WHY DO THE CONSERVATIVES HATE AMERICA'S ORGANIZED UNIONS?

...The late Republican strategist, Paul Weyrich






The GOP declared war on America’s labor unions over 100 years ago. Now, just why is that?

Here we are today, embracing the year 2012, and the major unions in the nation, both those in the private industries and those in the federal and state governments, are all still totally despised by American conservatives.

The real reason for the GOP's long-term anti-union attitude is actually quite simple. American unions are the most democratic organizations known to mankind. And conservatives have always hated real democracy.

What you say! Republicans, and other conservatives actually hate the basic democratic foundations of the most successful nation in history?

Yes, that is a correct statement.

The reality is, that in true conservative thinking, they would much prefer conservative kingdoms and dictatorships with only a small group of people in control of the government. This is also why the Republican party has always been in bed with the major corporations. (No, it’s not because the corporations are the bogus “job creators”.)

They love and support large corporations because corporations are just smaller forms of kingdoms or dictatorships.

Think about it.

Corporations are not democracies. As an employee, you give up your freedoms of free speech and the right to have a personal opinion. And you obviously do not get to vote for the top executive that runs the corporation. You work under the rules of the corporation and if you want to change the rules, all you can usually do is make suggestions to upper management. Management decides when and where you will continue to work for them and whether you will get a raise, or a demotion, or a “pink slip”. It’s definitely anything but a democracy.

On the other hand and in comparison, unions are totally democratic.

Union members elect their leaders, they decide by majority rule on their labor contracts, their internal rules and regulations, on their wages and on their pensions and health care programs.

As to the conservatives, they don’t want any large democratic group of any kind telling them what to do.

This is why the Republican party’s #1 goal for 2012 is to take back the White House. This is also why they don’t care what happens to the average working middle-class American. “Let them eat cake,” should be the Republican’s motto because they would rather see the country, and all of its middle-class and its poor to totally fail. For them, this is much preferable to the president and the Democrats having any success in saving the nation’s economy.(Especially, since they were the ones responsible for driving the economy into the ditch.)

And the conservatives have felt this way, going all the way back to the gilded ages of the late 1900’s.

As a more recent case in point, the late Paul Weyrich, who was the co-founder of the conservative think-tank, Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEX). This last group being the organization that writes right-wing, conservative legislation that DC lobbyists will present to their paid-off, US Congresspersons for introduction in the US House and Senate.

This well established Republican strategist made what became a very famous speech at a conservative Texas get-together back in the late 1960’s. The meeting was also attended by the then Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, and the speech kind of says it all regarding the future philosophy of the governor that became president, and most of today’s American conservatives.

In the speech, Mr Weyrich stated: "Today, many of our Christians have what I call the “Goo-Goo Syndrome” -- Good Government. They want everybody to vote.
I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

This one short paragraph became a new foundation of the thinking of the GOP that is still their thinking today.

Being a smaller political party in its number of members, (when compared to the Democratic party), this is the reason the Republicans try to make it more difficult to register voters, especially America’s elderly, minorities, and the younger voters, as these groups tend to vote mostly Democratic.

Take for instance the last national election in 2010.

Historically, after a major presidential election such as that of 2008, the new ruling party usually looses congressional seats in both houses of congress in the next mid-term election.

However, with the many more seats-than-usual that the GOP and the Tea Party won in 2010, they have continued in trying to sell the idea that the voters “gave the GOP a mandate to cut federal spending and lower taxes”.

Well, what really happened is that the Democratic voters failed to show up in the 2010 election because many of those that had voted for the Democrats in 2008 were very disappointed. They didn’t like that the president and the Democrats in office didn’t go far enough with “Obamacare” by it not having a “Public Option”. They were also upset because the Dems in Congress did not first concentrate on a real "jobs bill" instead of immediately pursuing the healthcare issues.

In addition, 2010 was a classic mid-term election which always has a much smaller voter turn-out than presidential elections.

The truth is that the GOP’s so called “mandate” was actually a minor win by less that 18% of America’s voting public. Since when did 18% of America’s voters become a “mandate”...?

As I have previously said, with the exception of the right to bear-arms and the “state’s rights 10th amendment”, the conservatives tend to hate all the other parts of the US Constitution. But they love giant corporations, monopolies, big money and a conservative US Supreme Court that decides who and how the country is run.

And I will challenge anyone that reads this column to argue with my conclusions regarding America’s political conservatives.

Copyright G.Ater 2011

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