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

Sprechen sie deustche?

A while back I read this piece by Jared Bernstein on improving the economy and though there weren't a lot of really new ideas, his initial premise on fixing the economy "First do no harm" (from the Hippocratic Oath) struck me as a novel prescription (so to speak).  And a premise that all too often, our own leaders ignore.

But not the Germans--I've read of their success, even through the downturn, with their own economy but this piece by Harold Meyerson explains it in a manner more for people like me whose eyes glaze over at the sight of the first economics pie chart.  In a nutshell:  the concerns of the working class are given equal weight as those of them that has the gold.  Important note:  in Germany, the rate of pay for the middle class has risen at roughly the same rate as those of the wealthy.  Imagine that!

Here's the thing:  when leaders look out for all and not for the few, things work out much better for the nation.  It's not socialism.  It's good sense.

Peace,
emaycee

Changing the Narrative, Part I

Changing the political narrative in America? I'm not even sure it's possible. Still, after the past two years of reading the countless "This Is What Obama/Dems Should Do" pieces and having their result be that Obama/Dems do nothing of the sort, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe we shouldn't try another strategy. This piece by Harold Meyerson really got me to thinking about how good republicans are at creating their own reality--anything that can foster the fantasy that the government is coming to get you and yours is thrown out there and furthers the conservative fears despite the fact, as Meyerson points out, there isn't a single case of Uncle Sam taking anyone's kids because they refused to get them a flu shot, and zero people went to jail because they refused to cooperate with the census takers. Meyerson rightly notes that this paranoia is not good for America, and I highly doubt we could convince already highly skeptical Liberals to spout conspiracy nonsense. Still...there's something to be said for the single-mindedness of their statements and their ability to keep reminding their followers of who the enemy is. And if Liberals are to succeed, we need to get a whole hell of a lot better at narrating our single-mindedness (Liberal and single-mindedness is probably an oxymoron), and communicating to the American people just who the enemy (outside of the Batshit Insane 30%, the true enemies of everyday Americans and their freedoms are the christian right, wall street, corporate America, the tea party, the chamber of commerce, and anything the republican party gets its greedy paws on) is. Peace, emaycee