Labor Day Musings

Given that it's Labor Day weekend let's have a chat about labor - organized labor. If you take a look at the map on your right something may jump out at you, as it did me. Where Labor is strong - Democrats tend to win. Where Labor is weak, they don't. In the last election the electorate split fairly evenly, but amongst the groups that stand out as having gone Democratic, one is Labor. The general election was 49/49, but union members went 64/36 Democratic/Republican.

But it isn't just about union members voting for Dems - that'd just make unions an identity group. As Matt Stoller pointed out back in 05 Unions actively help Democratic candidates. They give money, and they give it early. They do field and GOTV, and indeed, they probably have the best field organizations in America. Kerry ate Dean's lunch in large part because of the International Association of Fire Fighter's (IAFF) organizers out organizing (sometimes rather brutally) the Dean machine. (More on the IAFF and their endorsement of Dodd this time around later in the article).

Unions provide organizing space, they provide media surrogates, they conduct training, they support think tanks and so on. They provide a lot of the infrastructure that keeps the party going - and that pushes the party to pursue liberal and populist policies when in office.

As union membership has declined, so have Democratic electoral results. This isn't an accident and it isn't something that Republicans want to see stop. Unions have been under constant assault for decades - starting with Taft-Hartley in 47 (a bill Truman, his veto overruled, called a "slave labor bill".) Recently, and egregiously, the NLRB has moved to classify nurses as supervisory workers, which would make most of them unable to be union members and basically de-unionize hospitals. (This is a loophole from Taft-Hartley, which made supervisory workers ineligible for unionization as a way of destroying the extremely powerful foreman's unions that existed at the time.)

Democrats have often disrespected unions, even while paying them court. NAFTA was pushed through by Bill Clinton even though labor was largely against it. Indeed, I have been told that the unions went to Clinton and said "we have a war chest of many millions. We can spend it fighting NAFTA or pushing for universal health care. Your choice." Clinton choice NAFTA over universal health care. Time and time again so-called free trade bills (which are usually more about free flow of money, than of trade, in any case) have been pushed over the objections of labor.

Meanwhile, the presumptive next nominee, Hilary Clinton, has as her chief strategist, Mark Penn, the CEO of Burson-Marsteller, a PR firm which is noted for its vicious anti-unionization campaigns. After receiving some complaints, Penn's response? To stop doing anti-union work, which he claimed he'd never been doing in the first place (just getting the paychecks for). Did he tell his firm to stop doing anti-union work? No. Did Clinton demote him or get rid of him? No.

But, then, why should the Clinton campaign care what labor thinks? Sure, they complained, but when neither Penn nor Clinton really did anything to deal with the underlying problem (he's the BOSS, and he should either make the anti-union work stop entirely, or if he can't, quit the firm, if he doesn't believe in it), labor really did nothing.

And in most cases, that's labor's pattern. They, like many Democratic constituencies, seem to be suffering from a certain learned helplessness. Take the IAFF, whom I promised to come back to. They endorsed Dodd last week. Now there are two possibilities here - one is that they are endorsing Dodd just based on his stellar record of getting behind their concerns. Hey, they backed Kerry when he was at his lowest (but remember that before that he had been the presumptive front-runner, a status Dodd has never had). The less charitable possibility was suggested in a Steve Clemons post:

My theory [on the Dodd endorsement]? It's a case of the Althusserian "absent center" with Dodd as the donut hole.

The Firefighters don't want to make the "wrong" choice between the three candidate that can win -- Clinton, Obama, and Edwards.

They like Edwards like the rest of the movement but don't think he's going to win, and don't want to piss off the Hillary machine. But they also don't want to seem paralyzed and ineffectual. They want to be players. So they pseudo-aggressively endorse someone, but don't piss off any of the big three by picking one of them against the other two.

After Dodd drops out following Iowa or New Hampshire, they see the lay of the land and jump to the likely winner.

I'm wondering how many endorsements by the unions we're going to see for Edwards. Of the front-runners Edwards has the most union-friendly campaign and has promised the most union friendly policies. He's been working hard for their support since the end of the last campaign. More to the point, to win, Edwards pretty much requires union support. Edwards' strategy has always clearly been to do well in the early states and to get the union endorsements to supplement his ground machine, since he is well aware (having witnessed it personally in '04) that they have the best ground machine available.

If unions really are frightened of the Hilary machine holding grudges in 09 if they win, and unions won't endorse another viable candidate as a result, then the unions have made themselves into political eunuchs. If they won't play, they don't need to be taken into account. Hilary will throw them the occasional bone, sure, but is unlikely, as was Bill, to pursue policies that will do more than slow the long-term decline in union membership (look at the graph above and see how unions did under Bill). And unions need a reversal of that trend, not just a few years of slower bleeding, or even a halt.

Meanwhile the deeper reason that unions don't get the respect they should in Democratic circles (and by "should" I mean on totally pragmatic "they make us win" terms) is probably because unions get little respect from white collar workers. Two episodes stand out for me on this - the first was that long period the 90's where techies used to disrespect unions and resist unionization because they were being paid so well because "they were smart, and, like, knowledge workers" and therefore didn't need unions. What they didn't realize, because everyone who gets paid well always wants to think its because they, personally, are so wonderful, is that it was just a tight labor market for people with specific skills and that as soon as that skill set became common enough, the gravy train would stall. Sure enough, in the 00's techies took it on the chin, and companies outsourced and offshored as much of their technical functions as they could. Suddenly a Bachelors in Comp.Sci wasn't a ticket to the gravy train any more. Techies had made the classic error of attributing to themselves (genius knowledge workers who are each individually unique flowers with a skill set that can't easily be replicated) what was a property of the situation (new technology, moving fast, not enough early adopters with the necessary technical skill set, therefore a labor crunch in the field).

And then, of course, there was the New York City Transit Strike - and the comments, I, as a blogger defending them, received from my commenters about how they should just be grateful to have decent jobs, shut up and go back to work, because my readers didn't have half the benefits those blue-collar transit workers did and they didn't deserve them anyway. No one seemed to make the connection that if the transit workers were costing the economy billions of dollars every day, then the economic value of what the transit workers did must be, ummm, rather larger than they were being compensated for. What was revealed then was a lot of ugly class hatred and envy - people with BA's who felt that if they weren't making it, neither should be blue collar workers without a degree. Fortunately, the majority of citizens of NYC actually backed the union (despite a full court press offensive against the union) and things worked out reasonably well.

But this middle class contempt for unions, and for the sort of people that make them up, boils up so frequently that I've come to believe it's a deep malaise in the American middle class psyche. I'm not entirely sure why it exists, other than as manifestation of the very human emotion of envy, but it definitely exists. And as the middle and upper classes (who never liked unions to begin with) have become the powers in the Democratic party (try and get started in politics and you will quickly find that the easy route - internships - is mostly only available to you if mommy and daddy can afford to support you while you work for nothing) a fundamental misunderstanding, and often, outright contempt, for working people has taken hold (again, at the end of the day... remember all those "free" trade bills, passed by Democrats despite Labor's strenuous objections).

Where unions are strong, Democrats win. But Democrats seem to have forgotten that at a very fundamental level and have allowed unions to sicken till they are but a pale shadow of what they once were. If Democrats want to win, they need to rectify that. If unions want their strength back, they need to hold Democrats to policies that aid unions, knowing that in so doing they are serving both sides. And the middle and upper classes that run the Democratic party need to get over their disdain for unions and recognize who their real friends are - even if only for hard-headed pragmatic reasons. There will be no new permanent Democratic majority like the one that ruled most of the post-war period, until the unions recover.

So this Labor Day Weekend I wish Labor nothing but the best. May a thousand unions certify and in so doing may Democrats sweep into office across the land.

Update Steve Clemons has a letter from a fire figher stating (and I've heard this from another union source) that the decision to endorse Dodd is not a punt, but based on loyalty to a man who has been loyal to them.

Ian Welsh September 3, 2007 - 8:55am

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( categories: Miscellany )

And then, of course, there

And then, of course, there was the New York City Transit Strike

Never forget that the majority of the strikers were African-American...

Race is always a factor, keep in mind who was the face of union.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. John Stuart Mill

Don Quijote September 3, 2007 - 6:47am

I don't get it

are you saying white collar workers look down on blue because they're black? or that NYer's supported the strike because the union was representative of blacks? I don't follow.
race is not usually a factor in unions w/ the exception of quota hiring is it?

dk September 3, 2007 - 10:52am

are you saying white collar

are you saying white collar workers look down on blue because they're black?
I am saying that white white-collar workers have an easier time looking down upon black blue-collar workers than they would looking down upon white blue-collar workers after all they might identify with white blue-collar workers or might have white blue-collar workers in their families.

or that NYer's supported the strike because the union was representative of blacks?
Yes, NYC is a majority minority city.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. John Stuart Mill

Don Quijote September 3, 2007 - 11:18am

WSJ ed on race and unions today

http://agonist.org/pipermaru/20070903/the_strange_career_of_affirmative_action

dk September 3, 2007 - 4:04pm

It needs to be remembered

It needs to be remembered that these days the US "working class" is largely undocumented aliens. So unions with an entirely citizen membership are at a disadvantage. Internationalist labor activism is far too radical for most US unions, which are very protectionist, yet that is what is needed.

randolph September 3, 2007 - 8:52am

In every election I've

In every election I've worked on here in California, it is labor that turns out the volunteers. It doesn't surprise me that labor is strong in states where Dems do well.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin

darwin September 3, 2007 - 3:50pm

Some random musings

Yes -- the low wage workforce of today is full of immigrants, documented and undocumented. And since we construct "immigration" within US racial categories today, even the Latino portion of that workforce is "not white." Consequently most of everybody who has crawled up to the middle class thinks "undeserving" and hence union=undeserving.

It is indeed dismal.

There's another side to this as well. I have worked both construction and white collar. Folks who do dirty work will never believe that people who stay clean at work are really working. The definition of "work" is "physically painful and filthy." White collar folks don't know how strong this is.

All of these attitudes are stuff that labor has to develop the imagination to overcome. But to a considerable extent, having imagination is considered "not serious" in labor unions.

Can it happen here?

janinsanfran September 3, 2007 - 3:52pm

Yeah,

when I used to do manual labor I had nothing but contempt for the soft white-shirted office workers.

Ian Welsh September 3, 2007 - 7:40pm

Even I feel it, and I've

Even I feel it, and I've never worked manual labor; recently I was hip-deep in management and I found myself thinking, "I'm not working, so where is all the time going?" And of course when some person who doesn't do real hard, dangerous work, but can fake it convincingly comes along, they're easy prey. Wasn't that both Reagan and W. Bush? It takes real guts and imagination to say, "don't put someone like me in charge, put in someone who really knows the job."

randolph September 3, 2007 - 9:52pm

Two observations. An

Two observations. An education system that insists that abstract, analytic thought is the single appropriate form of intelligence and demeans and devalues all other forms of genius. It is impossible after such indoctrination for "mere" laborers and white collar folks to see each other the same with the tragic consequences we are speaking about here.

Also don't you all just love the message conveyed by King George in ignoring Labor Day to go and play with his tin soldiers?

hvd September 4, 2007 - 6:52am

Quite true:

"An education system that insists that abstract, analytic thought is the single appropriate form of intelligence and demeans and devalues all other forms of genius."

I believe it is one of the main drivers of havoc in our country. It is the abstractions that protect the intellectual from having to come to grips with any trouble. As we take more and more children into the system we lose our Sandburgian cities with broad shoulders.

The Dems built that system and taught the yuppies spawned by it. The Reps send their kids to private academies.

"I AM the people--the mob--the crowd--the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is
done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the
world's food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons
come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And
then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand
for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me.
I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted.
I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and
makes me work and give up what I have. And I
forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red
drops for history to remember. Then--I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the
People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer
forget who robbed me last year, who played me for
a fool--then there will be no speaker in all the world
say the name: "The People," with any fleck of a
sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision."

http://carl-sandburg.com/

God bless and keep you Mr. Sandburg.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly September 4, 2007 - 11:55am

I think I'll frame that

thanks, mauberly

dk September 4, 2007 - 5:35pm

The meritocracy -- work hard and you will get ahead. Right!

The national original sin was the belief in everybody getting ahead except a designated group to do the dirty work so that everybody else could get ahead. First, slavery (Southerners got rich directly from the slave labor, Northerners from the trade in slaves and slave-produced commodities). Then, continued designation of blacks as the permanent poor laborers (a Southern Senator was reported to have commented on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, "If we pass this, who will iron my shirts and mow my lawn?) and the successive waves of immigrants who were supposed to work tirelessly at low pay so their children could enjoy the fruits of the dirty work done by the next waves. Remember Karl Rove defended the immigration bill by saying, "I support this bill because I don't want my children to have to pick tomatoes and clean toilets."

I don't think I've seen or heard as part of mainstream discussion the idea that we have a better society when tomatoes are picked, toilets cleaned, garbage collected, and all the other dirty, hard work done, and that the people who do those jobs deserve as much as any clean IT worker, hospital administrator, or newspaper columnist. How you determine "deserve" in an economic system will produce differences on how to get there. Here I'm talking about the moral vision that embraces privilege for some based on devaluation of others. I don't know how we baptize the nation out of it.

Meanwhile, go, unions!!!

nihil obstet September 3, 2007 - 5:51pm

For some strange reason when

For some strange reason when I tell a blue collar person about the globalist plan to make the entire US a depopulated nature preserve they look at me like I have three heads. Anyway the preceeding sentence is used to illustrate the educational level of the average American blue collar. They know not what Machiavellian means, they have no concept of the CFR and have no idea of how China's exemption from carbon emissions is affecting their commuting hours to get to a real supply house for quality parts to do their job correctly.
The machine supply catalogs are listing parts as "import" or US and when it really counts they are buying US, at least I know I do even if the "import" parts are way cheaper. In R&D I want something real and dependable L.S. Starret style.

Lasthorseman September 3, 2007 - 7:28pm

Yes

"For some strange reason when I tell a blue collar person about the globalist plan to make the entire US a depopulated nature preserve they look at me like I have three heads. Anyway the preceeding sentence is used to illustrate the educational level of the average American blue collar. They know not what Machiavellian means, they have no concept of the CFR and have no idea of how China's exemption from carbon emissions is affecting their commuting hours to get to a real supply house for quality parts to do their job correctly."

But most know how to do a job, which most educated leftists cannot do, and do not respect. The Democrats have moved away from serious labor issues because they do not respect labor. They just want labor for votes.

They have chosen to grow the party in other ways.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly September 3, 2007 - 10:11pm

Wow.

You phrased that a lot nicer than I was going to put it. Thank you.

Just because you swing a hammer for a living doesn't mean you're an idiot. It only implies you're really good at swinging a hammer. The politcos needs to realize that in a hurry.

Silent Autumn September 3, 2007 - 11:04pm

I'm curious as to what you think educated leftists live on...

...light and air?

randolph September 3, 2007 - 11:35pm

they live on

whatever they can pilfer from their job at Starbucks. unlike the union and political interns that live off mom & dad's income.

hear, hear mauberly, well said for a bean counter ;>

dk September 4, 2007 - 4:38am

So...who does the strategy

So...who does the strategy for labor, if it's not educated leftists, hmmm? Oh, wait...

randolph September 4, 2007 - 5:40am

and look where it's gotten us

that is exactly the problem. how can you represent a group if you've never walked in their shoes and have no empathy?
I've seen the same shit w/ lawyers who identify socially w/ the opposing side urging clients to take the deal offered, because they don't see how'll they'll make any more money off the deal if they fight.
why do you suppose it's such a common perception that labor gets into bed w/ management? why is it so easy to corrupt union leadership? is it possible that management helps to ensure the dumbest get elected? somebody has to pay for all those signs you know.
union politics ain't any different than regular politics, ya dance w/ them that brung ya.
when union lawyers and representatives earn the same as those they represent will they truly represent them. But nobody needs a six figure consultant to tell a minimum wage worker the difference between right and wrong and what's fair. look what power hungry egg heads did to Russia. The US labor movement victories weren't won by leftists at Harvard, they were won by the worker/organizers who hung out in the taverns of Detroit and Chicago.

dk September 4, 2007 - 6:24am

We are on the same page here, DK

I'm going have to have an order of your chicken and leave you 25%. The Teamsters don't need no pointy heads to get their contracts with UPS.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly September 4, 2007 - 7:08am

"Why do you suppose it's

"Why do you suppose it's such a common perception that labor gets into bed w/ management? Why is it so easy to corrupt union leadership?"

I'm not sure if these are common, or instead beliefs deriving from anti-union propaganda--does anyone know? If they are correct, however, it's due to the fact that union leadership is a kind of government, and needs the same kinds of hedges that other governments need--restrictions in their charters, devices for preventing the emergence of entrenched power and tyrannical majorities, and so forth.

You win no wars without strategy, and strategy is an intellectual, rather than a physical skill; if your labor movement doesn't value brains, it will consistently be outmaneuvered. To get the best strategists on your side, you have to offer them respect; if you treat them with contempt, there will be only the idealists you complain about, and the corrupt. The worker/organizers of Detroit and Chicago relied on the strategies of previous generations but by 1950 they threw out the theoreticians and had no new strategies. Their opposition, on the other hand, kept devising new strategies and has, for the moment, the upper hand. Time to start thinking again.

randolph September 5, 2007 - 2:28am

hired guns?

To get the best strategists on your side, you have to offer them respect; if you treat them with contempt, there will be only the idealists you complain about, and the corrupt.

no thanks. mercenaries are unpredictable. read your Machiavelli
geez, a little education/indoctrination and y'all think you know sumthin. walk the walk and then I'll think about talking to you, young man. THE PROBLEM IS THE STRATEGISTS, NOT THE IDEALISTS
(jesuschrist*!@#$^%$@#!!!!!)
Randolph, take this all w/ good faith, my tone may be rough and that of the street, but I mean you no harm or insult as I do not know you as a person, but only as ideas presented online. Those are what I'm arguing, not you per se. If I had gone to college, I might seem more civil(ized), but then I'd be just as cutting w/ better erudition.

But not knowing that leadership is in bed w/ management is a common perception implies that you know not a single union member.
and no one wins wars, they just get the spoils, which are mostly going to the leadership, lawyers, lobbyists and strategists not the $10/hr worker paying the salary of the strategist thru dues. what a fucking scam.
On second thought, if this is what you do for a living, then yes, I am insulting you and not just arguing your ideas. Cause ya ain't done shit for the worker.

dk September 5, 2007 - 7:45am

I didn't say mercenaries; I

I didn't say mercenaries; I didn't say money. You did. An ounce of respect is worth thousands. If the rank-and-file won't offer that respect, it will pay thousands (and get mercenaries to do the work). And you've agreed that most rank-and-file union members won't offer that respect.

I know that it's a common perception that labor leadership is in bed with management. Maybe it's even true. My union friends and I have certainly said some scathing things about union leadership to my union friends over the years. And yet...I have encountered very few rank-and-file union members who make a serious effort to understand and participate in the politics of their organization, let alone the wider political and economic context of their organizations; the rank-and-file votes, and then bitches about the people they voted for. Sure, there are problems of corruption and organization, but no democracy can thrive with uninformed citizens. And if you have nothing but contempt for thinkers, how can you be informed? Unions are supposed to be democratic organizations; if the rank-and-file doesn't like the organization, the rank-and-file is supposed to be able to make changes. But if the rank-and-file regards ideas, ideals, and idealists with contempt then what can they do? You have to have goals before you can pursue goals!

randolph September 5, 2007 - 8:49am

what have you done to earn the respect?

And if you have nothing but contempt for thinkers, how can you be informed?

you're right, why should I believe ny own lying eyes?

typing that was more trouble than this is worth.
have a good one

dk September 5, 2007 - 6:29pm

Because your eyes can be

Because your eyes can be deceived. You, me, anyone can be shown lies, and unless we think, we will believe.

randolph September 5, 2007 - 6:45pm

Why do you think the Republicans are in power?

It's because a lot of people believed what they were shown. You're talking like one of the liberal hawks; keep arguing how their vision was impeccable. 'twasn't, and yours isn't, either, and labor is losing, and will keep on losing until it goes back to having real strategy, despite numbers and enormous public support. If you want to win the fight, you have to think, and you have to think ahead of your opponent.

...and that's it for me in this discussion!

randolph September 6, 2007 - 12:21am

ack, bygones, eh?

we fight for the same side, no need to let each other's blood.
peace, my brother.

dk September 6, 2007 - 6:55am

Peace. I'm sorry.

randolph September 6, 2007 - 10:47am

No light

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

mauberly September 4, 2007 - 7:09am

ROTFLMAO !!!!!

the distance between comments makes the joke even better!

dk September 4, 2007 - 7:16am

Well, *I'm* looking at you like you have three heads

randolph September 3, 2007 - 11:38pm

Disdain for labour

is insidious and can be subtle. i.e. why do you think clothes lines are banned? It has less to do with clean laundry flapping in the breeze than the act of hanging it. Whom do you suppose hung laundry up...was it rich whites, or blacks, browns and yellows? Servants typically aren't white.

We used to live next door to a white collar worker who didn't know how to change a light bulb. L0L I swear that man had two thumbs on each of his hands. Rather handy to have extra thumbs for marking pages in books, but an impediment for grasping a hammer.

canuck September 4, 2007 - 12:51am

and then,

.....there are artists who wish to capture the beauty of clean laundry flapping in the breeze in a painting.

But I digress.
______________________________________________________________________

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" - Martin Luther King Jr.

adrena September 4, 2007 - 1:14am

anybody else notice a generational aspect?

sometimes it seems like I meet 100 new faces each day at work, and what I'm impressed by is the difference in attitude between baby boomers and gen X & Y, and there's a difference according to race.
White gen X and younger are rude as hell and tip like shit, unless they've worked in the service industry. Everybody else is as nice as pie, from sixty-five yo Jewish real estate developer to the 16 yo Puerto Rican gangbanger to the Black garbage truck drivers. They seem real happy that we're there to feed them, but these young white folks buying into the hood just can't be pleased, though their parents from Ohio seem to love us.
I saw the same thing at Yearly Kos, bunch of white middle class shitty tippers arguing w/ the bartender over a possible $11 overcharge on a $200 bar tab. The supposed progressive Dems are no friend to labor , so I walked over and paid the difference and got insanely strong drinks the rest of the night w/ no waiting in line, the bartender came to me!

A word of advice folks, tip your bartenders and servers and see what a difference it makes. We don't need an increase in the minimum wage, we need people to realize tips are what we pay the light bill with. the hourly only goes to pay the taxes on the tips. (and this is coming from a cook that thinks servers are overpaid suck-ups, and an owner who still makes less per hour than any of her staff. and yes, my staff got a paid day off yesterday)
if you need help, $1 per mixed drink is standard, as is 15-20% at restaurants. and if can't afford it, "please" and "thank you" still go a long way toward fostering good service.

dk September 4, 2007 - 5:18am

Interesting, I'm

Gen X and I'm generally quite generous on the tipping, but then while I haven't done bar/restaurant server jobs, I've been in a lot of lousy jobs.

And there may be a difference between Canada and the US in this regard - or maybe not, not sure.

If I go to YKos next year (which I'm not sure I will) I'll see about aranging an Agonista meet if there's interest.

Ian Welsh September 4, 2007 - 5:33am

Not sure it's a generational thing,

but rather a mellowing that comes with age and hard-won experience. I know that I am much more relaxed, outgoing, pleasant and considerate with strangers in any situation than when I was a younger man. I think we come to better appreciate each other's humanity, that everyone has a story, that many of those stories are tough ones. That bumper sticker that reads "Practice acts of random kindness"? Take it to heart. At the least, be nice. Everyone doing a job responds in kind to how they are approached.

_{Turn back to the Constitution - and READ it.}

Rick September 4, 2007 - 6:08am

it's possible, but...

why don't folks of color act like yuppies? it's an attitude of entitlement and superiority that pisses me off about these folks.
that "I'm a knowledge worker and don't get dirty, therefor I'm smarter and better than you" oh, and "I handle lots of rich people's money, I must be just like them" I've seen that w/ high end servers as well, but not nearly as bad as bankers and stockbrokers and real estate agents.

funny anecdote, funny to me only, I'm sure. Went to see Tony Bennett at Ravinia on Friday. Ravinia is an outdoor classical music venue located in the rich nothern burbs of Chicago. Think Ferris Bueller. Took the Metra train there, lots of Biffs and Muffy's on the train. (I hadn't realized khaki shorts and polo shirts and w/ a cashmere sweater were still all the rage, but then I guess that's what defines "classic", eh? ) I watched as the black train conductor took money from everyone boarding but the black kids going to jobs and me. I was honored that he thought I was out of my league, taking my sack lunch to a place of $300 picnic baskets. Of course when I arrived to meet up w/ my banker and broker acquaintances who were apparently counting on me to bring the food, (maybe because I own a restaurant?); I was quickly reminded that indeed I was out of my league, because I hadn't brought any food for them and that was the reason they had invited me and bought me a ticket! I had actually bought $60 of imported Italian cold cuts to bring, I just forgot to put it in my sack in my rush to catch the train. But the disdain was palpable, tho it might have had something to do w/ their hunger, because they didn't bring a damn thing to eat. I bought them six $10 sandwiches , gave the hotshot the $15 for the ticket and the advice that "I don't come that cheap" and left to enjoy my free train ride back to the city with the thought that I had some good proscuitto waiting for me on the kitchen counter at home.
I may now have fewer acquaintances, but I'll be damned if I lose my dignity; I'm nobody's personal servant. I hope he loses his ass in the mortgage meltdown.
(but really, my opinion comes from my experience at work, not this one incident, tho it did drive the point home yet again in a quite encapsulated manner). time to make the doughnuts, have a good one y'all...

dk September 4, 2007 - 7:14am

"Folks of color"

have been screwed over by white folks for several hundred years. Their interpersonal transactions are approached from a standpoint of wariness that they not be taken advantage of. Yuppies have been conditioned to do the taking.

_{Turn back to the Constitution - and READ it.}

Rick September 4, 2007 - 11:07am

Ick. Ick. Ick.

Ick. Ick. Ick. Sympathies.

It's the re-emergent US class system. From 1950-1980, the differences in wealth in the USA were as small as they've ever been; this is sometimes called the Great Compression (forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know). Three decades of neocon policies have erased the compression, and we are back to vast disparities of wealth, with all the consequent behaviors.

randolph September 4, 2007 - 11:07am

I'm wondering

if education was such a great thing for the white folks? Did they lose the spirit of their ancestors as the gap widened between the poor and the middle class?

I remember with great fondness the stories my grandmother told. Her time was England 1888 to Canada 1971. Long story...but her father's father was a titled blueblood from the British aristocracy. She had more than a nodding acquaintance with privileged people. All that part of her was left behind when she emigrated using a 2-year Servitude plan to pay her passage. Her first husband died when she was pregnant with her 5th child and once again she was poor. She never lost her common touch and what she 'knew' was important. Family first took precedence, then friends, and then the wider world. She instilled in me a love for history, and working to achieve it. But I've only been moderately successful to pass it to my daughter and those roots are now almost completely lost in my grandchildren.

My daughter doesn't disdain labour, but I do see inklings of it in my grandchildren. Expectations increased between each generation and each in turn exerted less effort achieving it.

I don't know a lot about blacks and other suppressed groups, but I do know quite a bit about poverty and class distinctions and how they grow and my theory is, 'it becomes increasingly easier over time to move from one to group as it takes less effort.' Hopefully one day in the future, blacks will repeat my experience. My life is much richer than my grandchildren's--and that is a pity!

Stated less generously...'the further removed a population is from manual labour, the less humane the population becomes.'

canuck September 4, 2007 - 6:57pm

well said, canuck

n/t

dk September 5, 2007 - 7:56am

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