Let's Hold A Nationwide One Day Strike To Oppose TRAITOR Trump!

Ever since August 5, 1981, the date when Ronald Reagan was allowed by the AFL-CIO and the American people to fire 11,359 professional air traffic controllers, I have said the same thing when that subject comes up. What I said was this: "If the AFL-CIO and all the other components of the organized labor movement in America had stood up to Reagan, refused to allow the air traffic controllers to be fired, and staged a one day nationwide strike, he would have had no choice except to back down, reverse those firings, and negotiate with the air traffic controllers. His War Against The Working Class would have been dead in the water, and today America would be a very different and more successful nation. The same holds true for TRAITOR Trump and every crime he and the Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet" in support of his TREASON have committed and will commit in the future if they are not held responsible for their crimes. If they are not held responsible for those crimes, you can bet your sweet ass that worse is on the way, already being plotted, perpetrated, and dreamed of by the worst TRAITOR The world has ever seen and the other lesser TRAITORS who support him. On No Kings Day, June 14, 2025, roughly 5million people participated in more than 2,100 hundred separate protests from sea to shining sea. But what would it have looked like if, instead of peacefully standing out in public holding protest signs and chanting slogans, those 5million of us had just waited until the following week during regular working hours from 8am to 5pm from sea to shining sea for one day and stopped working. If 5million of us had gone on strike for one 8 hour day, stopped driving trucks, delivering products, making those products, mining or manufacturing the individual components of those products, never unloaded a single ship at a single of our international ports, stopped teaching in the nation's classrooms, stopped nursing patients in our hospitals, and stopped doing whatever it is that each of us does for a living. That would change the face of the battle against TRAITOR Trump, his Russian Owner Vladmir Putin, and their ultimate goal of destroying the United States. What we need to do now is to call that one day nationwide strike, carry it out on a weekday, preferably a Wednesday so the work week is clearly broken into two disparate halves,and the general public is clearly told that it is purely and solely in protest of the crime spree being perpetrated by TRAITOR Trump and his supporters. And it should also be made clear that unless he and his entire Criminal Syndicate are removed from the halls of government that such a strike will occur at least once a month until they are gone. If one day strikes don't work, then expand them to two days, three, four, or five until the truth is realized all over the world. I am not in a position to organize and coordinate such a strike. But I will always be in a position to support such a strike by doing everything I can to promote and defend it. This is just one grandiose, but realistic, idea for saving the America most of us love. This ideas is free for the taking by anyone with a network of support large enough to bring this strike to fruition. Let's schedule it! Let's make it happen! Let's make it absolutely clear that we are tired of TRAITOR Trump, his Fascism, his TREASON, and all his crimes against this country. Please share this post with everyone you know until someone steps up to take the ball in hand and carry out the planning, scheduling, and organization to make this Strike In Defense Of Democracy a reality!

"No Kings Day" Protest, Morehead, Kentucky, June 14, 2025

Yesterday, my wife and I attended the "No Kings Day" protest in Morehead, Kentucky, along with somewhere in excess of 200 other people who are all committed to seeing the end of the occupation of the White House by TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate which poses as a "cabinet". It was a very successful and fulfilling event. It never stopped raining the entire time we were there. We arrived at almost exactly the scheduled start time of noon and had to leave at about 1:30pm to meet an old friend of mine at Cracker Barrel whom we hadn't seen in about 25 years. I wish we could have stayed longer. I dropped my wife off around the corner from the little city park at the junction of KY 32 and Main Street, and then drove down the street about three blocks to find a safe parking spot at a business which was closed for the day. When I returned to the protest, my wife had been invited under a tent which the organizers had set up, actually one several such tents. We had not thought about making protest signs and took none which is a shame. But the street side of the park was lined shoulder to shoulder and about three rows deep with people who were holding a wide variety of signs some of which were homemade and some which were commercial products. My favorite sign of the day is the one in the picture above. But during the time we stayed, one man who told me he is 80 was sitting down to take a break and agreed to loan my wife his sign which she held while he rested and managed to situate herself in her power wheelchair on the street edge with the sign. There was a lot of traffic for a Saturday in Morehead and most of the cars driving by were blowing their horns in support, waving in agreement, sometimes shouting encouragement to us, and in the spirit of honesty, some few would give us the finger or shout an obscenity. But the majority seemed to be supporting us. I talked to numerous people during the time I was there including a photographer for the local Morehead newspaper. Our conversation was about the difficulty which small town newspapers and radio stations are facing with the movement of most advertising money to the internet. We specifically discussed one of the Morehead stations which some people I know used to own as one in a small chain of small town Eastern Kentucky stations. That station, and all their others, have recently been sold to a Right Wing Radical Repugnican who has actually served prison time for vote buying when he was an elected public official. The Morehead newspaper has actually been sold a couple of times since the inception of the internet as have at least two other papers in Eastern Kentucky. None of those sold seem to have been bought by people with liberal leanings. Yes, it is possible for a newpaper editor, publisher, owner, and staff to promote rational liberal ideas which still providing accurate honest reporting. In fact, one small town newspaper on the Virginia border has, in the last couple of years, won a major award from the Kenucky Press Association for reporting it did on the 2022 floods in several Eastern Kentucky counties, and it is quite liberal in its leaninings. It's a shame in these times that more small town newspapers and radio stations were being bought up by Right Wing Radicals and being turned into megaphones of the Radical Right. I stayed at the protest as long as my other appointment would allow and both of us really enjoyed our time. We both feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment for having taken time out of our lives, as we always do, and as you should also be doing, to support the steadily growing public opposition to the TREASON of TRAITOR Trump and his Criminal Syndicate. Always Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out!

I wish I could have personally thanked every one of those American Patriots who stood up in Morehead and every other town and city in the country on No Kings Day. That is impossible. But each of you should know just how proud of you I am and how grateful I am for your courage and commitment to our country and our democracy! Always Stand Up, Speak Up, and Speak Out!

"Same Sun Here" by Silas House and Neela Vaswani--Book Review

 

This is an adolescent book by Silas House and Neela Vaswani which has been widely applauded for several reasons.  It is a cooperative work by Silas House, who is the Director of The Loyal Jones Appalachian Center at Berea College, and Neela Vaswani, who has written several other books in a couple of genres including short stories and memoir.  This is the first book I have read by either author.  I read it primarily because my wife and I bought it to possibly give to our 11 year old nephew in Wisconsin and wanted to review it before sending it to him.  The book is written in the form of pen pal letters between a 12 year old Appalachian coal miner's son, River Dean Justice, and an Indian immigrant girl, Meena Joshi, of the same age in Chinatown in New York City.  Obviously, each of the authors wrote the letters for the child of their own heritage and I am willing to assume the book was produced primarily through e-mail exchanges between the authors.  The two children are both bright, quite emblematic of each of their native cultures, and have grandmothers who are very important parts of their lives.  River's "Mamaw" is his primary caregiver due to health and/or mental health problems of his mother who spends most of her time in bed and, for most of the book, takes little active part in his parenting.  Each of the children is facing and attempting to deal with personal and family problems which are common in their cultures and geographic areas.  River's father is an unemployed coal underground coal miner who has gone to South Alabama to find work and comes home only when he can.  Meena's father works in a catering company in New Jersey and comes home only on his days off and both father's are forced to stay near their work at times instead of returning home.  Meena's parents and older brother have immigrated to New York when she was quite young and left her in the care of her grandmother, Dadi, in India for several years due to problems related to money.  Both children love their grandmother's deeply.  

As the book progresses, a coal company opens a mountain top removal mine on Town Mountain overlooking the town near which River's family lives and also overlooking his school where he is a member of the middle school basketball team.  Meena's family live in an illegally sublet rent controlled apartment in Chinatown and they are very close to the elderly Chinese woman whose son is actually the legal tenant of the apartment in which they live.  They are always in fear of being evicted because landlords can sell such apartments for high dollar if they can get rid of the tenants.  River's grandmother is an active member of an anti-strip mining group and fighting to stop the mountain top removal project.  Eventually, Meena's gradmother dies in India, River becomes more actively opposed to strip mining and mountain top removal, and Meena's family continues to live in fear of eviction and homelessness.  The book is loaded with current hot button political issues in both locations with environmentalism, rent control tenant's rights, immigration, and the economic issues related to the low end working class.  

As the book nears its climax, River's basketball team is practicing in the school gym when a massive rock slide caused by the mountain top removal strikes the school and injures several of the players.  Meena's family and all of the other tenants are evicted and become homeless.  River and his grandmother join a protest in Frankfort, Kentucky, and River accidentally becomes a media darling with a planned trip to New York to appear on television and hopefully to finally meet Meena.  The book is well written, especially in light of the fact that is uses the authorial techniques it does.  The social issues discussed are timely and important in America.  This book has a great deal of merit and is well worth buying for an adolescent reader, especially such a reader in a liberal leaning family.  It says a great deal about inclusivity, environmentalism, immigration, Appalachia, tenant rights, and discrimination against both the Appalachian poor and immigrants.  I would suggest that, for the average adolescent reader, it would be a good idea for a parent or grandparent to read the book either before or with the child and have a structured discussion of the social and political issues it raises.  It is a very unique book and well worth placing in your child's private library.