Defeat is no refutation

In George Orwell's 1984, the evil O'Brien, a member of the Inner Party, says this to the hapless protagonist Winston:

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

What if you knew that was really going to be true, at least for the non-elite (as it seems to me to be some days)? Or what if you somehow knew that humans would fail to address climate change and thus bring about a disastrous future? Would you just give up?

To put it another way, is your interest in working for a better or less bad world based on a realistic hope of getting there or would you struggle on as skillfully as you could without it?

The willingness to continue the struggle without hope is what Tolkien called the "theory of courage," which he felt was expressed in the vision of Norse mythology. According to Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle-Earth,

The central pillar of that theory was Ragnarok--the day when gods and men would fight evil and the giants, and inevitably be defeated. Its great statement was that defeat is no refutation. The right side remains right even if it has no ultimate hope at all. In a sense this Northern mythology asks more of men, even makes more of them, than Christianity, for it offers them no heaven, no salvation, no reward for virtue except the sombre satisfaction of having done what is right.

This view of things speaks to my condition on many if not most days. I do believe it is possible with luck and technique and cunning to make some things a little better or less bad here and there. But I have no vision of a utopia or real hope for realizing some final goal of a truly just society and I don't think it's necessary to have either to keep up the fight.

HEALTH CARE REFORM turns one year old today.

"HAVE YOU NO DECENCY, SIR?" Apparently not. Here's an interesting op-ed on union busting in Wisconsin.

UPPER BIG BRANCH. New federal criminal charges have been filed in the wake of the Massey mine disaster investigation. Here are more details from Coal Tattoo.

CHUPACABRAS are (apparently) mythological monsters--the literal translation of the Spanish word is "goat-sucker." To find out more about such beasts, which are entirely unwelcome at Goat Rope Farm, click here and here.

NOTE: It is with some trepidation that I admit to scheduling this post to appear a few hours in advance so I can reacquaint myself with sleep. The last time I did this, the tsunami hit Japan. I trust (and hope) that there was no causal relation between the two events. If anything really bad happens between now and then, let me state emphatically once again that I was against it.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

EXPORTING GOOD JOBS

Caption: These guys are organized.

Yesterday's post looked at some of the benefits of union membership for working people. Short summary: better pay and benefits like health care, paid sick leave, vacations, and pensions. And the benefits of union membership compel many non-union employers to offer competitive benefits.

The fate of the middle class is inextricably linked to the fate of the labor movement.

An obvious question is, if that's the case, why don't more workers join unions? Membership has declined from more than 1/3 of the workforce after WWII to around 12 percent now, even though a recent survey suggests that 60 million workers would join a union if they could.

What's going on?

Part of it has to do with economic trends and policies. In El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia, the United Mine Workers was once a huge union with tens of thousands of active members. That number has declined dramatically due to the mechanization of the mining industry. Other union-dense industries such as steel and textiles have been decimated due to deindustrialization, globalization and NAFTA like "free trade" policies. More recently, the privatization of public services has been a factor.

Those factors help explain the loss of union jobs. But there is another huge factor at work here as well: employer hostility and government collusion to prevent workers from organizing to start with.

About which more tomorrow.

PRESENT TENSE. On the same theme, here's a recent column by Bob Herbert on the future of labor.

CLASS BEATDOWN. Here's an item from the UK's Guardian about the US's one sided class war. Short sample:

Long ago the wealthy declared war on the poor in this country. The poor have yet to fight back.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, a woman in Texas believes she has found the remains of a legendary bloodsucking beast called a "chupacabra," which means goat-sucker in Spanish.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED