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.

Scandal’s In the Air

SCANDAL’S IN THE AIR
sung to the tune of “Love Is In the Air” with apologies to John Paul Young

Scandal’s in the air
with every news item I see.
Scandal’s in the air.
Impeachments, fill people with glee.
Trump, Cuomo and Biden are targets.
Greene and Norman were actually fined.
Due process, we must believe in.
But justice is not always blind.

Scandal’s in the air
with every celebrity I see.
Scandal’s in the air.
Zuckerberg’s money bothers me.
People don’t like, to see Obama maskless.
Others feel Britney Spears’ pain.
Bill Gates met Jeffrey Epstein.
Some say, what Fauci says is inane.

Scandal’s in the air.
Scandal’s in the air.
Oh, oh, oh, oh

Scandal’s in the air
with every doomsday thing I see.
Scandal’s in the air.
Earth is burning with a capital B.
The Pope was saved from dangerous mail.
Spain was offended by a Snickers ad.
Barbie wasn’t Asian at the Olympics.
Kim Kardashian’s mask pics were “bad.”

Scandal’s in the air
with every news item I see.
Scandal’s in the air.
Impeachments, fill people with glee.
Trump, Cuomo and Biden are targets.
Greene and Norman were actually fined.
Due process, we must believe in.
But justice is not always blind.

Scandal’s in the air.
Scandal’s in the air.
Oh, oh, oh, oh

Oh, scandal’s in the air.
Scandal’s in the air.
Scandal’s in the air.
Scandal’s in the air.
Scandal’s in the air.

Boyd

The Book of the Week is “Boyd, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War” by Robert Coram, published in 2002.

Born in January 1927 in Erie, Pennsylvania, John Boyd was the fourth of five children. His father died just before his third birthday. Boyd became a fighter pilot, but was too young to fight in WWII and Korea– though he was stationed there for a time.

By 1954, he was a highly competent flying instructor at Nellis, a U.S. Air Force base near Las Vegas. There, promiscuous men broke military codes of conduct and deserted in large numbers. But a few of Boyd’s students– standouts– completed successful missions in Vietnam.

Boyd was a pathological liar and a crude, insubordinate potty-mouth, but throughout his career, his friends in high places kept him from being drummed out of the service altogether. The way the author described Boyd’s lifelong mannerisms and practices, however, suggested that he had undiagnosed bipolar disorder.

Boyd acquired years and years of formal education and training in aeronautics, avionics and physics. Beginning in the 1960’s, his “Energy-Maneuverability Theory” allowed him to tell his colleagues (ad nauseum in 3am phone calls) the best design for fighter-aircraft. Unfortunately, the nature of warfare that existed during WWII was going out of style.

Also, Boyd rubbed superiors the wrong way, and he was a square peg in a round hole, given the culture of the Air Force. In fact, the culture of the U.S. military in the second half of the twentieth century was one of fierce inter-service rivalry. It was one that: a) wasted inconceivably large amounts of taxpayer dollars that went into the pockets of military contractors, while b) continuing to promote mostly waaaay overrated servicemen (who waaaay overrated their proposed weaponry) who c) simply kissed up to their bosses, rather than rocked the boat. These were power-hungry alpha males who simply got lofty titles with little to show for them.

Boyd was principled and truly committed to helping his country improve its military might and national security. He and a few of his colleagues were willing to pay the price of a stalled career for fighting “City Hall” in pushing their agenda for teaching pilots psychologically advantageous combat techniques, while making military aircraft the safest and the most war-winning it could be, at minimal cost.

The servicemen who met Boyd either loved him or hated him. In the late 1960’s, his passion for doing the right thing led him to complain to the head of Systems Command about the proposed design of a new fighter jet then called the F-X. Boyd’s input in the disputes between or among the Navy, Army and Air Force on that project and others led to Congressional hearings.

Read the book to learn the details on all Boyd-related matters, including:

  • the emotional trouble in his dysfunctional personal life;
  • his theories (hint: the reason his suggestions for how to go about waging war were superior in actual practice because they minimized the time it took planes as manipulated by pilots [reminiscent of ninjas] to switch from one activity to another, throwing the enemy off-guard);
  • the shenanigans with the B-1 bomber and the Bradley;
  • how he shook things up at the Pentagon with the help of the media (Time magazine in particular in March 1983) and Congress; and much more.

Life after [sic] Google

The Book of the Week is “Life after [sic] Google, The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy” by George Gilder, published in 2018.

The author explained that Google’s business model is being eclipsed by blockchain technology. Google offers many services for free, and derives revenue from advertising. The author neglected to mention that one sign that Google is on the wane, is that, in 2013 it stopped updating its PageRank data– a measurement of the extent to which each website on the World Wide Web is networked to other websites.

A bunch of tech-industry greats are improving blockchain technology in the form of various competing cryptocurrencies, which are a financial instrument whose value fluctuates (See this blog’s post, Digital Gold). Blockchain technology’s advantages include efficiency, scalability, improving cybersecurity, and the fact that it is virtual.

Google data centers (comprised of physical servers) derive their power from the Columbia river. Worldwide demand for additional power is growing every day. According to the author, another possible power source for data centers is atomic. He wrote, “China plans to build as many as forty new-fangled nuclear plants, the next wave of data centers may well be in Shenzhen.” Considering that parts of China are in an earthquake zone (!), China might not want to end up like Japan. However, politically, it does have a sociopathic disregard for the health and safety of its citizens.

Anyhow, cryptocurrencies’ major cybersecurity feature is that they are comprised of a decentralized peer-to-peer network so they don’t have a central point of failure. Nevertheless, a major rival of Bitcoin– Ethereum– was hacked for a $150 million loss on one of its nodes. Google has all its data in one place, so theft of data and cyber-attacks are much more efficiently accomplished.

One other financial entity that uses blockchain technology is a hedge fund of the company called Renaissance Technologies. Its software mines terabytes (inconceivably large) quantities of data in order to find minute, even obscure correlations between (at times unrelated) variables that allows it to buy and sell securities at a profit. For more than thirty years, it was delivering inconceivably large returns. Until, starting in 2020, it didn’t. The author argued that since the software isn’t generating new knowledge for the world, it is not generating real wealth for society. Economically, that is bad.

Read the book to learn a wealth of additional information about the features of virtual reality versus artificial intelligence in connection with Google and other technological marvels.

Uranium

The Book of the Week is “Uranium, War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World” by Tom Zoellner, published in 2009.

Now, as is well known, one element crucial for making an atomic bomb via the least difficult method, is uranium. It is radioactive– carcinogenic to humans. Without human intervention, an entire sample of it takes billions of years (yes, really, depending on the isotope) to break down into one substance after another, including thirteen heavy metals; ultimately lead.

In the early 1940’s, “The United States military moved quickly to squelch all news of radioactivity. There were worries in the Pentagon that the bomb would be compared to German mustard gas in WWI or other types of wartime atrocities.” Radiation sickness and cancer killed an estimated thirty thousand people in addition to the seventy thousand who perished instantly by the atomic bomb at Hiroshima in August 1945.

In the late 1940’s, radium– an element that helps make a nuclear weapon– was found to be harmful to humans. The (federal) Atomic Energy Commission gave regulatory responsibilities of health and safety to state agencies in Colorado, Arizona and Utah, making the excuse that private mining businesses were outside its jurisdiction. Of course, the states were understaffed and underfunded in regulating radium.

Nevertheless, the radium rush became a government-directed priority because it was a matter of national security. By the 1960’s, the greed was petering out, and Navajo country (in northern Arizona, and small regions of Utah and New Mexico) was a cancer cluster comprised of an eyesore of about thirteen hundred abandoned mines laid waste with radon gas. That was one aspect of the nuclear age. Another was that building fallout-shelters became trendy. The Kennedy family built one at their estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

In the mid-1950’s the “Atoms For Peace” program begun by president Dwight Eisenhower supplied nuclear reactors to Bangladesh, Algeria, Colombia, Jamaica, Ghana, Peru, Syria, Pakistan, Turkey, and Belgian Congo for the purpose of deterring the said countries’ enemies from using nuclear weapons against them.

In 1988, the United States supplied Iran with a five megawatt research reactor; China supplied uranium ore, and South Africa, a block of uranium and some plutonium. The Pakistani A.Q. Khan was hired as a scientific consultant.

Since 1993, the Atomic Energy Commission was supposed to have recorded incidents in which different forms of uranium (raw ore, yellowcake, hexafluoride, metal oxide, ceramic pellets, and fuel rod assemblies) have gone missing. Incident reportage works on the honor system. Unsurprisingly, the system hasn’t worked because the substance has a very complex, global black-market. Even so, the biggest hurdle to building a nuclear weapon is obtaining uranium in its highly enriched form. Then one must employ people with weapons-design and explosives expertise. Hiding the project (which in part, can be accomplished via a lead sleeve on the finished product– that would fool a radiation detector) might pose additional difficulties. It would cost a total of a few million (U.S.) dollars besides.

In the single-digit 2000’s, the author personally visited the country of Niger to see a uranium town for himself; a life-threatening trip. For, bandits or terrorists (likely of the Tuareg tribe who believe uranium mining has fostered inequality that adversely affects them economically, tribally and health-wise) appeared in front of his bus en route (a not uncommon occurrence). The bus driver was wise to the situation and drove away from the scene to a rural village with electricity, thanks to a nearby French power plant. The two main exports of Niger are uranium and onions. But the nation is still largely agricultural.

Read the book to learn much more about uranium in connection with: its sourcing in Australia, U.S. strategic interests in Soviet Georgia, Yemen’s goals, a Sierra Club legal fight, Vancouver’s ill-gotten gains, etc.