-By Warner Todd Huston
As President Obama clucks his tongue at America for “pointing fingers” and “assigning blame” in our political debate, and as his friends on the far left ignore him and point their fingers and assign blame to the Republicans, Tea Partiers, and Sarah Palin, at least one union chief in Detroit is doing his part to add to the political vitriol by charging anyone that disagrees with him with being a “human rights violator.”
Oh, he’s all about sitting down at the table and talking, he claims. Yet, United Auto Workers President Bob King is ready to finger point and accuse people of a vile abuse of basic human rights if they don’t bend over and take it up the tailpipe courtesy of those greedy, profligate unions.
For Crain’s Detroit David Barkholz reports that the UAW chief is all prepared for negotiations with the Big Three auto makers this year, but his tone makes it pretty clear that his idea of negotiations is his way or the highway. His vitriol is already flowing before the first negotiation session begins.
What set King off was one of the ideas that the automakers have going forward. The Automakers want to somehow tie union pay to employee performance and King thinks this is a “human rights violation.”
King also trotted out the dead horse claim that America can’t have a “strong sustainable middle class” without his thuggish union pals. Forget that only 17 percent of the entire workforce is comprised of union members and forget that we have a strong middle class right now even though unions are a tiny fraction of that workforce… yeah, forget all that.
In any case, the absurdity of charging every employer that refuses union demands is somehow a “human rights violator” is incredible. King’s rhetoric hardly fits in with President Obama’s newfound spirit of a kinder, gentler political debate. Calling anyone that disagrees with you a human rights violator is as absurd as calling everyone that disagrees with you a “racist,” or a “Nazi.”
… Oh, wait. The left does that, too.
OK, well I guess UAW President Bob King is being a normal, everyday left-winger then. Never mind. Carry on.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.