What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures. Samuel Gompers, The Shoe workers’ journal, Volume 16‎ (1915) p.4

lichen+g.singlaub 4 on may day

my green daybreak.edit1

acme artist collaboration : my green daybreak
lichen – synthethizer and d.hopkins – photographs

my green daybreak : short film, edited by d.hopkins

see also: my green daybreak photo gallery at d.hopkins home page

lichen+g.singlaub 3 w bell tone
from convergence : 3 with bell tone

from natural year : converting light into sound
06 lichen 3-42 converting light into sound

**** NOTICE ****
It is time to support your 3rd grade teacher

acme arts collective and its member artists are cooperating to publicize the attack on public employees carried out by both the Democrats who control the statehouse in Illinois and the Illinois Republicans who have conspired with the oligarchic predatory class (the one percent) to demonize Illinoisans who selflessly choose to serve the public as teachers, police, firefighters, public safety inspectors; your neighbors who’s energies have educated your children, saved the lives of your parents and grandparents and, yes, worked thanklessly to attend to the waste that is created daily by the vast mechanisms in modern America that shift wealth from the poorest to the most wealthy.

Our friends and neighbors who chose to give up the comforts that would have otherwise been accorded to them in our unfair two class system should they have decided to ‘make money in the private sector’ and cravenly given their energies to gamble and steel in the fashion of America’s financial sector are now being attacked in a organized and systemic fashion by the multi-headed Cerberus that is the financial/political/media industrial complex. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce and the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago have banded together in a greed induced blitzkrieg to steal pension benefits from poor, old, sick, infirm and basically helpless Illinoisans who spent their lives working to make the civic space of Illinois function for the past 30 years.

That is correct, the richest industrialists, the most bought off press and our hopelessly sycophantic lap-dog politicians who run Illinois have banded together for the single purpose of taking food out of the mouths of our neighbors and taking medicine away from our friends who are disabled, infirm and diseased for the simple to understand single purpose – because they are greedy.

Lets break it down -
The Industrialists:
These are Illinoisans who exploit the value added to our state by public employees every single day. Their employees were taught how to read, write and reason by your neighbor, a school teacher. They ship the plastic widgets that they sell to make themselves fabulously wealthy on roads that were built using public funds that created thousands of middleclass private sector jobs, and are kept safe by public sector engineers, safety inspectors and police. But these unpatriotic parasitic wealthy Illinoisans refuse to pay their fair share of income taxes to support the intellectual and physical infrastructure in Illinois that they themselves used to become wealthy and, instead, are conspiring to ensure that old ladies do not have life saving medications.

The Media:
The Editorial board of the bankrupt Chicago Tribune, who themselves amass outrageous pension benefits that ensure that they will each receive pensions of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year when they retire, have banded with private sector companies to make certain that the school teachers and librarians who read the Chicago Tribune will have to choose between medicine and food in their retirement. Acting as the water-carrier for wealthy individuals and corporations, the Chicago Tribune has led a greed inspired propaganda blitzkrieg against the poorest among us who gave their entire working careers to serve the public. The Chicago Tribune does not think that it is fair that the average retired state employee who receives a pension lives on $20,000, but thinks that giving a combined $42.5 million in bonuses to a group of its employees just this year amounts to being a ‘productive business enterprise’…did I mention that the company is bankrupt?

The Politicians:
In this great country (which has been the spawn of many courageous citizen politicians, from Robert La Follette to Teddy Roosevelt) it is an embarrassment that Illinois political culture has become nothing more than a pay-to-play indictment waiting to happen. Unlike the public servants who did their jobs for their entire careers who today’s politicians want to steal from, the politicians in the Illinois statehouse, and again embarrassingly both the controlling Democrats and the Republicans, did not do the single most important thing in their job description for the past 30 years; they failed to raise sufficient revenue to run the state because they were scared that raising taxes on the wealthy would anger the wealthy who decide who is going to be elected. During these decades, these same bought-off fake public servants showered wealth on the richest Illinoisans by reducing taxes, providing tax holidays, abolishing health and safety regulations and gifting the rich and powerful with sweetheart no bid contract deals. The abject failure of Illinois politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, to do their job to raise enough revenue to teach our children and protect our streets (while simultaneously enriching themselves with donations from rich individuals and corporations) has led them to conclude that the only way to fix the problem they created by not doing their job is to steal money and medicine from the poorest, sickest and most volurnerable Illinoisans.

We say : ENOUGH!

End the tax breaks for the wealthy.

End the financial hand-outs to the wealthy in the form of sweetheart deals and no bid contracts given to the politically connected dollar donating wealthy.

We demand that PUBLIC SERVANTS/our politicians do their job and raise sufficient revenue to run our state.

We demand that PUBLIC SERVANTS/our politicians stand up for Illinoisans who chose give their energies, talents and intelligence to all of us as they chose to become public servants.

We demand that PUBLIC SERVANTS/our politicians pledge to not cut pension benefits of old, infirm, disabled public employees. Our strength and energy made the wealthy wealthy, it is time for them to pay us back for our hard work

TAX THE WEALTHIEST ILLINOIS TO PAY FOR THEIR FAIR SHARE OF THE SERVICES THAT THEY HAVE UTILIZED TO BECOME WEALTHY.

IT’S ONLY FAIR

Take action and contact your state senator and state representative today and demand that public workers be provided the benefits that they have earned and tell them in no uncertain terms:
“Raise taxes on the wealthiest Illinoisans to pay our teachers, police, firefighters and all public servants who we all rely upon everyday”

call the Illinois State Legislature today – 888-412-6570
and call Governor Quinn today – 312-814-2121

image by d.hopkins

lichen+g.singlaub 6 p

lichen+g.singlaub 1 w acc & moog

lichen+g.singlaub 2 the first

lichen+g.singlaub 3 w bell tone

lichen+g.singlaub 4 on may day

lichen+g.singlaub 5 the second

lichen+g.singlaub 6 p