Just When Union Bosses Thought Things Couldn't Get Any Worse: New poll finds unions losing Americans' support...

After a dismal 2009 and an even worse beginning to 2010, union bosses were dealt another blow today when a Pew poll was released showing that union favoribility ratings have plummeted since 2007.

Favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions’ purpose and power. Currently, 41% say they have a favorable opinion of labor unions while about as many (42%) express an unfavorable opinion. In January 2007, a clear majority (58%) had a favorable view of unions while just 31% had an unfavorable impression.

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In recent years, positive attitudes about labor unions have declined significantly across most demographic groups. The largest change has come among those 65 and older. Currently 29% of this group says they have a favorable opinion of unions, down 31 points from 60% in 2007. Notably, those younger than 30 are the only age group in which a majority (53%) expresses a favorable view of unions; even so, far more young people (66%) expressed a positive opinion two years ago.

While this trend is consistent with last year's Gallup poll finding that a majority of Americans disapproved of unions, it also seems to be a continuation of more bad news for union bosses after a year of bad news.

Shortly after President Obama's inauguration, union bosses were confident that their agenda would be immediately enacted.  However, after 13 months, their number one legislative goal, the job-destroying and hallucinogenically-named Employee Free Choice Act, is all but dead; their number two issue, the nationalization of America's health care, has become a lightening rod; and, almost as bad, their own members, as well as the American public are turning on them. 

Despite all of this, with the 2010 mid-term elections looming right around the corner, the worst may yet be coming for union bosses.
 
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“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776


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Photo credit: Anomalous4

Why so Socialist?

Last year, the mainstream media (un-affectionately known as the MSM) and a number of pundits on the left were caught completely off guard when posters of President Obama began appearing mysteriously in Los Angeles and Atlanta.  It was a brief story, but it made a big splash around the internet.

Well, seemingly unrelated to the "joker poster story" is a Gallup poll released last week that revealed that over a third (36%) of Americans view socialism positively.  Moreover, over half (53%) of Democrats who were polled view socialism positively.

"Socialism" was one of seven terms included in a Jan. 26-27 Gallup poll. Americans were asked to indicate whether their top-of-mind reactions to each were positive or negative. Respondents were not given explanations or descriptions of the terms.


Americans are almost uniformly positive in their reactions to three terms: small business, free enterprise, and entrepreneurs. They are divided on big business and the federal government, with roughly as many Americans saying their view is positive as say it is negative. Americans are more positive than negative on capitalism (61% versus 33%) and more negative than positive on socialism (36% to 58%).

So, overall, only 10% view 'free enterprise' and 'entrepreneurs' negatively and an overwhelming 95% of Americans polled view small business positively.

It seems incongruous that a majority of Democrats could favor socialism and an even larger majority favor free enterprise.  The leads one to wonder, do Democrats really understand socialism?

Definition of socialism:

1. a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
2. procedure or practice in accordance with this theory. 
3. (in Marxist theory) the stage following capitalism in the transition of a society to communism, characterized by the imperfect implementation of collectivist principles.

If a majority of Democrats favor socialism and, by a wider margin, favor free enterprise too, it seems that either many Democrats don't understand that there can be no 'free enterprise' under a socialist system.

This leads us back to the mysterious joker posters.

Following the erruption over the emergence of the posters, Robert Dougherty wrote a good piece, correctly pointing out that the Obama as the joker comparison is inaccurate:

The Joker was many things, but he was hardly a socialist. In fact, the Joker is the polar opposite of a socialist, and anyone who watched The Dark Knight would know that. Socialism is the result of an all-powerful central government that runs every aspect of life -- but the Joker subscribes to anarchy, one of socialism's polar opposites.


If the Joker was a socialist, he would be destroying Gotham in the name of an all-powerful state. Instead, the self-described "agent of chaos" nearly brought down the state itself, and all of its most cherished institutions, so that nothing could bring order to Gotham.

Like the inaccuracy of confusing the Joker's anarchism with socialism, so too it seems are people confusing socialism with freedom.  You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

This raises a very concerning question:  We know that many Democrats favor big government.  We know that many of the policies of a big government tend to lead to the state control of commerce (aka socialism).  The questions is, do those who support socialism realize that, in doing so, they are eliminating their freedom?

Read the entire Gallup poll article here.

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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776


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For news & reviews on today's unions, go here.

BAD NEWS FOR UNION BOSSES: This Labor Day, the Majority of Americans Think You SUCK!

Bad news this Labor Day weekend, according to a Gallup poll release on Friday, for the first time ever the majority of Americans disapprove of unions.

While many (particularly union bosses) may view this as a surprise, it should not be that shocking.

Since 2006, when unions won the election mid-term elections for Democrats, unions have been exerting greater influence on the Democratic Party. This has manifested itself in the Leftward push of the party itself, turning the Democrats into, for the first time in America, a de facto Labor Party.

While many Americans were naive to this underground revolution on the Left, union bosses continued to flex their political muscles through 2008, culminating in November's Obama victory.

Since the 2008 Obama victory, the proverbial "sleeping giant" of America is starting to slowly wake up to the union bosses' game, having seen:

• A Bailout of the Auto Industry at taxpayer expense, rewarding the United Auto Workers, the union that helped decimate the auto industry.
• An attempt to nationalize health care by the administration, but led by unions
• Astro-turfing at town hall meetings where union thugs take their aggression out on concerned citizens and, in at least one case, allegedly beat up a man
• The incoming president of the AFL-CIO openly threatening politicians that it's the union way or else...
• A union-back bill that has been hallucinogenically named the Employee Free Choice Act which 1) removes workers' right to a secret-ballot election if a majority are tricked into signing union "authorizations" and 2) allows a federal government-appointed arbitrator to dictate workers' wages and benefits.

These, among other reasons (all union bosses' own doing), appear to be taking their toll on the public's perception of today's unions. This has led AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka to recently say: "We haven't branded ourselves."

Mr. Trumka fails to realize that no amount of 'branding' will erase the fact that today's unions are nothing like the unions of the past. Today's unions are controlled from the top-down by bosses who have embraced a socialist world view and have aided in the demise of thousands of companies and millions of jobs.

We'll have to wait and see next year's poll numbers to see if Americans continue waking up to today's union bosses and their shenanigans.