(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
U.S. and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq including a “decapitation attack” aimed at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of the country’s leadership.
There were nearly 300,000 American, British and other troops at the border.
President George W. Bush warned Americans that the conflict “could be longer and more difficult than some predict.” He assured the nation that “this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory.”Read about the cost of this war Timeline This Week in Peace History
And More:
March 18, 1970: American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO
My father was a hard working postal worker, then called a postal clerk who sorted the mail, by hand. Up till this strike he was making less take home than I started making working construction till I went into the service. He did have some benefits and a pension plan, I didn’t. After the strike they started making a more comfortable wage as well as the postal service started automating, as they advanced they gave schooling in the newer technologies which he was able to advance within as he learned to repair these new sorting etc. machines. He retired some years later and they lived comfortably on a decent pension for his hard work of many years, a pension he contributed to. Also around this time companies, turning into corporations, were axing older workers as they were approaching retirement age, leaving them out of any and all pensions they had already contributed into and living off lower waged jobs and then Social Security.
The first strike against the U.S. government and the first mass work stoppage in the 195-year history of the Postal Service began with a walkout of letter carriers in Brooklyn and Manhattan who were demanding better wages. Ultimately, 210,000 (in 30 cities) of the nation’s 750,000 postal employees participated in the wildcat strike. With mail service virtually paralyzed in New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia, Pres. Nixon declared a state of national emergency and assigned military units to New York City post offices. The stand-off ended one week later.
Congress voted a six percent raise for the workers retroactive to December.More including a video about the strike
As to myself and the construction trades. After the service I went back into the industry, developed many more skills in many of the trades as well as the heavy investments into the tools etc. needed and worked as our wages stagnated with few benefits till forced into early retirement with the collapse we saw coming a few years before it hit.
March 18, ’70: Country Joe, March 19, ’63: Pete Seeger
Country Joe McDonald was convicted of obscenity and fined $500 for leading a crowd in his infamous Fish Cheer
(“Gimme an F !”) at a concert in Massachusetts.
It was the band’s introduction to “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag,” a Vietnam protest song.The lyrics Pete Seeger’s version of the controversial song
The blacklisting of Pete Seeger (and other members of The Weavers) from the folk music television show “Hootenanny” prompted a boycott by 50 folk artists (The Kingston Trio, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary, among others).
Seeger had become a cultural hero through his outspoken and joyful commitment to the anti-war and civil rights movements, and helped popularize the anthemic “We Shall Overcome.”Pete Seeger bio from Encyclopedia of the American Left Pete singing and talking about the music with Hugh Hefner on TV in the early ’60s This Week in Peace History
1 comment
Postal Service in his sights if we are to believe his snide comments — but it is good to read of your dad’s history there. I am crazy about my postal worker but of course I am a dirty hippie.
Until there is a draft – younger people may not get it, any of it. Of course, with the economy the way it is many are enlisting. Contractors’ work too – a friend of my son who was a policeman is not doing some “contracting” stuff in Iraq. I think this will become even more prevalent as we continue to invade the world.