I Am That Liberal You Think You Know

I’m a Liberal Democrat, capital L, capital D. I’ve been a Liberal Democrat my entire adult life. I’ve never been ashamed of being either one. Why would I be? We Liberal Democrats have a long history of public service in the best sense of the words. We’ve been the caretakers while the Republicans have traditionally fought against any thought of taking care of all citizens. Emphasis on ALL citizens.

We work at being inclusive while the Republicans pride themselves on their exclusivity. While we’re trying to build a country they’re building a club.

So here’s a radical thought: Let the Liberals do it. Give us a chance to show how it could be done.

 Liberals, you like to remind us, are the classic political nerds, not good for anything but maybe wedgies or noogies. Quaint naïve little do-gooders lost in a world of ruthless cruelty without weapons adequate enough to bruise a flea.

 In the 1980s, around about the time the actor Ronald Reagan, friendly Midwestern Liberal turned hard-hearted California conservative, was enshrined as The Teflon POTUS, the word went out that Liberals — those ridiculous “for the people” gadflies — were ruining the country by helping too many undeserving and impoverished leeches, by welcoming foreigners, by insisting that workers be represented by hard-nosed unions, by pushing the toxic notion that health care shouldn’t be for-profit, and by tightening, enforcing, or inventing regulations that were or would be anathema to the gold-plated entities they targeted.

It wasn’t hard to convince the many millions that health, wealth, and happiness could only come from a government without teeth, from the benevolence of ridiculously powerful corporations, and, if all else failed, from that venerable standby, Old Testament God.

 All that stood in the way were those insufferable Liberals.

 Liberals became such pariahs an entire bloc jumped ship and took on a new name: Progressives. (I would describe them for you here, but I admit I don’t know the difference. So far they’ve been relatively friendly. Don’t look to me to rock that boat.)

 But what we Liberals are known for are hearts that gush blood whenever injustice rears its massive, ugly head. We see a bleeding heart as a badge of honor. The same with tears. We cry when things move us, and we don’t hide from our emotions. Our anger stems from compassion, our outrage roars at cruelty. We wear our hearts on our sleeves and it’s not meant as a fashion statement.

 Liberals have a long history of getting things done. We pulled the entire country out of a great depression by hiring our citizens to do meaningful busy-work, by using our charitable might, by giving dignity and hope back to a country mired in poverty and hopelessness.

 We built the unions and gave workers a voice. We put an end to child labor. We fought to give every adult citizen the right to vote, no matter their gender or color. We helped the poor and the elderly by creating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Clean Air act, and the Clean Water Act. We ended a recession that nearly destroyed the middle class.

 We did all that and more against the wishes — and the might — of fat cats and right wingers who sorely wanted what we’re heading for today: a country ruled by non-contributing despots whose only interests are power, greed, and self-preservation.

 We are not that country and we never will be. The Trump phenomenon is an anomaly, destined as a vivid warning in our history books, a long chapter on how close we came to letting our democracy die. We’re still a majority of the good and, thankfully, most of us aren’t ashamed to show it. It’s our time now and there’s much to do. They’re out there waiting for us and they have heavy weapons. 

The truth-tellers are under barrage and the liars appear to be winning. Not in any honest way — that’s not their MO — but they’ve built a formidable army with thugs in both the House and the Senate, corrupt judges with life-long positions and no former experience, rules and laws that favor the wealthy and crush the poor, shady dealings with foreign dictators, and, if all else fails, voting machines spewing out questionable tallies.

We can’t afford to get it wrong this time. We are a country on the brink and this is no time to dismiss anyone working to change this mess. Do we need labels to tell us apart? Not as much as we might think. It’s enough that we’re on the same team. Not everyone on the team comes from the same background, but everyone should have the same goal. To win.

Come November, 2020, we have to win. There is no other acceptable outcome. So I’ll be That Liberal and you be…you. But let’s work at winning together. It's only our entire country that's at stake.

(A version of this appears at Medium)

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.)

Farewell, Pete Seeger. Peace Be With You.

I woke up this morning to the sad news that Pete Seeger, America's folk singer and man of peace, has died.

He was 94 years old, so we should be grateful that we had him with us for so long.  He was a man whose presence was timeless and inspiring, and the truth is, we needed him.  We need him still.

He was more than a singer/songwriter, although in his case that would have been enough.  He was a man of courage, unafraid to face down fancy fools and demagogues.   In the 1950s he was hauled before Joe McCarthy's Red-scare witch-hunters and branded a communist--a brand he neither confirmed nor denied until much later, when he said he had been a communist for a time but dropped out.  He never failed to remind those who asked that it was never illegal in this country to be a communist.  The young ones were, as you might imagine, surprised to hear it.

He was jailed, blacklisted, and was sentenced to 10 years for contempt of Congress. (That last one was overturned, but he was able to retain the bragging rights.)

During the communist witch-hunts of the early Fifties, however, the Weavers were blacklisted, resulting in canceled concert dates and the loss of their recording contract with Decca Records. Under congressional subpoena to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Seeger asserted his First Amendment rights, scolding the committee, “I am not going to answer any questions as to my associations, my philosophical or my religious beliefs, or how I voted in any election or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked.” - See more at: http://rockhall.com/inductees/pete-seeger/bio/#sthash.Tltp8l5j.dpuf

 In 1955, Seeger was subpoenaed to testify in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He was famously uncooperative, citing the First Amendment (freedom of speech and association) instead of the Fifth (freedom from self-incrimination) when he refused to answer, because he believed there was nothing "incriminating" about knowing communists or being one. Clubs and TV shows canceled the Weavers' bookings, their recording company voided their contract, and their records vanished from stores and radio airplay. Seeger was indicted for contempt of Congress, and sentenced to ten concurrent one-year terms in prison (a sentence he didn't serve, as it was overturned on appeal). Seeger and his band were blacklisted, and for years worked only in tiny clubs willing to take the risk of hiring them.

Pete never failed to let us know he was one of us.  His concerts became one big sing-along, where everyone joined in and became his back-up singers.  (That could be because Pete himself said as a singer he made a pretty good song-writer, but his audiences loved it.)

We knew the words to his songs by heart and understood where the words came from.   He cared about the least of us.  He was a union man.  He was a man of peace who would not submit.

Solidarity forever, Mr. Seeger.  It was a privilege to be on this planet with you.  You will live on.  We'll make sure of that.

S.O.L -- Save our Labor

It's fashionable these days among the politicians, pundits and so-called experts to claim that free trade is actually good for us. They say it enables us to buy cheaper goods made with cheap foreign labor and this, in turn, raises our standard of living. With all due respect, the free traders need to ask themselves a more fundamental question: how will Americans buy those goods when they don't even have a paycheck that covers their mortgage, much less the college tuition for their children?

Virg Bernero, Mayor, Lansing, MI


Virg Bernero is my new hero. The mayor of Lansing, Michigan is taking the message of the American laborer and shoving it so tightly down the throats of the pundits, they're getting bilious just thinking about him.

When they began inviting him onto their shows last fall to talk about the prospects of a Big Three bailout, they thought they were dealing with the biggest yokel on the planet. This'll be fun! You could see it in the smirks on their faces, in their sit-back-and-laugh postures, in their questions meant to provoke rather than inform. Outside of Ron Gettelfinger, the president of UAW, (I'm elevating him to hero status, too), who the heck would be out there speaking FOR labor these days? And who in their right mind would do it on, of all places, Fox News?

Well, it turns out that Virg would--every chance he got--and once he was on a roll, nobody was going to shut him up. In November he sparred with Neil Cavuto twice in three days.

In December he did it again, caling the Auto Companies "the most patriotic companies in America". Virg says when all the other companies were shipping their jobs overseas, the American auto companies stayed in America. It's true--to a point. They have shipped some jobs overseas, just not as many. But can we talk about this? Apparently not. See how quickly he's bid a fond adieu by the interviewers.

Here he spends some quality time with some of the folks at CNN--John Roberts, Ali Velshi, Ciran Chetry and Christine Romans--all apparent experts on what this country needs to get going again.

Ali Velshi to Virg: ". . .It's the fact that things are made more cheaply in other parts of the world, which has, in a lot of cases, helped many Americans in their standard of living. They've been able to buy cheaper goods."

Virg: "I disagree vehemently. . ." (It was early in the interview. Virg hadn't gotten his steam up.)

Virg, picking up speed: "I'm tired of hearing the American worker being beat up upon, and people told you need to be more competitive; you need to be more competitive. What they're really talking about is 'cut your wages, cut your benefits, work for nothing, like some peasant somewhere else in the world'. Well, I'm sorry--I'm tired of the American standard of living brought down to the lowest common denominator. We need fair trade agreements fairly enforced."

Christine Romans, using the tired 'some people say' tactic , said: "You will hear from a lot of decision makers that manufacturing is very 20th century and this is a service economy and that we have to innovate and we have to come up with the next thing that's going to move the economy forward. How does that square with Michigan and its labor base?"

Lordy, did she really say that? Yes, Virg heard it, too, but to his credit, given the condescension dripping from her tongue, he remembered what his mother taught him about being polite to women--even silly women--and gave Ms. Romans way more nice than she deserved.

"With all due respect," Virg said, "That--what you just said--I've heard it before. I'm not saying this about you. . . "

Okay. With that out of the way, he wasted no time in getting back on track:

". . .But that is absolute bull. That has been perpetrated by Wall Street. The idea that you can be a service economy. . .What are you servicing? How can you service. . . What are you going to serve? Hamburgers? That is total, utter nonsense that Wall Street has been spewing for years. That's part of the unholy alliance. We need manufacturing in this country. Manufacturing is at the apex of the economy. When you give up manufacturing, you are giving up your future."

That interview was on February 6. I don't know where else Virg has been since then, but just the other day (February 18) he finally quit sparring and went for the jugular, totally obliterating Fox News's Greg Jarrett, who just wanted to know why the unions shouldn't go ahead and give their concession speeches already and get out of Big Business's hair.



Oh, that Virg! He has to talk fast, and he has to talk straight, because it may not be long before the air waves are closed to him forever. You can't have pro-labor people out there making too much sense.

The interesting thing about the Bernero blitz is that those talking points are nothing new. It's a conversation that has gone on in every labor family, ever since unions began surfacing in the early part of the 20th Century. During the Reagan years, when the systematic undermining of labor unions began to get serious, the conversations grew hot and heavy, but, outside of the interested few, nobody else cared.

Along with watching the government-condoned slow but sure destruction of our labor unions, most of the country sat passively still while Big Business thumbed their noses at good old American Can-Do and Know-How by moving major chunks of our formerly vibrant manufacturing base outside our borders. A precious few protested when millions of jobs were outsourced and lost to Americans on the strength of wage packages alone. For years it was okay by us (you, that is) that millions of American wage-earners took home smaller paychecks and forfeited better benefits so that the Fat Cats who owned the businesses could live the life-styles of Sultans and Kings.

This is what happened because of it:
Our economy has collapsed in ways we couldn't have even imagined a mere eight years ago, on Inaugural Day, 2000.

We're in a protracted war brought on by hubris and greed, and encouraged by stupidity.

We owe our souls to our national credit company, communist China, and we can't pay them back because we don't make anything anymore.

Health care costs are going through the roof while health care benefits are a thing of the past for many, many millions.

Our food, our water, our very air isn't safe.

We're slowly selling off our natural resources to the highest bidder because we can't afford to keep them anymore.

And hundreds of thousands of American citizens are losing their jobs every month. (That's every month.)

So this shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody, given the sorry state of our nation, but the Fat Cat glory days are over. You'll be getting no more sacrificial lambs from what's left of our puny work force. Even the workers in the south are finally waking up to the con game called "low wages and no benefits are good for me and you--especially me".

In order to build an essential, strong labor force in this country, we need labor activists to combat the still mighty hold of the greedy Kings of Commerce who would rather see our nation destroyed than give up their thrones.

People like Virg Bernero and Ron Gettelfinger and, occasionaly, Barack Obama, understand the important role labor needs to play in order to bring us back to prosperity. We need good jobs that pay well in order to get back to spending again. (People without money don't buy things. I'm just saying, because some people still don't get it.)

On the campaign trail Barack Obama said, loud and clear, "I believe we have to reverse many of the policies toward organized labor that we have seen over the past eight years, policies with which I have sharply disagreed." and "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement."

Hold him to that. Labor doesn't have a chance if it doesn't organize. "Solidarity Forever" isn't just a song. It's a battle cry again.

Ramona