Now that we have spoken truth to power, let’s get the hell out of here. Quote from the New Yorker Magazine, by C. Parroth.[Signature difficult to read]. The illustration showed two little men seated at one end of a conference table, and a large man with a shark-like grin seated at the other end. It was obvious the two little men had said a small portion of what they had planned to say, and were getting ready for a speedy exit before the shark pounced.

          It’s what we tend to do when we are faced with someone who has the power to fire us from our jobs at a moment’s notice, leaving us to flounder in an economy that is more comparable with that of the 1880s, in terms of the disparity of wealth between the rich and poor. Most of us struggle to give the boss what he asks for, even when his demands are unconscionable.

          And we have stopped fighting because the boss, or the man, is too big to fight. At least individuals alone cannot fight him. We have permitted big business to get too big. Big enough so that it can hire a universe of lawyers, and big enough that it is not only tax exempt, but it can now literally force the government to give it billions of dollars in subsidies, that will keep the rest of us in debt for the next six or seven generations. They are so big that they write their own laws and thumb their noses at the laws they don’t like.

          It wasn’t that many years ago when nearly every neighborhood had a number of mom-and-pop businesses. Many of them were grocery stores, some of them were shoemakers, some operated general stores and hardware stores, sometimes you would see a potter selling beautiful hand-made ware, or a repair shop. Once upon a time it was possible to get small appliances repaired at reasonable prices.

          Then those small businesses began to be bought up by the large chains. I remember talking to men who had been tending their stores for the last forty years or more, and who were so proud that they had been able to make a so-called killing on it, when one of the large chains bought them up. Now, the large chains don’t have to buy anyone out. They simply undercut the small business until it has to close.

          If supporting our unions were enough to change this situation, I would be marching in the street every day for them.