Is the Michigan thing the death knell of the American labor movement?

[Selatius]

73. Radicalization of labor may be a good thing. But it's less so if severe damage is already inflicted.

People should be active and mobilized, and I have no problem with that. The rightists like to call that "radicalization," but that's just a term invented to scare uncommitted citizens off to the sidelines.

The thing of the matter is that, historically, radicalization only happened after a major economic calamity occurred. The Great Depression and the major physical confrontations between labor and management in the 1930s come to mind.

Ideally, the situation doesn't grow so desperate and grim before people mobilize, but a lot of Americans are still asleep. If they're awake, many of them have not become committed yet to the cause.

If it takes the Second Great Depression to really get the ball rolling on labor activism, I can't help but throw up my hands. That was the outcome we should've learned to avoid the first time around. History shouldn't have to repeat.