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| This contemporary Labor Day cartoon is meant to be humorous but speaks to reality--the bosses are always on the backs of working people and have been since Labor Day was made a federal holiday at a sop to the union movement after the Pullman Strike of 1893 was crushed. |
Note:
It will feel strange not
addressing the annual Labor Day Celebration in Woodstock Square this year. About the time my run of Labor Day services
at my Unitarian Universalist congregation (see yesterday’s blog post) came to
an end McHenry County Progressives and local Democrats began annual celebration
on Labor Day afternoon. It was my privilege
to be asked to speak—and to host one year—from 2015 to last year. Today we will look back at my talk in 2016—the
last Presidential election year.
Specifics about that race are now dated, but the themes they represent
are all back this year, as you can read.
My remarks on the working class virtue of solidarity were adapted from
earlier material, including one of the UU sermons.
 |
| The Old Man soapboxing from the Gazeebo in Woodstock Square in 2016. |
We gathered here last year [2015]
for the first time, a small band of folks called together by some local fans of
Bernie Sanders who wanted to celebrate his hero Eugene V. Debs and his
connection to Woodstock. As a fan of
both and an old Wobbly and a soapboxer, I was thrilled to be asked to
participate.
A lot has happened in the last year
and here we are again. Bernie Sanders,
thanks to folks like those who organized the Labor Day event, went from being
an obscure longshot, to the leader of a wide and deep political revolution, and
came tantalizingly close to winning the Democratic Party nomination. When he didn’t some folks were heartbroken,
other mad. Some picked up their toys and
went home in a sulk and huff. Some
picked up Bernie’s challenge to keep the Revolution going by going deep and
wide—running for local office and trying to recapture Congress from troglodyte
Republicans. That’s what the folks here
in McHenry County have done.
Some folks swore that no matter what
they would never vote for Hillary Clinton, who apparently has horns and is the
spawn of Satan, no matter what, no way, no how.
Others have either swallowed hard and followed Bernie’s appeal and
decided to vote for Hillary, or with more enthusiasm vowed to actively work for
her election along with the rest of the Democratic ticket.
People who were comrades in the
campaign struggle a couple of months ago but are on opposite sides of the
Hillary divide, are hurling invectives at one another, denouncing each other as
traitors or saboteurs. Relationships
have been shattered. That longed for
political revolution is crippled by dissention.
Meanwhile genuine naked fascism has
arisen as a mass movement and swallowed the traditional conservative
party. Ordinary Americans who have seen
their lives and futures sacrificed time and again to corporate greed have been
taught to blame their woes on a rotating cast of others—Mexicans and emigrants
this week, Muslims and refugees next, women, gays, Black lives Matter
protesters, scientists, the sick and the elderly. Violence is in the air like the whiff of
gunpowder.
In light of all this, on this Labor
Day I want to commend to you the working class virtue of solidarity even if you
have never considered yourself a worker.
First we need to consider what
solidarity is not….
Solidarity is not sympathy. Sympathy is a passive emotion. It also implies a separation from the object
of sympathy and can teeter on pity, which is just sympathy tinged with revulsion.
Empathy might be closer to the meaning in that it implies a common
understanding of the distress. But
empathy is also passive. Solidarity
demands action.
Solidarity is not charity. Charity implies a power and privilege
differential. The more powerful and more
privileged deign to give to the less fortunate who are expected to respond with
appropriate gratitude and humility.
Solidarity is mutual aid among equals.
Solidarity is not altruism. Altruism is supposedly selfless giving
requiring sacrifice but expecting no reward—except perhaps praise for being
saint-like. Solidarity recognizes the
commonality of our conditions and expects to by right receive support as well
as give it.
Solidarity is not family. Families—and by extension surrogate families
like clans, nations, religions, races and others—are expected to support their
members out of blood obligation.
Solidarity demands respect for commonality with the other. Solidarity with the stranger dismantles walls
and promotes peace instead of a mad scramble over scarce resources.
Solidarity is not utopian. Utopians conjure up sweet dreams of the
perfect. Utopians may simply drift on in
the opium cloud of that dream. More dangerously, some utopians construct rigid
ideologies around their vision which eventually require the ruthless
suppression of anything and anyone not in conformity to that ideology. Solidarity is rooted in the common realities
we face together and is interested in addressing the roots of the problems as
well as ameliorating the immediate effects.
 |
Solidarity by Käthe
Kollwitz
Solidarity is not all warm and fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy denies oppression. Solidarity recognizes that there are those
whose own narrow self-interest causes them to exploit, subjugate, and abuse
others. And solidarity demands common
action to defend against such depredations and—yes—boldly to ultimately defeat
the oppressors.
Solidarity is a recognition of our place in humanity,
an ethic, and an active response to our common interests.
Solidarity enlarges our communities, builds bridges of
respect that can span differences. It
does not demand lock-step conformity to some ideological purity to act together
in mutual support. It requires
listening, really listening and not just waiting our turn to deliver a
lecture. When generations of feminists
support Hillary Clinton passionately it means not sneering that they are voting
their vaginas, but understanding why and ultimately standing with them just as
we hope that they will stand with us for the dismantlement of corporate
power.
 |
| Solidarity builds bridges across divides and requires mutual respect and support. |
Solidarity requires humility and taking the risk of
having our fragile identities challenged.
We cannot give more than lip service to Black Lives Matter unless we
understand and take ownership of the White privilege understanding it is not a
moral flaw but a condition we are born to.
By breaking down our defenses we can collaborate in our mutual
liberation with respect and understanding.
Most of all, solidarity requires commitment and
action. There are no sidelines, no room
for mere cheerleaders. Each and every
one of us are called to put our bodies and our lives on the line again and again in some meaningful
ways. And we are buoyed by the knowledge
that others are prepared to do the same for us.
Can we make a promise this Labor Day to commit to the
working class virtue of solidarity? Can
we face the challenges not just of the coming elections, but in defending
women’s bodies and choice, dismantlement the new slavery of mass incarceration,
and standing in the Spirit Camp of the Standing Rock Sioux as they defend all
of our water. There is a lot to do. No individual can do it all. But we can all
do something.
 |
| Solidarity Forever--a Depression era poster by Anita Wilcox. |
In the words of Ralph Chaplin in the great anthem of
the Working Class:
In our hands is placed a power
greater than their hoarded gold;
Greater than the might of armies,
magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world
from the ashes of the old,
For the Union makes us strong!
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