There are some main stream Democrats who seem all too eager to write off unions as being a thing of the past. They say that Union membership is "down to 10%".  They think that unions are cash cows that the Democrats can tap for campaign funds, but "have very little influence on Democratic policy". That kind of talk betrays the values that the mainstream Democrats profess, but rarely deliver.  In short it,  provides aid and comfort to those who would benefit if unions were to become as extinct as the dinosaur.

Unions were an integral part of the civil rights movement because they allowed and still allow working people to be taken seriously when negotiating with giant corporations. In short, unions are forces for social justice. Martin Luther King recognized that and partnered with organized labor.  Organized labor made civil rights a top priority and partnered with Martin Luther King.

I have a few choice words for those of you who are working people and still think that the Tea Party represents you. To hear them visit my  Listen Here! page.

It never ceases to amaze me that there are working people out there who have actually fallen for the Tea Party's line of bull that any health care legislation will harm the middle class.  By "Teabagger" logic, preventing a government provided safety net from ever happening that would provide health care to working people, even in the case of prolonged job loss is a good thing.  That the Teabag puppet masters can get any working person to listen to them for even one second is a tribute to the media-corporate complex that we have in place in the good old USA. They give the Teabaggers plenty of face time on the six o' clock news and never mention that the movement isn't a populist one, it's just a case of media manipulation that would make a cold war Soviet politician blush.

That same line of reasoning applies to working people living in "right to work" states who say that they are anti-union. They are so convinced, mainly by their employers, that unions are taking away the "right" to be non-union from them that they are doomed to work for whatever pay and in whatever working conditions the "boss" decides is fair.  Oh, did I mention that the "boss" can also fire them at will with little or no recourse. 

So Wade, what are you driving at? I feel that the only way the American dream is ever going to return for working people is for unions to return to power in this country.  The reason Europeans have a higher standard of living than us in all the ways that are meaningful to the working person is that they have strong unions. European unions are respected by European companies and in some cases may even have direct input on company policy.  That sounds like the real American dream to me, not the bogus one we now have here.