A Proud New Dealer Runs for Congress

The special election to fill Rahm Emanuel’s seat in Illinois's 5th District in the House of Representatives should be getting more attention from progressive and liberal elements of The Democratic Party. The simple reason is about who is running for the Democrats. Thomas Geoghegan, labor lawyer, writer, and staunch advocate for the poor who Thomas Frank glowingly praises in a commentary written in the Wall Street Journal. Thomas Frank describes Geoghegan’s writing skills as “brilliant ... possessed of an elegant, conversational prose style and an eye for the haunting detail.” And so it was: the silent, suffering antithesis to the great choir then starting its hymn to omniscient markets and the ever-ascending Dow. For decades Mr. Geoghegan has been a brilliant defender of “organized labor" ... through times "when everyone else was coming to accept the post-industrial order. The basic point that he would make was that the decline of unions wasn't a reflection of consumer choice, in the way that hot movies and popular toys are said to be. Labor unions were hemorrhaging members because the game was rigged against them; because it was nearly impossible for workers to organize when the penalties incurred by management for firing pro-union employees were so slight.” Frank praises Geoghegan’s writing by declaring his “1991 book, "Which Side Are You On?" -- the best book on labor to appear in the past 50 years” that "continued my education about the blue-collar world. An "anti-world," Mr. Geoghegan called it, a "secret world" Mr. Geoghegan knew so much about. Frank adds his own remarks to reinforce Mr. Geoghegan's observations: "And so it was:" Frank elucidates; "the silent, suffering antithesis to the great choir then starting its hymn to omniscient markets and the ever-ascending Dow.” Frank posits that the collapse of "conservative orthodoxy" into "a heap of complex derivatives" makes this a perfect time for Mr. Geoghegan to spread his “refreshing dose of plain-spoken Midwestern reality ... to the nation as a whole.” Frank provides a number of insightful observations regarding Mr. Geoghegan’s views on government, working people and the economy: “To begin with, Mr. Geoghegan thinks big while Democrats in Washington tend to think small, proposing a stimulus package here and better oversight there." Frank adds from a conversation he recently had with Geoghegan in which Frank remembers that (t)he government's goal should not merely be in Geoghegan’s view "to pump up demand again." Frank explains that the purpose of government "should be to enact sweeping, structural change," which Geoghegan believes will force government "to get in a position where we're not bleeding jobs out of the country." And Frank continues the point, as: “For the view that working people have no business with retirement and health care in the lean, mean, inevitable future, Mr. Geoghegan has a certain contempt. He wants to increase Social Security payments to make up for the destruction of private pension plans and expand Medicare with the goal of arriving, eventually, at single-payer health care." Geoghegan believes: "The $700 billion bank bailout," he explains, "proves that such expenses can be borne. What's more, they're necessary.” Geoghegan explains that: "Economic security is not only compatible with being competitive globally," he tells Frank; "it's crucial to it." Frank concurs that: "Until we shift the burden of pensions and health care from companies to government we will continue to endure" what Geoghegan describes as "debacles like General Motors" and other entities. "It is also time," Geoghegan believes according to Frank, "to change the relationship between the financial sector and the rest of the economy. After all," Geoghegan tells Frank: "We bought into these banks, we ought to have directors on the boards. We the people, as stockholders, have different interests than some other stockholders because we have some other ideas about how we prosper in the long term." Mr. Geoghegan elaborates: "rather than go for high-roller returns on financial speculations," Frank adds in to suggest "a publicly appointed director" that Geoghegan explains "might be willing to accept lower returns in manufacturing where we can be globally competitive and create good jobs." Thomas Frank gets it: “This is supposed to be a time for bold ideas on the left, with the failures of the free-market consensus becoming more glaring and more painful by the day. And Mr. Geoghegan's ideas should be part of the debate." "Indeed,” Frank concludes of Mr.Geoghegan: “this scholarly labor lawyer may be exactly the man for the moment. He is an unrepentant New Dealer with an old-fashioned sense of civic duty and an admitted fondness for Washington. Unlike so many who have been called to service in this economic crisis, he has no period of embarrassing new economy enthusiasm to apologize for. And despite the stories we tell ourselves about corrupt Chicago, change is possible. Voters need merely to seize the opportunity.” If only our nation could produce more thinkers, writers and politicians that demonstrated, on a daily basis, Geoghegan’s highly perceptive understanding of how America does not work for the laborers who keep the nation tirelessly advancing and instead, understand how the financiers and managerial class work to maintain the lowly status of labor. If only our legislators were moved to produce laws that would provide for easy union membership and protect the rights of the unions against the rich and powerful. If such a reality existed where the insights of Mr. Geoghegan formed the underlying thought for people to understand how the system is rigged against their best interests and their ability to make a decent middle class living; America would be a much better nation. America would take its rightful place as the provider of free for all regardless of race, ethnicity, class, gender, beliefs or sexual preference; the defender of the powerless, the guardian against the powerful. We can create a world that operates and provides acceptable means of maintaining a healthy and robust economic system; such a reality would give people, regardless of their personal characteristics, a sense of worthiness and dignity that would assure equitable treatment for the unions and the laborers they represent. The masses of Americans who take on the drudgery of daily labor need to recognize and assimilate the teachings of Mr. Geoghegan as a means for furthering a better nation that is responsive to the needs of all Americans.