SEIU goons doing what they do best-intimidate
Last Sunday, about 500 thugs from the SEIU (Service Employee International Union) were bused in the protest at the Chevy Chase, Md home of a Bank Of America lawyer while his terrified teen-age son was inside the house alone. The picture speaks for itself. Note that the thugs are literally on the front porch.
SEIU of course is the union previously run by the just-retired Andy Stern, who has visited Barack Obama's White House more than any other private visitor.
Almost as outrageous is the defense of this action by UCLA Professor Mark Sawyer, who appeared on Fox News' Megyn Kelly's show this morning and made lame excuses for the thugs saying that the folks were upset about "bank greed" (quotes mine) and home foreclosures.
Make no mistake; the SEIU, like ACORN, is an arm of the Obama administration, which loves to set them upon their enemies. Of course, one cannot expect academic professors like Sawyer to condemn this thuggish action because they would have to condemn Obama.
Question: Who bused in these 500 protesters to a man's home in the first place? Maybe the learned professor from UCLA can do a little research and let us know.
My great grandfather was a member, and at times a local organizer, for the United Mine Workers of America. Like the late great John L. Lewis, he was also a life-long Republican. So, I take the level of childish rhetoric Gary indulges in here with a very large grain of salt. The fact that America today has a relatively large percentage of people who live above the poverty line is mostly due to the accomplishments of unions, as is the ready market for consumer goods which sustain both a good number of capitalists and other jobs as well. Before unions, we all worked six day weeks and 16 hour days.
ReplyDeleteUnion leadership, like any leadership, is capable of some degree of hubris, as well as corruption. Generally, the cleanest unions were run by communist leadership, which is one reason the federal government carefully purged the communists who couldn’t be easily bought — the Cold War was only an excuse. Unions have been degenerating ever since.
In general, a sober statement that it is best not to picket a man’s home (or a woman’s) because of a political disagreement is sound. I’ve done that once — a high-class apartment building where one resident was the CEO of a supermarket chain being boycotted by United Farm Workers of America. I didn’t feel too badly about it — its not a bad idea for people of his own class to know that working families are hurting, and their social peers have some real responsibility for it. But I wouldn’t have felt the same about a private single family home. On the other hand, if the domestic employees of Walter Annenberg want to picket his palatial estate, because they are represented by a union and have gone on strike, more power to them! It is their place of work, after all.
This looks like a case of bad judgement — unless there are facts Mr. Fouse has conveniently chosen to omit. On principal, its not much different than picketing the home of a lawyer representing an unpopular criminal defendant. Picketing his law firm, or the building in which his law firm leases a suite, could be fair game.
What did I conveniently choose to omit?
ReplyDeleteYes, there was a time when unions were sorelky needed in America, but that time has long past. Now the union corruption and abuses outweigh the good they achieve. Belonging or not belonging to a union should be a personal choice.
Au contraire, as a former shop steward who used to carefully explain to employees of a really badly managed company with about 50% annual turnover "You wouldn't want to work for this company without a union," I know unions are badly needed. Also, the difference in paychecks between unionized janitors in Pennsylvania ($13 and up -- not a fortune by any means), and nonunionized ones in Cincinnati ($7.25) shows just how badly more unions are needed. I would like to see a plunge into the private sector, big time, rather than hiding in the shadows of the public sector, where they generally can't strike anyway and have to rely on friendly pols.
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