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Shananigan's avatar

Thank you for the great article!

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Ellie Alive In 25's avatar

Chorus

It’s hard times, Cotton Mill Girls,

Hard times, Cotton Mill Girls

It’s hard times, Cotton Mill Girls, hard times everywhere

I worked in a cotton mill all of my life

Ain’t got nothing but this Barlow knife

It’s hard times Cotton Mill Girls, It’s hard times everywhere

chorus

In 1915 we heard it said

Move to the country and get ahead

It's hard times Cotton Mill Girls, It’s hard times everywhere

chorus

Us kids worked 14 hours a day

For 13 cents of measly pay

It’s hard times Cotton Mill Girls, It’s hard times everywhere

chorus

When I die don’t buy me at all

Just hang me up on the spinning room wall

Pickle my bones in alcohol, it’s hard times everywhere

chorus

Someone has a copyright for this as of 1962, but I think it may be older. There are other lyrics.

This, IMO is one of the reasons Republicans and "conservatives" are so against abortion. They plan ahead.

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Lefty Wright's avatar

Looking at Bureau of Labor Statistics, wages in textile and apparel jobs have always been at the bottom for wages in industrial settings. As mentioned here it is why Northern states, the first ones to take advantage of the theft of mass production equipment like water and steam powered looms from Great Britain, suffered in the late 1800s as companies moved south. Often buying up entire towns so getting rid if the company would kill the town. Some relatives grew up in Danville Va and Dan River Mills owned half the property, renting houses to employees, running the bus service do they could get to work, even setting up women's dorms with strict rules so farmers would not worry about sending their daughters to the big city. Apparently they did not employ young children because they built gyms and even an indoor pool and running track for kids and adults, along with movie theaters. But once you got in it was ten hour days in dust and heat with Sunday the only day off until federal laws limited the workday. So a threat to close down the mills in town was always resisted. Now that the mills have moved overseas the town is dying since it is on no major roads, has no commercial air service, and rail lines are bypassing it. Meanwhile some other towns in North Carolina, within 50 to 100 miles that also depended on textiles, tobacco, and furniture, have managed to switch to other manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and tech jobs. But they had other infrastructure to serve as a base, including major universities and roads. But still wages in NC typically lag national income in industrial work since there are no unions.

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Larry Schmitt's avatar

OT: Did someone hit him with a 2x4 overnight?

Tuberville is ending blockade of most military nominees, clearing way for hundreds to be approved

https://news.yahoo.com/sen-tommy-tuberville-says-hes-183554232.html

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Revenant's avatar

you wish. that anti-American asshole should be whacked with a 2x4 at least twice a day, just to drive home the message "go home. we don't like you"

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Prostate of Dorian Gray's avatar

I can cover hitting him at least one of the weekend days.

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Lefty Wright's avatar

Too violent. Put him in stocks and let people throw rotten fruit at him three hours a day six days a week. With Tuesday off, not Sunday.

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Revenant's avatar

Back when, time in the stocks entailed serious personal risk. People died or lost eyes if someone wanted to throw rocks or brickbats. The town watch or whatever was unlikely to protect the helpless victims.

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DaveB's avatar

That’d be a real shame.

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Villago Delenda Est 🇺🇦's avatar

Wanting to repeal child labor laws is count one in the indictment of Newt Gingrich for crimes against humanity.

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fair_n_hite_451's avatar

Add Sarah "AwShucks"abee to that list for actually doing it in her state.

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Raccoon of Vengeance's avatar

Tubertone will no longer block military appointments.

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Villago Delenda Est 🇺🇦's avatar

This is a good start. I still want this scumbag to be assigned to barnacle scraping duties.

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Teen Laqueefa's avatar

With his penis.

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Jen of Defense (War!)'s avatar

I think every time they swear in a newly promoted officer, he has to stand there and offer a cream pie for which to face him.

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SkeptiKC's avatar

Once again I'd like to buy a couple of drinks for whoever it was who scared Traitorville sufficiently to compel him to recognize the error of his ways.

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Comment deleted
Dec 5, 2023
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bluePNWcats's avatar

Lol. I just realized that your acronym is ACAB 😆 was that on purpose?

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SkeptiKC's avatar

All too entirely accurate I am sure.

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Jen of Defense (War!)'s avatar

that sounds about right

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Villago Delenda Est 🇺🇦's avatar

That would cause the pathetic wretch to shit his pants.

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nodak.   988 if you need help.'s avatar

If they called it the united autoworkers klan, they would maybe have more luck.

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Phried Ω's avatar

Carl Van Perkins wrote a song about those shoes.

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Ellie Alive In 25's avatar

For people with more money than sense.

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fair_n_hite_451's avatar

Lol. $12,000 CanuckBucks ... but at least they ship here now! ;-)

Some people with money are too stupid to be allowed to have money.

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BillEGoatSmile's avatar

$8K +

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

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Jen of Defense (War!)'s avatar

contextual targeting...fail

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SkeptiKC's avatar

Crystal blue dissuasion...

As in "...no one in their right mind would invest in these".

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EyeQueue's avatar

Nice!!!!!!!

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Chicken ate my Ballot's avatar

It's a .....teckno clogg!

I wonder if it can break up stubborn Labor disputes.

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Mateo del Sol's avatar

I'm thoroughly convinced that "high fashion's" sole existence is to remove money from rich fools.

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President Rufus T. Superfly's avatar

Thanks for another great piece, Prof. Loomis! Your Ten Strikes book is fantastic btw.

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Parakeetist's avatar

OT: Oh, dammit: yet another talented individual person has skated off to the Lands Beyond.

Denny Laine has passed away.

I liked "Band on the Run" and "Live and Let Die." Turn them up, and take a drink of anything you want, in his memory.

Haven't seen if Sir Paul has made a statement or not.

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gnomemansanisland's avatar

Go Now - early Moody Blues - is his song and it's a classic. Love that song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2L3UzM_FfE

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gnomemansanisland's avatar

Correction - Go Now was a Bessie Banks song and a cover by the Moody Blues - Denny Laine vocal.

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SkeptiKC's avatar

[raises just opened bottle of brew high]

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EyeQueue's avatar

OMG!!!!! Band on the Run is one of my favorite songs ever. :( :( :(

RIP.

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SkeptiKC's avatar

I am listening to some of my early adolescent memorable moments in my head right now and that's one of the songs playing.

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EyeQueue's avatar

As a child I was for some reason delighted with this song (and others of Paul McCartney and Wings, like "Listen to What the Man Said" and "Uncle Albert").

It was just silly stuff that for some reason stuck with me for the rest of my life. XD

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SkeptiKC's avatar

I just LOVE "Uncle Albert"!

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EyeQueue's avatar

I do, too!!!!!!

If anyone ever talks over the "butter pie" bit when it comes on my playlist, I immediately start the song over, LMAO!

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President Rufus T. Superfly's avatar

I had a paper route and shoveled snow for money when I was 12. This is why I support 60 hour workweeks for kids running dangerous textile machinery.

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Jen of Defense (War!)'s avatar

True story: I started working when I was 11, with the ubiquitious paperroute. And lemme tell ya, the amount of people willing to stiff a kid a quarter is very many people.

At 12 I started baby sitting- hour here and there at first, built up from there.

at 15 I hit up retail and stuck in there for many a year as many do.

Looking back, I do not think any of that shit was actually ok, but we were poor and my folks had enough of a time keeping roof and lights going. That is what they mean by the poor folk were only too happy for that work. When you're desperate you really will do anything. And poor folk were told that unions killed jobs (entirely believable; they saw it happen with their own eyes, that the company picked up and left to go somewhere non union) so they became anti union which is amazing since much of the labor movement had huge roots in those same places.

Not sure how that gets fixed, it is rather ingrained, even more so now that the jobs that had been lured away from unionized areas are now somewhere with even cheaper labor.

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"M"'s avatar

"When you're desperate you really will do anything"

That is why they want to take things like healthcare and refuse to support things like a UBI that people could actually live on.

They are desperate to KEEP us desperate

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Jen of Defense (War!)'s avatar

Too true.

Remember when I was a kid in Philly, someone (Republican, of course) was floating the idea of pushing back the city working age because gosh darn it, adults are too expensive.

Philly though is a pretty blue collar union town, or was then, so it got smacked all to hell, but one of the local rags actually whined about how no one wanted to make their kid learn the value of earning money anymore.

Aside, my dad, a life long republican and UAW man, wrote a VERY scathing reply to that op ed and they actually published it. But they listed him as a "lifelong Democrat"

Was funny as hell, he got so mad

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Elviouslyqueer's avatar

>>Until organized labor figures out how to get southern workers to vote yes on unionization, its power will remain limited.<<

Sometimes it's not a question of how to get them to vote yes, but protecting them so they can vote at all. When Nissan came to Canton, MS, to build their big-ass factory outside Jackson, the friendly good ole boys at the capitol made a lot of promises about making absolutely damn sure there would be no "union troublemakers" stirring up shit with the workers. This was done under the guise of "y'all don't want these good jobs to go away now, do you?"

Same story with Mercedes in Alabama. Local pols just called in their goons to scare workers into not unionizing.

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Mighty Little Dog's avatar

Duh. Hire Norma Ray, obviously.

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memzilla's avatar

The main reason that more technical jerbs don't want to HQ in the South and Midwest is the lack of an educated workforce. And their current employees don't want to relocate to the South or the Midwest because of bad schools, anti-abortion laws, and the concomitant lack of good healthcare.

Be careful what you wish for, Red States. Sure glad I'm not a recruiter down there.

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Momo's avatar

I heard it explained that it's not hard to find employees here, but it's impossible to find management. Few big-money cityboys with fancy Business degrees are willing to relocate to towns that don't have Starbucks. And even if the man is willing to relocate, the wife ain't.

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Jen of Defense (War!)'s avatar

Because all big city men are only interested in starbucks and also ruled by their women folk?

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Puddinhead's avatar

It's not just "big city men" who are "ruled" by the women folk. Many are the redneck and/or "coonass" here in Louisiana who by Word are the "King of Their Castle" but by deed live by "Happy Wife, Happy Life". LOL

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Momo's avatar

That was the gist of the article I read. It was a story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch about why a specific company decided not to relocate to the city. The actual reason cited was that the wife took a ride on a city bus and was appalled by the poor people. If a medium-size city can't attract upper management, it gave me a whole new perspective on why very few major employers are willing to set up shop hours from a big city. Starbucks is a good stand-in for all of the other things a city offers that rural areas can not.

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Raccoon of Vengeance's avatar

This really depends on your definition of Midwest.

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Mighty Little Dog's avatar

Is the bot attack over?

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Chemical's avatar

Getmoney88 dotcom.

Let's make cricket team!

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Elviouslyqueer's avatar

She love you long time.

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EyeQueue's avatar

ARGLE BARGLE JINGLE JANGLE BANJO STRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!!!!!!!

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Parakeetist's avatar

Oh cool, let's dance

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EyeQueue's avatar

*dances*

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Antifa Commander's avatar

Quick, Elon! Make up another unworkable transit scheme to derail it!

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President Rufus T. Superfly's avatar

This will be worse than New Jersey Transit after a Rangers game.

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Boogie Mama's avatar

Truly! The stories will be epic 😂

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