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All of them have been forgotten, in part because there is no natural constituency which would like to remember them--the right generally does not dwell on yesterday's struggling blue collar workers and heroic union men

I'd rephrase that to say that the baby-boomer right rather than the right in general.

That's true. Conservative should mean conservative-populist, for the hard-working grassroots folks.

the right generally does not dwell on yesterday's struggling blue collar workers

This right does -- maybe more rights should.

The differences between "the right" and the blue-collar union-types go both ways. I'm an engineer, and I've generally been lucky not to have problems with unions. However, things I've experienced and heard from others have justified a distrust and dislike of strong union sentiment.

When I was a graduate student, I needed a great deal of repetitious glasswork done for my thesis research. We had one glassblower for the entire college and just enough work to keep him busy. My work would not justify hiring a second glassblower, but it would take much of his time. Furthermore, waiting for him to do my work delayed my experiments.

At one point, he offered to show me how to do the work myself. This arrangement was great for both of us. It kept him from having to do a boring repetitious job. It allowed him to keep his other customers happy because he wasn't delayed with my work. It allowed me to have my samples done more quickly. It also provided an opportunity for me to enhance my education with some hands-on work with the glass-blowing equipment. The situation was a win/win situation.

Unfortunately, someone in the union complained. The union idiot said that it violated some rule for me to be allowed to use the tools in the glass shop. While I could almost understand this concern if I were endangering a union job, I wasn't endangering anyone's job. I was simply getting things accomplished.

I've heard similar stories from others. There have been cases where a light bulb burnt out in someone's office and the union light bulb changer didn't change it for several days. When the person in the office bought a bulb and changed it himself, the union filed a grievance. Expecting someone to sit in the dark until some union idiot has time to change a light bulb is not reasonable.

Undoubtedly, the blue-collar men of the past faced tremendous challenges and bore heavy burdens to make this country strong and get things accomplished. Reforms to improve their situations were warranted. However, there are many people today hiding their own laziness and lack of initiative in union rules that don't allow their employers to fire them or even to reward other workers who are willing to work hard and accomplish things.

Maybe we can't protect ourselves against every lazy idiot who gets on the board of directors and receives huge compensation for doing nothing. However, adding the burden of thousands of lazy idiots who take the lowest union jobs and still receive compensation for doing nothing only increases the burden of the modern worker both union and non-union. The good blue-collar workers would find more friends on the right if they would help us to escape the burden of bad union workers. Likewise, if they know how to help us escape the burden of white-collar lazy idiots without instituting socialism, we are with them.

WFTR
Bill