When Senator Kerry is sworn in as President I don't expect him to usher in world peace, stop the insane drug war, scrap the ridiculous anti-missile defense system, or balance the budget. I'd settle for just a small good thing.
The concept is Raymond Carver's, borrowed from his work Where I'm Calling From. The story, A Small Good Thing, is about a baker who harasses a mother who never picks up her son's birthday cake. The baker doesn't know the boy was killed three days before and that the messages he's left on the Mother's machine knife her a little more each day.
So she finally shows up at the bakery with her husband and confronts him. The baker doesn't make excuses for his behavior. He just honesty tells them who he is and immediately bakes delicious cinnamon rolls with butter and serves them.
They haven't eaten well in days. The rolls are delicious and calm their roiled spirits. The baker can't fix what's happened, and he can't take back those messages he's left. But he does a small good thing anyway and it's enormously helpful to the parents.
What's my desired small good thing from President Kerry? I want him to hire 1,000 lawyers for the Labor Department with the specific public pronouncement they're going to monitor and enforce union organizing rules for Walmart.
We all have different ideas about what it means to be a Democrat. To me, centrally, identification to the party is built around working people. The Little People of our society who play by the rules, work hard, and only expect the basics in return. As Democrats we represent and fight for these people so they can have good jobs, health insurance, safe environments, and good public education for their kids.
Workers have tried to organize at Walmart many times, but it's always been stymied by illegal company tactics. There's never any recourse for the workers because the Department of Labor doesn't give a damn, and even if they did they're completely swamped and don't have a tenth of the resources they need to monitor and enforce union election rules.
I'm truly baffled and hurt this idea never even seems to come up, let alone gain traction with the party or Senator Kerry. Our strength as a country comes from our middle class, yet no politician seems to fight to keep it from shrinking, let alone expanding it.
Politically, what price would we pay for this tactic? Really? Citizens who hate the idea were never going to vote with us anyway, and the potential for expanding the party is vast.
Much more importantly to me, I want the human pain of our retail service workers lessened. I'm sick of seeing them underpaid and overworked, ripped off, denied health & dental benefits, working two jobs, and suffering from non-treated health issues. I want their kids to have what my daughter has--a room in a clean, warm, safe house, good clothes, good food, parents who aren't always working, health care, and a good public school.
This is America, god damn it, and I fail to see how fighting for the Little People can be considered unwise or out of vogue. Wtf? These are our people suffering. Why else have a country if we can't make life better for everyone? Kerry wouldn't be making new labor law, he'd just rigorously enforce what we have on the books now.
Just this one small good thing, Senator Kerry. Please.
If you had one small good thing that could be implemented in the next four years, what would it be?