"Laborvision" and Social Justice

Last night from 7-8 p.m. I watched "Laborvision" on the Public Access station. I like this show. It's often stimulating. There are local panels, filming of local labor events, commentaries, etc. Last night they presented two speeches given at a conference, "Inequality Matters," two years ago.

One was author Barbara Ehrenreich . She is the author of "Nickel and Dimed," and "Bait and Switch." She's also a blogger.In the former she works at minimum wage jobs and attempts to support herself. In the second she works at entering the white collar job market & tries to support herself. In both attempts she basically gets screwed. Both are fascinating, depressing, short reads. From personnel experience with family & friends, I know that she speaks the truth.

She gave a short moving speech. Press here for the link. She initially caught my attention by mentioning a school library in NYC that had few books & no card catalog. Encyclopedias that were almost 15 yrs. old. Welcome to my world. I scrounged for encyclopedias and convinced other schools & the public library to give me their discards. While we at least had paper catalogs, there was no computer catalog. Even the staff couldn't remember how to use the it. Something worth getting mad about rather than the resignation of a local librarian. She also has a new book coming out, "Dancing in the Streets."

Then Bill Moyers spoke. I've heard him before and read some of his speeches. He spoke for about 40 min. and my husband and I would have listened to another 40. He not only is extremely articulate, he's quite passionate and always strikes a nerve. I assume he writes his own speeches and quite excellently. I'd put him at the top of my list for speakers worth listening to. He always has something of importance to say and knows how to say it. His delivery alone is worth watching (even if he had zilch to say). Politicans and other speech givers would do well to study this man (with the exception of Sen. Levesque - he's got most of it down). This talk was long, but reads just as effectively when he's not there to speak it. Press here for the link. Look under PDF files for Moyers, "Take back America."

His speech ended:

"What we need is a mass movement of people like you. Get mad, yes – there’s plenty to be mad about. Then get organized and get busy. This is the fight of our lives."

Remember, he wrote this two years ago. I guess it worked (somebody was listening). But we still have a lot more to do. Forget librarians' resigning. Let's get the real work done.