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Charles I agree with your history of Unionism...today most Unions act like corporations...their product is the labor they supply. It was the guys who started the Unions and bled for them that cared for the worker, today all they really care about is the Pension Fund and Health Care contributions the Company has to make every month.

Again most of the established corporations...GM, IBM as 2 examples that govern by commitee. Thus to rise to the top one has to be a grey grey man...one who blends perfectly into the background of responsibility and who could swim without making a wave...while knowing just the little nuance of subtlety that will do his competitor in the hierarchy in. Of course this really doesn't apply to what I would term Corporations that are headed by 1st or 2nd generaton excutives. Take Microsoft for example...Bill Gates is ruthless and he takes chanchs, he is anything but a Grey Man...he beat the krap outa the grey guys at IBM. After Bill Gates is gone the 2nd generation of leadership will have been put in place by Gates and will continue to have the same flavor as he does...cause they will remember how the old man did it. But the 3rd generation will never have been around in the wild wooly days and will only know how to su(k up as a way of doing things.

As far as life in the Empire....the USA is the NEW ROMAN EMPIRE...only the USA doesn't intend in conquering territory with armies, we tend to use military force as a last resort...mostly to remind people who opose the USA that we got the will and means to put you in a world of hurt if your not going to conform to our definition of reasonableness. We send Mickey Mouse, McDonalds, Coke Cola, Levis, out into the world as our instrument of occupation...you might say ideas instead of armies. Now as recepiant of the benfits of being an American I have nothing against this state of affairs. I say long live Caesar and the American empire...I am all for it.