LABOR DAY PERSPECTIVE

Texas populist Jim Hightower on Labor Day past and present via AlterNet:

But that's been the story every step of the way in our under-appreciated struggle to establish what's become taken for granted as "The American Way of Life". The 40-hour work week, the wage floor, collective bargaining, retirement security, Medicare, job-safety protections, and so much more that sustains the middle-class possibility for a majority of our people were not provided by the founders in 1776 – and they certainly were not given to us by generous corporate chieftains. Rather, the middle-class framework was built by us – We The People.

But now, piece-by-piece, the bosses and politicians are rapidly dismantling this framework. From global trade scams to almost daily administrative rulings by the Bush White House, not only are unions and workers generally under assault, but the very opportunity to achieve a middle-class life is being shut off for millions of Americans.

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I was having a conversation with my very conservative father some months back when he showed a great deal of surprise at my assertion that everybody must work. I suppose he imagined that I, being liberal, believe in some weird pro-welfare, "the government owes me a living," conservative constructed straw-man point of view. While I do believe in welfare for those who need it, it is not so strange, I explained to him, that a leftist would want everybody to work. After all, wasn't it Karl Marx who declared, "we live to work and we work to live," or something to that effect? He seemed a bit confused by what I was saying, but he also seemed to have a bit more respect for me. I decided not to press the point: the social leeches that really make me angry are not the near-fictional welfare queens who are said to get pregnant to qualify for more benefits; rather, it is the idle rich who make their money from financial transactions while actually producing nothing who I find to be insufferable.

For my father's sake, I changed the subject.

Anyway, for Labor Day, I just want to say that work, of all varieties, is a glorious thing. Work is what makes society function. Our nation could not exist without both ditch diggers and bank tellers. Sadly, American culture tends to glorify the rich and powerful while disdaining the concept of getting up every morning and doing the drudgery that makes everything operate. It's nice to have a day off today, but it's just awful that we, as a people, seem to have very little reverence for labor, as a concept.

Just something to think about.

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