For over thirty years, since the days of President Ronald Reagan, this myth has grown in stature and credibility. Just as with other myths in history, it was turned into tantalizing tall tales endlessly repeated by some of the society's best storytellers, from Reagan right up to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
But you and anyone you know who has bought their anti-union "fish stories", hook, line and sinker, will want to be out in front of the latest news: The myth about Labor being part of the problem with debt-ridden national and state economies, rather than a central part of the solution? This is a myth now being publicly debunked, once and for all.
The anger and intensity you see in so many thousands of people protesting the anti-Labor policies of state governments from Wisconsin to Florida is a clear sign of the times. This is not a Democrat vs. Republican or Conservative vs. Liberal thing, no matter what you've heard or seen. The protesters aren't all public employees and "union thugs" like those storytellers claim in their desperate struggle to perpetuate the myth.
Yes, many are the teachers who educate our kids, the police officers and firefighters who protect us and sometimes save our lives, plus a wide range of other public workers; all being served up as so much sacrificial lamb by corporate-controlled politicians, desperate for scapegoats and cold hard cash to give them cover as they further slash taxes and widen loopholes for the wealthy private interests that finance their political careers.
But many more of the protesters, more each day, are parents & children, college students, senior citizens and non-union workers; all of who have come to see the myth"as Myth. They now see that given a choice between unions and corporations, they'd better fight hard for unions, before public schools get yet worse, before college educations get even more unaffordable, before wages, benefits and jobs get cut back further, and before pension and Social Security funds are sliced and diced beyond recognition.
No matter what you hear on Fox News, Talk Radio or online, the pro-union movement now growing is as diverse as America itself. People from all walks of life and all political persuasions are stopping to think through the stories they've heard for years about unions hurting the economy. When they do think things through, they realize that what governments in a budget crisis need most is more incoming revenue, plain and simple. And then they realize that making Big Business pay more and not less taxes is the only fair way to reach that goal, leaving the rich still rich without harming everyone else.
And then they get angry, really angry with all the political and media mythmakers. They realize they need unions to help them fight back. Then, they join the protest movement.
And this is how myths get busted.
1
1
1
