I do agree with some of the things you say. A typical Communist country has no type of help for the worker. In fact, typically, in a Communist country, every man woman and child are equal. That was the original Marxist plan from the creation of Communist thought in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto.
There are also several other aspects about Communism you must look at before you cling too tightly to a labor union. It was Karl Marx who believed that the working class would first for TRADE UNIONS and then revolt against the business owners, and over throw them from their seats of power.
The reason I posted a thread earlier about "Hey, why don't you send the AFL-CIO to China" is because they are already one step ahead of you as far as socialism. They skipped the Trade Union B. S. that Karl Marks proposed, and just went ahead and did the government take-over. They have ultimate equality, which is in your words when you complain about there being a difference between the classes. Communism is a "class-less" society. Do you know anything about Communism?
Typically, if you wanted to really nail down you entity who was the most influential in our jobs going overseas, it would be the Wal-Mart Corporation. I do not know if this bulletin board will allow me to post a hyperlink, but here goes. PBS did an excellent movie called "Is Wal-Mart Good For America" in which they presented real-life facts about Wal-Mart's dealings in the free world, with buying cheap labor from (mainly) Communist China. Here is a link to the movie online:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/view/
I also felt strongly enough about this incrimination and statement of facts about the Wal-Mart Corporation that I even bought the PBS video to show my friends.
Typically, Wal-Mart, with the help of President Bill Clinton, who PUSHED FOR and signed legislation to open up trade with China, figured out very quickly that to offer their "Low-Prices" to the public, they could do so by buying cheap labor from China.
The video tells the labor rate, too... I don't know where anyone gets the idea of a Chinese worker making $12 an hour.. try 25 cents an hour. And the one's who are the highest paid are making 50 cents an hour. This PBS video represents these facts, and they are quoted in the video itself.
That is truly a duality. Because every labor union I have ever heard of is 100% Liberal-Democrat voting, in fact, it seems to me almost a brain-washing of personal thought when it comes personal thought. Yet, here we have Bill Clinton, an elitest Democrat, making a play for opening the trade door to China. The video states the facts, and it also shows the signing of the bill by President Clinton in the video, which opened up the trade door between the U.S. and China.
There are 1.3 BILLION Red Chinese. And they literally HATE everything American. And here is an American President, who has paved the way for their economy to benefit GREATLY at the COST of the American worker.
Just great.
Go ahead and "rah-rah" about your liberal Democrat candidates.. but I got news for yo u... ALL POLITICIANS ARE CORRUPT !!!
If you think one party is better for you in this country, you are wrong. They are both only out for one thing. POWER. Even at the expense of the American Worker, as is demonstrated by Clinton's trade agreement with China... AND him signing (not even wincing, or even THINKING about vetoing) the NAFTA agreement..
While the Big Labor endorsed President was in charge, he did more in one fail swoop of the legal pen than 40+ Presidents before him to hurt the American worker. And Big Labor is so far up the Liberal Democrats butts... they cannot remove themselves, without making utter and complete idiots of themselves at this point.
To me, Big Labor isn't about helping ANY American workers anymore, except for the Elitest bunch of workers that already habitate their camp. What about the kid, fresh out of high school, who NEEDS the Big Labor help? It is not there for him.
Case in point, my nephew. I live in Michigan, one of the most run-done, sorry-assed union-ruined states in the country. Check our unemployment ratings. When my nephew got out of high school, he could have done anything he wanted. He is a bright young man, and he would have flourished at college.
Also, let's take one random Michigan high school student that is NOT my nephew, and let's make a comparison. Both, just average kids, 18 years old, just graduated high school, and looking at the world from the "how-do-we-balance-our-checkbook" side of life.
Because my brother is in the elitest group known as the UAW (United Auto Workers) labor union, he put his son's name in to the LOTTERY that they hold to employ new hires at General Motors. This isn't a GM invented mechanism, it is a UNION-invented mechanism. It has been set up so that the only new hires GM can bring into the factory are from a lottery pool of REFERENCES taken from union employees. General Motors stopped taking applications about 25 years ago.
So, my nephew is able to get into an over-paid union job, with absolutely NO experience, no skills, and blows off going to college 100%. Just great. The union is encouraging people to choose NOT to better themselves. That in itself is an evil all to itself.
So, he starts out at GM making $13 for doing extremely menial tasks. What people generalize as "sweeping the floor for $13 an hour." It is a reality, and an extreme prejudice against every other good American not being able to make it into this elitist group. MEANWHILE the cost of labor drives the cost of automobiles OVER THE ROOF!!!!! There is more...
What prejudice? Well, case in point, one of my nephew's classmates. He went to the same high school as my nephew, got the same education, when he walked out of the graduation ceremony, there were equals. But BECAUSE OF Big Labor sucking my nephew in to the union wage, the second boy was immediately and whole-heartedly discriminated against BY THE BIG LABOR UNION's ACTIONS and went to work for minimum wage at the McDonald's in town.
Yes. it gets deeper and worse still..
Two years ago, after now working at GM for over ten years, my nephew is now making TWENTY-FIVE dollars an hour, and is still the same no-nothing kid that walked out of high school ten years ago. GM decides that they need to cut back on some employees, so my nephew gets laid off. Here's the real sickening part.. Not only is he able to draw unemployment, he is also able to FORCE General Motors into making up the difference for NINETY-PERCENT of his regular pay!!!
THIS KID IS SETTING AT HOME, DOING NOTHING.. AND GETTING PAID $900 A WEEK!!!
Woo-pee!!
Let's just tack that on to the price of a new Grand Am (since that is the car they make at his plant)... what the heck??
Meanwhile, the same kid who is left working at McDonald's has to scrape up minimum wage (still) to buy an over-inflated automobile.
Annnnnddd...
Did you read the stories about just how effective the useless labor unions were at protecting the jobs of those folks at the Delphi plant(s). Delphi is (or was) the number one supplier of parts for General Motors (maybe others)... and they were in trouble financially. They contacted the labor people, and told them they needed to temporarily lower the wages of all workers while the company recovers from a bad economic stretch.
Big Labor's answer..?? Was it to help the worker keep his job?? HELL NO!!! They refused to lower the wages, and Delphi, in turn, went bankrupt.
SORRY... NO MORE JOBS... DUUUUUUUUUH!!!!!
You seem to want to point the finger at "Mean Old Mr. Big Business" but it is one of the most ridiculous and IGNORANT (pardon me) claims I have ever heard in my life.
If there were not even one business, there would be not be one job at all. Not even one. Where are people supposed to work?
Don't you call that "biting the hand that feeds you?"
In a Communist country, EVERYBODY is a worker. And everybody gets the same pay. They also have next to ZERO Civil Rights.
In a Communist country, the State runs the businesses, and the State benefits from economic growth. What President Clinton did (a Big-Labor-backed President) by opening the trade door to China, ensured that we will be staring down the missile silos of the Red Chinese for the rest of our lifetimes.
THIS is the man Big Labor wanted to put into power.
You think that there is a gap between the elite and the rest of us.. well.. actually, there SHOULD BE some type of gap between us. That is a natural facility of capitalism. The natural facility of Communism is to make every effort to see to it that everyone is equal in pay, prosperity, and fortune.
Now, let me back up and add one more young gentleman to my nephew's graduating class. This kid did what many young American kids do, and he applied for student loans, got a Pell Grant, and went to college. Not because he was rich to start, because he was a hell of a lot harder working than my nephew or that kid who settled for McDonald's. That is what a person can do in this country. College is a great thing. It can give a person the skills to move on and exceed exceedingly in the number one profitable venture in America. To open your own business.
It's not easy, and yes, there are few that got the gonads to attend, finish, and achieve that higher education. The rest sit back in their ignorant arm chairs and point a jealous finger at people who have worked their asses off to make this country into something, and then they sit back, join some damned trade union, and vegg-out for the next 30 years.
That has never been, nor will ever be all that I will expect of myself. It is also one of the greatest SHAMES of this country.
So, with all of this anti-union stuff, do I have any kind of a plan at all?
YUP!!!
Do away with the trade unions 100%... and at the same time, pass legislation that forces the government to back up the American workers with every bit of gusto that the trade unions can offer. The government should NOT offer national health care, it should, instead, more stringently regulate the medical insurance companies, and force the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices.
There should be a mandatory minimum wage for ALL AMERICANS equivalent to what the trade unions are able to force out of a handful of big businesses. We should ALL have these benefits, not just the elitist union members. Every American should have the right to make as good of a living as any union worker.
And.. a college education should be FREE to every American citizen up to their first Doctorate degree. Think about that !!!???!!! Think about what the possibilities for advancement in our country would be if most of us were Ph.D.', not just a select few.. Instead of having to wait in line at the emergency room of the hospital to fix a broken arm, you could ask your sister, or your aunt to do it, because they would have went through medical school, and they know how to help in such a situation. Because their education was FREE, so therefore, they took advantage of it.
How many Albert Einsteins have been born, died, and were never realized because they could not figure out the financial aid situation? And instead, they took the easy way out, and joined a labor union, or worse yet, struggled through life at minimum wage, and died in poverty?
By clinging to the Labor Union, you have become a Conservative, not a Liberal. Those two terms come from the French Revolution. The Conservatives sat on the RIGHT and wanted to keep the King, and did not want change. The Liberals sat on the LEFT and wanted the revolution.
You are, and Big Labor is, no longer in the liberal party. They are pissing up a rope that is being used to HANG THEMSELVES !!!!! By refusing change, you have become those who sit on the RIGHT, not on the left, and in effect, you have become your worst nightmare.
Big Labor has been losing power for many years. Not because of some big, bad, evil, and (agreeably) over-paid big-businessman. No, big labor is losing ground big time because the thought, the philosophy of it's existence is out-dated. It's time was here and has passed, and we are headed toward a time when becoming a union member is NOT the best choice.
"Kings and Kingdoms Pass Away"... have you ever heard that quote? It may have even been taken from the Bible, I'm not sure. But history will repeat. The Persian Empire is gone. The Roman Empire is gone. And if you hold the mirror up to the window, you are going to witness another great Kingdom that will someday fall.. and that is the United States of America. As sure as you are born, as sure as there is no way out of paying taxes.. this country, one day, will cease to exist.
In the process of change, and ebb and flow of this same process, philosophies (such as the Communist Manifesto's concept of the trade union) will fail. This is proven over and over again throughout history. And those who refuse the change, have been given a name in the English language, they call those who do not want to change, CONSERVATIVES.
The reason the Big Labor movement has began to fall, is because it has tipped it's philosophical hat to far towards Conservatism.
We may even see the end of Big Labor in our lifetimes, maybe even the end of this government.
We teeter-toter on the brink of World War, and guess what.. did you know that when Russia was Communist, the Communists out-populated the democracies on this globe?
There are 6 billion people on planet Earth. Over 1/6 of them (1.3 billion) are Red Chinese. By signing the trade agreement to open our doors to China, we have just breathed a much-needed fresh breath into their struggling economy.
Let's say Mr. Bush pushes us into war with Iran, or possibly Iran and North Korea at the same time. At what point does the rest of the world say "HELL NO" and do to America what they did to Germany in World War II??
It could happen.
We are nearly headed that way already.
My advice?
Buy lot's of guns and ammo while you can, and prepare yourself to survive the worst. because if you don't prepare, you will be one of the sheep, like the sheep that were herded into the "Dome-Pen" during Hurricane Katrina. Folks who expected the government to take care of them. They should have been able to take care of themselves.
A great lesson should have been learned in 1929 when the stock market crashed. President Hoover (a Republican by the way, I don't mind bashing each side equally, since I trust neither side..) sat back and watched as his country slid deeper and deeper in the Great Depression.
As a result, self-help groups arose in the American people. And it was at this time in history, where the self-help group known as the Labor Union rose to power, with a need, a purpose, and a change in hand. Note that I added that CHANGE word. Change was historically the number one thing that empowered the Labor Unions.
Americans should have never bit into the welfare mentality, once we were all able to work. Welfare should have been done away with decades ago. It literally cripples a man if he is offered a free ride, or the ability to re-join the work force. By nature, a man will choose the free ride, hands down.
What was needed was training, free training, free schooling. Not only in the simple forms of reading, writing and arithmetic, but schools should also teach even more basely needed skills. How to hunt, how to kill, clean, and dress your own meat. How to survive without a government there to take care of you.
Might not want to mark your calendar just yet for any specific date, but this country will fall one day. Not because I say so, but because history always repeats itself.
And if that day should come tomorrow, no labor union is going to help your ass. No welfare check is going to feed your kids, and nobody is going to protect your butt from the riots that may ensue.
What riots? It seems to be man's nature to rob and pillage during a disaster. It happened during Katrina, when people should have been sticking together, they were instead rioting, and robbing one another.
They would not have been robbing my house, because their is plenty of ammo here to hold off many weeks of attempts. Maybe even several months.
But to each their own.
If you believe in the "al-dee-dah" "Tooth Fairy" Labor Union to always be there.. well, that is your prerogative, but don't expect me to be coming down to the union hall with a load of vittles to help any of your sorry buts when the S*it Hits the fan..
I'll be long gone..