An American Labor Day (Just Remember it’s About Labor)

Labor Day has long been known as the end of summer, the mark of a three day weekend, and a day filled with many barbeques, family outings, and lake-house trips. What many forget, though, is what exactly Labor Day is celebrating. It is not simply the “end of summer,” but rather a celebration of the working man and women in America and all he/she has accomplished. In addition to the latter, I would also like to add an additional observance: the constant class struggle between rich and poor, employee and employer. This struggle has not ended recently and will not end soon, it has been ongoing for over five millennia and will continue one throughout the millennia unless labor recognizes the struggle as more then simply a matter of better wages and job security, but the rather for the end to the oppressive capitalistic society.

A common misconception among the mainstream has evolved naturally in order to protect itself from a rebellion: that a capitalist society, by nature, awards its people with a better way of life as long as the economy flourishes. This concept of economics, to a capitalist, is based on Gross Domestic Product, and Employment. The latter, by no means, represents an accurate survey of economic status.

In much the same way, propaganda has engrained itself into high school textbooks, the every day working man, and both political parties. These capitalist theories have always been strongly entwined into everyday life, and into almost basic human nature, that this system we life in is the only way.

Welfare reform, for example, won little success in helping the poorest people out of poverty. The true goal of the reform becomes clear when connecting the dots to see a picture of war, and oppression. Poor mothers, who were once dependant on welfare, now work over forty-hours a week to support their children, while their children become entangled in crime and drugs. With little chance of working their way out of poverty, these poor children look to these things not because they are of minority or they do not work hard enough, but rather simply because they are poor. Conservatives will cite the relationship between youth crime and drug-use to the breakdown of the family unit. Though this might be true, they refuse to acknowledge why that breakdown has occurred, and that reason is none other then poverty.

The misconception that economies grow with help from the rich investing, therefore creating jobs, therefore creating more wealth and so on, has also become part of everyday life. The capitalist believes that cutting welfare teaches the lesson of hard work and determination; but instead leaves behind the poor to become exploited by the rich for their own personal gain. The elite everywhere, for all of human civilization, have never placed the interests of others ahead of their own. They are in a constant struggle, not for the benefit of humanity, but rather for more and more profits. To a capitalist, this sounds great, for the more money the rich have, the more money they will invest, and the more the economy will grow, the more jobs will be created. But, the size of the economy and the number of jobs, by no means is an accurate meter of a successful people with a high standard of living.

Free trade, for example, has cost American’s thousands of hard-working, good-paying jobs in order to exploit the southern impoverished nations of Africa, Latin American, and Asia; leaving thousands of laborers here in the States to work at low-paying service jobs with little or no representation from unions. Urban industrial areas have been left in ruins, a stark reminder of what used to be.

Not only has free trade dramatically and negatively affected the U.S., it has also had unprecedented affects on third-world nations, especially in the global south. Without the relief needed to build strong economies with thriving industries independent of western corporate interests, these impoverished nations must free themselves from the choke hold of free trade and the industrialized nation’s interests in exploiting their workforce. Creating employment in poor nations does not dramatically affect the overall economic status; that goal may be achieved by building strong industries that can compete with western corporations to create a fair world market. Currently though, all profits go back into the hands of massive multi-nationals and executives.

One many argue free trade’s effect on the global economy as positive, but in reality free trade may only successfully be achieved once the socio-economic status of the entire world has been homogenized into a fair and successful economy, benefiting each and every member of the planet. For, in reality, we are not just members of each of our own nations, but rather the earth community as a whole.

Political bickering aside, there does indeed exist a problem in the United States, as well as the rest of the world. That problem that the wealthiest and most impoverished members of this earth community have become so far removed from each other that the two are all most not of the same community, but rather of separate dimensions, and this is not and should not be true.

I Do Not Support “The War on Terror”

To avoid the calling of names such as “hypocrite,” I’m once and for all attempting to make this very clear: I do NOT support the “global war on terror.” The problems many mainstream politicians have with this position, even if the agree with it, comes with the massive stream of neoconservative criticism that is sure to follow when taking such a stance. I’m betting that at least a handful of left-wing democrats in congress oppose the “war on terror,” but refuse to publicly state this in fear of those such as Ann Coulter, or Donald Rumsfeld. Many in the Democratic Party strongly support the war on terror, but most stand against the War in Iraq. Most desperately take a stance of the moderate, in lieu of the extremist on the right or left. In my eyes, Democrats appear weak and confused, not ready to stand up to the so called challenges of terrorism, homeland security, and national defense; they play their cards for votes, not for what is best for the United States or the American people. The difference between the Democratic Party and its sister, the Republican Party, seem very strong; but in reality these differences are only minute disagreements between elite. Voters see these differences in which candidate seems stronger, and which ones are for or against abortion. Abortion aside, for it truly is the least important issue, besides gay marriage, during this great era of revolution. The real issue that should be the difference of each party is the very system which has proved itself tyrannical just as the systems of the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany proved tyrannical. That system in which currently governs the world is none other then the system which high school economic teachers everywhere claim to be “the only system,” and that is, of course, Capitalism.

How do relate Capitalism with the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and all other wars fought in the twentieth and twenty-first century? It is simple when reading the real story behind some of the most brutal and disgusting moments in our short history. Take, for example, the start of World War I and the silencing of the labor and socialist movements in the United States. A perfect solution to halt the overthrowing of the capitalist system that seemed bound early in the twentieth century. The labor movement became powerful, and militant; the poor no longer would become slaves to the elite which would go on to join the war of empires. That war would later become known as World War I, started as a conflict between empire nation states over colonies and military buildup. The “War to End All Wars,” was just a propaganda slogan aimed to win support of the working man hoping to never have another war; this sadly was an utter lie. The capitalist system thrives off war and simply cannot exist without it. The trend continued throughout the rest of the century and into today, alienating any dissenter, calling names, and creating enemies. Communists instantly became treasonous spies and anti-Americans, Muslims instantly became “Islamofascists” and other misleading terms of hate and bigotry.

These problems won’t be solved by just simply abandoning capitalism, these things are true to human nature, but surely these problems will have less of an ability to take advantage of those who are not as privileged enough to be in the small network of the global elite. I propose to rethink capitalism, rethink socialism, and rethink America. Submitting to a misunderstanding that capitalism “is the only way” is just pure ignorance, at least – capitalism as it has been demonstrated very vividly to us over the years.