Brother, I know what you wrote but I'm having a hard time figuring out how it could be anything but condoning violence when you can't win in the realm of ideas and public opinion.
I'm not anti-union in principle since unions have done quite a bit of good in the years before OSHA and many of the worker protection laws were enacted. However, many of the unions today aren't much more than structures for political parties and organized crime.
My father was a member of the old OCAW (Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers) union which has now been absorbed by, I believe, the AFLCIO. During one strike, he was walking the picket line and two union goons showed up. They waited for a car to come to the refinery gate (someone from management who was required to be there) and they managed to put the guy from his car, beat him savagely and then stab him... leaving him in a pool of blood. My father, who was a medic in WWII, couldn't stop the attack but tended to the wounded man to help keep him alive until the ambulance came. They loaded him up on the ambulance and my father rode with him in the back to help the ambulance attendant control the bleeding. The man survived and my father was given a ride back to the refinery to pick up his car by a police officer who was investigating the attempted murder. On his return to the scene to get his car, he was informed by the union (nothing in writing of course) that he was a traitor to the union - he shouldn't have helped the guy and he shouldn't have left the picket line. He decided at that moment that he couldn't be associated with an organization that condoned violence and murder. Fortunately, the strike ended a few days later, largely due to the negative press from the incident. Immediately after, the refinery officials offered my Dad a small promotion that moved him from a union job to a company job and he took it. He was always concerned after that strike that he would be targeted by violence the next time there was a strike and he would be one of those who have to cross the picket line. Fortunately he was able to take early retirement before there was another strike.
So who do you want to be? Do you want to be someone like my departed father who stood up for what is right, or do you want to be on the side of those who dont mind spilling a little blood when they can't get their way?
