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.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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