Thoughts on The Three Stooges, Stereotyping Blue Collar Workers and using Cognitive Dissonance to attack Rail Workers

Note: This was written originally as a comment on an essay on the remake of the Three Stooges in Working Class Perspectives, http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/calling-all-stooges-slapstick-and-the-working-class/

The remake or recreation of the Three Stooges by the Farrelly brothers is mission impossible, because the individuals involved, the original Stooges, were more than an act, but their caricature of American society in its many faces. An actor can act, perform or more correctly mimic, the Stooges, but cannot recreate the mindset that motivated their performances.

When I was a young child, I loved the Stooges, but as I became older, their performances were almost painful for me to watch. This is because I had begun to indentify those caricatures created by the Stooges as the stereotypes present in our society, particularly in the identification of blue collar workers as being "less than," the middle and upper classes. The Stooges' caricaturization of bumbling plumbers, carpenters and many other bluecollar workers was utilized by the power paradigm to attack workers in campaigns aimed at esmasculating labor unions and workers later on in the 20th century and have been built in to the over perception fo those work with their hands and backs.

As a railworker for many years, I was always amazed at how little value my fellow workers equated to their labors in making the national economy,"work." This was a consistent theme in my years on the railway as the company continuously represented the labor of the workers as a liability on their balance sheets and consequently a drag on the profitabilty of the company.

In the railroad industry, the carriers had undertaken a national campaign in the 1950's and 1960's to disparage the labor of their workers with the infamous "Featherbedding" offensive. The underlying reason for this campaign was to garner public support for the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs on the nation's railroads in the shops, railyards and on the trains. In the Featherbedding campaign, railworkers were caricatured as being lazy, and sleeping on the job. Train crews, especially firemen, conductors and brakemen were caricatured as lazy, sleeping on cabooses and engines while getting paid. Left out of the picture was the fact that train and yard crews worked as much as 16 hours at a time and could be forced to work multiple tours of duty.

The Fireman position was a central issue as the rail companies wanted to eliminate that position from road and yard crews. During the steam era on the railways, the fireman was a necessary position, as he kept the fire in the boiler on the locomotive going and regulated the steam created in it that power the engine that pulled the train. The diesel-electric locomotives were first introduced into yard and local switching service and steam locomotives were still dominate in over the road freight and passenger service. In 1950, the National Carriers Conference (NCC), the organization that negotiated the national agreements wth the railroad brotherhoods, offered the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineers who represented the firemen, an agreement guraranteeing the firemen's jobs on the railroads of the nation. This agreement called the National Diesel Agreement was accepted by the BLF&E.

With the arrival of the diesel-electric locomotive and its introduction into road freight and passenger service on a wide scale, the role of the fireman became ambiguous in its original design with the elimination of the steam engine. The NCC and its rail company members, recognized that the National Diesel Agreement was a mistake and begin to place pressure on the operating rail unions to renegotiate crew size, and the fireman position was at the head of the list to be eliminated, along with cutting a brakeman's position on train and yard crews.

Rail labor, especially the union representing the firemen, defended the fireman position, saying that since locomotive engineers were promoted out of the ranks of the firemen or as they now called them, enginemen and the experience and education needed for an engineer to operate a locomotive and run a train came from the enginemen's time working on the railroad. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineers made the case that their members were the railroad equivalent to the airline co-pilot and necessary.

The railroad operating brotherhoods went to the state legislatures in many states and were successful in getting legislation passed, requiring railroads to operate with a "full crew," that consisted of at least five men and in some states, six men. In Ohio, they were successful in getting a full crew law passed, the mandated that trains operated in the state, have a crew consisting of a Conductor, two Brakemen, an Engineer and a Fireman. All of these laws were passed with the idea of public safety and the preservation of rail jobs in Ohio communities. The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen put together a pamplet that discussed what 100 rail jobs meant to a community in terms of local commerce and taxation. All of these actions were undertaken to counteract the featherbedding campaign by the railroad companies.

The featherbedding campaign was aimed at all rail crafts, in the shops and on the trains, as the elimination of the steam engines had reduced the need for many of the mechanics who worked in the shops in those areas directly related to steam power. By the late 1950's, the total workforce on the railroads were reduced by at least one million workers as large shops whose purpose was designed around the steam engine, were shut down and the workers fired. These actions caused many dislocations for workers and their families, as many of them had to move to the ends of their railroads to keep their jobs, and many more found that their railroad job was gone forever.

By the middle 60's, most crew agreements had been changed because of either renegotiation or imposing of agreements through Public Law Board and National Rail Adjustment Board decisions. Rail train crew sizes in full crew states stayed the same, but in many southern and western states, crew sizes were reduced, with the fireman position being the first one eliminated. Some 13 years later, these train crew consist battles were resumed by the NCC. These wars went on, with the intrafracidal behavior of the railroad brotherhoods against each other contributing to the eventual victory of the rail carriers.

These wars finally came to an end in the early 90's, with loss of not only the fireman but also the brakemen positions on train crews. It is now common for road train crews to have only two people, a conductor and an engineer, while in the yard, many crews have only one person, a conductor, who performs all of the duties of the four workers lost in these fights, operating the locomotive by remote control while physically performing the work of coupling the railcars together to build the large trains common today.

Too bad, the contemporary version of the Stooges does not deal with the idea of one person coupling hundreds of rail cars together while controlling the movement of the locomotive from a distance of sometimes a half a mile, this would make good comedy, but it makes a terrible job and raises questions of workers safety sacrificed to increase the bottomline of the company. When I hired out on the railroad in 1966, there were about 1.2 million people working in the industry, now that number is less than 120,000. Where once upon a time, rail unions used to argue the benefit of 100 rail jobs in the community, rail unions are less than a shadow of their former selves and have little power after selling their jobs for a dollar raise at contract time.

Fear and Loathing, 2012

As we watch the Republican process for choosing the next candidate for President of the United States unfold in a series of tortured, Kabukoesque debates. That are more like a Sumo wrestling match where large people try to shove one another out of the ring and that seem to have no end, a thought occurred to me. Well, not really occurred to me, for it came to me while I was reading Hunter S. Thompson's memoir, "The Proud Highway," his record of his life from 1955-1967, as caricatured in letters he wrote over that time. In the beginning of the book, in the editor's note, the origination of the phrase that became Hunter S. Thompson's trademark, "Fear and Loathing," is discussed. Thompson first used it in a letter written to his friend, William Kennedy, after the assassination of JFK, in which he wrote about his anger over this murder. Thompson wrote, "There is no human being within 500 miles to whom I can communicate anything--much less the fear and loathing that is on me after today's murder," continuing, "From now on it is dirty pool and judo in the clinches. The savage nuts have shattered the great myth of American decency." When you look at the primary process on the GOP side in 2012, Thompson's words come full into play, as the savagery of it amazes and depresses at the same time those who try to make sense of it.



Thompson's catch phrase that became embedded in the titles of two of his books, underlines the state of America at this intersection in her history. Because fear has become the hallmark theme in our society, we are fearful of someone and something, everyone and everything in the third century of our existence. Loathing has become the other part of our existence, because in the post 9/11 world that is our nation, loathing someone, or something has become standard in the emotions displayed in everyday life. That which we loath the most, is of course ourselves, for we in our subconscious minds, loath what we have become. That is why we long for days gone by, when fear and loathing were abstract words and thought to have no part in the emotions of our society.



Thompson's imagery in his words, "dirty pool and judo in the clinches," describe perfectly the depths to which American politics has descended, and with Citizens United, this process is now layered over top with obscene amounts of money used to drown out what used to be a marketplace of ideas and create a whorehouse of excess. The voter turnout in the primaries show that even GOP voters who have been the most disciplined base, are staying away. In the Democratic primaries, with only the President on the ticket for the most part, members have now began to engage in a fratricidal frenzy of loathing of each other. This is brought about by not being able to accept criticism of their candidate by other Democrats. Criticism that has been leveled against the President since the days of the fight over healthcare reform; the reneging of the promise to close the prison at Gitmo, our 21st century version of Devil's Island; embracing war and not peace and the list goes on and on. Criticism, that the President said was important to effect change, citing pressure that was placed on FDR to make him go against the political grain of his day, and that if we wanted change, we would have to make it happen by making him do it.



Pressure or criticism, that has paid off in his decisions on Keystone XL, on access to birth control for poor people and even going after those who committed criminal acts in the financial meltdown in 2008 and its aftermath. In fact the only thing that has kept the robber barons and plunderers at bay has been the rapid response of social media, tens of thousands of citizens can, with a few clicks, register their concern over things like Keystone XL, censorship of the internet by the corporations and the increase of poverty amongst women and children in the richest nation in the world. Thoughts that were included in the SOTU, the words, "rich" and "poor," and the announcement of an investigation into Wall Street wrongdoing, were placed there by pressure from the people of the United States upon his office. Americans are crying out for an end to what Thompson called, "dirty pool and judo in the clinches," that has been part and parcel of the electoral process, and a revival of the idea of what Thompson called, "the great myth of American decency." We want this great American hate fest to come to an end, and bring back that the idea of caring and loving for our neighbors that was the real hallmark of our nation.

Acts of Empire

The news is humming with the impact of a video of Marines who are apparently urinating on the bodies of dead Afghan Insurgents. One would think from comments that this is an occurrence not in keeping with the traditions of the US Armed Forces and history of our country. But in truth it is exactly in keeping with the traditions of the US Military going back to the 19th century and forward to the 20th century, one has only to look at those operations by our armed forces that could be part of what are defined as acts of Empire.

This activity has its beginnings in the 19th century expansion of our nation across the continent to the Pacific and the campaign against the Native American Tribes who were seen as obstacles to that movement. The idea of marginalizing of the Native American Resistance fighters, either in the popular press, by esmasculation of their souls and self respect by introducing alcohol, or the actual extermination of their ability to resist by killing women and children indiscriminately, was a common tactic and used throughout that century. The tactics developed and honed in the western campaigns against the Indians, were exported to the Philippines in the last year of the 19th century to smother a resistance struggle by the Filipino Nation.

While the idea of extermination was a component of the campaign against the Indian Nations in the United States, it became the centerpiece of the Philippine Insurrection from 1899 to 1910. While the US Government or President Teddy Roosevelt in 1902 declared victory in the Philippine conflict, but in truth it continued for eight more years in many parts of that nation. Roosevelt declared victory to accomplish one thing, to get the struggle off of the front pages of the US papers, as it had became an embarassment to the US in the release of stories of genocide, torture and crimes against civilian populations had occupied the front pages for several years. The leader of the Filipino Resistance, Emilio Aguinaldo surrendered in 1904, to stop the indiscriminate killing of his people by the US Military. Waterboarding, which has become a watch word in the Global War of Terror, can trace its first use by the US Military in the Philippine Insurrection as a interrogation tool and called the "Philippine Water Treatment." Concentration camps, where civilian populaces were moved to in order to keep them from supporting the Resistance fighters, were adopted from the British who were using them in their South African Campaign against the Boer Resistance fighters. By our count, over 250,000 Filipino civilians, men, women and children were killed or died as a result of the conflict, and by the Filipino count, around 1,000,000 civilians were killed or died in the struggle against US hegemony and occupation of their nation.

Throughout the first 30 years of the 20th century, our troops were sent routinely to nations located south of our border, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicauragua and Panama played host to the US Marines for short or long periods of time. In the Caribbean, Cuba, Haiti, and Dominican Republic were occupied frequently by the US Marines, mainly to insure that governments friendly to the business interests of the United States were installed. Those citizens who resisted these visits were catagorized as bandits, and killers by the US, the most famous was Sandino in Nicauragua, who resisted the efforts of the US Marines to install "friendly" dictators. The Marines were eventually successful using 20th century technology against fighters armed with rifles and handguns and installed a dictator who ruled for over 40 years, Somoza. Who was ironically overthrown by a insurgent movement called the Sandinistas in the later 1970's.

Since WWII, we have intervened in the western hemisphere, in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvado, Nicauragua, Honduras, Chile, Grenada and Panama directly or indirectly to maintain a ruler friendly to our business interests aka our national interests. We have resurrected the 4th Fleet, which sails off of the coast of Eastern South America, for the purposes of restoring the idea of a watchful eye on our southern neighbors, who have been electing truly democratic and representative governments across that continent and that is a worrisome problem for a nation dependent on resources from that region of the world. In other parts of the world, we have also intervened with not much success, we bankrolled operations in Africa to check peoples' revolutions funded by the former USSR and aided the South Africans in their fight against African Nationalist movements.

In Asia, we fought a 20 year war in Southeast Asia, ultimately embroiling Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in warfare that had genocidal tendencies, killing millions and millions of civilians, using the tactics developed in the Philippine Insurrection, which was held up as a "successful counterinsurgency war" by the US General Staff. The climax of the Vietnam War in May of 1975, threw a damper on the idea of prolonged and protracted intervention by force for the next 25 years. Desert Storm in 1990-91, was a campaign that achieved its goals and then extracted most of our forces as soon as those goals were achieved. Our activities in the Adriatic region, in the 1990's, were a reaction to pressure from Europe and although we still have a presence there, it is muted. With the attacks on 9/11, a new era of unrestrained imperial ambitions was unleashed on the world by the US. Attacking terrorists and terrorism and the eradication of same became the mission, and the idea of borders, and sovereignty disappeared, as we have recognized neither in that pursuit.

The invasion of Afghanistan in early '02, the defeat of the Taliban was just the beginning and wetted the appetites of those who wrote the "Plan for a New American Century," in the 1990's, were now in charge and further invasions of nations seemed possible to make this plan a reality. The invasion of Iraq, and the destruction of Saddam was the next step taken by the new American Empire. The glitch that became the hair in the soup of these American Czars, was the unplanned for insurgency that arose in the fall of '03 in Iraq. An insurgency that made eventually made the longterm occupation of Iraq by the United States untenable and the factor for our leaving that country in the early morning hours in the last month of '11.

Now we are in the midst of disengagement from Afghanistan, and it is clear that the continued operation of US and NATO forces will not resolve the issues present in that nation. When you are in the midst of this kind of fights, frustration and rage will manifest in the troops sent to fight what is essentially a holding action. Because for no matter the amount of treasure, blood and sweat invested by them in this kind of operation, satisfactory results that will seem to make those sacrifices worthwhile will not or ever be forthcoming. This kind of frustration ends up in actions like that of those Marines who committed what is a unforgivable act on the dead bodies of their foes by any nation. It also ends up with the ordinary citizens of Afghanistan who are not resisting but do not want the foreign troops occupying their nation are labeled, the "enemy." So it follows that any action against an enemy is alright, drone attacks , shootings at checkpoints of civilians, and no knock raids in the middle of the night into the homes of Afghan families, that have killed thousands and thousands of innocents have undermined the reasons for our being there in the first place.

Our troops will be coming home from that remote and dusty place, which was before the Soviet Invasion, a backwater nation, that was referenced in some lines in poems written by another white imperialist, Rudyard Kipling, that defender of the British Empire and marginalizer in chief of indigenous independence movements. The sun eventually set on Kipling's British Empire despite its best efforts to keep that from happening, and that leaves the question, when will it set on the American Empire?

Portsmouth Boys

Portsmouth Boys

We headed north from the big river, looking for an idea

Following a path blazed by the Indians, called Route 23
Along the river named by them, the Scioto, towards the lakes named for them

We had studied the three R's for in school for 8, 10 or 12 years

Graduating "magna cum laude" in Readin,' Ritin,' and Route 23
The road beckoned us with the stories sent back by others gone before

Some of us made it in stages, stopping at Dayton or Columbus

Some of us came straight away, not stopping along the way
But all of us came for a reason, to find that job was only a part of it

In our youth, we liked to cut it up and have a good time
But we worked as hard as we played, not forgetting the reason
We made new friends, bonded with old friends and started families

While we came here to the north, some for a short time and others for good

Home for us was always an abstract thing, where we were at was not home
For we never forgot, where we came from and who we were

Portsmouth Boys, not afraid of making a journey, taking a chance and to make a new life...

By Patrick R. Saunders, 01.07.2012