Labor Day

For those who have forgotten, this weekend, specifically Monday, is Labor Day. Labor Day was created, in a sense, by force by the working class of the United States. It was, in a certain sense, the last time the plebes managed to force anything on the Federal government. After that first official Labor Day in the 19th century the "Man", the uppers, business, figured out how to make the pols ignore the suggestions, cries and demands of the working class by stuffing the ears of our elected leaders with rolls of the long green. But that's a whole other topic.

Labor Day was originally a celebration of the laborer, whether in the mine, on the farm or on the shop floor. It was a day on which parades were held, men and women who made their livings by the sweat of their collective brows were honored for their labor and the fact that their labor, probably more than the managerial classes, made America a nation that worked instead of a nation that consumes, lounges and looks for the main chance. It was a holiday that celebrated the working stiff, whether chipping at coal in Appalachia, pulling steel chips in Detroit, skinning mules in Missouri, stoking furnaces on a ship at sea or being stained with ink at an office in Manhattan. The day was a day on which the nation's attention was taken from the upper class and their antics and focused on the guys and gals who actually invested the sweat equity to the progress of the Republic.

Now Labor Day has become a day on which stores and car dealers have Labor Day Sales, on which union flaks try to bolster their sagging memberships, on which the average working stiff spends his or her day catching up on house maintenance or barbecuing, and is considered the last holiday before Thanksgiving (another sale day). Labor Day, instead of being a day that celebrates labor, has become a day for laborers to spend money and try to forget how under-appreciated they are. The Labor Day parade is a forgotten thing. In fact, laborers are a forgotten population. I's enough to make one nostalgic for the Industrial Workers of the World.