Empire:
No doubt one is a wretched plebian harassed by debts and military service, but to make up for it, one is a Roman citizen one has one’s share in the task of ruling other nations and dictating their laws, according to Sigmund Fraud in The Future of Illusion, 1927.
This is the thinking of the GOP’s Tea Party people, who believe we are the best country in the world and all other countries should be like us. These people they are a part of an empire and think it will never end. This is again an illusion told to the uninformed GOP followers who blindly listen to the talking heads who are funded by the oligarchies. The GOP Tea Party members are not the only people with an illusion of an empire.
Our union leaders also fall into this trap by not voicing their opinion on U.S. trade and foreign policy for it is usually so bad and explosive that is normally avoided in polite company within the union movement. Every action or failure to act has consequences and labor silence on questions of empire building has made the movement largely complicit in the actions of the U.S. government and the world stage. This collusion has come at a great cost at home and abroad yet the labor movement sees foreign policy as irrelevant.
Labor needs to fight for social justice and get over the illusion of the USA as a worldwide empire and focus on our needs at home like a living wage, pensions and good healthcare, free education and the protection of our commons. The unions could start by getting behind the $15 to $18 an hour minimum wage which would set the wage bar and force the Walmart-type businesses to do the same. Then maybe you could think about the U.S. being an empire in social justice if other countries followed.
There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...
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