Latest news with #GreatDepression
Gulf Today
an hour ago
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Farmers protest unjust immigration system
During the Great Depression, my great grandfather and other farmers in Wisconsin organised penny auctions to help prevent some of his neighbors from losing their property to foreclosure. On the day a farm was put on the auction block, farmers in the area closed down the roads around the farm — the only people allowed to enter were the farmer whose property was being auctioned, a bank representative and the auctioneer. Then, when the auction was held, the farmer facing foreclosure would put in a bid for his own farm — sometimes as little as a penny, according to the Tribune News Service Today farmers are no longer organising penny auctions, but they are engaging in solidarity actions with immigrants. They are bringing their tractors to marches in defense of immigrant rights, as well as partnering with organisations that lead know-your-rights trainings and challenging warrant service agreements between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local law enforcement that, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, 'can embolden police to engage in racial profiling.' The flurry of ICE activity in California, which has included arresting day laborers at Home Depot and chasing down farm workers in fields, is breaking up families, devastating communities and making it impossible for farms to function. President Donald Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, has tried to justify these actions by saying that undocumented workers have broken the law, either by crossing the border without authorisation, overstaying their visas or using fake Social Security numbers to get a job. Technically, he is correct — in the same sense that enslaved African Americans broke the law when they escaped their captors. My point is that laws can be reformed, especially when they entail a clear injustice that defies common sense. Trump himself recently posted on Truth Social: 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.' He promised that 'changes are coming' to the nation's immigrant crackdown. While Trump quickly reversed himself, there are a host of things that Congress could do to improve the current situation. These include the American Families United Act, which provides a legal pathway for the more than million undocumented spouses of US citizens; the American Dream and Promise Act, which would grant permanent residency with the chance of citizenship to college-bound youth who came to the United States without status when they were children; and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which expands the H2A visa program for agricultural workers. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, has even proposed an exemption to visa limits for fish processing workers. All of these bills should be given due consideration, as they could help prevent the government from wrecking the farm economy and ruining the lives of vulnerable people to score cheap political points. We are in this mess due to a broken immigration system that needs reform. Specifically, while ending a system of national quotas that favored migration from western Europe, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 capped the number of immigration visas for people from the Western Hemisphere at 120,000. This provision, which passed when migration to the United States was virtually nil, is one reason why so many immigrants from Mexico and Central American states are undocumented. Another reversible wrong step is the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, passed during the administration of President Bill Clinton. Part of his general 'tough on crime' agenda, this law permanently bars status adjustments for people who had come to the United States, left, then returned without legal authorization. In effect, Clinton made it impossible for millions of people to gain legal status if they had criss-crossed the border to care for a sick relative or attend family events.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Automotive
- San Francisco Chronicle
Rex White, who was NASCAR's oldest living champion and a Hall of Famer, dies at 95
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Rex White, who was NASCAR's oldest living champion and a 2015 inductee into the Hall of Fame, has died. He was 95. NASCAR and the NASCAR Hall of Fame confirmed White's death on Friday. No additional details were provided. 'Rex epitomized the formative days of NASCAR — a true pioneer whose contributions helped shape the foundation of our sport," NASCAR chairman Jim France said. "His hard work, dedication and talent allowed him to make a living doing what he loved most – racing cars. He was the model of consistency – finishing in the top five in nearly half of his races – and dominated the short tracks. "On behalf of NASCAR and the France family, I want to offer our condolences to the friends and family of Rex White.' White won the 1960 Cup Series title and 28 Cup races in a career that spanned 233 starts across nine seasons. He led the final five laps in 1958 at Champion Speedway in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to earn his first career victory and scored 13 top-five finishes in 22 starts. White won five more races the next season, but didn't earn his only championship until 1960, when he won six times in 44 starts. He won seven times the next year, when he was runner-up to fellow Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett in the championship standings. White then won eight times in 1962, but finished fifth in the standings as he competed in only 37 of the 53 races that year. White never contested a complete season at a time when NASCAR ran as many as 62 times a year. White notched a career-high six victories at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, where NASCAR this year returned after a lengthy absence. He also won three times at North Wilkesboro Speedway and two times at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. Born during the Great Depression and raised in Taylorsville, North Carolina, White suffered from polio as a child and that altered his gait for most of his life. He had an early interest in cars and was working on the family Model T by the time he was 8. He had learned how to drive two years earlier using a neighbors truck. 'I was unaware the car on which I labored represented hope to people around me, frustration to those trying to stop illegal moonshine," he said. "I saw automobiles as transportation, not the symbol of an upcoming billion-dollar sport.' White purchased his first car in 1954 when a relative of his wife helped him with the $600 needed to buy a 1937 Ford. He immediately began racing as a means to earn a living. White ran his first race in the Sportsman division at West Lanham Speedway in Maryland. He went on to win the championship in his rookie season of the Sportsman division. He moved up to NASCAR two years later and by the time he won the championship five seasons later, he was named both NASCAR's most popular driver and driver of the year. 'Growing up on a North Carolina farm, Rex familiarized himself with all things mechanical and enjoyed driving anything with wheels," said Winston Kelly, executive director for the NASCAR Hall of Fame. "Rex was among NASCAR's pioneers who remained very visible at tracks and industry events for years. He was a dedicated ambassador who enjoyed supporting any event or activity he was requested to participate in. 'NASCAR has lost one of its true pioneers.' ___
Fox Sports
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Fox Sports
Rex White, who was NASCAR's oldest living champion and a Hall of Famer, dies at 95
Associated Press CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Rex White, who was NASCAR's oldest living champion and a 2015 inductee into the Hall of Fame, has died. He was 95. NASCAR and the NASCAR Hall of Fame confirmed White's death on Friday. No additional details were provided. 'Rex epitomized the formative days of NASCAR — a true pioneer whose contributions helped shape the foundation of our sport," NASCAR chairman Jim France said. "His hard work, dedication and talent allowed him to make a living doing what he loved most – racing cars. He was the model of consistency – finishing in the top five in nearly half of his races – and dominated the short tracks. "On behalf of NASCAR and the France family, I want to offer our condolences to the friends and family of Rex White.' White won the 1960 Cup Series title and 28 Cup races in a career that spanned 233 starts across nine seasons. He led the final five laps of the 1958 season opener at Champion Speedway in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to earn his first career victory and scored 13 top-five finishes in 22 starts. White won five more races the next season, but didn't earn his only championship until 1960, when he won six times in 44 starts. He won seven times the next year, when he was runner-up to fellow Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett in the championship standings. White then won eight times in 1962, but finished fifth in the standings as he competed in only 37 of the 53 races that year. White never contested a complete season at a time when NASCAR ran as many as 62 times a year. White notched a career-high six victories at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, where NASCAR this year returned after a lengthy absence. He also won three times at North Wilkesboro Speedway and two times at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. Born during the Great Depression and raised in Taylorsville, North Carolina, White suffered from polio as a child and that altered his gait for most of his life. He had an early interest in cars and was working on the family Model T by the time he was 8. He had learned how to drive two years earlier using a neighbors truck. 'I was unaware the car on which I labored represented hope to people around me, frustration to those trying to stop illegal moonshine," he said. "I saw automobiles as transportation, not the symbol of an upcoming billion-dollar sport.' White purchased his first car in 1954 when a relative of his wife helped him with the $600 needed to buy a 1937 Ford. He immediately began racing as a means to earn a living. White ran his first race in the Sportsman division at West Lanham Speedway in Maryland. He went on to win the championship in his rookie season of the Sportsman division. He moved up to NASCAR two years later and by the time he won the championship five seasons later, he was named both NASCAR's most popular driver and driver of the year. 'Growing up on a North Carolina farm, Rex familiarized himself with all things mechanical and enjoyed driving anything with wheels," said Winston Kelly, executive director for the NASCAR Hall of Fame. "Rex was among NASCAR's pioneers who remained very visible at tracks and industry events for years. He was a dedicated ambassador who enjoyed supporting any event or activity he was requested to participate in. 'NASCAR has lost one of its true pioneers.' ___ AP auto racing: recommended Item 1 of 2 in this topic
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Automotive
- Winnipeg Free Press
Rex White, who was NASCAR's oldest living champion and a Hall of Famer, dies at 95
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Rex White, who was NASCAR's oldest living champion and a 2015 inductee into the Hall of Fame, has died. He was 95. NASCAR and the NASCAR Hall of Fame confirmed White's death on Friday. No additional details were provided. 'Rex epitomized the formative days of NASCAR — a true pioneer whose contributions helped shape the foundation of our sport,' NASCAR chairman Jim France said. 'His hard work, dedication and talent allowed him to make a living doing what he loved most – racing cars. He was the model of consistency – finishing in the top five in nearly half of his races – and dominated the short tracks. 'On behalf of NASCAR and the France family, I want to offer our condolences to the friends and family of Rex White.' White won the 1960 Cup Series title and 28 Cup races in a career that spanned 233 starts across nine seasons. He led the final five laps of the 1958 season opener at Champion Speedway in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to earn his first career victory and scored 13 top-five finishes in 22 starts. White won five more races the next season, but didn't earn his only championship until 1960, when he won six times in 44 starts. He won seven times the next year, when he was runner-up to fellow Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett in the championship standings. White then won eight times in 1962, but finished fifth in the standings as he competed in only 37 of the 53 races that year. White never contested a complete season at a time when NASCAR ran as many as 62 times a year. White notched a career-high six victories at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, where NASCAR this year returned after a lengthy absence. He also won three times at North Wilkesboro Speedway and two times at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. Born during the Great Depression and raised in Taylorsville, North Carolina, White suffered from polio as a child and that altered his gait for most of his life. He had an early interest in cars and was working on the family Model T by the time he was 8. He had learned how to drive two years earlier using a neighbors truck. 'I was unaware the car on which I labored represented hope to people around me, frustration to those trying to stop illegal moonshine,' he said. 'I saw automobiles as transportation, not the symbol of an upcoming billion-dollar sport.' White purchased his first car in 1954 when a relative of his wife helped him with the $600 needed to buy a 1937 Ford. He immediately began racing as a means to earn a living. White ran his first race in the Sportsman division at West Lanham Speedway in Maryland. He went on to win the championship in his rookie season of the Sportsman division. He moved up to NASCAR two years later and by the time he won the championship five seasons later, he was named both NASCAR's most popular driver and driver of the year. 'Growing up on a North Carolina farm, Rex familiarized himself with all things mechanical and enjoyed driving anything with wheels,' said Winston Kelly, executive director for the NASCAR Hall of Fame. 'Rex was among NASCAR's pioneers who remained very visible at tracks and industry events for years. He was a dedicated ambassador who enjoyed supporting any event or activity he was requested to participate in. 'NASCAR has lost one of its true pioneers.' ___ AP auto racing:
Scoop
2 days ago
- Politics
- Scoop
Letter From Westphalia, Germany; 6 June 1933
Friday, 18 July 2025 On Saturday I came into possession of this letter, transcript below. I will note that the recipient of the letter is someone I know a bit about; I would like to know more about his time in London, circa 1930-1932. I understand that he attended the London School of Economics. I never met him; but, me being a student of the Great Depression, I wish I had known him while writing my MA thesis. Eric Salmon lived from 1903 to 1990. Certainly a patrician, he was an Auckland City Councillor and associate of Auckland's 'Mayor Robbie'. He would never have had any sympathy with the Nazi cause. Nevertheless, I would like to think that, like me, he would have had some empathy for the German people in 1933; and the many other people then caught up in events – indeed zeitgeists – moving too fast, and on too great a scale. Sadly, I will never be able to see Mr Salmon's letter to his German contact (probably written late in 1932). I do not know if he replied to the letter below: ________________________________________________________________________________ Home Address: Schwelm (in Westfalen) Kirkplatz 7 Schwelm, 6th VI. [June] 1933 Dear Mr. Salmon, Your letter with the interesting account of your native [town?] and the economic position of New Zealand was a great joy to me, and I thank you very much for it. I hope, you won't take it amiss that my answer comes so late. During the last months I spent all my time in finishing the dissertation for my doctor examination. Some days ago I finally handed it to my professor, and I am now preparing for the oral examination which will take place in the end of July. – How are you getting on with your work? In the course of rather a short time the political situation in this country has thoroughly changed, and the questions you put to me in your letter have found a sudden solution. I may add : also a good one. You are perhaps astonished to read that, for – as far as I know – most of the great newspapers of the world tell you just the contrary. The reason for it is that the European nations, above all France and Polonia [Poland], but England too, fear a new war, and this fear is in an inexcusable way nourished by all those German people who don't agree with the new spirit and the new methods. The Jewish question is also of great importance. The measures we took against the Jews were not at all cruel or unjustified, as you read in English papers. All we try is only to reduce the enormous influence and power of the Jews in Germany to an extent which compounds to their small number. More and more their influence has become a destructive force in our national life. What you see nowadays in Germany is not a warlike or an extremely militaristic spirit or a mass barbarism (as many foreigners suppose), but the will to build a new nation, in which no longer the unchecked liberalism of the postwar years reigns. We were standing just before a complete breakdown and the chaos of Communism, which would have been fatal for the whole world. In this dangerous moment came the revolution of our nationalist party under the great leader Hitler. It marks the beginning of something quite new in Germany. We know that a great many tasks are waiting for us, but seeing them we are no longer desperate as it was the case in the last years. The new Germany has a new hope, a new will, and a new energy, and with them we shall overcome all problems and difficulties. What do you think about the change in Germany, and what do you read in the papers? I should be very glad to hear something about it from you. Hoping you are quite well I am with kindest regards, yours Theodor Hort. ________________________________________________________________________________ My Comments: Herr Hort – presumably Dr Hort, soon after – is writing from Schwelm, eleven kilometres east of the Westphalian city of Wuppertal. To the west of Wuppertal is Düsseldorf, on the Rhine; Cologne is to the south, near where the river Wupper flows into the Rhine. To the north of Wuppertal is the Ruhr Valley, Germany's western industrial heartland. Between Düsseldorf and Wuppertal is Neandertal/Neanderthal. Most of the journey between Wuppertal and Schwelm can be taken on the 'world-famous in Westphalia' Wuppertal Schwebebahn, the suspension railway, built between 1897 and 1903, which runs above the Wupper River. I am privileged to have ridden on that railway in 1984. I had hoped that, because the railway is still there, that Wuppertal had not been bombed by the RAF during WW2. No such luck. I found this article in the Burnie Advocate (Tasmania), 1 June 1943: Wuppertal raid one of heaviest of war. This was eight weeks before Operation Gomorrah decimated Hamburg. (On Wuppertal, refer also: Planning a Bombing Operation: Wuppertal 1943, My grandfather, the bomber pilot, When the singing stops on Christmas Eve, German tragedy of destiny, Wikipedia.) I have no idea what Theodor Hort's fate was. Maybe he was recruited for the notorious Einsatzgruppen, which was top-heavy with academic doctors? More likely he turned away, at least in his mind, from the excesses of the New Germany; nevertheless serving his country in some capacity, albeit out of the kind of obligation that would have been hard to refuse. There is a high chance he died during the war. I'm guessing he would have been about 35 years old in 1943. Throughout the twentieth century, many young Australians and New Zealanders studied at the London School of Economics. (William Pember Reeves was its Director from 1908 to 1919.) So did many upper-middle-class Germans; Herr Hort clearly fell into that class-category. Other Germans to study economics at the LSE included Heinrich Brüning and Ursula von der Leyen. Brüning was Chancellor of Germany from mid-1930 to mid-1932. Brüning was the centrist politician most associated with the economic collapse of Weimar Germany during the Great Depression, thanks to his 'liberal' policies of stubborn fiscal conservatism. He sought to balance the Budget at any cost. Germany and the world paid a very high cost indeed. I understand that the "unchecked liberalism" Hort refers to is the economic liberalism of Brüning and others (think today's neoliberalism), and not so much the social liberalism of Berlin that was an icon of 1920s' Germany. (As a part of that social liberalism, Germany in 1918 – Germany's first annus horribilis last century – became a proper democracy, with proportional representation, and votes for women.) I would imagine that Hort's parents would have voted for Bruning's Zentrum (Centre) party. While it started as a Catholic party, it was actually the foundation party of German 'Christian Democracy', having already broadened its base by 1930. Westphalia, Düsseldorf and Cologne represented the West German heartland of centrist Christian Democratic politics. And consistently these places cast the fewest votes for Adolf Hitler's party. (The city of Cologne, the least-Nazi-supporting city in Germany, was the first large German urban centre to be carpet-bombed by the British, in 1942.) Nevertheless, at least in March 1933, young Theodor probably voted for the National Socialists. (Although his "great leader" epithet was probably a direct translation of 'führer' rather than an expression of devotion.) The Enabling Act of 1933, which ended democracy in Germany, had been in force for three months before Herr Hort wrote this letter. He, like many others in a desperate country, was willing to forego democracy if other goals might better be achieved without it. Further, by 1938, Hitlernomics – borrowing 'as much as it takes' to re-arm and reorganise along Spartan lines – was looking like a great success. (Something suspiciously similar took place in the Bundestag in 2025, exactly 92 years after the Enabling Act, using the outvoted 'lame-duck' parliament to get the necessary two-thirds majority. This time it was the 'fascists' – AFD – who were against borrowing to re-arm; and the outvoted fastidiously-anti-borrowing neoliberal FDP, who should not have been there.) Finally, here, we should note that Germany as a whole – and certainly western Germany – while Judeophobic, was probably not much more Judeophobic than other European countries (including the USA); and that most German Jews, to 1918 at least, had seen themselves as more Germans than Semites, and played a significant role in the German armed forces in World War One. The circumstances of 1918, however, made it a relatively easy task for would-be-politicians with nationalist agendas to scapegoat Jews. There were vastly more Jews living in the countries east of Germany, and they from 1940 to 1944 ended up being very much in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Germany in 1933, 'Jewish' identity was used very much as proxies for the twin-devils who many Germans believed had 'stabbed Germany in the back' in 1918 (at a time when Germany appeared to be winning on the western front) and again in (and around) 1931; 'Bolshevik' Communists and big-finance capitalists. The 1918 claim of a 'stolen war' was an evidentially-false conspiracy theory which had the appearance of credibility to many desperate people looking for simple answers, and scapegoats. On the Bolshevik matter, while Theodor Hort and others will not have known about it until much later – the winter of 1932/33 was the peak of the Holodomor where four million mainly-Ukrainians were deliberately starved to death by Josef Stalin's Moscow-based regime. Too many elements of the western press were looking the other way. Soviet Communism was being romanticised in certain middle-class and working-class circles in 'the West' (though demonised in others: refer Three Women who Launched a Movement); the mega-atrocities were downplayed by mainstream journalists such as Walter Duranty. It was the full discovery in 1939 of the Holodomor and the later Great Purge (s) that enabled the Nazis to contemplate an even worse genocide, a substantial part of which became the Shoah. The Shoah, while the worst genocide in the last 100 years (at least outside of Mao's China), was neither the first nor the last real-world example of 'hunger games'. ------------- Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Keith Rankin Political Economist, Scoop Columnist Keith Rankin taught economics at Unitec in Mt Albert since 1999. An economic historian by training, his research has included an analysis of labour supply in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and has included estimates of New Zealand's GNP going back to the 1850s. Keith believes that many of the economic issues that beguile us cannot be understood by relying on the orthodox interpretations of our social science disciplines. Keith favours a critical approach that emphasises new perspectives rather than simply opposing those practices and policies that we don't like. Keith retired in 2020 and lives with his family in Glen Eden, Auckland.
