This year the blue collar worker has achieved iconic status. The subtext is race and there is something about being white, working class, and male that means being quintessentially American. Perhaps it marks a subconscious return to the days when only white male property owners were allowed to vote. Oddly, we haven’t heard much about the black working class or the Hispanic working class. Don’t they vote too? What about working women?
Moreover, a recent report in the Washington Post shows Obama leading McCain among white working voters. (The report also reveals a distinct lack of confidence for either candidate on the part of the poor.) So what’s the story? Our panel today includes Eric Foner, professor of History at Columbia University, Bill Henning, Vice President of the Communications Workers of America Local 1180, Esther Kaplan Investigative Editor at The Nation Institute, and Bill Fletcher Executive Editor of The Black Commentator.
We also have an interview with author John Bowe. In the course working on his first book, Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs, Bowe discovered a dirty little secret at the heart of the global economy. He found out that slave labor is alive and well and that there were pockets of slavery and labor exploitation throughout the United States and the rest of the world. That led him to write, Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy, recently out in paperback. In this interview Bowe argues that slavery may be endemic to the human psyche. We like to think, in our enlightened 21st century world, that slavery could not possibly exist. Yet 145 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the CIA estimates that 14,500 to 17,000 foreigners are “trafficked” annually into the United States, threatened with violence, and forced to work against their will. Most of us aren’t inclined to listen, Bowe says. But this is what globalization means.
Finally, Red State Road Trip episode 16. Chris Hume heads to Crawford, Texas one of the few places George W. Bush still has friends. A report from the American News Project on the anti-smoking drug Chantix, often prescribed to veterans. It has some nasty side effects including suicidal behavior. The Real News on what economic change would look like. And Brave New Films sends Bill O'Reilly back to school.
All that and more on GRITtv.
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