Dumb and Dumber

When asked why he’d make a better candidate now than he has in the past, Newt Gingrich said, “I do fewer dumb things.” Oops.

He made that claim after calling child labor laws stupid. These are laws that took more than a hundred years of struggle to bring about. And, finally, in 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed setting minimum ages and hours of work for children.

Before that, yes here in America, children were sometimes forced into indentured servitude, slavery, or were simply the preferred workers. Why? Children were easier to control and didn’t tend to form unions that might go on strike. Gee, could this have anything to do with Gingrich’s desire to hire children again?

According to the Child Labor Public Education Project, “Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined…” Along with the push to protect children from dangerous conditions of labor was the effort to provide free, compulsory public education to all children. At one time in our country the belief was that an educated populace was necessary for a democratic society.

Instead, according to the Los Angeles Times, Newt “Gingrich blames ‘the core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization’ for ‘crippling’ children”. Really? Could this be the true reason for Gingrich’s dumb assertion? Perhaps his agenda on unions ought to be what we look at. Busting unions has been on the Republican agenda for a long time now. And, remember, children don’t tend to form unions.

What’s even more incredible about Gingrich’s statements is his suggestion that school janitors be fired so students can be hired to clean their own schools. Is he serious about that? He wants to fire people who actually have jobs in this terrible economy so that children can be taken away from focusing on their education, something which might actually give them options for a decent future. Huh?

To top it all off, Gingrich says he has “extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America”, and that “it is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid.” Really? What’s tragic is what we don’t do in poor neighborhoods in this richest country in the world. What’s tragic is that Newt Gingrich and those who agree with him don’t want people to think about what unions have done for children and working people in our country. What’s tragic is the denial of history and the unwillingness of Newt Gingrich and others to thank unions for the five day work week, the eight hour day, the protections from abuse in the workplace and the ability to have a say in their working lives.

Gingrich says the Occupy Wall Street protesters should “get a job” and “take a bath”. Yeah, well, getting a job these days is next to impossible. And as for cleanliness, this is the same disrespectful barb tossed out at the early protesters of the Vietnam War, protests that grew into a majority of Americans who forced an end to the war. The Occupy protesters belong to the 99%. To disagree with their arguments is to claim membership in the 1%, Newt. Dumb.