David Sirota: Remembering Those Other American Dreams

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from In These Times:



Features > October 15, 2008
Remembering Those Other American Dreams
Democrats struggle to win blue-collar voters

By David Sirota



In 1977, a Midwestern unionist named Ed Sadlowski made a spirited run for the presidency of the United Steelworkers. An insurgent running against the old guard at a time when the union’s election was still decided by a popular vote, Sadlowski seemed on the verge of victory until he granted an interview with Penthouse magazine.

As author Thomas Geoghegan recounted in his 1991 book, Which Side Are You On?, the ensuing controversy had nothing to do with the publication’s pornography, and everything to do with Sadlowski insisting that America should be “a country where people don’t have to work in coke ovens.”

“A terrible howl went up from the Official Family and from some of the older workers,” Geoghegan wrote. Though Sadlowski was railing against intolerable working conditions that most Americans oppose, his political enemies portrayed his remarks as an elitist veneration of white-collar work over blue-collar labor — at the time, akin to blasphemy. The smears worked, and Sadlowski lost his election.

Fast forward to the 1997 film Good Will Hunting. The story revolves around a 20-year-old orphan from working-class South Boston, who opts for manual labor jobs rather than using his math genius to get a professional gig. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3967/remembering_those_other_american_dreams