Labor's Failure in D.C.

["Daniel O'Connell" <dpoconnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

carole gallaher wrote that:

"There was also a strong union presence.  I saw people with UAW, SEIU, and
Steelworkers t-shirts."

I could not disagree more, and I think this was one of the most disappointing 
aspects
of the past week's events: To be sure, on Sunday, there were people present who
_happened_ to be members of labor (SEIU it seemed, for the most part), but 
Labor _as
such_ was not a presence there.

They chose to expend most of their energy in xenophobic ranting against China 
earlier
in the week (as some on this list have already noted), and on Sunday, Sweeney 
and the
troops stayed home, for the most part.

I'm not saying that the protests (both legal and illegal) were not a success: I 
think
they were, for the most part. But our ranks could have grown by 20-30,000 if 
Labor had
made a conscious decision to turn out en masse as they did in Seattle. Why they 
did
not turn out remains to be stated. I would propose the reason in four letters:

G-O-R-E.

You can't endorse Al Gore and then blithely sally forth against the World Bank 
and the
IMF. Someone ought to be pinning Sweeney to the wall and asking him, "Which 
side are
you on?" He is moving to the left only in the imagination of The New York Times.

But I suppose I'm preaching to the choir at this point, so I'll stop...

Regards,
Daniel Cahill-O'Connell
OCONNELL@xxxxxxx

------------------------------------------------------------
DAILY NEWS @ http://www.PhilosophyNews.com
FREE EMAIL @ http://www.Philosophers.net