oqm4

What if we discussed labor oppression -- third-world, Asian, and domestic -- in terms of consumers' and businesses' labor footprints, that is, in terms of how their respective purchases and products damage national employment rates, undermine GDP, fuel the use of sweat-shops, encourage the payment of abysmally low wages, and further economic imperialism?

Economic concerns clog the aether at present. The very air is thick with the dirty, pecuniary interests of the bourgeois and the men who would be bourgeois.

Recently, I've been working my way through Peter Watkins' magisterial 5+ hour docudrama _La Commune_ (2000). Watkins' stated impetus for the project establishes it as admirably left-leaning: "The Paris Commune has always been severely marginalized by the French education system, despite - or perhaps because - it is a key event in the history of the European working class ... ."

The US government should just buy Ford, Chrysler, and GM outright, and hold a fire sale of any unnecessary assets (including the McMansions of the CEOs). Such a sale, the type of which was popular among corporate raiders in the 80s, might go a long way toward financing such a deal or, at least, making it relatively affordable.

The rather profound line separating the civil aspects and concerns of marriage from the religious ones, though, seems to be somewhat under-articulated. People often see the two as a fused double helix rather than as the limited partnership they in fact are. Those of us on the civics-minded left would do well to clarify such distinctions between the legal institution of marriage and the religious sacrament of marriage and assure our religiously-minded brothers and sisters that we're only interested in changing the civic definition of marriage.

At present, there's a great trick afoot: the labor of the so-called working class and most of the white collar class enriches the executive few. Laborers and most managers, therefore, are brothers and sisters who just haven't realized it yet.

I see the rise of an internet-based type of "general freelance labor": independent people who regularly or irregularly work for various websites, either for free or for pay, whose skills include writing, reading, and simple critical thinking and research skills. And since the material analogue to this labor constituency is semi-skilled day labor and freelancers of all types, I don't doubt that over time the new labor class will monetize its services. At least it should. But I think this will happen gradually as more and more sites like ChaCha pop up.

A major fissure has clearly developed on the right, one I predict will usher in a profound diversification of the contemporary American political spectrum, perhaps even leading to a true four party system of government.