New Orleans For the last several days way too many of us have left messages on union voice mail machines (gee, no one has anyone answering phones with live people anymore!) all over the United States trying to find union-made sleeping bags and union-made tents for Occupy forces in the Midwest and other colder climes where Firedoglake.com had raised money to make this possible.

The results were disappointing.  We struck out over and over again.  As near as we can find out, there are simply NO union-made tents in the USA anymore.  With the help of the AFL-CIO’s Union Label department, we were giddy yesterday when we thought we had found one union sleeping bag operation in California.  Unfortunately, when Jane Hamsher called out to them directly, it turned out they were actually manufactured in China.

On the other hand, unions in Toronto seemed to have understood without hesitation that there were no union companies, so according to the Toronto Star, they soleved the problem simply by buying and setting up fancy Mongolian yurts at the Occupy Toronto park site downtown.  (http://www.thestar.com/living/article/1079586–occupy-toronto-goes-high-style-with-20-000-yurts?bn=1)  The story estimated the price of each yurt at over $20000, and having looked closely at yurts as a solution for our post-Katrina “Bayou Island” fishing camp, I can also tell you there will be no simple shutdown procedure, since those babies can take a number of people 4 to 6 hours to pitch and strike.  An added dividend, given the hostility that some of the Occupy sites are picking up from the powers that be.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.