I am in a state of resigned disbelief this Labor Day, 2014. Well, no I'm not. Maybe I'm in a state of resigned disappointment. Things have been like this for a while now, so I have to believe it. As we approach the sixth anniversary of the---what shall we call it?---Meltdown? Financial Crisis? Great Recession?---it is apparent that, regardless of some examples of positive activity, the People continue a jittery sleepwalk through a pathetic political-cultural nightmare while the predators pick them off a morsel at a time. Two months away from the 2014 mid-term elections, it is clear that the House of Representatives will remain in Republican hands while there is a very real threat that the Senate will go Republican---not that the Democrats are much to brag about. Millions of Americans remain hoodwinked by religious charlatans and Fox News, and victimized by divide-and-conquer politicians who are puppets of the greedy, immoral plutocrats who have recaptured the government. The agenda of this 1% is to preserve a bankrupt status quo of political economy that fosters the continuing exploitation of the people and the planet. Despite overwhelming evidence that human industrial activity, predicated upon the fossil fuel energy paradigm, is rapidly destroying the Earth ecosystems, this rabid elite is pushing us all towards a nightmare of scarcity, famine and war. Denial, distraction and disconnection reign, as the fruits of our labor whither in the drought of our days.
One of the problems that affects the stability and dignity of labor is that people are loathe to identify themselves as workers. Our Social-Darwinist winner-take-all culture glorifies the accumulation of money, power and glamour, while denigrating the status of the ordinary person. John Steinbeck knew that "socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." No one wants to work as a fast food worker, or a retail worker. You do that and you're a loser. I recently walked shopping through a Kohl's in suburban Connecticut, where I overheard a father and son making fun of the "retail slaves". I have no idea what work that father does for a living, but it was clear the lesson he had imparted to his son.
We have learned that we are no longer much of a proletariat in this service economy we now have. We are freelance units who can expect to change jobs at least seven or eight times during our lifetimes. We are the working poor and we are the middle-class "salary men" or commission-only swells who rise and fall on the perilous swells of boom-and-bust casino capitalism. This year we have witnessed events that shine a light upon the struggles of labor in the wake of the forced destruction of the production economy. For years now, as production vanished, we have been flipping each others' burgers for long enough that now we can contemplate a labor movement to organize fast food work. This past May over 100 people were arrested outside of McDonald's headquarters in Illinois after protesting for increased wages. As the raging red state white males worry about their guns and the undeserving blacks and that blacketty-black in the White House trying to destroy their "freedoms" and their "American Values" (whatever they are), they swallow hook, line and sinker the "right-to-work" propaganda. Last February in Tennessee, Republican Senator Bob Corker helped taint the vote to establish a union presence at the Chattanooga Volkswagen plant by stating that he had "been assured" that if the workers turned down the union then the plant would get a new SUV production line. (and they are getting it, on terms dictated by Bob and his friends, guaranteeing the right to work for less) He later bragged about being the UAW's "public enemy number one".
Well, Bob, so far as I'm concerned, if you are the UAW's public enemy number one, then you are the People's public enemy---maybe not number one, I think you are number....wait! Here you are on my list of enemies of the People. Number 265. You're a tool, Bob. You, who get less than 2.3% of your campaign money from small donors, but millions from Wall Street and lobbyists.
The fixers fix the game, as has always been the case. Across the land the People sleep a deep sleep and chatter in their sleep about NASCAR and Football and Beyonce and Survivor-like reality shows that celebrate the vicious culture of greed and humiliation. America's Greatest Ultimate Loser. Work like a dog. Don't make waves. Do what we say. You can hit it big, man! Just hang in there, your day will come. Your day will come when the fracking fracks the crust of the earth and the water is poisoned. Your day will come when the reefs are bleached of life and the oceans die. Do the work we tell you to do, and your glamorous life will smear itself in violence across the diminishing years of our madness.