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ACCORDING TO LIZ - Take heart, workers of America. The joy inspired by the Democratic National Convention is infectious.
Leaders on every side and level of government, look out. The people who work, those who really make this country great, have spoken. And they now have politicians taking center stage on their behalf.
Labor Day commemorates the American working men and women who built and continue to build this country.
It also celebrates the power that working people have created to incrementally regain their rights as human beings from the bosses – overtime protections, building retirement savings, improving safety, standing together against abuses by their corporate overseers, and improving not only their own lives, but those of their families and communities.
Use it or lose it.
Promises were made in Chicago just a few short weeks ago, and it is up to all of us to keep that flame alive and fan it into a glorious fire of economic renaissance for those who toil – in the fields, on assembly lines, and behind desks.
A shout-out to Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and all those who are making this transition possible – Bernie and the Obamas, Elizabeth Warren and AOC, and the landmark presidents that preceded the current administration who laid down the path to a better future.
But, as some said from that stage, it is up to all Americans to hold the Harris-Walz ticket to their promises. And push them even further down the road to equality and economic freedom.
The campaign must take a page from JFK’s inspiring campaign and encourage people to join in in doing what’s best for the country.
Reopen the book of LBJ’s building of the Great Society on JFK’s ideas, and rejuvenate a country where Americans don’t ask for things to be done for them but desire to take action themselves to remake the greatness of Camelot with a modern-day Peace Corps to fight climate change, lift up refugees and minorities, the poor and the suffering, wherever they live, whatever their origin, skin color or beliefs.
Obama won on hope; people want to hope again. They want to be heard and understood; not listen to politicians interminably dissing each other.
Americans want a leader with fervent ideals, ready to go to the mat for them like Lincoln. They want the passion of an FDR who despite his privileged background was a president for the people.
Americans want a government that extols the virtue of a moral compass to lead all of us, not just the bosses and their buddies, forward, not to keep up with the Joneses but to feel grace descend on us – and them – the grace for doing the right thing.
A Labor Day grace embracing fulfilling responsibilities, ennobling values, dignity, decency, and service, for every member of the working class, conservative as well as progressive.
One promoting respect and empathy towards all; dedicated to ensuring that opening the doors of opportunity for some doesn’t slam them on others.
Understanding that when individuals are scared – of losing their jobs, their healthcare, their way of life – people strike out unthinkingly. And that malevolent forces too often capitalize on that fear, spreading lies and sowing more fear.
We must bid adieu to a world of mine and theirs, and make it ours.
The United States needs more immigrants to bulk up its economy so all workers can enjoy life with the leisure time they justly deserve. But to do so, its leaders must move to exchange a sclerotic system for one that works for everyone, not just the modern-day robber barons.
Implement a positive populism. Replace greed and the Wall Street mantra of profits über alles with sustainable supply chains, good jobs in safe workspaces, education for all under which everyone can develop the skills to advance in their chosen craft and vocation.
Pragmatic populism is a key factor that Tim Walz brings to the Democratic ticket from the heartland of America, where populist politics has thrived for generations, and is a powerful anodyne to the perceived west coast elitism of Kamala Harris.
It means, as the Harris campaign pledges, a fight for “the promise of America,” a fight for a better and brighter future for everyone.
It means embodying American ideals in our everyday narratives.
In its paeon to Biden, last month a New York Times editorial pointed out:
“Populism has recently gained a new appeal, thanks to the failure of the market-based economic policies of the past half-century — which are often known as neoliberalism — to deliver broad-based prosperity.”
Walz and Harris must now transition from the headiness of the Convention and, while avoiding the clutches of those still pushing failed market-based policies, empower a new and more formidable Democratic base. One inclusive of all working people, including those the party bureaucracy sadly dismissed in recent decades.
The must deliver on campaign commitments to all Americans, to deliver the keys to prosperity and respect.
If “building up the middle class will be a defining goal of [a Harris] presidency,” she now needs our help.
Our fate is in our own hands, rise up and use infrastructure of your co-workers, friends and families to spread the message, and vote.
This Labor Day make a commitment to yourself and your fellow workers to deliver a better America to the people and each other, one where compassion, inclusion and grace make each of us the solution we seek.
(Liz Amsden is a contributor to CityWatch and an activist from Northeast Los Angeles with opinions on much of what goes on in our lives. She has written extensively on the City's budget and services as well as her many other interests and passions. In her real life she works on budgets for film and television where fiction can rarely be as strange as the truth of living in today's world. )
