From "14th Amendment" to labor plantation
Part Four
Lazy as a cat! But not for long…
By Joseph Rorie
drorie1@sc.rr.com
Since I’ve not heard from y’all, I suspect you may not be getting my reports; or, if so, you’re being heavily guarded by the dogs. I have whole bagfuls of reports from these cats, so I trust you’re not under such heavy watch as we are here. I know there’s a new "patriotic" bill authorizing the kingdom to increase the number of guard dogs and pay them more, so that we cats I mean these cats will not fully meow their stories across the land even though they’re out of the bag for several weeks now. In any case, I shall commence this latest report in hopes that it gets through.
Confronted by several cats still wanting to add more of what they know about the dictionary conspiracy, having heard them out I’m persuaded that I should send you this most valuable information. However, as promised about the 80th Congress, I shall break from it for the moment to give out this imperative information that will help y’all understand why you’re working harder than ever and accomplishing less than in times past.
And I must first admit my own mistake. It was the 79th Congress, not the 80th. I was corrected by one of these cats thinking the error might be blamed on them. With that out of the way I’ll now introduce to you a "freecat," as he proudly meows his status. I can’t give out his real name, but shall refer to him as Mr. Beveridge Cat: a real big, fully-whiskered Maine coon. Mr. Beveridge Cat has no time to lie around or just purr and watch the birds hopping; he’s been very active at pursuing his call of awakening the cat world out of their sleep and getting them back into the more alert state of cat napping.
When asking him how he came to be a political spokescat, I found he had lived a quite normal life, until circumstances sent him forth purrless for several years. Having nothing to purr about in all those dark and foreboding days, he grew wise for the experience. Mr. Beveridge Cat once lived all snuggled in a very fine, cozy, but low-budge home. In other words, there was no such thing as a cat in the cradle and a silver spoon in that house. Day after day he would lazily saunter from the one room to another, stop by his favorite window and leap up there to watch a few birds, claw on the ole pillow, etc. In short, he was simply taking in the handouts available. But one night when his owners were having a budge crisis and wondering how they might make such and such payments, he heard one of them say, "Regrettably, it looks like we’ll just have to rob the kitty to help us out this time."
Boy, did he light out from that place never to return, even though the wife had come to his defense and argued belligerently that they not touch the kitty. That cat was not taking any chances. Which sent him from alley to alley, street to street, living on the scraps of what were already scraps left over from other scrappers. And some talk about a dog’s life! Try being a cat when our mortal foes are going through their "dog days." He finally came upon a Librarian in need of a lap friend to pet and cuddle while she read. This is when he began awakening to the reality of how most cats get caught up holding their paws out wanting tuna for nothing.
I found him chatting with the other cats, telling them how this had all come about that he was overworked and underpaid.
Hold on! I think I see the Fourteenth Amendment cat behind the counter peering out at me and motioning that I should hurry over. He finds very little leisure to meow much of what he knows at a sitting, always prepared to dash away again. So, while I’m listening to him now, I’ll just play you this recording I made of the talk between Mr. Beveridge Cat and these other cats about socialism in the 79th Congress.
Meow, Meow, meeow! Hold it, Kitty, you need to speak English around here. I know you’re excited, and the bag you have been in for so long must’ve been an ordeal for you.
"Yes, it has, Detective…" a pause, then meowed out loud: "Cat-eyes!" He’s gaping at me while taking full credit for having exposed my secret identity.
"Huh!! Detective Cat-eyes? How did you find me out? I though I had hidden my secrets well."
"What do you take us unbagged cats for?" he asks, giving me the ole eyebrow look. "Can’t you see what’s happening now? There’s no more masquerading! We cats-out-of-the-bag are catnipping that so-called Project for Some Kind of a New American Century in the bud; or, if you prefer, snatching a sparrow posed as an eagle from the Bush. For exposing lies is what we do."
Okay, we’ll deal with this secret identity thing later.
Here he begins cuddling up to me, impatient to reveal the contents of that bag he was let out of.
"Not to be imposing," this as he double purrs, "but you did promise to hear me out, and then just wandered off on that dictionary thing."
"Surely," I replied, "you’ll agree it was a story worth publishing? "
"Oh yes, but mine is a hot one too. And you did tell those you’re relaying this to that what I’ve got will prove interesting."
"Okay! However, as you’ve interrupted the sequence of my reports, I want you to know you’re not the only cat here with a story to tell. We are all unbagged, but the truths we must send out aren’t welcome by the media¢cracy; only certain local weekly newspapers and a few patriot tabloids and talkshows listen to us. Those who expose their Big Lie, claim the establishment liars, are a vast, right-wing conspiracy. So let us grab the attention of folks who will recover constitutional self-government at home once learning how it slipped away, and that means we stop scratching at each other for the catbird seat and meow amiably one at a time, not all these "catatonic" sounds and grievous screechings echoing so as would recall that black cat bricked up inside a wall in Eager Allenpoe’s tale. You can’t all meow at once!"
"Yes, sir, I agree, and apologize for my overreacting. I do want to know more about Mr. Taylor cat and Mr. Dictionary cat and what else they further have to say."
"Okay."
"Okay what?"
"Okay you have the floor!"
"My story begins in London and…"
"In London? We don’t need to hear about what happened in London. We are American cats and have our own problems over here."
"Yes, but London is just where it began. The problem only migrated here as passed by the 79th Congress.
"Remember the good ole days when the American people were mainly enjoying a leisurely life? The time when you would catch a daytime ball game, and the Sapiens could even fill a stadium during daylight, or, as we now say, ‘working hours’?"
"Yea, those were the good ole days."
"Have you ever heard of William H. Beveridge?"
"From London?"
"Right; he was a leading socialist and chairman of the Inter-Departmental Committee for the British government. He wrote the ‘Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services.’ In 1942 he penned a sequel to this study and called it, Full Employment in a Free Society, a book published in November of 1944 which sold so well that a second printing of it was released the next month. In his first report, he proposed a ‘freedom from want.’ He aimed to render everyone ‘free’ from ‘idleness.’ In other words, if you can go to ball games, then you must have time on your hands; you’re idle, and, in his mind, ought to be working. By giving new meanings to old terms, a large part of the proposals in this work makes one fear the idleness of having to hunt, fish, go boating, attend ball games or spend time with the family. Government, after all, makes no money off citizens who just lie around. The status of ‘unemployment,’ then, should be a dread condition that scares one into making sure he’s working."
"So what you are saying is that this chairman guy, uh, Beveridge, was writing a book on the need to put everyone alive to work?"
"Well, he didn’t say it that way, but I think you can look around and see where each member of the household is working, ‘fully’ or if not, and bitterly trying just to make ends meet. On page 20 of his book in the second paragraph he states, ‘Idleness is not the same as want, but a separate evil, which men do not escape by having an income.’ His meaning, with regards to the term ‘full employment’ (pages 17 and 18), wasn’t that everyone should be employed but rather the scheme called for always having more vacant jobs than unemployed people. Just to quote him briefly:
"‘Work means doing what is wanted, not doing just what pleases one.
"‘All liberties carry their responsibilities. This does not mean that liberties themselves must be surrendered. They must be retained’ (page 23; by the way, is retained liberty still liberty?).
"‘It is much easier for men and women to change their occupations and it is much easier for boys and girls to choose their first occupations, with reference to the demand in particular industries, than it is for work-people of any age to move their place of residence’ (page 25; this was the first mention of ‘women, boys and girls’ as part of the social plan).
"‘On the views taken in this Report, the most urgent tasks in Britain, once war is over, are, on the one hand, the making of a common attack on the giant social evils of Want, Disease, Ignorance and Squalor, and on the other hand, the re-equipping of British industry, whether in private or Public hands…’ (page 31).
"‘Organized mobility means that if and when change is necessary, men and women shall be willing to change their occupations and their places of work, rather than cling to idleness’ (page 32).
"‘To ask for full employment while objecting to these extensions of State activity is to will the end and refuse the means’ (page 36).
"‘Finally, as the war has shown, there are many people not dependent on employment and not normally in the labour market, such as pensioners and married women, who can be drawn into employment at need. It may be necessary to use emergency powers of direction to get such people to work, but if that is necessary the war emergency itself will justify the use of such powers to the public opinion’ (page 130; emergency Powers?).
"‘Controlling the flow of adaptable juveniles is the simple, painless way of adjusting the total supply of labor in each industry to changes in demand’ (page 171; at least he was ‘thinking,’ uh, ‘painless’).
"Remember I told you that this book by Mr. Beveridge did not see print until Nov. 1944. The American edition – as if we needed his lessons, too – wasn’t published until 1945. However, it is clear that the London edition must have made its way into the hands of the President of the United States and was studied by the sitting Congress because, on Jan. 6, 1945, just shy of seven weeks from when the first edition appeared, certain identical doctrines began moving in the halls of Congress. On that January day the President proposed a plan for ‘full employment’ pitched as a ‘Second Bill of Rights,’ eight of which stood not only identical in nature to the Beveridge scheme but came almost in the same order proposed in his book. Those eight ‘rights’ were as follows:
"‘1. Full employment after the War is a Must Federal Program’ (I remind you of the above quote from Beveridge’s report: ‘after the war’).
"‘2. Demand for goods and purchasing power by private consumers must be high enough to replace the loss of war-time consumption by the Government.
"‘3. First reliance for the production of jobs is on private enterprise.’ If it fails, the government will make up the difference in order to avoid ‘mass unemployment.’ There will be need for close to 60,000,000 jobs.
"‘4. Federal financing of small business enterprise in peace as was done in war.
"‘5. The large outlays [the term outlays is used in Beveridge’s book] of money required should be raised through normal investment channels with the Federal Government taking the special; and abnormal risks’ (this really means the tax dollar will take on all failures from these ‘abnormal risks’).
"‘6. A part of this expansion will be made through the development of river watershed projects like TVA [hmm, I wonder if the Ashwander vs. TVA doctrine was now being considered], highway construction and housing.
"‘7. The millions of productive jobs in this expansion will be jobs in private enterprise.
"‘8. Under such a program the national income can be maintained at such a high level that the public debt can be retired in an orderly manner and a reasonable reduction made in taxes’ (did public debt retire or taxes get lower, it now being some 60-plus years later?).
"Inside less than a week of February the ‘Full Employment Act of 1945’ debuted as S.380, 79th Congress, first session. Throughout that year there were regular deliberations and changes but the final ‘Beveridge Plan’ passed the following year as ‘The Employment Act of 1946’…"
[Ahem.] Okay, I’m back and, yes, I did get some more information about that 14th Amendment. Now where were we? Let me cut that recorder off.
(Continued on next page)
I am sure you will agree, having heard this tape, that it’s high time to "let the cat out of the bag," as we put it. But let me further point out to you that we’ve also discussed this new term the President used, that had never been applied to the citizens of our several States in such a way before. The President said the new economic bill of rights could be implemented without discrimination as to "station."
Station? The normal anti-segregation formula had been: "without discrimination as to race, creed, color or national origin." Station, as it turns out, was the term used in Beveridge’s book, also noted and pointed out by Mr. Wallace in argument before the Senate committee.
It just goes to show how a cat that once toted a sign saying "Will roll on back and paw at stringed ball for tuna" can be down to nothing, but through the simple act of a catless librarian is now a "catchy" spokescat. The book he was reading while in the lap of his Sapien friend was called Whither Solid South? by Charles Wallace Collins, written in 1947. That would be the same Collins our "14th Amendment" cat mentioned to us in my first report.
Speaking of him, He only wanted to ask a question now that the Communist Party has been recognized as a political entity – one that could never take office, since the constitution forbids every other form of government except republican. So how can the "14th Amendment" be reconciled with that? Better yet, can the court grant a non-republican polity any recognition at all in our government? Purrrrty interesting, I must say.
Well then, let’s lap up what’s left and chat about the coming tuna crash.
What tuna crash am I talking about? Well, I’ve heard about some cats up there in the Northern States living in Catmandu that’ve opened their own banking system hoping to purr it by a catnapping Catgress, sneak a bill through calling for a Kingdom Reserve Bank. It would be issuing tuna certificates bearing different numbers. They’re referred to as Kitty or Tiger Notes, depending on value.
What? You must think we do nothing but stare at fish bowls! We’re not like you Sapiens. We will stick with the tuna and salmon standard as God is our witness. If the Kingdom Reserve Bank wants to pull the wool over our heads, then they better gather up a lot more sheep, because they’re going to need them trying to trap us. We’re out of that bag. Besides, we have watched what the Federal Reserve bank has done to the Sapiens, and we listen to Cat Stevens. He warned that longer boats were coming to take us, and advised us to "hold on to the shores."
I’m glad you are already aware of this, because, as I hear it, once their Kingdom Reserve Bank is enacted, they will appoint a Catman of the Board; and I believe Mr. Fluffspan is already the cat chosen to work your kingdom over. When this takes place, one may find that those who think his fishy notes guarantee a 6-ounce can of tuna on demand – as they will read in bold letters at first – could see them eventually good for nothing but kitty litter. And that, my friend, puts a new light on the phrase, "robbing the kitty." Also, don’t let some of those special pouches called Albacore mislead you. I see them showing up in the store quite a bit. They are good for now, but keep a close eye on the ingredients. See that your can opener stays clean and free from gummy buildup.
Until next time.