Geez, flattop, you've been busy haven't you? Thanks for the interesting input on the Maritimes! You obviously know more about that one than I do. It's a pity that you and me and MAV can't sit down at Tim Horton's for awhile and discuss all this stuff, cos I think it would be most interesting...seriously!

You put in this quote:

Galbraith's Law of Human Nature: Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof.

WOW!!! What a quote that is. Dead right. This is why Republicans and Democrats absolutely will not respect or give credence to what the other one is talking about most of the time....although, they all want truth, justice, fairness, and all those good things.

Nice to hear from you, anyway, flattop.

MAV - I think that people sometimes forget that things change over course of time. Some examples:

1. A political party begins as a new and radical movement, filled with hope and idealism, challenging the old corrupt order. 2. At first it's a voice in the wilderness. 3. Eventually it gets elected. 4. After being in office for some time, it begins to become complacent and self-serving, even arrogant. 5. It loses touch with the common people. 6. It makes friends with entrenched financial interests, and takes behind-the-scenes payoffs from them in order to consolidate its power. 7. It "cleanses" the radicals and idealists from its ranks, and puts in the bureaucrats. 8. It loses all sense of why it originated and does anything it can to cling to power. 9. It routinely lies to the electorate and makes false promises. 10. It gets rich, and befriends the rich who fund its campaigns. 11. It is now as corrupt as what it formerly fought against.

Now, take the same prescription and apply it to not only political parties, but also: to labour unions. And there you have the problem.

There was a lengthy period when unionization was an absolutely vital social movement launched in order to secure basic rights and protections for workers...rights that we all take for granted today. Such a movement is still needed badly in 3rd World countries where child labourers work for pennies in sweat shops to produce the goods we buy at the mall...where workers have NO rights or protections, and soldiers will shoot them down like dogs if they make a peep about it.

Labour unions were just as noble in concept when they began as was the American revolution. And the labourers also paid a price in blood. They were all called "communists" and treated as criminals, for just seeking rights which none of us would consider working without today. They were beaten up and shot and tried and imprisoned. They were genuine heroes.

Now, it's a different story. Many unions have become corrupt themselves, in the fashion I described above.

Take a look at the history of churches and religions and you will find much the same story in most cases. They start out with the highest ideals...but then the bean-counters take over, and the power junkies take over, and they pervert the whole process.

So..it's not unions, per se, that are the "enemy" here...

It's the improper administration of certain unions by the fat cats who run them...people who are in their basic nature almost indistinguishable from the fat cat industrialists against whom the unions originally strove so courageously.

Around and around it goes.

If you want to find the original cause of all this corruption...Just FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL. Somebody's getting rich at the expense of you and me and our neighbours.

- LH

p.s. The American Indian connection is there, all right, but it's a mysterious one which I am not gonna explain right now.