Grand Old Unions

I'd send you the original letter. But I've had so much trouble with copying and pasting getting it ready for the entire mailing list that I don't want to mess with it. Anyhow it doesn't need editing'                                                                        *                                                                                                           * So this is it folks, the sort of stuff that fills the right wing blogosphere. Do any of us get anything like this from our guys? I don’t think so. I’ve yet to receive even a request for my vote. But here they are asking their troops to play Paul Revere with this “information,” possibly “One if by entitlements, two if by environmentalists.” I’m afraid this one will need more than two lanterns, so to keep it brief let’s just consider the recurring obsession with unions.   One sentence pretty well says it all.  “It [the stimulus] went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues,” These words obviously represent the Tea Party thinking. But given the way relatively moderate Republican incumbents have been dropping like flies to fire-eaters in the primaries, it’s a reasonable assumption that today’s Republican Party has taken the position that creation of union jobs by any enterprise, public or private, is a bad thing.   This poses a problem for Obama and Democrats in their efforts to restore the jobs lost in the Great Recession, as they have been expected to. The Republican Party, with its proven power to block legislation in both Houses of Congress, is admittedly trying to prevent creation of jobs for union members. For that matter they know that low employment itself will help them in November.   Private sector jobs have grown respectably since Obama became president. Had public sector jobs grown as they did in the Bush years unemployment would be at a tolerable rate, under seven percent, rather than unacceptable at more than the eight percent it is now. Honest right wing ideologues should be happy that the private sector is now providing an even greater portion of jobs. The problem is that the economy isn’t showing its appreciation, so that’s the fault of Obama and the Democrats, but mainly the big bad unions and their filthy lucre.   Put aside the need for multitudes of workers to organize in order to speak with one voice while a handful of employers can do this while hunting or fishing. When push comes to shove, as it may have as much as any time in our history, money speaks the loudest, much louder since Citizens United. Equating the expendable wealth of Wall Street’s high rollers with that of the entirety of organized labor is equivalent to equating an elephant with a mouse.