> Once a union decision has been made to make a
> mistake everyone is obligated to follow along out
> of solidarity?
Your first job is to DO NO HARM, which is to say, you can't just actively sabotage what the workers are doing. To do so is to side with the boss against the workers. That's what you're doing. It IS that simple.
> Trying to reach people who can't see beyond
> simplistic dogma
It's not "simplistic dogma." It's the distillation of over a century of union experience and has real-world consequences; I didn't invent union principles, but I do defend them.
Last year my partner argued against a strike by her union, saying it was ill-advised. When the strike vote came and people approved the strike, she worked harder than anybody else in the union to actually organizing the strike. This was as it should be. If she had decided to undermine the strike because she thought it ill-advised, she would be a scab. People indeed make mistakes, but once a course of action has been decided upon in a democratic fashion, you are duty-bound to help implement that decision, not undermine it, particularly if undermining that decision increases our chances of defeat at the hands of the enemy. This is called democracy. US-style individualism that ignores such basic democratic decision-making by social movements (whether under a liberal or anarchist, "diversity of tactics" guise) is profoundly undemocratic and in fact serves the enemy.
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories