Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

This fight is for everything.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Bark louder, little dog.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

When we show up, we win.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Stay strong, because they are weak.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You are here: Home / Their mark on this land is still seen and still laid, the way for a commerce where vast fortunes were made

Their mark on this land is still seen and still laid, the way for a commerce where vast fortunes were made

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Hearing all shit about job creators on Labor Day pisses me off. I don’t think that entrepreneurs need their own holiday, because, in the words of Don Draper, that’s what the money is for. Anyway, would an-honest-to-Ryan Galtian superhero really want the lazy postal workers to get yet another day off?

This is what I think of when I think of Labor Day.

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  4. 4.

    Jennifer

    As I noted in my Labor Day post, MOTU Day wouldn’t be a paid day off – ideally, it would be a working holiday, one in which workers work for no pay in order to show their gratitude for having been “given” a job.

  6. 6.

    Roger Moore

    I don’t think that entrepreneurs need their own holiday, because, in the words of Don Draper, that’s what the money is for.

    I think it’s like the question of why we have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day but not Children’s Day. It’s because every ordinary day favors the children relative to their parents, so we need a special occasion to recognize the ones who are at a disadvantage. Same thing with Labor and Management.

  7. 7.

    Spaghetti Lee

    I don’t know if this happens-do surviving unions use Labor Day for membership drives, unionization drives, etc? I think they should. People really ought to understand labor history more than they do.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    “Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”

    “The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. “I wish I had him here. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

    “My dear,” said Bob, “the children! Christmas Corporation Day.”

    “It should be Christmas Corporation Day, I am sure,” said she, “on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!”

    “My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas Corporation Day.”

    “I’ll drink his health for your sake and the Day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas Corporation and a happy new year! He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!”

  11. 11.

    Roger Moore

    @Jennifer:

    It’s almost as if you read my post.

    Or that it’s an obvious enough point that more than one person could arrive at it independently. That being said, there’s already a Boss’s Day, which is almost like a MOTU day.

  14. 14.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Meg: “Should we allow corporations to do whatever they want?”

    That’s the Rand/Romney/Ryan platform. I wonder what the labor record is for Ryan Construction, Inc.

  16. 16.

    mary

    Everyday in this country, people die on the job. Everyday in this country, people are maimed on the job. Everyday in this country, people are exposed to health hazards on the job. Everyday in this country, people are exploited and worn out physicially and emotionally. It’s not too much to ask that one day a year, those of us who go to work every day for 40 years are thanked for what we do. I really resent these whiny rich men.

  18. 18.

    TOP123

    So we have Labor Day in September instead of May Day like the rest of the world, and now we can’t even have that?

  19. 19.

    Dennis SGMM

    @mary:
    Despite being a college educated innalektual I worked with my hands for most of my life. Over time those hands turned into my dad’s hands and then they turned into blunt instruments. If it wasn’t for voice to text software I couldn’t even bore ya’ll with my comments.

    Now the fair haired sons of bitches who were born on third base are demanding a greater share of acclaim, power, and money. Why they aren’t hanging from lamp posts is beyond me.

  20. 20.

    Jennifer

    @Roger Moore: That wasn’t a veiled (or unveiled) accusation of plagiarism, just a note that I had incorporated that same idea and a pout that you didn’t get it from me because you hadn’t read it.

  21. 21.

    hells littlest angel

    I would have a tough time picking the ugliest face of the Republican party, but Eric Cantor would certainly make the final five. Simpering jackoff idiot…

  23. 23.

    Steeplejack

    @DougJ:

    Hearing all shit about job creators on Labor Day pisses me off.

    This really pisses me off too. I have a close acquaintance who started an assisted-living facility for seniors with his partner (now estranged ex-partner) and built it into a small group of several facilities. Got bought out by the ex-partner for probably about $2 million. They worked hard, risked their capital, built it all from scratch, etc., etc.

    He really buys into that Galtian hero stuff, although he is aware enough to keep it on the down low most of the time. Especially around me, because I have let slip in the past that he and his partner built their empire on the backs of all the actual caregivers in the facilities making really crappy wages.

    The same goes for a lot of the “small businessman” heroes. When was the last time you saw an actual owner working in a fast-food restaurant? No longer is it a proud owner running his little business with his loyal staff. It’s a guy running a franchise group from an office somewhere, and the actual store manager is paid only marginally better than the drones at the bottom. Ugh.

    The minimum wage in this country should be something like $12 or $15 an hour.

    Sorry to go all wild-eyed socialist here. This is a hot-button issue for me, and I’m really feeling it today, for some reason.

  25. 25.

    Anna in PDX

    The problem with America is that there isn’t enough class anger on the part of the working class. Why are these people saying these things unapologetically?

    Mary at 16: Amen.

    Dennis at 18: Yeah, that baffles me. We must be very, very nice people. Or something.

  27. 27.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    @Dennis SGMM:

    Now the fair haired sons of bitches who were born on third base are demanding a greater share of acclaim, power, and money. Why they aren’t hanging from lamp posts is beyond me.

    You didn’t have nifty distractions like iPhones, Facebook and Honey Boo Boo when you were a kid. The safety of the 1% is directly correlated to our attention span.

  32. 32.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Steeplejack:

    I have a close acquaintance who started an assisted-living facility for seniors with his partner (now estranged ex-partner) and built it into a small group of several facilities. Got bought out by the ex-partner for probably about $2 million. They worked hard, risked their capital, built it all from scratch, etc., etc.

    …and did any federal funds perchance find their way into that assisted-living facility for senior citizens?

  37. 37.

    geg6

    Fuck these people. I went to the largest Labor Day parade in the nation today here in Pittsburgh. A day after USX settled a new contract with the USW, thus averting a steel strike. A day my grandad used to sit us grandkids down and tell the story of how they fought to unionize the then J&l Steel in Aliquippa, a town that like any coal community was a for reals company town. And he’d bring out the grainy black and white photos of him with his fellow steelworkers with broken arms and bloody faces from those unionization fights. That’s what Labor Day is about: ordinary workers, wlling to fight and even die in order to gain some control and dignity in their lives. It’s a great and inspiring story, one that our media will not touch. So I continue my granddad’s tradition with my nieces. They need to know and I’m proud and happy to tell them.

    And now I’m gonna settle in and watch Tweety’s Obama film. A fitting end to Labor Day, IMHO.

  39. 39.

    Violet

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, of course there were federal funds. But only because they were available and it would have put them at a competitive disadvantage to pass them up. And the federal funds are really their own money because they pay taxes, but if they had their way, they’d never have the federal government offer any money because that’s soshulism.

    I think that about covers wingnut argument 101.

  40. 40.

    raven

    Richard Cory

    They say that Richard Cory owns one half of this whole town,
    With political connections to spread his wealth around.
    Born into society, a banker’s only child,
    He had everything a man could want: power, grace, and style.

    But I, I work in his factory
    And I curse the life I’m living
    And I curse my poverty
    And I wish that I could be,
    Oh, I wish that I could be,
    Oh, I wish that I could be
    Richard Cory.

    The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes:
    Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show.
    And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht!
    Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he’s got.

    But I, I work in his factory
    And I curse the life I’m living
    And I curse my poverty
    And I wish that I could be,
    Oh, I wish that I could be,
    Oh, I wish that I could be
    Richard Cory.

    He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch,
    And they were grateful for his patronage and they thanked him very much,
    So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read:
    “Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head.”

    But I, I work in his factory
    And I curse the life I’m living
    And I curse my poverty
    And I wish that I could be,
    Oh, I wish that I could be,
    Oh, I wish that I could be
    Richard Cory.

  41. 41.

    raven


    The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll

    Hattie Carroll was a maid in the kitchen
    She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
    Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage
    And never sat once at the head of the table
    And didn’t even talk to the people at the table
    Who just cleaned up all the food from the table
    And emptied the ashtrays on the whole lower level
    Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
    That sailed through the air and came down through the room
    Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle
    And she never done nothin’ to William Zanzinger
    And you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
    Take the rag away from your face
    Now ain’t the time for your tears.

  42. 42.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    @raven:

    No, not those devices specifically but I was citing those for humorous effect. Before that it was cable TV and video games and walkmans. In the 1960s, when kids and old people were being sprayed with water hoses and bitten by dogs, millions of people were actually paying attention. There were actual long-form television shows where somebody like William F. Buckley would debate Huey Newton. Now when folks see stuff that’s “too real”, they just turn the channel.

  43. 43.

    raven

    Brother Can You Spare a Dime

    Once in khaki suits
    Gee, we looked swell
    Full of that yankee Doodle De Dum
    Half a million boots went slogging through hell
    I was the kid with the drum
    Say don’t you remember, they called me Al
    It was Al all the time
    Say don’t you remember, I’m your pal!
    Buddy can you spare a dime?

  48. 48.

    Pen

    @Shawn in ShowMe: It probably doesn’t help that shit like that isn’t even shown on TV anymore. The elite learned the right lessons during the 60s and 70s. Why else do you think we have stenographer “journalists” and an all-volunteer military?

  51. 51.

    Linnaeus

    @Steeplejack:

    He really buys into that Galtian hero stuff, although he is aware enough to keep it on the down low most of the time. Especially around me, because I have let slip in the past that he and his partner built their empire on the backs of all the actual caregivers in the facilities making really crappy wages.

    Reminds me of a guy that a friend of mine used to work for. This guy wasn’t a Galtian sort, but he was very much one of those small-business-is-the-salt-of-the-earth Republicans who just couldn’t stand how government was fucking with guys like him.

    Thing is, the guy didn’t even build the business he ran – he inherited it from his father who started it. Anyway, the main reason the business (an equipment rental/sales store) stays alive is because of the quality of the employees (like my friend) who kept it going. They literally did everything. The owner just drank all day, did a little bit of paperwork at the business (which he often screwed up) and had my friend transporting him from home to work and back and helping with his own home improvement projects. I don’t know what my friend made, but it wasn’t a lot and certainly there were no benefits. No health care, even though my friend regularly worked around heavy equipment that could easily hurt or kill you in an accident. My friend had enough after about two years and luckily found another job. When my friend left, the owner said, “There’ll always be a place for you here if you need it.” No shit, pal, because you need someone to clean up your messes. Small business “hero” my ass.

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    @Meg: Wow. That video tells a lot. He is so clearly not presidential material, or vice-presidential material. And his wife just stupidly smiling while he offers them candy.

    Just try to imagine Michelle Obama or Jill Biden in that situation.

    I am trying to think of a final sentence that doesn’t include the words “arrogant”, “fucking” or “prick”. I’ll keep trying and get back to you.

  53. 53.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Linnaeus: I guess it’s the kind of thing that couldn’t be polled. but I suspect there’s a big disparity between the official definition of small business– I know gov’t definitions vary pretty broadly in terms of number of employees and annual revenues– and what most people think of when they hear/use the term “small business”. ETA: I suspect most people think of the mom&pop hardware store, the little neighborhood restaurant, or the plumber with four or five plumbers who work for him, not car dealerships or a HVAC company with 250 employees

  56. 56.

    Violet

    @Shawn in ShowMe: The phrase “bread and circuses” didn’t originate here in America. It’s been going on forever. Entertain and distract the masses and make sure they’re not hungry and you can do what you want. Our current society is doing very well on the distractions but not so well on the hunger.

  57. 57.

    dr. luba

    Was listening to the new Springsteen album, and was impressed with Jack of all Trades:

    I’ll mow your lawn, clean the leaves out your drain
    I’ll mend your roof to keep out the rain
    I’ll take the work that God provides
    I’m a Jack of all trades, honey, we’ll be alright

    I’ll hammer the nails, and I’ll set the stone
    I’ll harvest your crops when they’re ripe and grown
    I’ll pull that engine apart and patch her up ’til she’s running right
    I’m a Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright

    A hurricane blows, brings a hard rain
    When the blue sky breaks, feels like the world’s gonna change
    We’ll start caring for each other like Jesus said that we might
    I’m a Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright

    The banker man grows fatter, the working man grows thin
    It’s all happened before and it’ll happen again
    It’ll happen again, they’ll bet your life
    I’m a Jack of all trades and, darling, we’ll be alright

    Now sometimes tomorrow comes soaked in treasure and blood
    Here we stood the drought, now we’ll stand the flood
    There’s a new world coming, I can see the light
    I’m a Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright

    So you use what you’ve got, and you learn to make do
    You take the old, you make it new
    If I had me a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot ’em on sight
    I’m a Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright
    I’m a Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright

  58. 58.

    lamh35

    Obama Leads in Michigan

    A new Public Policy Polling survey in Michigan finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney by seven points, 51% to 44%.
    Key finding: “That reflects the fact that despite his ties to the state, Michigan voters just don’t embrace Romney. Only 45% have a favorable opinion of him to 49% with an unfavorable one. They don’t accept Romney as one of their own either- only 34% consider him to be a Michigander to 57% who do not.”

  59. 59.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @raven:

    To use a hoary old cliche, I think if reality TV didn’t exist, people who wonder what’s wrong with society would have to invent it. I’ve never met anyone who actually watches, sincerely or ironically, Jersey Shore, Honey Boo Boo, My Super Sweet 16, etc. Yet to hear some people talk 90% of the country is tuning in every night.

    Not that those shows aren’t complete and utter crap. But I think using them as a metaphor for decline and fall is kind of tired and, well, not the whole story. Politicians and Big Business have been doing asshole things with the public not caring a whit for centuries, all over the world.

  61. 61.

    SuzieC

    @Anna in PDX:

    That is the big question. Why no class anger? I think it is 1. Media feeding the line that Americans Admire Success. And 2. racism. You’re not doing well because teh gubmint is handing out your taxes and jobs to the brown people. Also pushed by # 1.

    Love, love the Pogues and that song.

  64. 64.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Since Raven started it,

    One More Dollar

    A long time ago I left my home
    For a job in the fruit trees
    But I missed those hills with the windy pines
    For their song seemed to suit me
    So I sent my wages to my home
    Said we’d soon be together
    For the next good crop would pay my way
    And I would come home forever
    One more dime to show for my day
    One more dollar and I’m on my way
    When I reach those hills, boys
    I’ll never roam
    One more dollar and I’m going home
    No work said the boss at the bunk house door
    There’s a freeze on the branches
    So when the dice came out at the bar downtown
    I rolled and I took my chances
    One more dime to show for my day
    One more dollar and I’m on my way
    When I reach those hills, boys
    I’ll never roam
    One more dollar and I’m going home
    A long time ago I left my home
    Just a boy passing twenty
    Could you spare a coin and a Christian prayer
    For my luck has turned against me
    One more dime to show for my day
    One more dollar and I’m on my way
    When I reach those hills, boys
    I’ll never roam
    One more dollar and I’m going home
    One more dollar
    Boys I’m going home

  66. 66.

    Yutsano

    @? Martin: WA minimum wage is currently $9.04 and indexed to inflation. According to wingnut logic we should have the highest unemployment in the nation. We’re sitting right at national average due mostly to the massive depression of Spokane (Seattle is running around 7.4% last I checked). So the state must be doing something right.

  67. 67.

    Roger Moore

    @Steeplejack:

    When was the last time you saw an actual owner working in a fast-food restaurant?

    There’s a little mom-and-pop fast food place near where I used to live that’s an honest to FSM mom-and-pop place. As in the kind of place where mom works the register, dad cooks the food, and their kids help out however they can. I think that’s a very common way for small restaurants to work.

  68. 68.

    jl

    ” Get up early in the morning, long before the mornin’ sun,
    Get up so early in the morning, long before the mornin’ sun,
    I been a long hard time working, long before the bossman come. ”

    From an up tempo harmonica blues song. Either Little Walter or Jr. Wells, but I can’t find it on youtube. I think it’s Junior Wells.

  69. 69.

    Chris

    @SuzieC:

    Mostly racism. To borrow from Marx, the working class can’t be a class for itself as long as it’s divided by something many see as more important than class.

    Europe may be walking down the same path with large scale immigration from the former colonies, the rise of the far right and the death of communist parties.

  70. 70.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @raven:
    Tecumseh Valley

    The name she gave was caroline
    Daughter of a miner
    Her ways were free
    It seemed to me
    That sunshine walked beside her

    She came from spencer
    Across the hill
    She said her pa had sent her
    ’cause the coal was low
    And soon the snow
    Would turn the skies to winter

    She said she’d come
    To look for work
    She was not seeking favors
    And for a dime a day
    And a place to stay
    She’d turn those hands to labor

    But the times were hard, lord,
    The jobs were few
    All through tecumseh valley
    But she asked around
    And a job she found
    Tending bar at gypsy sally’s

    She saved enough to get back home
    When spring replaced the winter
    But her dreams were denied
    Her pa had died
    The word come down from spencer

    So she turned to whorin’ out on the streets
    With all the lust inside her
    And it was many a man
    Returned again
    To lay himself beside her

    They found her down beneath the stairs
    That led to gypsy sally’s
    In her hand when she died
    Was a note that cried
    Fare thee well… tecumseh valley

  72. 72.

    Violet

    @Spaghetti Lee: I watched Jersey Shore for about three seasons. Well, sort of. I didn’t watch the first season, but kept hearing about it. One night I was home and bored and channel surfing and happened upon a Jersey Short Season 1 marathon. I decided to watch it for a few minutes to see what the fuss was. It completely sucked me in. I just couldn’t stop watching it. I had come into the marathon about halfway through the first season and I was so sucked in I ended up DVRing and watching the rest of it.

    Turns out the Season 1 marathon was because Season 2 was about to start and my DVR recorded that too, so I watched it. It was meh. But I watched. And then I watched Season 3, which was worse. And I quit about halfway through Season 3, deleted the shows off the DVR and haven’t been interested since. I did see a bit of the one where they went to Italy when I was channel surfing, but it looked totally contrived.

    So I guess my point was, they edit the shows so that someone just channel surfing along can get sucked into them and not feel lost about who the people are and what’s happening. They’re short little segments that kind of stand alone and work well for those with short attention spans. They’re very well executed mindless fluff and have the ability to suck people in, even people like me who have never watched that kind of show before or even thought about watching it. It was like a drug. Mindless, dumb, funny, and completely absorbing in its own way. And then I quit.

  73. 73.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    Politicians and Big Business have been doing asshole things with the public not caring a whit for centuries, all over the world.

    And the more advanced technology becomes, the easier it gets. I don’t know what the solution is. Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe keeping each other sane through blog comments while our family and friends retreat further into fantasy land is the best we can do.

  74. 74.

    Steeplejack

    @SuzieC:

    Why no class anger?

    Because by and large we’ve bought into the myth that if you’re not a “success” it’s your own fault. Stuck in a crappy job? Leave that crappy job and start your own business! Success!

    This conveniently avoids the possibility that something might need to be done to make the crappy job less crappy, because society actually needs to have the job done by someone.

  75. 75.

    Yutsano

    @Roger Moore: They also spend a huge amount of time getting to know their clientele and rewarding their loyalty in any method that is feasible. And more often than not the loyal customer base will bend over backwards to keep that restaurant going. I only wish this could be true for those places that got invaded by Wal-Mart.

  77. 77.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @raven: I like her version better, too. That was just the one that popped in my head. Peter Mulvey does a version of it too that’s really good, but couldn’t find it on YT.

  78. 78.

    jl

    @Yutsano:

    Sounds like commie SF Bay Area, we should be spiraling down into total economic collapse, but has one of best growth rates in US, and along with some other parts of soft worthless lib Northern California, dragging the state growth rate to slightly above US average.

    Granted the place drives me crazy sometimes, and I wonder how SF in particular gets from one day to the next, but miraculously has been here over a 150 years. But my personal gripes about some of the silliness here are irrelevant (though not enough to omit them entirely).

    I have heard that the Reno area in NV fancies it is ‘stealing’ manufacturing jobs from SF Bay because of liberal anti business problems, but I think just as accurate to say that SF Bay tech sector is growing at rate that produces more light and hi tech manufacturing that needs a good transportation hub (which Reno has) faster than can be absorbed in northern CA.

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack

    @Roger Moore:

    Yes, of course those places exist, but they are far outnumbered by the endless outposts of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Arby’s, etc., etc. When was the last time you saw anyone in one of those places who looked remotely like the owner?

  80. 80.

    raven

    @Steeplejack: I suppose it would send everyone into a frenzy if I suggested shit is not nearly as bad in this country as we make it out to be. I was talking to a South African emigree about the dead miners and he said, “in Africa that is nothing”.

  81. 81.

    Roger Moore

    @Spaghetti Lee:
    Maybe not the shows you’re mentioning, but I know people who are absolutely hooked on Dancing With The Stars and The Bachelor. Not that this is an entirely bad thing; the whole Bristol Palin business on DWTS did more to clue them in to how fucked up the Tea Party is than any amount of preaching on my part would have.

  82. 82.

    Linnaeus

    @lamh35:

    And that’s right after the GOP convention, when Romney should benefit from a convention bounce. Nate Silver is right, I think; Michigan ain’t a tossup.

  83. 83.

    Meg

    @WaterGirl:
    When Ryan offered the young man some candies, it remined me of the other incident when he ejected an 72-year-old man from a town hall meeting for daring to ask him about his Medicare policy.
    He said he hope the old man has taken his blood pressure medications.

    How can a “serious” man be so afraid to have any serious discussion on policies with the voters.
    All he gives them are contempt and mockery.

  84. 84.

    Meg

    @WaterGirl:
    When Ryan offered the young man some candies, it remined me of the other incident when he ejected an 72-year-old man from a town hall meeting for daring to ask him about his Medicare policy.
    He said he hope the old man has taken his blood pressure medications.

    How can a “serious” man be so afraid to have any serious discussion on policies with the voters.
    All he gives them are contempt and mockery.

  86. 86.

    SuzieC

    OK, if we’re doing Labor Day songs, Joe Hill must be represented:

    I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
    alive as you and me.
    Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead”
    “I never died” said he,
    “I never died” said he.

    “The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
    they shot you Joe” they filled you full of lead.
    “Takes more than guns to kill a man”
    Says Joe “I didn’t die”
    Says Joe “I didn’t die”

    “In Salt Lake City, Joe,” says I,
    Him standing by my bed,
    “They framed you on a murder charge,”
    Says Joe, “But I ain’t dead,”
    Says Joe, “But I ain’t dead.”

    And standing there as big as life
    and smiling with his eyes.
    Says Joe “What they can never kill
    went on to organize,
    went on to organize”

    From San Diego up to Maine,
    in every mine and mill,
    Where working men defend their rights,
    it’s there you’ll find Joe Hill,
    it’s there you’ll find Joe Hill!

    I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
    alive as you and me.
    Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead”
    “I never died” said he,
    “I never died” said he.

  87. 87.

    jl

    @Linnaeus: I think the GOP convention bounce went to Dems, for some reason. Maybe the GOP convention kind of stunk up the place might be one reason. Maybe too bad Isaac shortened it, otherwise they would have had another day to piss of media, underwhelm voting public and generally embarrass themselves.

  88. 88.

    Violet

    @Roger Moore: Being hooked on something like Dancing with the Stars or American Idol or whatever isn’t substantially different from being a sports fan. Watch most of it on TV, once or twice a week for about half the year. Maybe make the concert tour/a game once or twice a season. Follow the careers of favorite contestants/performers/athletes as they release an album/star in a movie/go pro/become a standout pitcher/forward/QB.

    It’s just that sports has been around a lot longer and traditionally has been more of a male thing, so it has legitimacy. But, but, you might say, people play sports as a kid and then stay fans. You think no one’s ever sung in a choir or played an instrument or danced? All of those things are just as legitimate hobbies or skills that you might want to follow as an adult. Reality shows are part of doing that.

  89. 89.

    Linnaeus

    @jl:

    The article that lamh35 linked said that about 35% of voters said the GOP convention would make them less likely to vote Republican, so you may be on to something there.

  90. 90.

    WaterGirl

    @Meg: I thought of the same video when I saw this. And Ryan laughed as they dragged the old man out, joking about his blood pressure medication.

    I swear Ryan has no soul. He truly does not seem to like people and he certainly doesn’t seem to feel like he serves all the people in his district. Apparently he only works for the ones who agree with his politics.

    He’s not serious in any way. He’s not serious. He’s not a wonk. He’s not a detail guy. He is a total fraud.

    I would SO love to see him lose both elections this year.

  91. 91.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    Honey Boo Boo

    WTF? I don’t watch much of anything that isn’t as old as I am on the teevee (They’re all talkies, BTW). I saw the name of that show pop up previously and I thought that it was some kind of Balloon Juice joke. Then I went out on the interweb and found out that it’s for real.

    It reminded me of something. It reminded me of Boo Boo Kittyfuck.

  92. 92.

    jl

    @raven:

    I guess that is good, but the SF Bay Area gets nearly intolerable when it is booming. Like living if a damn can of worms. People, and damn cars, damn cars on broke down miserable crappily surfaced narrow streets, all over the place. The place is starting to get that dot com boom feel, and that was ridiculous.

    Now, if maybe the US had an infrastructure building program, and hired some teachers and put some money into education and hi tech training around the country, maybe people would not have to move halfway across the country into this miserable gelid foggy hellscape full of loony libs to get a job. I wish they would not have to.

    Should have done that damn crash green construction and energy conservation retrofit program people were talking about after the crash. That would have created a lot of jobs, and a much better trained workforce all around the county, and saved the country big bucks over the years.

    Edit: Sorry, San Jose, is not a gelid foggy hellscape. It is a smoggy paved over hellscape when it is booming. Might as well call it San Fernando Valley North these days.

  93. 93.

    Dennis SGMM

    @WaterGirl:

    I would SO love to see him lose both elections this year.

    I would love to see him fall ass-first into a tub of fish hooks and then have them all pulled out at the same time by a mountain gorilla.

  94. 94.

    Linnaeus

    @jl:

    Should have done that damn crash green construction and energy conservation retrofit program people were talking about after the crash. That would have created a lot of jobs, and a much better trained workforce all around the county, and saved the country big bucks over the years.

    But that’s socia1ism!

  95. 95.

    JoyfulA

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: When I had dealings with the SBA in the 1980s, a small business had less than 500 employees. It was well known that bigger businesses split off subsidiaries with 497 employees to qualify for contract set asides for “small businesses.”

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    Maybe a little more Great Depression than specifically about labor, but once again here’s “Remember My Forgotten Man.”

    Lyrics:

    I don’t know if he deserves a bit of sympathy,
    Forget your sympathy, that’s all right with me.
    I was satisfied to drift along from day to day,
    Till they came and took my man away.

    Remember my forgotten man,
    You put a rifle in his hand;
    You sent him far away,
    You shouted, “Hip, hooray!”
    But look at him today!

    Remember my forgotten man,
    You had him cultivate the land;
    He walked behind the plow,
    The sweat fell from his brow,
    But look at him right now!

    And once, he used to love me,
    I was happy then;
    He used to take care of me,
    Won’t you bring him back again?
    ‘Cause ever since the world began,
    A woman’s got to have a man;
    Forgetting him, you see,
    Means you’re forgetting me
    Like my forgotten man.

    (Lyrics copied from here, which also has a bit of historical context for the song.)

  98. 98.

    JoyfulA

    @Steeplejack: Subways seem to have a lot of one-restaurant franchises; I’ve met the owner of one and know a couple of others by seeing, for years and years, this middle-aged person who seems to be in charge of the teens.

  99. 99.

    Rita R.

    A Mad Men reference from the series’ best-ever episode and a Pogues song all in one post? DougJ, you know how to end a day right.

    And oh yeah — f*ck Romney, Ryan, Cantor and the rest of the sociopathic Republicans who want to squeeze every last dollar from America’s workers to fill up their bank accounts and those of the wealthy pricks who’ve bought them, heart and soul, with all that sweet campaign cash.

  101. 101.

    Chris

    @WaterGirl:

    What it reminded me of is Romney’s video from 2008 when a patient who needed medical marijuana accosted him at a town hall meeting and Romney was just trying to get away and delivering soundbites, with that “I’m trying to be polite here but you plebes are really overstepping your bounds” almost-smile of his. (That was when I first pegged him as an asshole).

    Both of them just reek of the attitude that they don’t want to be here. Reagan reclaimed the White House and consecrated it for the GOP in 1980. They’re the Republican candidates, therefore the White House is theirs by right. Why can’t you people get that through your heads? Republican candidates have been tolerant enough to go out and indulge you by smiling and waving and pretending like they’re interested for the last thirty years, but it’s really getting tiresome. They’re doing you a HUGE privilege by agreeing to be your leaders, and you really should be more appreciative of that, stop imposing so much on their time, and just go vote for them. Jesus, people.

  102. 102.

    Chris

    Some people say a man is made outta mud
    A poor man’s made outta muscle and blood
    Muscle and blood and skin and bones
    A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong

    You load sixteen tons, and what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine
    I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
    I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
    And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”

    You load sixteen tons, and what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    I was born one mornin’, it was drizzlin’ rain
    Fightin’ and trouble are my middle name
    I was raised in the canebrake by an ol’ mama lion
    Cain’t no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line

    You load sixteen tons, and what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    If you see me comin’, better step aside
    A lotta men didn’t, a lotta men died
    One fist of iron, the other of steel
    If the right one don’t a-get you
    Then the left one will

    You load sixteen tons, and what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

  104. 104.

    WaterGirl

    @Chris: Yes! That one, too.

    It’s the entitled asshole trilogy – it’s the exact same behavior in all 3 cases.

    The constituent, in each case, has raised a valid issue but is seen as behaving inappropriately because they have challenged their betters. So Ryan and Romney dismiss their constituents as if they are naughty children.

    Neither Ryan nor Romney seems to have any kind of realization that they are there to serve the people.

  105. 105.

    pseudonymous in nc

    Why no class anger? Because of class stigma, and divide-and-conquer. I’ve long remarked on the clarity of a comment made by Charles frickin’ Barkley in 2007:

    America is divided by economics strictly. You know, people always talk about race, and we have racial problems in this country. Of course we do. But the real issue is the rich against the poor. We’ve got to get poor white people and poor black people and Mexicans to realize they are all in the same boat. If you in one of those three groups and you are poor, you are going to be in a bad neighborhood, you are going to go to a bad school, and you are going to have strikes against you. You can’t commit crimes in good neighborhoods. They will get your ass. Their kids go to private school, or they go to school in a good economic area. But the poor people, they are all in the same boat but they divide you based on race or stuff like that.

  106. 106.

    OzoneR

    At least they have some idea as to what Labor Day is about.

    I had three people on Facebook tell me today to “this year, remember the troops who sacrificed.” Like WTF?

  107. 107.

    Kilkee

    DEPORTEES
    by Woody Guthrie
    The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting
    The oranges are filed in their creosote dumps
    They’re flying ’em back to the Mexico border
    To take all their money to wade back again
    Goodbye to my Juan, farewell Roselita
    Adios mes amigos, Jesus e Maria
    You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane
    All they will call you will be deportees
    My father’s own father, he waded that river
    They took all the money he made in his life
    It’s six hundred miles to the Mexico border
    And they chased them like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves
    The skyplane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
    The great ball of fire it shook all our hills
    Who are these dear friends who are falling like dry leaves?
    Radio said, “They are just deportees”
    Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
    Is this the best way we can raise our good crops?
    To fall like dry leaves and rot on out topsoil
    And be known by no names except “deportees”


    Lots of great versions; I like Baez and Nanci.

  108. 108.

    sagesource

    Shouldn’t forget this one. It’s actually modelled on one of Kipling’s less successful pieces, but a much better poem… or lyric… though I’ve never heard it sung.

    We have fed you all for a thousand years
    And you hail us still unfed
    Though there’s never a dollar of all your wealth
    But marks the workers’ dead
    We have given our best to give you rest
    And you lie on crimson wool
    But if blood be the price of all your wealth
    Good God! we have paid in full.

    There is never a mine blown skyward now
    But we’re buried alive for you
    There’s never a wreck drifts shoreward now
    But we are its ghastly crew
    Go reckon our dead by the forges red
    And the factories where we spin
    If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
    Good God! we have paid it in.

    We have fed you all for a thousand years
    For that was our doom, you know
    From the days when you chained us in your fields
    To the strike a week ago
    You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives
    And we’re told it’s your legal share
    But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
    Good God! we have bought it fair.

  109. 109.

    RadioOne

    if we’re going to sell the appeal of labor unions to younger people, can we seriously stop posting music videos of the Pogues? I’m an 80’s alternative music junkie, but the Pogues are more ancient now than the modern US labor movement.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    @Dennis SGMM:
    Why they aren’t hanging from lamp posts is beyond me.

    People like you who have spent the time and body to know what labor means can no longer form the knots. The MOTU should be thankful for that.

    But they’re not.

  111. 111.

    Ruckus

    @Steeplejack:
    There still are many small business owners who work long and hard hours right along side their employees. I know of several. But none of them own franchise businesses. They all started on their own, without enough capital so they work as hard or harder than their employees to make a go of it. And none of them are getting wealthy, they are existing.

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