Wisconsin

Theswingisyellow

What do you all think???
Were so progresive here in the good ol' USA!!
Screw the working man! Who the hell needs a middle class?

Dakini

Remember when Reagan broke the air traffic controllers' union? And that was just the beginning of his war on organized labor.

The middle class is doomed. Part of the problem, though, is that the Democrats tend to be secretly in cahoots with corporate interests, too, and therefore don't represent a genuine alternative to the other party. But...this is another rant for another thread, I suppose....

Theswingisyellow

"The middle class is doomed. Part of the problem, though, is that the Democrats tend to be secretly in cahoots with corporate interests, too, and therefore don't represent a genuine alternative to the other party"
Your right about that, not much of an alternative.

dorje

I'm not in the US, but it looks like the Republicans are deliberately trying to throw out the Constitution. Most interestingly California just cut the budget for education and giving tax breaks to big businesses. Which makes people stupid. Meaning future Californians will become more and more uneducated, therefore they will be ignorant to fully understand the constitution.

Which makes it so much easier to fleece the poor so the elites can get so much more richer.

Not only that, MIchiganders might lose the right to choose who they want as public officials soon.

Together with Wisconsin, the US is screwed.

Unless someone wakes up and sees the emperor has no clothes on.

Theswingisyellow

"The middle class is doomed. Part of the problem, though, is that the Democrats tend to be secretly in cahoots with corporate interests, too, and therefore don't represent a genuine alternative to the other party"
Your right about that, not much of an alternative.
I need to go read some Howard Zinn.....nah....that will only make me more upset. It's strange how those with the least can side with those who help them the least.

Jason

Personally, I think this is more about union-busting (specifically the more left-leaning public sector unions) than concessions. For one thing, union leaders actually agreed to accept the the wage and benefit concessions Gov. Walker was asking for, but this was rejected by Walker and fellow Republicans in favour of passing a bill that would simply take away collective bargaining rights from most public employees.

Collective bargaining is one of the main things that makes unions useful to join. Taking away that ability leaves unions more or less impotent. I think there needs to be structural changes in Wisconsin, but I'm simply not convinced that jumping straight to removing the right of public sector unions to collectively bargain is the way to go.

More importantly, I don't believe collective bargaining is responsible for the state's budget woes, so I don't see why its being attacked now. I'd argue that the economic downturn, which has reduced tax revenue, is to blame for the budget crisis, not teachers trying to negotiate what they believe to be a fair wage. And while I'm not entirely sure about Wisconsin, many state pension plans are set by law, not collective bargaining; but whatever the case, Wisconsin has one of the strongest according to the Pew Center, so I'm not sure it can be blamed on that, either.

Plus, the fact that union leaders agreed to accept wage and benefit concessions, which was rejected in favour of passing a bill that'd simply take away their collective bargaining rights, leads me to believe it's not just about the state's fiscal crisis. In fact, if Walker sees collective bargaining as such a dire problem, why exempt police officers and firefighters? Maybe it's just a coincidence that many of their more conservative unions, which endorsed Walker, were left out of his proposal.

But if you think what Governor Walker is doing in Wisconsin is bad, check out the shit Governor Snyder is trying to pull in Michigan with his backing of emergency financial manager legislation.

If passed, the governor would have the ability to declare a financial emergency in any town, village, city or township, and put that municipality under the authority of an emergency financial manager. This appointed EMF would not only have the power to unilaterally modify or even cancel existing union contracts and collective bargaining agreements, stripping away public sector union rights, but the ability to dismiss elected officials and even disincorporate or dissolve municipal governments.

As if that wasn't enough, the EMF would also be able to privatize all public services, merge school districts together and increase existing class sizes, and shift a community's debt burden onto local taxpayers seemingly at will. And the best part is, to qualify as an EMF, all you apparently need is to undergo two days of training and pay a fee. That's right, an unelected official with as little as two days of training could have the ability to "overrule elected officials and dissolve units of government and school districts" (The Detroit News).

Inji-gyo

I perceive unions as a monopoly of skilled workers. If all the doctors were in a union and agreed to no longer help patients with medicare would that be useful?

At the risk of sounding rude, government jobs are nothing more then a cushy seat on the train of bureaucracy .

Inji-gyo

Most interestingly California just cut the budget for education and giving tax breaks to big businesses. Which makes people stupid.

You can't make that assumption. Some people spend plenty of money sending their kids to expensive schools and the children turn out "stupid."

Theswingisyellow

Good post Jason. It's nothing short of taking away workers rights.
Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3


Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

From Liberty Forum

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_constitution&Number=642
109&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1&t=-1

Jason

I perceive unions as a monopoly of skilled workers.

That's one way of looking at it. I see it a bit differently, though.

The way I see it, the main purpose of things like unions is to protect workers, who usually have little means to protect themselves. Our economic system is designed to protect private property rights, and those who possess the means of production (i.e., property) have the most legal protection and leverage in the marketplace. (In fact, at the beginning, only white, male property owners were allowed to vote due to property requirements imposed by most states. It wasn't until the Jacksonian Era that these were removed.)

Workers' power, on the other hand, lies in their numbers, and without something like unions to help effectively organize workers, they have little leverage in the marketplace, being resigned to selling their labour for whatever the employer is willing to pay and under whatever conditions the employer sets. Unions simply allow workers to collectively bargain with the employer, with one voice, instead of individually, when they're at their weakest.

That said, I'm not a big fan of all organized labour, and I think that many unions have become just as corrupt and greedy as any board of directors. But I don't think that's any excuse to try and take away their legally protected rights and bargaining power.

At the risk of sounding rude, government jobs are nothing more then a cushy seat on the train of bureaucracy.

I don't think it's rude. It's just your opinion, and your entitled to have it. I agree that this may be true of some government jobs as I'm sure some of them are easy, but I certainly don't think that teachers, police officer and firefighters have a "cushy seat on the train of bureaucracy."

compassionate_warrior

If all the doctors were in a union and agreed to no longer help patients with medicare would that be useful?

The doctors /are/ in a union--it's called the American Medical Association. And they don't help patients, they just dispense pharma.

At the risk of sounding rude, government jobs are nothing more then a cushy seat on the train of bureaucracy .

You know what they used to say in the USSR, where /every/ job was a government job: "The government pretends to pay us, so we pretend to work".

dorje

You can't make that assumption. Some people spend plenty of money sending their kids to expensive schools and the children turn out "stupid."

That's for how how many of the population? 1-15%? What about the rest of the 85-99%?

zombiegirl

unions exist for a reason, but sometimes i understand why other people forget this. it's sad, but my only experience with unions revolved around a few years ago when i was working in a warehouse. our warehouse wasn't unionized, but some of the others within my company were. the union workers were purposefully slow to keep from raising their average (and thus, what was demanded of them), so they would occasionally have to bring our workers to help out in the unionized warehouses. it was amazing to me that they bothered to bring workers hours away and put them up in a hotel for days just as a result of this.

Theswingisyellow

I am sorry for my rant. Usually I don't interest myself in politics. While there are problems with unions, it is really the only protection most people have against big business. Peoples right,fair wages and work hours are very important things. I guess I would like my country to be a little more progrssive than it is is.
All the best,
Todd

B5C

This is a war against the workers. Most major corporations don't care about their workers. We are just a tool for which we can be thrown away. Well I am sorry, but were not tools to be thrown away.

We have unions dieing, we are losing our healthcare, and we are losing our salaries while the rich take everything. This is what Republicans want. They believe we must serve the rich because we OWE them some how.

Inji-gyo

I certainly don't think that teachers, police officer and firefighters have a "cushy seat on the train of bureaucracy."

Touche

Dakini

This is a war against the workers. Most major corporations don't care about their workers. We are just a tool for which we can be thrown away. Well I am sorry, but were not tools to be thrown away.

We have unions dieing, we are losing our healthcare, and we are losing our salaries while the rich take everything. This is what Republicans want. They believe we must serve the rich because we OWE them some how.

The strange thing is, the Republicans don't realize that if you impoverish everyone, there'll be no one left to buy the products your companies are selling! Henry Ford understood this, which is why he paid his workers well. This is a strange self-destructive path the Republicans are on. :-/ Go figure.

Mountains

I'm not in the US, but it looks like the Republicans are deliberately trying to throw out the Constitution.

Now *there's* a shocker! The Republicans throwing out the Constitution? Wow... I'd never have guessed that!

One of my favorite quotes, although there is much disagreement about who actually said it first:

"When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying the Bible."

You're currently witnessing it happening, right before our very eyes. It distresses me no end that I'm in class with a bunch of twenty-somethings, not a single one of whom has voted in recent memory, if ever. "I don't have time to keep up with politics". Right. That's what they said in Germany in 1933.

compassionate_warrior

Your classmates didn't even get out their vote during the Obama race? Who are these people?

zombiegirl

Your classmates didn't even get out their vote during the Obama race? Who are these people?

right? during that election i was living in a college town. every corner had a person registering people to vote. they even came to the bar i was working in and allowed people to register there.

bushinoki

As for the Union issue, there are reasons that many republicans want unions limited and some of them are good reasons. Many of the state and local agencies around the nation are nearly bankrupt because of the CBAs and the pensions that were jumped up during more prosperous years. There were poor choices made all around and now the money isn't there to support many of the retirements that are contractually obligated to be paid. Some of these sectors are vital areas in which a strike can not happen. It's like the AT controllers strike of the 80s, where the nation's transportation was shut down by the strike. Should the federal Government made an attempt at negotiating and imporoving the situation for AT controllers? Yes, definitely. However, they paralyzed the nation by shutting down all flights. That is serious, as a large number of flights any given day are cargo transport. It would be the same if Police went on strike, they open the floodgates to a crime wave. To hold that kind of power over a community is wrong. However, all people should be paid a decent living wage, and companies that won't should be heavily fined until they do. There is no reason for political socialism to exist when most companies have the ability to pay a reasonable wage to everyone.

fivebells

...even if we did wake up today, the damage is already done. The US total debt (federal, state, local, consumer, business) now comes to nearly $800,000 per family of four. And that’s not counting a similar amount for unfunded Medicare benefits and who knows how much in derivatives liabilities. So a painless fix is no longer possible. Our choices have narrowed to only two: a crash that will dwarf the Great Depression or a hyperinflation that wipes out a whole generation’s savings.

That’s why I don’t publish much political commentary on DollarCollapse. Today’s debate over federal spending and taxes is just so much fantasy. We’re like a family arguing about redoing the kitchen while the house burns down. It’s an irrelevant, annoying discussion. The interesting debate will take place after the collapse, when we have to decide what kind of society to rebuild from the rubble. Then we can argue for limited government and individual rights and sound money and all the rest. Politics will be interesting again!

Until then, we should protect our families and tend our gardens.