Pat Political

Blogger's newest service

My friend Morgan Brown has brought to my attention that Blogger has instituted a new feature-- a ‘flag’ with which any blogger can indicate disapproval of a particular blog. And Blogger says that if enough disapproval is registered, the offender may be removed from Blogger listings. They defend this new policy on the ground that it would be entirely democratic, based on “The Wisdom of Crowds.”

This is the type of democracy now being practiced by the Bush Republicans with their fundamentalist majority status in the Congress-- a “We’re in power and so we can make law as we like” approach. The men who wrote our Constitution set up our elections so that the majority opinion would be the guide for the country’s policy, but always with the protection of the individual’s right to be different. Never forget the first ten amendments.

Blogging itself is perhaps the ultimate in individual expression. A formal website requires much more expertise than most of us possess to set up and maintain. But anyone who can use a keyboard can set up and publish a blog, and lots of us are doing so. And if I disapprove of something a fellow blogger has said, in most instances I can post a comment. And if I really don’t like what is on this blog, I can remove it from my ’favorites’ list and never look at it again. I do not need the help of this new Blogger feature. Indeed I find it both offensive and potentially dangerous to the wonderful new liberty blogging has given us.

Labor and the Corporate Elite - Part Four

So how do we defeat the Bush Republicans in the next election and can the Democrats do it.

Bush Republicans are easy to define. They are first and foremost the Business Community, which tells us all that it has no obligation to any of us who are workers and who are part of the community from which it makes its money. Its only concern is to make a profit.

But who are the Democrats.

The most vocal nowadays are the so-called Centrists and organized labor.

The Centrists are actually closet Republicans, since they are as business-oriented as any Bush Republican. A few prominent examples are Bill Clinton, Senators Clinton, Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards, and our own state Senators Leddy and Welch. And we have seen already how the business orientation of Leddy and Welch has frustrated the attempts of the Democratic majority in the House to move Vermont toward a state-wide health care system.

The AFL/CIO unions have been very much the voice of the Democratic Party. But out-sourcing is making serious inroads on union manufacturing jobs in America.

And why the out-sourcing? Because. business tells us. it cannot manufacture goods in this country and give consumers the low prices they demand.

We all got caught up in the biggest marketing sell job that the Business Community has ever pulled when it persuaded the general public that CHEAP is GOOD.

The first union casualty of what was at first called ‘discount’ stores was the Ladies’ International Garment Workers Union. My mother and I looked for their label for as long as we could find it. But unfortunately it is obvious that good union wives were also buying their underwear at discount and not supporting the union label. Nowadays to find US manufactured goods in any big store or internet outlet is almost impossible.

It’s pretty obvious that Democrats need a new way to unite the grass roots of the country, and big money donors, of which there seem to be plenty, are not going to do it.

Howard Dean found the right words to say while he was still a candidate for the presidency.

He was the only one in either party to talk about the Declaration of Independence and its statement that we are all equal and that we have a right to a government which can provide us with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. He was bringing in a lot of small grass roots donations and many promises of support. And even though I always regarded him as the most Republican Democrat I knew, I was ready to vote for him and to contribute to his campaign if he had continued to speak in this way.

The other big uniter is our opposition to the war. The Iraq invasion was sold to us on lies. And we should never let this administration forget that we know this..

We who are labor union oriented need to join with everyone else for whom the enemy is the Business Community-- small local business owners, family farmers, old time Republicans, anti-racist groups-- and together we can do it! .

Labor and the Corporate Elite - Part Three

So, where are we today....

There is no one over forty who has been or is still a wage earner, who is not dependent on the Bush Republican big corporation stock market economy in some way for pensions, retirement income, savings, etc.

People under forty are not so likely to be involved, and I believe that Bush’s effort to set up private accounts into which young workers could divert some of their social security payroll taxes was aimed at trapping them in the same way we elders are caught. These private accounts are to be stock market accounts administered by a manager, not truly under the control of the “owner” of the account.

And we are trapped, whether we call ourselves pro-business or union.

My union is now the SEIU although I came in when it was still 1199. I joined somewhat reluctantly when I went to work as a research technician for the pharmacology department of a small medical school for my last ten working years. But when I learned of the abuses which had been perpetrated against us before the union, I became an ardent worker and even sat at the negotiating table. And I helped negotiate for more of the benefits I have today-- a pension based on how many years I worked and a prescriptions package. The money from which these benefits is paid to me is tied up in the corporate stock market economy.

In this country whatever union we belong to, to keep our benefits, we have to continue our support of this economy.

And in this country each of the unions to which we belong is tied in eternal confrontation to a particular business or trade, having to negotiate new contracts every few years. To continue as they are, our unions must also continue to support American Business as it declares itself to be-- totally without responsibility either to its workers or to the community from which it makes its profits.

The union movement in Western European countries achieved change in the business community itself. These countries are now regarded by American Business as being nastily “socialist”. It is anathema that they provide retirement and universal health care paid for by the community/government instead of benefits which are conferred by business. Think of how often we are told how awful any sort of universal heath care system would be

Mother Jones’ IWW, with its goal of uniting all workers into one union still offers the chance to confront and force change in the Business Community itself. This is the enemy of us all.

(And there will be another blog dealing with how to fight the enemy...!)

Labor and the Corporate Elite - Part Two

After the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves men from both the south and the north joined together as the Knights of Labor and became the first major movement to fight what they called the new civil war against industrial slavery.

The autobiography of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, her recollection of her part in this struggle, is the principle source of what I know about it. Her chronology may not always be accurate but she makes one feel the terrible conditions of the workers’ lives. For, as she said, it is slavery when the working day is twelve long hours and the pay a pittance so that many families found it necessary to send their small children to work in the mills for those few extra pennies which meant family survival. It is slavery when workers’ pay is not in good US dollars but in company script, when workers must live in company owned houses for which they pay rent to the company and must buy their supplies from the company store. It is slavery when a man can be fired at will by the company and be thrust out into the world with his family without one cent of real US money in his pocket.

She makes vividly clear the savagery of the owners’ efforts to keep their workers under control, the brutal beatings and killings by their hired thugs.

Mother Jones may well be one of the most important factors in the success of the union movement in our country. She was a brilliant orator. She was the one who was always sent whenever strikers were losing their will to continue the fight. And she was always in the center of the most vicious fights, doing whatever she could to relieve the misery and to encourage the strikers.

Her feelings towards the wives of owners also add to the picture. It was these middle and upper class women who began the woman’s movement, who began to agitate for the vote. When one group told Mother Jones they couldn’t be active in seeking reform without the vote, her reply was that she didn’t have a vote and still was plenty active. She was also bothered by the ’charity’ work of so many of these women, feeling that if people had decent working and living conditions, charity wouldn’t be needed. But most of all she was painfully aware of the fact that most of these women, no matter what charitable works they might be doing, were being supported by child labor. She deplored their acceptance of their husbands’ and ministers’ dictum that it was better for the children of the working poor to be gainfully employed rather than running free in the streets.

Violence in the union fight lasted from the end of the Civil War through the 1920’s. It was during this same period that the elitist owners established most clearly themselves as a class apart. They sent their wealthy sons and daughters abroad to marry Europe’s impoverished royalty and nobility. Winston Churchill’s mother was the daughter of one of these families. Their very exclusive social events were much publicized. In my childhood the social life of their debutante daughters was as newsworthy as any Hollywood star‘s doings. But the clearest statement of their elitism came from Rockefeller, who was one of the most brutal mine owners, when he talked about education. The Ivy League universities of the East were to educate business and political leaders. The Midwestern universities were to produce the country’s engineers and technical people. High schools were to provide the clerical workers business always needed while the lower grades should concentrate on turning out a disciplined and productive work force. Only last week I heard someone refer to Vermont’s highly disciplined work force. Do you feel you are part of a work force or are you an individual trying to live a life that has meaning for you.

And it’s going to take another blog to look at where we are today.....

Labor and the Corporate Elite

On Saturday July 30th I had the great pleasure of doing my Mother Jones monologue as part of a month long celebration of the IWW and the old Socialist Labor Party Hall in Barre. A wonderful group of people has been working to restore this historical building so that it can be an active part of our community once again. Saturday night was billed as an evening at the Dil Pickle Club and a goodly number of our exciting local musicians and poets contributed their talents as well as myself. This old woman enjoyed every minute of the evening and didn’t get home until midnight! Avery rare happening in my life these days, I can assure you.

And not surprisingly the evening got me to thinking about the history of labor generally.

Isn’t it ironic that the British have produced both the strongest statement of personal liberty and the absolute worst labor relations. For it is straight from our British forbears that we in this country have received the notion generally held by business that it has no responsibility toward its workers, that workers can be treated like a commodity, to be hired and fired at will..

I wonder how many people know that this is not a universal attitude among business owners. I’ll give you two contrasting employers in our world today.

Shaw’s is either American owned or British owned. I can’t stand to go in there because the atmosphere is so unpleasant. And everyone I know who works there tells me that management is completely disrespectful of its employees.

But go into a Hannaford’s and you will find people working there cheerful, friendly, and eager to be helpful. Hannaford’s is owned by a Belgian firm with the European tradition of responsibility toward its workers.

I wonder how many people are aware of a very real struggle presently going on between the Continental European and the English/American business philosophy..

The European attitude is that business has to be responsible to the community from which it makes its money. Two examples: Drug companies must charge reasonable prices for their drugs. A company has to demonstrate that its product is safe before it can be marketed.

We are all painfully aware that we allow business to charge whatever it thinks the market will bear for our drugs. And the attitude of American business is that a product can be freely sold unless it can be proved unsafe.

The fight over Monsanto’s genetically modified seed is a good example of the American attitude. The resistance in Europe is based on Monsanto not being able to prove that its seed is not ecologically harmful. But Monsanto has been scientifically inept. It has totally lost any capacity to prove the safety of its seed through controlled plantings because it never made sure that this seed could not cross-pollinate other crops.

How did a country which began with such highly idealistic concepts as ours end up with such an elitist corporate ruling class?

From its very beginnings there were people who found the notion of equality abhorrent. They were generally well to do property and business owners, and therefore had more influence in the workings of the new government. Their motto has always been “What’s good for business is good for the country.” Elections were seen not as public debate on policy but a way to gain more power. They found that public opinion could be easily manipulated by spending lots of money and this increased their contempt for the “common man.”

And the egregious greed of this elitist business oriented group created the labor movement which came into being after the Civil War.

More to come in my next blog.