Posted on 12/11/2012 12:01:54 PM PST by lowbridge
Now my grandfather was a union organizer, in West Virginia, in the 1920’s. At that time and place, there was a need for union organizing, and a reason for the organizers to be ready to use violence to counter violence. And the tradition of being ready to back up your efforts with force became established. And over time, became a habit. Became, indeed, the first tactic rather than the last resort.
In my father's generation, the unions raised the wages of the working class to middle income level. Skilled, even unskilled workers could own homes, cars, TV sets, all the physical accoutrements of the middle class life; the same lifestyle as the college-educated. They could and did sent their children to college; their sons and daughters did not have to work in the mines or factories. But those who did still wanted the same standard of living as their brothers and sisters who went to school, and by and large, they got what they wanted.
By the time I came of age, it was clear that this economic position could not be sustained. The unionized workers were pricing themselves out of the labor market. Union membership was a declining percentage of the workforce. Faced with this loss of economic and political influence, the professional union members became more militant rather than less. As Benjamin Franklin once said, self interest trumps reason.
They will continue to fight their loss of power, the perceived (and real) diminuation of their wealth. They will continue to fall back on the violent behavior that their grand fathers felt was necessary to gain their rights and privileges in the first place. And they will continue to lose; their time is past. But they will never get it.
Yes, a lot of ammo is sprayed, used up in suppressing the enemy.
We’d be memorializing dead reds by now in Texas. Where the hell is law enforcement. They will come when some union bodies are down. Only then.
Oh, that wasn’t the Agence-France-Presse?
BTTT
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