at least somebody knew your name. IBM failed utterly to transfer the existing records and to set up a working system. Due to IBM’s failure, Food Stamp recipients were going to the grocery store only to find that their JPMorgan cards showed a zero balance — leaving the hungry citizens no choice but to go to charities while asking their Township Trustees to try to contact FSSA and restore their benefits. Of course, neither the Trustees nor the citizens could reach an actual person to discuss their situation — Mitch & IBM had set up ONE call center (which, at least, was in Indiana) that had an impenetrable ‘automated’ system, guaranteed to prevent access to a human being. But even after you figured out how to game the phone system and reach a live human, you were not better off — because (a) the person was clueless about anything other than their narrow input/output functions and (b)your existing records were not in the IBM computer system. (And this is only the Food Stamp portion, not the Medicaid portion).
So, big surprise, after two years — with the IBM ‘system’ still unfinished — Daniels ‘fired’ IBM and decided to set up a ‘hybrid’ system, with details to be determined sometime after the Indiana bureaucrats figured out how to find their butts with both hands (which would mean displacing at least one thumb first).
So, Indiana new has (a) a lawsuit from IBM for breach of contract and (b) a counter-suit by Indiana against IBM and (c) a still-not-working Food Stamps/Medicaid system. And a gazillion attorney dollars quietly burning in the background.
So, sure. Daniels for President. When pigs fly.
Thanks for writing, cronewit! It’s good to see you here and good to see you adding on to what I wrote. And I’m glad the Indiana Dems walked out of the house in protest today. Hope you are doing well! Doug
And thank you to the Firedoglake staff for adding a Debs’ picture to this! Doug
You’re welcome, Doug. Do I know you under another name from (ahem) another site?
Yes, I was kinda wowed when I saw local news tonight re: Dems walkout. Wouldn’ta thunk they had it in ‘em.
Would you consider doing a sort of series on Debs’ thought/speeches/writing? Having to download PDFs to read a little can be offputting enough to prevent people from learning the power of what he had to say. (And with one state trying to revoke child labor laws, maybe Debs’ time has finally come.)
And, btw, I’m sure you know, but — Debs was jailed under the Espionage Act, which is having and ugly recrudescence these days due to WikiLeaks. In additions to being used to threaten Assange, it is being actively used to destroy Free Speech/Free Press. (Here’s an example, from today: http://www.philly.com/philly/education/116639908.html?viewAll=y
Hi Doug. Thanks for the post. I was up late surfing the web for information on Debs and the walk out in Indiana and landed here. Love the Deb’s quote.
P.S. I’m horrible with faces, but you’ve got to be the very talented poet I knew from a couple summer courses, years ago, in the city of my birth. I remember hanging out with you and a fellow named John sometimes after class. If I’m wrong, I’ll be embarassed. In any case, I love me some Debs. Thanks again for the piece. Mark.
Hi boyelroy. Good to see you here! Ya, I write poetry. One of them is in the link at the top of this page, one about Mandelebrot.
Is the city of your birth Terre Haute? Let me know more and I might be able to remember. You can look me up at facebook, too, at http://www.facebook.com/people/Doug-Martin/100002046218779.
Hope you are well.
Hi cronewit. Yes, a series on Debs would be great. I’ll look into some possible approaches. Let me know if you have any other ideas on it. I agree, the PDFs are a pain for people, especially if one doesn’t have broadband.
We need a real progressive think tank in Indiana to overthrow the Sagamore Institute, the Indiana Policy Review, and all those other rightwingers. I’ve been trying to track down as many left-leaning people in Indiana as possible and have started a little database of people and organizations.
Here’s my facebook address: http://www.facebook.com/people/Doug-Martin/100002046218779 Look me up. This is my new facebook page. I have another one under my name, but it’s about a book I’m editing and I never check it, since it’s overwhelmed with email. So make sure you get the right one. I always use my real name, so you might be thinking of someone else on another site.
I saw your pieces on Baron Hill. I’ll look up more of your writings later today. Hope you are well! Doug
Hi Doug. Sorry I’m so slow to reply.
I think your ideas for both more info on Debs, and for a progressive think tank, are great. Unfortunately, I have health problems that slow me down and that really limit both my reliability and the amount of time I can commit to ongoing efforts. So, in either of those efforts, I’d have to be more of an observer than a participant.
As for as Debs info, if you are still in TH, you could contact both the Debs Museum and the TH Historical Society. There surely must be Debs fans around who would support educating people about Debs. (And, as a matter of fact, I went to the Debs website a few months ago — maybe even through a link you provided in another diary? — and was dismayed to find that the website could use some work to make his writngs/speeches more readily available . I don’t remember the exact problem, but somehow the links didn’t work.)
And, sorry, I don’t do Facebook or Twitter or any of those cool new things. Email & reading & posting occasional diaries is about all I can manage.
Hi Cronewit. I’m sorry to hear about your health problems. I hope you are doing okay.
Yes, the Debs’ site does need work. I’m thinking about emailing the foundation about a campaign they could help launch to have a Debs’ Day in the schools in Indiana. It could be the think tank’s first public project. Maybe on his birthday each year, which I believe is November 4, which would be right before elections. I’m planning on running the idea by State Senator Tim Skinner, too, to see what he thinks, since he teaches government classes in this area. Wouldn’t hurt to feel these people out (along with the Historical Society) and see what they think.
Thank you so much again for commenting and giving your great suggestions! I really do hope your health gets better and that you keep commenting and posting your diaries.
Hi Doug. Thanks for your concern. My health limitations are what they are, and unfortunately ‘getting better’ is unlikely. However, I remain relatively stable, within a certain range of capabilities, as long as I don’t overdo — and it takes very little to ‘overdo’.
I think a Debs day is a great idea. But it’s only once a year, and you’d have to convince a lot of government types that it was worth investing in. I wonder if just finding some knowledgeable Debs fans and asking them to contribute smallish pieces of writing (maybe even something like ‘Today (or This Week) in Debs history’; or Deb on . . . (free speech, income equality etc) frequently enough that a (for example) weekly info diary could be posted here or at dailykos. Small, frequent bites that could teach people about Deb’s thoughts, and how much he contributed to what we think of as ‘normal life’ as workers.
Good luck with you plans & ideas!