Widgetized Section
Go to Admin » Appearance » Widgets » and move Gabfire Widget: Social into that MastheadOverlay zone
Raise a Toast to Labor and Piss on the Tea Party’s Grave
more from Hrafnkell Haraldsson
As Labor Day rolls around again, I wonder how many more of these we’ll have. Once upon a time, labor and those who did the labor were something to be celebrated, not despised, disdained, and reduced to servitude. But that’s where we’ve come to: laborers are disdained, the unions that protect them objectified as the enemy, while the corporations unions protect them from are held up as champions – and not only that, but, obscenely, as people. If the Republicans win in 2012, will we still have a Labor Day, or will it become nothing more than a totalitarian mockery, akin to National Socialism’s celebration of motherhood and women?
Serfdom and slavery do not seem to me things to be celebrated.
It’s a sad state of affairs to contemplate as the wheel of the year winds down, as summer gives way to autumn. Labor Day is, for Americans, the symbolic end of summer, the start of the football season. Endings are sad, and we seem to be facing so many endings. Not simply the end of laborers as folks to be celebrated and protected, but the end of our basic social compact and all sorts of protections – of the elderly, the sick, the poverty-stricken, children, women, veterans, the environment, our air, our water – the planet itself. And of the Constitution which guarantees us our “life” our “liberty” and “pursuit of happiness.”
In many ways it seems like an end of order, and that is, after all, the goal of nihilism, to serve chaos at the expense of order. Chaos is the ancient enemy of the Heathens. It has special meaning to a surly old son of Odin like me. It’s almost as though there were some form of political Ragnarök in the offing, with the Tea Party as the forces of chaos unleashed, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann playing at the Midgard serpent Jörmungandr and the Fenris wolf. And the god of these chaos children is being invoked not as a healer but as a vengeful destroyer. We will be neither liberated nor saved, but consumed.
Brothers will fight
And kill each other,
Sisters’ children
Will defile kinship.
It is harsh in the world,
Whoredom rife
An axe age, a sword age
Shields are riven -
A wind age, a wolf age -
Before the world goes headlong
No man will have
Mercy on another
So says the seeress to Odin the Valfather in the Völuspá of the world’s ending, of Ragnarök.
It can be difficult to find hope at such a time, contemplating these woes. The days are growing darker, the rains come and the snows soon after, the nights grow longer and the cold envelops us in an icy embrace. When the wheel of the year has turned again, when winter ends and spring returns, will we see a spring of hope or a long slide into despair as the Tea Party continues to choke the life out of democracy and our economy?
If Americans truly celebrate Labor Day as something more than an extra day off, if it has any meaning at all, perhaps the memory of our liberation from corporate totalitarianism will be enough to keep the embers burning. Perhaps the forces of chaos can be driven back or even defeated. Perhaps our hopes for the Tea Party’s demise are not misplaced and the American voter will send them shuffling off after the dinosaurs, given a chance by nature and chosen for extinction. Perhaps by next Labor Day, as we approach Election Day 2012, we will be able to see things through more hopeful eyes.
After all, what sane person casts a vote for chaos?
Perhaps by then and for enough people the nihilistic platforms of the Tea Party’s presidential hopefuls will have been exposed for what they are. The promotion of greedy corporations and the greedy ultra-rich over the welfare of the American people, the fashioning of an anti-government narrative with the government, not these immoral forces of greed, as the enemy – a complete reversal of nature. Perhaps enough people will realize that without the federal government, nothing will stand between these rapacious forces and us, and realize that without the federal government, our children will be back at work in factories, without the benefit of health care and we the American people will carry the burden alone, carrying the rich on our backs, reduced to Old World serfdom.
Perhaps. But all that depends upon us standing up against chaos. Whether there be gods or no, we must play the part of gods, because unless you believe divine beings are going to fly to our rescue at our moment of greatest need, we are all that stands between chaos and the abyss. Sure, we can go down fighting the good fight, satisfied that we did our best, but wouldn’t you prefer to lift a toast to labor and live to piss it on the Tea Party’s grave? That, my friends, is living.
Related Posts :
Welcome to Lipstick Liberal's video celebration of Labor. Transcript Happy American La ...
Of all the national holidays in the United States, Labor Day is certainly the most misunderstood. Tradit ...
The protests by union employees in Wisconsin this week have been an example of Democracy for all America ...
Welcome to the Politicus Pulse. Here are the links of the day. Consider this a cup of coffee for your mi ...
Spiritual Leader for Labor Movement Speaks Out Even if you don’t go to church, used to go to church, ...
35 Responses to Raise a Toast to Labor and Piss on the Tea Party’s Grave
Public Service Advertisements
AFM
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 8:29 am
I want to thank the unions because if it weren’t for them we wouldn’t have child labor laws, 5 day work week, safe work areas, sick leave and annual leave. We should all thank them. Oh how people forget so easily and many of the ones who aren’t union members are wishing they were but are jealous and don’t want them to have what they don’t have. I say they worked to get their unions and if you want them it is up to you to fight for it. Oh by the way I was never a union member. I am retired now.
Reynardine
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 8:34 am
One of the arguments I used to make at asylum hearings, after the fall of a couple of notorious dictators, is that it is still more perilous to live in a land ruled by many petty tyrants than one big one, because it is possible, however painful, to appease one overbearing will, but never many warring, contradictory ones. Teapartiers know they are not living under a tyranny now, whatever slander they may utter, or they would not dare utter it. Let them consider what their case would be under many conflicting corporate states and overlapping satrapies! But their brains are infected with misperceprions. That is not a misprint. Misperceprions are virus-like memes that, once they work their way into human brain matter, multiply until they destroy all capacity for meaningful thought, rendering the victim brain- dead but still determinedly contagious, like a rabid animal. One of the worst misperceprionogenic illnesses around is that, once we have “liberated” ourselves from the protections agreed on by our forebears, we will be “free”. And so we shall be…free of our livelihoods, our education, our health, our homes, our human dignity, our place in the world, and our hopes for our children.
Bellona
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 10:58 am
“One of the worst misperceprionogenic illnesses around is that, once we have ‘liberated’ ourselves from the protections agreed on by our forebears, we will be ‘free’.”
Thanks for teaching me a new vocabulary word, Reynardine. I’m going to share this with my high school students as we read Animal Farm, a book that is still frighteningly relevant today.
SinghX
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 11:44 am
Well said…very thoughtful and timely.
X
Boscoe
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 11:46 am
The teapeople remind me of the punk rockers I knew in highschool. They were mostly middle class kids who were rebelling against mommy and daddy in the guise of “the system” because they thought that made them cool outsiders, until they graduated and went to college to become lawyers and stuff.
The teapeople are aging posers who want one last rebellion to participate in so they can feel heroic.
Cassandra Vert
Sep. 6th, 2011 at 1:28 am
eh, some are, but the TPers are a hodgepodge of racists, private militia and gun nuts, Foxbots, sheeple, free-floating angry people, chronic complainers, and an assortment of ungrounded, disconnected people along with your aging posers.
Anne
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 9:11 am
As a unionized worker, I am eternally grateful for everyone who fought and paved the way so that I can enjoy benefits too many take for granted. Many of the folks who are cheering on the likes of Governors Walker, Snyder, Christie, Kasich, and Scott fail to realize that unless they are among the uber wealthy, they will be negatively affected sooner or later. Their denials and self-deception will not change that. While some of them are mindlessly cheering on these people, their own rights are being eroded. They have fallen into the trap of believing that only “others” will be and are affected.
Reynardine
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 9:49 am
They have been convinced that it is these “others” who have somehow taken “it” away from them: the comfortable, conforming, middle-class, white-bread “ril uhMerica” of the ’50′s, which, to the degree that it did exist for the working class, did so because of the New Deal. The only thing that the “others” (unwhite, unProtestant, unmale, unRil) actually took away from them was the notion that they, alone, were entitled to “the good life”. The rest was taken away by the corporatocracy: that same corporatocracy that is inciting their mean conviction that if they can’t have “the good life” to themselves, they’ll smash it for everybody before they share it with those “others”.
adam
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
xxx
melbo
Sep. 6th, 2011 at 12:33 am
Reynardine, finally someone has began to cut to the chase with these cretins. Thank you. Also it should be noted that the teabaggers proper did not show up proper until a black democrate took the whitehouse. That was the true shocker and the final straw. We libs in St. Louis are working tirelessly to expose them for what they really are. The hybred corporate/kkklan.
Brown cow
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 9:56 am
Love the title ! Thanks for making me laugh on a day I have to work.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 10:02 am
You’re welcome, Brown cow. It may not be how the MSM talks, but then this ole Heathen ain’t corporate owned.
Shiva (Moderator)
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 10:06 am
You are right. In the place of gods who decide not to become involved except through earthquakes, sickness and floods we must be the gods who decide our fate. The right choices are necesary
We stand the chance of losing everything we have taken 260+ years to get
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 10:13 am
I seriously don’t think that’s overstating the case, Shiva, as opposed to be people who downplay the threat or call the Tea Party a “flash in the pan.” We have them on the ropes and we can do what German liberals didn’t do in the 30′s and banish these people to the netherworld of political history.
A Walkaway
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 11:35 am
I hope you’re right. It would be good to see this seeming juggernaut stopped.
As a side note (admittedly off-topic) – I’m rather amused at your view of Labor Day and it being an ending. To us (personally), it’s a beginning – signaling the start of the period of the year where we can go outside without developing rashes and infections because we can’t stay dry (and clean), when it’s actually comfortable outside (even pleasantly cool/cold at times), and life becomes easier (and actually a bit cheaper – considering the cost of A/C). Funny how the dominant weather can affect how one views things like that.
I’ve been amused at all the advertisements for the “end of the cookout season”… it’s just the beginning here (unless you love being hot and sweaty and enjoy fighting off insects).
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
My views on fall are still largely based on my thirty years growing up and living in Minnesota, where winter is six months long and fall is most definitely an ending. It’s not that bad here in Indiana. I did once grill in New York during a snowstorm…boy did I get funny looks – but being fresh from Minnesota a little snow didn’t seem like much. Not like it was real cold or anything.
A Walkaway
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
(Laugh) I haven’t seen snow in years… maybe two flurries in the last 20. The last real snow was over 33 years ago, and it only lasted half a day.
One of my dreams has been to be able to take a few days off in the winter sometime and see snow (and it snowing). I love cold weather… when I was a kid, I could stand the coldest temperatures, and even today don’t sleep worth a hoot if the bedroom is warm.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
I need the cold air too. Spent a year in Orlando, visited a friend in Alabama, and found out the south is not for me. I’m a cold-weather guy
Shiva (Moderator)
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
We just had 60 days in the 90′s, several days at 100 and today ffs is 65 lol
Doris
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Anne you are spot on,it’s sad that these people who are blinded by the Rethuglican rhetoric and think their extreme beliefs will only affect others with their mentality of get them,not us….when in the end they would be looking back,scratching their heads and wonder what happened.
Boscoe
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
This might be an unpopular sentiment around here (I guess I’m about to find out), but personally, I find interesting parallels between Union leaders and corporate CEOs. In both cases you have people whose careers and personal value depend on being seen as constantly delivering more and more value to the people they are beholden to. So, it is inevitable that eventually they will absolutely go too far and become abusive. There’s just no other path that kind of value-oriented leadership system can take.
SO, just as the CEOs continue to kill jobs and ship them overseas for slave wages, and pile more work on fewer people for less money while cutting benefits to try and wring yet another dime of profit for the shareholders, Union leaders have also in some cases taken things too far.
Like everything else in America, Unions have their value, but also their share of waste and corruption and need to be cleaned up and reformed.
Don’t get me wrong, I think *everyone* benefits from the efforts of the Unions and unlike the right wingers and their propagandists, I have not forgotten WHY we needed Unions in the first place. I’m just not making the mistake of bestowing sainthood upon them.
Where there’s money and power, there is corruption. It’s human nature. That’s why what we REALLY need is to get money out of our political system so that our elected officials are free to govern in the honorable, ethical manner intended by the Founders rather than pandering to where the re-election money will come from.
That’s what this fight is really about. Cries of “Union abuses” and “class warfare” are just shiny distractions to divert us from the real battle against the people who are buying themselves a country.
Shiva (Moderator)
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
I agree.
A Walkaway
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
I’ve seen four instances of union abuses – and many many times that number of abuses by owners of non-union businesses (including getting physically beat up by one). Union abuses happen, but is rare and I would argue it’s in response to abusive and greedy attitudes by management and hostility to employees of non-union shops.
I don’t want to work in another non-union situation again.
Anne
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
As you can see, no one is perfect. What you’ve described is how corrupting power can be. It’s also amazing how the far right exacerbates division in order to paint unions as the “enemy,” which is far different from citing some of the problems with particular unions.
Rixar13
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
“Sure, we can go down fighting the good fight, satisfied that we did our best, but wouldn’t you prefer to lift a toast to labor and live to piss it on the Tea Party’s grave? ”
Yep, piss on the Tea-Baggies Grave…. smile ;-)
djsee4
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Truth is finding organization in chaos me thinx… In order to accomplish such a task a few basic tenants must be in place. We live in the melting pot of the world and our diversity is vested in foreign interest accounts. This United States of America is destined to bring forth the NWO. I for one do not fear a one world currency or this beast of globalization. When union buffoons fail to see we are seeking an end that justifies the means it becomes clear those unemployment checks would best be used training for a rapidly advancing economy. Nothing is accomplished pandering over spilt milk. I do not have the answers nor do I see the future, but I do recognize current events rarely develop strategies for future maneuvers. If the ostrich keeps his head in the sand long enuff a good kick in the arse is coming right up. With that lack of inquisition I have fashioned here I leave you to take control of your own destiny and never feel helpless in the greatest country in the history of the galaxy.
Shiva (Moderator)
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
You might have the semblance of a point were it not that the vast number of laid off workers are NOT union workers.
A Walkaway
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Only for a few has it been “the greatest country in the history of the galaxy”, and I would say that “galaxy” is a bit much too.
Retraining is also a failure… only so many jobs are out there in the first place and a lot of college graduates are ending up unemployed when they get out (like me).
If the corporations would stop shipping jobs overseas, they wouldn’t have to be retrained in the first place.
neil
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 1:58 pm
For this retired Teamster the tea party can not be gone soon enough.They are a totally unAmerican political movement who has hoodwinked older Americans into believing they are looking out for their best interests.I cannot think of one redeeming feature of these bastards.Totally motivated by greed and hatred and wanting to drag the U.S backwards to the 1850′s.They have got to go.
Cathy von Hassel-Davies
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
I love that you entwined Norse mythology in your story.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
Thank you, Cathy. It’s what we Heathens do :)
vonBeavis
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Great article. Thanks.
Makarios
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
It comes down to the politics of resentment. The bosses say to the non-unionized folks, “Look at all those perks that the union people are getting, and that you’re not. They don’t deserve them. Let’s cut back on the perks and eliminate the unions.” And the non-union folks agree. What they should be saying is, “Hey, those perks look pretty good. Let’s organize and get some of that for ourselves.”
A Walkaway
Sep. 5th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
I heard it put this way: “I can’t afford to pay you the perks. If I were to give you the same thing they got, I would go out of business.”
For some it may be a message of resentment, others a message of fear. Loosing one’s job is not fun, especially when you’re poor.
prddem
Sep. 6th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Yesterday, Labor Day, I was responsible for 2 more men walking in the Labor Day parade in St. Louis. I know, whoopie, 2 guys. But those two guys had never walked before and frankly, neither did I until last year.
The record breaking heat we’ve been experiencing had finally broken. The weather was absolutely great. Deep blue skys, 75 degree temps and a lot more people marching & watching. It was gratifying to see the amount of people who brought their little people with them. This is what will grow our movement. I believe that just as the weather gave way to a beautiful day & more people marched we will see a renewed spirit in labor.