You know how you just accept something without really thinking? You just say it or think it without paying any attention to the meaning. Take Labor Day for instance. What’s it for and why, for God’s sake is the last holiday of summer named for work? If you are like me, you never think about it at all. You just enjoy your barbeque and the long weekend and go back to work. Well today for some reason I stopped to think about it. What does Labor Day celebrate anyway?
Celebrating the American worker.
It never made much sense to me as a kid that Labor Day was a holiday. It was crazy but when you are a kid you spend most of your time incorporating all the crazy things that adults into your world view. We call that growing up. There is so much crazy making required in growing up that there isn’t any time to waste thinking about those things. Back then Labor Day seemed to have the purpose of marking the end of Summer Vacation and the beginning of the school year. Today even that meaning is gone now that school starts in August. diminishing Labor Day to merely another break in the endless tedium of school.
Let’s check with Wikipedia.
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September, that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers. It was first nationally recognized in 1894 to placate unionists following the Pullman Strike. With the decline in union membership, the holiday is generally viewed as a time for barbeques and the end of summer vacations.[1]
Placating unionists and celebrating the economic and social contributions of workers, eh. I always thought it was for everyone. It sure seemed that way to me as a kid. Back then everyone I knew, at least the adult men had a job. These days even in the current Obama recovery its starting to seem like a full time job isn’t the American dream what with Obamacare punishing companies with outrageous healthcare costs for full time employees. Employers can’t afford full time employees in these progressive times. Jobs have disappeared. Food stamps are up. Workers, these days have become a distinct minority.
So it’s not about everybody and workers are an endangered species in progressive America, then what’s the point of celebrating workers and giving us all a day off? I confess, thinking about labor Day only makes things worse. Who is it that they mean when they say workers? I wasn’t a worker when I used to have a job. I was an employee. Are the folks down at the Home Depot workers – seems to me they call them associates these days. What about the greeter at Walmart? Is she a worker? Where do you go to find a worker and when you find one will he be actually working? I confess to complete ignorance.
My image when the word worker comes up is a sweaty guy working in a steel mill or on the auto assembly lines. But then the American steel mills are long gone and these days robots assemble automobiles. So are there any workers left? What I do recall is that Karl Marx loved workers and I therefore assume that those workers were the inspiration for The Communist Manifesto and other bullshit. “Workers of the world, unite “and the like. It makes me wonder where would old Karl go these days to find a worker? Down to the high school maybe, or City Hall? I’m not sure he would be impressed.
Workers united.
So, the bottom line seems to be that our beloved Labor Day weekend celebrates the philosophy that created and destroyed the Soviet Union and is working hard to destroy America. Diminishing the value of the individual by decreeing that each human being is a replaceable cog with a God given right to a fat union boss to protect their interests we are giving George Orwell nightmares. The American dream is being stood on its head. Instead of the honoring the unique individual, progressive America glorifies the group and everything good about humanity and the American way is going down the tube.
Even here in the US where complacent stupidity allowed the unions to destroy the auto industry and send manufacturing jobs overseas can the American dream survive after citizens devolve into workers? The jury is still out but they are taking too long to deliberate. I’m getting worried but, never mind, I need to start the charcoal on the grill.
How ironic that we celebrate Unions by taking a day off.
