This diary is an addendum to an entirely different post I currently have up at MyDD. I wrote this and posed it here because of its dkos specific nature. I am also implicated in this rant.
Here are the 800 most recommended diaries over the past two months on dailykos:
Most Recommended Diaries 11/27/04 - 12/03/04
Most Recommended Diaries 12/04/2004 - 12/10/04
Most Recommended Diaries 12/11/2004 - 12/17/04
Most Recommended Diaries 12/18/2004 - 12/24/2004
Most Recommended Diaries 12/25/2004 - 12/31/2004
Most Recommended Diaries 1/1/2005 - 1/7/2005
Most Highly Ranked Diary Threads 1/8/2005 - 1/14/2005
Most Highly Ranked Diary Threads 1/15/2005 - 1/21/2005
Each of these lists contains 100 diaries. Exactly none of them discuss labor issues. Zero out of eight hundred.
Now I want someone to explain this to me: how can we claim to be the grassroots, the people, and the activists taking the party back considering our collective apathy toward labor?
What is the only non-ideological sub-demographic of whites that vote Democratic? No, the answer is now white women, who vote majority Republican. The answer is also not white northeasterners, who also vote slightly in favor of Republicans. The answer is unionized whites.
If unionized workers as a percentage of the workforce have declined from 35% in 1960 to 13% today, how are our rights being undermined more significantly: by the patriot act or by union busting?
What is the relationship between the roughly 40% unionization rate in Canada and Western Europe and their left-wing governments? Let me rephrase: which came first, the left-wing governmental policies, such as universal health care, or the extremely powerful unions? Follow up: when was economic policy in America most left-wing: during times of high unionization, or low uniuonization?
Now is a quiz: what specific unionization right exists nationwide in both the public and private sector in Canada and Western European countries, but only exists in the public sector in America in three states: California, Illinois and New York? This is a quiz, and I am not giving you any hints.
Follow up: what is the relationship between openness to left-wing politics in California, Illinois and New York and their rate of unionization? Will this right make California, Illinois and New York more right wing or left-wing?
New topic: is there currently a major conflict in the American labor movement? Side question: is their an upcoming and ongoing campaign for AFL-CIO President that pits different factions against one another?
Rant rhetorical section: why is it that when Kucinich ran for President, his announcement brought with it worries over his once anti-choice position, but no one's announcement brought with it cries over anyone's anti-labor positions? Kerry is practically dead last among Democratic Senators on Labor Rights [Ed: I am actually wrong about this. See DHinMI's comment below], but no one cared during the primaries. Why doesn't this disqualify candidates the way other issues do?
General thesis: Democrats are losing elections is because it is okay to be pro-environment and anti-labor, it is okay to be pro-Roe and anti-labor, it is okay to be anti-war and anti-labor, it is okay to be anti-patriot act and anti-labor, but it is never okay to be pro-labor and anti-any of these other things. It has literally come to the point where you can be pro-liberal, but anti-labor, and no one seems to care. Liberalism, especially at the netroots level, seems no longer to have anything to do with labor.
We can have millennialist rhetoric about the abolishment of our rights in so many areas, but never in labor, even though the erosion of labor rights is far more clear than the erosion of nay of our other rights. For cryin' out loud, in the 1950's, over 35% of the workforce was unionized. Now, it is 1/3 that total. That is not a potential crisis--that is a full-blown disaster that is already taking place. And the netroots doesn't care.
The massive decline in union membership is directly tied to the massive decline in the Democratic Party, especially at the grassroots level. For the love of God, unions were our Left Wing Noise Machine, and we destroyed them to protect our middle class causes at every turn. Who provided our precinct captains that we now so desperately desire? Who provided the grassroots before the netroots were around? Who provided the anti-conservative economic policy? Whose void are we now claiming to fill?
The decline of labor is at least, and probably more, important to the decline of Democrats than "the south," which we mythologize about trying to win at every cost. We love the south--we are constantly writing about how to win it. Labor? Well, we just don't fucking care. Who needs that, anyway when we have George Soros?
This diary might be recommended up a bit, but I doubt it will matter. Our silence on this issue is loud and clear. If the netroots are the future of the party, than labor has no future.
Our volume of work speaks for itself--we don't give two shits about our own destruction. As far as we are concerned--and I have quite a few of those top diaries myself--liberalism has nothing to do with labor. Solidarity whatever.