THE RIGHT NOT TO JOIN - August 29, Friday, 2008

Hello again – on another GLORIOUS Friday.

We had 6.1 inches of rain at our house this week if the rain gage is to be believed. It’s been dry for so long I wondered if it knew what do if we got more than a few drops. But being a rather simple machine (as in a graduated glass tube) it seemed to function perfectly – confirmed from some additional data from the WX Bureau and the morning papers.

But the political winds are not so easy to fathom. We’re having big push for “card check” – which in my view abrogates the traditionally American practice and political guidemark of the ‘secret ballot’. It’s easy to see how a not-so-secret ballot brings to power people like Hugo Chavez or Robert Mugabe – and we don’t want that here. So…I’m trying to look at current events in the light of history.

Everyone on the tube from right to left seems to be enthralled with the idea we have passed an historic mark in a major party nominating a black man as a candidate for the Presidency. But in the newspaper account immediately following it delineated his heritage as a black father and a white mother. For some reason – unknown to me – the perfectly good word [at least up to now] ‘mulatto’ – which indicates a person of mixed heritage, has not been uttered on any of the news programs (or newspapers) I’ve experienced. Does that mean we have a heightened racial sensitivity – or is it merely misplaced?

For instance somewhere in my reading I’ve noted families with mulatto members were quite prominent in New Orleans society – and some places in the Caribbean islands – and possibly other areas of the world. Yet I’ve also read apparently in American social order a person with ‘even one drop’ of non-caucasian blood is considered ‘black.’ I just don’t follow it. French and English… Norman, Saxon, Greek, Jewish all kinds of mixtures from the Mediterranean area of the world seem to escape being rigidly classified. I’m not as familiar with eastern or even central Europe – but we need only look to the warfare between the Serbs and the Croats or various other “ethnic” groups to know that racial (tribal? Or ethnic?) divisions run deep. In fact we only need to examine the bloody history of various parts of America like Kentucky, Tennessee or West Virginia to name but three to recall deep and bloody “feuding” divisions such as the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s…

All that to say, I’m sure we’ve passed some kind of marker – but I’m not too sure what to make of it. Perhaps we’re making too much – or not enough?

In any case. America was at least during the last part of the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries hailed as the ‘melting pot’ of races and heritages into a stronger and more vigorous nation. Possibly because those who came to her shores chose to come – possibly to reject the rigid problems at ‘home.’ In any case we’re here – we’d better do all we can to make the best of it and stop looking over our shoulder.

Cordially, IN HIM

Jack

http://www.jebcovoice.net/audio/jama08-29-08.mp3

http://www.jebcovoice.net/scripts/jamt08-29-08.doc

“JUST A MINUTE”

THE RIGHT NOT TO JOIN

Just A Minute – Do Americans really want join a union? BIG LABOR has recruited Democrats to sell “card check” – which removes secret ballot elections for American workers. It’s the pitch pushed at the Democrat Convention in Denver this week. Labor leaders have insured it’s a goal of the Obama machine starting its roll across America.

Never mind The Mackinac Center for Public Policy demonstrates under freedom, twenty-two right to work states over the past 30 years have lower unemployment, higher rates of job creation, and faster growth in GDP and per-capita income than states that allow compulsory union membership. Right to Work states say workers may join a union if they choose, but may not be required to do so by law.

If you know union membership has fallen from about 21 percent to somewhere in the lower teens you understand why Obama promises to change all that. What Americans need to remember is the Democrats and BIG LABOR leadership want to make it that much more difficult for American workers not to join a union.

<> I’m Jack Buttram

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