ABSTRACT
Until right-wing bourgeois myth loosens its hold over the American imagination, the working masses will remain simply that-masses, with no conception of what a class-for-itself is capable of when mobilized. But the strain and the burden of class inequality, which are ever more evident in everyday life, are intensifying, and that offers a glimmer of hope that the mythology against organized labor may someday yield, finally, to the power of truth. The recent galvanization of public workers in Wisconsin in the face of crude efforts by the Republican-dominated state legislature to crush public-employee unions has produced a sudden and unexpected groundswell of support among their fellow citizens. The legislation was passed, despite the absence of the Democratic senators, who had fled to Illinois to prevent the necessary quorum for a final vote. Perhaps the questionable tactics of the Republican legislators, especially in the way the legislation was finally approved, may have lit the spark that reawakens a positive union consciousness among the masses. Perhaps.
