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Unions Quotes

“The most interesting aspects of the story lie between the two extremes of coercion and popularity. It might be instructive to consider fascist regimes’ management of workers, who were surely the most recalcitrant part of the population. It is clear that both Fascism and Nazism enjoyed some success in this domain. According to Tim Mason, the ultimate authority on German workers under Nazism, the Third Reich “contained” German workers by four means: terror, division, some concessions, and integration devices such as the famous Strength Through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) leisure-time organization. Let there be no doubt that terror awaited workers who resisted directly. It was the cadres of the German Socialist and Communist parties who filled the first concentration camps in 1933, before the Jews. Since socialists and communists were already divided, it was not hard for the Nazis to create another division between those workers who continued to resist and those who decided to try to live normal lives. The suppression of autonomous worker organizations allowed fascist regimes to address workers individually rather than collectively. Soon, demoralized by the defeat of their unions and parties, workers were atomized, deprived of their usual places of sociability, and afraid to confide in anyone. Both regimes made some concessions to workers—Mason’s third device for worker “containment.” They did not simply silence them, as in traditional dictatorships. After power, official unions enjoyed a monopoly of labor representation. The Nazi Labor Front had to preserve its credibility by actually paying some attention to working conditions. Mindful of the 1918 revolution, the Third Reich was willing to do absolutely anything to avoid unemployment or food shortages. As the German economy heated up in rearmament, there was even some wage creep. Later in the war, the arrival of slave labor, which promoted many German workers to the status of masters, provided additional satisfactions. Mussolini was particularly proud of how workers would fare under his corporatist constitution. The Labor Charter (1927) promised that workers and employers would sit down together in a “corporation” for each branch of the economy, and submerge class struggle in the discovery of their common interests. It looked very imposing by 1939 when a Chamber of Corporations replaced parliament. In practice, however, the corporative bodies were run by businessmen, while the workers’ sections were set apart and excluded from the factory floor. Mason’s fourth form of “containment”—integrative devices—was a specialty of fascist regimes. Fascists were past masters at manipulating group dynamics: the youth group, the leisure-time association, party rallies. Peer pressure was particularly powerful in small groups. There the patriotic majority shamed or intimidated nonconformists into at least keeping their mouths shut. Sebastian Haffner recalled how his group of apprentice magistrates was sent in summer 1933 on a retreat, where these highly educated young men, mostly non-Nazis, were bonded into a group by marching, singing, uniforms, and drill. To resist seemed pointless, certain to lead nowhere but to prison and an end to the dreamed-of career. Finally, with astonishment, he observed himself raising his arm, fitted with a swastika armband, in the Nazi salute. These various techniques of social control were successful.”

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Book:The Anatomy of Fascism
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“It was nicer that way. knowing that something called rights existed. The right to health care, to good and to schooling for our children . . . For us things were good; for others they were bad. Especially for the landowners, who are the ones who suffered most when we demanded our rights. They spend more and earn less. Besides, once we learned about the existence of rights we also learned not to bow our heads when the bosses scolds us. We learned to look them in the face.”

DignityUnionsWorkers RightsFarmworkers Rights
Book:One Day of Life
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“Rapid growth in wealth inequality results in the inevitable isolation of a very small, very rich, very privileged section of the community from the material experiences of everyone else. And when this out-of-touch minority group is enfranchised to make the decisions on behalf of people they don't know, can't see, have no wish to understand, and think of entirely in dehumanised, transactional, abstract terms, the results for the rest of us are devastating.”

LawUnionsEqualityInequalityFairnessEquityConservativesWorkers RightsInequityRight Wing Politics
Book:On Fairness
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“Hello Mrs Cannon,' said Melanie. 'Friday wants me to distract you so that she can get Parker to say something that isn't on his official scripts.' 'Really?' said Mrs Cannon. 'That sounds intriguing. Much more intriguing than this unspeakably boring polo match. Why don't you pretend to sprain your ankle, then I could pretend to be concerned?' 'Okay,' said Melanie. 'Does that mean I can lie down?' 'I wouldn't dream of trying to stop you,' said Mrs Cannon. 'I just wish I could do the same.' 'You could say you had a fainting spell,' suggested Melanie. 'What a good idea,' said Mrs Cannon. 'If you've got a sprained ankle and I have a fainting spell, then we can both have a nice rest on the grass.' 'The Headmaster can't complain about that,' said Melanie as they both made themselves comfortable. 'Of course not,' said Mrs Cannon. 'If he did I'd report him to my union.”

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Book:Big Trouble
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“What does that one-armed Dutchman do on this book?" "What does he do?" March echoed, as people are apt to do with a question that is mandatory and offensive. "Yes, sir, what does he do? Does he write for it?" "I suppose you mean Lindau," said March. He saw no reason for refusing to answer Dryfoos's demand, and he decided to ignore its terms. "No, he doesn't write for it in the usual way. He translates for it; he examines the foreign magazines, and draws my attention to anything he thinks of interest. But I told you about this before—" "I know what you told me, well enough. And I know what he is. He is a red-mouthed labor agitator. He's one of those foreigners that come here from places where they've never had a decent meal's victuals in their lives, and as soon as they get their stomachs full, they begin to make trouble between our people and their hands. There's where the strikes come from, and the unions and the secret societies. They come here and break our Sabbath, and teach their atheism. They ought to be hung! Let 'em go back if they don't like it over here. They want to ruin the country." March could not help smiling a little at the words, which came fast enough now in the hoarse staccato of Dryfoos's passion. "I don't know whom you mean by they, generally speaking; but I had the impression that poor old Lindau had once done his best to save the country. I don't always like his way of talking, but I know that he is one of the truest and kindest souls in the world; and he is no more an atheist than I am. He is my friend, and I can't allow him to be misunderstood.”

UnionsImmigrationSocialismForeignersLeft Wing
Book:A Hazard of New Fortunes
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“We face so many overlapping and intersecting crises that we can't afford to fix them one at a time. We need integrated solutions, solutions that radically bring down emissions while creating huge numbers of good, unionized jobs and delivering meaningful justice to those who have been most abused and excluded under the current extractive economy.”

InspirationalHumanitySocial JusticeUnionsClimate ChangeEconomic JusticeEnvironmental JusticeClimate Justice
Book:On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal
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“Honey, it isn’t democracy that runs this country. Capitalism rules. It does no good to reason with the capitalists or their politicians. This is a class war. We have to stir up the American people, the lower class. Some of the better-off lower class do show some sympathy for us when they’re smacked with the facts. And when they voice themselves collectively, good things happen.” — Mother Jones”

PoliticalSocialPovertyDemocracyMilitaryIndustryCapitalismEconomicsLaborSlaveryUnionsGreat DepressionMiningIndustrial RevolutionMinersChild LaborSweatshopsYellow JournalismRobber BaronsMill Workers
Author:Jerry Ash
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“I am a citizen of this country,” I declare, “and Mr. Mayor, tonight I will be a citizen of this city when I put my shoes under my bed. The courageous men, women and children who are with me (blocked from crossing the bridge into NYC) are also citizens of this country and will be sleeping near their shoes too. I want them with me tonight, here, in the city of New York. We are all American citizens.” — Mother Jones”

PoliticalSocialPovertyDemocracyMilitaryIndustryCapitalismEconomicsLaborSlaveryUnionsGreat DepressionMiningIndustrial RevolutionMinersChild LaborSweatshopsYellow JournalismRobber BaronsMill Workers
Author:Jerry Ash
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“That’s got to stop,” says I. “The idea of any blood-thirsty pirate (Mexican President Diaz) sitting on a throne and reaching across the border to tromp on our Constitution makes my blood boil.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“Turning back to the crowd I say, “I am duty bound to make this plea, but I want to say, with all due respect to the governor here, that I doubt seriously that he will do — cannot do — anything. And for the reason that he is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the capitalists who placed him here in this building.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“To the RKO motion picture camera at her 100th birthday party: “I pray for the day when working men and women are able to earn a fair share of the wealth they produce in a capitalist system, a day when all Americans are able to enjoy the freedom, rights and opportunities guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States of America.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“Go home now,” says I. “Keep away from the saloons. Save your money. You are going to need it.” “What are we going to need it for?” asks a voice from the crowd. “For guns and ammunition,” says I.”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“What do you see out there?” I ask. “Pittsburgh,” he replies. Now I laugh. “No, young man. What you see is hell with the lid taken off.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“What the hell’s the matter with you men? Are you cowards as well as stupid? You boys make me sick. I’m done with you. You hear me? I want you to go back to your places now and stay with your children until I say you’re needed. “Tell your wives and your older children to bring with them dish pans and cooking pots. Tell them to bring their stirring spoons and ladles. Tell them to carry a mop over their shoulders. We’re goin’ to march on that mine and we’re going to stand guard to see that no scabs are allowed in. Do you hear me?” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“I go back to the union man and say, “Sir, this is a house of God, not a proper place for a union meeting. I have some things to say today that God would not want to hear in His own house. Boys, I want you to get up, every one of you, and go across the road. I want you to sit down on the hillside over there and wait for me to speak to you.”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“Well, honey, it’s capitalism that brings out the meanness and greed,” says I. “Our founding fathers did a decent job of framing our democracy. They wrote the Constitution and added a Bill of Rights that intended for people of all classes to enjoy the freedoms the Constitution offers. But capitalism came along without a constitution or a bill of rights and the industrialists grabbed unrestricted power. The capitalists wrote their own ‘Declaration of Capitalism’.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“Bah! Do you think the poor people of the barrio pay for the upkeep of the Church? No! Wealth flows from wealth! And sources of wealth need stability to exist! And the Church provides stability! We teach the poor how to bear their burden; they are promised the kingdom of heaven, which is far more important than the little gains your strike would make …”

UnionsStrikesClass WarfareWorkers RightsReligious HypocrisyClass Traitor
Book:Heart of Aztlan
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“Those sons of bitches up there are to blame!' Another worker shouted and jumped forward. He shook an angry fist at the blank faces that looked down on the death scene from the offices atop the yard administration. 'Sánchez’s work crew had been cut back twice! It’s unsafe to work with so few men! You all know that! Yes, someone’s to blame, and the blame lies with those bastards that treat us like animals and our rotten union that won’t protect us!”

UnionsWorkersClass WarfareWorkers RightsUnskilled LaborClass SeparationCorrupt Unions
Book:Heart of Aztlan
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“I have often pointed out to students that the Jim Crow order had a specific and relatively brief life span. It was not completely consolidated until the end of the first decade of the twentieth century. All of my grandparents were fully sentient and aware of their social environments, if not full adults, before the order's features took definite shape and assumed the form of normal politics and everyday life. And during the roughly three decades or so between the regime's consolidation and its slow, painful unraveling, the system was placed under considerable strain and reorganized internally by the Great Migration of black people out of the South or to cities within it, the Great Depression and the New Deal, the emergence of the industrial unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and the war. And in large and small ways, black people never stopped challenging its boundaries and constraints–from the struggle over its imposition to its eventual defeat.”

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Book:The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives
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“Theoretically it is, indeed, asserted that the relation between employer and employee is based upon a contract for the accomplishment of a definite purpose. The purpose in this case is social production. But a contract has meaning only when both parties participate equally in the purpose. In reality, however, the worker has today no voice in determining production, for this is given over completely to the employer. The consequence is that the worker is debased by doing a thousand things which constantly serve only to injure the whole community for the advantage of the employer.”

PoliticsEconomicsUnionsSocialismWorking ClassAnarchismProletariatSyndicalism
Book:Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice
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“Every union, every association of persons pursuing identical aims and aspirations, likewise furnishes numerous examples of such higher aims, which pursue not material but only moral rewards. The emulators are moved by the ambition to distinguish themselves, by the desire to serve the common cause. This type of ambition is a virtue, its pursuit promotes the general benefit, while also bringing the individual satisfaction. Ambition is harmful only if it is pursued to the detriment of the community or at the expense of others.”

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Book:On the Political Position of Social-Democracy
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“In spring, 1937, of course, families still rode the rails because of the Depression, which everyone said was already in the history books as the worst ever. The jobs still couldn’t be found, at least for most people. Everett itself—the smaller, poorer, little brother lying north of Seattle—ached with the unemployed and the hopeless. The labor union tensions in the woods still festered and got bloody at times. But Skybillings—and the railroad logging shows of the Cascade Mountains—felt like they were, inch-by-inch, rebuilding America.”

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Book:The Woods
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“The chief signifi cance of the comprehensive systems of unemployment compensation that have been adopted in all Western countries, however, is that they operate in a labor market dominated by the coercive action of unions and that they have been designed under strong union influence with the aim of assisting the unions in their wage policies. A system in which a worker is regarded as unable to fi nd employment and therefore is entitled to benefit because the workers in the fi rm or industry in which he seeks employment are on strike necessarily becomes a major support of union wage pressure. Such a system, which relieves the unions of the responsibility for the unemployment that their policies create and which places on the state the burden not merely of maintaining but of keeping content those who are kept out of jobs by them, can in the long run only make the employment problem more acute.”

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Book:The Constitution of Liberty
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“Once government undertakes to determine the whole wage structure and is thereby forced to control employment and production, there will be a far greater destruction of the present powers of the unions than their submission to the rule of equal law would involve. Under such a system the unions will have only the choice between becoming the willing instrument of governmental policy an being incorporated into the machinery of government, on the one hand, and being totally abolished, on the other. The former alternative is more likely to be chosen, since it would enable the existing union bureaucracy to retain their position and some of their personal power. But to the workers it would mean complete subjection to the control by a corporative state. The situation in most countries leaves us no choice but to await some such outcome or to retrace our steps. The present position of the unions cannot last, for they can function only in a market economy which they are doing their best to destroy.”

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Book:The Constitution of Liberty
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“Socialists have advocated numerous ways of democratizing the economy, from setting up worker cooperatives to nationalizing major industries... At the core of economic democracy is the notion that control should not be vested in a small group of people, but in the people who do the labor. Managers and owners shouldn't decide what the workers have to do, the workers should decide what managers have to do (or if they need managers at all). And they should own the workplaces themselves.”

DemocracyUnionsSocialismCooperativesLabor UnionDemocratic SocialismEconomic DemocracyLabor Cooperative
Book:Why You Should Be a Socialist
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“In the late 1970s, growth in Western economies began to slow down and returns on capital began to decline. Governments came under pressure to do something about it – to create a ‘fix’ for capital. So they attacked unions and gutted labour laws in order to drive the cost of wages down, and they privatised public assets that had previously been off limits to capital – mines, railways, energy, water, healthcare, telecommunications and so on – creating lucrative opportunities for private investors.”

PoliticsHistoryCapitalismEconomicsUnionsNeoliberalismWage LaborPrivitization
Book:Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
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“[1916] The IWW’s involvement in the [Minnesota] Iron Range’s labor unrest led mine company owners to take extreme actions and, just as in other conflict locations, they mobilized the businesses and municipal offices under their ownership. All mail and telegrams to and from Virginia were halted and reviewed. In other locations, including Biwabik, Aurora, and Eveleth, general stores turned away miners and their famlies. When the strikers formed their own cooperative for supplies and groceries, Oliver Iron Mining Company pressured wholesalers to serve notice that all credit would be curtailed pending the strike, and that payments for supplies must be made weekly. Meanwhile Sheriff Meining publicly announced new jail sentences for other agitators and miners for simply saying, “Hello Fellow Worker,” carrying a red IWW membership card, or discussing industrial unionism on public streets.”

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Book:Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American Family
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“While I have never been a member of any union, I was a friend of Albert Shanker, president of the American Federation of Teachers, whom I met after my history of the New York City schools was published. His successor, Sandra Feldman, was also my friend, and I am friends with her successor, Randi Weingarten, who was elected AFT president in 2008.”

EducationUnionsTeachers
Book:The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
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“The workers stayed in the plant instead of walking out, and this had clear advantages: they were directly blocking the use of strikebreakers; they did not have to act through union officials but were in direct control of the situation themselves; they did not have to walk outside in the cold and rain, but had shelter; they were not isolated, as in their work, or on the picket line; they were thousands under one roof, free to talk to one another, to form a community of struggle. Louis Adamic, a labor writer, describes one of the early sit-downs: Sitting by their machines, cauldrons, boilers and work benches, they talked. Some realized for the first time how important they were in the process of rubber production. Twelve men had practically stopped the works! . . . Superintendents, foremen, and straw bosses were dashing about. . . . In less than an hour the dispute was settled, full victory for the men.”

AmericaHistoryLaborUnionsUsaStrikeWorkers RightsLabor StrikeSit In
Book:A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
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“Rochester became a magnet for African Americans in the twentieth century, one of many northern industrial cities that blacks flocked to during their six-decade-long Great Migration from the rural South. From 1950 to 1960, Rochester's total population had declined slightly, from about 332,000 to 319,000. But its black population had risen appreciably over the same period, tripling to nearly 24,000. Those who'd come to Smugtown were hungry for a better life. What they encountered upon their arrival, however, was mainly disappointment. Mirroring trends found across the country, many blacks in Rochester were forced to live in substandard housing as whites fled the urban core. The city's power structure remained almost exclusively white. And many blacks struggled to find decent jobs. Even though the unemployment rate in Rochester had fallen to about 2 percent in the summer of 1964, 14 percent of blacks were counted as without work. The big Kodak dollar and the lawn sprinklers of the suburbs have seemed both tantalizingly near and hopelessly far to the inner-city man," said an African American barber.”

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Book:The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America
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“Say," I said, "do you guys cross picket lines?" The ChronoGuard agents looked at each other, then at the chronographs on their wrists, then at Lavoisier. The taller of the two was the first to speak. "She's right, Mr. Lavoisier, sir. I don't mind bullying and killing innocents, and I'll follow you beyond the crunch normally, but - " "But what?" asked Lavoisier angrily. "-but I am a loyal TimeGuild member. I don't cross picket lines.”

Unions
Book:Lost in a Good Book
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“The cities change. The bus line is different. The train runs on another track, but the scene is the same. Everyday in America, South Africa and other places in the world like them. Black people. My people. Travelin. To be cooks, janitors, housekeepers, porters, days workers, servants, Black boys, Beige girls, Brown daddies, Ebony mothers.”

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Book:Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off: A Domestic Rap by Verta Mae
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“Moo inhaled, his nostrils flaring. It was decided then. Slowly, deliberately, he rose from the saddle and began to dismount. He had not sailed seven thousand miles across the world, traveled up the Mississippi River on a riverboat full of knife-wielding Kaintucks, and graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine with top marks, carving a position of respect for himself and his family out of the very flesh, blood, and bone of these hills to be bullied by a trio of chubby sons of bitches in khaki shirts and armbands. He stepped to the ground before them and thumbed the three-barred cross at his throat, looking from man to man. His eyes wide open, blazing like spot lamps. "Allah maei," he said. God is with me. The first man stepped forward, cocking his fist back. "The fuck you say?”

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Author:Taylor Brown
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