Report from the September 28, 2024, Debs Dinner

  It’s 2024. It’s an election year. The Debs Banquet held on September 28, 2024 missed the chance to drive this home to all of us.

At the Debs Dinner last night working people talked real issues and interests. We actually spoke the words--LIBERAL, WORKING CLASS and UNION-- out loud. The sky didn’t crash through the ceiling. LIBERAL, WORKING CLASS, UNION were words spoken with pride and purpose.  For years we heard trickle down nonsense from Republicans, always an indication another tax cut for the super-rich was about to be handed out. But . . .

At bottom workers (“at bottom” and that’s where far too many Americans still  reside in this economy),  want nothing more than a living wage for a week of hard work. The homeless need affordable housing. The uninsured yearn for a national health care system that delivers their families from fear. And the economically left behind crave schools that nurture curiosity and prepare their kids for opportunities not endless tests and book bans that tie teachers and students into meaningless knots. Women want to control their own bodies.

If unions and workers supported candidates that delivered these reasonable necessities, really supported them through education, organization and commitment, Americans would head for the polls and vote with a smile on their faces and a “Solidarity Forever” song in their hearts.

To my mind, the Debs dinner failed to champion, push, even nudge with specific conviction, the needed political support for the Harris-Walz ticket and the down ballot Democrat candidates in Indiana and around the nation. I failed to hear the names Harris-Walz mentioned even once.

What if Trump is elected? What if both houses of the U. S. Congress go Republican in 2024? What if the Indiana state legislature remains in the jaws of the reactionary right?  Where would this leave the working class in the United States? In Indiana?   Won’t our fight for deserved dignity, a fair monetary return for our labor, a secure future in retirement, be made into a very steep uphill battle?  

A Trump/Republican win would mean battles in conservative saturated courts, doomed struggles with state and federal boards and agencies packed with corporate leaning country club types, and legislative losses (state and national) on everything from “right to work” (sic) laws to women’s rights.

Electing Harris-Walz and Democrats in national and state elections won’t mean an easy path, a road without challenges to what is right and just for workers. But it will mean worker’s voices always being heard and mainly acted on, clear obstacles to safety and justice in the workplace removed, and judges in courts ruling from a human perspective rather than from the current top down, profits and pay offs system. 

I wish the speakers on the dais at last nights Debs banquet had named names. I would like to have heard them spell out the positions of Trump and Harris on working class concerns. I wish they had made it clear to all in attendance that the 2024 election is of supreme importance to the working class in America.  

Solidarity?  Walk the picket line with Joe and Kamala and Tim. Wait in the voting line for what Joe did and Kamala and Tim will do.   

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Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations [tax free provision] are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.

The Debs Foundation is currently a 501 c 3 organization. 

I would ask:  How long has this been the case? How should  “directly and indirectly” be  interpreted? Does this status curtail possible candidates for the Debs Award? Does this status gag recipients in a way counter to the Debs tradition? Is the Vigo County Chamber of Commerce a 501(c)(3) organization?  And, in terms of monetary benefits, is the Debs Foundation’s 501(c)(3) necessary and worth the obvious down sides?