Poverty is not natural. It is man-made and can be eradicated.

Following on my look at LGBTQ comedians from last week (and wanting something short and light) I started the Netflix show Tig, a documentary about Tig Notaro. Scenes didn’t look familiar, but the ideas did. So I did a bit of checking (of texts of previous posts) and I saw that I had seen it, more than a year ago. So I switched to Tig’s comedy show Happy to Be Here taped at a Houston comedy venue back in 2018 and an hour long. During the show she talked about being mistaken for a man at least once a week (she’s very flat chested and even flatter after breast cancer), one of her temp jobs before being a comedian paid enough, funny comments from her wife Stephanie (Can a bee sting a bee?), playing with her cat, fun things her twin sons said (probably toddlers at the time), and the pranks she would pull at parties. My overall view of this show is there were funny moments, but I kept checking how soon it would be over. And the closing gag went on way too long. In the comments of a pundit roundup for Daily Kos are several cartoons appropriate for Labor Day, which is today. One by Garth German shows workers in a break room just after the boss has put up several anti-union signs, such as “De-regulate, it makes life easier.” “‘Strike’ is just another word for ‘I quit.’” Vasco Costa posted one by Barry Deutsch that shows corporate bosses through the years, starting in 1842, complaining that if workers got such-and-such right their business would be doomed. The workers rights are such things as the right to strike, equal pay for black people, worker safety, child labor, 40 hour workweek, and equal pay for women. Thank a union for each of these and, yeah, businesses had to deal with them and still managed to survive. Remember that faulty prediction of doom the next time they want to withhold worker rights. Another one by Deutsch explaining that “Right to Work” doesn’t mean the right to a job, but the right not to pay union dues, which weakens the union. A third by Deutsch shows workers shows workers explaining why they are against unions, such as a woman saying “I deserve less pay than men.” Captain Frogbert included several good quotes:

“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” — Abraham Lincoln, Republican, 1861. “Forgive me for noticing that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less.” — E. J. Dionne, Jr. “Republicans... think the American standard of living is a fine thing -- so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people... And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.” — Harry S. Truman “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” — Nelson Mandela We live in a nation where doctors destroy health; lawyers destroy justice; universities destroy knowledge; governments destroy freedom; the press destroys information; religion destroys morals; and our banks destroy the economy. — Chris Hedges “The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.” — George Bancroft (1800-1891) “That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I was never in a job covered by a union. But in a big corporation whatever union got we office workers got too. So I’m thankful for the union.