Labor Day: How it Came About; What it Means
Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.
I hope you will click on the link and read it all. It's shorter than my usual post.
My topic line above means to emphasize the for now aspect. This holiday may very well be on the way OUT. If the current raging right-wing of the Republican Party gets into power, what would be the basis of a once vibrant holiday spirit honoring the American Worker? The party that can have a (proven dishonest) presidential candidate speak in glowing terms about when "...you need an American" while at the same time hailing a governor who destroys labor unions as a hero, will do all it can to end the balancing factor of organized labor in our nation. The article mentioned above flatly states that the labor movement brought about social and economic achievements, and if you were to ask the rich and powerful business moguls of today whether this is true, they would have to admit that it is true. However they would hate to face the fact that those achievements came in spite of the wealthy business barons of the nineteenth century who would rather have kept all their wealth and let the common worker (including children) go on living in poverty while working endless hours and having no rights.
So have a great holiday. And as you enjoy your cook-outs, family gatherings and other fun activities that were not a part of the All American way of life until the Labor Movement brought some sanity to the way our work weeks and time off were organized, think seriously for a moment. Try to imagine the bright new future of a nation going in reverse if a big-money coalition buys our elections and eventually chokes off the voice of the American Worker. But be aware: it is our own national throat we are cutting if we sell our votes this November.
I didn't watch any of the Rethug convention. I concluded that sitting screaming "lying SOB" at the TV wasn't going to be good for my aged blood pressure level.
ReplyDeletePeople seem to hate to study history, so we are in danger of repeating the age of the robber barons, and if we do, this republic is doomed. We are in imminent danger of returning to the Dickensian world we fought so hard to escape from. Rome all over again.
I remember how much that SOB, Herbert Armstrong, hated labor unions. Again, those who suffered under him very often didn't learn a damn thing, especially if they are now caught up in one of the cult splinters or opted back into protestantism.
ReplyDeleteI find most of them are still ardent republican "conservatives," even tea baggers." They consider you and me to be rank heretics.
I remember how much that SOB, Herbert Armstrong, hated labor unions.
ReplyDeleteMany of the employees outside the ministry were paid less than liveable wages and some less than minimum. Stories out of the IT Department are horifying. As a business, it was pure 19th century management, but with a complete dysfunctional chaotic progression in random directions and random ways. What was true one day (just like the religion itself) wasn't the next. People would leave their good jobs, travel 3,000 miles across the country, and find that the job disappeared before they arrived on campus.
I have had occasion to confer with a man and his wife who worked in the TV studio there (he once worked for NBC). They were both appalled by what went on there with all the chaos and confusion. It's a wonder, from the stories I've heard that they stayed as long as they did.
And then there were the Conscientious Objectors working at Ambassador College Texas, where they were treated like slaves, had no standing in the church at all, could not socialize with the people there and had to treat the teens of the Evangelists as though they were princes and princesses, under the threat of going to prison if they didn't continue working under terrible conditions with low pay, all in the shadow of seeing some of the most horrible immoral behavior imaginable.
If any of the Armstrong churches had their way, not only would Labor Day be eliminated, as they are closet Republican Dog owners, but they would endenture people into abject slavery if they ever got the least amount of political power. How could we know that? We have only to look at their microcosm of dictatorial kingdoms strewn around the world, along with their vision of oppression under "the government of god" after the third coming of Jesus.
Again, I'm not so certain we aren't headed for slavery in a nation gutted of its freedoms from the practices of both parties in a world where integrity is sacrificed for the promise of hope and change.
You can, of course, see what my cat has to say as what may be his final words....