By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 5th, 2011 
Today is Labor Day in the U.S. In practice, for most Americans, the primary significance of the day is as the unofficial last day of summer. I just went for a long swim in my outdoor pool, which closes today.
There are also political and union activities on the labor theme, marking the official reason for the holiday. Thus, President Obama gave a speech today in Detroit to a union gathering, previewing the themes of his long awaited address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, addressing the concerns of organized labor.
This September date as a workers holiday was originally chosen by the Central Union of New York in 1882. It is strange that the rest of the world celebrates May 1st as the international day of labor, marking the Haymarket Affair of 1886, a scandalous labor conflict in Chicago. During the cold war, the U.S. even officially designated May 1st as “loyalty day.” The contrast with the practice of the Soviet Union and its allies was essential. The American Labor Day, though, has an equally serious origin. It became a national holiday after the violent events surrounding the Pullman Strike of 1894. American indeed has an important and rich labor history.
I think it is unfortunate that American labor’s celebration is out of sync with the rest of the world. We commemorate alone, which weakens the power of the ritual. Nonetheless, especially now, when labor issues are so central, as President Obama indicated in his speech, it is important to take notice. I recall some previous Deliberately Considered posts.
Rachel Sherman’s “Domestic Workers Gain Visibility, Legitimacy” noted an advance in labor legislation in the state of New York. She highlighted the achievements of the Domestic Workers Union to agitate and achieve some fundamental rights in the new legislation, concerning overtime, vacation leave and protections against sexual and racial harassment. As she also observed the place of American domestic workers in the global economy and the connection between class and gender, . . .
Read more: In Review: On Labor Day
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, August 23rd, 2011 
In recent posts, Vince Carducci examining the urban environment in terms of psychogeography, derive and detournment, and the gift and potlatch, explored the art of Detroit, the city at the epicenter of Fordism and ground zero of post – Fordist devastation. While I think his inquiry is illuminating, showing art playing an important role in democratic society, I am skeptical about his political utopianism, as he stands on the shoulders of Marx and the Situationists and Ken Wark’s account of them. I don’t think that the full power of the artwork is captured as a critique of capitalism or that the full political significance of the work is in its message. We disagree, once again, on art as propaganda and how art becomes politically significant.
Artwork, and the world it creates when appreciated, is, in my judgment, more important than context. The art, its independent domain, is where the action is, which is then related to a variety of different contexts. To be sure, Carducci shows how this works. Detroit artists don’t only speak to each other, creating work that communicates for themselves and their immediate audience. They speak to the de-industrializing world, providing insights, suggesting an alternative way of living. But this can work in many different ways, not necessarily tied to political programs of the left or the right or the center.
Take an example drawn from two past posts: Ivo Andric novelistic depiction of The Bridge on the Drina inspired Elzbieta Matynia to reflect on the way that bridge, connecting Serbia and Bosnia, provided a space for interaction between people from elsewhere, at the kapia, the public square on the bridge, enabling civility. Her account, in turn, inspired me to reflect upon the bridges I observe on my daily run through the public park that was the Rockefeller estate, and provided me with critical perspective for thinking about the devastation . . .
Read more: In Review: Democracy and Art for Art Sake (Without Elitism)
By Cecilia Rubino, May 1st, 2011 
“We heard an explosion, through the shattering glass
We looked up at the Asch building
A bundle of cloth came flying out the window
On the way down it opened up in the wind
It was a girl, it was girl.”
(From the Fire)
Today is May Day, “el Dia del Trabajo,” a day in which work and workers are honored around the globe. Today in particular, five weeks after the hundredth anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, we remember the 146 immigrant workers, most Jewish and Italian girls, who died trying to escape flames that roared through the upper floors of the Asch building, a garment factory near Washington Square. Trapped behind locked doors, many never had the chance to escape. Others jumped out the windows, some hand-in-hand, their hair and clothes aflame.
Saturday, March 25, 1911 was a clear, early spring day. Crowds of New Yorkers strolled in Washington Square and on the streets of the lower East Side. Suddenly at 4:45, many looked up and saw smoke billowing from a ten story building on Green Street and Washington Place. Hundreds rushed to the scene. One observer said he thought the factory owner was trying to save his best cloth by throwing bundles of fabric from the ninth floor. He and so many others realized in horror that they were seeing not bundles of cloth falling from the windows but girls — girls in flame, girls who were landing in broken heaps on the sidewalk in front of them. The fire which lasted less than half an hour, made these invisible immigrant workers suddenly starkly visible. Photographs of the mangled bodies were printed in the morning newspapers but still thousands came to view the open coffins lined up in rows on ‘Misery Lane,’ the makeshift morgue set up on the peer at 26th Street. Some were family and friends desperately searching for missing loved ones but most wanted to just see the dead with their own eyes. Ocular proof.
New Yorkers felt that they knew these shirtwaist makers. They were the girls who . . .
Read more: May Day’s Ocular Proof: A Bundle of Cloth
|
Blogroll
On the Left
On the Right
|