In what I can only categorize as a very cool story, the president of “Solidarność” (“Solidarity”) – the Polish trade union whose determination and courage led to the fall of the Iron Curtain – has written an open letter in support of the public employees of Wisconsin.
Piotr Duda, president of Solidarność, said the 700,000 members of the Polish union wished “to express our solidarity and support for your struggle against the recent assault on trade unions and trade union rights unleashed by Governor Scott Walker.”
The letter is printed as a full-page advertisement in today’s issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
“Dear Friends,” Duda’s letter continues, “please rest assured that our thoughts are with you during your protest, as we truly do hope that your just fight for decent working and living conditions, for the workers’ rights will be successful.”
“Your victory is our victory as well,” he said.In the early 1980s, Solidarność persisted against great odds to win collective bargaining rights from the communist government of Poland. The union’s leader, Lech Walesa, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and was named Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1981. He was elected President of Poland after the country secured its freedom.
A Polish trade union lays the seeds of revolt against communism in the Eastern Bloc, and is supported in its struggle by conservative icon Ronald Reagan who, in 1982, announced sanctions against the Polish government for its outlawing of the trade union, Solidarity.
It’s vitally important that this story be kept away from Governor Walker. Otherwise the resulting cognitive dissonance might actually explode his head.
Heh……something tells me Gov. Walker wouldn’t be able to reconcile the fact that President Reagan helped a labor union in any way, shape, or form, much less to bring down Communism.
In one of his well-known speeches, Ronald Reagan said “These are the values inspiring those brave workers in Poland. The values that have inspired other dissidents under Communist domination who have been willing to go into the Gulag and suffer the torture of imprisonment be…cause of their dissidence. They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”