Let's hear it for the unions?

Think I mentioned a couple times that I've been in labor unions. Illinois is a "closed shop" state, meaning that it allows unions to outlaw employers from hiring non-union employees. So I had a job in a factory that was represented by -- believe it or not -- the SEIU. But that was before Andy (Karl Marx Jr.) Stern took that union over and split it away from the AFL-CIO. Now the AFL is trying to throw in with SEIU -- tells you how successful unionism has been in the USA over the last 30 years, doesn't it?

At any rate, I had that job in 1972, when George McGovern ran against Nixon. McGovern's big brilliant suggestion was a so-called "guaranteed income" for every American. So no matter what you did -- or didn't -- do, you would get a certain amount of income every year. Apparently from the feds if no one else thought you were worth the money.

And the union, of course, the SEIU, backed McGovern and sent him a 18-wheeler full of union dues. And all the people I worked with, most of whom liked the union, got very upset about that.

"We work so hard.... yadayadayada.... and 'they' will get an income for doing nothing?!"

Maybe no one else remembers, but McGovern lost pretty big that year, and Nixon was not exactly everyone's favorite personality.

I mention this because I watched Hannity on TV tonight and he had Frank Luntz on, doing a focus group in Cleveland, Ohio. Also flashed a bunch of new poll results -- not necessarily for the candidates, but on the issues and general attitudes. Something very interesting:

60% OF UNION MEMBERS THINK THEIR UNIONS ARE WASTING THEIR DUES.

One lady, apparently a union member, said she believed her union should be investing their dues, or at least consulting with the membership about where their dues should go, rather than just shoveling it all into dem coffers.

So the union leadership thinks the best way to guarantee jobs is to get in bed with the Comrade and the merry marxists, while most of the union members seem to have more realistic ideas about that. Even they understand that the government does not create jobs. Matter of fact, wonder if Ohio is a closed-shop state --where you don't work if you don't join the union. That might explain why Frank Luntz could even find so many union members. Anyway, just found those poll results extremely interesting.

All of this may help to explain why unions get smaller and smaller every year in the USA, apart from their government worker membership. I understand unions are even recruiting the unemployed now. I mean, really, who else would join a union? Let's face it, people who work for the government are probably incapable of finding a real job anyway. In Chicago and most parts of Illinois, people who work for the government are usually members of the an office-holder's immediate family, ward heelers who pass out literature during campaigns (that's honest-to-God how you get a city job in Chicago), or are cast-off mistresses of other government workers, especially the elected ones. I don't suppose it's really too much different in other states or for the feds.

Anyway, I thought that was cool. So the Comrade and the merry marxists get union donations, but they don't get the union vote.

Excuse me, I'm rolling on the floor laughing.

Don't forget to vote -- especially you fed-up union members. Apparently they've figured out, even if their leadership hasn't, that if there is no business in America, there are no jobs, either.

Save the Republic.