#ResistanceRoots

I went back to school in my early 40s and completed my bachelor’s degree in economics. This was 2005 to 2008, when W was in office. In 2006, W proposed an immigration overhaul involving a significant number of deportations. /1 My international economics professor brought up W’s proposal in class, railing on for minutes about how horrible this idea was. He was normally even keeled but almost shouted. “Just try to get a roof put on your house or yard work done! There won’t be any fresh produce!” /2

#ResistanceRoots

The Great Recession of 2008-2009 was just 15 years ago, but many people seem to have forgotten how bad it was for everyday Americans. People struggled for years while the top 1% got even more fabulously wealthy. Let’s take a look at what happened and why. /1 Repub policies created the perfect environment for economic collapse. Deregulation allowed banks to take increasingly greater risks, engaging in hedge fund trading, buying toxic assets and offering subprime mortgages to low-income buyers. /2

#ResistanceRoots

As Trump prepares to take the stage tomorrow at New York’s Madison Square Garden, let’s remember Isadore Greenbaum, a Jewish plumber’s helper, cab driver, hotel worker and waiter from Brooklyn who defied thousands of American Nazis at the same venue in 1939. /1 On Feb. 20, 1939, the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization, put on a “Pro American Rally” at MSG, ostensibly to celebrate George Washington’s birthday. The backdrop for the stage was a 30-foot-tall banner of Washington flanked by American flags and swastikas. /2

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What caused the Great Depression?

Most people would say the stock market crash of 1929. That was probably the No. 1 factor, but the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 made it worse. The act raised tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods by almost 60%. /1 Smoot and Hawley proposed the tariffs to offset overproduction. The U.S. economy had made significant gains in production, contributing to a surplus of farm produce. However, manufactured goods were more valuable, and U.S. exports were rising faster than imports. /2

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Today in history, 1906: White residents of Atlanta riot based on false reports that Black men had assaulted white women in four separate attacks. Over the next few days, the rioters kill at least 12 Black Atlantans and devastate the city’s Black community. /1 Atlanta newspapers had reported the false stories of the assaults, inflaming whites who already resented the city’s growing African American population. Atlanta’s Black population had increased from 9,000 in 1880 to 35,000 in 1900. /2

Today in history, 2007: The United Nations adopts the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), proclaiming that Indigenous peoples have a right to their way of life and prohibiting discrimination against them. /1

#ResistanceRoots Indigenous people had been struggling for almost a century to gain recognition within international institutions. In 1920, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (also known as the Iroquois Six Nations) applied for membership in the League of Nations but was never accepted. /2

Today in history, 1971: Prisoners seize control of the Attica Correctional Facility. State police retook most of the maximum-security prison later that day, but convicts held 39 guards and employees hostage until a disastrous raid on Sept. 13. /1

#ResistanceRoots For months, Attica’s inmates had been protesting inhumane conditions, including overcrowding, rationing of toilet paper and limits of one shower per week. Their frustrations came to a head on Sept. 9, when inmates overpowered their guards in a spontaneous uprising. /2

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#BlueEarth

In its final days, the Trump “administration” made a last-minute bid to open up millions of acres of public lands in Alaska for oil and gas extraction and other industrial uses. The Interior Department has now deemed this move “unlawful.” /1 The areas were labeled “D1 lands” in 1971, meaning they are off limits to extractive activities unless the Interior Department deems otherwise. Before Interior can do that, it must perform environmental assessments and seek input from local Alaska Native peoples. /2

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on this day in 1908, on a farm near Stonewall in the Texas Hill Country. His father was active in politics and emphasized public affairs. This influenced LBJ to spend his career in politics. /1

#ResistanceRoots In 1928, LBJ earned his teacher’s certificate and worked with destitute Hispanic students. This helped form his attitude toward the government’s role in addressing poverty. From 1935 to 1937, he directed a program putting young Texans, including African Americans, to work building roadside parks. /2

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Annie Webb Blanton was born on this day in 1870. A teacher and suffragist, Blanton was the first woman in Texas to hold statewide office. She was elected superintendent of public instruction in 1918 and instituted many needed reforms. /1 Blanton was born in Houston, graduated from La Grange High School at age 16 and soon began her teaching career. After completing her undergrad at UT Austin, she served on the English faculty at North Texas State Normal College in Denton, now the University of North Texas. /2

#ResistanceUnited

The right-wing propaganda machine has geared up full bore to criticize Harris’s economic policies. They’re calling them “gimmicks” and even pulling out their favorite bugbear — communism.

Guess what? They’re lying to you. Again. /1 First of all, her policies in no way come close to resembling communism. They could call them cantaloupes or carburetors with as much validity.

No, her policies continue and build upon President Biden’s wildly successful policies ... and the right wing is scared sh!tless. /2

#ResistanceRoots

People associate “trickle-down economics” with Ronald Reagan, but it’s far older than that. For over a century, Repubs have pushed economic policies favoring corporations and the wealthy, suggesting that economic growth trickles down to the lower classes. /1 In his famous “Cross of Gold” speech of 1896, Democrat William Jennings Bryan used the metaphor of a leak: “There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below.” /2

Today in history, 1944: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill, the last of his sweeping New Deal reforms. By compensating returning service members for their efforts in WWII, the bill helped drive America’s economic expansion over the next 30 years.

#ResistanceRoots Officially titled the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the G.I. Bill was designed to prevent America from falling back into the Great Depression and avoid a repeat of the Bonus March of 1932, when 20,000 unemployed veterans and their families protested in Washington. /2

Today in history, 1954: The Supreme Court unanimously rules that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to all races, nationalities and ethnicities. The decision in Hernandez v. Texas broadened civil rights laws to include Mexican Americans and other groups. /1

#ResistanceRoots Peter Hernandez was a Mexican American agricultural worker who was convicted of murder in 1951. His pro bono legal team appealed the ruling because there were no Mexicans on the jury, even though Jackson County, Texas, had a large Hispanic population. /2

Today in history, 1954: The Salk polio vaccine field trials begin at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Va. More than 1.6 million children in the U.S., Canada and Finland participated, making it one of the largest clinical trials ever conducted. /1

#ResistanceRoots Polio is an infectious disease that occurs primarily in children, often resulting in paralysis. It had reached epidemic proportions in the early 20th century and was associated with the “iron lung” that was used to help those with respiratory paralysis breathe. /2

Today in history, 1963: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Ala., for his anti-segregation protests. Dozens of other protestors were also arrested for defying an injunction against their activities. /1

#ResistanceRoots The protests, which began on 3 April, were orchestrated by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and its partners. Birmingham’s mayor accused “outsiders” of stirring up trouble, and the Commissioner of Public Safety obtained the injunction. /2

Today in history, 1972: The U.S. Senate passes the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) and sends it to the states for ratification. Ratification seemed certain until a “conservative” backlash led by Phyllis Schlafly derailed the amendment. /1

#ResistanceRoots The ERA was designed to ensure legal equality of the sexes and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex. It was first proposed in 1923 but languished until the 1960s. U.S. Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY) and feminists Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem pushed for its passage. /2

Today in history, 1962: In the waning days of the Red Scare, American folk group The Weavers are told they must sign a political loyalty oath to appear on The Jack Paar Show. Every member of the group refused, and their appearance on the show was canceled.

#ResistanceRoots The Weavers were founded in 1948 by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays. The group was instrumental to the folk music revival of the 1950s, helping launch many other careers. Their rendition of “Goodnight Irene” stayed at No. 1 for 13 weeks in 1950, and they sold millions of records. /2

My cousin underwent a lobotomy sometime in the 1940s or 1950s. No, she wasn’t mentally ill. She was subjected to this surgery simply because her husband authorized it. In those days, lobotomy was often prescribed for women to alleviate anxiety and insomnia. /1

#ResistanceRoots At the time, the mentally ill were institutionalized in understaffed, overcrowded asylums. Neuropsychiatrist Dr. Walter Freeman popularized transorbital lobotomy to rescue patients from this fate. He and surgeon James Watts published a paper on the surgery’s benefits in 1937. /2

It’s interesting to see how the two major parties have switched sides over the past 125 years. The 1896 presidential election is instructive. Some history books focus on the battle between gold standard (Repubs) and bimetallism (Democrats) but there’s more. /1

#ResistanceRoots The election took place amid the Panic of 1893, a depression that caused widespread unemployment. By this time, many Americans were wage earners not farmers or shopkeepers. The high unemployment rate was devastating. The Populist Party emerged from this economic environment. /2

Today in history, 1948: Dense smog claims 11 elderly victims in Donora, Penn. Fog had trapped toxic pollutants from a zinc smelting plant close to the ground, making thousands sick. The tragedy led to the passage of the 1955 Clean Air Act. /1

#ResistanceEarth
#ResistanceRoots The zinc smelting plant had been releasing high levels of sulphuric acid, carbon monoxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere for years. There was no regulation of air pollution at that time. Everything changed when fog rolled into Donora on Oct. 26, 1948. /2