BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//InvisionCommunity Events 4.7.23//EN METHOD:PUBLISH CALSCALE:GREGORIAN REFRESH-INTERVAL:PT15M X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT15M X-WR-CALNAME:RMCommunityCalendar NAME:RMCommunityCalendar BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London TZURL:http://tzurl.org/zoneinfo/Europe/London X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=-1SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T020000Z RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=10;BYDAY=-1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:A Spoils of war government 1/26/2025 DTSTAMP:20250127T005855Z SEQUENCE:0 UID:162-7-c3fe8195a3dde498d013e477e2142422@aalbc.com ORGANIZER;CN="richardmurray":troy@aalbc.com DESCRIPTION:\n A Spoils of war government 1/26/2025\n\n\n\n https://aalb c.com/tc/profile/6477-richardmurray/?status=2833&\;type=status\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n IF YOU DIDNT CLICK THE LINK ABOVE\n\n\n\n T he USA is based on slavery and all that entails.\n\n MY THOUGHTS\n\n What is most unfortunate about the united states of america u.s.a. is people li ke me and others who live in modern times\, circa 1970 to today\,  were r aised with a u.s.a. that culturally engineered itself to blockade the past . Yes\, as a child of two book reading black parents who love true history i was raised knowing about the way the usa federal government operated no t too long ago. But\, this needs to be in schools. Instead you have parent s \, preach merit or earned living to children when the usa was founded an d lived through its entire life to modernity on nepotism in one form or an other. Yes the usa is fiscal capitalistic\, but from its beginning fiscal capitalism was merely a cover story for imperialism\, where whites absent the regal lineages could claim warrant of position\, as opposed to Europe where at he time the usa was born\, wealth was still connected to regal bl oodlines more than fiscal capitalistic value. Sequentially\, the whites of the usa always find ways legal or illegal  as per their tradition to mai ntain their fiscal capitalistic wealth \, regardless of their lack of meri t or earnings. This has not changed. In parallel\, blacks through the blac k church created this tradition of merited value in the usa which only all ows for power or growth for black individuals while the black populace suf fers under the machinations of white spoils.\n\n THE ARTICLE\n\n Sunday Mo rning\n\n How a president's death helped kill Washington's \"spoils system \"\n\n sunday-morning\n\n By Mo Rocca\n\n January 26\, 2025 / 9:52 AM EST / CBS News\n\n\n\n \"To the victor belong the spoils.\" For decades in the 1800s\, that phrase was more than a slogan\; it was the official hiring p olicy of the U.S. government. \"You win the election\, you're entitled to put all your own people in there\,\" said journalist and historian Scott G reenberger.\n\n\n\n He says that under that \"spoils system\,\" the main j ob requirement for most federal employees was … loyalty.\n\n\n\n It was a system inaugurated by Democratic President Andrew Jackson. \"When he cam e in\, he was – and this will sound familiar – he was afraid that sort of entrenched bureaucrats would resist his policies. And so\, he cleaned everybody out.\"\n\n\n\n Were people aghast at this? \"I don't think they were aghast when it began\,\" Greenberger said. \"But by the time we get t o this 1870s and the 1880s\, it was the one of the top issues on the natio nal agenda.\"\n\n\n\n This was a period of abundant wealth and corruption in American politics. \"It's a fascinating period with so many parallels t o our own time\,\" said Greenberger. But a fight was underway to replace t he spoils system with the hiring of qualified government workers\, regardl ess of their political views\, whose job security did not depend on whoeve r was president. \"Civil service reform\,\" as it was known\, may not soun d sexy\, but it was one the hottest political issues of the Gilded Age\, e ven attracting the attention of America's foremost author.\n\n\n\n In 1876 \, the same year he published \"Tom Sawyer\,\" Mark Twain participated in his first political rally in Hartford\, Connecticut\, said local historian Jason Scappaticci. It was a big deal: \"He had voted\, but he had never c ampaigned for anybody\,\" he said.\n\n\n\n After marching through downtown in support of Republican presidential nominee Rutherford B. Hayes\, the l egendary humorist called for an end to the spoils system. \"We will not hi re a blacksmith who never lifted a sledge\,\" he said on September 30\, 18 76. \"We will not hire a schoolteacher who does not know the alphabet … but when you come to our civil service\, we serenely fill great numbers of our minor public offices with ignoramuses.\"\n\n\n\n The speech landed on the front page of The New York Times. \"That just goes to show how vital he is\, how big his name is\,\" said Mallory Howard\, assistant curator at the Mark Twain House &\; Museum in Hartford.\n\n\n\n She's not surpris ed that Twain would have been so horrified by the spoils system: \"I think he felt it was embarrassing putting people in office who are not prepared . I think it doesn't make sense to him.\"\n\n\n\n Hayes made it to the Whi te House\, but little progress was made on civil service reform during his single term. Hayes was succeeded by President James Garfield\, who ran on reform.\n\n\n\n But only months after being sworn in\, the spoils system exacted its most horrifying toll. Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntl ed and delusional office-seeker named Charles Guiteau.\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n In 1881 Charles Guiteau sought a position in the administration of newly-ele cted President James Garfield. When his entreaties for a post were rebuffe d\, Guiteau shot the president. \n\n Three Lions/Getty Images\n\n Guiteau had campaigned for Garfield\, and believed that the president \"owed\" hi m. Worse still for reformers\, Garfield's vice president\, Chester Alan Ar thur\, suddenly elevated to the top job\, had climbed the ranks of dirty m achine politics\, enjoying the fruits of the spoils system along the way.\ n\n\n\n \"This was a nightmare scenario for the reformers\,\" said Greenbe rger. \"And then all of a sudden\, here he is\, he's President of the Unit ed States\, and he expresses support for civil service reform\, which shoc ked everybody.\"\n\n\n\n Yes\, in a surprising about-face\, in 1883\, Pres ident Chester A. Arthur – contrite\, by some accounts\, over the murder of Garfield – signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act\, the first of its kind in U.S. history. The law was strengthened over time\, laying t he groundwork for a professional bureaucracy responsible for everything fr om food safety to financial regulation.\n\n\n\n Greenberger said\, \"It re ally paved the way for a more active federal government.\"\n\n\n\n Of cour se\, the federal government of the late 1800s\, with about 50\,000 employe es\, looked like a lot different than today's workforce of more than two m illion. And critics\, including President Trump\, believe the numbers – and the protections afforded those civil service workers – have gone too far. Hence\, President Trump's executive order this past week aiming to m ake it easier to fire some federal workers. \"We're getting rid of all of the cancer\,\" he said.\n\n\n\n Scott Greenberger says maybe the time has come for another debate about the role of the civil service: \"Yes\, you s hould be able to fire people who aren't doing their jobs. And the protecti ons shouldn't be such that someone who's incompetent is allowed to stay in a job. At the same time\, if you eliminate those protections entirely\, t hen you go back to the sort of system that we had in the 19th century\, wh ere only political loyalists are serving these positions.\"\n\n\n\n A syst em undone by an unlikely hero who most people don't even remember was pres ident … one that even Mark Twain put on a pedestal. \"It's funny that we hardly remember the guy today\,\" Greenberger said. \"But when he died\, people\, including Mark Twain said\, 'Wow\, that guy was the greatest pres ident we'd ever had!'\"\n\n\n\n  \n\n\n\n Uniform Resource Locator\n\n ht tps://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-garfields-assassination-and-the-birth -of-the-civil-service/\n\n DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250126 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR