The following was posted by a person on a listserv to which I belong.

[Jackpine Radical]

I'm preserving his anonymity.

In honor of my late mother, a seamstress and proud shop steward with the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, and in private protest over the denigration of the American working class (and that includes you and me, in spite of the prevalent delusion that the bourgeoisie exists on a higher plane) I decided that this Labor Day weekend would be an apt occasion to review the works of
Thank you, Andrew. As for me, I expect to spend this Labor Day in the company of other Wisconsin laborers, union and otherwise, all of whom will be refreshing our resolve to stand in solidarity against the outrages perpetrated by our Corporate-controlled state government. For us, this is a time to take a couple of deep breaths and harden ourselves for the upcoming recall campaign against the governor who seeks to destroy us. Sinclair.

Described by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as "the American Zola", Sinclair, the prolific author of The Jungle, a scathing indictment of the industrial oppression of the impoverished laboring classes by the rapaciously wealthy and the corrupt institutions they controlled, used to say to his audiences "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Here are a couple of passages, penned a century ago, which retain their relevance in today's degenerate, regressive political environment.

1. From " Profits of Religion" (1918):
Man is an evasive beast, given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry, and tries to deny his animal nature, to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate. And this impulse may be harmless, when it is genuine. But what are we to say when we see the formulas of heroic self-deception made use of by unheroic self-indulgence? What are we to say when we see asceticism preached to the poor by fat and comfortable retainers of the rich? What are we to say when we see idealism become hypocrisy, and the moral and spiritual heritage of mankind twisted to the knavish purposes of class-cruelty and greed?"

2. From "The Jungle" (1906):
--- "There is no wilderness where I can hide from these things, there is no haven where I can escape them; though I travel to the ends of the earth, I find the same accursed system — I find that all the fair and noble impulses of humanity, the dreams of poets and the agonies of martyrs, are shackled and bound in the service of organized and predatory Greed!"

---"There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside."

So...as the rich get richer and the rest get poorer (ain't we got fun?), may you all find some equanimity on this Labor Day weekend.

My response:

Thank you, …. As for me, I expect to spend this Labor Day in the company of other Wisconsin laborers, union and otherwise, all of whom will be refreshing our resolve to stand in solidarity against the outrages perpetrated by our Corporate-controlled state government. For us, this is a time to take a couple of deep breaths and harden ourselves for the upcoming recall campaign against the governor who seeks to destroy us.

[ClassWarrior]

1. You coming down to LaborFest, JR?

NGU.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Just the Eau Claire version, CW.

BTW, I'm currently tentatively scheduled to testify as an expert in a Milw. trial in the last week of Oct. I could try to look you up around that time. PM or email me with your contact info. I don't know where your card is & it didn't seem to make it into my address book.

[ClassWarrior]

3. Will do.

Look forward to it!

NGU.

[CanonRay]

4. My Grandmother was a founder of the local Int'l Ladies Garment Workers

in Milwaukee, and kept up with her union stuff all her life.