The Frictions of Daily Life
January 12, 2012
By Thomas J. Mackell Jr.
The title of this essay was an expression used frequently by the late David Montgomery the labor historian.
It was said that he used this expression to expand the notion of how class happens, to describe all of the many ways in which workers have been strained and diminished. It was those frictions that produced a sense of being a member of a class being denied its full rights.
The schism that is dividing this country will become very dangerous.
When you listen to individuals who run for elective office who, during the course of their campaign, claim that they come from humble, working-class backgrounds; that their father, for example, drove a truck or their mother was a housemaid, you wonder, one, if they are telling the truth or, two, what happened between the campaign rhetoric and them taking office? There is a huge gap.
Somehow they have forgotten their personal histories and have entered a new protected class.
A perfect example of this is Congress' inability to extend unemployment benefits to the millions who are in desperate need, nor their desire to continue the payroll tax cut that will save the average working family $1000. They are a bunch of bums and with each passing day are losing the respect of the American voter.
There are over 300 million of us and only 535 of them. Why do they control the agenda?
It is time to call for a general strike of union and non-union workers to shut this country down and to send tens of millions of people to Washington, DC and deliver the message.
Thomas J. Mackell, Jr. Ed.D., Senior Partner, Black Thorn Lynch Associates, Inc., former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and author of: "When the Good Pensions Go Away: Why America Needs a New Deal for Pension and Health Care Reform."
