Authenticity Crisis

Tom Lehman uswa12 at Lorainccc.edu
Sat Aug 7 08:04:16 PDT 1999


Alex, you can't make a side-show into the main event! The USWA, the county and state federations of labor led by the USWA and yours truly in his own little capacity have done everything we can to be supportive of the Union Summer program and other efforts of this type.

Two of our past international presidents have been college educated, Dave MacDonald(1952-1962) and the marvelous Lynn Williams(1984-1994). Lynn graduated from college and I'm not sure if Dave MacDonald graduated or not, but, he was pretty close to it. Excluding attorneys a number of our international officers and key staff both past and present have been college graduates. At this point Alex, I'm wondering if you know what Ivory soap tastes like?


>From my humble perspective there is as CounterPunch said, a lack of
co-ordination and and focus on realistic goals! You cannot separate organizing-political action-education, all three must work in concert with each other. I think there is too much emphasis on romantic & exotic places and too little interest in America's heartland!

Alex, if CounterPunch had spelled out the suicidal idea that is being floated by some hindsteiners of eliminating and combining the county feds--which CounterPunch didn't do---would you or Josh think any differently?

And tell your folks, This Ivory soaps, On me!

Sincerely and fraternally,

Tom Lehman

alexlocascio at juno.com wrote:


> Some friendly advice for Jefferey St. Clair,
>
> I'm not going to bother with the rest of your piece on labor, but for
> crying out loud, if you're going to indulge in snide remarks about
> college students working in the labor movement, have the good sense not
> to hold up your buddy Frank Bardacke as some paragon of blue-collar
> authenticity. He's an ex-Berkeley boy. You and I both know that a quite
> a few campus radicals infiltrated the workplace in the late 60s and early
> 70s after the implosion of the campus left, and many of these folks
> constitute the "left" of organized labor today. Not that there's
> anything wrong with that; in fact, it's commendable. But acting like the
> 60s infiltrators are somehow more authentic than the current crop of
> campus rebels is just plain ludicrous.
>
> Alex
> union brat by birth and the grace of god
>
>
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