A first in a series of short films on Lyme activism For “The Activists”
Author Archive
Lyme Stories (2015)
Monday, April 2nd, 2018Foundation Road: The Nobel Prize Lecture By Bob Dylan
Monday, June 5th, 2017JFK on Equal Pay
Tuesday, April 4th, 2017Its Equal Pay Day. JFK, in 1963, signed the “Equal Pay Act”…and we still have a long way to go…at about 1 minute into this video …a woman asks Kennedy about Equal Pay for Women…my view is that all public service should carry with it public knowledge of it …not lack of knowledge through Government obsfucation of the details of it…we should know more about this issue today…than we do. Below, a transcript of Kennedy speaking on the day he signed the “Equal Pay Act:”
June 10, 1963
I AM delighted today to approve the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits arbitrary discrimination against women in the payment of wages. This act represents many years of effort by labor, management, and several private organizations unassociated with labor or management, to call attention to the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job. This measure adds to our laws another structure basic to democracy. It will add protection at the working place to the women, the same rights at the working place in a sense that they have enjoyed at the polling place.
While much remains to be done to achieve full equality of economic opportunity–for the average woman worker earns only 60 percent of the average wage for men–this legislation is a significant step forward.
Our economy today depends upon women in the labor force. One out of three workers is a woman. Today, there are almost 25 million women employed, and their number is rising faster than the number of men in the labor force.
It is extremely important that adequate provision be made for reasonable levels of income to them, for the care of the children which they must leave at home or in school, and for protection of the family unit. One of the prime objectives of the Commission on the Status of Women, which I appointed 18 months ago, is to develop a program to accomplish these purposes.
The lower the family income, the higher the probability that the mother must work. Today, 1 out of 5 of these working mothers has children under 3. Two out of 5 have children of school age. Among the remainder, about 50 percent have husbands who earn less than $5,000 a year–many of them much less. I believe they bear the heaviest burden of any group in our Nation. Where the mother is the sole support of the family, she often must face the hard choice of either accepting public assistance or taking a position at a pay rate which averages less than two-thirds of the pay rate for men.
It is for these reasons that I believe we must expand day-care centers and provide other assistance which I have recommended to the Congress. At present, the total facilities of all the licensed day-care centers in the Nation can take care of only 185,000 children. Nearly 500,000 children under 12 must take care of themselves while their mothers work. This, it seems to me, is a formula for disaster.
I am glad that Congress has recently authorized $800,000 to State welfare agencies to expand their day-care services during the remainder of this fiscal year. But we need much more. We need the $8 million in the 1965 budget for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare allocated to this purpose.
We also need the provisions in the tax bill that will permit working mothers to increase the deduction from income tax liability for costs incurred in providing care for their children while the mothers are working. In October the Commission on the Status of Women will report to me. This problem should have a high priority, and I think that whatever we leave undone this year we must move on this in January.
I am grateful to those Members of Congress who worked so diligently to guide the Equal Pay Act through. It is a first step. It affirms our determination that when women enter the labor force they will find equality in their pay envelopes.
We have some of the most influential Members of Congress here today, and I do hope that we can get this appropriation for these day-care centers, which seems to me to be money very wisely spent, and also under consideration of the tax bill, that we can consider the needs of the working mothers, and both of these will be very helpful, and I would like to lobby in their behalf.
The President Show: Trump on Par to be The Most Corrupt American President in History
Tuesday, March 21st, 2017Coming back soon with more from “The Activists”…but exactly two months in today, and this story is emerging all over the world. At The President Show, we always liked the Donald….We always also liked Huey Long as well…but are willing to say that Long’s immense intelligence was hurt badly by personal problems that did border on the kind of liabilities that Trump’s greatest detractors would say Trump has: over confidence bordering on delusion. An inexplicable inability to deal with ANY KIND of criticism (and a serious taste for vengeance related to that) An interest in personal enrichment through the illegal use of a public job for profit, which in Trump’s case is actually literally more disturbing than we’re used to seeing, because of what seems to be a blatant disregard for anything other than the success of those at the top of the heap, and also a potentially more blatant use of the office of the presidency for profit, than we have ever seen in the United States.
At this moment, in a field in which one serious move can sometimes come close to completely redeeming a President in the public’s eyes…all the wrong VERY serious moves are being made. When you do not refute the story that your security bill is higher than what you seek to cut from the arts and the care of the aged…you are running into Huey Long (who of course was from completely the opposite side of the political spectrum) type problems very very early…in this presidency.
The Activists” Kimberle Crenshaw, National Press Club 1/21/2017 PART 2
Tuesday, March 7th, 2017“The Activists” Kimberle Crenshaw, National Press Club/Women’s March on Washington January 21, 2017
Tuesday, March 7th, 2017“The Activists” Cynthia Johnson Fights to Get Her Mother’s Home Back
Monday, February 13th, 2017Cynthia Johnson from The Georgia Pictures Company on Vimeo.
Last week on “The Activists” Amin Husain talked about where the Occupy Wall Street Movement is today…to augment what he said….it’s EVERYWHERE today. Its all over the campaign of Bernie Sanders…perhaps in a tiny bit of a less genuine way it’s all over Hillary Clinton‘s campaign….and Trump Rubio and Cruz are, uh, thinking about it (arguably this is not true). This is from an Occupy protest in front of Morgan Stanley in the fall…Susie Johnson (Her daughter Cynthia Johnson is pictured below) is an 80 year old woman who lost her home 14 years ago because of a mistake, according to Morgan Stanley, made by Morgan Stanley…4 misplaced paymnts that she made. We have approached #Ronkuby about this and so far have heard nothing. Pretty sure William Moses Kunstler would sue the crap out of Morgan Stanley on Johnson’s behalf, but I know nothing about this field…perhaps the best person around the ask….is next up on “The Activists.” The long time president of the William Moses Kunstler foundation and one of the greatest theatrical Activists in modern history, Randy Credico. You don’t have to be #Ronkuby to call Jamie Dimon at 212-270 1111 to talk about it, but it wouldn’t hurt.