-By Warner Todd Huston
Union shill Ron Gettelfinger wants you to know that if you don’t support unions you are a racist. That’s right. If you don’t want the undemocratic card check bill to pass Congress you are exactly like the negro hanging, civil rights denying, Jim Crow enforcers of the 1950s.
In one of the most disgusting examples of moral equivalence I’ve seen for a long time — at least one not appearing on such low-born sites such as the DailyKos or Huffington Post — Gettelfinger committed the anti-intellectual outrage of positing that hanging black men in the 1950’s is “just like” voting against a bill that would take away the right of prospective union members to be allowed to vote their conscience in secret as all votes in a democracy are traditionally cast.
Gettelfinger equated the efforts of the civil rights movement to give blacks equal rights to that of support for a bill that takes away people’s rights. This is an outrage against the many thousands that died in the civil rights struggle. It cheapens the fight to end generations of racial oppression and makes a war in which hundreds of thousands of Americans died no different than a mere labor bill in Congress.
Imagine the audacity of this cretinous effort to diminish the struggle for black rights in this country all in an effort to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a mere labor bill!
Gettelfinger should be ashamed of himself for this reprehensible editorial and the Detroit News should be censured by all clear thinking people for publishing it.
This simple labor bill does not give people that were previously oppressed any rights. This bill does not free anyone from servitude. This bill is not meant to stop hangings, beatings, or efforts to keep people from an education. All this bill does is give unions the power to more easily intimidate possible members into joining their organizations. This bill takes away more rights than it gives.
There are several lies in Gettelfinger’s abhorrent piece. He says, for instance, that the evil racist, black-hanging Democrats are now Republicans but otherwise have not changed. Of course, if this were true, one should expect that Republicans would be hosting neck-tie parties still today. Yet, since the Democratic Party lost the south that seems not to be the case. If today’s Republicans are “just like” the racists of yesterday, they sure don’t act like their elders!
But his last few lines are also egregious where it concerns the lies he is trying to peddle about the EFCA.
Illegal retaliation against workers who try to organize is a serious problem, and the issue deserves a full debate in Congress. But all debates must end. When it’s time to call the question, our elected officials should respect a fundamental principle of democracy: majority rule.
This bill does nothing to stop ” Illegal retaliation against workers.” In fact, it assures that unions may retaliate against any worker that does not want their particular brand of “representation.” If this bill passes, employees will not have the democratic cover of their vote being a private one. Employees will be forced to vote out in the open so that everyone involved knows how they voted. This leaves employees open to union thugs “encouraging” them to change their vote.
In fact, it also leaves that same employee open for harassment by the company, too. After all, everyone will know if they voted yes or no!
So, this bill ensures “illegal retaliation” and does not in any way prevent it. Gettelfinger is an outright liar to claim otherwise and he knows it. Otherwise, why would he have to go to these absurdist lengths to scare people into agreeing with him? I mean, let’s get serious here. Voting against the EFCA has nothing at all to do with racism.
And, lastly, it is hypocritical of Gettelfinger to pretend he’s interested in anything “democratic” as he did when he invoked “majority rule.” Gettelfinger is not interested in the rules of democracy if he wants to eliminate the secret vote, one of the oldest parts of the democratic process, with card check.
With the lies we see in Gettelfinger’s piece, we can be more sure than ever that neither insuring democracy, nor the rights of the worker is Gettelfinger’s goal here.
He really should be ashamed of himself for this garbage. But, union thugs are like that, aren’t they?
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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