Years ago, a friend of mine came up with this reason to why liberals seemed to be more engaged in social & political activism. According to his explanation, the rationale for both liberal & conservative positions revolved around the same issue: money.
Most conservatives are capitalists – who believe that the best chance for their prosperity lay in the business of being about business. Most liberals believe that their best chance for prosperity involves the amount of money they can siphon from productive sectors of the economy through government largess (income redistribution).
What is a bit scary is the volume of activity that Big Labor adds to the sucking power of that siphon. According to the AFL-CIO, just one of many labor organizations that deployed activists during this campaign season, their efforts included:
* a 21-state presidential battleground program
* 70 million phone calls, 10 million door knocks, 57 million pieces of mail and 27 million worksite fliers
* a diversion of 4000 paid union staff working on the election
* top officers criss-crossing the country campaigning
* communications people in key states, blogs launched
* outreach expressly to minority communities
* union lawyers working in communities to “protect” voting rights (while ignoring ACORN…)
And – during the remaining 4 days until the election:
* 10′s of 1000′s of volunteers will visit more than 3.9 million homes
* make 5.5 million more calls
* distribute more than 2 million more workplace leaflets
I can only imagine what will happen once Big Labor secures the government, passes all of the union-centric legislation already lined up, and swells the ranks of both their constituency and their power. Forget “one-party” rule in American. Think instead “one special interest group” rule.
This may sound depressing, but I’m not actually depressed! If there’s one thing Americans know how to do it’s fight! Once the facade has been lifted and the veil pierced, and the pressure put on hard-working Americans to support the graft & handout mentality of this huge thug (Big Labor), they will fight back – yes – including their own membership! Perhaps the Achilles heel of Union Bosses is that they consistently act in a way that a great percentage of their membership do not support.
Once America’s business owners and entrepreneurs wake up to the reality of a Union-directed economic landscape, they will act. I wish it would have been sooner, as we are likely to go through more pain than would have been required to get past this, but the fight is on nonetheless!
