Why We Need Social Justice Now More Than Ever

Managing Editor

   Watching the labor battle play out in Wisconsin over the last several weeks, one might wonder if all the heel-digging and sign-waving is an omen of populist outrage to come or just an anomaly.

   If the past is any indication, as soon as the media turn away to point at something else, an attention-deficit America will latch onto the next soundbyte and promptly forget about the war that corporations and the politicians in their pockets have waged against American workers.

   American prosperity is falling by the wayside. A few rich and fabulous are dangled before us as carrots to keep us working and spending (and charging) for cars, electronics, high fashion and what have you, but fewer and fewer people are achieving financial success and independence.

   As the economy began tanking, and the numbers of poor increased, a disturbing attitude shift began to take hold. Instead of helping these people rise into the middle class, we are cutting them off, leaving them practically for dead. Budget cuts are aimed at nutrition programs for children and pregnant women, for example. Social services are being gutted. Even help for the disabled and the elderly in the form of Social Security is on the chopping block. Those lazy good-for-nothings! Let old people go back to eating dog food!

   Glenn Beck even began demonizing the very idea of service to others. In a stunning display of What Would Jesus Definitely Not Do, he urged congregants to leave their churches if social justice was in any way part of that church's mission.

   “Look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can,” he said.

   Apparently, Beck thinks Christ was a dog-eat-dog free-market capitalist. Perhaps the money-changers in the temple actually set up a charity that really ticked Jesus off.

   I say that in jest, of course, but people more widely than ever have bought into “prosperity gospel” such as that taught by Joel Osteen, which holds that God blesses whom He favors with material wealth.

   Aside from the fact that we can all think of some really nasty people who have a lot of money, and some really good people who don't, the philosophy of “prosperity gospel” is exceptionally dangerous because it primes people to believe that the poor and disadvantaged deserve their fate. It becomes much easier to ignore the real roots of poverty and social illness and dismiss it wholly as a result of sin, corruption and bad choices; after all, if they were good Christians, that rabble wouldn't be in such a mess.

   Wasn't Hurricane Katrina divine retribution for sexual immorality, after all? All those New Orleans sinners (including children and the elder poor) had it coming, according to Pat Robertson and John Hagee and the like.

   If we are ever to realize a world with less crime, less poverty and hunger, less suffering, we must decide that every person is worth something. And if you can't get behind that, can we at least agree that every child is worth something?

   What I'd like to ask these prosperity gospelers is, what did the children in poverty do to deserve their fate? Why does your God supposedly punish poor kindergartners by denying them coats and warm homes and full bellies? Maybe the kids in the free lunch line in elementary school, besides being suckling, socialist piglets, made bad life decisions and just aren't good enough Christians.

   When you occupy a place of relative privilege, it's easy to believe you deserve to be there, whether you worked or earned your way there or not.  And it's easy to believe that people who aren't as privileged as you had the same opportunities you did.

   To be fair, bad decisions can and do cause people to fall, often spectacularly, into debt and poverty, and they can prevent people from escaping it. However, this must not be the default assumption. We must look deeper at the stratifying forces that shape our society and tend to hold people in place.

   Infants born into poverty already have strikes against them. According to studies quoted in James W. Loewen's “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong,” their mothers are far less likely to receive prenatal care or adequate nutrition, and as such they are born less healthy than their more privileged counterparts. They get less parental interaction, often as a result of the mother having to work, and get lower-quality daycare than children of more affluent working parents. They often go on to schools that spend less per student and have a higher student-teacher ratio than more affluent suburban schools. When they do attend the same schools as more affluent children, their teachers often expect much less of them.

   They're not exactly getting off to a good start.

   Furthermore, the poor are often afflicted with circumstantial and logistical problems that make job success less attainable. They often lack nice clothes appropriate for an interview. Transportation problems can hinder a job search or regular attendance at work. When resources are sharply limited, it's not so easy just to decide to move out of the ghetto or the trailer park. There are exceptions, of course, but poverty has a way of holding people hostage.

   Lacking the connections the more privileged enjoy, they have less opportunity through networking and are more subject to prejudice. And if you don't think there's still discrimination in the workplace, think again. I was once illegally questioned about my marital status and how many children I have (they wanted names) on an application, only to be told by the manager that they don't hire single mothers. A white friend of mine was recently told upon applying for a job, “Well, at least you're the right color.”

   Some of us, no matter our skills or moral fortitude, just aren't given a fair shake. And to make matters worse, when middle-class or working poor are saddled with unemployment as a result of outside economic factors, simply having a “gap” between jobs makes them immediately less likely to be hired.

   When considering these factors, figure in the mass exodus of US jobs to other countries. Factor in the super-rich guys on Wall Street who played a massive shell game with what might as well have been Monopoly money and crashed the economy, which then in turn shook off American workers like fleas after a dip. Factor in budget cuts in nearly every sector. Add inflation on everything from gas to cereal, divide by the US population and solve for x.

   X equals pain.

   And when enough people are in pain, and you squeeze them hard enough and chip away at every means of survival they have, they pour into the streets. Look at Egypt and Libya.

   Look at Wisconsin. Scott Walker is no Gaddafi but he sure is stepping on the necks of American workers. And it's not exactly playing well in his poll numbers, although the Kochs are pretty happy with him.

   What mainstream media often leave out of the Wisconsin debate is the union laborers already conceded wage and benefit reductions. What they are fighting for now is simply the right to keep a place at the table. They are fighting to retain whatever small bulwark workers have against the corporate tendency to exploit them and demand more productivity for less and less compensation. After all, over the last several decades, real wages have fallen as worker productivity has risen. People are working harder than ever and still struggling to get by.

   Wisconsin union laborers are the front lines of the battle for the middle class because unions helped make the middle class.

   Corporations are afraid of unions. They recognize the power of a group of people united in purpose, the strength in its numbers, and its ability to withhold the contribution of labor, thereby threatening the productivity and the bottom line of the corporation. But unions are a necessary counterweight to the financial and political power of those corporations, or else workers are at their mercy.

   Much like non-unionized workers today, who have few protections and who have seen their paychecks shrink.

   I've heard the argument lately that union workers (teachers and cops in this situation) have it “too good,” that their pay far exceeds that of non-union, private-sector workers. First, I don't know any rich cops or teachers. And second, if people are angry that unionized workers get better pay and benefits, perhaps they should take it as a hint to organize. Sign union cards.

   Even though this fact has been thrown around a lot lately, it bears repeating: Unions are responsible for the comparatively comfortable working conditions most of us enjoy today, such as 40-hour weeks, off days and vacations. Not to mention none of our 10-year-olds are working in sweatshops. Why would anyone give up their right to fight for workplace fairness? More importantly, who but corporate interests (who are compelled by law to serve shareholders over all other interests, human, ecological or otherwise) would fight against the right to workplace fairness? After all, and workers must remember this: labor costs cut directly into the bottom line, and a surefire way to increase the bottom line is to cut labor costs. In other words, they make more money when they cut wages, cut jobs, or--even better--send operations overseas to exploit the impoverished of third-world countries who work for pennies for long hours and have virtually no protections against exploitation.

   The right of people to negotiate the value of their labor, as opposed to their labor being exploited at the whim of corporate interest, is a matter of social justice. And as economic factors continue to squeeze the people, the ranks of the lower economic classes will swell with those forced out of the middle class by disappearing jobs and shrinking wages.

   When the value of x increases, and people's tolerance for pain reaches its threshold, unless you ease that pain by addressing not only the symptoms but the causes, if you give up completely on the Christ-like notion of service to others, if you leave behind the least fortunate among you, eventually the “rabble” will show up at the castle doors with torches.

   And our numbers are growing. Some are already at the door, just ask Scott Walker.

   Or maybe I'm completely wrong and we all deserve what we get, and those Wall Street guys who destroyed our economy and walked away with bags of money are just damn good Christians.

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