LOOK FOR THE UNION LABEL

I'm not sure what your position on workers unions may be. But I know that I am diametrically opposed to them all, and everything they stand for. hate is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings about Unions and collective bargaining agreements. If that statement angers you, tough darts farmer! It was meant to be inflammatory. Labor unions in the United States are one of the biggest causes  of the  financial crisis we are currently experiencing. The city of San Diego, is currently trying to close down all and essential services, and some essential services such as police and fire department because they cannot continue at their current tax level. During fiscal year 2009 the city of San Diego reported one lowest crime statistics ever reported for the city of San Diego. If the Police Department labor union has said that those numbers are incorrect because so much crime may actually go unreported. And that without the new tax revenue being proposed on this year's ballot the citizens of San Diego who live in fear because police officers will be leaving for better paying jobs in other places. Forget that there are no openings in those other places, and in those places are experiencing the same LOAD of rhetoric from their Police Department.

Due to freedom of information, it has been discovered that city employees retiring from the city of San Diego are able to garner upwards of $80,000 a year plus full medical benefits for life at age 50. It doesn't stop there. The state employee union has the same deal. This infuriates me! Not because of the money. But, because those employee unions use their collective political clout to boss politicians around and force them to give those people exactly what their avarice and greed desires.

There's nothing that infuriates me more than a drive by some building or some company where the employees are on strike because they want to draw attention to the fact that they aren't getting what they want. Complaining that their job is so dangerous, or their pay is so egregious that they just have to walk out and stop all financial gain being done by the Corporation. And supposedly their job is so dangerous or so underpaid that they have to stay in the street and threaten bodily harm against anybody that tries to take their job. If a nonunion member stood up in front of the company and threatened to beat up somebody who applied to work there he/she would be in jail so fast he would know what them. With these mobsters get away with it on television and act with impunity.

There is a ballot measure in San Diego County that removes the requirement for people bidding on a construction job to be a member of the union. I voted for that. Back in 1979 when I took a part-time job as a security guard during the Chargers football season, I was forced to become a member of the Teamsters union. It left a bad taste in my mouth that has lasted until today. I really wanted that job and I feel bad for having gone against my convictions about labor unions, just to have it.

One of my least favorite collective bargaining units is the teachers unions! Especially the California teachers union. I keep reading and hearing how underpaid and overworked teachers in California are. Yet children spent 12 years in school and still not know how to read. I read information that says teachers spend on average $500 out-of-pocket for classroom supplies. And ask for us to donate markers and pencils and paper supplies for the classroom. Because, they just don't have the resources to teach our children. Well, I'm calling a big fat BS on that! Two years ago Gov. Schwarzenegger put on a ballot measure that would not allow teachers that automatically gain tenure just by showing up to work every day. The California teachers Association spent $150 million to defeat that proposition. Where the hell did they get $150 million when they can't afford crayons? Schwarzenegger's biggest mistake was to not reintroduce that Bill the very next year. It would have been a knockout blow financially against their teachers union that they would never have recovered from. And we would not be faced with a situation where the teachers unions are more interested in the teachers there are about the children.

I have the utmost respect for teachers, but I despise their unions. And I think they make for bad politicians also. I would never vote for a person running for political office on the basis of their experiences in academia. Academia is responsible for some of the worst tragedies ever perpetrated on the human race. Those fools who sit in their ivory towers and pontificate on how we could improve the world, are the same people that brought you the Marxist pogroms that killed 60 million Russians installing Communism in that country. There is also the German intelligentsia who were responsible for developing Zyklon B (nerve gas used for extermination of Jews during the second world war).

I have been debating in my own mind the best course of action for this blog. I thoroughly enjoy all the people I have met here and the interactions that we share. But I am feeling drawn, no called, by my patriotic heart to go all political. I need a little feedback from my friends here. Should I go ahead and start a second blog, where I'm free to attack verbally all of those institutions that I find at odds with the American dream? Would you like to hear it here in this forum?

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