…I think that reveals something about the hidden class dimensions of our public policy; our grocery bills are determined, the policies, determined by people, who themselves never go to supermarkets.
Our health policy is written out y people who never have to sit for 2 hours in a clinic or an hour in a doctors office.
Our transportation policy is made by people who never have to wait for a bus or look for a parking space, they’ve got helicopters and linos to hurry them away.
Our education policy is made by people who never have to send their children to public school, they send them to private schools(cough polis cough).
Our daycare system, or lack of, determined by people who use private governesses and Nannies, and then go off to Smith College as Barbara Bush did, and lectured to the students there about not being so concerned about accomplishing in your careers and understand that the real joy and satisfaction is in the working and nurturing of children…
… occupational safety laws are made by people who never have to work in a factory or mine. The Supreme Court has ruled that wildcat strikes are illegal, a “violation of contract.” In coal mines , wildcat strikes are the workers only defense against occupational hazards that can be disastrous in a day. You’re going down a mine and you see a foreman detach an alarm wire, that rings the alarm if there’s too much smoke buildup, because he’s got a quota to meet that day and he doesn’t want to stop for smoke buildup, so you stop and go on wildcat strike.
Well, the Supreme Court, none of whom have been NEAR a factory in their lives, or NEAR a mine, and wouldn’t know one end of a mine from another, legislate and say, “as long as there’s a grievance procedure (grievances take a week, two weeks, a month….)That wildcat actions are a “violation of contract and the union must be fined.”
You see? The policy is being made by people who don’t experience the thing.
-Michael Parenti, transcribed by hand from a random speech