760 The Civil Wrongs Movement

760 The Civil Wrongs Movement

The civil rights movement borrowed successful strategies from the labor movement -- what, 30, 40 or so years its senior. So, now the civil wrongs movement is borrowing successful strategies from the civil rights movement, 40 or so years ITS senior. There is, of course, a major difference today. The first and second of these movements wanted inclusion through organizing. The latest iteration wants, essentially to undo almost 100 years of progress.

The cwm wants to stop paying its bills so that it can have more money to ... what? Buy toys? "Create" jobs? "Protect our children from the slings and arrows of what they think of as outrageous government? The ultraconservative yeehahs, stuck in their word of fantasy and free market mythology, want to turn you into plow mules, keep you so scared and so busy you never ask for a raise or expect a promotion or have any future financial security. They want to enslave you to "unearned rewards and unrewarded duties," as that great liberal, Ayn Rand, often said and wrote.

So maybe it's time to borrow strategies from the borrowers of strategies. In extreme, that would mean burning a cross on Glenn Beck's lawn or "disappearing" some civil wrongs workers in a Mississippi swamp. Too extreme. But some of the tactics of the anti labor and segregationists might work. Start small. Surround and intimidate the mobs that are trying to surround and intimidate you at an abortion clinic. Start spreading the word that what the so-called tea bags are trying to pull off is sedition and leads to anarchy. Get in there and make sure everyone knows that people who bus into Washington or wherever are "outside agitators," a marvelous phrase coined by some southerner decades ago.

Most of us can't afford Henry Ford's "solution" to the "union problem," which was hiring thugs to beat up workers. And that, too, is too extreme. But what's happening today is lethargy and ultimately, lethargy kills.

These anti-American protesters are going to win if someone doesn't do something about them. Make Pogo wrong when he said "We have met the enemy and he is us." If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Shrapnel:

--Which to you prefer: (a) Doctor with a great bedside manner but limited expertise... (b) Doctor with a lousy bedside manner but who's a medical wizard. Wrong. No doctors come to your bedside anymore, not even in the hospital, so there's no longer any such thing as a bedside manner.

--Real everyday manners, now that's another story. They, too, seem to be among the missing. How "me" can you be... before someone cleans your clock for cutting you off on line?

--Printer panic time. Yours will tell you when you put in an "unauthorized" ink jet cartridge and forbid you from using it. The cure: forget your manners, push "print" and the thing'll back down and do what you want.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010