“Action reveals the unspoken word; recording for all time what one had concealed by silence.”
“What you do speaks so loud, I can not hear what you say.”
I must confess I do love phrases such as these; an assembly of simple words set in their own unique pattern in such a way that they are both rhythmic to the ear and intimidating in their meaning. The first series is my own, the latter belongs to Emerson.
Both have a peculiar resonance as it relates to intension, the first is somewhat covert, Emerson’s is, well, more overt. In any case, they both approach intention and its ethos in much the same measure: Action, the physical manifestation triggered by the impetus of thought – conscious or otherwise.
For several decades now Americans have been increasingly anesthetized by the duality of dialectic mutation of thought which is, in its simplest form, the convergence of two distinctly different positions (thesis and antithesis) into an emerging consensus of thought. The making of an absolute into a transient (changing) form largely because the belief in an absolute interferes with the preference of their being both no absolutes and the greater desire to be able to make a belief system whatever one wants it to be which, in turn, is then also constantly changing. In the realm of the duality of political-speak, I have a saying for this too:
“We can call it whatever we want so long as we don’t have to say what it truly is!”
The concepts we have been lead to believe are evidentiary of this notion of change are completely illusory, there is no such thing as change, there is only discovery of what is and has always, already, been so.
The nuance of change is Mans invention to camouflage the duality of intention. For example – I have changed my mind or, It is my prerogative. After all there is, only, ever moving toward the discovery of what is not yet known/discovered – which doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, it just means we aren’t yet aware of it – or the moving away from something that has been discarded –which doesn’t mean it is not valid, it just means that for some reason we choose to abandon the idea and thus we have the imaginings of the dialectic mutation.
Nowhere is the mutation more prevalent than in the world of politics and more directly, the abuse of the political process where the dialectic method is pervasive and quite mature in its seasoned application. My hope is that the stirring of the Body-Politic, the iconic American ideal of Liberty, is evidence that the People are awakening from an exceptionally long period of hibernation.
The crack in the armor of this over-spent mind-game is fracturing in many areas: Political Machinery, Voting Dysfunctions, Financial Abuses, Flawed Economic Theory, Bureaucratic Malfeasance and Abuses, Judicial Processes, Legislative Organisms and Processes and so on. However, there is one particular arena that is increasingly being exposed for its extreme levels and practices of mutated hubris: Labor Unions. In theory an organizational concept with noble overtones yet never (quite) able to deliver on its spoken promise, though deliberate in its unique ability to redefine its role(s) so long as it never has to explain what exactly its role is; much like the ACLU, another example of the self-directed mutation.
The following is a series of points excised from my own writings and contemporary observations. I will leave my comments silent in exchange for your own personal synthesis. Consider the following:
- The FBI and the U.S. Labor Department are investigating Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as part of a corruption probe. Presently, Mr. Stern is part of Mr. Obama’s deficit-reduction commission. The 2 million member strong SEIU is the nations second largest union. A 2008 Los Angles Times article reported on allegations of corruption identifying hundreds of thousands of dollars being directed by the SEIU (local) to businesses owned by relatives and associates of its president who has since been fired.
- The National Weather Services Employees Organization (Union) announced that U.S. Department of Commerce’s enforcement of fishery laws must first be negotiated with the union. Failure to do so, says the Unions Counsel, will result in the filing of an unfair labor practice charge. The Union’s counsel inferred that enforcement of the law was driven by lawmakers hoping to win favor with constituents during an election year particularly as the Union is aware of the serious trouble Massachusetts’s Democrats are having in holding on to their positions and further, Ms. Matera wrote, “This desperation does not give the agency an excuse to engage in serious and blatant violations of federal labor law.”
- “In my opinion a successful election would really only enhance the Delta culture,” said Rene Foss, a flight attendant and spokeswoman for the AFA (Union) at Northwest. “It’s not going to take away from anything that already exists.” The National Mediation Board, which governs airline labor relations, in June decided that unions can win if they get more than 50 percent support from workers who actually vote. In the past, they had to get more than 50 percent of all eligible voters, regardless of whether they voted. Under the old rules, abstentions became “no” votes.
- The potential buyer (Norman Industries) for a General Motors stamping plant in Indianapolis has dropped its bid after workers overwhelmingly rejected pay cuts it sought. “The contract they offered us wasn’t a contract,” UAW Local 23 bargaining chairman Gregory Clark told The Indianapolis Star after the vote was announced Monday. “It just gutted everything we had come to know as a contract between employers and employees.” GM has been planning to close or sell the 2 million-square-foot plant west of downtown Indianapolis for three years. The plant now has about 640 hourly workers and state officials had offered Norman Industries $2 million in tax incentives if that grew to a promised 1,900 jobs. Norman Industries planned for the factory to make hoods, fenders and other metal pieces for GM and other automakers.
- A CalPERS board member running for re-election, George Diehr, use of public resources for a political campaign also became an issue when Diehr ran for re-election to the CalPERS board four years ago. The powerful 13-member board of the California Public Employees Retirement System controls investments currently worth about $213 billion and sets annual payments to the pension fund from the state and more than 1,500 local government agencies. CalPERS has made headlines recently for having understated their unfunded pension liability to the State of California. At the moment, this unfunded liability is estimated to be $585 Billion. Recently, a study performed by Boston College estimated nationwide, States unfunded pension/benefit program liabilities are in excess of $2.5 Trillion.
- In Rhode Island, the resent primary elections delivered stunning blows to popular incumbents Douglas W. Gablinske, of Bristol; Alfred A. Gemma, of Warwick; and Mary Ann Shallcross Smith, of Lincoln all associated their losses on public employee unions who oppose changes to pension plans. Gablinske said, “Each of us was targeted for defeat by special interests which are, first and foremost, more interested in protecting their pensions than they are about the viability of the State of Rhode Island.” The Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, named 88 Assembly candidates who have received “union PAC money.” “When you have roughly 75 percent of candidates for seats in the House and Senate being bankrolled by union PAC money, then you can understand why the union’s agenda has center stage in the legislature and the taxpayer’s agenda is not heard,” Harry L. Staley, the group’s chairman, said in a statement. George Nee, president of the state AFL-CIO, said the contributions “are part of the political process.”
- An amateur group of citizens in Houston recently (September 2010) uncovered massive voter fraud perpetrated by a group headed by a SEIU employee, Steve Caddle. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted are valid. Caddle told local newspapers that there “had been mistakes made.”
- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has blasted California’s largest union for supporting a November ballot measure to legalize marijuana. The governor wrote an opinion piece for Friday’s Los Angeles Times, calling it a flawed initiative that would make California a laughingstock, cause legal nightmares and risk public safety. Schwarzenegger’s piece attacks the 700,000-California Membership SEIU for endorsing the measure. SEIU endorses the Proposition as a means to generate funds they’d hope would be directed toward the States unfunded liabilities. SEIU, unlike several other Unions who’ve agreed to modifications to the States Pension System, will not agree to join the restructuring efforts.
Whether covert or overt, action records intention the outcome of which is universal and pervasive.
“When the minority wills the outcome, who then speaks for the Majority Will?”
That is, after all, the essence of representative government: the convergence of the many -of different minds – about a common ideal, expressing the majority will!
The time for playing government is over! These are serious times and there’s no longer a place for the duality of mutation, dialectic or otherwise.
A Union, whether of a People, a Nation of Sovereign Independent States or an Assembly of Mutated Intentions, what you do, Reveals!
Curtis C. Greco, Founder
