“haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words, and most of them are lies…” Was listening to Pink Floyd on the bike ride and this line struck up a thought that connected with the concerted push by the right here in Michigan to destroy the unions abetted by their propaganda paper for west Michigan “the Grand Rapids Press”. For the past couple of weeks, the Press has been running a series whose purpose is to push the repubs continued attack on the unions; now cloaked in the right to work flag. The theme of the series is that if Michigan didn’t have unions, there would be many more auto jobs and the state would be more competitive in the race for new manufacturing plants that have generally been won by the low wage southern states. Their star example is the new Kia plant in Georgia and everyone they interviewed kept to the right’s line that the only reason it was built in Georgia instead of Michigan was Georgia’s right to work status.

Well…in the fine print, they mention what I think is the key, and it isn’t the right to work laws….it IS the fact that Georgia built Kia a $410 million, yep, that’s a $410 million dollar manufacturing plant and handed them the keys…and, while this plant was being built, all of the repub southern legislators were screaming socialism when the Obama administration was helping the unionized, American manufacturers survive. Why do the Republicans want the US worker to win the race to the bottom? Why aren’t they rejoicing that the unions are protecting the middle class with wages high enough so they can buy a house, a new car, put their kids through college, and save a little for their retirement? Again, I think it’s the unholy alliance of the repubs and business, now including even foreign manufacturers whose goal it is to accelerate the redistribution of wealth up the the rich…with the American worker paying the price. Geez….