Labor Day: Don't Celebrate It

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

Today is Labor Day, 2019.  I am working today.  As an entrepreneur I never take days off.  I write, I teach, and I am a radio (and video) host.  I went to a conservative meeting this morning, and a Republican Club board meeting this evening.  I never stop laboring, if I can help it.

Labor Day is the day of the year that Americans celebrate the rise of the working class against the bourgeoisie on this side of the Atlantic. I get it, labor unions emerged to protect the workers, and to encourage legislation to guarantee those protections. A very worthy cause, on the surface. But, that was not the real reason behind the rise of labor unions (or the establishment of Labor Day). It was to get America ready for a worker's revolution. Socialism. Communism. A collective utopia where the means of production is controlled by government (of which there is no constitutional authority, by the way), and everyone is expected to live in a fair and equal society of homogeneity (gray, sexless, society of autonomous drones who have no individuality, and only live to contribute to the community ... sounds like what the hard left is trying to initiate now, doesn't it?).

Marxist socialism was the inspiration behind the labor movement. Since then, the labor unions have become nothing less than money laundering operations for socialist politicians.  And now, after years of labor policies that disallowed communists to run the organizations have been swept away, they are hotbeds for communists, and a launching pad for many of them before entering the political arena.

The goal, then, and now, has been, and is, to destroy the private sector, and the private ownership of businesses. They know that the massive pensions, cadillac health insurance plans and the rest of the system of benefits, are a bad deal for private corporations. They know that the labor unions are forcing corporations into economic distress with these unsustainable programs. That's the point. They are socialists. They are there to destroy the private sector, to move the means of production into the hands of the government, and send the corporations into bankruptcy. They wish to financially break the shareholders, and force the private sector into calling out to the government for a bailout, and eventually a buy-out.

If the private unions really cared about the workers (as they claim), and the American economy (of which they actually don't claim), they would not be striking deals that destroy the private sector, and results in the loss of jobs.

Labor Day is the celebration of the proletariat, a holiday brought on by the labor union movement, a federal holiday celebrating the rise of the insertion of socialism into our American System.

History moved things in such a way that it's hard to argue against what happened. During the mid-1800s, after continued abuses by manufacturers, labor unions rose up. The private business owners were portrayed as monsters, and in many ways, properly so. The inspiration for the first American Labor Day came from an alliance between the American Federation of Labor (AFL), craft unions, and local central labor federations in 1882 (during the birthing of the Progressive Era, and during the height of fabianism). Waves of strikes followed lasting through the middle of the 1890s, reaching a crescendo that called out the police, and ultimately the army, to control the situation. The Pullman Strike, led by future Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs in 1894, was crushed, and Debs was imprisoned for his involvement. The problem was being pushed to a breaking point, and the socialists were salivating at the opportunities being provided by the clashes.

That's how socialism embeds itself into societies. . . during times of civil unrest. They create mob violence so that they can squeeze into leadership roles, not only without people really realizing what's going on, but in a manner that is welcomed because of their false promises and rhetoric.

Chaos, after all, always leads to the people crying out for order.  Or, as Benjamin Franklin put it, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As societies become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

In the Northeast the unions and federations had traditions of summer holidays, and the government decided a day for labor where beer drinking and family fun was the plan of the day would help quell the unrest. Shortly after the end of the Pullman Strike, Democrat President Grover Cleveland rushed a bill recognizing Labor Day through Congress. The Democrats had been bruised by the fact that they were largely behind calling in the police and army, and needed a way to mend fences, and create an image that they supported the workers. The labor movement was growing, and the Democrats saw the potential of pulling in more votes if they'd just latch on to the instigators of the violence.

Not a single elected official in Congress voted against this measure presented by President Cleveland.

President Cleveland chose a September date in order to set the American holiday off from European Mayday (after all, he didn't want everyone to realize the socialist nature of the holiday). An AFL resolution of 1909 declared the first Sunday to be the proper Labor Day, and eventually all States and the District of Columbia affirmed the holiday status for their residents. In 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. The act moved several federal holidays, including Labor Day, to Mondays, and Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday of September ever since.

Labor Day, while its rise seems innocent enough, is the one day of the year that Marx's wage slavery is recognized in America.

Labor Day, we are told, was something created with the greatest of intentions. But, it wasn't. As with all of the other socialist advances in our American System, it was a designed attack against liberty, individualism, and our free market system. Labor Day is the celebration of collectivism, and by design, the labor movement has become something determined to undermine the private sector, to hinder the free market, and to destroy capitalism.

To celebrate Labor Day is to celebrate the rise of a communist revolution in America.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary