Skip to main content

GOP & the Stockholm Syndrome

Are retired union workers living under a rock? I have often wondered why union retirees, with a union pension, move to Shasta County and become a GOP nut job and vote for people who oppose unions and the working class. These same people collect all sorts of government sponsored programs, such as Medicare, social security and possibly veteran services.

Do they just want to belong? Are they conformists? Are they ashamed to have their GOP neighbors know they are Democrats or retired union workers? Or are they coldhearted, bloodsucking gnats who got theirs so to hell with everyone else?

I just don’t understand. I, for one, am proud of my union pension, my medical coverage, and my social security. I worked very hard for all three and I will fight hard to keep them. If other retired union members, social security and Medicare recipients don’t think the GOP are trying to take these benefits away, you’ve had to have been living under a rock.

I think all of us with these union and government benefits had better get over being afraid of our GOP/Tea Party nuts and cowboy up and start paying attention to who is for us and who is against us. In the infamous words of George Bush, “You’re either with us or against us.” I can live with a few less supposed friends who I want to believe care about me, but I would find it very difficult to live without my pensions and healthcare. I bet it would be very hard for all the rest of you union retirees to live without your pension benefits, especially those who have turned their backs on the Democratic party who helped get those pensions. The party may not be perfect, but they are the best fit at this time for us.

There’s a large group of Democrats in Shasta County, but for the most part they stay in the closet. Most are afraid to even put a bumper sticker on their vehicle in fear of retribution against them or their vehicle, but not so with the GOP, their bumper stickers are everywhere creating eye pollution. Remember, no guts no glory so at least put your union affiliation stickers on your vehicles to support union members still working or to support the unions that send you your pension checks every month. Get your bumper stickers at our Labor Day picnic. Be proud, fight back and organize. As Hannibal once said, “We will either find a way or make one.”

The class distinction between the GOP and the union/working class may best be summed up in Machiavelli’s book “The Prince,” written for the ‘Haves’ on how to hold onto power, and Saul D. Alinsky’s “Radicals,” defining mankind as having been and continues to be “divided into three parts: the Haves, the Have-Nots, and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.”

Perhaps the union retirees who move to Shasta County and the party of the bullies to fit in are part of what Alinsky calls the “Have-a-Little, Want Mores,” he describes this group as having split personalities. “They could be described as social, economic, and political schzoids. Generally, they seek the safe way, where they can profit by change and yet not risk losing the little they have.”
So rather than be angry with those who have lost sight of how they gained the little they have, we should treat them as if they suffer from “Stockholm Syndrome.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Set Aside Grievances and Vote Blue

International Brotherhood of Teamsters are following the United Auto Workers in making history with the groundbreaking joint employer decision against Amazon. Now, the Longshoremen have gotten a groundbreaking contract, as well. This is very telling on what labor can do if they all pull together. These are some of the best deals in the last 30 years. However, all can be lost in the next election if our members vote for the wrong candidate. It is not hyperbole, but history, to say Republicans hate unions. This election, all must set aside some of the “piss me off” things and vote for the people who will stand up for unions and the working people, union or nonunion. The richest 1 percent have half of the worlds wealth while the rest of us only have 0.75 percent. Since 2020, this 1 percent have taken 63 percent of all the wealth. In the U.S., 800 billionaires have more than half of the nation’s wealth while the bottom half of our families have 2.5 percent. Do you think these rich peop...

Fight or Perish

In 2012 more than a quarter of all political contributions came from just 30,000 people who represented the 1 percent of the 1 percent, 90 percent who spent the most won. Today, we are an experiment in either a democracy, which started in 1787 or an oligarchy, which is winning. The nonunion people, like Trump and Musk, have most all the tools in their pockets to destroy our unions. They have money, they have the courts, they have law enforcement, they have the media, and 50 percent of workers that don’t know this don’t know the history of the working class people. This is the perfect storm to lose all the gains workers have made whether they’re union or not, even our Social Security and Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. So, now we will have to go way back to the late 1920s and ‘30s and dig up the old labor party books. One book, written in 1964, has the information, The Rebel Voices, an IWW Anthology by Joyce L. Kornbluh, educator, activist, and advocate. The history of our labor...

David vs Goliath

Labor’s war is a David vs Goliath fight, but sometimes Goliath wins the battle but ultimately David will win the war, and here is one way it can be done in rural areas. Small towns that sit 40 to 50 miles away from larger cities have power for the low-wage workers have power for the low wage workers have nothing to lose for they have nothing, so they can and should use that nothing, which is a power, for better working conditions, such as good wages, regular working hours, healthcare—maybe even childcare. Employees can withhold their labor or just move. Businesses don’t have that option. So, labor in small towns should stand together for a good minimum wage and benefits. Wages should be $26 per hour. Given the income corporations are raking in today, they can well afford to pay their employees better. Healthcare workers, food workers, house keeping and any worker in town can join the town union (as the UAW has shown) and the unions could be the ones to join: fire, police and country ...