The First Rule of Getting Knocked Down...

...is to get your ass back up off the ground.

Brother Sal gave me a call and basically told me to get back with the program, that there is reason to be optimistic, and that we need to work past this recent setback and toward the greater goal before us - and he's absolutely right.

Those of us who are more classically educated can take encouragement from the speech that then-Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill gave to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, on the evening after the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force from Mainland Europe at Dunkirk, with a few alterations to fit the context:

"I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our new union, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of the National Union of Healthcare Workers-every man of them. That is the will of the E-board and the leadership.

We, who are linked together in cause and in need, will defend to the death our new unity, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of our strength. Even though large tracts of Kaiser and many old and famous facilities have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Trusteeship and all the odious apparatus of SEIU rule, we shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in California, we shall fight nationwide and locally, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the hospitals, we shall defend our Unity, whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the streets, we shall fight on the union halls, we shall fight in the press and in the new media, we shall fight in the halls of government.

We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this union or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our comrades beyond the reach of SEIU, armed and guarded by the God-given freedoms they have inherited as Citizens of this Great Nation, would carry on the struggle until, in God's good time, the New Union, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of all those trapped in the Old."

Then again, there are those who may well believe that "this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part"...


In any event, this fight ain't over by a long shot, because there's one fact that overrides every other visceral reaction:

SEIU is doing anything it can to avoid a straight up-or-down vote on the Trusteeship. As long as SEIU is running scared, NUHW is by definition on the rise.

Time to get up, and get our asses off the ground. Whether it's Churchill or Bluto who helps you out, time to get up and get back in the game.

It was only right that he call me and tell me to get back in the game after my "Slammed" post yesterday, and for that fact alone, Sal Rosselli has my gratitude and respect.