Labor Day
Have a good Labor Day, America! Labor Day is meant to celebrate the contributions of the working class. The labor unions promoted it as a testament to the cause of worker’s rights. I don’t expect to see much on the origins of the holiday in America’s media this year.
In 1898, Samuel Gompers, head of the American Federation of Labor, called it “the day for which the toilers in past centuries looked forward, when their rights and their wrongs would be discussed…that the workers of our day may not only lay down their tools of labor for a holiday, but upon which they may touch shoulders in marching phalanx and feel the stronger for it.”
The original parade in 1882 organized by the Knights of Labor had a loose affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, which was one of the reasons why the more progressive supporters of a labor parade preferred to join the rest of the world in celebrating it on May Day. The legislation sanctioning the holiday was shepherded through Congress amid serious labor unrest. President Grover Cleveland feared that the May 1 holiday would end up memorializing the Chicago Haymarket riots in early May of 1886. He moved in 1887 to support the position of the Knights of Labor and their date for Labor Day. It’s an interesting episode in American history.
We don’t talk about it much anymore. All of this is pretty much unknown/forgotten/not considered important to the majority of Americans, who celebrate Labor Day weekend as the last bit of summer before school starts – or at least they did until school started opening in August.
It’s a long weekend anyway, even if there’s not much to celebrate if you’re a worker in America.
Enjoy your day of rest.
Other news of the day:
Daredevil zoologist Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin has died in a tangle with a stingray. “He came on top of the stingray and the stingray’s barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart.” Freakish accident, to be impaled by a stingray. I liked the zany guy. His antics covered real love and knowledge, and I always enjoyed watching him introduce us to the other lifeforms of our planet.
Burning Man is over. I wish that I could have gone this year. The art theme was “Hope and Fear: The Future.” Take a look.
Hamed Jumaa Al Saeedi, al Qaeda second in command behind Abu Ayyub al-Masri in Iraq, has been captured without recourse to bombs.
Poppies! Poppies! Poppies will put them to sleep. – Wicked Witch of the West, Wizard of Oz. It’s a banner year for the opium harvest in Afghanistan – the highest levels ever recorded, and almost 50% more than last year.
Anyone know why atheletes are being targeted in Iraq? Ghanim Ghudayer, a popular soccer player on Iraq’s Olypic team, has been kidnapped – just before he was going to leave the country.
The Education Department has admitted it shared the personal information of hundreds of student loan applicants with the FBI as part of a five-year program called Project Strikeback. Those are in-depth applications. Sigh.
Yesterday, six children were burnt to death in a Chicago apartment fire that was apparently caused by a candle used for light because there was no electricity. Fire officials say none of the homes and apartments of the 29 people who have died in Chicago fires this year had smoke detectors that worked.
And for the more trivial… In a bit of what looks like damage control, Tom Cruise has finally apologized to Brooke Shields for his nasty comments about her taking meds for post-partum depression. Could it be that he had a taste of what post-partum depression actually looks like? Or was this somehow connected to a coincidence of location (Brooke Shields and Katie Holmes gave birth down the hall from one another)? I didn’t have any problem with Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch – hey, when you’re in love, exhuberance is part of the package. It’s somehow very American, too, and I’m not sure why people seemed upset about it. His nasty remarks about Brooke Shields, however, were so mean – and so obviously streaming from his Scientologist fanaticism – that I was shocked. They should probably leave the PR to Travolta and others. Kudos to Brooke Shields, again, for the way she handled the whole thing. Nice that there’s an adult in the mix once in a while.
That’s it for me today. It’s beautiful outside, and while I’m not participating in any parade or protest, I am looking forward to spending the rest of the day with my family.
4 thoughts on “Labor Day”
Happy Belated Labor Day…
Cheers,
Mr. H.K.
Postcards from Hell’s
Kitchen
And I Quote Blog
vh,
what would happen if you turned off the tv, threw out the newspaper, refused to speak about politics and went lalala with your fingers in your ears any time the poison gets near you?
i would miss you but would it be ok? to say “It’s beautiful outside, and while I’m not participating in any parade or protest, I am looking forward to spending the rest of the day with my family…” and not give any more energy to these bastardly events?
this world can gnaw at your soul. is it ok to consciously focus on the positive?
i adhere to your insights…but it all makes me very very nasty. i refuse to give myself cancer with it. am i a coward?
not joking.
It’s not an “either-or” for me. Here’s my perspective, for what it’s worth. I’m a critical thinker and a discourse analyst – so I feel that part of my individual calling is to offer that as a mode of friendship and service. The motivation and the goals are positive ones for me, and that’s what energizes me.
When I find, as I sometimes do, that I’m getting drained and starting to despair, I do take a break from it. I have to – I can’t be productive if I don’t. I also have my own rituals and processes to re-energize – and I suppose it wouldn’t be out of place to put more of that kind of thing on the blog sometimes. But what moves me to write on a given day varies and I think these days it’s more reactive just because there is so much that makes me feel angry, disappointed, and sad. Writing is itself a way of combatting that. I “offer it up” to the blogosphere.
Anyway, a conscious focus on the positive is great just so long as it doesn’t become a method of refusing to look at what you don’t want to know. I think I’m so concerned about our future that I feel a danger in moving into positivity as a kind of intentional blindness. Finding the path of synthesis is always tricky. Looking at the negative is fine unless it becomes an end in itself – for me, it’s good to think of how things might be different if a different viewpoint were considered, or a different solution proposed, or a destructive policy protested.
Find the ways that you are positively motivated and energized – we all have our own gifts to offer – and you have to care for yourself so that you have something to give.
I wonder if this bit from my half-serious Virtual Church of Benevolent Deities, Inc might be useful:
Caritas – Give Alms, Give Compassion, Give Love
Pay attention to someone you might normally ignore.
Be a listening ear to someone who needs one.
Look around you – everyone needs a little support and compassion.
Commit a random act of kindness today.
Smile at someone – your husband, your wife, your child, your friend – or your adversary (it really confuses them).
Think of more ways to embody compassionate love and forgiveness.
Meditate
How about just a few slow deep breaths? Stop thinking and just feel yourself breathe for a minute.
It is astonishing what we already know if we just stop to pay attention and listen. Ask yourself a question and listen for that most hidden and quiet voice inside you that is the most authentic center. The answer, for you, will almost always arise.
Notice what tape keeps playing in your head today. How long can you turn it off? Ten seconds? A minute? How long does it take you to notice that it has started playing again? Can you choose to gently turn your thoughts back to a deep breath?
Try a chant. Use anything: conventional prayers and phrases, resonant words, and even fun phrases. One of our minor deities has had great results with “God is love and.”
Become aware of your body. How does it feel, how are you different: bowing, standing with arms stretched to the sky, in a yoga position, curled up in a fetal position, standing with arms crossed, clapping your hands?
Give yourself a break from difficult questions – look at the stars, at the sky, at the tops of the trees, at the gravel on the edge of the road.
Yoga is definately on the to do list.
I really admire your ability to go into deep analysis and talk from your gut without becoming overwhelmed.
Without losing my convictions, I have been exploring a different path lately, as much for the sake of my marriage as anything else (if not more so because we have such different upbringings – Texas vs Canada)
Brought to you by the makers of quantum physics… rather than focusing on what i don’t want, or fear or despise, (which i still do alot of) i am trying to manifest the positive and in doing so, not requesting the universe to send me (or the world) back more crap…
now the question , or doubt or whatever that arises for me is…is this a rich man’s excuse to ignore the negative impact of what he manifests in this world…on the other hand it seems to me to be a form of antidote to the culture of fear that is being used as an effective political tool at the moment…
getting in over my head here, i know…