See my summary of the first day of the conference here.
After the amazing first day of the conference I was not sure that level of radical knowledge could be sustained, but I was very wrong. The second day, despite not getting into the first session I wanted to because of overcrowding, was just as good.
For those of us who remember the NAFTA protests or who have fought against Cory Booker or Rahm Emmanuel in the war against teachers, it should be clear that liberalism is not an ideology friendly to organized labor. And yet so many of the major unions endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, even before the end of the primary when the obviously more pro-labor candidate was still in the race.
Leaving all the worthwhile critiques of modern labor leadership aside for a moment, what we have seen in the nomination of “literally the worst” Andrew Puzder alone makes union support of Democrats somewhat understandable. After all, even the most “third way” (thirdest?) Democrat would not dare to appoint a fast food CEO to the Department of Labor.
Well not quite – Hillary Clinton purportedly would have nominated Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz for the position. But we do not need to dig into speculation about a hypothetical Democrat president who will never be. Because the untold story of unions being busted in the neoliberal era is that it was started a decade before Reagan took office by a liberal justice of the Supreme Court.
Habeas Quaestus 