Like digby and Mike Stark, I'd like to thank the unions - SEIU, AFSCME, AFT, AFL-CIO and probably others I'm missing - that did so much to make Netroots Nation so successful.
I am totally convinced that healthy economic growth for the USA can only happen when we start to make things again - when we start growing our own food again instead of monocrops and start producing tangible items that get used. Further, sustained, healthy growth for the USA can only happen with a vital, powerful labor movement.
At times various liberal bloggers have wondered if the time for labor unions has passed, if perhaps we need to look for other models. I won't bother finding links, because each and every one of those posts is utter bullshit - even the posts and comments I wrote along these lines.
So-called "free trade" does no one - no one - any favors, excepting of course the very few at the very top of the economic heap. It does not benefit Americans and it does not benefit the workers around the world and their nations, not in any meaningful, long-term way. Trade can be global without necessarily favoring only the extremely wealthy.
So bloggers and other online activists need to make it their #1 priority to get involved, somehow, with the unions in their area. No organizing, no campaigns, no programs of any kind should be undertaken by just the blogosphere or just the unions. We need each other, each other's expertise and different areas of passion. If we put the influence of the blogosphere and unions together, perhaps we will finally find that we are strong, that we can affect legislation for the good instead of watching others continually sabotage good policy for their corporate masters.
