Organized labor's suicide of a thousand cuts

If the conservative nanny state isn't screwing the labor union movement at every turn, some unions have a suicidal bent. Witness who showed up in force at a new Haven, CT campaign stop for Joe "Sore Loser" Lieberman Friday

The crowd that gathered Firday(sic) was full of union supporters, including laborers who chivalrously poured stones from front loaders to fill in big puddles so the media could traipse out under the highway.

Two of those long-time supporters are Robert Buynsik, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 443, and Anthony Inorio, from Laborers Local 455. They reminisced about their support for Joe going back 25 years. “Joe has not changed his positions,” Inorio said. “He is strong in his convictions.”

Lieberman was introduced by Don Shubert, a founder of Keep Connecticut Moving, a group that pulls together industrial associations, chambers of commerce and labor groups to advocate for improvement in the state’s transportation infrastructure.
New Haven Independent.org

Of course, the Teamsters and Laborers just love new highway construction. And these are two unions that "real" men flock too, big shouldered men with bad tattoos and Foo Manchu moustaches. Guys who look after their own, don't take no guff from nobody, hard chargin' Ted Nugent fans. You get the picture, testosterone soaked mokes who think that John Wayne was a "real" World War II hero, Ronald Reagan was a "real" president and Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden. They know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat; Republicans are stay-the-course "real" men, Democrats are "cut-and-run" pussies.

Thirty four years ago, the fathers and grandfathers of these types helped tropedo the candidacy of George McGovern, re-elect Richard Nixon, and build a wall of suspicion and mistrust between intellectual elitist-leaning "peace" Democrats. Coincidently future president Bill Clinton, in pursuit of one Hillary Rodham, was assigned by Gary Hart to organize the South for McGovern.

The reactions on both sides could go far to explain, in part, why the Democratic Party in 1988 dropped repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act from its quadrenniel national platform, the period of Democratic Leadership Council assendency. The DLC is populated by anti-Vietnam war veterans, both peace-activists and miliatry and there are bitter memories of union "hardhats" beating up peace demonstrators in 1970.

So now, in Connecticut at least, we witness labor leaders thumbing their noses at the so-called peace candidate, Ned Lamont. As this news seeps out over the Internet young, half-baked college progressives will denounce unions, and, should Lamont lose the general election to Holy Joe, labor's influence within the Democratic Party shall erode further.