Pardon Our Progress! Blog Renovations Under Way.

You may notice a slightly new look around here. I've gone with a wider template and added an extra column. This means less scrolling for everyone. I'm still figuring out what to do with all the new space and considering other upgrades, so bear with me. (If you'd like, you can bare with me too.)

The Fall And Rise Of The American Labor Movement

At the beginning of the 21st century, labor unions in America may be weaker, politically and socially, than at any time since World War II. It's certainly the case that union membership has declined sharply since it's peak in the 1950s.

It's no coincidence that the same period has also brought:

• A steady decline in tax rates for the richest Americans, from it's high at 92% in the 1950s to where it is today at just 35%.
• A steady increase in the share of total national income going to the richest 1% of Americans.
• A stagnation in workers' real wages, despite rising worker productivity.
• A sharply growing imbalance in the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay.

The decline of union power has meant the rise of corporation owner and management power. The privileged few who sit atop our economic structure are now better off compared to the rest of society than at any time in at least the last 80 years, maybe longer. By some measures, you would have to go back to the 1920s to find comparable economic inequality; by other measures, you'd have to go back to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. Unions built the middle class, and the decline of unions means the decline of the middle class.

Two sweeping changes have tipped the scales against working people, in other words against the great majority of society. First, there's the change in the kinds of jobs available in America. The shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy has deservedly received a lot of attention. That shift has often meant trading high-wage union jobs with benefits for low-wage non-union service sector jobs. The labor movement, for its part, is doing its best to mirror this change and organize the industries of the new economy. But the evolution from a manufacturing economy to a service economy is not just about trading one industry for another.

Consider the kind of job your father or your grandfather had. There are pretty good chances he worked a single job for many years, perhaps his whole career. He may have worked with the same group of people the whole time. I'm thinking of my father-in-law, who started working for a telephone company when he was 18, climbing telephone poles. He stuck with it, became a job steward with the union, and today he's close to retirement with a job that he loves and that has provided a comfortable middle class life for his family.

Now compare that to the job situation of young people you know today. Odds are they change jobs pretty frequently--maybe every year or two. Sure, there may be some benefits to hopping around. We like to think we can choose jobs like we choose consumer goods. But what does that do to a worker's willingness and ability to work for changes in any particular workplace or industry? There's not going to be much organizing or activism in a workplace when no one is there long enough to really get to know their co-workers.

And maybe that's the point. We're becoming a nation of itinerant workers. Worker power has been dispersed. Management power has been concentrated.

The second big factor tilting the scales in favor of corporate power is the phase of "globalization" in which we currently live. The big capitalists have gone global, but labor is mostly still local. This obviously gives capital tremendous leverage against labor, like a boxer who bobs and weaves and circles the ring fighting one who stands still. A corporation that experiences "labor difficulties" can simply pack up and move to the other side of the planet. So-called "free trade agreements" mean that borders and certain laws do not apply to corporations, but you can bet they still apply to workers.

But here's the chink in the armor of corporate power. Corporations need workers to serve them. The capitalists may have virtually all the wealth, but labor creates all wealth. It is, by definition, a parasitic relationship. If the host cuts off the parasite, then the parasite dies. For now, big business may trot the globe looking for the place where workers are easiest to exploit. They may create an American foreign policy that casts workers' movements in other countries as dire threats to American security, justifying the use of American military power to keep their foreign labor cheap. Industrialist Richard B. Mellon once said, "You can't mine coal without machine guns." Today he might say, "You cannot run multinational corporations without the occasional Western-backed military coup."

But eventually, God willing, corporations will find popular resistance everywhere they go. Eventually the same technologies that enable corporate management to span the globe will also enable workers to unite around the globe in shared struggles. We see glimpses of this now. But if a global democratic movement is going to challenge global tyranny (undemocratic governments and corporations), then international labor solidarity will have to become a more potent force.

Which brings us back to the good ol' USA. American unions will not be able to effectively reach out around the world until they build their own strength right here. We're going to have to organize strong, fighting unions of fast-food workers, big-box store employees, office workers. There was a time in American history when union organizing could break out almost anywhere, even the military. We need to stoke that fire again. We'll have to think globally and act locally in order to act globally and benefit locally. It's a tall order but one that's worthy of the history of the American progressive movement.

Happy Labor Day

I hope you all enjoyed your Labor Day weekend. I had to work, but I managed to squeeze in a Jimmy Buffet concert, so it wasn't all lost.

Tune in tomorrow for what I intended to be my Labor Day post. I'm going to talk about what I see as the future of the labor movement in America and why the movement will matter to you, regardless of whether or not you currently give a damn about unions.

Oh, and since it's not yet midnight, it's still not too late for you to thank a union member for being part of the movement that has kept America from drifting into fascism! After all, the labor movement is the democratic movement.

Same Old Fight, New Stupid Location

Newsflash: The debate about the Park 51 building (the non-mosque not at ground zero) is not really about the building. America does not generally care about municipal zoning issues. Nor does America care about maintaining some sacredness (or secularity) in the blocks around ground zero in Manhattan, as evidenced by the diverse-as-America assortment of establishments in the neighborhood.

Have the protesters even said how far away is far enough? Chris Matthews interviewed a guy from "America's 9/11 Foundation" who wants the center moved but could not or would not say how far. It makes sense that they're mum on that question, because the moment they name a distance, it reveals how ridiculous the whole thing is. Five blocks? A mile? They'd be just makin' stuff up.

So it's not about location. But this whole discussion has become--just because so many people are talking about it--a discussion about what kind of country America will be. "Why are we even talking about this?" was the correct reaction at first. But as the story stayed in the headlines, my thinking slowly changed to, "Ok, so this is where we have to fight for religious freedom and tolerance." Democracy's battlegrounds pop up in strange places sometimes. Obviously the Republican noise machine picked this particular battleground. They think that near ground zero they can throw confetti in our faces to shut us up and invoke the 9/11 dead to cancel our most cherished freedoms. Conservatives picked the battleground, but now progressives have to show up.

This has become a debate about whether or not we as Americans actually believe what we say we believe. Will we be free to practice whatever religion or beliefs we choose? Are we comfortable enough in our institutions to allow a diverse "marketplace of ideas?" Can we disagree with what our fellow citizens say but defend to the death their right to say it?

To all these questions, the Right says, "Hell no!" They say some people are offended. They say Islam is bad. They say America is a "Christian nation." What they're getting at is that they believe might makes right. They believe they can roust up an angry mob and intimidate an unfavored group into submission. Today it's Muslims. Yesterday it was African-Americans or women or gays and lesbians or Latinos. Go back further and it was Irish, Italians, Germans, Slavs. To them, there's always a threat among us, and the threat always is some of us.

I'm not saying every conservative is a racist or bigot, and I'm not saying everyone protesting the Park 51 construction is a racist or bigot. I am saying that racism and bigotry are and always have been extremely important to the Right's political fortunes. (And it's not pure coincidence that this racially-heated issue is huge in right-wing media at the same time Republicans are trying to re-take Congress, repeal health care for all, and extend Bush's tax cuts for the rich.) I'm also saying that if your skin ain't white enough, you probably are not safe walking through the conservative protest crowds near ground zero. Just ask this man, who was physically threatened and chased away for no apparent reason other than being Black and among the crowd.

So if the Right is doing what it's always done, it's good to see the Left at ground zero doing what it's always done too.

This is some sloganeering I can get behind. It's interesting that the first banner is by folks from SocialistWorker.org. It's an under-acknowledged fact of American history that progressive/radical working-class organizations have often been at the forefront of the struggle for racial justice and civil rights. In fact, the left-wing of the labor movement and the civil rights movement have often been synonymous.

This is the same old fight at a new stupid location. If the Right is gonna show up to do its usual thing of dividing working people against themselves (notice in the video above it's a guy in a hardhat getting in the face of the African-American man, who is reportedly a union carpenter working at ground zero), then the Left must show up to do its thing of uniting us against racism, bigotry, and division.

Only Authorized Religions Beyond This Point

Why has the "Ground Zero Mosque" been near the center of the national political discussion for more than two months? It is neither at ground zero (it's two-and-a-half blocks away) nor a mosque (it's more like a Muslim YMCA). Those two links give pretty good rundowns of what's actually going on. And, from what I can tell, lefty blogs have done a pretty good job responding on the issue. But, as is usually the case with these manufactured controversies, the facts and the rebuttal are always slower to come out and more boring to read than the shocking headlines shrewdly coined by right-wing activists.

The right wing and the Republican establishment have done with this story what they have done with thousands of stories before it. Their appeal is to conservative-minded, generally Christian, generally white Americans. A threat is depicted as coming from some group that is either non-Christian, non-white or, in the worst-case scenario, neither Christian nor white. What is being threatened exactly? Follow their explanations and reasoning down the rabbit hole and you'll pass through a fairy-tale version of America as they imagine it was in the 1950s or earlier. Follow a little further, and I think what you finally arrive at, what they feel is being threatened, is white protestant privilege. The funny thing is, they're right. They--the right-wing, the GOP establishment, and the folks they appeal to--long for an America that is less pluralistic and less democratic, like it used to be in those "good old days" that they're kinda vague about. They either want you to be just like them, or they want to be able to look down on you. But they're fighting against the current of American history and losing. And that's part of why they're so angry and confused.

There is no good reason why the government should step in and stop the construction of the Park 51 Islamic Cultural Center. Does anyone on the right seriously think there is? Or is this entirely a ploy to peg Democrats to a feared brown-skinned 'other' while wrapping the GOP in the flag? For how many blocks from Ground Zero should certain religions be prohibited? If we're going to call the whole area, for blocks around, "hallowed ground," do we demolish the strip clubs, sex shops, bars, liquor stores, banks, and pizza shops? Or how about the mosque that's already in the area, or the Hare Krishna facility, or the Buddhist center? Who gets to be the one to decide what is and is not allowed inside the hallowed-ground zone? Are there any other First Amendment protections we should suspend inside the zone, or should we just suspend freedom of religion, or just Islam?

This whole issue is utter nonsense, and the Right should pay a heavy political price for it. The president should do more than say he supports Muslims' freedom of religion; he should blast Republicans for such cynical and dishonest tactics. Progressive groups should do the same, and they are to some extent. The problem is that the rebuttal and retort need to have the same punch that "Mosque To Be Built At Ground Zero" does. If you can think of that bumper sticker-type comeback, let me know.

A Funny Place To Find Inspiration

I've been asking myself why I've taken an unplanned summer sabbatical from blogging. Here is, I think, one big reason: I'm pretty of sick of 24x7 political "news." I mean, aren't you? It's one manufactured controversy after another. And the corollary to that, which has had me feeling a little burned out, is how irrelevant and short-sighted the national political discussion seems to be.

"Today a flock of seagulls was spotted by beachgoers in Delaware. What does this mean for President Obama?! Let's have a Republican and a Democratic strategist debate it."

Meanwhile, the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report have to keep updating their headlines if they want to stay relevant. But if each day there are multiple shock-bomb, red-alert headlines from these sites, what do they do when something truly shocking happens?

It's like the story of the boy who cried, "It's the end of American democracy!" The first time the boy yelled, the people came running up the hill to help, but they found just another Congressman in a sex scandal. The second time the boy yelled, "It's the end of American democracy," the people came running up the hill, but they found only a trade imbalance with China. So, next time, when something really could be the end of American democracy--climate change? nuclear war? creeping white nationalism?--the boy may yell, but no one will take him seriously. They think it's the same old game.

Another reason I've drifted from blogging is that the stuff I've been thinking and reading about lately has been more macro and long-term in focus. What will America be like 30 years from now? Or 50? Will nation-states still be the dominant political units in 100 years? How will demographic shifts change the political culture in the America my children grow up in? (Actually, I'd like to take a stab at some of these questions, so expect future posts on these topics.)

So if the above are some reasons I've been gone, here is one reason I'm back. I mentioned in a previous post that I now work in an office where Fox News is blaring all day. Well, here's what I've learned, and I've watched enough that I feel qualified to say this. The people at Fox are not chiefly dumb, and they are not chiefly crazy. They are not just right-wingers barking knee-jerk reactions to the day's events. No. They are deliberate and hard working. They're purposeful. They're working hard every day to shape a narrative that, if accepted by the mainstream, would redraw America along a very reactionary line.

I don't want to live in the country they're trying to build, and neither do you. One of the most powerful things we can do to push back is to build a counter-narrative. You and I don't have a 24-hour cable network. But we do have friends and family and neighbors and coworkers who listen to us, and we have Facebook pages and community groups and blogs. We've heard this said a thousand different ways, but it's different when we learn it on our own: We really must speak the truth, or else lies will march all over us.

From Michelangelo to Michelle Malkin, From Botticelli to the Blonde Bombshells of Fox News

Since my last post, my wife and I have been on vacation in Italy. Rome, Pisa, Cinque Terre, Florence, Siena, Venice, Verona. I had thought about doing a post or two from an Internet cafe or something, but drinking local wine and seeing the Renaissance masters won out over blogging every time. The trip was fantastic and mind blowing on so many levels. For one thing, when you see 2,000 years of history in layers right before your eyes, you can't help but think long and hard about the human experience on this planet, about what changes and what remains, and about your own place in it all.

We walked into the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome, a church from the early 12th century, to look at the medieval mosaic behind the altar. In 1857, they discovered that beneath the church, is an older church founded around 392. An archaeologist basically punched through the floor and found it. We climbed down the stairs into the cool damp to see faded frescoes from the fifth or sixth centuries. Then more steps led down to a first century A.D. Roman house that was converted into a temple to Mithras, god of a late-Roman mystery cult that was popular among Roman soldiers.

And this was just one place that we easily might have missed.

We got back to DC on Sunday night, and the next morning I was starting work in a new office, where I'm on rotation for at least a year. There's a lot of new stuff to adjust to, but let me tell you the worst. I'm working in a big room with 40 or 50 other people sitting at computers, and all around the room there are TVs. The boss picks which channel they're on. My boss likes Fox News. So this week I watched over 40 hours of Fox. I think I could file a workers' comp claim for that. Even worse are the conversations that Fox inspires in the office. Yesterday I listened to a couple of guys nearby talk for half an hour about "the myth of climate change." I wanted to walk over and say, "Let's name some other areas where conservatives have ignored science for their own political gain."

Anyway, something's going to have to change, or this year will feel like 20.