Top down or bottom up?

[Doug Henwood]

Lance Murdoch wrote:

>Looking over the archives for this list,

Not very carefully, apparently.

>  I became disappointed when I saw the lack of interest in following 
>up of discussions that contained words like "labor" or "union" in 
>the subject.  I decided to start getting more historic, shifting 
>back before 9/11/01 as that might give me a more accurate vantage, 
>since almost every mailing list, forum and so forth is abuzz with 
>9/11 and it's aftermath.  That's when my disappointment turned to 
>disgust.

Sorry to hear that. Have you tried an anti-emetic?

>The only labor/union threads that seem to get picked up on here are 
>ones bashing labor and unions, including Mr. Henwood's complaining 
>about that the AFL-CIO wasn't embracing the spotted owl.

That's creative. A search of the archives fails to turn up that post 
- could you provide it?

>This seems like the living embodiment of the limousine liberalism 
>that is bashed nightly on Fox News.  The enlightened liberal 
>intelligensia on college campuses, in New York and San Francisco 
>become upset when their proletarian marionettes don't obey their 
>commands.  How come mine workers in Mississippi aren't out on the 
>street, hoisting up the rainbow flags and marching down the street 
>hand-in-hand with homosexuals during Gay Rights parades?

Why are you going out of your way to be offensive? Try again after 
you've taken the anti-emetic.

>It's self-apparent that popular support is the bedrock of strength 
>for the labor movement, for gay rights, and for any progressive 
>movement.  In case you haven't noticed, the percentage of Americans 
>in labor unions has been declining since the 1950's,

Really? You have some numbers on that? This is news to me.

>  and if you take public sector unions out of the picture, decline 
>has been even more rapid.  The Gallup poll question "Do you think 
>homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not 
>be legal?"  - has been answered "should not" by 39% in 1982, 57% in 
>1988, and 42% in 2001.

You forgot to mention that 54% said they should be legal.

>   I'm sure those percentages are much higher in mine worker areas, 
>and probably among the mine workers themselves.  A union is a 
>democratic organization, and it's primary duty is to support it's 
>memberships financial interests, not to throw support to the New 
>Republic issue du jour.

This is interesting - the New Republic is limousine liberal? I had no idea.

>   Embracing too many, too socially progressive causes just alienates 
>the socially conservative working class from unions.

So whatever the working class thinks is right? There are, of course, 
no gay workers.

>LBO-talk is billed as a list where labor and unions among other 
>things is discussed.  All I've seen is a lot of bashing of labor 
>unions by people in shock that they aren't reflexively supporting 
>your liberal social agendas.

'Fess up - you're a bigot, and you're using this reading of working 
class attitudes as your cover - right?

>If you don't care about the hourly salary the brown-skinned Mexican 
>who bags your groceries is making, why should he care about your gay 
>rights issues?  And why should he listen to you when you go in and 
>pontificate to him aboutthe UFCW (or UMW, or whoever) not 
>reflexively backing some politican pushing gay rights or some other 
>socially progressive legislation?

Right. No one here give a damn about Mexican grocery workers - we're 
really into pansexual orgies!

Doug