> Lacny is a DP dupe, and takes a crack at the 10,000
> Worker March for not solving a problem the AFL-CIO
> can't imagine how to solve, because it doesn't give a crap
> about hotel workers, compared to auto workers, school
> teachers, and others who can pay their high dues.
Per-cap payments to the AFL-CIO are flat, you dolt. Five minutes of basic fact-checking before you shot your mouth off might have told you this:
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/about/constitution/art16.cfm
As it stands, I may very well be dumb -- who knows? -- but at least I am not lazy and stupid like Dawson. What gets me about people like him and Yoshie is their stubborn insistence on making ignorant pronouncements about everything, lecturing others with abundant self-confidence when their knowledge of a subject is not merely superficial, but fundamentally wrong and stupid.
When did I say ANYTHING about the AFL-CIO in my original post on this topic? Dawson and Furuhashi -- among others on this list -- seem to share a belief that the AFL-CIO has all kinds of power and influence that it doesn't have. The AFL-CIO has much less power to do anything than what these people think. Now of course, this is NOT a defense of the AFL-CIO (only someone wedded to his or her own deliberately-cultivated marginality would take a statement that an institution is powerless as apologetics or praise for that institution), only a statement of fact. Not only are individual unions theoretically free to disregard the pronouncements of the Federation on topics like this; they often do in practice.
Now as for HERE, they're one of the unions that is actually highly critical of this set-up, which is why you're hearing rumors that John Wilhelm may challenge John Sweeney for the AFL-CIO presidency (well, at least some of you are hearing those rumors; I have my doubts about whether Michael Dawson even knows who John Wilhelm is). The fact that Raynor became president of the merged UNITE and HERE gave further impetus to these rumors. I don't know if there's anything to them. But anyway, HERE is one of few unions in the country to have a serious organizing program focused on their core industry (the hospitality industry, which principally includes hotels and casinos); they would have grown in membership in the last few years were it not for the fact that their industry took such a hit from September 11. Last year, they drove the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a much more constructive and successful effort than the Thirty-Five Hundred Worker, Five Hundred Aging Peacenik and One Thousand Trotskyite Stationary Rally with Lots of Inspiring Speakers. I am sure that the hotel workers appreciated a visit from a chunk of those who attended the latter rally -- who doesn't want more bodies on a picketline? -- but that is not the point. I was counterposing HERE's strategic efforts to take on the hotel chains, and the rallies and actions that are a part of that strategy, with the directionless, diffuse, and undefined idea behind the "Million Worker March." And my point stands.
I have yet to receive a straight answer from someone on what this rally was supposed to have achieved, and I doubt I ever will. Hey, I'm announcing that I'm going to have a "Revolutionary March for Socialism" in Lubbock, Texas, this coming December 25. Anyone who doesn't jump on board must be a revisionist sellout. I'm sure the labor bureaucrats will do nothing to mobilize for this all-important march.
Give me a break.
Funny thing is, Michael Dawson agrees with my assessment of this rally and of the election (he's said he's voting for Kerry, despite his crack about "a DP dupe," which is the mark of a true idiot). The only reason I can think of for why he decided to be so crabby with me is that he's making a special effort to be a dick, a task at which he is always very successful.
- - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
People of the US, unite and defeat the Bush regime and all its running dogs!