> [Isn't this inspiring? First, they support intellectual property
> restrictions, now this.]
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> Machinists Union Supports National Missile Defense
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I just sent them [and Michael]:
"But consider the definition of a racketeer as someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments provision of this protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering. To the extent that the threats against which a government protects its citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the government has organized a protection racket. Since governments themselves often constitute the largest current threats to the livelihoods of their own citizens, many governments operate in essentially the same ways as racketeers." [C. Tilly "War Making and State Making as Organized Crime"--from Bringing the State Back In edited by Peter Evans Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol, Cambridge University Press]
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Jumping on the "corporate welfare" bandwagon are we? What ever happened to that good old union adage "workers of all countries unite!"
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you've learned nothing since Viet Nam. And, obviously, your participation in Seattle was mere posing.
Ian Murray Seattle, WA