Labor Day is a national holiday in the United States mid way between Independence Day on the 4th of July and Veteran’s Day / Thanksgiving to celebrate the American workers. The day has real significance and isn’t just the last hurrah before the end of summer and the beginning of a new school year. The American worker has worked to provide the goods and services that support the United States. They create the infrastructure that feeds, clothes and houses those living in America, whether they are residents, immigrants or visitors. Not only that, tens of millions are highly skilled and competent at their jobs, producing high quality work and services, often employing amazing innovation: They are good at their jobs. They are the unsung heroes of the nation who usually get little attention unless something goes terribly wrong. So Labor Day is a necessary benefit to recognize those who who work smarter, not just harder to provide us what we need and want.
The United States Department of Labor provides this short video on the history of Labor Day:
The United States Department of Labor also provides this history of Labor Day on their website:
Mike Rowe has a colorful history and has documented a great deal about blue collar workers in media. Mike Rowe is an Emmy award-winning TV host, producer, narrator, podcaster, spokesman, bestselling author, recording artist, and America’s leading advocate for the skilled trades. He has been hosting Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel since 2003 along with over a dozen other programs. In it
Here is the list of the top 11 high paying blue collar jobs with median salary by Mike Rowe:
- Bricklayer [$45,965]
- Chemical Plant Operator [$40,473]
- Dental Hygienist [$62,220]
- Derrickman [$46,072]
- Executive Housekeeper [$44,459]
- Firefighter [$44,597]
- Locomotive Engineer [$62,995]
- Medical Laboratory Technician [$41,737]
- Personal Trainer [$50,089]
- Police Officer [$50,089]
- Plumber [$40,334]
These jobs are often difficult, dangerous and dirty.
Workers can surprising at their jobs. Consider a few examples:
- A woman working at a well-known chain hardware store matches paint. Bring her a sample chip with the paint on it and she will make you a pint, quart or gallon of paint that will match. The match is so good that when the paint dries, you can’t tell the difference;
- Mike is the team lead of a moving company. He’s 5’9″ and small, but he can carry heavy boxes over his head. He’ll take that chair that doesn’t fit through the door into the study, turn it on its side on the carpet and angle it through. He and his team get everything moved in good order. He’s really good at his job.
- The repair team at an electronics store took all the parts purchased by a customer and assembled it into an AMD 7950X3D working desktop PC with 10 terrabytes of storage. It was brand new. They had never had done a build like it before. They enthusiastically assembled it in a week in good order. They enjoyed rising to the challenge and were grateful for the opportunity.
- The Asian American wound care physician’s assistant at an HMO is highly professional and personable. She takes patients and not only treat their wounds over several weeks but works with them to help instruct them on what to do between sessions. The job is demanding and she insures that each patient has what they need between sessions to care for the wound.
- When the 4 electricians came out to scope the work to install a 240 volt drier outlet, they made it extremely clear that they were highly trained, skilled and licensed. They went through with a complete test with the 100 AMP electrical panel by turning on everything from the oven to the electric base board heaters to the electric stove burners. What they found was that the draw was 95 Amps and that they could NOT legally install the outlet because the panel could not sustain the additional power. One of the electricians took one look downstairs at the breaker for the apartment and noted immediately that it was a Pacific Federal Power Switch — Pacific Federal switches and power panels have been banned in the United States for new installation and it is recommended that any already installed be replaced. It’s impressive that he would know this and determine it immediately, but he is, after all, a professional.
- For over 2 decades, the barber at the community college has taught students how to become barbers. He’s pleasant and fun but he is thoroughly professional and engages his students well. Many of them go on to establish their own (very popular) barber shops successfully. He is also on the state certification board.
- It may only be a tire store, but the workers there will repair and balance your tires for free. If they have to, they will stay after the store closes for the customers whose tires are being purchased or repaired will finish the work in process even after the store is closed for the customer to take their vehicle home after servicing.
- Dr. Craig and his wife are veterinarians. Dr. Craig has established a highly successful and renowned cat hospital with a cat boarding facility that has been in business for around 3 decades. If your cat in his care, it’s in good hands. He’s published articles and pod casts on a variety of topics regarding felines. He’s built quite an effective staff as well. By the way, every year on the last Saturday in April, World Veterinary Day celebrates the veterinary profession. The day also honors the lifesaving work performed by veterinarians around the world.
- Tim Pool is a journalist who has established his own ‘show’ with videos with a staff of over 30 people. He worked in his parent’s restaurant at the age of 9. He worked as a baggage handler for an airline for only a bit above minimum wage. He later worked for a magazine with ‘boots on the ground’ covering events all over the world, sometimes in dangerous ‘no go zones’. He was a participant in Occupy Wall Street in 2011. He’s ‘designed’ and built his own facility for the studio where he shares amazing guests viewed by millions. He has had solar panels set up for sustainable power and he’s taken on growing chickens for the eggs. He works tirelessly many hours a day, often 7 days a week.
- Harris Heller and his wife are musicians. He has been a gamer on Twitch and produces YouTube videos. He has built his own professional studio in his home. He provides free music for YouTubers to use in their videos. StreamBeats provides Copyright Free Music for Twitch Streamers and YouTubers. He helps and advises people how to develop YouTube business by using discipline and using resources wisely to reinvest in the business they build. He has two main channels: Harris Heller and Senpai Gaming.
- Steve Burke sets the Titanium Standard for journalism about Computer hardware at Gamers Nexus. He started in a room in his mother’s house ably assisted by his cat, Snowflake, and has gone on to build his business with a testing lab / video production facility with a dozen people consisting of technical staff and video production personnel. He has developed his own products that he sells, working with international businesses to produce his designed products he sells at his store. He’s learned Mandarin Chinese to work with companies in mainland China and Taiwan, tour production facilities, make documentaries and attend conferences. He collaborates with various people in the PC industry and he also has a weekly news summary. He has set up a website to document problems and challenges with computers. He also donates time and materials to a feline rescue facility.
Josh M. is a tasker you can hire for any number of tasks you may need to have done, from arts and crafts, automotive work, car washing, cleaning, computer help, cooking and baking, electrical work, errands, full service moving, furniture assembly, graphic design, lifting and loading, indoor painting, light carpentry, minor home repairs, packing and unpacking, pet sitting, photography, plumbing help, Power washing, snow removal, TV mounting, trash and furniture removal to yard work. He’s also a licensed real estate agent and a tattoo artist. He does excellent work.- Julio C. is a tasker originally from Puerto Rico. He has 8+ years of experience in light construction, electrical and plumbing. Worked at Lowe’s as merchandiser. Quick reply, safe and professional. Speaks English and Spanish. He has many talents and skills — he is especially adept in assembling furniture. He does an excellent job assembling standing desks. He will sit cross legged on the carper reading and studying the instructions and then methodically follow them along with whatever innovation is needed to finish the job in good order. He plans to become an audio engineer.
- David S. is a very diligent, very busy handyman who has his own tools necessary to get almost any job done around the house as well as the experience. He is DIY handyman going on 10 yrs now. He is especially adept at yard work and has all the tools to do the work. David is very strong. He came to assist with portable air conditioners to unpack, set up and move them. He’s profoundly strong: He picked up an air conditioner to carry to the sink, lifted it up and pulled the plug to drain it. When he finishes with cords and cables they are very neatly arranged to keep out of the way and look good. He does furniture assembly, moving, mounting, indoor painting, light carpentry, minor home repair, mounting, plumbing and any number of useful tasks, both in door and out. He’s extremely reliable and excellent to work with.
These are only a very few of the tens of millions of workers doing excellent work, service and construction who have a pride in workmanship. This Labor Day is their day for the respect and honor for what they do for and in this nation.
But there are those who do not honor the work force.
There are so many who believe that they are elite — people who ostracize and look down on the day to day workers as being inferior and not worth their consideration; people with whom the elite would not associate on a social level. The ‘normies’ are below them. They are the slaves and servants which do the ‘invisible’ jobs. There is a class society in the United States. At the top are the elite: The rich, the politicians, the leftists, the media, the actors, singers and athletes, the well-connected, those who were born to wealth and status. The hubris and narcissism is summed up by the rather facetious New England ditty:
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells speak only to Cabots,
And the Cabots speak only to God.
Those of us who have gone through the Worldwide Church of God experience generally know a little about this principle where the rank and file made up of ordinary workers were the silent partners of a Corporatist organization with serious, highly structured class divisions of the haves and the have-nots. The regular member was usually treated with at best an emotional distancing and at worst outright contempt, especially when, instead of providing money to the elite of the church, the member had a ‘problem’ — a ‘problem’ met with some serious ‘correction’ and oppressive (but dubious) ‘solutions’. The classes were clearly ranked and named (although the lower class were not explicitly called ‘proles’ they were treated as such): Deacons and deaconesses, local elders, elders, preaching elders, pastors, evangelists and… Apostle (of which there was only one, not 12 as in the ‘original’). The elders talked only to elders and the Apostle talked with (to) god.
This class distinction was bad enough, but what if you happened to work for the Worldwide Church of God, Ambassador College or Imperial Schools? What if you were a worker? Heaven help us. Now many of you have read A Failed Experiment by Neotherm, describing what it was like as a conscientious objector working for Ambassador College in Big Sandy Texas. The workers were treated horribly as low level captive slaves: If the elites took umbrage, the worker would be dismissed without so much as by-your-leave and face a stiff prison sentence! The Chancellor made the disdain and contempt he had for them very clear from the first day on campus. Any excuse could be the end of you if you were working the I-W program there. Mean girl teens of evangelists could demand a worker to drop everything to serve them to do their bidding or they would tell their daddies. Evil teen male evangelist sons could disrupt their work and end their miserable lives instantly. The miserable lives included living separate from Ambassador College Students and the worst offense would be to date coeds. They set up the auditorium for feasts and generally did the dirty scut work of petty administrators.
Now you may think that professional workers would fare much better, but that is not the case. They were generally overworked and underpaid. Many of them left profitable and enjoyable careers to work for the cult only to find themselves without a job without warning… you know, the needs of the Work and all that (more like bad planning by incompetent administrators). In some cases, workers were vetted, left their professional job, moved with all their stuff and found when they arrived at campus the job wasn’t available by the time they arrived. Sometimes when this occurred they had to work to find out they weren’t really hired and had to see and call several people before they learned the truth that they were stranded.
Herbert Armstrong often bragged that his workers were well paid. Of course they were, if you are talking about 1920 money.
This not everything that the workers had to endure. A professional TV studio cameraman from a major network came to work in Pasadena. His wife related the impact of all the corruption that the venue had on the family. It was so wrenching and enervating to see. hear and experience the evils of those around them in the Church and on the campus. It really took its toll.
Those who experienced these types of things did so as a harbinger of things to come in the real world later on. Benito Mussolini was quoted as saying, “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” He never said that. What he did say was:
The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State–a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values–interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.
and
Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which diverent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State.
Corporatism is the fascism of fusing government [control] with a corporate structure with a top down hierarchy where there is no freedom, communication is censored and authoritarianism is absolute. You know, like mainland China with it’s fictional communism. It’s not communism, it’s corporatism and the globalists are bringing it to the rest of the world. It’s great if you’re on top. It’s bad if you are on the bottom. Just ask the warehouse workers at Amazon.
It’s like Scientology head David Miscavige punching his lieutenant Mike Rinder in the gut to demonstrate his alpha male dominance combined with the CCP putting up netting around factory buildings so desperate depressed Chinese workers making iPhones for elite adolescent Americans can’t commit suicide.
In George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty Four, members of the working class were known as proles. In the book, The proles make up the majority of the population, yet they are largely ignored and not granted any real rights or power. They are kept in a state of subjugation and ignorance by the government and the Inner Party, and their only hope for meaningful change is rebellion. It’s no wonder that today in the United States, t-shirts are for sale with “Make 1984 fiction again” printed on them. While the lower class proles in the United States provide all the goods and services and without whom the United States could not exist, the upper class elites look with disdain and contempt on them. While we may or may not have some high concept speech from President Joe Biden this weekend about Labor Day (if he doesn’t freeze during the speech, shake hands with people who aren’t there and fall flat on his face when he leaves the podium), we all pretty much know he doesn’t mean it and along with the rest of the Deep State granting us lock downs (more are coming), mask mandates, social distancing and vaccinations (that don’t work and / or give the disease they are meant to prevent and passing them along), being that he and the elites pretty much hate us… except for the illegal aliens coming across the border to replace us. The workers recognize the disdain and outright disrespect from the elite, from the grossly incompetent legislators and administration, the rich and the powerful, from the corporatists. We’re beginning to notice it and we aren’t happy. Here’s a less than subtle expression to indicate our frustration and displeasure:
So to those workers of America, we honor you with the recognition you deserve on Labor Day. Thank you for your service.
Excellent article. Thank you for that!