The Supreme Court has ruled on what the LA Times calls a “well-planned legal assault on public unions.” Or maybe it didn’t rule. It dead-locked, 4 to 4, which means that the lower court’s pro-union ruling stands. It stands, though, as a lower court’s ruling, not as the law of the land.
The case was that of a California public school teacher who sued to avoid mandatory union fees. In actuality, it was an orchestrated attempt to go national with the infamous “Right to Work” deceit favored in Republican controlled states, where it is understand that the real intent is “right to fire” and “right to exploit.”
Unions defend, and must bear the cost of defending, all workers under their purview. Would be freeloaders would still receive, without having contributed to, the rights that unions win (little things like 8-hour days, weekends, pensions, lunch breaks, safety regulations, and few others). Attacks on the current system have, as their ultimate goal, the complete dismantling of unions. For example, Scott Walker’s plan has been to attack public unions first: divide and conquer (though, I mention this only as an excuse to throw in this link.)
What saved unions, the only thing that saved unions, and only for the moment, was the absence of Antonin Scalia. The Koch brothers, the Scott Walkers, the ALECs are not going to end their efforts to destroy unions, not ever. The only thing that can save unions the next time is a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate as gate keepers to the Supreme Court.
That is why the increasing divisiveness of the Democratic primary is dangerous. Susan Sarandon has gotten a lot of attention for attempting to rationalize self-immolation by Democrats, to validate the pompous, self-righteous, passive-aggressive act of sitting the election out (or worse) if Clinton wins the nomination. Threats of such pouting in the event of a loss have not been uncommon at DKos, either, and from both sides.
There is hope that such calls, whatever the motivation, are not being heeded. We need to do more than hope, though. We need to stop, on both sides, the vitriol and the invective. If you cannot support your candidate by logic and by factual policy analysis, you should rethink your position. If you cannot unequivocally commit to supporting either of the two Democratic candidates in the general elections, you should rethink your motivation.
I find myself writing about this more than I would have imagined, probably because it always seems to get lost in the noise of the primary back-and-forth, “full of sound and fury” much of which does, in fact, signify nothing. (To keep the level of rancor down, I’ll not specify who is said to tell such tales.) We have two excellent candidates, two candidates that no one, no one, on the Republican side can hold a candle to. Stop the personal attacks, and don’t paint yourself into a corner from which you cannot escape. The shameful fact is that your inability to escape might condemn us all to Scott Walker’s world, to Ted Cruz’s world, or to some place, if such is even conceivable, worse.
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