Fruits of Our Labor
by Hank Silverberg
We are a culturally diverse country. Our natural resources are spectacular and plenty. But it took the Labor Movement of the 1930's to turn us into a progressive nation.
For most of this country's first two hundred years, those who did manual labor were exploited and abused by the rich and powerful.
Labor Day is a time to celebrate the American worker, whether it be the indentured Irishmen who built the Erie Canal (1817 -1825), the Irish and Chinese immigrants and newly freed Black men who built the Transcontinental Railroad (1863-1869) or the Mohawk Iron workers who risked their lives to put up the Empire State Building in the early 1930's.
It is relevant today to remember that without the union strikes and protests in the streets-- sometimes violent ones-- we would not have the 40 hour work week, Social Security, Medicare, safe working conditions, a ban on child labor, the minimum wage, and other protections like paid sick leave. Capitalists didn't budge on any of those issues until labor organized to demand it.
It was the same American worker who unleashed this nation's manufacturing might to defeat Fascism during World War Two.
We got a good idea during the current pandemic when many of us were forced to stay home, what the world would be like without the so-called "essential workers" like grocery store clerks, appliance repairmen, health care workers, or lab technicians who are often not represented or protected by labor unions.
Given the proper resources and good leadership, American workers can do anything from building a good car to inventing and exploiting the microchip or exploring the stars.
It would be a good idea to take a few minutes this week to honor those labor organizers who led the way in the 20th Century and to acknowledge those workers who still do not have pay equity in the 21st century.
Which brings me to my focus this week. We hear a lot from the "Right" during the current presidential campaign about Socialism.
They continue to use the word as if it's associated with the devil.
It's important to point out that conservatives have cried "socialism" for decades on almost all the progress made to help the American worker. They said Social Security was socialism. They claimed Medicare was socialism. They fought the 40 hour work week as socialism and they used the same cry on other things like consumer protection and pollution control in and outside the workplace.
That use of the word is simply not accurate. Socialism, by definition, means government control of the means of production. Last time I checked, Amazon, GM, IBM, Microsoft, Exxon and thousands of other companies were still controlled and run by private individuals or their stockholders. Even universal health care, another of the targets of the "socialist" label would still have to rely on private companies to provide the service.
As you listen to the rhetoric from the Right over the next few weeks leading up to November 3rd, please see through it and look at reality.
Most protests are NOT violent!
Political protests in this country have been effective in the past. From the Boston Tea Party in 1773 to the protest marches for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam war in the 1960's, they have produced change.
The right wing narrative now is that our current wave of demonstrations is very violent. That is simply not true. A study by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) looked at the latest wave of protests from May 24th, the day before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, to August 22nd.There were 10,600 protests in the United States. Seventy-three percent were associated with the Black Lives Matter movement. There was government intervention in the terms of a large police presence in 54% of those protests, but the study found only 5% of the total produced any violence.
There were 360 counter-protests and the study revealed 12% of those turned violent.
The highest number of overall protests was in California followed by New York, Florida, and Illinois.
Yes, there has been and still is a high profile and sometimes violent protest underway in Portland, Oregon. But it is the exception rather than the rule.
Here is the most startling statistic of them all from my perspective. There were over 100 events in which there was government violence against members of the media.
https://acleddata.com/special-projects/us-crisis-monitor/
(Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) at Princeton University have launched the US Crisis Monitor — a joint project that provides the public with real-time data and analysis on political violence and demonstrations in the United States for the first time, and aims to establish an evidence base from which to identify risks, hotspots, and available resources to empower local communities in times of crisis.)
The study also revealed there were over 20 armed militia groups confronting the protesters across the country, and those are becoming more common. There have also been dozens of car ramming attacks against demonstrators.
Do you know the rules for voting?
We are getting much closer to election day and you should now be planning how and when you will vote. In my state, Virginia, where there is early voting, you can cast your ballot in person as early as September 18. Assuming you are properly registered, all you have to do is walk into a special early voting site during business hours and you can vote the same way you do on election day. The advantage, of course, is either a very short wait, or no waiting at all.
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States control voting, not the federal government, so the rules are different in all 50 states and D.C. Slate.com has produced a nice guide with information on the rules in each of the states. Here's the link so you can look up what you need to know for your state.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/08/2020-voting-guide.html
Don't wait until the last minute. Check it out now so you know all the options. If you have not registered to vote yet, the guide can give you the rules for that as well. DON'T WAIT. Do it now.
Postal update:
Over the last few weeks I have written a lot about Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and how he appears to be manipulating the Postal Service and slowing down the mail right before the election where mail-in ballots will be heavily used for the first time.
We knew DeJoy was a big Trump donor. Now it seems some of those donations may have been illegal.
Several news organizations are reporting that DeJoy pressured employees at his former company, New Breed Logistics, to make donations to the GOP and then later reimbursed them though bonuses, which would be a clear violation of election law.
DeJoy's spokesman is denying what's known as a "straw donor" scheme, but several of his former employees have gone public and on the record with the allegation.
Such donations allows individual donors to go over the legal donation limit by hiding the actual source of the money.
The North Carolina Attorney General has already indicated he may investigate the allegation.
Am I wrong, or does Trump just seem to attract this type of people?
And then there is this:
If you live anywhere near a coal fired power plant, it's going to be harder to find clean water. Actually, let me rewrite that sentence. If you live anywhere in America it's gong to be harder to find clean water.
The Trump administration has rolled back the regulations on the dumping of coal ash and polluted waste water from coal fired power plants. That makes it more likely they will contaminate water supplies. That waste includes toxic metals like mercury, arsenic and selenium.
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-administration-finalizes-coal-plant-213850897.html
The rollbacks could save utilities about $140 million dollars a year,
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| (Courtesy ucsusa.org) |
But the health impact in surrounding communities could far outweigh any economic gain. The southeastern part of the country, with the most coal plants, is liable to be hit the hardest by the pollution.
This is the latest attempt in a series of regulatory rollbacks by the Trump administration designed to help the declining coal industry. Those rollbacks have failed to turn coal around.
Coal usage as a source of power has dropped dramatically over the last decade because of the increased use of much cleaner natural gas and competition from renewable energy like wind and solar power.
(Your comments and suggestions are welcome)
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