I'm not disagreeing with you Bruce, the companies made the promises they aren't fulfilling. My beef is that the Union leadership KNEW it then and did nothing about it. They went back to the membership and said "Look at these great new things we've gotten for you", knowing damn good and well that they'd never get it.

I don't doubt that. That's what happens when the membership just go along and let the other guy get involved.

How about also taking your union money and giving it to political operatives who you don't support.

That's illegal. There are separate deductions you can make for political action, that's strictly voluntary and listed separately from dues.

I believe they do it anyway.

I'm sure you do, but if you have any proof, then go to the district attorney and file a complaint.

I was thinking more along these lines:
http://www.fraudfactor.com/ffunionfraudintro.html

If your swallowing that bullshit, you're not thinking.

Union bombing of non-union construction sites between 1907 and 1911? C'mon.
Union leaders endorsing, and calling for members to vote for, political candidates they feel will benefit the members the most? Well, duh.

Unions have done more for the working people, especially women and minorities, than all the labor laws put together, which would never exist without them.
They have allowed workers to move up to the middle class with the bosses, and curtailed abuse by the robber barons that regulated the workers lives on and off the job. Without, unions and the laws they got passed/enforced, everyone's job, if not life, would be like being in the military.

The benefits of the unions in this country are reaped by everyone even if they've never belonged to a union. Do you think the non-union employers would give you a 40 hr week, your wge scale, or any benefits, if they didn't have to compete with unionized employers for help?

let's get serious here, unions are groups of people, and have all the warts and failings that people do. But the bottom line is they do an order of magnitude more good than harm. :headshake

I get your point. It is the same thing I tell people about the military and people who serve.

Yes, being in the military would drive me full metal jacket, but I'm sure as hell glad, there are people who can adapt to it. We'd be in a world of hurt without them.

Nah, we could just reasonably discuss our differences anytime we have issues with someone. The military is just organized thuggery.:right:

WTF?

Depends on just how necessary you think a cross-border enforcement arm really is.

Libertarian though I am, I think an army is still a necessity, particularly as long as anyone else out there does too. It's analogous to a deer's antlers: they have an appreciable metabolic cost to the rest of the deer, but they are a protection to the integrity of the rest of the body. In this, an army's societal function is most like that of the police. Either sees use in restoring order, regardless of who or what might disturb it nor how much. Where an army differs from a police force is that it transfers destruction, from its home precincts to foreign areas. Police forces are not constituted to do that.

Joke guys. thus the :right: smilie. not much of a pacifist myself, if you've read any of my previous posts.

Sorry about that, should have know better [sarc]lookout[/asm].:blush:

Well theoretically, you're not that far off. But I'm sure glad they're thugging for me and not the other guys. ;)

You could argue that they are thugging for the other side when politicians make Bush decisions, which swell the ranks of the enemy. It isn't their fault, but their missuse does give aid and comfort.

"thugging" as a description is a bit over the top, theoretically or not.

May 5, 2008
Hezbollah Trains Iraqis in Iran, Officials Say
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
BAGHDAD — Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran, according to American interrogation reports that the United States has supplied to the Iraqi government.

An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways.

Material from the interrogations was given to the Iraqi government, along with other data about captured Iranian arms, before it sent a delegation to Tehran last week to discuss allegations of Iranian aid to militia groups.

It is not known if the delegation confronted its Iranian hosts with the information, or how the Iranians responded.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government announced Sunday that it would conduct its own inquiry into accusations of Iranian intervention in Iraq and document any interference.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/wo...hp&oref=slogin

Why did we give this info to the Iraqi Gov't? They aren't doing anything as it is other than take our money? Does our leadership expect this "fledgling gov't" to take some action? Perhaps initiate sactions?
Attack them and destroy the camp? What is it we anticipate them doing with this knowledge?

My guess is was released to assist the US in providing international political pressure on Iran. I don't think it is going to make a rats ass difference. All it does is confirm what most of us already know, that Iran is in this up to their necks. When I read this kind of stuff it makes me want to say screw them and all of those people. You don't want to help us out, fine, we pull out lock stock and barrel and let the blood bath begin. We can just give the Iraqi's a few nuclear weapons to drop on Iran. Let em have at it. No one gives a crap if Iran is directly involved in the killing of US troops. No one. They get a pass.

Iran is not the only country. Arguable the greatest threat to the U.S. is the Saudi's and you never see a peep about them. Iran is just an easier target.

I do not believe the representative government of SA is knowingly training people to kill US service people in Iraq.

Most actually come from Syria's border. This is a biased source but there cold facts are usually pretty good. Long read though.

http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2007/.../jv11no4a5.asp

You'd be surprised what they are apparently up to, Merc...

I would hazard to say that there are lines of loyalty and politics in the Middle east that many of us do not really understand, coupled with religious and cultural beliefs that we do not understand as well.

Having said that, the leader of Iran just may see himself as in a position to bring about the end times, if not at least the beginning of the end times. A time when through great conflict the world is converted to Islam, and the hidden Imam may then appear. In fact he may find this to be his sacred duty.

The King of Saud, is not that guy.

As dangerous as the two countries are, if I had to choose one to keep a closer eye on, well shit, I'd keep an eye on em both.

Ahmadinejad says Israel will soon disappear

Jun 2 08:43 AM US/Eastern

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted on Monday that Muslims would uproot "satanic powers" and repeated his controversial belief that Israel will soon disappear, the Mehr news agency reported.
"I must announce that the Zionist regime (Israel), with a 60-year record of genocide, plunder, invasion and betrayal is about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene," he said.

"Today, the time for the fall of the satanic power of the United States has come and the countdown to the annihilation of the emperor of power and wealth has started."

Since taking the presidency in August 2005, Ahmadinejad has repeatedly provoked international outrage by predicting Israel is doomed to disappear.

"I tell you that with the unity and awareness of all the Islamic countries all the satanic powers will soon be destroyed," he said to a group of foreign visitors ahead of the 19th anniversary of the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Ahmadinejad also again expressed his apocalyptic vision that tyranny in the world be abolished by the return to earth of the Mahdi, the 12th imam of Shiite Islam, alongside great religious figures including Jesus Christ.

"With the appearance of the promised saviour... and his companions such as Jesus Christ, tyranny will be soon be eradicated in the world."

Ahmadinejad has always been a devotee of the Mahdi, who Shiites believe disappeared more than a thousand years ago and who will return one day to usher in a new era of peace and harmony.

His emphasis on the Mahdi has been a cause of controversy inside Iran with critics saying he would be better solving bread-and-butter domestic problems rather than talking about Iran's divine responsibility.


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

Look Who’s Tough on Iran Now

By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: June 1, 2008
In the annals of role reversal, the switch by the United Nations’ atomic sleuths in Vienna and the American intelligence community has been striking. Having long taken a back seat to the Bush administration in publicly challenging Iran’s nuclear program, the global inspectors last week moved into the driver’s seat, demanding that Tehran come clean on any progress it has made toward building a bomb.

What gives?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/we...w/01broad.html

Are you saying Saudi Arabia has a representative government, or that the political entity of the SA government hasn't trained people to kill Americans?
The first is definitely false, though I'm pretty sure that isn't what you're saying.
The second is tentatively false, in that the SA government allowed radical Muslim schools to be set up to help control the populace by directing their anger at Americans. People who attended those schools have definitely cause problems.
Also, Ahmadinejad isn't the one that controls the country. His fiery rhetoric can't be backed up without the approval of lots of very conservative folks (conservative as in won't do things to destabilize their power).

Yea, that would be like saying the US has allowed terrorists train on US soil as they attended flight school before hitting the towers on 9/11. Doesn't hold water.