Look for the union label

This day--Labor Day!--is right up there with MLK day (take the virtual tour of the new memorial--the Beautiful Boy loves it) as one of the best days to be a Liberal.  Everyone (not counting the traditional media) wants to remind us all just how much unions have done for us--and how we need to get back to where we started from.

The biggest lie American workers have been fed in the last thirty years?  That post-industrial prosperity was right around the corner.  It isn't ever happening--and as Mr. Meyerson notes in his piece, that prosperity isn't coming back until we get back to that which made us great:  manufacturing.  And I might add, with a healthy dose of union labor leading the way.

Did you know that Daily Kos has a new site devoted to Labor?   This piece by Laura Clawson (who has done a lot of wonderful pieces on the labor site) is a call to arms to setting the record straight.  Because of corporate lies and traditional media incompetence, a majority of Americans believe Unions make the standard of living worse for non-union workers.  Nothing could be further from the truth--today Think Progress gave us a handy-dandy chart (in addition to a nice cheat sheet on everything unions have done for all of us--the usual suspects:  the weekend, health benefits, an end to child labor, a robust middle class) which clearly shows that as Union membership has waned, so have middle class wages. 

And this year we had...Wisconsin.  From small things mama, big things one day come...

And speaking of music this year brought us Tom Morello's "Union Town" and the Dropkick Murphy's "Take 'Em Down" (in support of the Wisconsin workers).  There's even this--the commercial from which I stole this post's title.  Hell, there's even a site devoted to union songs.

There is no Business Day or Corporate Day.  No one writes songs about the glory of business or the free market, and if they did, very few would give a fuck.

There's a reason for that:  it's called having a soul, and those of us who proudly support Unions, and those who belong to them, and those who believe in looking our for their least of their brothers, have got one that's shining as bright as the sun in all its glory.

Peace,
emaycee