-By Warner Todd Huston
This one is hilarious. Union chief James P. Hoffa of the Teamsters has an op ed in the Detroit News where he’s crying that everyone is turning against unions these days. Yes, ole Jimmy is yelling, “leave unions alone!”
Hoffa’s headline whines out, “American ills not caused by unions.” We call that a straw man argument. No one said, “Americas ills are caused by unions.” Some of America’s ills are caused by unions, but certainly not all of them. After all some of America’s problems find union being but a symptom thereof!
Straw man isn’t all Hoffa’s up for in this uproarious op ed, though. Get a load of this fearmongering hyperbole…
Some vastly powerful corporations and billionaires want to cripple all unions and turn America into a low-wage banana republic.
Nice try. The REAL people that are mad at unions is all of us regular, poor and middle class folks that are forced to foot the bill for all the union fatcats in government making double what we are making, retiring at 30, and living the high life for forty years afterward on our tax money! With all their free healthcare and whatnot. That’s who’s a bit peeved, there, Jimmy.
The wailing goes on…
They’re succeeding. Across the country, new governors and new legislatures are demanding cuts to jobs, pensions and concessions from public employee unions. Their demands are nothing more than payback for the billions of dollars that the ultra-rich have poured into political campaigns.
Let’s hope he’s right here. Let’s hope that governments everywhere begin to scale back the absurdly high pay scales of public employees and their benefits that are impossible to sustain. Further let’s hope that public employee unions are eliminated because public employee unions are antithetical to democracy and good government.
Of course, Hoffa is pretty much a lair here, too. He is actually trying to convince his readers that the “ultra-rich” that have poured cash into political campaigns are some shadowy “other” people…. as if HE isn’t the very people he’s talking about!
The REASON we’ve gotten into this mess is because of the billions of dollars that public employee unions have poured into the campaign coffers of Democrats that have, in return, bent over backwards for the very unions that have so worn out their welcome with the good people of this country. They have made this mess that we are being forced to pay for and the voters are finally about fed up.
To paraphrase an Obama campaign slogan: “He is the one he is looking for.”
So, pardon me if I don’t get too chocked up over the whining done by Jimmy Hoffa. His crocodile tears don’t affect anyone that really knows the score.
Now, where is a “target map,” when I need one? You know, to help with the campaign to eliminate unions? Yeah. That one.
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“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.
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