Unreported

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A brief history of Labor Day, DN producer attacked at RNC, followed by an interview with Jan Brewer on her accidental Obama endorsement, why you should hate Mitt Romney even more than you already do, a bizarre update on the South African miner massacre, and child-free couples.

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Listen to the new Citizen Radio and subscribe to the free podcast.

Happy Labor Day! Unemployment is still extremely high, and doesn’t count those who couldn’t find jobs, the under-employed, and minimum wage workers. The CIA once handed over a key Libyan rebel to Gaddafi, Drunken Uganda wishes a listener a very happy birthday, and a former GOP hack confesses about the right’s shadowy political tactics.

Special announcement: Australia! Come out to support the BDS cause:

Melbourne protest, 5:30pm Friday 9 September. Meet at the State Library of Victoria.
Sydney protest, 1pm Saturday 10 September. Meet outside Newtown Neighbourhood Centre.
Perth protest 1pm Saturday 17 September. Meet at Murray Street Mall.

Citizen Radio is a member-supported show. Visit http://wearecitizenradio.com to sign up and support media that won’t lead you to war!

Over 100 years later, workers in Hershey’s plant describe the same inhumane process of “speeding up” described in Upton Sinclair’s Jungle:

The Jungle, 1906:

But let no one suppose that this superfluity of employees meant easier work for any one! On the contrary, the speeding-up seemed to be growing more savage all the time; they were continually inventing new devices to crowd the work on–it was for all the world like the thumbscrew of the medieval torture chamber. They would get new pacemakers and pay them more; they would drive the men on with new machinery–it was said that in the hog-killing rooms the speed at which the hogs moved was determined by clockwork, and that it was increased a little every day. In piecework they would reduce the time, requiring the same work in a shorter time, and paying the same wages; and then, after the workers had accustomed themselves to this new speed, they would reduce the rate of payment to correspond with the reduction in time! They had done this so often in the canning establishments that the girls were fairly desperate; their wages had gone down by a full third in the past two years, and a storm of discontent was brewing that was likely to break any day.

Hershey plant, present day:

The Palmyra J-1 workers packed and lifted 65 pound boxes of candy at breakneck speed, many on night shift. They complained of severe back pain, bruising, and numbness in their arms.

Workers were subjected to camera surveillance and were told they would be fired if they didn’t keep up the pace. Zhao Huijiao, a 20-year-old international relations student from China, said managers pushed them, “work, work faster, work.” Students said they were threatened with deportation if they didn’t keep up.

Oh, hello. I’ve been somewhat MIA the last few days because I’m currently in Seattle for Bumbershoot (Citizen Radio co-host Jamie Kilstein is performing in the festival). I’m not a music reviewer, so my inarticulate summary of my experience thus far translates: Edward Sharpe = AWESOME!

Other than dancing like a dirty hippy to a beautifully insane 10-person band, I, along with 30 million aging hippies, post-post modern hipsters, and drunken douchebag frat boys crammed into an sporting arena that could double as an internment camp to watch Bob Dylan “sing.”

Judging from Twitter, a lot of people were there just so they could say they saw Dylan before he died, which struck me as a really sick and ugly motivation. Of course, that’s why I was there, too, but I had the courtesy to leave after one of the aging hippies started to projectile vomit, which set off a horrific chain reaction of puking and near-stampeding. Most people stayed and maintained the illusion that they were there to experience a genuine cultural moment.

Since I’ve been preoccupied silently resenting most of the people at this festival/trying to score some interviews, I haven’t had time to read the news, though a couple things jumped out at me that I highly recommend reading.

• Glenzilla contrasts NBC’s propaganda-peddling (the combat troops are “out of Iraq”) with the AP’s refusal to parrot the Pentagon’s script.
• Tasers are now being used to sell Direct TV. Hilarious stuff. Also in tasering news, Washington police have killed five civilians in a single week, and two of those deaths involved tasers. (h/t Nicole)
• My friend Jenn Pozner was on the Today Show to talk about women’s roles on television. Jenn is a super savvy author, and she managed to cram a bunch of interesting facts into a typically short morning television segment.
• My favorite little, black storm cloud, Krugs, blows a hole in the recovery myth
• On this Labor Day, let’s give thanks for immigrants who helped (and continue to help) build America.
• The unstoppable, but totally-not-caused-by-global warming, fires that swept across Russia have led to a ban on exported wheat, which may in turn lead to more food riots. Also, Al Gore is still fat.

Jamie and I were on the Best Of The Left podcast the other day. You can hear the interview here. BOTL is a great podcast that exists because of listener donations, so if you value great podcasts, give ‘em a couple bucks.