Image via Wikipedia
Hello there! Well folks, Bob has corrupted me. I broke down and recorded a video. Yes it has problems, but there it is! if you want just the audio, I have that as well. Enjoy the podcasts and the weekend! Happy Labor Day!
Video is first!
[powerpress url=”http://cantankerousoldcoots.com/Podcasts/podcast9.mp4″]
Coots like a three day weekend as well as anyone even though retired coots have three day weekends anytime they like even in the middle of the week. Labor Day used to be a nice transition between summer vacation and back to work and school in the fall. These days it is just a burp in the organized chaos that is 21st century America.
As a kid, it never had significance to me. My father explained that it was a holiday to celebrate workers. It made sense to me. Everybody I knew was a worker. It seemed like the American thing to do – honor everybody. I don’t remember ever doing anything other than a family get-together. Never attended a Labor Day Parade – or thought about anything deep regarding Labor Day– until this year while pondering the breakdown of the American economy.
I started thinking about the name – Labor Day and I Googled it which led to the Wikipedia entry with these surprising facts. Grover Cleveland originated the holiday in capitulation to the labor unions back in the 1890’s. It was no different from the May Day celebrations of the communists – it just happened in September leaving most Americans totally ignorant about its sinister and un-American origin.
Over my lifetime, I have seen labor unions destroy American industry beginning with steel and culminating with the death gasp of the American automobile manufacturers this year with the union buyout of GM and Chrysler. What seemed in the 50’s to be a benign counter-balance to corporations has metastasized into a ravenous cancer whose only interest is member benefits. The death of American industry forced unions to move their focus into the next growth industry – government. As a government employee for over 30 years, I witnessed the forced unionization of all government workers in California. Because when the government is unionized, the fox indeed watches the hen house, union supported political hack elected officials have drained away the lifeblood of legitimate services to support unsustainable employee benefits leaving us with well-paid employees that produce nothing of value – witness our schools.
The fiscal ruin of California is a good example of the great cost from unrestrained unions with unlimited ability to buy politicians and no accountability to their members about how they spend their booty. And it is no mystery that the unions have bought candidates for all elected posts to make sure they keep control of the corpse.
This Coot will be celebrating Labor Day by cooking some tasty Missouri Style spare ribs with my family and anticipating some good Football games and crisp weather. Along with all the fun and frivolity, however, I am going to be celebrating my personal Freedom From Labor Day and starting a campaign to defeat every political hack that takes any union money this November. This Coot will be focused over the next two months in doing my part to take away the cancer of union control of our government, If you want to join the Coot movement to take back our country from union control, leave a comment and sign up for our mailing list. Down with Labor Day. Up with Freedom From Labor Day!
Oh, if you still like unions, let me know why?
