Wednesday, October 13, 2021

We are being held hostage

Zack Kanter pins down the supply-chain crisis: longshoremen at Long Beach. I recall them from early in Dubya's Presidency when they were striking for... whatever. I recall that their union was very, very Left. And I say this as a mildly pro-union guy.

[NOTE 10/17: All keeping in mind that California and the EPA banned three-year-old trucks in 2020... meaning, effectively, nonunion and private trucking.]

And some of our Stuff That Sucks comes from other unions, or at least from employees in mutual collusion - as is happening with the airlines. Here it is the Right applauding the strike. (h/t from that law professor who helped get us the Iraq War, lately seen recommending you get jabbed with antibodies.)

It is, as I've illustrated, easy to "dunk" on one side - or on the other; but since I am not as good at this game as editor Michael Kinsley was, I'm done dunking for the night. Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg is proving himself not up to the job, but he is not the problem. He can hardly act without orders from his boss, nu?

It is clear to me that a lot of Americans are, simply, done with America. They don't want to work toward a common purpose. This is eminently the case on the Right; but it is also the case on the Left. Being a selfish cynic isn't something that is unique to Left or to Right. It's just selfish cynicism.

Ronald Reagan had a cure for Carter-era "malaise" when he faced PATCO. Maybe Donald Trump, never entirely at home on the Right or the Left, could have applied this cure; at least (some of) the Right would have kept shtum on the pilots (and I am absolutely implicating that law-professor here).

This is a problem with the people. In the meantime, my advice to my readers is to shun anyone who supports these frivolous walkouts.

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