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As I was saying:

Republican Wisconsin State Senator Scott Fitzgerald on what Walker’s union busting is REALLY all about:

If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the union, Obama is going to have a much more difficult time winning this election and winning the state of Wisconsin.

Democratic Representative Peter Barca, as the Joint Conference of Committee rams through the bill stripping public sector unions of most of their collective bargaining rights:

This is a violation of law. This is not just a rule. This is the law.

This attack on public sector unions is not about being fiscally responsible, any more than “voter fraud” laws supported by Republicans are about respecting the vote.

This is about breaking the unions, defunding the Democratic party and making it difficult for President Obama to be elected. It is about the raw exercise of power, regardless of the law. It is about establishing what amounts to single party rule.

I draw a direct line to this moment from our willingness, as a country, to countenance what happened during the 2000 presidential “election,” when Florida’s Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, deliberately disenfranchised several thousand legal voters. Afterwards, the leadership of both parties told those of us who objected to sit down and shut up about it, as if valid American voters being turned away from the polls were nothing to make a fuss about.

The Republican Party learned they could win by openly and illegally subverting the will of the people and trashing the constitution and rule of law. Nobody should be surprised that they’ve escalated this tactic over the years. A large voter turnout is a liability to the G.O.P., and they know it. Their agenda directly and adversely affects too many voters – minorities, women, gays, union members, and lately, the middle class in general.

They don’t really need or desire a lot of voters anymore – just a nasty core of astro-turf supported yellers, and corporate buddies to funnel money into their campaigns.

And we, as a country, have allowed this to happen.

I stand behind pro-union demonstrators in Wisconsin. I wish them luck. I hope the tide of protests doesn’t recede. I hope that every single one of those Republicans who are ramming through this law find themselves confronted with hisses of “shame” every time they step out into public. I hope that recalls send as many of them as possible packing in the next couple of years.

But to every one of those protesting people who voted for Scott Walker, or those other Republicans I also say, “elections have consequences.” By voting for people who have nothing but contempt for you, you threw away freedom with both hands.

Good luck getting it back. And I mean that sincerely.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

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s: based on the content of this post and other in the past you seem to be operating under the assumption that there is some vast unified plan on the part of the GOP to impose a single party system.

You mean as in a plan hatched years ago in some smokey back rooms, where Republican leaders said to each other "here's how we'll impose a single party system?" No.

But by embracing the notion that Democrats are "disloyal/evil/Communist/terrorist sympathizers" etc, first as a conceit to whip up the base, then as a premise from which to conduct entire campaigns, the GOP has edged closer and closer over the past twenty years toward the notion that the Democrats/Liberals are enemies in the sense that Al Qaeda and Communists are the enemy.

s: Admitedly, this is an assumption on my part...

A convenient assumption.

sw: Senetor Bob likes his cushy office. As a result Senetor Bob continues to say/do whatever it take to keep getting elected. No unified plan or motivation, just simple selfishness.

This is another convenient assumption, one that allows you to wave your hand at politicians and loftily declare them all corrupt and nasty and yourself a wise, worldly cynic who's above all that. It frees you from the troubling process of actually thinking about issues and assessing politicians on an individual basis.

C.P. Snow called it "The cynicism of the unworldly."

I have family members involved in politics. Yes, there are politicians who are utterly cynical and in it for the power, but they would get cushier offices and bigger paychecks in the private sector. And most of them -- whether I agree with them or not -- tend to be motivated by a genuine ideology and the belief that they're doing good.

This is another convenient assumption, one that allows you to wave your hand at politicians and loftily declare them all corrupt and nasty and yourself a wise, worldly cynic who's above all that. It frees you from the troubling process of actually thinking about issues and assessing politicians on an individual basis.

Ironically I was thinking the same thing. You seem to view the GOP's union busting as an attempt to reinstate a 7-day work week, where as I view it as a simple "F*ck-you" to a political rival.

That doesn't mean it is justified but...

sw: You seem to view the GOP's union busting as an attempt to reinstate a 7-day work week..

No. What I've said is that getting rid of unions is likely to eventually result in the rolling back of reforms that many of us currently take for granted, like 40 hour work weeks, child labor, and worker safety laws. It was unions who caused these reforms, business and corporate interests who opposed them. Without unions, I see no reason why these laws could not end up being unenforced, and possibly rescinded.

So then it becomes a question of whether to potential good outwheighs the potential for abuse.

I guess I simply do not see the argument as being so "one-sided".

sw: So then it becomes a question of whether to potential good outwheighs the potential for abuse. I guess I simply do not see the argument as being so "one-sided".

Isn't the question of whether a potential good outweighs the potential for abuse the very nature of all political argument?

What do you imagine would prevent the rollback of pretty much every labor reform of the 20th century if unions vanished?

Public opinion? Shame? Internet trouble-makers such as you and I? An angry mob?

Do the unions have to exist in thier current form, to achieve thier stated goals? Personally I'm more of a "right to work" kind of guy.

p: What do you imagine would prevent the rollback of pretty much every labor reform of the 20th century if unions vanished?
s: Public opinion? Shame?

Hey, let's legalize murder, rape and robbery! Surely public opinion and shame would do their jobs to prevent such crimes!

Right?

s: Internet trouble-makers such as you and I? An angry mob?

Riggght. Those corporations are reading these threads and shaking in their boots!

An angry mob will do nothing more than give them a rationale for violence.

That is a specious argument and you know it.

You asked what prevents those laws from being repealed and I responded. The answer is the same thing that prevents rape from being legalised, public outrage.

What prevents rape from being legalized is a long-standing tradition of rape being illegal. The laws against worker safety and child labor are recent by comparison and do not have the same background. I've not heard many right wingers arguing that rape should be legalized (except for marital rape.). I HAVE heard quite a few right wingers arguing against child labor laws and worker safety laws.

And this would be one of those "fundimentals" on which we disagree. The current generation of workers and mangment have grown up with these laws in place and thus I do not see thier position as being so precarious.

management

The current generations of workers have watched their salaries stagnate and pensions and benefits that their parents took for granted disappear. To imagine that workers' "clout" (which is pitiful) and the good will of management will prevent recent advances in labor laws from eroding it beyond naive.

I don't know if you've noticed but the whole economy is stagnating.

Not for everyone. While average employee salaries have stagnated, CEO income has risen over the past twenty years.

(no subject)

sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com - 2011-03-21 18:43 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

paft.livejournal.com - 2011-03-23 18:29 (UTC) - Expand

Speaking of C.P. Snow and his ideas I find The two cultures (http://www.livejournal.com/inbox) to be particularly relevent to our exchange.

A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: 'Have you read a work of Shakespeare's?'

I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question — such as, What do you mean by mass, or acceleration, which is the scientific equivalent of saying, 'Can you read?' — not more than one in ten of the highly educated would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their Neolithic ancestors would have had.

How do you consider it relevant?

Because, I suspect that there are many assumptions/definitions that you consider to be fundimental which I do not and vice versa.

A Poet asks an Engineer if he's familiar with the works of Shakespere, and the Enginner asks the Poet if he's familiar with the works of Newton. Both answer "No" and leave thinking the other is a fool.

pft; How do you consider it relevant?

s: Because, I suspect that there are many assumptions/definitions that you consider to be fundimental which I do not and vice versa. A Poet asks an Engineer if he's familiar with the works of Shakespere, and the Enginner asks the Poet if he's familiar with the works of Newton. Both answer "No" and leave thinking the other is a fool.

I would only consider the engineer a "fool" for not knowing the works of Shakespeare if he presumed to lecture me on the works of Shakespeare.

Likewise if the poet presumed to lecture me on Newton (http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/924815.html?thread=71513231#t71513231).

My own, admittedly limited, experiance with organized labour has been predominantly negative, and thus I can sympathise with the state's desire to knock them down, even if I can see thier utility.

The state of Wisconsin is not merely trying to "knock them down."

I've had bad experiences with management, but I'd never support the concept that management should be eliminated.

Do the unions have to exist in thier current form, to achieve thier stated goals?

What form would you suggest they take?

I don't know, use your imagination.

I just do not think that an institutionalised collective bargaining is neccesary, Nor will ending it put an end to lobbying on the part of the labour movement.

sw: don't know, use your imagination.

You're the one who's saying that unions should take on "some other form" that doesn't involve collective bargaining. I'd be interested in learning how you'd imagine they could do this and still be "unions."

how you'd imagine they could do this and still be "unions."

You see, that's the core question, are "Unions" (as they currently exist) neccesary? I'm saying no, you're saying yes.

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