I couldn't agree more. We liberals are supposed to be national security wimps, but I'd like to know how you defend your national security against a big player like China if they do all the manufacturing?

Plus, this isn't merely a war against the blue collar working class. Sheesh, today I was talking to a big bank and of course I get some guy in India. I mean these are the folks we are bailing out with trillions of tax dollars and they can't work fast enough to ship every white collar middle class job overseas.

What does Reich think we're all going to do? Change the sheets of rich guys like him and the Democratic members of Congres? And he's going to go to bat for another dime on the paycheck I suppose.

Like you, I do not know how long it is going to take before Americans wake up to how badly they've been screwed. It's probably too late already.

We need a real labor MOVEMENT in this this country and we need a NEW labor PARTY.

Ramona, you rawk.

Thanks for the great post Ramona!

Rec'd. It's overstated somewhat in that it's too broad brush a class indictment. There are folks near the top who strongly oppose this agenda but they are seriously outnumbered. This is partly because they can't or don't understand that, if they are sincere and at serious, the only chance they have is to build back up the popularly-based institutions, especially the unions as you point out, and join forces with them to combat the corporate agenda.

Large swaths of the educated upper middle class, which have financial resources as well as what the social scientists call both human and capital they could contribute, aren't invested in growing the labor movement, whether through unions or some successor institution serving similar purposes. For the most part they either don't believe or have been slow to realize that they're next on the chopping block.

As a description of the dominant dynamics, though, I think your post is largely accurate and well put.

Also, the goal isn't to destroy the working class (I would say it's beyond the "working class" and includes working people, broadly defined as people for whom their wages or salary are their dominant source of income) per se--it is to utterly and completely and permanently disempower it so that the lords and chieftains will be able to do what they see as necessary to survive and compete under the current economic rules, unencumbered by organized groups with power to push back or enough politicians that might consider changing the economic rules, at their (perceived) expense.

If you're some fatcat who just can't live with the prospect of going to your grave never having gotten higher than, say, number 57 on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans, you also realize--even if you're not crazy about going this route--that the way to move up that list is, as Willie Sutton might have said, to go where the money is. Which is the compensation of the people who do the work for your company. Because, you know, it must kind of embarrassing to have to sometimes be in the company of people higher up on that list, or have it known publicly that they have accumulated more toys than you have.

If we're talking about other super-wealthy people like star athletes and entertainers, they just go for the money because they can. They don't need to union-bust or keep politicians from meddling. In these cases unions are generally their allies, not impediments to what they want.

Robert Reich is a very sharp guy. I've never been able to figure out why or how he could place as much faith in job retraining programs as he historically has, though.

The importance of a larger, effective union movement isn't just to do whatever is possible to save jobs and protect compensation packages. In many cases, there is little they can do in this regard.

Their greater importance is in becoming enough of a political force, an essential counterweight, that can participate constructively in, and move, policy changes in the economic rules as they apply in our country and globally.

What we see now should not be terribly shocking, given that corporate managers have a fiduciary duty recognized in the law to try to maximize shareholder returns. If we think that is a problem then we need to make some adjustment to those rules, and given what appears to be the prevailing view that government regulatory action is only a hindrance to them and is not seen as, potentially, a help. Any adjustments that are made to the US domestic rules won't necessarily have their intended effects absent adjustments in the economic rules that govern the international economy.

The rules regarding the international mobility of capital, for example, play a key role in accelerating the pace of economic change, with all of the good and bad consequences that flow from that. It's hardly an off-the-wall comment to wonder out loud whether the current rules can or need to be adjusted to strike better balances between shareholders, workers, communities, the environment, and quality of life more generally for the human beings who, after all, are supposed in any worthy view supposed to be the beneficiaries if not the masters of the rules and the system, not their servants.

Long one, I know; in my defense I've not been using a lot of band width here over the past few months.

We've hit bottom. Forget all those old,shopworn expectations. This is a brave new world we live in.
Abandon the system; it will not bail us out. Renew the bonds of love you have with family,friends,and those you hold dear. Do whatever is necessary to prosper yourself and your community.

This is how our shipwrecked economy will be rescued. It will not be rescued by the US Treasury or the Fed. It's up to us...

We, the people...(this means you)

Keep your eyes open for the opportunities that surface as the old order plummets into the depths. Old resources will become available in new ways. Old ways of doing things, and old ways of thinking about who is or is not responsible for this mess--these will fall away.

Take control of your destiny.Act thoughfully, lovingly, to reconstruct the life of your community. Shake off discouragement and defeat. Don't believe anyone who says we are powerless. Work diligently on behalf of yourself and those around you. Working together we will get through these perilous times.

This is what those folks(the 10% ones) in the developing countries are doing. Their communities have not yet been decimated by the artificial constraints of automotive dependence and keeping-up-with-the-joneses superfluousness. We need to learn from their example. Love and community trumps affluence and obliterates dependence on the corrupt system that is collapsing as we speak.

It's too late too save American opulence; but it's not too late to save ourselves. Look around you; find out what needs to be done in your neighborhood or city and do it.

Carey Rowland, author of Glass half-Full