My hope, Bobert, is not in the leadership of the institutionalized, established union. I refer you back to Mick's distinction between institutions and movements. Things are gonna get worse before they get better. Mick works to organize some of the worst paid and most exploited workers. Their numbers are growing as more jobs move off shore or are lost to technology. It won't be that long, perhaps in yours and my lifetimes, that enough workers have so little left to lose that the risks in fighting back no longer seem so daunting.   In fact, the more decline in membership and power of the institutionalized union, the more likely will be the rise of a new, post-modern labor movement from the ashes.

And you had better believe there are bright minds already pondering what the issues will be, what the social processes will be, what to make of, and how to deal with the present and probable future realities of globalization, how to think about the American labor market, values and ideas of social justice and social welfare in the context of globalization.

Mick, would I be wrong to think you find yourself pondering on some of this at least every now and again?

I'm not prepared to say that Labor will provide the over-arching vision, but Bobert, but without a strong, well-led post-modern labor movement, it ain't a gonna happen.

Your 'Southern Man' will simply wreak havoc and destroy himself in the process of blaming and hating everything and everyone different from himself in the absence of leadership that provides a unifying focus for the rage. Labor has the best chance of fulfilling that role. a post-modern labor movement can succeed in organizing southern workers, which the old labor movement had not been able to do to a significant degree.

another hosiery mill shut down today. In Mt. Airy. Theyare moving off shore.

Janie

I've rambled on too much, perhaps.