Author: authoress

The Cult of Smart – BONUS POST

The Bonus Book of the Week is “The Cult of Smart, How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice” by Fredrik deBoer, published in 2020.

The author discussed trends that have already been ongoing for decades. The government agencies that make or change policy blame teachers and schools for the failings of the American education system, because those are the elements in the system that they can control.

The author argued that one major elephant in the room is inherited traits of the students, which educrats obviously can’t control. But bringing up that issue invites accusations of racism or eugenics– both taboo topics that might result in cancel culture.

Studies have shown that genetics plays a larger role in a student’s ability to learn than policymakers want to acknowledge. Instead, government is perpetuating the elitism of American education because educrats themselves want to stay in power and /or make money, or are deluding themselves into thinking they’re bettering education. In reality, the monetization of the system has pressured a huge number of interested parties to lie with statistics, and simply lie.

Two misleading claims included those with survivorship bias. In 2013, Stanford University, in updating a study, omitted 8% of the data consisting of underperforming charter schools (which had been closed since the first study). They then bragged that the charter-school students had made modest gains against public-school students, in standardized test scores. The other example was an elite New York City public high school whose entrance exam allows the school to select the cream of the crop when accepting students; in this way, it could boast of its high number of celebrity alumni.

One issue the author could have mentioned relevant to genetics and academic ability, included that of the American college entrance exam, the SAT. It used to be called the Scholastic Aptitude Test. The definition of aptitude is talent, which is genetic– innate ability– for which students cannot study. When educrats realized this, they changed the name to Scholastic Assessment Test. This way, the test might validly measure students’ skills that could be learned. But it might not.

One concept the author could have discussed– that would jive with his view of a more relaxed way of preparing young people to become mature, responsible adults– is that of the two kinds of smarts: street smarts and academic (book) smarts. He thought that kids who are not cut out to be students, could be counseled to acquire the former, which is learned; whereas, he believed the latter involves inherited traits.

It is interesting to note which American presidents, beginning in the twentieth century, possessed each of the two smarts. It is easy to see that having either one or both, does not necessarily indicate a president’s success in office, given: how history has treated him, and historical events during his tenure.

It can be argued that the presidents all had street smarts, else they wouldn’t have previously won any elective office. Yet, they could have been elected because they surrounded themselves with crack political strategists and public relations experts who burnished their image– although they acquired reputations for incompetence or wrongdoing in office. But street smarts could mean the ability to emerge unscathed from scandals.

Presumably, there is general consensus on academic smarts– when the president graduated from an Ivy League college, or earned a law degree, or was known as an intellectual (but there are exceptions). Here they are:

SS = Street Smarts; AS = Academic Smarts; both; neither.

Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson: both.

Warren Harding: AS only.

Calvin Coolidge: both.

Herbert Hoover: neither.

FDR: both.

Harry Truman: SS only.

Dwight Eisenhower: SS only.

JFK: arguably AS only.

LBJ: arguably neither.

Richard Nixon: AS only.

Gerald Ford: both.

Jimmy Carter: arguably neither.

Ronald Reagan: SS only.

George H.W. Bush: AS only.

Bill Clinton: both.

George W. Bush: neither.

Barack Obama: both.

Donald Trump: arguably neither.

Joe Biden: arguably SS only.

Anyway, read the book to learn of the author’s recommendations for an approach to American education that is socialistic, kinder and gentler; one he thinks that would improve it immensely.

Made In China

The Book of the Week is “Made in China, A Prisoner, an SOS Letter, and the Hidden Costs of America’s Cheap Goods” by Amelia Pang, published in 2021.

“A guard grabbed a prisoner by his hair, twisted his head, and smashed his face into a heater… They beat him with electric batons until his body convulsed, then hung him by his wrists for two weeks– with his toes barely touching the ground.”

No, the above describes not the Holocaust, not a lynching, but a forced-labor camp in China in 2008 (!)

In the last few decades, the Chinese government has committed human rights abuses against its own citizens– not only dissidents, but also against a group called the Falun Gong (a group that practices exercises, meditation, and espouses certain lifestyle choices). Such citizens are sent to slave-labor camps, where they are tortured and starved but kept alive long enough to serve their sentences by making consumer goods (for export) for no pay amid extremely squalid conditions; they are charged with crimes and punished through what would be considered a complete violation of American-style due process.

In China, as of 2013, the camps numbered an estimated one thousand, at minimum. The author wrote that in all her research, she found only one American company that was ever prosecuted for importing consumer goods from such a camp in China, in the course of twenty years. The camps are bad enough, but to add more shock value to the already unspeakable horrors, the camps are a source of black-market transplant-organs in China, estimated to be worth $1 billion. In December 2013, China said it would be converting its reeducation (brainwashing) camps to ones that imposed labor for drug rehabilitation instead. However, the lipstick on the pig didn’t change the pig.

The main focus of the book was the true story of a man named Sun– a Falun Gong member who was sentenced to two and a half years to an aforementioned camp. He risked his life to hand-write a note containing a desperate plea for help, that ended up in the package of a Halloween product purchased by a woman in Oregon in the United States.

In 2016, Big Brother was growing ever more intrusive in China, as Turkic Muslims (the Uyghur tribe and Kazhaks), were targeted for “blood tests, fingerprints, voice recordings, and facial scans.” An estimated three million of twelve million of them are detained in the camps. They live in a location where China borders more than a few strategically located nations on the Silk Road– still a crucial trade route. The Chinese government doesn’t want any rebellious behavior from them. Reeducation is the goal, besides the economic benefits for China. All of them are forced to speak Mandarin, or else.

The author wrote with some alarm, that the torture chambers for victimized ethnic groups are arguably genocidal. She suggested that China’s atrocities might become comparable to the Holocaust all over again. But– this is not a Hitler situation, and is unlikely to become one. This, because Hitler had grand designs to take over the world through arming a military that committed imperialism, and creating a master race through eliminating the Jews and others he deemed genetically inferior– through genocide.

Matters will eventually come to a head when a significant proportion of the two minority populations are in the camps, and the export market is oversaturated with goods made by them, sold through big-name companies like Nike, Apple, BMW, Amazon, etc. An economic slowdown will mean a reduction in the need for the camps. (That’s NOT to say that the camps should exist, or that nothing should be done to stop the atrocities.)

International outcry will eventually reach critical mass, so that pressure will be brought to bear on China to reduce its human rights abuses, through economic punishments. Unlike most of the rest of the world, –like clockwork every two years– the United States holds elections for some powerful federal and state offices during which, a significant number of Chinese voters can influence political candidates to take a stand on this issue.

Anyway, read the book to learn additional details about Sun’s fate, and how the situation can be changed for the better.

Ode to My Online World – BONUS POST

ODE TO MY ONLINE WORLD

sung to the tune of “How Sweet It Is” with apologies to James Taylor.

How desperate I am to be liked by you.
How desperate I am to be liked by you.

I’m a political grandstander and social media whore,
and there you are.

I need to tell the world about my ups and downs,
and there you are.

I believe all I see, so don’t argue with me.

I want to be a COP, and globally shame villains.
I want the world to STOP, exploiting me, yes I do.

How desperate I am to be liked by you.

My profile’s a goldmine.

How desperate I am to be liked by you.

I get depressed at night, wishing celebrities were in my life.

I’ve convinced myself I’m not a bore.
I POST photos and Tweet more and more.
But you occupy all of my days with time-wasting in so many ways.

I want to be a COP, and globally shame villains.
I just want the world to STOP, exploiting me, oh yes.

How desperate I am to be liked by you.

I get outraged sometimes.

How desperate I am to be liked by you. Whoa, yeah.

Everyone’s better than me. I’m not proud of myself.
You’re my whole life. I do nothing else.

I want to be a COP, and globally shame villains.
I just want the world to STOP, exploiting me, oh yes.

How desperate I am to be liked by you.
How desperate I am to be liked by you. Whoa, now.
How desperate I am to be liked by you.

I’m like, tag me, baby, oh now.

How desperate I am to be liked by you.
I’m like money to Big Tech, baby.
How desperate I am to be liked by you…

Quiet Strength – BONUS POST

The Bonus Book of the Week is “Quiet Strength, The Principles, Practices, & Priorities of A Winning Life” by Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker, published in 2007.

Born in 1954, Dungy grew up to become a professional football coach. In 1999, at an after-game press conference, he expressed his displeasure with the referees’ rulings and instant replays. He was fined by the then-NFL commissioner ten thousand dollars.

About four years later, and again, about six years later– an instant replay helped Dungy’s team win in the last play of the game. The way the former win occurred was unprecedented in that the team scored three touchdowns in the last four minutes of an away game on Monday night, against the latest Super Bowl winners, in his original hometown. On his birthday.

Dungy thought God had something to do with that. Read the book to learn much more about his religious bent, philosophy, and the different roles he played in his life, in addition to that of coach.

Disrupting Class

The Book of the Week is “Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns” by Clayton Christensen, Michael B. Horn and Curtis W. Johnson, published in 2008.

All three of the authors– educrats– pushed education solutions that were mostly software-centric and charter-school based. The educrats made no distinctions between teaching and learning, but indicated that students would learn from software, if schools adopted their recommendations. It is difficult to see how students who are unwilling to learn, would learn from software, though, without supervision.

Nevertheless, one point the authors got right, was that a wrench in the works that is hindering their push to convert the American education system into a machine-dominated one– is teachers’ unions across the country. One other uncertain aspect of the whole kit and caboodle is the competition between the two current software operating systems– Windows and Apple. So, due to all this political patronage and profiteering, America’s education system will remain a patchwork, most likely.

Anyway, in 2004, one school district’s (demographically similar) students in Kentucky had 26% better state standardized test scores than another; the latter had three times the funding. There are usually three major reasons for such a discrepancy: the former district prepped the students for the test, and /or they cheated, and / or students possessed the basic skills and fundamental knowledge to do better than the competition.

The authors admitted more research was needed to determine the reasons for the discrepancy. They did however, declare that their recommendations for bettering the American education system through customization of teaching would help all students improve, regardless of funding.

The authors then presented a hypothetical scenario which would defy reality in most underfunded, understaffed and /or poorly staffed schools. In the scenario, a star athlete was attending that kind of a high school. He was having trouble understanding a concept in science class. The teacher wasn’t explaining it in a way the student could understand it. If the student didn’t keep his grades up, he wouldn’t be able to play in the big soccer game. The student’s father, an engineer, was more than happy to, was available to, and was able to, successfully tutor him so he could still play. The student lived happily ever after.

First of all, subpar schools tend to coddle their star athletes– allow them to pass their classes, or provide them with extra tutoring. Secondly, such schools have a significant number of students in overcrowded classrooms, who are discipline problems– disruptive to the class (sort of like the software-based learning that would be disruptive to the industry that the authors seemed to think the American education system is becoming).

The anecdote said nothing about: the classroom’s learning environment (which in subpar schools is frequently noisy and / or hostile) or what proportion of the other students were truly interested in learning, etc. Thirdly, it would be very unlikely that the student’s father would be an engineer, never mind available.

If there was only a handful of students who truly wanted to learn, then the authors should have suggested that those schools assign those students to do software-based learning. Those students deserve better! But the authors didn’t suggest that.

It stands to reason that live, experienced teachers should know their students and thus know how to customize teaching or customize extra help for each one. The inconvenient realities that prevent them from doing so, include but are certainly not limited to:

  • limited class time;
  • overcrowded classes;
  • classes with students who are disruptive the entire period; and
  • lack of resources for helping students learn the way they learn best.

The authors complained that American schools developed ways to lump kids together efficiently in classrooms, but in ways that have hindered their learning. But– there are reasons other than efficiency: individualized learning is expensive; face to-face social interaction is good for the kids; and they learn from one another. In isolation (with software-based learning), they don’t.

The authors then compared customized teaching to products in corporate America. This was not a very accurate analogy. For, students, teachers and resources aren’t product parts; corporate America runs on the profit motive. Education shouldn’t. Nevertheless, that is the direction it’s heading, with more and more commercialized visual education resources.

The authors explained that two recent American federal education laws would lead to growing pains and chaos in the short term, but [italics, theirs] “schools have actually been improving.” Yes, and so has the United States: a meaningless generalization. One of the laws, No Child Left Behind, a can-of-worms, was obsessed with raising standardized test scores across the board, for all students. It caused schools to (besides go crazy) lie with statistics.

The authors failed to elaborate on the aforementioned “improving” with specific examples. Instead, they went on to briefly describe the evolution of the American education system, mentioning a few influencers in early curricula, trends that prompted changes to those curricula, and changes to student populations due to other federal laws, through the years.

The next anecdote told of a student doing online research. The problem is that, sadly, the World Wide Web has been largely taken over by political propagandists and profiteers.

A subplot of the above anecdote (which was ongoing) was that a dedicated high school student got permission to take an online course in Arabic through the local community college. This, because her school didn’t offer Arabic. In a later chapter, the authors claimed the course was free (!) but didn’t specify whether course materials were free, or what kind of financial arrangement, if any, was made between the high school and college. They also weren’t clear whether the course fulfilled a graduation requirement for the student.

The student was allegedly going to chat with a native Arabic speaker halfway around the world. However, there are all different dialects of Arabic spoken in different Middle Eastern countries. The authors explained nothing about this inconvenient fact in their fanciful anecdote.

Further, the authors wrongheadedly compared the disruptiveness of online classes to that of innovations in consumer goods. But those are apples and oranges. Consumer goods’ innovations are driven by the profit motive. Childrens’ educations are driven by their parents’ belief in education and legal requirements that children attend school. The parents see the connection between education and success in life.

There are millions of complications of all sorts in connection with preparing children to become mature, responsible adults. Consumer-goods innovations are applied to inanimate objects. The only similarity is that costs of software-based learning and innovations will both fall as time goes on. But for students: at what price?? Especially if their chemistry class, as has happened at Brigham Young University (according to the authors)– was turned into a video game??

The authors thought that the large amount of money spent for universal free pre-kindergarten could be more wisely spent on parenting classes. But, once again, they failed to elaborate, and instead, ended the chapter. (For more extensive info on the myriad of subjects covered above, see this blog’s entire category of posts, “Education”).

Read the book to learn: the four major aspects of the American education system that, according to the authors, constrained students from learning; why the authors thought extrinsic motivators would force schools to rethink their services; the four ways the authors contended that technology would assist with customized learning; other comparisons with corporate models; charter school methods; and other imaginary “learning” scenarios that are likely to remain imaginary.

The Death of Money / Dealings – BONUS POST

The first Bonus Book of the Week is “The Death of Money, The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System” by James Rickards, published in 2014. This was an all-over-the-map hodgepodge of generalizations on global financial trends, economic theory and what the author claimed was the devastation those trends could lead to, as of the book’s writing.

Prior to 9/11, the CIA possessed no expertise in the nefarious goings-on in the securities industry that could presage the occurrence of a terrorist attack. America’s law enforcement and security agencies had plenty of data, but inter-agency rivalry inhibited information-sharing and creativity– that would have allowed them to “connect the dots” in getting more specific information.

Prior to 9/11, American intelligence did detect irregular trading patterns in the stocks of the two airlines whose planes were targeted in the attacks. A tiny percentage of those trades were illegal because they were made by insiders– by the terrorists who knew those airlines’ share prices would soon plummet; the remaining percentage of anomalous trading was done by those who noticed the unusual activity (but not the reason for it) and jumped on the bandwagon.

After the attacks, threat-detection software was created for monitoring not just stock trading, but also currency and precious metals trading. The author wrote that a recently trendy means for bringing down an enemy-nation is: doing serious economic and financial harm rather than physical harm. Assaults on a nation’s technology and infrastructure such as the money-handling parts of cyberspace, aviation, dams and utilities, instead of targeting a country’s military and weapons or people of a specific ethnic group, is becoming the new normal.

The author remarked that China’s institutions are actually at risk for attacks, because the country’s government, economically, owns a large chunk of the means of production and arguably, labor; not to mention, capital. Wealthy Chinese business owners and executives have a co-dependent relationship with (corrupt) government officials. Besides, there are: “cross ownership, family ties, front companies, and straw man stockholders.”

The author warned the reader that a global financial crisis is likely in the offing due to prevailing circumstances in the economic heavy hitters of the world (like, the United States and China); among those circumstances: misallocation of investment funds; employers’ power to minimize benefits and compensation; red ink and the ever-widening, (allegedly alarming) gap between rich and poor. Financial panic is correlated with social unrest. That can lead to revolution.

The magnitude and accelerating frequency of financial bailouts of the last twenty-five years just shows how fragile the economic systems of the world are. In the United States, excessive deregulation fueled out-of-control greed, etc., etc., etc. In Europe, the group of nations that agreed to adopt one currency (the euro) thought the other nations would help mitigate their own economic problems, when in reality– they were putting all their eggs in one basket. In effect, they had to get permission from the others to make significant changes to their economic policies; they were forced into unhealthy co-dependent relationships.

Read the book to get the lowdown on: all the different groups of nations which were trying to diminish the U.S. dollar’s hegemony (hint: BRICS, BELL, GIIPS, SCO, GCC) at the book’s writing; the United States’ economic system explained for laypeople (via a Venn diagram, along with how the author defined “money” and “death”– both buried in the middle of the book); and everything you ever wanted to know about the value of gold, among other factors in the American dollar’s declining power in the world.

The second Bonus Book of the Week is “Dealings, A Political and Financial Life” by Felix Rohatyn, published in 2010. This bragfest described the life of the typical alpha male who rode a fabulous career in the securities industry, starting in the 1950’s.

The aforementioned first Bonus Book described the trends indicative of a dire future global financial situation. Many such untoward events have already occurred in the last couple of centuries (!), and keep happening. Every time, the seeds of financial disaster are sown decades prior to when it hits the fan.

The selective memory and cherry-picking of data of participants and victims (not to mention propagandists!) cause readers to perceive that those kinds of events are unprecedented, or are becoming more frequent. Excuse the cliche, THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN (For more info, see this blog’s posts: Serpent on the Rock, A Fighting Chance, Since Yesterday, Why I Left Goldman Sachs, The Zeroes and Dot Bomb).

Rohatyn described a few major stressful economic near-disasters that he was asked to help remedy. One situation was early 1970’s Wall Street, which was a house of cards about to collapse. Another was the near-bankruptcy of New York City in the mid-1970’s.

The late 1950’s saw the city becoming a bloated, bureaucratic civil-service gravy train, due to the increasing power of unions. The costs of generous contracts (along with other sociological factors) was eroding the city’s tax base. Local politicians stayed in power by staying friendly with the unions. One hand washed the other.

At the dawn of the 1970’s, the city needed more and more short-term loans from banks. Creative accounting allowed the debt explosion to continue. The city got subsidies from the state and federal governments, but only at the end of its fiscal year, so its deficit ballooned annually before then. The city got generous borrowing terms because it was in the state’s and fed’s best interest (excuse the pun) to deregulate the lending banks, as they were political patrons, too. Eventually, push came to shove.

In June 1975, Rohatyn was appointed to a bipartisan (truly bipartisan!) committee to help New York State governor Hugh Carey draft a bailout plan for the city, three weeks before the date on which the city would be forced into bankruptcy. Fortunately, Carey possessed the right temperament for saving the world.

Read the book to learn more about how the author helped impose some adult supervision in various, serious economic episodes in his career, and more about his career itself.

Story Days

STORY DAYS
sung to the tune of “Glory Days” with apologies to Bruce Springsteen

We always had a prez who was a big storyteller, every administraTION.
They could throw that fairytale by you,
make you look like a fool, son.
Remembered them the other night watching politics on the tube.
I’m a, news junkie. They were, politicians throughout.
I argue all the time with friends over drinks.
But all we keep talking about is

story days.
DisTRUST at an all-time high. Story days.
In the wink of a speechwriter’s eye. Story days, story days.

Well, Bush 41 told Americans
“Read my lips, no new taxes” when he ran in ’88.
Anytime I want a laugh I’ll look at
all the bragging or denying
Donald Trump has done of late.
He and his party, well they split up.
He’s in limbo, it’s some months gone by now.

I just sit around, getting riled up on social media.
When I see the lying I start chuckling, commenting about

story days.
DisTRUST at an all-time high. Story days.
In the wink of a speechwriter’s eye. Story days, story days.

Think I’ll stay at home tonight
and spout my opinions till people caps-lock my ass.
And I hope no more presidents say,
“I did not have sex with that woman”
[bleep me]. Sorry to be so crass.
Yeah thinking back when Dubya boasted “Mission Accomplished.”
What an inSULT, the bleep bleep.
My faith slipped away.
Obama promised I could keep my doctor, but
bleep story days.

Story days.
DisTRUST at an all-time high. Story days.
In the wink of a speechwriter’s eye. Story days, story days.

Story days.
DisTRUST at an all-time high. Story days.
In the wink of a speechwriter’s eye. Story days, story days.

Story days.
DisTRUST at an all-time high. Story days.
In the wink of a speechwriter’s eye. Story days, story days.

Well all wrong, oh no.
Well all wrong, come on now.
Well all wrong, oh no.
Well all wrong, come on now.
Tell the truth, tell the truth.
Tell the truth, tell the truth.
All wrong boys.
No more ducking now.
We keep on going but
we reap what we SOW now.
Bring it home yeah.
Bring it home.
All wrong, all wrong, well all wrong.
Well all wrong, well all wrong.
Well all wrong, well all wrong.
All wrong, let’s go.

The Most Dangerous Man In Detroit

The Book of the Week is “The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit, Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor” by Nelson Lichtenstein, published in 1995.

Born in September 1907 in West Virginia, Walter Reuther was of German ancestry, raised Lutheran. He quit high school to learn the tool and die trade. In February 1927, he and a friend moved to Detroit for better pay and hours. He eventually made his way to Ford Motor Company, where he quickly rose through the ranks before the Great Depression hit America.

In the early 1930’s, Ford opened a plant to manufacture its Model “A” in the Soviet Union. Americans who believed in socialism were aware that the Stalin-led Soviet government ruled via one party– the Communist, and was perpetrating human rights abuses. But they liked certain economic aspects of its experimental “Five Year Plan.”

Beginning in early 1933, Walter and his brother Victor bicycled a distance of approximately twelve thousand kilometers during the nine months they were meeting with their European political contacts in various countries. In spring 1933, they were already seeing Fascist oppression in major German cities. In late 1933, they began working in a few Soviet industrial complexes to see labor and political conditions for themselves.

By the late 1930’s, the famine caused by Stalin’s disastrous agricultural-reform program prompted peasant-farmers to go to work in the factories that made steel, cars and tractors. In mid-1934, since they were foreigners and skilled middle-managers (training workers in tool and die making), Walter and Victor were permitted to travel between Stalingrad and Moscow to visit construction projects, collective farms and tractor factories. They were chaperoned by Party bureaucrats. They got special treatment, so perhaps they did not see the abuses suffered by unskilled workers. Their experiences led them to believe that the Soviet system was far less of a police-state than Germany’s.

Walter and Victor wanted to believe so badly in a Soviet workers’ paradise that they rationalized away the serious problems (such as impossible-to-meet production quotas, and reports of fancifully high numbers of vehicles manufactured). In 1934, on supervised tours, the brothers also took a look at labor conditions in China and Japan. October 1935 saw them return to the United States.

On May Day of 1936, in major cities across America, various political groups were speaking in the public square with the goal of unionizing workers; some of them– the Socialists, Proletarian and Communist parties– united to form a Popular Front (the joke in Spain was, “the girl with the Popular Front”).

By the mid-1930’s, the auto industry (which included carmakers, parts suppliers, tool and die makers, etc.) consisted of about a half million union members, thirty thousand of whom were in the United Auto Workers (UAW), a national union. In autumn 1936, Walter became a member of that union’s executive board. He planned and got employees to execute work-stoppages and sit-down strikes in order to get the big automakers like GM, Ford, Chrysler and Dodge to grant collective bargaining rights exclusively to the UAW. Other workplaces such as U.S. Steel were inspired to take such actions, too.

Ford was particularly hostile in its anti-union activities, as it had an in-house security department that spied on workers, fired some, and used violence against photographers. GM took measures to protect against productivity losses by rotating its parts suppliers and building new plants in different locations.

In the late 1930’s, Walter launched propaganda campaigns with the distribution of leaflets, and ran pro-union candidates in local political elections in Midwestern cities. In October 1945, he knew that his UAW workers couldn’t win their strike on just solidarity and militancy. He needed support from other ordinary Americans and the federal government. In January 1946, union workers in a bunch of other industries struck, too; electrical, meatpacking, steel milling, and iron mining.

By the late 1940’s, the power of the unions and corruption in government skyrocketed, so that organized crime used bribery, patronage-contracts and and physical violence in order to rule the “… construction industry, short haul trucking, East Coast longshoring , and the bakery and restaurant trades.”

It is a little-publicized datum that in 1962, president Kennedy granted a cut to all taxpayers that favored corporate America, which also got tax breaks. The rich got richer. That same year, members of the UAW executive board included 21 Caucasians, and one African American, whom they knew wouldn’t buck the status quo.

By then, Walter, a liberal, realized he had been incorrect in thinking that the American labor movement would eliminate discrimination in the workplace when the unions and the economy were strong. But he was still stubborn in insisting on an all-or-nothing egalitarianism. Others of his political ilk, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson were willing to compromise with the Dixiecrats (Southern Democrats who opposed civil-rights legislation) to make a little progress rather than none. The following year, Walter had become more flexible, as he was friendly with JFK and his brother.

In July 1967, the race riots in Detroit resulted in the deaths of 43 people and $250 million in property damage. The mayor, and the governor of Michigan assigned a 39-member panel of leaders and influencers in the community to suggest solutions for quelling hostilities. Various actions were taken; among the major ones:

  • throwing money at low-cost housing;
  • hiring of black workers at Ford and GM; and
  • throwing money at black community groups

but nothing seemed to help. The automakers moved their plants from Detroit to Troy and Dearborn.

Read the book to learn a wealth of additional information on Walter’s trials, tribulations, triumphs, and disputes with the AFL and CIO (unions competing against, and with different views from, the UAW); the growing-pains of the labor movement– how it was affected by: the WWII years (hint– the government ordered it to make war weaponry), political elections, regulation of pricing / wages / production in the steel industry, the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War; how and why different automakers’ compensation structures changed, and much more. See this blog’s post “See You In Court” for more information on the pros and cons of unions in America.