the gay nineties

I've been reading about the anarchists and commies and revolutionists of the 1890s.  They had mixed feelings about unions.  Some of them were aristocrats and thought that the working man was a sweating brute, and it was up to the intelligentsia to lead the revolution.

Some were all for unions because they thought they would lead the revolution, and others thought that they would make a deal along the way and having gotten what they wanted they would drop out of the revolution, which turned out to be what happened. 

Did you ever read about the labor unrest of the 1890s in America?  It's quite a story with quite a cast of characters.  At times it seemed like they might win.  They were strong in the big cities, but no so strong elsewhere and not that many people lived in big cities back then.  But all the fat cats hated them and they had the police and the thugs that their money could buy, and likewise the politicians, and the populace outside of the cities thought they were unamerican, and they were always fighting with each other over points that now seem obscure, and then the mainstream parties took some of their more moderate ideas and then they were gone and it's almost like they never existed.

I think there are still some lefties in the unions.  Were there any lefties in your mill union?  But mostly the rank and file have the idea that they got theirs and fuck everybody else.  I think they still general vote democrat, except for the free loaders, but they don't like their democrats to be very radical.

A global union would never get off the ground for a million reasons, the first of which is how could they agree on a wage, and like I've said again and again people would rather be oppressed by their own people than by some strangers. 

What about the invasion of Iraq seemed like a good idea at the time?  That they were building weapons of mass destruction?  That Saddam was a bad man and it was the duty of the world's policemen to topple him?  You don't remember the neocons?  That little cabal around Dirty Dick, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, and the boys?  The guys who loved democracy so much that they thought that we should spread it around the world, starting in the middle east at the point of a gun?  You didn't notice this going on as the drums of war were beating ever stronger?

I think arguments can be made against Israel, particularly their playing cowboys and Indians with their Palestinians.

Those guys being interviewed at the gun stores are gun nuts and they are just mouthing the propaganda of the NRA (which I know you are not a member of, just a fellow traveler), and I'm sure the gun they are buying is not that first one, and dollar to donuts they are not going to spend their money or their time on any kind of Goddamn classes.

Republican debate tonight and I am excited.  Everybody is looking for the big boys, Trump and Cruz to swing at each other, and Rubio is likely to be doing some fancy tapping with those boots that everybody is making fun of, and oh of his height too, even though at 5' 10" he is about average height, the other guys are taller.  I think Bush is 6' 3" and he'll try to sound forceful but end up mumbling.  I don't know why Carson is bothering to show up, but I think the longer he's in the better his books sell.  And Kasich will be wondering why can't we all be friends like everybody in his paradise of Ohio is.  An extra beer and maybe some popcorn and staying up till gosh, way past ten, for Ken.