BARBWIRE
A few years ago, I warned of the coming of the Devil Children of
Ronald Reagan. Last Thursday at the post office, I finally met one.
He patrolled the pavement pleading the rights of poor Nevada
workers, selling people on signing a petition to protect paychecks from
evil union bosses. He labored for the $1.50 per signature paid by the
Nevada Republican Party with help from billionaire Las Vegas casino mogul
Sheldon Adelson.
The madcap Mr. Adelson comes well-suited to this nefarious
enterprise. He's building the superdreadnaught Venetian Hotel on the site
of the venerable Sands, which he blew up. The Sands was once owned by
Nevada's first eccentric billionaire, Howard Hughes, the front man to whom
assorted mob families assigned the task of laundering their investments
into the corporate legitimacy of today.
Adelson has made it his business to destroy Nevada organized labor,
just as the GOP is trying to do in more than two dozen other states. While
unions today represent just under 10 percent of the private workforce, a
50-year low, the old fighter showed some legs during the 1996 election
cycle, bloodying a few blue-chip bluenoses. Even though corporations
outspent workers as much as 19 times over, big business became enraged at
such lower-class impudence.
Soon came federal and state initiatives designed to place so much
paperwork on the gathering of union political contributions that they
aren't worth having. Why spend $10 a year to obtain one to four dollars per
member? (For details on the issue, go to Politics '98).
Many unions, like the Teamsters, use no dues for politics, so
passage won't deal a fatal blow. It will represent another step toward
making America the "union free" country predicted by management consultants
in the early Reagan years. The kid at the post office represented the
logical permutation of such aberration.
After gathering my mail, I got the picket sign I always carry in
the trunk of my American-made Pontiac. It sports a huge "Jobs with Justice"
graphic, showing a rainbow of American faces. Held together with "Union
Yes" bumper stickers, I topped it off with the dust jacket of Michael
Moore's bestseller "Downsize This!"
The young petition pusher's bearing reflected the cocksure ego of
someone concurrently handsome and five-feet, five-inches tall. Before he
knew it, he was being picketed and questioned. One golf-shirted gentleman
he attracted signed the papers, then gave me the finger as he stepped into
his luxury car parked in the handicapped zone.
I tried to tell the young man about the damage he was promoting. He
owed organized labor the eight-hour day, paid vacations, overtime pay,
worker safety — hell, even the concept known as "the weekend." I told him
he might never look forward to a well-paid job if he participated in
dragging American workers down to third-world wages.
"Fine," he said. "I plan to work in international commerce, exporting U.S. jobs. I'm making good money now and will use it to spend
another six months in Europe like I did last year."
But why hurt the people you leave behind?
"I hate America," he said, "she only knows greed and the drive for
money. Europe is much broader."
Then it hit me. He was about 20, a product of the selfish Reagan
Eighties. The cycles of history I've read about were coming around to bite
me. When I'm old, his generation will be running the country.
As Arthur Schlesinger and other historians have long pointed out,
people reflect their formative years, e.g., between 15 and 25. When they
come to power 30 years later, they implement their nurturing.
When this kid is 50 and running things, I hope I'm either rich or
dead. The only hope the Baby Boomers retain against them is that there are
so many of us, and we're having so many kids, that we may yet outvote them.
The power of properly promulgated propaganda is scary. This young
man could not care less about the low-wage workers of the
gambling-industrial complex. He was deaf to my pleas about the gamblers'
grab for power.
GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Kenny Guinn has been telling people
he has reserved $500,000 to take over the Nevada State Assembly so that an
all-Republican government can control voting district reapportionment. (For
news of the first skirmish, go here and here.)
The ruling class is so
intent on overpowering the peons that last week Nevada's Democratic
governor and junior U.S. senator were both sent out to hatchet State
Sen. Joe Neal (D-North Las Vegas), their party's likely gubernatorial
nominee. (See "The Empire
Strikes Back"
Neal's great sin lies
in wanting to raise
taxes on mega-casinos like Adelson's.
Nevada gambling enterprises pay the
lowest taxes in the United States.
I'm an old campaigner, but even I became unnerved at such a raw
display of venom by Sen. Richard Bryan and Gov. Bob Miller.
The like of it has not happened in these parts since Sen. Pat
McCarran (D-Nev.) supported a Republican for the junior U.S. Senate seat
after the unknown Tom Mechling upset Alan Bible in the 1952 Democratic
primary.
Twice last week, I stared into the face of soul-less greed. The
political minions carrying water for the overlords I can handle.
I remain frightened and haunted by that cocky young man with the
six clipboards. The non-moral I can deal with. The amoral chill my bones.
We must teach our children better than that.
Be well. Raise hell.
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