You will see in the diary that I wrote as fast I could, decided to not eat melon with my beautiful Gwen, have to leave in a hurry and ... could not move forward in the day without asking people to get pissed off about the ill-treatment of working people ... so pissed off that they start acting like King Lear before the sadness kicks and, instead, uses the rage to wake people up to something they might not ever considered -- fairness.
I hope you enjoy.
I have to be somewhere at 11:15, I need to leave at 11. It is 10:38. The sudden Sunday lazies have found me. I don't want to go get my haircut no matter how badly I need it. I don't want to go to Gwen's sister's house for dinner, as sweet as the family is ... I just want to crawl on the new groovy chair we have, put my feet up and type out spewing blogs on the union movement in the United States -- maybe shoot of a few emails to uncles I haven't seen in 20-plus years.
Alas, I am doomed to type really fast (and as a side note, turned down a piece of really ripe cantaloupe that Gwen just offered -- just so that I can type really fast).
Why do I find it important to sit here to get something on Kos for folks to consider? Is it just my catharsis, as was the case the other night when I couldn't fall to sleep? Is it that I am just a lunatic and want progressive bloggers with fancy educations and vocabularies to pick up the Olympic torch for working people? I don't know ... all of them get a yes and a no answer.
Look, friends ... we need to change the way working people are treated in this country. That is not a statement for union workers only, blue collar workers only ... it is everyone who goes to a job in the morning. Our economy is in shambles and those who are hurting the most are the folks getting up to go to a job ... if it is still there. This is not breaking news, everyone knows this or feels it in their purse.
When I met with some folks the other day who are doing ball busting labor for ten bucks an hour, working at a Donald Trump hotel and resort, I went from angry to sad quicker than King Lear. The only difference between me and Lear is that I (we) are not in a position to turn over the kingdom to a couple of gold-digging snot nosed kids (replace Goneril and Regan for Donald Trump, Fred Smith and the like).
Look, these huge corporations and their corporate knights are making bank. I don't have the time to write this with the sense of decorum Kos brings out in me, so let me just babble. These guys (rarely any woman) are taking home tons of fucking money. They are living the American Dream while working people, everyday working people are living a nightmare. It is not fair, not cool, unjustified and ... fuck, it is even sinful.
Lear screams, "Am I not Lear?" When it is unimaginable to the old kook that his daughters can treat him so unkind. And I am screaming too ... are we not worthy of a living wage? Are we not worthy of a voice in the workplace? Aren't we the ones bringing in the bread for you to fuel up your jets and helicopters?
Where is Kent in disguise to save the day? Is he the Teamsters, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, is he the Teachers Union, maybe ... he is the AFL-CIO or Change to Win ... If Kent is here, in disguise or not, I think the brother needs a little help -- and that's why I am rushing to write this before going to get my haircut and turning Gwen away for a little melon. I need everyone to learn about a few things ... and go Lear nutty in getting heard. Here is a simple list of items:
- The Employee Free Choice Act
- Misclassification
- Fair and living wages
- Occupational Safety and Health
- Immigrant labor (two sides getting the shaft there)
- Mary Peters and the Department of Labor (as double-faced as Lear's kids, not to mention the noble Glouchesters).
- Off shore drilling for Oil
- Barack Obama's stance on labor
- McCain's lack of a stance on labor
- In Solidarity, united ... we bargain ... and divided we beg.
Help me help ourselves from getting away from the begging and getting closer to bargaining for what is right.
Thanks, I gotta go.