Labor Day, Brought to You By Unions Everywhere

This year I joined the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981/AFL-CIO (NWU).  I advocate for unions all the time, and this just puts the icing on the cake for me, but more than that, more than how it makes me feel, union membership joins us, arms linked, as we struggle to give our labor force the respect it deserves.  (Yes, even those workers who rail against unions.  We fight for them, too.  Because who else will?)

As I do every Labor Day, I went looking for Labor Day mentions, and the first thing I found was a list of Labor Day quotes to use on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.  Hey!  Great!  But after reading a few of them I noticed a pattern:  They were all about the rewards of hard work, the joys of labor, the shame of idleness.  Nothing about unions AT ALL.  On Labor Day.

It came from the International Business Times, and their lead paragraph is a study in how to say so little about organized labor you would think it never existed:

Labor Day is more than just a pseudo end to summer.  Most Americans throughout the nation are off work on Monday, and that's because more than 100 years ago laborers were forced to work 12-hour days, seven days a week.  While you kick back and relax with some delicious food and cold drinks, here are some interesting quotes social media users can share with family and friends, (etc., etc., etc.)

Enough said, apparently.  What follows are 25 quotes from people  like Maya Angelou, MLK, and Ginger Rogers.  Work is good!  Everybody should work!

And a little shame can't hurt, says Henry Ford in Quote #24:  "Nobody can think straight who does not work.  Idleness warps the mind." 

But the last thought is the kicker--I think:

Bonus for the fashionistas:  "Rules like 'don't wear white after Labor Day' or 'shoes matching the handbag' are antiquated.  Modern women should feel free to experiment."

(Look, I just report these things, I shouldn't be expected to explain them, too.)

But Labor Day is traditionally a celebration of organized labor and a reminder of the sacrifices that came before.  It's a union-invented holiday, celebrated by all workers everywhere, union or not.

As I write this, Joe Biden is giving his annual Labor Day speech in Pittsburgh, talking about how productivity went up about 73% while wages went up only 9%, and. . .

(What the hell? MSNBC just broke into his speech, saying they'll come back to it if he says something important.  They're waiting for him to talk about a run for the presidency.  Nothing else is important on this LABOR DAY.)

So guess what C-Span 2 put into their programming this morning--on LABOR DAY?  "Gretchen Carlson on 'Getting Real.  Fox New anchor Gretchen Carlson shares her life and career in 'broadcasting'."   (Oh, honey, I wish I was kidding.)

News flash:  MSNBC just cut off the president's LABOR DAY speech, too.  CNN didn't cover it at all.  As far as I know, the LABOR DAY speeches by POTUS and the Veep were not broadcast in their totality anywhere on television.  If I'm wrong, please tell me.  Unbelievable.  (If it's not Trump, it's not news.)

But on to the better stuff.  A round-up of Labor Day observances on this, our day:

The Nation:  Top Ten Labor Day Songs

Bernie Sanders:  Stand Together and Fight Back.

L.A Times:  Uncertain Times for American Labor.

Dylan Petrohilos (ThinkProgress):  Seven Union Heroes to Remember.

The Atlantic:  A Labor Day 2015 Reading List.  (A list within a list.  It's all good.)

Ben Railton (TPM):  The Forgotten Radical History of Labor Day.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:  This labor Day.

Ramona (That's me):  Friday Follies Labor Day Edition, 2011


This is our day to enjoy.  To celebrate our successes.  We've earned it.

And--I don't like to brag--but isn't it just like us to want to share it?  (Insert Smiley Face here.)

What's in a Name? Depends on Who's Calling It.

Over this past week I packed and cleaned and wore myself out getting ready for a long trip toward the places where I'm hoping merry holiday spirits abide. It would be a cruel trick if they didn't.

During our long, long travels we got caught in not one but two snowstorms.  We spent three nights on the road when one night in a motel would have been more than enough.  When we could finally travel we had to drive well under the speed limit watching for black ice.  Here in Michigan we try not to think about the fact that winter won't even officially begin until Saturday.  We are sick of it already.  (Oh, I know--you New Yorkers have it much tougher, even though--may I remind you again--nearly every storm you get has already come roaring through our neck of the woods.)

You can see where I'm at these days, so forgive me if I don't give two shits about what somebody I don't even know is saying out loud, even if it offends more than half the country's tender sensibilities.

Megyn Kelly said on Fox News that there is no question that Santa and Jesus were two white guys.  This was in answer to an article in Slate by Aisha Harris, who wrote that maybe Santa shouldn't be an old white man anymore; maybe he should be a penguin, instead.

Maybe it was just my mood--I was looking for something to laugh about--but I found the whole thing hilarious.  In fact, I must remember to thank Megyn for putting a ray of sunshine in what was otherwise a bleak couple of days.  The fact that she's not the brightest bulb on the tree was a foregone conclusion even before she said what she said.  Nothing has changed, except that, honest to God, I got an email asking me to sign a petition to get her off the air!  Are they nuts?  For what?  Being so successfully bad at what she does?

And then there's Phil Robertson, that long-bearded Duck Dynasty guy:  I'm betting he was an established oddball long before he said what he said about gays, the bible, anuses and vaginas.  I caught about 20 minutes of that show once, and after the first 10 minutes of it nothing any of them might say would ever surprise me.  But yesterday I got an email from a friend asking me to sign a petition to demand that A&E come to their senses and put the guy back on the air. If the petition hadn't suggested that the suspension was blatantly anti-Christian, I might have been tempted to sign it.  Nobody should be forced out of a job over a few rancid words.  Even that guy.

When MSNBC fired Martin Bashir for saying something truly foul about what should happen to Sarah Palin in order to make her understand how terrible slavery really was, I objected to that firing, too, even though I thought Martin went way over any decent line.

If MSNBC had wanted to fire Alec Baldwin for dismal ratings they were well within their rights--his ratings were dismal--but they chose instead to tell the public he was fired for uttering a homophobic slur while lashing out at a photographer.  It's not as if MSNBC didn't know going in that Baldwin was a loose cannon.  That must have been part of his appeal for them.  In fact, his (or their) decision to play it straight (as it were) is probably what killed the show.  He was no Jack Donaghy.  He was barely even Alec Baldwin.

None of these people are politicians or leaders.  What they say has no impact on policy-making; nor does it change anything for any stranger who might feel victimized by their words.  We don't know those people and they don't know us.  I'm not defending any of them--every one of them said something stupid--but how sensitive is too sensitive?  Is a single utterance reason enough to cause someone to lose a job?

After a successful career spanning decades, the ever-entertaining Howard Cosell found himself at the center of controversy for directing the term "little monkey" to a black player during a televised football game in 1983.  Cosell, clearly no racist, had used the term at least three other times within a span of about 10 years.  He refused to back down, and left broadcasting at the end of that  season.

Thirty years later, we're still looking for insults inside stupid sentences.  It's as if we've never experienced a comments section.  

Read the comment section of any article smacking of even a hint of controversy and you'll see name-calling soaring to spectacularly vile heights. Some of it comes after a public figure has done the wordy deed and the commenters respond in kind, as if they're competing to see how ugly it can get.

Some participants in the comment sections have a talent for it; the vast majority don't.  F-bombs and its various variations dropping all over the place, as if there is no word it can't replace.  MFing L-bombs lobbed at even little old liberal ladies (just saying. . .).

So here I'll make a confession.  I hate the F-word.  I don't just hate it, I despise it.  I have never used it, never written it, and even now, when its usage is more common than breathing, it still offends me.  I grew up in a time when it was so rarely used it was shocking to hear it spoken out loud.  We saw it in writing even less. But even when it's directed at me I don't fall apart over it. What kind of sissy would I be if I went off pouting or calling for heads to roll every time I heard it used in a way that I found offensive?  (Which, for me, don't you know, would be every way.)

I was a young adult when feminism grew strong enough to become an F-word itself. I've heard it all. Words hurled at me by strangers have almost always been meaningless.  They can't hurt me unless I let them.  And why would I let them? Water off a duck's back.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me. 

And nyah nyah, you lousy cootie.

Why Martin Bashir's Apology Should Have Been Enough

Until Martin Bashir either resigned or was let go by MSNBC this week, I was a loyal fan. I watched Bashir because the things that engaged him usually did the same for me.  At my house, in the Eastern Time Zone, he was on at 4 PM, which meant whatever had happened that day had already been dissected to death by the daytime pundits.  But he had the ability to find something fresh and insightful and, yes, funny, about what was going on out there.  Maybe it's his accent, his enunciation, his eyebrows--I don't know. He is a devilishly clever wordsmith--smarmy, but in a good way.  I have been known to hurry things up just so I can get home in time to watch him.

So I was home and watching on the day he went into that thing over Jake Tapper's interview with Sarah Palin--the part where Palin would not back down from comparing the national debt to slavery.  Tapper gave her many outs, bless his heart, but she stuck by every word.

The interview went like this:

TAPPER: Mitch McConnell has said no more government shutdowns. He didn't think it was a smart idea.
If you were advising Senate Republicans, would you encourage them to do a --
PALIN: What shutdown? What shutdown?
It was a --
TAPPER: Partial shutdown.
PALIN: -- 17-day slim down -- no, a 16-day slim down of about 17 percent of the government. We need to rein in government.
And when is the time, finally, for people to open their eyes and for the media to -- to open its eyes?
What is the time and the magic number, when it comes to debt, when it comes to this trajectory of government growth, for people to say, we do need to start slimming this thing down?
TAPPER: So, you obviously feel very passionate about the national debt. The other day, you gave a speech in which you compared it to slavery.
PALIN: To slavery. Yes.
And that's not a racist thing to do, by the way, which I know somebody is going to claim it is.
TAPPER: Don't you ever fear that by using hyperbole like that -- obviously, you don't literally mean it's like slavery, which cost millions of people their lives and there was rape and torture. You're using it as a metaphor.
But don't you ever worry that by using that kind of language, you -- you risk obscuring the point you're trying to make?
PALIN: There is another definition of slavery and that is being beholden to some kind of master that is not of your choosing. And, yes, the national debt will be like slavery when the note comes due.
TAPPER: So you're not -- you're not work -- I mean I'm -- I'm taking it as a no, but you're not -- you're not concerned about the language --
PALIN: I'm not one to be politically correct, evidently.
TAPPER: OK.
PALIN: And, no, I don't -- I don't worry about things like that, because no matter what I say, no matter what a lot of conservatives say, they're, you know, they'll be targeted and distractions will be attempted to be made to take the listener and the viewers' mind off what the point is, by pointing out, oh, she said the word slavery in a speech, and, I did say the word slavery, because I want to make a point.
TAPPER: You can understand why African-Americans or others might be offended by it, though?
PALIN: I -- I can if they choose to misinterpret what it is that I'm saying. And, again, you know, I'm sure if we open up the dictionary, we could prove that with semantics that are various, we can prove that there is a definition of slavery that absolutely fits the bill there, when I'm talking about a bankrupt country that will owe somebody something down the line if we don't change things that is, we will be shackled. We will be enslaved to those who we owe.

Oh, Sarah.  Clueless, smug, privileged Sarah. Why is anyone still interested in what you have to say?

See, this is what grinds some of us who think the serious stuff should be left to serious thinkers.  The issue of our country's debt crisis is clearly not something Sarah Palin has studied judiciously.  And clearly her audiences don't expect anything more from her than some funnin' over the fuss the liberals make over every nutty thing the Republicans come up with.

So when CNN's Jake Tapper sits down with Palin for what seems like a real interview with a real leader, giving her the deference a real leader might deserve, some of us, including or maybe especially Bashir, feel the tops of our heads threatening to blow off. 

When Bashir began his segment on Palin's national debt/slavery connection, I was all ears. Here we go! Give it all you got, Mah-tin!

He called her an idiot right off, and I, how you say, blanched. Nooooo! Amateur hour. Don't even go there!

Then he told the story of a sadistic Jamaican plantation overseer named Thistlewood who meted out unspeakable punishments to his slaves.  Punishments involving feces and urine.

If Bashir has ended his piece with the hope that Sarah Palin might never have said what she said if she fully understood what real slaves had to go through, it would have been a case of lesson learned.  Thank you, Martin, for reminding us all. . .

I fully expected that was where he was going. But he wasn't. Reading from a teleprompter with blowup shots behind him of an African slave about to be punished on one side and Palin on the other, this is what he said:

When Mrs. Palin invoked slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms that if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate.

Call me prescient but I saw trouble ahead.

Bashir apologized, of course, on his next show, and he meant it sincerely.  So sincerely, I wondered how it could have happened in the first place. It wasn't something uttered in the heat of the moment.  The segment was planned, the words were scripted, he said them on the air. Sometime during the hours it took to produce the segment, the initial fury over Palin's noxious jabbering should have abated.

It's a mystery why it didn't, but there it was.

The internet went crazy.  The Right--wouldn't you know?--grabbed this unexpected but oh-so-welcome gift and ran with it.  Alec Baldwin, no stranger to controversy, wanted to know why he was suspended for spontaneous raging at a reporter but Martin wasn't for planning and airing this icky diatribe against Sarah Palin.  The cries for punishment never let up. 

It was an awful, awful moment, but it was a moment come and gone.  It was an ugly flub in an otherwise smart and often enlightening body of work.  It did not reflect who Martin is, was or ever will be. What he said in that one single utterance, egregious as it might be, was not enough to kill a good man's otherwise trouble-free career.

Martin Bashir has lost his job.  Resigned under pressure, forced out--no matter.  He is among the unemployed because he said something stupid and he should have known better.

We've always been cavalier about someone else's job, and there's no reason to believe it will ever be otherwise. Nobody is out there protesting his dismissal. MSNBC is under no pressure to take him back.

So, Martin, I will miss you.  I wish you the best.  I hope to see you again soon, because you know I will follow you anywhere.  

Sarah Palin Tea Party Speech SIMULCAST: Surrender NOW

It's 5 AM.  I can't sleep.  Moments ago I was lying under the covers, thinking, did I fully enjoy life before the coup?  Will I have enough good memories?  Because after today memories are all I'm going to have left.

Normally, I'm on top of things enemy-wise (or at least I thought I was), but I missed this one.  For most of the day yesterday (Saturday) the TV was off, and last night we had a rare night out visiting friends.  So I didn't know a thing about the end of the world until a few minutes after we got home, when my daughter called.

 Me:  Hello?

My daughter:  Can you believe they've got her on ALL the channels?

Me:  Who?

MD:  Sarah PALIN!  That tea party speech!  And now she's doing a x#%* Q and A!!

Me:  What!!! (Alarmed) You've got to be kidding!   MSNBC too?  Not C-Span!

MD:  All of them!  Turn on your TV!

I gotta go," my daughter said, "I'm writing letters; I'm calling those stations.  They can't get away with this."

I turned on the TV.  MSNBC.  The crowds were cheering and Sarah Palin was smiling and waving, Evita-like, blowing kisses, winking.

I turned the TV off.

This can't be happening, I remember thinking.  I went to the window and looked out into the darkness.  I put my ear to the glass.  I waited for the inevitable sights and sounds of war:  the rumble of tanks, the whump, whump, whump of helicopter rotors, the ack, ack, ack of flak guns, the fires rising skyward, telling me whole towns were being destroyed. . .

So far nothing was happening.  That was good.  I turned on my computer.  It didn't appear to have been taken over yet, so I went to my Twitter page to see what my buddies were reporting about it.

Roger Ebert:  Did she just say Mikey Cyrus?

Joan Walsh:  "So tired of hearin' the talk talk talk" -- she sees me! Sarah Palin sees ME!
   

Buzzflash:  Good Grief! Palin said "America is Ready for Another Revolution." What, the Revolt of the Zombies? 

  

Borowitz Report:  It turns out Palin was reading from crib notes written on her hand 2nite. I for one am shocked she can read and write.

Good God.  They were using pea-shooters against heavy artillery.  All is LOST.

So what could I do?  No guns in the house.  (I'm anti-gun.  Wouldn't you know?)  I did the only thing I knew how:  I wrote protest emails to everyone at NBC, MSNBC, CNN and C-Span.

(When I went to the MSNBC-TV home page,  a huge picture of President Palin hit me, first off.  She was smiling and waving, and the headline read something close to:  Palin to Obama:  Ha!  Ha ha ha ha and HA!!)  

Then it was midnight and I was tired.  I wanted so much to cling to this day, the last day of life as I would know it, but sleep took over--blessed oblivion for a few quiet hours--and now, as I write this I'm surprised at how afraid I am.

I should go and read what our new leader said last night.  Be right back.

(In the meantime, a musical interlude for your pleasure.)

This is taking longer than I thought.  Here's another one.  Sit tight:





Okay, I can't watch it.  I'm sorry.  I can't.   I watched 3 minutes, 20 seconds and had to quit when she got to the "guy with the truck".   Aiii.  And oy.  It's almost as bad as Carly Fiorina's sheep ad.

So.  Now that it's over for the rest of us, I keep thinking:  Should we have seen this coming?  Did we completely overlook the power of big hair, good teeth and a teasing wink?  When that tea party guy held up that sign that said, "Get a brain, Morans",

did he really mean "morans" and not "morons"?   Did we miss the deeper message?

 
And when that nice tea party lady raised her sign telling us to make English our "offical" language, did we just think she meant "official"?   Will Offical be our official language now that we've been taken over?

And when the tea party guy paraded with the sign that said "niggar",  was it maybe not as ignorant and odious as we originally thought?  Was he just innocently speaking Offical?


Remember how much fun we had with those people?  Are you thinking what I'm thinking?  I'm thinking it was all a clever ruse designed to put us off-guard until the actual Saturday-night Tea Party massacre.

All the time we spent laughing at them, they were just biding their time.  Sarah Palin, the unemployed-former governor-because-she-quit-Sarah Palin, finding new life going back to her old baton-twirling, cheer-leading days, collected $100,000 for an hour-long, $500-a-seat pep rally eagerly awaited and covered by the major cable networks (the same ones she called the "lamestream" media), filmed in its entirety by C-Span, the people's network (paid for by you and me, the cable subscribers), and told the citizens of the United States to get ready for a revolution.

And today, enjoying full collaboration with the media, it's here.  (Can't say she didn't warn us.)   So back to the age-old question; the one we've been asking and asking and asking without ever getting an answer:  What now?

Ramona