Writing an editorial to my union newsletter...

[Deja Q]

...though I can think of 10 topics thanks to a leadership meeting I'd attended today, and given that my management wants to outsource everybody, do you think that writing an editorial about outsourcing would be a good idea?

It's also thanks to management that I am taking a greater interest in (a) the union and (b) politics on a larger scale. I have found a new purpose in life. I may be nothing more than a mosquito, but you Minnesotans know that even a mosquito can make a person stop and scratch.

Screw the idea of suicide, I ain't ready yet.

Fuck the idea of cowardly moving to some other country. I'm not going to capitulate to the greedy scumbags... This is my country too, and I'm damn well ready to speak up for it and for the well being of others.

This is a war.

A war not fought by weapons of mass destruction but by dollar bills. And we, the working class, are targets...

The only way to combat this evil is to incite awareness which hopefully blossoms into action, especially amongst those whose credo is "I don't like getting into politics, I just want to survive." (and those people I don't particularly like because they obviously don't mind being ignorant and seem to love being steamrollered by every unscrupulous corporate entity imagineable...)

[The Blue Flower]

1. a good start

I think you've already started writing it, and your ideas are excellent. "I just want to survive..." If you don't get involved, you won't. It's that simple.

[Deja Q]

3. Thanks!

That leadership meeting I attended was truly wonderful. It should be something that ALL Americans attend, because they'd be outraged at what these people, who promise tax cuts, have given them. (though I know of the generalizations (thanks especially to DU, thank you admins!), some of the specifics they mentioned were new to me... though, another thanks to DU, there were specifics I'd known about... I've got stuff that Minnesotans in particular should be concerned about, and I will post that stuff soon...)

And we've got to get EVERYBODY involved (I speak of my workplace but this can apply on a nationwide level too). Many in my department have been disheartened by the union because of a scandal from 2 years ago that the Union couldn't protect the people from... More impotantly, they're all the type who expect to get everything on a silver platter, even if they're not full paying members. While that may be true and even understandable to a point, the people in my department (who are terrified of mass outsourcing right now) must now come together with the union (who has proven itself in the past to stop outsourcing) or else the divide-and-conquer tactics of the bully boss will succeed and we'll all be starvin' in the streets.

Some of it was spin, even I - an admittedly proud commie pinko - saw the spin. But most of it was spin free and downright eye-opening as to the scale of it all.

I'll eventually post something in GD with some shocking information about the economics of the last 20 years... I even shouted "Reagan!" in a x( tone when they started talking about the origins of today's economic situation (outsourcing, sweatshops, healthcare costs, I could go on and on but all the charts clearly point to 1980 as being the birth of the mess this country is in. That's Reagan, folks... the so-called "freedom president", who is more "freedom for the corporations and apostate of the people".)

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Outsourcing is a good topic

Let your union brothers and sisters know that it will take their political action to stop this trend. Ask them if they know the voting records of their representatives and Senators when it comes to labor issues. Suggest that they lobby for anti-outsourcing bills. Remind them that the hallmark of the labor union has been action!



"There once was a Union maid
Who never was afraid
Of the goons and the ginks and the company finks
And the deputy sheriffs who made the raids

She went to the union hall
When a meeting it was called
And when the company boys came around,
She always stood her ground, saying

You can't scare me,
I'm stickin' with the Union,
I'm stickin' with the Union,
I'm stickin'with the Union.
No, you can't scare me,
I'm stickin' with the Union,
I'm stickin' with the Union,
'Til the day I die."

-The Union Maid, old labor song

[Deja Q]

4. Thanks for the advice so far!

One little kick, hoping to get more! (part ego, part curiousness about which idea would be best to first present because what I say will impact a lot of people, and a lot of management will be lookin' as well.)