Labor unions have been despoiling the American working landscape,ruining companies (such as General Motors) and enriching corrupt leaders for decades. They probably should have been buried in 1950 in a steel coffin in honor of their moral code: Steal, steal, steal.
Are educators in Culver City better off with their Teachers Union? In their words, no. Monday, the School District team, headed by Asst. Supt. David El Fattal, and the Union, headed by David Mielke, are scheduled to go to mediation to settle their latest impasse.
The Service Employees International Union may have replaced the Teamsters as the most intimidating, dishonest union du jour. Welcome to Thugsville — which means they are right at home with Mayor Wrong and Cardinal Wrong in this town. Stories I have heard of SEIU tactics in Santa Monica should mean jail time, but it won’t.
Now Serving the Dessert
Ethnic defense organizations are my favorite abusers in this category.
Are the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the Anti-Defamation League bringing one drop more in benefits to their communities than the Campfire Girls or the Women’s Christian Temperance Union?
The subject arises because I met a lovely lady a few days ago, Dr. Geraldine Washington, the President of the Los Angeles Chapter of the NAACP.
For a moment, let us digress.
With apologies to nice people I have known in their offices, if the ADL has done anything useful in the last ten years, it hasn’t made the newspapers. Mostly, it is a political platform and a payday for Abe Foxman, a pompous fat man in New York, who has not been right on an issue since he picked the South to win the Civil War.
As the ADL is an excuse for Mr. Foxman, the NAACP is an equally limp excuse for the whacky views of Chairman Julian Bond, who has made a career out of viciously attacking blacks with conservative views.
From here, it looks as if the two men have great gigs going just as long as you don’t look closely or take them seriously.
Both extreme gentlemen — who hate tolerance — spend their days polishing their narcissistic self-perpetuation talents.
After meeting Dr. Washington at the Fox Hills Mall on the occasion of a new program we shall talk about, I have leavened some views on the NAACP.
She appears to be a departure from Mr. Bond and from Kwame Mfume, the former NAACP President and CEO.
Seven years ago when I was writing for a Baltimore newspaper, I interviewed Mr. Mfume in his bucolic headquarters on the outer rim of Baltimore.
His oratorical skills will romance you, good enough to make him President of the United States, I once believed. His performance skills, however, make you scratch your head with both hands.
In a decade as the boss of the NAACP, Mr. Mfume chased nonsense scenarios — how many blacks are in a scene from a popular television show? He did not have time for serious subjects.
The World Is Called Fantasy
Sadly (for you and me, not for them), the ADL and the NAACP live fantasy existences. As long as one person on the planet hates either group, it seems to justify their existence. That is like a baldheaded gentleman regularly visiting his old barbershop for nostalgic purposes.
Both the NAACP and the ADL blithely ignore the following facts: Hatred of blacks started with roughly the first black man. Anti-Semitism the Phrase was not coined until a hundred and thirty-five years ago, but the concept dates back thousands of years.
This very day, we Jews are in the midst of celebrating our escape from one of the ugliest Pharoahs in Egypt a little more than thirty-three hundred years ago. One day at high noon, in full view of everyone, Jews walked out of Egypt and away from slavery. Not long afterward, Pharoah and his troops set out in hot pursuit, and Jews have been chased ever since. That is just the way it is.
When quotas were more fashionable, the ADL may have made a difference.
Postscript
At the outset, this was intended to be a discussion of Dr. Washington and her beliefs. They will have to wait until the next time.