Sadly and infuriatingly, Amerika's Labor Day is a top-down creation: a transmogrified and synthetic substitute for the international May 1, aka "May Day", Labor Day that genuinely promotes worker solidarity by honoring and celebrating workers and the power of labor.
This kind of "repurposing", or civic neutering, is similar to what the Establishment poobahs have done to Martin Luther King's holiday and legacy; they created a sanitized, authority-friendly image and "tradition" that filtered out Dr. King's emergent radical positions on civil liberties, war and imperialistic militarism, and most of all economic disparity (class struggle), and replaced it with a pasteurized, processed plaster saint.
The MLK holiday is now officially hyped as a day to honor Dr. King by performing "community service", i.e. volunteering to selflessly and submissively work within the system because that is supposedly the true message and lesson of Dr. King's life. (Notice I didn't say "life and death", because the family-friendly official narrative, saturated with smarmy civic piety, reduced his violent death to an unfortunate irrelevancy.)
Local news venues in Philadelphia (PA) now piously hype the holiday as "The Martin Luther King Day of Service", promoting wholesome youth "volunteer" programs. The Establishment prefers to keep the kids busy helping out in the big house instead of being tempted by radical protest and dissent.
Similarly, the family-friendly ersatz Amerikan "Labor Day" is deliberately devoid of the incipient militant and subversive elements retained in traditional May Day celebration. Instead, it's a company picnic and barbecue writ large. In fact, like the MLK holiday, it might as well be rebranded "Servants' Day". 🤨
While I agree with you that MLKjr Holiday is sanitized, I am still happy that it exists at all (unlike my feelings about Columbus Day and all the bankers that celebrate it, ugh).
Glad to have the transcript so I can scan quickly for what looks "juicy" and not have to spend an hour when there are many dozens of other relevant political emails daily to see as well. In Bronx this week with family, return on Sunday. Solidarity forever! Long live Lahaina, reconstituted with survivors of the fire, not mega-corporations who seem to want to build another Waikiki.
Love the transcript feature! I'm not a fan of podcasts, I prefer reading.
Great points about the labor movement being corrupted. I found it crazy that unions endorsed Biden ever before he won the nomination in 2020. I would understand after the nomination, but before that, Bernie was a much better pro union candidate!
Cindy, you brought up RFK jr s plan on ending autoimmune conditions.
It actually doesn't require much. There's a huge link between shots and autoimmune issues, which chd and other groups have shown in comparing jabbed and unjabbed children.
All they would have to do is make the agencies follow what was part of the 1986 NVIC act that gave big pharma immunity. The law stated that there would be a biannual report on shot effectiveness and safety submitted to Congress in order to gauge whether shots were dangerous or not and what was being done to address those issues.
According to a FOIA filed by Aaron Siri on behalf of ICAN, this report has never been filed. Why? Because it would be self evident that the shots increased health issues, especially when they increased the number of shots children need to get.
Also, rfk just bringing up the topic moves the Overton window to make it acceptable to question shots. Pre COVID, having doubts about them was deemed as a crazy minority. Trump served a similar role when he made it ok to realize that we were in Syria for the oil, lol.
Same could go for stopping wars. Congress didn't declare war for decades. Somehow, despite that, we have been in war after war.
The laws are there for many things, but it's the executive that ignores them.
Reagan stopped enforcing laws that go after employers of illegal immigrants for example, leading to the current issues...
Thanks, hopefully, the transcript function will get better and better. I've loved all of Substack's features, so I am sure it will. When I have time, I am going to go back on the other 58 shows and do a transcript. AS to the autoimmune situation, it's not anywhere as simple as you make it. First of all the regulatory agencies are entrenched and captured by bit pharma and other corporations. There are appointed directors, but the vast majority are bureaucrats who are there for life. Then he'd have to have Congress on his side to get anything done there. At best, if, on the slim to zero chance RFK becomes president--he would have at best a handful of Congress people on his side. THEN there becomes the issue of a patient/doctor relationship. He would have to become a tyrant and shoehorn his way between a patient and his/her doctor; then between people an their "choice" to smoke, eat junk food, be sedentary, be obese, and other lifestyle choices. I remember how outraged I was when I was forced to wear a mask, or others were forced to take a shot and doctors were forced to prescribe dangerous meds and not prescribe effective and relatively safe meds. His Uncle did the Presidential Fitness Medal when I was in grade school. My generation is not fitter. I think RFK is better off, and we are better off, with him on the outside educating and inspiring people to basically change everything about their lives to prevent and cure autoimmune diseases. As I have stated, there are far more factors than vaccines involved.
Nobody knows about RFKjr 's work except CHD members and autism parents before he ran for President. We are thrilled that he is no longer in the censored echo chamber!
I have worked with construction unions for 40 years in Atlantic City, Philly, and Manhattan. They are large Capitalist organizations that carry enormous power. Not to protect workers, but to buy and influence anyone who can help them profit. I have stores of working in Manhattan that would curl your hair. If a worker gets injured on the job, and injuries at construction sites are numerous every day (dangerous, back breaking work in all kinds of weather), they are screwed for years. They can't work, can't collect much in compensation from unemployment or disability (both pay about 40 cents on the dollar) and if there is a legal dispute, I have seen it take anywhere from a year to a decade. Most injured construction workers get divorced, go bankrupt, and hobble around on small "helpings" from family while the fat cats at the insurance companies, contractors, lawyers, and owners squabble over what a person's work life is worth. I have been on construction sites where workers fell 15 stores to their death, have been buried under retaining walls, got electrocuted, crushed by concrete floors, and more. The unions were supposed to make life safer, and I guess since 1900 it did to a point, but the value of labor versus the power of the union power bosses is skewed beyond belief. These are skilled craft workers who put their life on the line every day. Amazing people who deserve to be taken care of when they are injured.
That is truly fucked up, but, I think we ALL need to be taken care of: an injury to one is an injury to all. My son-in-law is a master carpenter--work that can't be done remotely, and his wife, my daughter is a massage therapist. We really had to beg borrow and steal during the "good old" lockdown age. I think most big labor is garbage. <3
However, there are some unions that do well with their workers, I know that UNITE HERE Local 5 in Hawaii is one of them. It is the Hotel and Restaurant workers. The current leader was able some 25 years ago, oust a typical "union boss" who had inherited the position from hi father from way back. He now runs it democratically and has brought into union management actual workers who are capable instead of crony outsiders, and negotiates hard for better working conditions and pay.
I was in ufcw 648 and stayed at minimum wage for the entire two years I was at Safeway. The only time we ever saw a rep is when we owed money. They had a contract with Safeway mandating that if we fell behind on dues that Safeway fired us till we paid in full.
Happy Labor Day SheeLilly, and thank you both for working FOR THE PEOPLE today! :^)
It makes sense that they started reporting unemployment/underemployment with false figures during Clinton Terror because his NAFTA, etc. abruptly destroyed so many American jobs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration "Clinton made it one of his goals as president to pass trade legislation that lowered the barriers to trade with other nations. He broke with many of his supporters, including labor unions, and those in his own party to support free-trade legislation.[22]"
AFSCME Union was great (for me personally) before Covid19. I am retired now so I really don't know the unions' stance on fired health freedom members due to vaccine mandates, but It looks like fired workers are on their own to get justice. (I am surprised as you are that this article is reported by NPR) https://www.npr.org/2022/12/27/1144323505/vaccine-mandates-lifted-sanitation-new-york-city-workers
Btw, there was a time when Bernie was not 'woke' on open borders, in fact he told the truth about corporations behind the illegal workers for all the wrong reasons, and he fought for American workers to have better working and living conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0
There were precious few unions that supported the workers against management mandates. I believe unions have been coopted similarly to regulatory agencies so that they work against the interests of those they are supposed to support and protect.
Dues at that time were fifty a month with a 400 dollar initiation fee and no benefits. I fell behind three times and had to beg and borrow just to be able to pay to get back to work so all this nonsense about unionizing Starbucks and the like is abject, unmitigated bullshit.
Dang! Sounds very corrupt. It must have been a Closed Union Shop? My Dad was in closed union shop with the airline industry in the 60's 70s 80s ... but it made sense at that time because it prevented union-busting when unions were worth it for high pay/great benefits for airline employees.
It turns out that this was happening all over the country but especially the bay area and northern California. There were lawsuits. I finally had to throw my hands up in the air and file for unemployment. Safeway then lied and stated that I willfully refused to pay my dues when I had called the hall offering partial payment. 648 said I had to pay in full or no job. Its a revolving door scam that is a joint effort by both slaveway and ufcw.
It was Sweden you went to. First of May was chosen to be International Workers' Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. In that year beginning on 1 May, there was a general strike for the eight-hour workday.
Sweden isn't what it once was, it's now known as the Quran burning country. It's illegal based upon their own constitution, but their authorities keep on claiming that it's the right of Nazis to burn books, for some reason.
Sadly and infuriatingly, Amerika's Labor Day is a top-down creation: a transmogrified and synthetic substitute for the international May 1, aka "May Day", Labor Day that genuinely promotes worker solidarity by honoring and celebrating workers and the power of labor.
This kind of "repurposing", or civic neutering, is similar to what the Establishment poobahs have done to Martin Luther King's holiday and legacy; they created a sanitized, authority-friendly image and "tradition" that filtered out Dr. King's emergent radical positions on civil liberties, war and imperialistic militarism, and most of all economic disparity (class struggle), and replaced it with a pasteurized, processed plaster saint.
The MLK holiday is now officially hyped as a day to honor Dr. King by performing "community service", i.e. volunteering to selflessly and submissively work within the system because that is supposedly the true message and lesson of Dr. King's life. (Notice I didn't say "life and death", because the family-friendly official narrative, saturated with smarmy civic piety, reduced his violent death to an unfortunate irrelevancy.)
Local news venues in Philadelphia (PA) now piously hype the holiday as "The Martin Luther King Day of Service", promoting wholesome youth "volunteer" programs. The Establishment prefers to keep the kids busy helping out in the big house instead of being tempted by radical protest and dissent.
Similarly, the family-friendly ersatz Amerikan "Labor Day" is deliberately devoid of the incipient militant and subversive elements retained in traditional May Day celebration. Instead, it's a company picnic and barbecue writ large. In fact, like the MLK holiday, it might as well be rebranded "Servants' Day". 🤨
Ort, your well-stated comment has nailed it. Platitudinous hypocrisy abounds. Martin Luther King has been turned into Martin Neutered King.
agreed!
While I agree with you that MLKjr Holiday is sanitized, I am still happy that it exists at all (unlike my feelings about Columbus Day and all the bankers that celebrate it, ugh).
On the flip side, DNC has exploited the Holiday as just belonging to Democratic Party (even though ironically Lincolin was a Republican). I did manage to find a non-political MLKjr 60th Anniversary of "I have a dream" page for my FB wall. It is still a govt site, but from the (mostly) innocuous Dept of Interior. https://www.facebook.com/USInterior/posts/pfbid0BSM8fKL9voY7mY2pf2HKn9Z3PrNJ3kJv9NEcndhck5kLTP14YQTTwqrgpPGgnyiDl
Yes, agree on MLK Jr Day. It's an abomination that tanks roll in some of the parades.
Glad to have the transcript so I can scan quickly for what looks "juicy" and not have to spend an hour when there are many dozens of other relevant political emails daily to see as well. In Bronx this week with family, return on Sunday. Solidarity forever! Long live Lahaina, reconstituted with survivors of the fire, not mega-corporations who seem to want to build another Waikiki.
Love the transcript feature! I'm not a fan of podcasts, I prefer reading.
Great points about the labor movement being corrupted. I found it crazy that unions endorsed Biden ever before he won the nomination in 2020. I would understand after the nomination, but before that, Bernie was a much better pro union candidate!
Cindy, you brought up RFK jr s plan on ending autoimmune conditions.
It actually doesn't require much. There's a huge link between shots and autoimmune issues, which chd and other groups have shown in comparing jabbed and unjabbed children.
All they would have to do is make the agencies follow what was part of the 1986 NVIC act that gave big pharma immunity. The law stated that there would be a biannual report on shot effectiveness and safety submitted to Congress in order to gauge whether shots were dangerous or not and what was being done to address those issues.
According to a FOIA filed by Aaron Siri on behalf of ICAN, this report has never been filed. Why? Because it would be self evident that the shots increased health issues, especially when they increased the number of shots children need to get.
Also, rfk just bringing up the topic moves the Overton window to make it acceptable to question shots. Pre COVID, having doubts about them was deemed as a crazy minority. Trump served a similar role when he made it ok to realize that we were in Syria for the oil, lol.
Same could go for stopping wars. Congress didn't declare war for decades. Somehow, despite that, we have been in war after war.
The laws are there for many things, but it's the executive that ignores them.
Reagan stopped enforcing laws that go after employers of illegal immigrants for example, leading to the current issues...
Thanks, hopefully, the transcript function will get better and better. I've loved all of Substack's features, so I am sure it will. When I have time, I am going to go back on the other 58 shows and do a transcript. AS to the autoimmune situation, it's not anywhere as simple as you make it. First of all the regulatory agencies are entrenched and captured by bit pharma and other corporations. There are appointed directors, but the vast majority are bureaucrats who are there for life. Then he'd have to have Congress on his side to get anything done there. At best, if, on the slim to zero chance RFK becomes president--he would have at best a handful of Congress people on his side. THEN there becomes the issue of a patient/doctor relationship. He would have to become a tyrant and shoehorn his way between a patient and his/her doctor; then between people an their "choice" to smoke, eat junk food, be sedentary, be obese, and other lifestyle choices. I remember how outraged I was when I was forced to wear a mask, or others were forced to take a shot and doctors were forced to prescribe dangerous meds and not prescribe effective and relatively safe meds. His Uncle did the Presidential Fitness Medal when I was in grade school. My generation is not fitter. I think RFK is better off, and we are better off, with him on the outside educating and inspiring people to basically change everything about their lives to prevent and cure autoimmune diseases. As I have stated, there are far more factors than vaccines involved.
I agree, for me, I prefer the option of transcripts to skim instead of listening to (or watching) long recordings. I'm a much faster reader.
Thanks for the RFKjr mention about his tireless FOIA work :^)
He doesn't have to be president to help us, obviously.
Nobody knows about RFKjr 's work except CHD members and autism parents before he ran for President. We are thrilled that he is no longer in the censored echo chamber!
I have worked with construction unions for 40 years in Atlantic City, Philly, and Manhattan. They are large Capitalist organizations that carry enormous power. Not to protect workers, but to buy and influence anyone who can help them profit. I have stores of working in Manhattan that would curl your hair. If a worker gets injured on the job, and injuries at construction sites are numerous every day (dangerous, back breaking work in all kinds of weather), they are screwed for years. They can't work, can't collect much in compensation from unemployment or disability (both pay about 40 cents on the dollar) and if there is a legal dispute, I have seen it take anywhere from a year to a decade. Most injured construction workers get divorced, go bankrupt, and hobble around on small "helpings" from family while the fat cats at the insurance companies, contractors, lawyers, and owners squabble over what a person's work life is worth. I have been on construction sites where workers fell 15 stores to their death, have been buried under retaining walls, got electrocuted, crushed by concrete floors, and more. The unions were supposed to make life safer, and I guess since 1900 it did to a point, but the value of labor versus the power of the union power bosses is skewed beyond belief. These are skilled craft workers who put their life on the line every day. Amazing people who deserve to be taken care of when they are injured.
That is truly fucked up, but, I think we ALL need to be taken care of: an injury to one is an injury to all. My son-in-law is a master carpenter--work that can't be done remotely, and his wife, my daughter is a massage therapist. We really had to beg borrow and steal during the "good old" lockdown age. I think most big labor is garbage. <3
However, there are some unions that do well with their workers, I know that UNITE HERE Local 5 in Hawaii is one of them. It is the Hotel and Restaurant workers. The current leader was able some 25 years ago, oust a typical "union boss" who had inherited the position from hi father from way back. He now runs it democratically and has brought into union management actual workers who are capable instead of crony outsiders, and negotiates hard for better working conditions and pay.
And PS, I have known him since he was 19 years old as a fellow anti-imperialist activist.
ps: thanks for your comment, as well
I was in ufcw 648 and stayed at minimum wage for the entire two years I was at Safeway. The only time we ever saw a rep is when we owed money. They had a contract with Safeway mandating that if we fell behind on dues that Safeway fired us till we paid in full.
Ugh!
Happy Labor Day SheeLilly, and thank you both for working FOR THE PEOPLE today! :^)
It makes sense that they started reporting unemployment/underemployment with false figures during Clinton Terror because his NAFTA, etc. abruptly destroyed so many American jobs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Bill_Clinton_administration "Clinton made it one of his goals as president to pass trade legislation that lowered the barriers to trade with other nations. He broke with many of his supporters, including labor unions, and those in his own party to support free-trade legislation.[22]"
Remember when we used to "look for the Union Label" on American-made clothing? "The union lost nearly 300,000 members over twenty years to overseas manufacturing and runaway shops in the south." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ladies_Garment_Workers_Union
AFSCME Union was great (for me personally) before Covid19. I am retired now so I really don't know the unions' stance on fired health freedom members due to vaccine mandates, but It looks like fired workers are on their own to get justice. (I am surprised as you are that this article is reported by NPR) https://www.npr.org/2022/12/27/1144323505/vaccine-mandates-lifted-sanitation-new-york-city-workers
Btw, there was a time when Bernie was not 'woke' on open borders, in fact he told the truth about corporations behind the illegal workers for all the wrong reasons, and he fought for American workers to have better working and living conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0
There were precious few unions that supported the workers against management mandates. I believe unions have been coopted similarly to regulatory agencies so that they work against the interests of those they are supposed to support and protect.
It does indeed appear to be that way.
In fact, NEW organizations are doing what Unions should be doing for fired health freedom members! https://usfreedomflyers.org/
Dues at that time were fifty a month with a 400 dollar initiation fee and no benefits. I fell behind three times and had to beg and borrow just to be able to pay to get back to work so all this nonsense about unionizing Starbucks and the like is abject, unmitigated bullshit.
Dang! Sounds very corrupt. It must have been a Closed Union Shop? My Dad was in closed union shop with the airline industry in the 60's 70s 80s ... but it made sense at that time because it prevented union-busting when unions were worth it for high pay/great benefits for airline employees.
WALKING THE STREETS AND TRIPPING OVER THE HOMELESS, HOW ARE THINGS BETTER?
I'm not sure.
Oh and you're wonderful Ms Sheehan.
It turns out that this was happening all over the country but especially the bay area and northern California. There were lawsuits. I finally had to throw my hands up in the air and file for unemployment. Safeway then lied and stated that I willfully refused to pay my dues when I had called the hall offering partial payment. 648 said I had to pay in full or no job. Its a revolving door scam that is a joint effort by both slaveway and ufcw.
It was Sweden you went to. First of May was chosen to be International Workers' Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. In that year beginning on 1 May, there was a general strike for the eight-hour workday.
Sweden isn't what it once was, it's now known as the Quran burning country. It's illegal based upon their own constitution, but their authorities keep on claiming that it's the right of Nazis to burn books, for some reason.