'Pologies for the lack of blogging this week (of course you care...). I guess that's what happens when you give up the hand-to-mouth freelance life and get a full-time gig - not so much free time for ranting.
Another thing that happens when you get a job is that you start thinking on the reasons why you can rely on getting a decent living wage, not have to labor long hours into the night and why you get to take off at the weekend. Thanks union guys!
With all the cognitive dissonance going around these days amongst American working people, it's hard to remember that we once respected unions. Hell, back in the (12-hour working) day, workers even stood shoulder to shoulder and demanded better pay and conditions for themselves - just like the rich guys do today. But that was before we all got post-Reagan lobotomies and started biting the hand that (literally) fed us.
How soon we forget...
Rewind a few years and even the
pope was a fan. He witnessed first-hand how organized labor brought down the satellite government in Poland and faced down the mighty Soviet Union:
Labor unions, wrote Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Laborem Exercens, are "an indispensable element in social life . . . indeed a mouthpiece for the struggle for social justice." Having seen how Poland's workers fared under capitalism and communism, John Paul knew firsthand that neither the market nor the state can be counted on to automatically deliver justice for workers.
So, again, I say thanks as I enjoy my weekend and hope that our would-be
Wojciech Jaruzelski in Wisconsin gets what's coming.
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