I’m being glib in the title of this post, but if I’ve ever felt the need to use “slaughtered” and “destroyed” in a sentence after reading a blog post, this is it. No, silly, not physical violence, but in the intellectual sense: I think NO’s comment at the bottom sums it up best:

…why in hell should any politician deliver for unions? implied “ever again?”

One will have a very difficult time defending some decisions and leadership in the unions after reading this devastating post. Don’t read it as about Edwards. Take out his name and insert the candidate of your choice; it could’ve happened to any of them.

Unions in America have been in a decline for over 60 years. Union membership has dropped from almost 35% of all workers in 1945 to less than 15% today. In fact, union membership has declined to almost exactly the same percentage as it was in 1930 before FDR took power and encouraged the growth of unions. The first crucial battle the unions lost came after FDR died, when over Truman’s veto the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947. Truman called the Taft-Hartley Act a “slave labor bill”.

Since then unions have lost critical battle after battle  Read more 

To me, Ellen has always been the gay world’s version of Hillary. I don’t think she’s very funny, I found her comedy of errors with that bi-curious actress depressingly plebeian, and I’ve never understood or accepted the construction of her as the “face of the New Lesbian,” and the symbol of how we are accepted by mainstream society today. I didn’t know she had a talk show, but it seems she’s no friend to unions either. I’m alll for lesbians breaking the glass ceiling, but this seems like a classic case of “fuck you, I’ve got mine.” Way to help out your fellow artist, grrl. Not.

I know I’m the big anti-TeeVee blogger here, but I thought I’d take this moment to say that I do actually care to see the writer’s come out on top in this strike. When I’m Queen of the World, creative people will be the ones paid the most for the work from which others have been making billions. The Suits are the reason TeeVee sucks so badly today; I just heard a piece by some director talking about media consolidation, and he was saying that basically 6 corporate entities are responsible for everything that is shown. Worse, it’s no longer acceptable to use “out of house” production companies; if you’re part of the Disney Borg, you’ll find other Mouseslaves to write, tech and act in your show.

Media integration is a great evil, and for that reason alone, I support the strikers. I hope many of them realize that it’s still somewhat free on the Intertubes, and they’ve got the know-how to skip the corporate trap and just produce material for distribution here. I already pay for Netflix so I can watch what I want commercial free and at my lesiure; I would do the same for material from a production house headed up by say, Joss Wheadon.

Irony, it’s what’s for dinner. Heh, how funny is it that a story about declining American automotive groups (for the unions and GM are both technically in decline) is opened with an ad by one of their more insidious competitors. That made me giggle.

More seriously, you should pay attention to the strike. You’re going to see more of this sort of thing, and it could even someday include you and the people you work with. The bottom line is the question of which promises are going to be kept.  Read more