No Kids, This is NOT "What Democracy Looks Like"

Okay, they're high schoolers, so I will cut them a little bit of slack:

Today, in response to the Friday night killing of unarmed black teen Tony Robinson by Wisconsin police, nearly 1,000 high school students marched the streets of Madison in protest, and stormed the state capitol demanding justice. "This is what democracy looks like," they shouted.

Sorry, kids, but I beg to differ.

Real democracy is boring. And it's a LOT of hard work. Just a few years ago in your own state of Wisconsin, the unions tried to effect supposedly democratic change against your asshole governor by storming the capitol in even far bigger numbers. They even went so far as to try and recall Scott Walker by referendum. And what was the ultimate result of all that fuss and fury?

When the Wisconsin State Assembly dropped the hammer on the state’s labor movement, the State Capitol was as quiet as a library. Maybe half a dozen ragged protesters stood outside the chamber hollering weakly, but the rest of the building and the grounds were serene. After two short post-vote press conferences, Madison sailed calmly on.

(snip)

Regardless of whether you’d characterize the right-to-work law as fanatical or not, it’s remarkable the extent to which Madison kept mum about its passage. Besides a few dozen Democratic legislators and a few hundred labor protesters the day before, the famously liberal city was placid as the conservative legislation rolled along. The liberals who have faced Walker have lost, and lost, and lost again, and progressive Wisconsinites’ stores of outrage seem, at least for the moment, to be exhausted.

Now, you could argue that Walker won in part because of the huge amount of money ($30 million) he was able to raise, mostly from out of state big business interests. But I would argue that he also won because the protests were co-opted by the hopelessly corrupt Democratic Party, which then put up a mealy-mouthed candidate running offering the same old lame ass centrist bullshit when, as the protests showed, what was needed was some good old fashioned angry leftist populism. That might have sustained the energy of the protests through the recall election and helped overcome the big money pumped in by the Koch Brothers (the percentage of the vote won by Walker in the recall election was nearly identical to that of his initial election victory despite the big money he raised). It also seems that once the protests themselves died down, most of those who participated put away their signs and went home to resume watching American Idol or whatever--sort of an echo to what happened with the Occupy protestors.

In and of themselves, protests are NOT representative of democracy but tend to happen when democracy is either being denied or has broken down. Take the case of 1960s America. The civil rights protests were followed up by years of hard work by such figures as Martin Luther King until civil rights laws were passed that finally put Jim Crow into his long overdue grave. The antiwar protests and the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention fiasco were followed by years of work by young leftist political activists that resulted in election reforms that led to the primary election system that (very temporarily) democratized the selection of candidates within the two party system. It was only when the voters, "exhausted" by years of protest, stupidly went back to sleep that the oligarchs saw their opportunity to begin slowly reversing the political changes wrought during the 1960s and early 1970s.

So while I applaud the protestors in this instance for at least getting angry about the latest questionable violent police action against a young black person, I caution them that they should not think a few days of sign waving at the state capitol is going to change anything. Get involved and stay involved and keep fighting the bastards with everything you've got. It's hard, it's often boring and not nearly as much fun as the rush that comes from taking to the streets. But if you're not willing to to do that hard work, which is the REAL work of democracy, then there is really no point in protesting in the first place.


Bonus: The whole world may be watching, but that doesn't mean it gives a damn

The Chicago Teachers are Fighting a Battle They Can’t Possibly Win

Let’s cut through all of the bullshit and get down to the brass tacks of what the Chicago teachers’ strike is really all about: a desperate, last ditch effort on the part of one group of public sector employees to prevent the inevitable downward slide that will cause them to slip out of the middle class for good. The petty details matter little in the big picture. The teachers are in a literal fight for their livelihoods and it is a fight they are eventually going to lose, if not this time around then at some point in the near future.

I’ve recently been reading the excellent book, Staying Alive: the 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, which recounts among other things the last great wave of labor unrest in America that occurred during the first half of that decade, when a new generation of union insurgents battled both corporate management and the ossified, complacent bosses of their own unions in an effort to revitalize, expand and strengthen the labor movement. For a brief, shining moment it appeared that they might be successful in those struggles, and then the economic malaise resulting from the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks combined with the first wage and job destroying effects of globalization to subvert and undermine what they accomplished. Shortly thereafter shrewd conservative charlatans like Ronald Reagan learned how to get workers to vote against their own economic interests by pandering to superficial patriotism and cultural prejudices. Reagan and his ilk were, of course, greatly assisted in those efforts by a liberal movement and a Democratic Party that abandoned the working class in favor of divisive identity politics and political correctness.

Flash forward to 2012, and what we are seeing now in the Chicago teachers’ strike is the last gasps of a labor movement that is all but completely dead in America. The power of unions in the private sector has already been mostly neutered by thirty years of piss poor and corrupt "leadership" combined with relentless corporate assaults and by “free” trade pushing politicians of both parties. While all that was going on, the public sector unions stood idly by while their private sector brethren’s livelihoods were slowly being stolen from them. And now that all those earlier battles have been lost, there is no one left to stand by the side of the teachers in their hour of need. In fact, judging by the vitriol being heaped upon the “greedy” teachers by their fellow laborers in internet forums and chat rooms, I’d say that the powers that be have been quite successful in their relentless campaign to turn all of us proles against one another so we don’t ever recognize who the true enemy is and unite against them.

The most telling sign I saw indicating that the teachers are doomed was when snot-nosed little punk Paul Ryan issued a statement of support for the heinous Chicago Mayor and Obama confidant Rahm Emmanuel. I’ve said it repeatedly on this blog, but in bears saying yet again: however much they may make a show of viciously fighting against one another, it’s when the two parties agree on a particular issue that you really need to grab hold of your wallet. If the teachers and other working and middle class citizens of this country had at least one of the major parties fighting on their behalf, they might stand half-a-chance of preventing their eventual impoverishment and destitution, or at least they could ensure that the selfish rich assholes who run the country share the sacrifice as the long era of economic growth draws to a close. But they don’t, and what’s worse most of them don’t even realize that they have in fact been completely abandoned by both major parties.


Bonus: I just had to post this clip since the irony of douchebag conservative economist extraordinaire Ben Stein portraying a Chicago area public school teacher giving a lesson about the Laffer Curve is just too delicious.

Caterpillar: CEO Pay Hiked 60%, Yet Company Wants Wage Concessions From Workers

Sometimes, a story will speak for itself without needing me to make any additional comment. Here is the Sky Valley Chronicle with the details:

Now comes word that workers at an Illinois plant for the manufacturer Caterpillar have been on strike for a month after rejecting a “concession-heavy contract” proposed by the company, say union officials. Last Friday workers rejected a second Caterpillar offer, by a vote of 504-116.

According to a new report by Nation of Change the contract “provided no raises, eliminated the defined benefits pension program, weakened seniority rights and required machinists to pay higher contributions for health care.”

“All of this, at a time when the company is making record profits. In fact, Fortune Magazine recently said the company is “crushing it” when it comes to profitability,” yet at the same time refuses to give its workers a raise while the company did see fit to increase its CEO’s pay by 60 percent.

The annual compensation of Caterpillar Inc.’s chairman and chief executive rose 60 percent in 2011, as the company posted record revenue of $60.1 billion.

Douglas Oberhelman earned $16.9 million in 2011 in salary, bonuses, stock and option awards and retirement plan contributions.

The typical American worker would have to work 244 years in order to earn what the average CEO makes in just one year.

Over the last 30 years, CEO pay has increased 127 times faster than worker pay, says the report.

The prosecution rests.

Recall Election Wankery in Wisconsin

Congratulations, Wisconsin. Exactly 18 months after the protests at your state capitol that seemed to provide so much promise of a real challenge by the citizenry against the awful status quo in America, you are now right back where you started, with the odious Scott Walker sitting in the Governor’s mansion. All would be activists and Occupiers should take note: this is what happens when you allow your passion and energy to be channeled into the conventional political process. For even if Walker had been defeated in the recall election, the only real difference would have been that his Democratic opponent would not have been so ham-handed as to openly signal his intentions to fuck over the working and middle classes.

This sad state of affairs is going to continue until you accept one incontrovertible fact: that the Democratic Party may actually be a bigger enemy to your cause than the Republicans. At least with the Republicans you KNOW exactly what you are getting—openly slavish devotion to big business, war and empire. With the Democrats you get empty platitudes and a lot of sunshine blown up your skirt, but at the end of the day you still get an Afghanistan surge, Guantanamo, drone missiles, Wall Street bailouts, invasive airport scanners, a predatory student loan industry, crumbling labor unions, unbridled globalization destroying good paying American jobs and raids on medical marijuana dispensaries and part of the senseless and never ending War on Drugs.

Look at how on the national level Obama’s election has effectively muted protest against America’s ongoing wars. There hasn’t been a major antiwar protest in Washington since Chimpy Bush split town, despite the fact that Obama added Libya to the menu and dramatically ramped up the drone missile bombing campaign. If one were not paying attention, one might be deluded into thinking that President Hopey-Changey has actually done something to warrant having been awarded that Nobel Peace Prize.

The Wisconsin protests of early 2011, coming as they did a half-a-year before the Occupy movement took to the streets, were a real eye opener for many people as they focused the nation’s attention on a direct assault against workers being nakedly directed by the political stooge of a family of oligarch billionaires. THAT was the real issue, and was what really mattered, not the meaningless party label being worn by the empty suit pushing the policy. By allowing the Democratic Party to con them into putting down their signs and redirecting their efforts into the recall election, the protest movement has effectively wasted its time, to say nothing of the countless millions of campaign dollars that merely served to enrich the media conglomerates that provided the advertising time. Plus, it gave the Koch brothers an excuse to spend millions of dollars pumping out their pro-oligarch propaganda in a key state just a few months before a presidential election in which they have vowed to defeat the incumbent because they don’t think he kisses their pasty white asses often enough. Truly a Mission Accomplished all around.

Again, the lesson for the Occupy Movement could not be any clearer: do not ever allow yourselves to be co-opted by the Democrats. Treat that horrible party the same way you would the Republicans, as an enemy never to be trusted. They will just use you in an effort to win elections that have become all but meaningless in terms of change that might benefit the average person. Make no mistake, in our post-Citizens United dystopia the deck is very much stacked against you. The oligarchs have virtually unlimited funds to use against any politician who steps out of line and to utterly crush any viable third party movement. It’s the ultimate uphill battle, but it will always be even harder if you treat one faction of your enemies as if they are your friends.


Bonus: Yet another disaster hits the upper Great Lakes

A Century Old Printing Plant in Pennsylvania Closes

It's another story that has become far too common these days: company demands union take pay cut...union refuses company demand...company shuts plant down. Here is the Lehigh Valley Morning Call with the details:

An historic printing plant in Wilson that has been in business for more than a century will close in two months, putting about 200 people out of work, according to documents the company filed with the state.

Cadmus Printing, which is owned by the Stamford, Conn. printing company Cenveo, will close and all employees will be laid off by April 27, the company said in a letter sent to the state department of Labor and Industry.

For most of its history, the operation was known as Mack Printing. It was sold in 1999 and then sold again to Cenveo in 2006 for $235 million.

And so goes yet another company that survived two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War and into the Internet age. And it looks even worse in the details:

Gregg Potter, President of the Lehigh Valley Labor Council, said the closure came as a surprise because the company and the Communications Workers of America have been in negotiations for months since a contract expired in December. The union represents about 150 employees at the plant, and the company wanted them to take steep pay cuts.

"Sometimes you have to make the hard decisions and lay people off, that's the nature of the business," Potter said. "To just out and out shut down a facility that's been in business for more than 100 years, it's a complete shock."

Sadly, no, Mr. Potter, it actually shouldn't be a shock to anyone who has been paying attention to the larger trends going on this economy the past few years.


Bonus: "When she got too close to her expectation...her dream went up like paper in fire"

When It Comes To Labor Disputes, There Are No Happy Endings In America Anymore

It's been a constant wonder of mine as I've covered these relentless plant closings/layoffs stories here on TDS--why don't more working people get angry and at least protest when their livelihoods are being destroyed? Perhaps its because they know that at the end of the day the effort will be futile. That point was driven home this past week, as reported by the Chicago Tribune:

A group of about 65 workers who occupied a Goose Island window factory in 2008 have once again locked themselves inside the plant in a desperate move to save their jobs.

California-based Serious Energy said Thursday it is closing the plant's doors and consolidating operations in Colorado and Pennsylvania.

"Ongoing economic challenges in construction and building products, collapse in demand for window products, difficulty in obtaining favorable lease terms, high leasing and utility costs and taxes, and a range of other factors unrelated to labor costs, have compelled Serious to cease production at the Chicago facility," the company said in a statement.

What makes this story particularly depressing is that this is not the first time these workers have been down this particular road:

The layoffs come more than three years after a group of about 200 workers from Republic Windows & Doors organized a six-day sit-in demanding vacation and severance pay after being laid off in December 2008.

The battle drew national media attention. After three days, a settlement was reached. Each union worker received a check for about $6,000 just days after Republic Windows filed for protection under Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Serious Energy bought the 268,000 square foot plant in 2009 with the promise of hiring back the former Republic workers. Leah Fried, a spokeswoman for UE Local 1110, said that the new company never hired back more than 75 of the workers.

The lesson here is quite simple, in an age when labor is cheap and disposable, workers have zero leverage and no hope of saving themselves when bosses decide their jobs are no longer profitable enough. Take heed, because we are rapidly reaching the point where this could happen to any one among us who works for someone else.


Bonus: "We're the first ones to starve, we're the first ones to die...the first ones in line for that pie in the sky"

"Get Your Ass Down Here, Prime Minister Harper!"

Holy crap, what's this? The mayor of a city not taking lying down the gutting of a local factory's workers' pay and benefits after the foreign corporation which owns it was granted huge tax breaks? Not to mention that same mayor is also excoriating the nation's leader for favoring corporate interests over those of the workers? Fabulous! Too bad it is only happening north of the border, as reported Saturday by Digital Journal:

"Get your ass down here, Prime Minister Harper!" bellowed Joe Fontana, mayor of London. In 2008 Harper visited the city's EMD plant, announcing corporate tax cuts to increase job security for Canadians. Now, EMD workers are locked out by their U.S. owner.

So what exactly has the mayor all up in arms?

Since the start of the year, about 425 unionized Electro-Motive Diesel workers in London have been locked out by Progress Rail, a subsidiary of Caterpillar Inc. The highly profitable, global company shocked many by demanding London workers take a 50 percent drop in pay, accept deep cuts to their benefits, and stand by as their pension plans were gutted.

Yeah, that's pretty bad. I can see why people might be pissed off. And I found these quotes to be particularly delicious:

Stop, ask a pleasant looking older woman why she is there. You learn her son has worked at EMD for years and his reward is being locked out, put onto the street in January in the middle of the Canadian winter. "Tell Harper to get the money back . . . It's our money he gave to those bastards!" She spits out the words with venom.

Everyone hears the personal story of the Jones family when Brianna Jones and her father, Ian, take centre stage. Brianna made her contempt for the giant American company clear. Without unions she said, "We'd all be living in the slums. They don't care." She continued, "Our family's budget will be slashed in half." Brianna is attending university in Windsor and plans on going on to earn her doctorate. A crumbling family budget would hurt.

"It is morally wrong to call (my father's) life's work unskilled," she says talking about her dad. Brianna is proud of her father. "We should not have to inherit a society where greed trumps morality." The crowds loudly chants, "Greed. Greed. Greed."

Oh, and here you see the lingering effects of the Occupy movement:

But it was not only private and public-sector labour unions that were attracted to the rally; It also drew non-labour supporters as well. Sister Sue Walker of the Sisters of St. Joseph in London warned, "The social contract is breaking down." She said, "Wealth is trickling upwards" and this is "tearing at the fabric of society. Now is the time for the 99 percent to stand together."

The biggest question I have every time I read the latest story about a factory being shut down so that production can be moved to China, or workers being laid off by CEOs who are still paid tens of millions of dollars is: where is the outrage? Every time this kind of shit happens in America, the workers just meekly take it and don't ever protest. Why not yell and scream and make your voice heard? Ultimately, it might not save your job, but it might serve to finally wake people up to what is really going on in this country.


Bonus: Which side are you on?

Hostess Brands on the Verge of Bankruptcy, Possible Liquidation

Let me start off this post by saying that Hostess makes shitty products. Their snack cakes alone have contributed as much as any single factor to the obesity epidemic in America. And Wonder Bread is actually a crime against the fine art of baking. Still, it's tough to see anyone facing the prospect of losing their job, especially right before the holidays. Here is the New York Post with the details:

Hostess Brands, America’s biggest bakery, is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy again — perhaps as early as next month, The Post has learned.

Staying out of Chapter 11 is proving tough for the Twinkies maker, a source said, adding the question now is whether it will be a pre-packaged bankruptcy or not.

“We are working hard to keep it out of [Chapter] 11,” another source close to the months-long talks with lenders and unions said.

The tipping point: Hostess maintains it cannot afford to stay current on its $700 million in outstanding loans and keep contributing to the unions’ pension plans, sources said.

Hostess has not been paying future pension benefits since August, thereby breaking its union contracts.

Even with the pension expense savings, the company still needs more money within the next several weeks. And private-equity firm Ripplewood Holdings, which holds a controlling ownership in Hostess, will not reinvest capital unless it gets its union concessions, one source said.

“I would read that as pretty drastic,” another source said. “It’s not easy to resolve that kind of issue.”

It's an all too common theme these days, lose your benefits or lose your job altogether. Here is a telling quote:

A Hostess worker said, “We understand that, should we pursue some form of legal action to require the company to live up to the terms of the contract, they may close, but we have come to believe that they will close anyway.

So what exactly will bankruptcy mean?

Much is at stake for Twinkie the Kid. The firm filed for Chapter 11 in September 2004 and spent 4 1/2 years there before Ripplewood in February 2009 bought it after gaining union concessions.

There is a concern that if it files again, the result could be liquidation with many of its brands, including Hostess, Wonder, Nature’s Pride, and Drake’s, sold for cash.

In that scenario, the first to be paid would likely be the company’s lenders, including General Electric, Monarch Alternative Capital and Silver Point Capital.

The unions will likely rank behind them in a bankruptcy, and Ripplewood’s equity stake would be wiped out, sources said.

So typical, the financial institutions get paid while the workers get the shaft. Just another sad tale of modern corporate America. Almost makes me wish I had some comfort food to help me forget all my troubles.

Someone Actually Still Believes in the Common Good

In this day and age when the audiences at the Republican presidential debates have been vocally cheering Rick Perry’s execution record in Texas, or the idea of letting a young man in a coma without health insurance die, it is easy to become completely cynical and not see that there are actually plenty of good-hearted people still around. One such group of people was recently highlighted in a newspaper article entitled “Teachers Give Up Money for Books” by the Omaha World-Herald:

Mead Superintendent Dale Rawson has never seen anything like it.

When the health care provider for Mead Public Schools and other districts offered teachers a one-month vacation from paying their insurance premium, it was with the stipulation that teachers and school boards agree how the money was to be spent.

"The state teachers' association recommended all local teacher groups work toward seeing that windfall translated into direct compensation for teachers," Rawson said.

But Mead teachers had a different idea. They wanted the nearly $28,000 — which would have translated to about $1,000 apiece — used to buy textbooks.

"We had settled earlier in the spring, and we actually got what we asked for," said Marcia Lamberson, who represented Mead teachers in negotiations. "We talked about what to do with these funds and decided this would be the best use for the money."

Lamberson said many of the social studies books, especially at the high school level, are outdated and teachers often have to find supplemental materials.

Rawson, who has been in Mead for two years, said he "was just stunned" by the teachers' decision and commended them for their generosity. "In 30 years as a superintendent, I've never had a staff that would do that."

Before I continue, let me just give my heartiest thumbs up to the teachers from the Mead Public Schools. Yours is the type of generous spirit and belief in the common good that has become all too rare in America these days. My hat is off to all of you.

I use this story as a counter to all of the recent public employee union bashing that has become a regular feature of our media these days. “Austerity” minded State governors from Scott Walker in Wisconsin to Chris Christie in New Jersey, in particular, have gotten plenty of political mileage out of bashing the teachers' unions.

That’s not to say that the public employee unions do themselves any favors when they refuse to acknowledge the very real financial crisis that many states and municipalities are facing and will continue to face. It would be far better if everyone in this era of permanent economic contraction would recognize that there is very much a need for shared sacrifices. Unfortunately, those who have been yelling the loudest about the benefits given to others—be it health care coverage, pensions or even public employee compensation—have repeatedly demonstrated that they have little interest in helping to provide for the common good, let alone any desire to willingly participate in such shared sacrifices.

Friday Rant: Yo, New Jersey, Y U B Giving Snooki a Tax Break?

The state of New Jersey has been hit hard by the financial crisis. Like many other troubled states, it has struggled to reduce spending in state programs as tax revenues decline. Last spring, Governor Chris Christie battled publically with the state’s teacher’s unions over pay raises and layoffs. In January, the unfortunate city of Camden laid off HALF of its police force, with predictable results as reported by the Huffington Post:

New Jersey's most crime-ridden city has been even worse since nearly half the police force was laid off in January.

A Camden County Prosecutor's Office report obtained by The Courier-Post of Cherry Hill and the Philadelphia Inquirer shows there have been 79 aggravated assaults with a firearm this year in Camden, up from 22 during the same period in 2010. Shootings nearly doubled, increasing from 16 to 30.

Given the above, you would think that the “leaders” of the Garden State would be extra careful about not only about spending, but also who gets awarded any business tax credits. Well, as has happened so often before on this blog, your common sense assumption sadly hits well wide of the mark. Here is Talking Points Memo with the rather gruesome details:

A number of New Jersey lawmakers are outraged that the state has awarded a $420,000 production tax credit to the hit MTV reality show "Jersey Shore" because, as one GOPer put it, "I can't believe we are paying for fake tanning for 'Snooki' and 'The Situation', and I am not even sure $420,000 covers that."

On Wednesday, NJ.com reported that taxpayers would be paying the credit for the show's first season in 2009, as approved by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

But wait…before you run into your kitchen to retrieve a salad fork with which to stab out your own eyeballs, there’s more:

But, Christie's office said, "the Governor cannot veto EDA action that is in compliance with non-discretionary, existing law....The bottom line is that the governor has not been in favor of this tax credit, and this and other applications were in the pipeline from the prior administration.

Okay, now you can head for the kitchen. It’s all right; I’ll wait.

Because that is the only sane reaction one can possibly have upon reading this story. I just love how all the politicians in New Jersey are standing around with their thumbs up their asses pointing fingers at one another while claiming there is nothing they can do to stop this particular fiscal abortion. Gubbner Christie was a acting like a big ol' tough guy last spring, throwing his not inconsiderable weight around and calling the leaders of the teacher’s unions thugs and whatnot. But apparently all Snooki has to do is flex her bicep and bat a fake eyelash and suddenly he turns into a tub of goo.

Memo to Chris Christie: the last time I checked, that little “R” that appears after your name stands for Republican. And exactly when did the party whose most recent President once infamously referred to the Constitution as a “damn piece of paper” start giving a flying fuck about the rule of law? We can hold prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo without trial, but you say you can’t veto a business tax credit for an utterly dim-witted reality television show? Give me a fucking break already. Even President Hopey-Changey had the balls to tell Congress to go fuck themselves when they started moaning on about the War Powers Act during the Libyan bombing campaign.

Could this be any more of a glaring example of just how far out of whack the priorities are in this country today? It was bad enough when Rutgers University used student tuition funds to pay a speaker’s fee for Snookie to come and give a talk on campus, but now we find out that apparently the entire New Jersey state government is made up of Rutgers alumni. Where is Tony Soprano and his crew when you need them? THAT guy was one Jersey dude who wouldn’t have been intimidated by the likes of Snooki.

(Editor’s Note: the title of this post is a tribute to the late author and blogger Joe Bageant, whose last ever blog entry before he succumbed to cancer early this year was so memorably titled, “America, Y Ur Peeps Be So Dum” We miss you, Joe.)

The Texas State Association of Firefighters Endorsed Rick Perry--Right Before He Kicked Them in the Nuts

It has by now been widely reported how Texas Governor and Republican presidential campaign front runner Rick Perry gutted his state's firefighting budget just in time for the breakout of massive wildfires this summer that have consumed much of his state. Just how much those budget cuts contributed to the death and destruction recently wreaked upon Texas is a matter of debate, but it likely was not inconsequential. To recap, here are the gory details from the Huffington Post:

In Texas, firefighters aren't just battling the wild fires raging around Austin and Houston. The state's first responders have also had to deal with budget cuts affecting everything from fuel purchases to hoses and air tanks.

In some cases, fire officials say, firefighters have had to pay out of pocket for basic necessities like proper protective gear and fuel to get them to the scene. One fire department that battled the blazes in Bastrop County had to pay for a hose, recalled Bastrop City Fire Chief Henry Perry, speaking to The Huffington Post during a break from working the wild fires.

In light of the above. you might be under the assumption that Governor Perry and the Texas firefighters are political antagonists. Well, you would be wrong in the assumption. Here is another quote from the same article:

The cuts come at a time when Texas fire departments have already been slowing purchases of new fire trucks and other critical equipment as a way to save money, said Guy Turner, president of the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters. The association had endorsed Perry in his re-election for governor in 2010.

"What I fear will happen is equipment will start to fail and put our members at peril," Turner explained. "You can imagine if you're inside a structure fire and your engine quits."

Turner doesn't have to imagine it. He said he knows of firefighters whose breathing apparatus has malfunctioned during fires. There have also been "instances of hoses failing during the course of firefighting operations."

"For years, public safety was the golden calf -- that we were untouchable," Turner said. "Nobody's untouchable. It is a shame. They are basically putting a price on how much our lives are worth. It's disturbing at best."

I certainly agree with Mr. Turner that putting a price on firefighters' lives is "disturbing." But perhaps Mr. Turner ought to take a good look in the mirror and asses how it was that he gave his enthusiastic endorsement to the same man who was so willing to put that price tag on their lives. Here is a quote from Mr. Turner upon his organization's endorsement of Perry almost exactly one year ago today:

“Gov. Rick Perry has consistently supported the issues relating to public safety, and has been a dedicated advocate of health and safety for professional fire fighters and EMS workers across Texas,” said Guy Turner, president of TSAFF. "For his long friendship and support, the Texas State Association of Fire Fighters, representing almost 16,000 fire fighters and emergency medical workers in 170 jurisdictions is proud to endorse Governor Rick Perry in his bid for re-election.”

Guy Turner should immediately resign. And if he refuses to do so, then the 16,000 firefighters and emergency medial workers he claims to represent should DEMAND his resignation. You cannot blunder this badly in looking out for your organization's best interests and still be taken seriously as its president.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't wager a nickel that Mr. Turner, or Perry for that matter, will suffer very much politically as a result of this scandal. For whatever reason, Americans have completely lost the ability to demand accountability for anyone who rises into a supposed leadership position in this society, just so long as they are not involved in a sex scandal. Perry will continue to score points on the campaign trail by bashing the government despite the dramatic evidence of the damage his actions have wrought upon his own state.

Why is Labor Day Still a National Holiday?

Image: Labor Day parade, circa 1953

It’s fitting that this Labor Day weekend in America started with a disastrous monthly jobs report. In a perversely delicious irony, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that the country created zero net jobs during August. It’s fitting because that is exactly the amount of meaning that Labor Day has for the vast majority of Americans these days—zero.

Instead, the holiday has come to merely symbolize the end of summer every year. The kids are heading back to school, and most people treat it as one last chance to break out the backyard barbeque grill or head to the beach before the onset of the cold weather. It also marks the annual return of America’s true religion, the one in which oversized men slam repeatedly into each other pushing an elongated sphere up and down a field while rowdy crowds howl for blood as during the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome.

Very few ever pause to reflect upon what this day is really supposed to mean. On Memorial Day, we honor our fallen heroes. On the Fourth of July, we wave a flag and shoot off fireworks to celebrate the country’s date of independence. But on Labor Day, we what? Hmmm…that’s kind of a head scratcher, come to think of it.

I’m a pretty well educated person and widely read to boot, but I have to admit that before I began writing this piece I had only a fuzzy notion as to what Labor Day was really all about. I figured it must have something to do with the long-defunct American labor movement, but beyond that I was pretty vague. Fortunately, in this day an age, we have Wikipedia to provide the quick answer:

It became a federal holiday in 1894, when, following the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the U.S. military and U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with the labor movement as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. The September date originally chosen by the CLU of New York and observed by many of the nation's trade unions for the past several years was selected rather than the more widespread International Workers' Day because Cleveland was concerned that observance of the latter would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair which it had been observed to commemorate. All U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the territories have made it a statutory holiday.

Interesting. I would have expected the holiday to have instead come into existence much later, such as during the New Deal era when the protection of workers from blatant exploitation by amoral capitalists had finally become part of the political consensus. Instead, it dates all the way back to the days before Teddy Roosevelt’s trust-busting when the Robber Barons still ruled the economic landscape. Note too, that 117 years ago we had a Democratic president who was willing to take a much braver stance in favor of the workingman than the craven fraud who occupies the Oval Office today.

For me this then brings up a more disheartening question, which is why do we continue to celebrate Labor Day at all? Thirty years of concerted right wing rhetorical attacks against unions and worker benefits and protections, put into action by their hand-puppet politicians, have utterly destroyed what remained of the American labor movement. All that's left today is a hollow shell. Don't believe me? Well then, ask yourself when was the last time there was a major strike in which the employees actually managed to win any real concessions from management.

It started symbolically when President Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in 1981, and then made anti-union rhetoric politically popular among the very same people who had benefited from the unions’ hard fought historical victories. But the biggest blow came with the mid-1990s free trade agreements, pushed through under Bill Clinton in the name of globalization, that struck down the last barriers to allowing corporate America to fully exploit the vast pool of cheap labor that existed beyond our borders. As with so many such policies wreaking havoc in modern day America, a Republican president started us down the path only to have a Democratic president finish the job. The assault upon labor was a truly bipartisan effort, as it needed to be in order to have any chance to succeed.

Today, of course, the deck is now completely stacked against the workers and in favor of capital. The moneyed interests enjoy total control over the political system, as demonstrated by the fact that President Hopey-Changey is in the process of raising a billion dollars in Wall Street and corporate cash for his reelection effort. Those Americans who haven’t already lost their jobs live in fear that they may be the next ones on the chopping block—and so they passively accept such abuses as being required to work mandatory overtime sans compensation. And if they are foolish enough to complain, they will quickly be ushered out the door to join the many millions of their fellow countrymen in a bleak economic landscape that by the government’s own manipulated and untrustworthy statistics created exactly zero net jobs this past month.

Labor Day has become nothing more than a cruel joke played upon the American worker. For further proof, just look back to its Wikipedia entry:

The form for the celebration of Labor Day was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday: A street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations," followed by a festival for the workers and their families.

Instead of a parade and a festival in their honor, on this very day millions of retail salespeople will trudge off to their jobs, working long hours to keep the American consumerist machine functioning while neither they nor their customers give any thought whatsoever to the appropriateness of the stores even being open. For that, my friends, has become the new American Way, and woe to the worker who tries to emulate his or her forbearers and put up any kind of protest about this appalling state of affairs.