Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Shrieking Hysteria Continues

Lawrence O’Donnell outdid even Paul Krugman’s “third-world-style oligarchy” bit, referring repeatedly last night to “the end of unions as we know them” if one public sector union in Wisconsin is partially decertified.

As further evidence of his loss of contact with reality, while discussing the issue with a guest he said that the labor union movement “has moved generally forward for the last several decades.” I find it hard to describe a decline in union representation from 36% of workers to slightly under 7% of them as “generally moving forward.”

He specifically referenced the “domino effect” to justify his alarm, which was the same theory used to justify the war in Vietnam. If Vietnam fell to the Chinese Communist Red Menace, we were told, then the rest of the Pacific Rim nations would fall to them “like dominos” and in short order the Chinese Communist Red Menace would own the Pacific Ocean at great cost to Peace and Freedom and The American Way.

That, of course, did not happen, and if O’Donnell thinks that California, for instance, is going to outlaw labor unions he is seriously delusional. He can’t really think that since, I believe, he actually lives in this state.

Where have O’Donnell and his screeching friends been while one business after another has been decertifying unions for the past thirty years? They have been out in the woods listening to the damned crickets, that's where. But let one Republican governor try to limit the power of one labor union and here comes O’Donnell at full throated fury, screaming about the “end of labor unions as we know them.”

And then self righteously accusing the “right” of engaging in hyperbole.

1 comment: