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May 20, 2013
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 The Last Labor Day?Posted on Sep 4, 2011
Let’s get it over with and rename the holiday “Capital Day.” We may still celebrate Labor Day, but our culture has given up on honoring workers as the real creators of wealth and their honest toil—the phrase itself seems antique—as worthy of genuine respect. Imagine a Republican saying this: “Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” These heretical thoughts would inspire horror among our friends at Fox News or in the tea party. They’d likely label them as Marxist, socialist or Big Labor propaganda. Too bad for Abraham Lincoln, our first Republican president, who offered those words in his annual message to Congress in 1861. Will President Obama dare say anything like this in his jobs speech this week? As for the unions, they are often treated in the media as advocates of arcane work rules, protectors of inefficient public employees and obstacles to the economic growth our bold entrepreneurs would let loose if only they were free from labor regulations. So it would take a brave man to point out that unions “grew up from the struggle of the workers—workers in general but especially the industrial workers—to protect their just rights vis-a-vis the entrepreneurs and the owners of the means of production,” or to insist that “the experience of history teaches that organizations of this type are an indispensable element of social life.” Advertisement That the language of Lincoln and John Paul is so distant from our experience is a sign of an enormous cultural shift. In scores of different ways, we paint investors as the heroes and workers as the sideshow. We tax the fruits of labor more vigorously than we tax the gains from capital—resistance to continuing the payroll tax cut is a case in point—and we hide workers away while lavishing attention on those who make their livings by moving money around. Consider that what the media call economics reporting is largely finance reporting. Once upon a time, a lively band of labor reporters covered the world of work and the unions. If you stipulate that the decline of unions makes the old labor beat a bit less compelling, there are still tens of millions of workers who do their jobs every day. But when the labor beat withered, it was rarely replaced by a work beat. Workers have vanished. But we are now inundated with news (and “news”) about the world of capital. CNBC and the other financial media are for investors what ESPN is for sports junkies. We cheer the markets, learn the obscure language of hedge fund managers, and get to know some of the big investors in off-field interviews. Workers are regarded as factors of production. At best, they’re consumers; at worst, they’re “labor costs” cutting into profits and the sacred stock price. They have faded away in both high and popular culture, too. Can you point to someone “who makes art out of working-class lives by refusing to prettify them”? The phrase comes from a 2006 essay by the critic William Deresiewicz, who observed that we no longer have novelists such as John Steinbeck or John Dos Passos who take the lives of working people seriously. Nor do we have television shows along the lines of “The Honeymooners” or even “All in the Family,” which were parodies of an affectionate sort. “First we stopped noticing members of the working class,” Deresiewicz wrote, “and now we’re convinced they don’t exist.” In his extraordinary book “Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class,” Jefferson Cowie spoke of how little we identify working-class people with their labor. “Workers occasionally reappeared in public discourse as ‘Reagan Democrats’—later as ‘NASCAR Dads,’” he wrote, “or the victims of another plant shutdown or as irrational protectionists and protesters of free trade, but rarely did they appear as workers.” With the worker disappearing from our media and our consciousness, isn’t it only a matter of time before Labor Day falls off the calendar? As long as it’s there, it should shame us about our cool indifference to the heroism of those who go to work every day.
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By oddsox, September 7, 2011 at 3:21 pm Link to this comment
Marian G:
Agree with you and the HuffPost blogger who wrote: “There is no such thing as ‘too big to fail’. Only ‘too big to exist’”
“Too-big-to-fail is too big to begin with.”
—that’s by me.
So, once again, let’s break up the big banks!
A while back Prisnersdilema found a great piece quoting a retiring Federal Reserve President who suggested that very thing: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/8344309/Kansas-City-Federal-Reserve-Bank-President-Thomas-Hoenig-calls-for-Wall-Street-banks-to-be-broken-up.html#
...and here’s an updated piece:
http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Fed-Hoenig-Big-Banks/2011/08/16/id/407467
I’ve been blogging this idea about for well over 2 years (including a letter to all my reps + Obama & Biden and several times here on TruthDig.
Robert Reich also hints at it as an overlooked solution in his book “Aftershock,” wish he’d have gone deeper with it.
The goal is not to punish the banks, but to create more competition between them. (see link on my prior post).
Better local lending practices, increased employment and lower CEO pay will be happy by-products.
(let the stockholders pay their new CEOs as much as they dare… just no bailouts this time)
AT&T’s 1985 breakup can serve as a model, as can the Trust Busting during the first two decades of the 20th century (cattle, tobacco, steel, railroad, oil trusts and more).
There is precedent using the 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act and/or the 1916 Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which specifically addresses mergers and acquisitions.
And the timing couldn’t be better!
Report thisMost of the TARP money has been repaid now, all of it from the big banks we’ll be busting; only about $2B of principle left outstanding spread out among 500-odd smaller banks, most owing $100M or less.
Even though nearly all the $245B has now been paid back, the TARP bailout was an act of extortion upon the American people!
Time now to Break up the Bigs so it’ll never happen again.
By Marian Griffith, September 7, 2011 at 1:41 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
@oddsox
I do not know who said this but: “There is no such thing as ‘too big to fail’. Only ‘too big to exist’”
The root of the whole economic crisis is the same as the regular bubble-burst cycle every 5 years that we have been seeing for the past 40 or so.
The creation of money (not to be confused with value) has been insufficiently controlled and as a result we are now having an ocean of money smothering the productive economy that creates value.
If somebody goes to the bank for a 300,000 dollar loan to build a house this will effectively add some 420,000 dollars of productive value. The bank on the other hands creates the money out of nothing, based on the promise to pay it back. This still is marginally productive money (without this created money the economy would be too sluggish to develop as only savings could be used to fund purchases and econimic expansion). The problem is that next the bank uses the promise to pay back the loan to create more money. It creates insurances, derivatives, cdfs, stock options, securitisations, it uses it to underwrite loans to itself or other banks for further financial transactions, and so on and so on. Each of these additional financial transactions are all derived from that one promise to pay back those 300,000. And while the productive economy gets a boost by some 420,000 dollars the financial transactions derived from it measure in the millions, and each of those fantasy dollars is being treated as just as real as the dollars that are being used to pay for construction material and labour (and the income those workers earn and is spent on other goods).
But money is only useful to buy things with, and pushing numbers from one computer screen to another will create bigger numbers but not more things to buy with. The natural result would be inflation (and massively so considering the incredible imbalance between value and money that has been created), but governments and central banks world wide have been working very hard to prevent that inflation from surfacing because they know that once it starts it will cause a chain reaction of panic. Problem is that everything they do will only cause more money to be created and more production to be smothered. And now we are almost at the end of what can be done.
Those ‘trillions of dollars lost’ on a bad day on the financial markets? That is just letting out a little bit of hot air out of the inflated balloon that is the world wide financial system. It is not real money, just a number that can go up, or down, at a whim of a herd of panicking traders.
To restore to more sane economic conditions we need to ‘lose’ thousands of trillions of dollars by untangling the web of loans and fabrications that created them, while preventing the banks to create more money out of thin air.
Remember how the banks needed billions of dollars of bail-out money? Somehow all but the most inept managed to repay those debts within a year and pay exorbitant bonuses in the midst of a crisis that lead to record unemployment? That was simply banks pumping up the next bubble. Fabricating a few billion dollar out of thin air and give that number back to the government (and never fear, the government does just the same with programs like quantitave easing so they are not defrauded as much as complicit).
Of course the era of ‘cheap money’ was not all bad. It was the root of decades worth of unprecedented growth in real wealth, it kickstarted the chinese economy and is doing the same for the other brics countries. Only the fun is now over. The debts we collectively acrued worldwide must now be repaid and nobody has a clue even where to start. At least not in a way that will not make things even worse.
Report thisBy who'syourdebs, September 7, 2011 at 6:18 am Link to this comment
E.J.—you put your finger right on the crux of the problem. Your words were a joy to hear, truly. But how did this happen? The mainstream media has a lot to do with it, of course. Those reporters and news readers reflect what their corporate owners want them to present—that’s their job. Never anything from the worker’s point of view, not even strike information, let alone a favorable tone. Public education has fallen way short, as well. No teaching of the Progressive era, no explanation of why unions were formed in the first place. American idolize the rich instead, like Donald Trump—what a jerk! The less effort to acquire the money, the better. People who work hard are chumps—better to be a “player”. Money for nothing, celebrity worship—yuck! Be American, not Corporate—join a union today! You’re a worker—so show it.
Report thisBy Anarcissie, September 7, 2011 at 4:56 am Link to this comment
The word ‘capital’ refers to the means of production in an industrial society. If they are mostly privately owned and controlled, we have capital-ism. Whoever owns and controls the means of production tends to also control or have a dominant influence upon the government, the state in general, the social order, since most people have to make a living. This state of affairs is also called ‘capitalism’.
Whoever controls the state is going to control the things the state regulates and how it regulates them. Hence when capitalists are regulated, regulatory capture is likely.
Report thisBy oddsox, September 6, 2011 at 9:03 pm Link to this comment
Here’s a spot-on analysis, in my humble, non-Ivy League opinion.
http://www.youtube.com/user/LearnLiberty?v=KGPa5Ob-5Ps&feature=pyv&ad=7850625009&kw=capitalism
This is why splitting up the “too-big-to-fails” is not anti-capitalist.
Report thisBy Night-Gaunt, September 6, 2011 at 6:51 pm Link to this comment
Without labor there is not Capital. Capital is merely the specie we use in trans actions. It represents wealth but it is not wealth itself—-until now. Only now the holders and controllers of those transactions have taken over and have made Capital the primary over labor and we see that result. (Note what happened to the Spanish Empire with all that gold they stole and brought back. Ruined their economy since gold is the specie, not the actual wealth.)
Labor like Capital need rules and regulations. Mediocrity if not out right bad actions should not be supported or protected? Are such things as reported could be exaggerated? Unions aren’t held in high esteem in our country for a long time if ever by the corporate press.
E. J. Dionne makes an excellent point in an excellent article. If many of the Christian supremacists have their way we would be celebrating Labor Day about women’s labor to give birth and nothing more. Let us fight to make sure that doesn’t happen. And move Labor Day back to May first.
Report thisBy cpb, September 6, 2011 at 5:52 pm Link to this comment
Anarcissie - “The capitalists get depressed and close their factories and offices. This is called a ‘depression’.”
That is awesome! I mean, it’s terrible, but… LOL
Report thisBy David J. Cyr, September 6, 2011 at 5:36 pm Link to this comment
QUOTE, Marian Griffith:
“Not everything is the fault of the democrats you know.”
___________________
There aren’t enough democrats in America for them to be faulted for anything.
America never developed a democracy because there were too many Democrats.
A “progressive” is a person who believes the ruthless corporate party operatives who exterminated the Populists, socialists and anarchists for the corporate-state deserve credit for all the achievements of the Populists, socialists and anarchists that they eliminated.
The actual successes of Democrats were dependent upon waging global wars in which they eliminated the competition of other less evolved fascists, and upon their unexcelled ability to deceive, misguide, moderate, neutralize, and exterminate social justice movements.
http://www.chenangogreens.org
Report thisBy oddsox, September 6, 2011 at 4:44 pm Link to this comment
EJ and Lincoln are right about Labor preceding capital.
And EJ might agree with something I’ve been bloggion about for years now: We need to lower or elimiate payroll taxes in favor of a consumpion model.
But capitalism has been vilified in recent times, too.
Lincoln understood the necessary balance between labor and capital—and much more.
More Lincoln on capital, property rights & class envy:
“Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. . . . Nor should this lead to a war upon the owners of property. Property is the fruit of labor; . . . property is desirable; is a positive good in the world.”
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.”
Report thisBy Simple truth, September 6, 2011 at 4:07 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Cyr—This is true:
“The corporate (R) & (D) party’s voters ever reliably
keep free-will voting to keep having the corporate
person controlled government they say they don’t
want. Republican and Democrat voters keep voting in
solidarity together for the corporate party’s
candidates either because they actually desire the
abuses of gangster government to continue, or they
are uneducable.”
The media inundates us with psychobabble—it works—
Report thismost folks are robotic, they’re incapable of
analyzing political events.
By Anarcissie, September 6, 2011 at 3:46 pm Link to this comment
But those were the old-time unions. At the time of the New Deal, the unions made a deal with the ruling class’s Democratic Party to cooperate in supporting capitalism, and in fighting the Depression, Naziism and Communism, in exchange for a mild program of social welfare. This deal was more or less rescinded in the 1970s and ‘80s. The Depression was over, the Nazis were gone, and the Communists were in decline. Capitalism was victorious everywhere. So the r.c. didn’t need the unions any more. Eventually, they are going to figure this out. I don’t know about the proggies.
Report thisBy oldwob, September 6, 2011 at 3:38 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Thought it was a great piece - until i got to
Report this“resistance to continuing the payroll tax cut is a
case in point”. Fatal flaw in the piece - doesn’t
Dionne realize that that payroll tax cut is a means
for undermining SS and a big step on the road to its
destruction? SS one of the biggest victories of the
labor movement he extols .....
Aquifer is right on here. FDR set up a separate
funding source for SS precisely to avoid congress
overturning it as an “entitlement” paid out off the
general fund. It’s not a “payroll tax” fer crissakes,
it’s more of an insurance premium. Since Obama
dropped the employer end (and will probably drop the
employer piece Thursday), SS will essentially be
defunded, and open to dismemberment.
By Marian Griffith, September 6, 2011 at 3:08 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
@David J Cyr
—There’s no need to create slavery once again, because (D) “progressives” have enslaved workers’ minds with mental chains more difficult to break free of now than the rusty old metal ones were.—
Not everything is the fault of the democrats you know.
Anyway, the factory owners have long since discovered that it is much cheaper to make voluntary slaves out of people instead of literally enslaving them.
Long before there even was something like progressives or the democrat party factory owners used to effectively enslave people through paying them in coins that could only be spent in the company stores, by housing them in company houses, and so on; all of which would vanish the moment they left the company, which effectively trapped the workers at the not so tender mercy of the factories.
It was through the efforts of the unions and the progressives that such practices were outlawed.
Report thisBy David J. Cyr, September 6, 2011 at 7:08 am Link to this comment
QUOTE: (of an anonymous avatar wishing future generations to inherit just a fart):
“Without unions and the little people pulling together, the powers that be ALWAYS try to create slavery once again.”
_________________
There’s no need to create slavery once again, because (D) “progressives” have enslaved workers’ minds with mental chains more difficult to break free of now than the rusty old metal ones were.
The “progressives” are happy whenever a union’s membership is wholly owned by the corporate party’s Democrats.
http://www.chenangogreens.org
Report thisBy Anarcissie, September 6, 2011 at 6:55 am Link to this comment
Capitalism is based on the possession of the means of production by a special class (capitalists) who hire and exploit wage labor in order to produce something they can sell. The capitalist is constantly motivated to attempt to get more out of every resource, while reducing its cost. In the case of labor, this means getting more work and giving lower wages.
Should the class of capitalists generally succeed in this procedure, falling wages leads to falling demand. The capitalists get depressed and close their factories and offices. This is called a ‘depression’. So nothing very odd or inexplicable is going on, except the conviction of so many people that there is no alternative to this arrangement.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, September 6, 2011 at 6:39 am Link to this comment
PD:
Well said!
Why does getting rich for SO many have to based on putting so many others in misery? Even a Steve Jobs, who gives us iPhones and iPads and iPods bases it on cheap, foreign labor that’s so onerous that the plant they were being built at in China had insanely high rates of suicide.
Without unions and the little people pulling together, the powers that be ALWAYS try to create slavery once again.
Report thisBy prisnersdilema, September 6, 2011 at 5:51 am Link to this comment
The struggle of unions is a long and bloody one. It was and is a continuation of the
struggle against slavery. Against child labor, death dealing working conditions, the
maiming of workers by their employers, and to prevent being owned by company stores.
All these conditions still exist today, as U.S. Corporations, exploit workers under these
conditions in the third world and here in Amerika. It takes the work of 5 slaves in the
third world to support 1 person in this country.
As workers rights have been chipped away by Conservatives, our economy has declined.
Those who go it alone are used by their employers to undermine the livelihoods of all
others.
I have listened to the whining of those who resent unions, but who benefitted from Union
actions. Who were too chicken shit to put their ass on the line. When my union won a
35% pay raise. Cold comfort to those who had already died at their desks from the work
load. The company probably had dead peasant life insurance policies on them.
The unions didn’t destroy this country conservatives did. With their lies, and bribes and
Report thishate for the working man and women. It’s a crime that so many work so hard in this
country and still can’t feed themselves, 45 million on food stamps. The greedy
conservatives are responsible for their misery.
By drbhelthi, September 6, 2011 at 1:50 am Link to this comment
Unions have not worked as intended, for the same reasons the U.S. Congress has not worked as intended.
Only about 4% of the populace was communist in the countries that went communist. About the same percentage of crooks, within the U.S. Congress, has taken over. A much smaller percentage of CIA/MOSSAD operatives were on the ground in Libya, including the secretive US/Brit troops, when the NATO puppetry carried out the GHWBushSr/Zionist punitive action against Gadhafi. Of course, with “Obama” at the podium. Similar to the ouster of Sadaam Hussein - distract the Muslim leader via engagement in a cooperative action, then ambush him from the rear while he is distracted.
Same old pattern; repeatedly.
The findings of the Reece Committee (1950´s), Report by Congressman Norman Dodd, found that the tax-exempt foundations, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, etc, were actively destroying the U.S.A. However, the Rockefellers and similars suppressed the data. Insight into what continues to happen is found at this link: http://www.sweetliberty.org/shadow.htm
Susan Lindauer, CIA Whistle-Blower, explained in detail that the C.I.A. destroyed the PAA 747 over Lockerbie, assassinating two special agents, returning to the U.S. with info about the drug-running of USGOV officials in the Beka Valley. Muammar Kaddafi or Gadhafi was not involved. His pay-out of millions to remaining family members of those murdered was a benevolent, humanitarian act. All disinformation against him continues to be generated by the NAZI element of the C.I.A., paid shills and ignorant followers. Gadhafi refused to become a hiree of GHWBushSr-Zionists, for which he was ultimately punished by NATO puppets of GHWBushSr. Of course, with initial, on-the-ground organization by the NAZI element of the CIA/MOSSAD & hired operatives. Who, are trying to establish a new order of USGOV-selected rulers.
Report thisObama? A carefully-selected, CIA asset, mixed-race in order to attract the “people of color.” It
worked marvellously. The first time.
However.
The world is wising up. Swiftly.
By jrundin, September 6, 2011 at 12:08 am Link to this comment
“We”? “We”? Whom do you mean by “we”? I think you may be projecting. Perhaps you should say “I” instead.
Report thisBy Simple Truth, September 5, 2011 at 8:46 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Globalization put an end to labor unions and the US
Report thisworker. Why buy a cow when milks so cheap? Why pay a
living wage, if you don’t have to? Greed is the only
motivator in business—without government regulation,
anything goes. And that’s why the “Tea Party,” or
shall we say the “Mad Hatter Party” wants to diminish
the powers of the federal government. If you’re a
corporate whore—another term for politician,
(Republican and Democrat) your loyalty is to the guys
who’ve paid you off, not to your constituency, and
certainly not to the working-class. By the time
these politicians are finished destroying the US
labor force—workers will be happy to take any job at
any wage. The next step is to abolish the meager
minimum wage, and then corporations might “re-
employ” the US worker.
By Anarcissie, September 5, 2011 at 8:28 pm Link to this comment
I don’t know of a single instance of forced unionism in the United States. Surely you’re not referring to the closed shop, which is a voluntary contract between a company and a union.
Report thisBy christian96, September 5, 2011 at 6:46 pm Link to this comment
I suggest we rename “Labor Day” to “Slave Labor
Report thisin China Day.’
By Steve R, September 5, 2011 at 4:57 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“unions grew up from the struggle of the workers—
workers in general but especially the industrial
workers—to protect their just rights vis-a-vis the
entrepreneurs and the owners of the means of
production,”.
And then what happened? Politics, union bosses,
forced unionism, and lack of what unions are supposed
to be about - protecting the workers rights!
I have never joined a union. If I was unhappy, I
negotiated with my boss for a better deal, and if I
didn’t get one, I’d move on to where I could.
My advancement - their loss.
I never did think that union demands would somehow
endear employers to their workers. And my experience
has been that when employers were forced to give in
to demands, some jobs fell by the wayside as a
result.
Of course, the worst present day failure of unions is
that many demand you join and pay dues, failing which
you can forget about the job.
So I support a right to work philosophy and if that
Report thismeans labor day goes south, so be it!
By morristhewise, September 5, 2011 at 4:43 pm Link to this comment
Millions of young blacks are unfairly affected by high unemployment. Solving their
Report thisproblem is not difficult. Thousands of abandoned buildings liter the black
environment. Young blacks can immediately be put to work restoring once
beautiful urban neighborhoods. Unemployed whites also have a problem, but
unfortunately they must wait until the economy improves.
By James M. Martin, September 5, 2011 at 12:01 pm Link to this comment
E. J., you might, in your reflections on Lincoln, mention that some conservatives in the GOP today dis Lincoln for his violation of states’ rights (a likely cover-up for racism in their more extreme circles). The party of Lincoln is long gone. It was taken over, first by cracker Southerners, then by the militarist-industrialist right, and finally the evangelical-Tea Party junta.
Report thisBy Anarcissie, September 5, 2011 at 11:00 am Link to this comment
Heh. Dionne is waving the tattered red flag for Labor Day. Tomorrow he’ll be back shilling for our lords and masters.
Report thisBy Aquifer, September 5, 2011 at 9:54 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Thought it was a great piece - until i got to “resistance to continuing the payroll tax cut is a case in point”. Fatal flaw in the piece - doesn’t Dionne realize that that payroll tax cut is a means for undermining SS and a big step on the road to its destruction? SS one of the biggest victories of the labor movement he extols .....
Report thisBy spktruth200, September 5, 2011 at 9:42 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
If not for labor unions we would be a third world country. If not for unions we would be working 12-14 hour days, no holidays, no vacations, no safety rules for workers. It was labor who made the middle class…the corporate class has taken over. Read the Hill news today…50 of the most wealthy politicans are millionaires and billionaires. do you believe they will work for the people, or for the corporate class. Henry Ford had it right. He knew that building cars would have to be sold to those who manufactured them. They would have to have a livable wage to buy a car. that idea has gone along with our democracy. Since Ronald Reagun and the fair market capitalists rant which was never fair or just and created the total destruction of the middle class and working class. We have have voodoo economics by both corporate repukes and some corporate demorats. Its time to dump every politican who supports corporate america against the workers and the middle class. Vote for no millionaire for any position in government. Run, fund and elect workers who speak our language, who have a track record in your state as a truthful, honest person who will work for us, not big business. big business is done with america. they have robbed our treasury and now consider US to be not credit worthy. Our jobs will continue going overseas, corporate profits skyrocketing, while the nation is headed towards a 3rd world nation.
Report thisBy mrfreeze, September 5, 2011 at 9:02 am Link to this comment
For me there has always been a fundamental truth about “business vs labour”:
Why is it that when businesses manage to “negotiate” lower wages for their workers, lower costs from their suppliers and socialize as many of their costs as possible, they are considered “efficient/shrewd/enterprising.....etc..” BUT when workers do the same: negotiate better wages and working conditions, liveable work weeks and time for family, etc….then they are considered somehow “dishonest?”
Americans have allowed themselves to be downgraded and devalued by a corporate system that is not, and never was intended to help them. Businesses only exist to maximize shareholder value….not to create jobs, not to give back to the community, not to be “corporate citizens.”
I’ve been reading about all sorts of “jobs programs” in which people work for free in the hope of getting a job, unfortunately, whenever an individual gives his/her labour away for free, he/she is doing nothing but increase the profitability of a company/enterprise and allows these enterprises to exploit resources (labour and more) for free. Giving one’s labour away for free to for-profit (and many non-profits) is antithetical to the interests of working people. It should be avoided…
This is Labour Day not put-money-into-the-pockets-of-your-corporate-masters-day!”
Report thisBy morristhewise, September 5, 2011 at 8:17 am Link to this comment
Fast food workers support the Prez 10-1, he loves their burgers and fries. The
Report thisPrez should give up the suit and tie and each day wear a different blue collar
outfit. The music group Village People could give him some ideas.
By bpawk, September 5, 2011 at 8:11 am Link to this comment
Labour Day should be renamed Sino-Indo Day in the U.S. in honour of all the jobs that left the country for China, India and other ‘emerging economies’.
Report thisBy pacrat, September 5, 2011 at 7:57 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Labor Day does sound rather antiquated - a part of US history that seems irrelevant today - at least to a country that no longer “labors” for the most part.
Unfortunately, when people talk about jobs today they seem to think that out-of-job people could return to their same jobs if only government or big business wanted to reemploy them. Don’t people know that that type of thinking is passe?
People cannot return to their old jobs - because they no longer exist, nor will they ever exist again!
We need a new paradigm for what used to be called “labor.” Today’s world calls for entirely new jobs e.g. in renewable energy or climate change technologies. Oh sure, we also need traditional construction and rehabiltating our infrastructure, but we need to realize that electronic tools are here to stay and new applications require people. Old jobs no longer require people except for the ones I mentioned. Manufacturing in the US is passe.
It’s time for our so-called leaders who operate in the “old” paradigm to wake up and grow up.
Report thisBy prisnersdilema, September 5, 2011 at 7:22 am Link to this comment
Today labor day, will be a day in which there will be lots of words spilled on the ground, in what appears to be a national soul searching.
Words, unlike blood, come and go without much pain.
But that soul searching, is like being forced to eulogize a dead relative, you hoped would die, so that you could collect their life insurance policy.
No you won’t mention, your lack of affection. But you will say all those things your are expected to say, the things that have been said many times, at many other grave sites. After all it is supposed to be in poor taste to speak ill of the dead.
You won’t mention, the millions of jobs sent overseas, the open borders, the unlmitted high tech work visas, the debt farming of the nations youth with the student loan industry. The capture of the nations regulatory agencies by corporate criminals. The increased profit of corporations, made by laying off millions of workers. The neutering of workers rights. Your coruption of the political system, with lies, and outright bribes.
So here we are, adrift. Without leadership. Victims, of a mass psychosis, of the Republican right wing. Who still tout the same delusions, the ones that got us here, as the answer to all our problems.
RIP labor, and with you goes, this country, as a place of hope and inspiration. Where anyone who was willing to work could make a life for himself or herself and their family.
Report thisBy Inherit The Wind, September 5, 2011 at 7:10 am Link to this comment
Saying that because a few union officials are corrupt we should abandon and outlaw unions is like saying because a few doctors and hospital administrators are incompetent and corrupt we should outlaw hospitals.
Yet that has been what the GOP has successfully done since Ronald Reagan launched his twin-pronged attack on unions with firing all the PATCO members, and to hell with air safety, and signing into law giant tax incentives to corporations for moving manufacturing from the US to other nations where slave labor and coolie wages are acceptable. It cost us 3.5 million jobs, and all but 50,000 were union jobs, and they never came back.
Our most successful and prosperous times were when unions were strong and balanced off the excesses of the board room. They kept the board room honest and with it, the nation prospered.
Just imagine what would have happened to Enron if it had been unionized…it could NEVER have faked a trading desk (with unplugged monitors strategically facing away from visiting analysts, and people pretending to take orders on disconnected phones). The Union would have called Enron out then and there…and the giant rip-off would have been far smaller.
Unions are watch-dogs. Without watch-dogs, the robbers get in un-impeded.
Report thisBy CJ, September 5, 2011 at 6:54 am Link to this comment
Excellent piece by Dionne. Don’t forget labor as… “variable capital.” Which
already told us what owners thought of labor—as so much capital differing
from “fixed capital” only to the extent capable of self-locomotion. Which meant
“variable capital” could get up and walk away or, far more likely, be ordered to
walk away as so many have been ordered to do over the last decade in
particular, though at all times in the dismal history of capitalism.
Nothing new, workers didn’t exist in Dickensian England either. Except, I
suppose, when it was necessary to step over those who used to labor (or still
did, but who still couldn’t afford more than to live in the street or alley) in order
to avoid tripping.
The last thing Wall Street and whatever akin streets are in other capitals, so to
speak, around the world care about is unemployment. Traditionally, the higher
the better. At least to a tipping point, which is where it gets a little tricky for
real capital. Which absurdly continues to fear revolution. Now, THAT’S hilarious!
The revolution won’t be televised because television has replaced revolution.
Dionne leaves out the Roseanne show, which as Barr pointed out in an interview
the other day really was reflective of working-class life. She’s right, which is one
reason it was almost impossible to watch. The too-close-to-home horror was
in the details. Obviously, people did watch it nonetheless. And I can’t agree that
All in the Family was working-class in any way beyond the trappings. But
Dionne is certainly right about Steinbeck and Dos Passos, though he’s
forgetting, for instance, John Sayles, America’s best film director. But nothing is
more easily co-opted than art. Capital eats it up and spits it back reworked. The
ultimate spittoon is the art museum. That fact
spawned a rebellion among artists, but that too was co-opted. In the same way
other kinds of rebellions are co-opted, with help of media. If it can’t be made salable it’s
swept under the rug. Corporations own the art world even more completely
than they own the sports world.
Cultural revolutions aren’t the real thing. (The infamous one that happened in
China was nothing more than a putsch, albeit Mao feared, ironically to say the
least, revolution so much he thought to murder any and all possible sources of
unrest. (Stupid of him.) The difference between Cantor and Mao is that Mao
probably didn’t fear the working class itself quite so much. But that’s about the
only difference. Mao didn’t think it necessary to wipe out the working class
entirely, while Cantor would if he could. Cantor’s a blithering fool along with
the rest of those mopes he hangs with, none of whom is any kind of
respectable capitalist. Buffett knows you don’t get rid of the working class or
even pretend it doesn’t exist. Cantor and crew remind me all the time of Cotton
Mather more than of any other historic figure. Maybe Beria. Mather and Beria
were no doubt as useful to power as Cantor, though power regards the type
with contempt.)
So the left took the identity politics route doing its best to forget the working
class. (Then it blamed and still blames Nader.)
So Carol Costello of arch-right-wing CNN says this morning to an actual
working-class guy (really to us more than to him), after he ran down
Republicans and big biz and so on, “That’s just half the story.” I wish it were
incredible, but it was standard reply to those held in contempt, including CNN’s
own audience. Not one time have I ever heard anyone in TV say to a capitalist,
“That’s just half the story.”
Dionne is absolutely right about CNBC, which is largely a party—an actual party,
with hats and confetti and martinis.
This silly holiday, that ought fall on May 1, should be renamed: We Despise Labor Day.
Report thisPeople would still barbecue pig and drink Bud if, that is, they could afford to.
By David J. Cyr, September 5, 2011 at 5:03 am Link to this comment
Why does the corporate-state celebrate Labor Day?
Consider what happened this year in Wisconsin and New York, when both of those state’s governors — one a Republican, and the other a Democrat — instituted similar austerity plans, requiring workers to pay the time and the fines for banksters’ crimes:
When Wisconsin’s Republican, Governor Walker, rolled out his (don’t tax the rich/punish the workers) austerity plan, the public workers’ unions politely produced some grandly theatrical demonstrations over the removal of some of their collective bargaining rights… and then they obediently went to work to eagerly GOTV for the corporate party’s Democrats.
Meanwhile, in New York, collective bargaining was under no threat, because the public workers’ unions immediately dropped their drawers; bent over; spread their cheeks; and obediently allowed the Democrat, Governor Andrew Cuomo, to stick his (don’t tax the rich/punish the workers) austerity plan up their asses.
Unions quickly surrender to the corporate party’s Democrats whatever they would fight to win from the corporate party’s Republicans.
The corporate-state is celebrating Labor Day today because the corporate party corrupted Democrat management of unions has made organized labor completely subservient to the corporate-state.
The corporate (R) & (D) party’s voters ever reliably keep free-will voting to keep having the corporate person controlled government they say they don’t want. Republican and Democrat voters keep voting in solidarity together for the corporate party’s candidates either because they actually desire the abuses of gangster government to continue, or they are uneducable.
There is a difference in (R)s and (D)s. The difference is mainly in whom each of the corporate party’s two factions fools all the time, every time.
http://www.chenangogreens.org
Report thisBy Robespierre115, September 5, 2011 at 3:34 am Link to this comment
Dionne is such a damn joke. He pretends Obama has nothing to do with the working class’s plight, it’s all a Republican scheme. And quoting John Paul II? Grow a pair and quote REAL working class heroes like Rosa Luxemburg, John Reed etc.
Report thisBy zonth_zonth, September 5, 2011 at 12:57 am Link to this comment
dont worry Dione, as you say “our culture has given up on honoring workers as the real creators of wealth and their honest toil”, than in the next paragraph blaming the Republicans. So who is the demon; culture or Republicans? You seem confused as to which abstract to place blame upon.
Not to worry, as civilization is cyclical and the US will return to Feudalism sooner rather than later.
Report thisBy Marian Griffith, September 5, 2011 at 12:46 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
It should be good to remember, especially on Labour day, that it was the rise of the unions and their struggle for protection of the (rights of the) workers, that prevented a communist revolution.
Report thisEven though in the mind of the typical conservative the two are linked so closely as to make no difference.
It was exactly the dehumanising of the worker, the exploitation as a disposable ‘asset’ in the late 1800s factories and mills, that gave rise to Marx’s Das Kapital and the birth of the communist manifesto. Guess we will know soon if history will repeat itself or if we collectively come to our sense before the plunge into darkness (not of communism but, say, the French Revolution and the regime that followed it were not exactly shining moments in our history, but such events accompanied the final death of the medieval feudal system).
By labman57, September 5, 2011 at 12:27 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
If the tea party brown-nosers in Congress have their way, Labor Day will be
Report thisrenamed “Pay homage to corporate management” Day.
By cpb, September 4, 2011 at 11:53 pm Link to this comment
“As for the unions, they are often treated in the media as advocates of arcane work rules, protectors of inefficient public employees and obstacles to the economic growth our bold entrepreneurs would let loose if only they were free from labor regulations.”
The problem here is that there are some truths to the accusations against unions. That these rightful accusations are used to denigrate the founding principles of unions is an exercise in propaganda though.
The rights of labour are always under corporate attack. When they can accurately point to problematic issues within the union movement, they are able to advance their anti-human perspective.
The problems that exist so far as relations between labour and capital are complicated and worthy of much discussion. That the massive unions have been led for decades by sellouts who trade the best interests of the peeps for invitations to a round of golf and other such perks is the politically incorrect interpretation of the status quo.
Capital good, labour bad, period. That’s the whole truth folks! Dontchya just love simple answers!!
It has always taken two to tango. What kind of dance is it when one of the two is the party that owns the dance hall, prints the tickets, and covers the bar tab?
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