text:
The Christian Science Monitor describes why Wisconsin's showdown between Governor Walker and the public sector unions may have an impact on America.
- The area surrounding Wisconsin has turned "red." "No region of the country was more comprehensively recast by the 2010 elections than the seven states of the upper Midwest that arc from Minnesota to Ohio. Where before Democrats had held the upper hand, Republicans now have a virtual stranglehold on politics, controlling both houses of the legislature and the governors' chairs in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin."
- If Walker wins, the other public sector unions in the area will be in trouble. "Walker was the first of the Midwest's four new Republican governors to push for weakening collective bargaining. But Ohio and Michigan already have bills targeting unions in the works, too."
- The fight is over strategic terrain. "If you're going to take away bargaining rights, you leave them with what?"
To those may be added a fourth factor. Politicians in Washington have made the issue national. NPR reports that "responding to the efforts of Democrats in the nation's capital and elsewhere, including President Obama, to rally around their embattled fellow Wisconsin Democrats, House Speaker John Boehner called on the president Friday to stay out of the Badger State."
Boehner accused Obama and his political organization, Organizing For America, of trying to undermine efforts of Republican governors to cut their budgets by "inciting" protests around the nation.
That idea had already been mooted by Frances Fox Piven, who wrote in The Nation that the only way rollbacks to historic gains could be prevented was to emulate the example of rioters in Greece:
Local protests have to accumulate and spread—and become more disruptive—to create serious pressures on national politicians. An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.
But the Christian Science Monitor had another country in mind. It went so far as to suggest that Wisconsin could provide an "Egypt-like moment," in which an apparently localized incident serves as a fuse to touch off an ever-widening series of political detonations. What makes such a moment possible, according to Norman Ornstein at the AEI, is that Wisconsin is drawing forces in from both sides like a magnet. The CSM writes:
Egypt in America?
In a time when large and tense demonstrations have become increasingly rare in America, the Wisconsin protests could provide an Egypt-like moment, says Norman Ornstein, a fellow at the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
"If there's a big tea party demonstration in Madison, we may see a direct clash, just as we had in the streets of Cairo," he says.
One protester's sign at the capitol said, "Impeach Scott Mubarak" – a direct reference to protests that led Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign last week.
As it gains momentum, the union protest movement is likely to draw in young social-justice activists, Obama supporters, and even religious groups who fight for the dispossessed, says Bruno.
On the other hand, some conservatives believe Walker's refusal to budge on the collective bargaining issue has opened the way for counterprotests to support the cuts.
Egypt in America? Well, Jesse Jackson agrees. Just like Cairo; a contest between the culture of surplus and the culture of suffering; between the economic north and the economic south. Hear him in his own words.
Piven may get her wish for "local protests accumulate and spread." The trouble is that they may also draw in counter-protesters from the other side, a development which she somehow left out of the reckoning. Some readers will recall that the Battle of Jutland was initiated by the nearly simultaneous sighting of the neutral Danish steamer NJ Fjord by scouting forces of the German High Seas Fleet and the British Grand Fleet, both out of sight of each other. But as the scouts of each side drew near the NJ Fjord, their mutual presence became disclosed. And then, like a light line pulling in successively heavier cables, the gray warships pulled in after them the dreadnoughts of the fleet. Jutland was begun.
At 14:20 on 31 May, despite heavy haze and scuds of fog giving poor visibility, scouts from Beatty's force reported enemy ships to the southeast; the British light units, investigating a neutral Danish steamer (N J Fjord), which was stopped between the two fleets, had found two German destroyers engaged in the same mission (B109 and B110). The first shots of the battle were fired at 14:28 when HMS Galatea and Phaeton of the British 1st Light Cruiser Squadron opened on the German destroyers, which withdrew toward their own approaching light cruisers. At 14:36, the Germans scored the first hit of the battle when SMS Elbing, of Rear-Admiral Friedrich Bödicker's Scouting Group II, hit her British counterpart Galatea at extreme range.
As the battle grew into monstrous intensity the cruisers passed a sailing ship, unable to make much way in the light winds. "5.10. Destroyer Hardy screening Shannon proceeded to investigate a Norwegian Barque, she was ordered by signal to keep on her course (1710). Time did not permit of investigation. 5.20. Passed Norwegian Barque Candace about five cables on starboard beam steering N.N.W. " The Candace, "a silent ship with a pyramid of white canvas, serene, peaceful and quiet, … a large barque lying almost becalmed, but moving gently through the water, rippling with the light breeze, her canvas only half filled," was the unwilling witness to a clash of dreadnoughts which happened that day because the stars were right.
But Wisconsin is neither in Egypt nor the North Sea, and since history never repeats itself, but merely rhymes, what happens next is anybody's guess.
What does that translate to? "If you're going to take away bargaining rights, you leave them with what?"
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275 Comments, 275 Threads
1. Curmudgeon Geographer
Egypt in America?
Isn't it more accurate to call it Greece in America, what with all the protests over benefits being cut because the state cannot pay for exaggerated promises? How quickly they forget, but then again, isn't this what Francis Piven called for? Greece-like demonstrations?
February 18, 2011 - 3:33 pm Link to this Comment -
2. dloye
Typo alert. Word missing in the first sentence after "Wisconsin's"
February 18, 2011 - 3:41 pm Link to this Comment -
3. feeblemind
I believe politicians are influenced by crowds. If I was close enough I would attend the Tea Party rally tomorrow. It would be something if it dwarfed the union crowd and I believe such a showing would strengthen the resolve the the Republicans.
February 18, 2011 - 3:42 pm Link to this Comment -
4. Chris Bolts Sr
I've always thought that America would have one final civil war and it would be over the direction of the country. Will we have socialism or capitalism? Will we have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" or will we have "liberty, equality, and fraternity"? Will we have individualism or collectivism (notice how the unions want to protect "collective bargaining" at the expense of individual bargaining)? Will we have "a penny saved is a penny earned" or will we have instant gratification with the ability to default on our debt when we can't pay? Questions that we thought was settled years ago are about to be settled in the early 21st Century. Let's just hope that our civil war does not end in bloodshed because we've been known to go down that road as well.
February 18, 2011 - 3:46 pm Link to this Comment -
5. Bad Science
Actually, in a way this is exactly the opposite of the protests in Egypt. The Egyptians are protesting for a change in the government, while the protesters in Wisconsin are protesting that the government remains the same. Also, Mubarak stuck around in Cairo for a bit before leaving, while the Wisconsin Democrat Senators fled the capitol like cowards instantly when the protesters showed up.
February 18, 2011 - 3:49 pm Link to this Comment -
6. Das
This is where Obama's complete amateur status is revealed. Any of a dozen friends of mine solve problems in local government or business every day every week. Any of them would make a decent president. Obama has no ability to surround a problem and smother it with common sense resolutions. Obama picks sides and in this case he sides with the unions and goons. Elections and the decisions of elected officials mean nothing to him. What a mess.
February 18, 2011 - 3:52 pm Link to this Comment -
7. Josh
the math will win, in the end. you'd hope some *teachers* would know that.
however, idiocy abounds today. President Obambus, on his high white horse, proclaims publically what our ally Bahrain should do. closer to home, house Republicans make all sorts of speeches about abortion, pulling the focus away from the real issue here, arithmetic (not even economics). or honest – with white horse Obambus publicly saying he is not adding to the deficit even while running $600,000,000,000 deficits as far as the eye can see.
I blame the solar flare, which should be hitting us right about no
February 18, 2011 - 3:54 pm Link to this Comment -
8. ⚢ Teresita
Egypt in America? Isn't it more accurate to call it Greece in America, what with all the protests over benefits being cut because the state cannot pay for exaggerated promises?
Yes, that's exactly right. Egypt in America is when Obama ignores the courts, rams his health-care "legacy" through anyway, and gets five million tea-partiers on the Capitol Mall.
February 18, 2011 - 3:54 pm Link to this Comment -
9. a Duoist
In Wisconsin, make it a freedom to compete issue. The public unions keep their collective bargaining rights on pensions, benefits and salaries, and the government has the right to hire permanent strike-breakers and privatize government services. Especially, union-passed laws mandating monopoly in government-financed construction projects (only union firms can be hired, and only at the highest prevailing wage) should be rescinded.
Don't let the unions and Mr. Obama set the 'framing' of the issue. Frame it as freedom to compete, and make free competition at the heart of all immediate and future dealings with collective bargaining public unions. Is Wisconsin one of the 'closed shop' states? With Republican majorities in the legislature and a Republican governor, make it a 'right to work' state.
February 18, 2011 - 4:01 pm Link to this Comment -
10. Blast From the Past
The blowback from the Left on the Democrats, for having promised so much and delivered so little, will be devastating. There should be a new crop of the disillusioned migrating to the right next year. About the only thing the Obama administration can deliver now is anti-Semitism, and that is for a largely foreign audience. The growth of that plant will bare bitter fruit for years to come.
February 18, 2011 - 4:01 pm Link to this Comment -
11. Talnik
Now Jesse Jackson's up there on the side of the unions in what he terms as his "Martin Luther King Jr moment" or some such jibberish. I can hear him now: "What have we as a society become? How can these poor teachers be expected to live on a mere $100,000 a year?" What an a**hat.
February 18, 2011 - 4:06 pm Link to this Comment -
12. Blast From the Past
Jesse Jackson is a fool because there is no room for him in the Obama Civil Service racial quotas system and there is tremendous anger in the Black community that in his younger days he knew how to exploit. Much of it is frankly ignorant and bigoted directed at the teachers, white and especially Jewish, who built the educational gravy train. Increasing numbers of minorities are now being coopted by that system but the damage to "urban youth" is enormaous and as I said Jesse is not welcome at that table anyway. He could lead a real rebellion against Obama and the Democrats but by now he is probably to burnt out, so he shows up for table scraps.February 18, 2011 - 4:18 pm Link to this Comment -
13. Don Rodrigo
I'm all in favor of Piven having her Greek wish fullfilled in WI.
So far the crowds have not been violent, but introduce anarchists along with union goons and you'll have smashed windows and burning cars. If that happens, I'll feel badly for the property owners, but also be perversely delighted in the turn of events. Apparently not enough Americans yet get the malevolence and ruinousness of the left, so they would need to see a full unmasking.
February 18, 2011 - 4:20 pm Link to this Comment -
14. dla
I have absolutely zero-sympathy for the public piggy unions.
And since this is not an election year, I doubt the usual union-pandering by Obozo will influence much.
February 18, 2011 - 4:22 pm Link to this Comment -
15. MadTown Philip
I am conservative and something of a political junkie, must be, having been politely ostracized by my friends and neighbor here in "Moscow on the Yahara." Been a reader since the Chester days.
I am appalled by Scott Walter. Voted for him. Applauded when he gave back the rail money. My guy.
He is doing precisely what Obama/Pelosi/Reid did while ramming thru obamacare. Now lefties can use my slurs against my guy. Stupid.
We (conservatives) can win this fair-and-square. Let'em yell. Use the time to teach. Give the dems time, time to testify. Give them all the time they want. The more everyone gets to see them, the more understanding there will be of the selfish, boorish, nature of these lefties.
February 18, 2011 - 4:33 pm Link to this Comment -
16. wretchard
What happens when activists converge on a vortex is that reasons become secondary. Logic is less important than the one question left: "Who goes there?" Challenge-response. This is the nature of polarization.
The problem is that polarization may now be unavoidable because the positions between the major elements are so far apart that it has come to resemble a zero-sum game. That process may have begun with the passage of Obamacare, or maybe from the viewpoint of the Left, it began when GWB invaded Iraq. But it started sometime and hasn't stopped since.
So while it is uncertain whether Wisconsin will become "Egypt" or "Greece" just now, it is very probable that such a moment will occur down the line. Maybe tomorrow, next week, or next month. But someday and soon.
It is unlikely to take the form of actual violence, but such an event will nevertheless pose meta-questions, big issue questions that the political system will struggle to answer. I've written about this in several comment threads and suggested that the wise heads of both sides could find some way forward, though who exactly those heads are, and what the way forward might be, I have no clue. How did it go at the end of Terminator 2? Or maybe it was from somewhere else.
"The future, always so clear to me, has become like a black highway at night. We were in uncharted territory now… making up history as we went along."
February 18, 2011 - 4:42 pm Link to this Comment -
17. Xennady
Looks like the plan was for the mobs to put pressure on Walker and the GOP, who would then quickly fold as republicans always do, allowing a triumphant return of the glorious peoples' democratic senators and the de-facto end of any GOP attempt to reform anything anywhere. If the mobs can win in Wisconsin why not everywhere else- and of course Obama would be there to claim credit for saving America's workers from the evil rethuglicans.
I've seen variations on that theme countless times, and the GOP always folds- if only just enough to allow the left another victory dance.
I suspect these protesters have that sure knowledge carved deep into their bones. I also suspect that's why they're so willing to just walk away from their jobs without the slightest hint of worry that they won't be there waiting for them when they want to go back. Hey- the GOP always caves, so why worry?
But I also wonder what will happen if it doesn't turn out that way. I doubt these leeches will get what they deserve and be fired- but even just having to pay for a slice of your retirement is such a bitter pill for these most pampered "workers" of America to have to swallow.
How will they bear it? Keeping in mind that they are the ideological compatriots of some of the most murderous people in the history of mankind, I suspect some of them won't take it well at all.
I'm thinking violence, and not the of the sort the Tea Parties have been waging. I won't attempt to speculate any further, but to put it mildly violence won't be any good for the political stability of a country facing massive deficits and massive entitlement cuts, among other issues.
February 18, 2011 - 4:47 pm Link to this Comment -
Well, now it is clear why the Left is so anti-2nd Amendment. If they are going to pull this kind of crap they needed to do it against a disarmed populace.
Perhaps Deterrence no longer works internationally, since the world is now divided into two types of countries, those who have no need to worry about real deterrance and those who are too crazy to do so.
But maybe it works domestically. If the Left wants blood they can be assured it will be almost all theirs. As the Kipling song goes "Order the guns and kill!" And surely even they know that. That alone should keep things, if not civil, then at least fairly nonviolent.
February 18, 2011 - 5:10 pm Link to this Comment -
19. dla
@Xennady – What sort of fantasy violence do you think the tea party is engaged in? Honestly, where do you people get such crazy crap?
February 18, 2011 - 5:14 pm Link to this Comment -
20. cadams
Thanks W for your writing style and narrative of current events; I read everything. Sometimes here I feel like a contemporary to C.S. Lewis' "Abolition of Man", or Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"; maybe we catch a little sense too of Johnson, Locke, Cicero, etc.
February 18, 2011 - 5:22 pm Link to this Comment -
21. Scheer
It's neither Egyptian youth or Greek tax-evaders, nor even English students, that make up the Wisconsin demonstrators. It's government union-members which could not stop the election of large Republican majorities in the state Senate, House and Governorship. What they could not achieve through the ballot, they now want to force on citizens through social unrest.
These government union-members are in fact anti-democracy, making this antithetical to the movements in Egypt or Greece (but akin to those whingeing English lads).
Further these government union-members are not losing collective bargaining for wages, just health benefits! And the deal they have for pensions is far, far sweeter than the vast majority of private sector workers.
I hope the Republicans will hold strong and force the government union-members to retreat. It will only take a little legislative movement to throw the oafish government union-members into disarray. Citizens of Wisconsin, stand your ground!
February 18, 2011 - 5:24 pm Link to this Comment -
22. Xennady
I don't think the Tea Party is engaged in any sort of violence at all- but the left raves endlessly about the supposed violent tendencies of the Tea Parties, and the great threat they pose to civility, etc.
I'm surprised you missed all that talk, actually. I figured that the actual non-violence of the Tea Parties was well enough known that I could assume that everyone would get my drift. That is, that actual violence from the left won't resemble the actual non-violence of the Tea Parties.
My bad.
February 18, 2011 - 5:33 pm Link to this Comment -
23. Geoffrey Britain
"The fight is over strategic terrain. "If you're going to take away bargaining rights, you leave them with what?" Christian Science Monitor
Perhaps no better rebuttal to the inane argument above can be found than this; "Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government…
The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied.
Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable." President Franklin Roosevelt, 1937
February 18, 2011 - 5:33 pm Link to this Comment -
24. Charles
A Philosopher's Warning
Submitted by JR Nyquist on Fri, 18 Feb 2011
Financial Sense
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/jr-nyquist/a-philosopher-warningThis week I had the pleasure of interviewing the Brazilian philosopher, and president of the Inter-American Institute, Olavo de Carvalho. During the conversation I suggested that something is wrong with our thinking today; that we don't worship in the same way, or obey the rules in the same way, or observe common courtesy as we once did. "To someone like me," he began, "who visited this country in the 1980s, and came back to live here in 2005, the changes that the American mind has undergone in recent decades are really shocking."
Carvalho recommended that I read Tamar Frankel's book, Trust and Honesty: America's Business Culture at the Crossroad, which, he explained, "describes the alarming decline of moral standards in the American business world…." According to Frankel's book, the erosion of trust and honesty has to do with a rising acceptance and justification of fraudulent practices. "What has changed," she writes, "is the attitude towards dishonesty and breach of trust. Today, there is a greater acceptance and more justification of dishonesty." How did this come about? With the removal of certain barriers to fraud, temptation has increased.
Carvalho has his own insights into the causes of moral and intellectual deterioration in America: "One of the factors that has brought about this change, with its highly corrosive consequences in the daily lives of Americans, was the fashionable 'neo-liberalism,' which saw the business world as a self-regulatory power, able to override morality, religion, and culture and to dictate standards of conduct based on the supposedly miraculous power of market laws. What made the greatness of America was not just the free market economy, but a synthesis of this with Christian morals and with a culture that included love of country and family. Separated from these regulating forces, the capitalist economy becomes an engine of self-destruction, which is exactly what is happening today."
Undoubtedly, there is truth in the assertion that traditional American society has collapsed, being replaced by "the open society," so named by George Soros and Karl Popper. According to Carvalho, the open society defines itself as "not recognizing any transcendent values and by leaving everything at the mercy of economic conveniences – conveniences that are something alleged even to justify the very demolition of the free market and its replacement by the welfare state, based upon taxation and debt." In other words, Carvalho is saying that the free market doesn't make men good. It does not train them to be moral. It does not bother to defend itself against socialism. Those elements in society that previously instilled moral values are no longer as effective, if they are effective at all.
It is Carvalho's view that the "open society" concept has been used by the nation's enemies to destroy "everything that is good and great in this country." He then pointed to the Russian geopolitical thinker, Alexander Dugin, and "the emerging Russian-Chinese scheme…." Using a subtle propaganda, noted Carvalho, the "open society" becomes a pretext for fostering widespread global hatred against the United States. For the "open society" produces moral degradation that is subsequently blamed on the American way of life, which supposedly demonstrates the special wickedness and decadence of the American people. This leads directly to a discussion of the evils of American cultural imperialism — the rallying cry of Russian and Chinese strategists whose goal is the elimination of the United States as a world power. The effectiveness of this approach should not be underestimated. As Carvalho explained, "The Russian-Chinese influence has been growing more and more in Latin America. The U.S. Government has missed this because it still sees Russia and China as allies, in spite of the fact that they are the two largest weapons suppliers to terrorism around the world. One must remember that the Putin government's foreign policy is today guided by the so-called 'Eurasian' strategy, invented by Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who proposes that Russia, China, and Islam ally with all the anti-American forces in Western Europe, Africa and Latin America, for the purpose of laying final siege to the United States. This strategy already has strong military support in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a kind of eastern version of NATO, which brings together Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan."
click below to read the rest
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/jr-nyquist/a-philosopher-warningFebruary 18, 2011 - 5:34 pm Link to this Comment -
The problem is that polarization may now be unavoidable because the positions between the major elements are so far apart that it has come to resemble a zero-sum game. That process may have begun with the passage of Obamacare, or maybe from the viewpoint of the Left, it began when GWB invaded Iraq. But it started sometime and hasn't stopped since.
Personally, I think it started in 1946 when the first Baby Boomer was born. Forget "the me generation," it's more like the "my way or the highway generation." Oh sure, there are plenty of other people who share responsibility, this mess wasn't made overnight, but the Boomer generation has shown a definite preference for winner-take-all pots. Shown a preference for power over everything else. I guess that's what happens when you grow up affluent – you ignore money (because you always expect you'll have plenty of it) and squabble over power.
And then the money runs out, and defeat becomes a double catastrophe because not only do you lose your power to force others to live your way, you lose your standard of living too because there's not enough money left for both sides any more. It used to be winner-take-all but the loser got a decent gig somewhere. Now it's complete subjugation for the loser.
I wish I had more faith in the "wise heads of both sides" finding a solution, but I think the Boomers are realizing they're all-in, and they're trying to convince everyone else that we're all of us all-in with them.
I'm worried that it'll be another 10 to 20 years before there are wiser heads calling the shots.
February 18, 2011 - 5:36 pm Link to this Comment -
26. wretchard
I think people are a mite touchy now and it is like pulling out a red handkerchief at a convention of bulls. Fortunately, it will be Saturday soon and with any luck we can forget about this crazy world for a space.
February 18, 2011 - 5:37 pm Link to this Comment -
27. Josh
c @ 24: the fashionable 'neo-liberalism,' which saw the business world as a self-regulatory power, able to override morality, religion, and culture and to dictate standards of conduct based on the supposedly miraculous power of market laws. What made the greatness of America was not just the free market economy, but a synthesis of this with Christian morals and with a culture that included love of country and family. Separated from these regulating forces, the capitalist economy becomes an engine of self-destruction, which is exactly what is happening today."
Does he mean neo-liberTARIANism? No, cuz he then brings up Soros. But can't he see that Soros is just a pathological case, a "liberal" like Adolph Hitler was a "liberal"? No other "xxx-liberal" that I can thinkof thinks that business is a self-regulating power.
February 18, 2011 - 5:45 pm Link to this Comment -
28. Josh
w @ 16: The problem is that polarization may now be unavoidable because the positions between the major elements are so far apart that it has come to resemble a zero-sum game.
So while it is uncertain whether Wisconsin will become "Egypt" or "Greece" just now, it is very probable that such a moment will occur down the line.
…It is unlikely to take the form of actual violence, …
Oh, I think it will include real violence, it's just a matter of how much.
Greece, definitely, I agree with all who have said that today, fat, spoiled brats crying when someone takes away their lollipop. Can't blame them for crying, considering their experience, but the time is come and that's just the way it has to be, or even worse things happen. As may also occur, even if we get lucky and clean up a lot of stuff, we won't catch it all for quite a while.
Why? Cuz it's NOT a zero-sum game, and it's not a one-sum game, it's a beggar-thy-neighbor game, at whatever rational cost. The dems want what the dems want. Maybe we should believe that *they* believe that it is a positive-sum game, but it's in the nature of a conservative to doubt the value of the risk, and it's the nature of the progressive to over-estimate the value of the benefit. Rationally speaking, I'm afraid the dems are way, way, way, (, way …) off on their estimates of the costs and risks and rewards, beyond even the traditions and expectations of progressives through history. I mean, Nancy Pelosi? She may discredit the use of the name "Nancy" for the next hundred years, the way that Adolph guy ruined what was once a good enough name.
February 18, 2011 - 5:54 pm Link to this Comment -
29. maz2
O's "sole legacy*"? By George.
"George Soros On The Economy: "President Obama Has Lost Control""
"In an interview set to air this weekend, George Soros accuses President Obama of "losing control" and letting Republicans set the agenda on the economy. Talking to CNN's Fareed Zakaria, the billionaire investor says "President Obama has lost control of the agenda. The agenda is now in the hands of the Republican Party."
Soros says the president's failure to control the economic agenda will have a negative impact on the recovery, accusing Republicans of mixing economic and ideological priorities at the expense of the economy:
They are going to pursue a very strong effort to cut services by refusing to have any tax increases. I think this agenda will be successful. But it will be pursued, I think, to — to an extent where it's more directed at cutting services and achieving the ideological purposes of the Republicans rather than to get the economy going. So I — I think this will have a negative effect on the economy."
*O's "sole legacy":
"This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder."
http://www.globalpolitician.com/25109-barack-obama-electionsFebruary 18, 2011 - 5:59 pm Link to this Comment -
30. stoicheion
Greece is the proper analogy. The MSM uses Egypt because their collective attention span doesn't go back more then a month or so. Another week and Egypt would have been replaced by the latest food riots in Whateverstan.
Remember the MSM uses sound bites because they can't comprehend anything longer.
The 1st amendment prevents it but it would really improve America if Journalism was a Masters program the required a BS in a hard science to enter. Ever notice that the better journalists are those that drifted into the profession from another field?February 18, 2011 - 6:04 pm Link to this Comment -
31. stoicheion
"billionaire investor"? Shouldn't that read "criminal mastermind" Of the Ian Fleming sort. Where is 007 when you need him? 'ell, I'd settle for 006.5
February 18, 2011 - 6:08 pm Link to this Comment -
32. Marcus Aurelius
I recall hearing some local Union guy talking about how if they don't put an end to Walker's plan, Wisconsin could become a RIGHT TO WORK state! The horror of it.
Chris Christie in New Jersey caught the unionistas by surprise and so they were not able to mount the action they are now, but I'm sure after NJ went down the Union bosses and their Obama contacts made sure they'ld be ready for the next round of this. You know what, I think that is a good thing, because this will happen again and then instead of sitting on cash they can throw at Obama in '12 they have to burn through it now to defend their status-quo positions. No matter what happens here, this will play out again, and again.
When I hear people pushing the line that #15 MadTown Phillip is pushing, my BSometer starts to read high levels of BS. Scott said it best, he was not shy about the plans before, during, and after the election. I suspect people who make that statement of having some personal interest at stake, but don't want to appear their motives are about money.
Interestingly enough his ex-gubernatorial opponent Tom Barrett conceded something has to be done or else. The problem with Barrett's concession is he too says the problem is process. I don't believe that, people who go around saying they dislike the process don't like the core of the plan and are not willing to state so forthrightly.
I like the fact that Scott is keeping a cool tone and not returning fire upon the protesters. However, if the days of the Army Math Building return, then attitudes are going to change real quick.
Tomorrow is going to be interesting. A counter protest is going to happen, with those supporting the Governor showing up tomorrow. Its funny, how that works those supporting Walker & the taxpayer come on the weekend when they don't have to be to work. Stay tuned folks.
Christian Schneider was allowed to write on the corner the following anecdote: ne GOP staffer was walking around the Capital building and someone sneered at him and the staffer asked "How did you know I was a Republican? Because I am working?".
February 18, 2011 - 6:11 pm Link to this Comment -
33. ⚢ Teresita
"In an interview set to air this weekend, George Soros accuses President Obama of "losing control" and letting Republicans set the agenda on the economy.
It's a failure to multi-task. You can't set the agenda on the economy at the same time you conduct a world-wide apology tour.
February 18, 2011 - 6:22 pm Link to this Comment -
34. toadold
I'm just wondering if the union and other leftist thugs will lunge for the bait this comming Saturday, 02/19/2011?
Rumour has it that they are not polling well in Wisconsin.February 18, 2011 - 6:23 pm Link to this Comment -
Marcus, good catch on MadTown Phillip. If I had a dime for every time a committed Lefty has said some variation of "I'm a conservative, but this time they've gone too far!" I could probably pay off the WI deficit and have enough left for a round of beers at the Tilted Kilt.
Speaking of kilts, I suppose I should avoid the "no true Scotsman" trap, but I think if you're on the Union's side in this, you're going to have trouble getting very many Conservatives to agree you're a Conservative.
February 18, 2011 - 6:29 pm Link to this Comment -
36. ⚢ Teresita
And then the money runs out, and defeat becomes a double catastrophe because not only do you lose your power to force others to live your way, you lose your standard of living too because there's not enough money left for both sides any more.
Unemployment was 4.5% when Pelosi became Speaker. Just sayin'.
February 18, 2011 - 6:42 pm Link to this Comment -
37. Storm-Rider
"Local protests have to accumulate and spread—and become more disruptive—to create serious pressures on national politicians." Francis Fox Piven
"The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat (lazy, tax-eating under-achievers) into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois (laboring, tax-paying achievers) supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat… In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things… The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions." Karl Marx
"Rub raw the resentments of the people; fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy… agitate to the point of conflict…" Saul Alinsky
"Boehner accused Obama and his political organization, Organizing For America, of trying to undermine efforts of Republican governors to cut their budgets by "inciting" protests around the nation."
Barak Hussein Obama and Francis Fox Piven are organizers of the emerging American proletariat class.
February 18, 2011 - 6:46 pm Link to this Comment -
38. wretchard
If we're really unlucky and things cascade, you could have the following scenario in the next three months.
1. The emirates and possibly Saudi Arabia may fall apart; oil at $300/bbl
2. The China bubble will burst;
3. War or the threat of War will stalk the Middle East;
4. The Euro will collapse;
5. There will be millions of overseas workers in the Middle East trying to evacuate to their home countries;
6. The US in turmoil.If a crisis ensues on this scale, the key to ending it is recovering rationality in America. And what a crisis it will be, because what happens when people can't import food, there is no reserve currency and oil is sky high? Countries like Egypt and the Philippines, which are dependent on imports to eat, will starve. Literally.
But, if a world war doesn't consume us all, the bureaucrats need to be sent packing. People will build, drill and convert. It will be like a wartime boom, except that people won't be building weapons. They'll be growing food, putting plants online, delivering stuff, transferring knowledge so great will be the crisis demand; so vast the need.
Yet the big "if" is whether such a crisis, if it comes on the world, doesn't devolve into mindless violence, but rather acts to free the world from the shackles of the old bureaucracy. And for that, some core political function must continue to work through it all to allow the dying old world to peacefully become the new one.
That political system, I think, must be the US political system. It either succeeds at the challenge and brings a new era or prosperity or fails and with it, the prospects of the next 50 years. The people who have built the neural pathways over the last two years made their greatest contribution by building those connections.
Whether it will be up to the task, only God can know.
February 18, 2011 - 6:50 pm Link to this Comment -
39. blert
Shadowstats has demonstrated that the government stats are as bogus as ultimate Nazi victory.
Inflation is now running at 10%+ — not 1% ish.
Unemployment is 25% ish not 10% ish.
We are and have been in the Greatest Depression for some time.
Folks, it's the parasites. We need to get the blood suckers out of the nest.
February 18, 2011 - 6:50 pm Link to this Comment -
40. Tim
This came on the Radio as I was driving tonight.
Frank Sinatra-Let's Face The Music and Dance
There may be trouble ahead
But while there's moonlight and music and love and romance
Let's face the music and danceBefore the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to pay the bill, and while we still have that chance….
Let's face the music and danceSoon, we'll be without the moon
Humming a different tune – and then…There may be teardrops to shed
So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance
Face the music and dance….Before the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to come up with the bill, and while we still have got that chance
Face that music and danceSoon, we'll be without the moon
Humming a different tune – and then…There may be teardrops to shed
So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance
Let's face the music and dance, dance
Let's face the music,
Look out that music,
Why not face the music and dance?!!February 18, 2011 - 6:52 pm Link to this Comment -
41. Marcus Aurelius
I've seen another sort of attempted stealth "wolf in sheep's clothing" attack. I can't recall where it was (The Corner, IIRC) but someone was essentially calling Paul Ryan & Scott Walker RINOs, trying to paint them as establishment Republicans. I can sorta see why some people may question Paul Ryan, but Scott Walker?
Scott fought these battles for years as Milwaukee County Executive. Again, very interesting that Scott Walker harnessed and rode a public official pension scam/controversy into that office.
I know a fellow in Oshkosh and he is generally conservative but he is spouting the same lines about process. I am trying to recall whether or not his wife is a teacher, and I want to say yes on that.
I have another buddy who did a number of years as a probation officer in Milwaukee, he now covers a very different beat in farm country far from the city. He is a hoot, he loved the unpaid furlough days and we'ld sit around campfires and crack jokes about going to the schools and parents of school children about getting from free pizza pies off of them for all the effort he put forth to contribute to their children's education.
I am sure he is not happy about taking the hit to the take home pay (who would be?) but he is pretty level headed about things.
February 18, 2011 - 6:52 pm Link to this Comment -
stoicheion #31
How about 005.56? Or 007.62? In the defense of life, our property, our freedom, and our country we all have a license to kill. And the mere fact of that may be all that is required to keep it non-violent. The tea party types may not be carrying guns but I'll bet they all know how to get one, fast.
More people belong to the NRA than belong to all of the unions.
February 18, 2011 - 6:53 pm Link to this Comment -
Does the government consist only of those elected to hold office or does it, as I would contend, consist of elected officials and those hired and/or authorized by the elected officials to implement and effect the government?
If my contention is true, isn't this a case of the government overturning itself? It might be argued that these protestors are merely private citizens protecting their interests, but this argument is easily defeated by the nature of their employer. In fact, these protestors are attempting to utilize their positions of power within the government to direct the government's affairs to their own benefit.
February 18, 2011 - 6:54 pm Link to this Comment -
44. blert
Someone bet $ 82,500,000 yesterday that the Euro is going to take a beating by March 14, 2011. They're positioned with $ 100,000,000,000 face value of Euro shorts.
Either the Fedsury increases short rates pronto ( gassing up the USD ) or the Euro plunges upon a banking crisis — or the playah is out the money.
In other news, Portugal is hemorrhaging in the credit market. It now stands revealed that her sovereign debt is going to take a 40% hair cut if Portugal is all that stands behind her paper. The ECB is finding EVERYONE hitting its bid on Portuguese debt. Billions are flying out the window.
Spain is now in the crosshairs. What is true for Portugal stays true for Madrid.
So one can see why the bet was placed.
Interesting, no?
February 18, 2011 - 6:58 pm Link to this Comment -
45. Walter Sobchak
If Walker has any stones he has easy and good comebacks.
1. Issue a proclamation declaring that any senators who are not back in their chambers by sundown have abandoned their offices, which will thereupon be deemed to be vacated.
2. If they don't show up, issue writs of election for their vacant seats.
3. Fire their staffs, move their stuff out of the capitol, change the keys to their offices, and void their parking passes.
4. Pull his proposed legislation and replace it with a bill that bans unionization for public employees, voids any collective bargaining agreements with public employee unions, and terminates the employment of any public employee who goes on strike for cause and with a loss of benefits and seniority.
5. Smoke a big cigar.
February 18, 2011 - 7:03 pm Link to this Comment -
46. wretchard
By this time, we're not the only ones who've guessed that the jig is up or soon will be. The players know it too. The boldest of them are determined to survive the crash into the new world.
Therefore they will make their plans in private while exuding confidence for the benefit of the fall guys in public.
The union chumps are being sold a pig in a poke. "Hang on to this anchor boys, while we go aboard this yacht for a spell." They're being played for saps. Jesse too. The real players have got one arm around Jesse Jackson while they pee in his pocket. If he were younger he'd probably notice they were getting ready to shaft him while they headed for the Ark. But he can console himself knowing they'll toast to his memory on the yacht.
February 18, 2011 - 7:07 pm Link to this Comment -
47. Jerry
Perhaps Madison is Cairo. Cairo had Mubarak as Despot. Madison has the Unions as Despot.
The Entrenched power in both places are being overthrown.
I think the libs lose this one.
Ohio is next.
February 18, 2011 - 7:10 pm Link to this Comment -
48. 2009Refugee
I post rarely, but some time back I commented this would be a close run thing, because of the Dem's defense-in-depth. Wisconsin is in a uniqe position to do something that the GOP in DC cannot – it can impose its will on an opponent without resorting to negotiated settlement, and the next day we'll all observe that the sky did not fall. Call it an Inchon Landing.
The Dems understand fully what that means, and will use all their tools to prevent that realization. Note the loud protesters, and the political theater, but do not doubt for a moment that in a quiet office, far removed from the noise and such, a judge may already be tidying up an injunction. He or she might even be getting some research assistance from DOJ.
February 18, 2011 - 7:13 pm Link to this Comment -
49. Bob Smith
One very interesting thing is that while the disappearance of the Democrats in Wisconsin prevents their legislature from having a quorum for budgetary purposes, the Republicans do have a proper quorum for non-budgetary matters. They could table the budget for later and vote to eliminate collective bargaining in WI without needing a single Democrat. If they have the balls to do it the Democrats will rue the day they abandoned ship.
February 18, 2011 - 7:14 pm Link to this Comment -
50. Bob Smith
The WI legislature could also vote to lift Wisconsin's ban on concealed carry of weapons. Wisconsin is one of 2 states (the other being Illinois) that totally prohibit handgun carry by ordinary citizens and do not issue concealed carry permits for any reason.
February 18, 2011 - 7:18 pm Link to this Comment -
51. Joe Hill
If well paid civil servants – folks who make twice the national average are the disposessed God help us.
As the empire sinks into a new Dark Age these are the knights who hope to inherit their chunk of the empire and its allotment of serfs. This is a Saratoga of sorts for the Democrats because without the union coffers and foot soldier paid for with union dues extracted from the public till they will be politically neutered.
There are a lot of things that make Wisconsin a unique place for the unions to make this stand not the least of which is the sea of students right down at the end of State Street that will supplement the paid Union mob. Still I think it will be a terribly hard sell. I mean it is really not easy to get worked up about a Milwaukee school teacher making 80K a year having to kick in to their pension and health care costs juat likw the guy running the shoe store out in the mall.
If you want an historical echo with a military theme try a bridge too far. That is where Organizing for America has dropped its shoch troops.
February 18, 2011 - 7:25 pm Link to this Comment -
52. Marcus Aurelius
#49 Bob,
A friend of mine at Wigderson's Pub & Library explains why it is hard to bust it all apart. Walker and the legislature plan to reduce state aids to local units of government and without those units being able to more effectively bargain with the unions (remember, we are talking about bennies only & police & firefighters are not a part of this either) then those units of government are going to have to increase property taxes to cover the lost state aid.
Don't believe the BS making the rounds about how Walker drove the state into deficit. We've had a structural deficit for years now just that Jim Doyle managed to find a segregated fund to raid (however, that is one of the obligations the state has, the courts ruled Doyle could not do that and now WI has to pay itself back) or to use one time windfalls (e.g. tobacco lawsuit) to cover things.
February 18, 2011 - 7:29 pm Link to this Comment -
53. Marcus Aurelius
Here is the cure to the impasse: http://budget.wispolitics.com/2011/02/groups-exploring-recalls-of-holperin.html
February 18, 2011 - 7:32 pm Link to this Comment -
54. Storm-Rider
W: "Piven may get her wish for 'local protests accumulate and spread'. The trouble is that they may also draw in counter-protesters from the other side, a development which she somehow left out of the reckoning."
"The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles… The proletariat [lazy, tax-eating, under-achievers] will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital [property] from the bourgeoisie [laboring tax-paying achievers - the middle class], to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state [Marxist Government]… Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property. You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible." Karl Marx
Maybe, just maybe, the American Middle Class has awoken from her stupor, and is ready to fight for their God-given, unalienable right to the fruit of their own labor in pursuit of happiness. Maybe, just maybe, the American Middle Class is ready to engage in their own class struggle. I'm in the American Middle Class, and I say stick it to 'em; struggle against the self-serving neo-Marxist Ruling Class and their self-serving proletarian lackeys.
February 18, 2011 - 7:32 pm Link to this Comment -
55. Tcobb
#51. Joe Hill
If well paid civil servants – folks who make twice the national average are the disposessed God help us.
Yes. It will be interesting. I suspect, but do not know for a certainty, that society as a whole would be much better off if our current crop of "civil servants" was dumped out into the real world, where after time, I suspect most of them would either be begging for spare change on street corners or working at fast food restaurants in sub-management jobs.
February 18, 2011 - 7:47 pm Link to this Comment -
56. 2009Refugee
#51 Joe Hill,
I certainly hope for an Arnhem as well, and see the potential for one, but until the act is passed, and all court challenges are muzzled, nothing has actually changed. Until there is an actual case where The Agenda is physically stopped, and then pushed back, none of their crowd will have to confront the reality that they could lose, that the promises made to them were empty.
They have no concern about whether the public likes them or not. Their concern is only preserving the existing order, even if it's only for another day/week/month, and getting their cut accordingly.
February 18, 2011 - 7:56 pm Link to this Comment -
57. PA Cat
The Wisconsin Assembly was forced to adjourn this evening because of threats of violence:
"Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said he decided to adjourn the Assembly this evening because Gov. Scott Walker called minutes before lawmakers took the floor to tell him to get his caucus members and staff out of the building because their safety could no longer be assured.
Fitzgerald told WisPolitics exclusively about the guv's call after the Assembly ended a tense, 30-minute floor session. As the Republicans made moves to pass the controversial budget repair bill without Dem participation, a throng of thousands of protesters outside the chamber grew louder and louder.
There have been reports of threats against lawmakers throughout the week, and Fitzgerald was escorted out of the building by sheriff deputies."
February 18, 2011 - 8:45 pm Link to this Comment -
58. Joe Hill
I agree with you 2009. The unions are in a death match but I believe they are clearly going to lose the PR wars both with the proletariat – a class they do not belong to and the bourgeois. You simply cannot put enough lipstick on that pig.
For the Democratic Party it is nearly a death match because without organized labor – and today that means civil servant uniosns they lose their shock troops and the union cash. So Obama has gone all in on this one behind the scenes and half in out in public. And yeah you are probably right that the DOJ and some compliant federal judge are likely working on some kind of injunction now.
I just don't see many arrows in the Dems quiver. How you going to blame the Republicans for shutting down the government in a few weeks when you just shut down the Wisconsin government by encouraging the state senators to sneak out of state in the middle of the night? I think Piven who was not the brains of the family has as little grasp of the folks in flyover country as the president who feels the same way about them as Adrian Monk feels about dirt.
This battle was lost before it began for the Left – just like the 2012 elections. Just repeat after me, "It is the economy stupid!" and "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" and "How is that hopey changey thing working out for you?"
February 18, 2011 - 8:46 pm Link to this Comment -
Average people don't like government workers very much. They're usually the folks you have to deal with instead of the folks you want to deal with. Filing paperwork and permit applications and standing in line at the DMV. Teachers, cops and firefighters used to be the exceptions, the public sector employees who had naturally good PR. But progressives screwed that up too.
Teachers aren't so well-respected anymore since they stopped, well, teaching. Schools have gone downhill, not just in terms of educational performance, but in terms of safety and culture too. Teachers have led the way in the cultural atrophy as their salaries have ballooned. Cops got conscripted – in the public eye anyway – as Revenue Enhancement Officers, either that or drug war-crazed reckless, blundering combinations of Rambo's testosterone levels and Barney Fife's judgement. Firefighters can still pull some decent PR, but they might just be smart enough not to throw their lot in with the sinking SEIU ship.
It was obvious this had to end. The only quesitons were how and when. How is still an open question, but "when" looks like it's going to be now.
February 18, 2011 - 9:03 pm Link to this Comment -
60. Morton Doidslag
What a blunder Obama has made. To our eyes it is wonderful. There's no way he can "win" this one by flailing, screwing up, and then declaring victory as he has done with each of his previous failures. There is no money. The union will be broken. There is no way to save face, and his peeps are going down in tatters.
Beautifully, the image of our filthy communist community agitating A-hole president, fomenting the chaos and class strife among a bunch of greedy public sector incompetent A-holes in Wisconsin will be an image that will stick to this treasonous un-American bastard like flies on Shiites. How incompetent must this degenerate cypher be to pick this circumstance as his Waterloo. What a monumental mis-reading of the public sentiment! What a monumental lack of comprehension for the reasons the Dems were handed their scalps in the last election across the formerly solid blue Midwest!
Obama's political demise can't happen soon enough – and it is a salutary thing — but the world's worst fiends and savages are watching him flounder too, and they know well know how to play suckers like Obama. Some of them are busy saving their heads from the Religion of Peace ™ , there are others who know exactly how to play this jackass like a MoFo fiddle. And that's not good. Buckle up – it's gonna be a bumpy ride!
February 18, 2011 - 9:05 pm Link to this Comment -
61. PA Cat
Heh: Glenn Reynolds references Powerline: "'BTW…in no MSM coverage I have seen is there ANY note that the crowd is "predominantly white"…. Why is that?' Actually, if you look at this Wall Street Journal slideshow, I think the correct term is 'overwhelmingly white.'"
Slideshow here:
February 18, 2011 - 9:06 pm Link to this Comment -
62. trangbang68
What a spectacle, The Reverend Jackson who's been gravy-training off of Martin Luther King's blood since Memphis invoking Dr. King's memory comparing a bunch of overpaid white educrats to the Wretched of the Earth. The Theater of the Absurd playing in a town near you until the whole enchilada goes up in smoke.
February 18, 2011 - 9:43 pm Link to this Comment -
63. derek
This happened in British Columbia in 1983. The years of government overspending along with the collapse of the largest resource industry due to high cost structures pushed the government into a restraint program. They passed legislation that removed job protection from public unions and a bunch of other things. Specifically they could lay off anyone without cause.
The union movement, one of the most powerful in Canada at the time hit the roof. There was talk of general strikes. They shut down the government for a period of time.
It fizzled out. It was the first of many provinces and eventually Federal shrinking of government, matching expenditures to revenues.
What forced the issue was the inability of governments to borrow at less than usurious rates.
Word for word, what we hear from Obama, the unions, the democrats were said in those days. The media reports were identical. The euphoria of the left was identical, but short lived.
A year later Alberta did the same, then one province after another to some measure, eventually the Federal government. Governments started losing elections for running deficits. And winning by cutting and demanding performance out of the civil service.
February 18, 2011 - 9:56 pm Link to this Comment -
64. stoicheion
"More people belong to the NRA than belong to all of the unions."
True but what is the breakdown on Union members belonga the NRA?
They fact that the left chose to have this fight now and where it is happening makes me wonder why? Obviously, they think they can win. Why. it sure doesn't look that way to me.
On a different note, Strategypage says the going rate for paid posters is 10 cents a post. Times are hard so cut a little slack for all the BC's new posters. They are easy to spot by the talking points.February 18, 2011 - 9:58 pm Link to this Comment -
65. Unsk
This public employee union battle could be a tipping point in American politics. Few grasp the destructive dictatorial power the public sector employee unions have at the state and local level in many states, particularly the blue states. In my City, Los Angeles, and increasingly in my State, California, elections are like a rigged sham. The public sector employee unions control who wins and what is done. The Republicans are reduced to a role like the opposition parties in Egypt. They are just window dressing to create the illusion that we still have a real functioning democracy.
That is why it is so important that Scott Walker hang tough and not cave. Even a partial end to collective bargaining in Wisconsin could pave the way for ending collective bargaining altogether in many other states. We need a Republican to once stand steadfast for his principles. Be a hero, Scott Walker.
February 18, 2011 - 10:13 pm Link to this Comment -
66. wws
wow, you mean someone will pay me for my posts, Stoicheon? LOL – sure hasn't happened yet!
but seriously, only rational people fight because they think they can win. We are dealing with the hard left here, which means rationality is right out of the picture. That's why they're so willing to march off a cliff while their holding hands and singing marching songs.
They have never had to surrender anything in anybodies memory, and they believe that situation has to go on forever. They will go all in and throw away everything they have rather than give an inch.
which isn't so bad, really – I'm gonna enjoy watching them throw away everything.
February 18, 2011 - 10:20 pm Link to this Comment -
Lightening Round comments:
1) via Instapundit: THE PEOPLE VS. THE POWERFUL: Teachers In Wisconsin Make More Than Double The Per Capita Income.
Makes me think Wretchard has one too many syllables in the title of this post, at least as far as the taxpayers in WI go.
2) PA Cat/57: "Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said he decided to adjourn the Assembly this evening because Gov. Scott Walker called minutes before lawmakers took the floor to tell him to get his caucus members and staff out of the building because their safety could no longer be assured.
Gov. Walker had better find a way to assure their safety. The days when a conservative could win points by being a lovable, principled, doormat are gone. He's got a lot of support building, but he needs to show ability as an executive, as in the guy in charge, as in the guy who will stand up to penny-ante thugs. He's the governor. If he can't protect the state Legislature, we might as well disband the government along with the government sector unions.
3) stoich/64: They fact that the left chose to have this fight now and where it is happening makes me wonder why? Obviously, they think they can win. Why. it sure doesn't look that way to me.
Just because they're fighting doesn't mean they think they have a good chance to win. It just means they think they have to fight, think they can't afford to lose or even retreat. Pour on the coal. It's not a trap!
February 18, 2011 - 10:22 pm Link to this Comment -
68. wretchard
Just because they're fighting doesn't mean they think they have a good chance to win. It just means they think they have to fight, think they can't afford to lose or even retreat. Pour on the coal. It's not a trap!
Exactly, which implies a loss in Wisconsin will only mean another double-down for the Left. Losing is not an option. Not an option. The amount of political capital thrown into the current slam-fest will only up the stakes. They're in too deep to stop now.
The historical parallel that comes to mind is Ironbottom Sound. The USN lost at Savo, but the stakes meant they had to come back with more. And when they finally handed the Japanese a big loss that only meant the Imperial Fleet had to come back with still more. And so it went with both sides feeding this furnace until one side ran out of things to throw in it.
It could turn out to be like some kind of political meat-grinder or Kickapoo Joy Juice moonshine still where everything, including the kitchen sink, eventually finishes up.
February 18, 2011 - 10:29 pm Link to this Comment -
69. buddy larsen
Japanese students here in Texas tell me that the thinking among Japanese academics these days is just that –Ironbottom Sound and refusing to quit the Guadalcanal fight and shorten the lines was their real Waterloo.
February 18, 2011 - 11:13 pm Link to this Comment -
70. westerncanadian
charles@24:Interesting comments about the "open society" and a decline of moral standards in the business world.
Scoundrels have always been a feature of commercial life but it is notable that the first book written by Adam Smith was "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". This book was about the nature and origins of virtue which he defined as 'the temper of mind which constitutes the excellent and praiseworthy character'.
Smith said that virtue is made up of propriety, prudence and benevolence. The problem is to get people to live up to these qualities. He believed that the quality of character necessary for the realization of virtue is self-command. Smith approved of commercial society because it fosters self-control. But he believed that commercial society requires a degree of self control that the market by itself cannot provide and may even threaten.
Smith knew that we all prize our own happiness above that of others. He also recognized that our desire for the approval/respect/fellow feeling of others teaches us to be an impartial spectator of our own sentiments and actions. This ability constrains our personal skulduggery and makes us behave in a more moral fashion. In Smith's view our imaginative identification with 'the sentiments of the impartial spectator' leads us to 'temper our mutinous and turbulent passions'.
In modern society, this ability to be our own impartial spectator is of no importance. We prize instant gratification and we feel entitled to whatever we desire, however we may get it. Witness the actions of the public employees in Wisconsin. They have no idea how venal, selfish and unconcerned about the welfare of anyone else they are seen to be. They will do anything to get what they feel entitled to and everyone else can go to the devil. They have no self-command whatsoever.
Old Adam may have spoken harshly, with big teeth and have been as ugly as a wind farm, but he knew a thing or two about maintaining high moral standards in business.
February 18, 2011 - 11:27 pm Link to this Comment -
71. Mad Fiddler
We have to avoid being over-optimistic about the hard left liberals sawing off the limb on which they sit. There MUST be some of'em at all levels who can actually see reality.
But one of the most fundamental articles of Liberal faith is the idea that the only reason anyone is poor is that vicious rich bastards stole to accumulate their wealth AND they're constantly using any means to maintain their superiority.
Another is that if anything bad happens, SOMEONE caused it, and the victim should be able to sue and win a lifetime of easy money as compensation, because as the principle above shows, rich people have lots of money they stole.
In this context, the capstone to the first two is the notion that merely by taking the wealth from the current rich bastards and distributing it fairly to all the poor people, that act by itself would make everyone rich and happy.
For an adult to disregard the cognitive dissonance necessary to embrace such mental gangrene without cranial implosion, requires massive cauterization of the logic circuits of the brain.
These are, after all, the same folks who sincerely believe despite all evidence to the contrary, that denying guns to law-abiding citizens prevents crime and violence.
Well, these absurdities are promulgated by a cynical priesthood of the Left. They feed this swill to their credulous followers, like the mullahs in Iran indoctrinated the children of the "martyr brigades" they sent barefoot through the Iraqi minefields to clear paths for the armed men bravely following.
The logical self-gelding of the Left holds both hope and danger.
Danger in that they believe their delusions are real, that the tooth fairy will pay for whatever goodies they demand for themselves, and that bullying and intimidation of their opponents, and distorting rules and logic will always force reality to conform to their desire.
Hope in that their attack plans and implementation will be as consistently infantile and cowardly as the rest of their behavior, and as easily decoded, anticipated, and countered by a properly mature and rational opposition.
February 18, 2011 - 11:36 pm Link to this Comment -
72. blert
Did you know that not only did the IJN not tell the IJA about their 'little' difficulties at Midway for a FULL month…
That Tokyo had to send a full Colonel down to the island because all that Tojo heard was pure B.S.?
Months into the campaign Tokyo FINALLY figured out that Japan was being annihilated by the USMC and the Lighting (25th) Division. ( Damn that Collins!)
It was at that point that Tokyo stopped 'reinforcement' and 'woke up.' But not enough.
February 18, 2011 - 11:36 pm Link to this Comment -
73. Donna V.
Piven may get her wish for 'local protests accumulate and spread'. The trouble is that they may also draw in counter-protesters from the other side, a development which she somehow left out of the reckoning.
Yep. Which is why, when Piven was recently asked about the Tea Party, she could only sputter and offer up some ridiculous idea about how it was all tied in with sex. (Because in Piven's heyday, 1969 or so, everything was all tied in with sex.)
Well, the weather is getting nasty around here again (unfortunately for Walker the big day of union protests happened to be a day with temps in the '50′s, a huge treat for Wisconsinites in February. That undoubtably made marching around with a "Walker=Hitler" sign much more enjoyable for many lefties. )I had planned for a quiet Saturday. I was going to make chicken soup and see "True Grit." However, the union and the moronic protesters have irritated and angered me enough for me to vow that I will drive over to Madison tomorrow and attend the Tea Party rally.
P.S. Richard, your novel just arrived in the mail and I am looking forward to reading it. When I'm not preoccupied with Madison statists and other infuriating types…
February 18, 2011 - 11:53 pm Link to this Comment -
74. buddy larsen
re charles via Nyquist quoting those USA critiques, anyone who reads knows that on a one-to-one basis we're no more awful than people have ever been, and in most comparisons a whole lot less so. Those critiques are market-centric, and one thing that is different is the growing power of the 'short' side. Communications, ideology, and access to public/private amounts of capital in quality/quantity/mobility condition to move so much faster than ever before –well, it creates weapons, and then weapons get used where they create the best return. The massive short liquidity that has built up in the last generation has masde it possible for groupings such as Soros is part of, to short entire nations and then then stampede the markets, or worse even, and the braggart Soros talks about this using some some hifalutin term, drain confidence out the 'long' side –thus cashing their shorts –merely by the fact of the word getting out that these organizations have taken the big shorts.
Type [ managed funds association ] into your search, take a hair raising look around.
b/72, for sure it was insane for Japan, considering the strategic conditions re materiel. The loss numbers are mind boggling –each side lost capital ships in the mid 30s numbers, 800-ish aircraft, and Allies 8,ooo KIA and Japan 35,000 –and all at the far end of a half-world long supply line.
February 18, 2011 - 11:55 pm Link to this Comment -
75. Cowboy
Mentally, the Left are children who look up to their Father, the State, to set things right.
Their hope is a cataclysm.
For one hundred years we've all lived under their guidance, after their insane, bitter chase of some Moby Dick.
Look around. Read up. Understand how we got here. For whatever reasons we've all been dutifuly following them to where we are today.
Of course Belmont Clubbers are generally of a stock that has been resisting their encroachment for a long time as best we could. But we are a handful.
Nothing's going to stop the Leftists on their righteous pursuit of their Shangri-La. They are in this for keeps.
The only thing preventing their victory, to the greater cost of humanity, is demonstrating to the broader swath of people what children the Left really is.
To succeed in defeating the Left we must utterly defeat them, too. Imagine for one minute Wisconsin, and suppose the current governor leaves office 8 years from now having won every one of his battles. Let's say he leaves office having restored fiscal sanity, rolling surpluses, etc.
The next oppo guy will undo it all under the claim of "we can afford to do this now!" and set the state back faster in double time.
The Leftist is an evil, self-righteous, child-minded pig.
One strategy might be to stand aside and let them testify to this fact through their actions. But a danger exists in that they'll overcome you as you stand aside. They don't stop.
Another strategy is to let them bray and carry on. Give them pleny rope to hang themselves.
Personally, I advocate neither of the above. I advocate hitting them back, as hard as possible, whenever they open thier damn-fool traps.
Never cede an inch while you demand yards.
Carthago delenda est.
February 19, 2011 - 12:09 am Link to this Comment -
76. The Ledge
The idea of "Unionized Government employees" is one of the most toxic forms of socialism. They are entrenched, greedy and are drawn to money like files on horse dung. Fire them.
I would suggest that it is a good time for the Taxpayer and Small businessman to go on a Tax Strike. I say a complete halt of all of remissions of Federal and state income taxes, payroll taxes and sales taxes is overdue. It is time for the civil servant to act like servants of the taxpayer not the opposite. A huge tax strike may cause theses governmental unionized fat cats a heap of pain.
But, I don't think a Tax Strike would permanently change the mindset of long entrenched unionized fat cats who perform poorly and are grossly overpaid.
I would suggest that the Taxpayer and Small Business join forces and send each and every unionized employee a bill for $450,000 for 30 years of poor performance, breach of contract; failure to deal in good faith and fairly; and fraud and deceit. Then hire as many bill collectors as necessary to retrieve the ill gotten money.
The bill collectors should be allowed to call or come to door of every unionized fat cat daily until said ill gotten gains have been recovered. The taxpayer should make it clear that they will not be bullied by unionized governmental thugs – or the 0bama Shake-down Gang.
February 19, 2011 - 12:15 am Link to this Comment -
77. buddy larsen
…as the protagonist said to his pal leaving the cafe after watching the Hitler Youth kid sing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" in the movie Cabaret:
"Still think you can control them?"
February 19, 2011 - 12:32 am Link to this Comment -
78. Peter Boston
Busting the public sector unions is more important in determining the direction of the country than electing the next President. Public sector unions should be called government unions because that is what they are.
Government unions cause grievous harm to the political process because they forcibly collect hundreds of millions in dues which are then employed to elect handpicked politicians who create more government jobs, which expands the number of dues paying members, which raises more money to elect compliant politicians, who create more government jobs….ad infinitum until the body politic collapses from the burden.
The American system produced more prosperity for more people than any political system in the history of mankind because it was structured around one simple truth of human nature – human beings are immensely selfish and when provided with the opportunity some groups will use the government to enrich themselves at the expense of everybody else. That is what the checks and balances were intended to prevent so far as they could.
Every state and the Federal govt. have civil service laws designed to provide integrity to the public hiring process. Government unions are nothing more than the greedy thumb on the scale that keeps certain politicians in office and enriches the government unions at the expense of the body politic.
Obamacare is more about unionizing tens of millions of health care workers than it is about providing health care. If fully implemented it will just about guarantee a Democrat majority in perpetuity. Wisconsin is small potatoes compared to that but so important because it will create momentum for one side or the other.
February 19, 2011 - 12:53 am Link to this Comment -
79. Dlsada
First, we break the backs of the public sector unions. There is little love lost for state employees by the general public. What comes to mind initially is the DMV worker behind the desk who won't make eye contact with you and the other nine in the office playing Minesweeper on their PC while keeping their phones off the hook.
After the public unions are dispatched, we go after the other corrupt organization, the Academy of Trial Lawyers. They have long ago killed and eaten the goose that laid the golden egg. Obamacare is perfectly set up as a system that will promote poor health care, thus making those providing the substandard care an easy target for malpractice suits with the federal government a willing and eager deep pocket. No conflict there! All you trial lawyers line up and take a free swing at the government pinata. The only good news is that the pinata will have no goodies in it soon.February 19, 2011 - 1:42 am Link to this Comment -
80. buddy larsen
Gov Walker taking questions this afternoon. This is the appearance the web is starting to murmer over. Try not to miss it.
February 19, 2011 - 2:30 am Link to this Comment -
81. buddy larsen
"Still think you can control them?"
February 19, 2011 - 2:48 am Link to this Comment -
82. dtmack
The Unions and the DEMS are doing what they do. You can't expect that they won't fight: this affects everything, not just WI contracts, and they know that as well or better than we do. I'm sure there's more than a few GOP in DC who secretly want the Unions to prevail, although they can't say so. This could shake up the status quo bigtime, and the statists on both sides of the aisle don't want that.
This is interesting – for years, special interests of all kinds, including public unions, have been getting away with the farm. The theory, always true before, is that the interest, with a very direct stake in the outcome, would always win out over the public, whose perceived interest in the specific subject was vague or non existent.
That's no longer true. The situation has changed, but the Union tactics are the same. I think the Unions may be "fighting the last war", and that normally doesn't turn out too well for the people who do it. This has the potential to be a watershed event, and everybody on both sides knows it. Who's gonna blink? I don't see a lot of room for compromise because the issues are so vital, and the sides are so far away.
A win here and interests of all kinds, at all levels of government, will be put on notice. This could be the start of something big. I hope it is, and that it addresses all special interest groups, not just public employee unions. Let the States lead us out of the wilderness.
February 19, 2011 - 3:23 am Link to this Comment -
This happened in British Columbia in 1983.
Word for word, what we hear from Obama, the unions, the democrats were said in those days. The media reports were identical. The euphoria of the left was identical, but short lived.
A year later Alberta did the same, then one province after another to some measure, eventually the Federal government.
That's fascinating, in a depressing sort of way. The Canucks beat us by 30 years. (Not to mention that Canadian banks steered clear of the derivatives mess.)
And you're still there.
No reason not to expect a similar trajectory here, but I don't look forward to a decade of stale rhetoric and goofy picket signs. I thought this country was done with its 'taking it to the streets' phase. Apparently not.
Doug Kass agrees with Meredith Whitney that the Wisconsin crisis is just the beginning.
February 19, 2011 - 4:48 am Link to this Comment -
84. Peter Boston
The CSM article quotes a professor Robert Bruno as a labor movement expert. Here is his quote -"If you're going to take away bargaining rights, you leave them with what?" he says. "You leave them with what they had in the '20s and '30s, you leave them with the streets."
WI teachers make 2x the national average income, with vacations measured in months, and do not contribute a single penny to their health care or pensions.
Is Bruno that big an idiot? Did the CSM use his quotes to display the shallowness of Leftist academia?
We are least three standard deviations from even a modicum of common sense. Can any society survive that so willingly hides from reality?
February 19, 2011 - 5:32 am Link to this Comment -
85. Andrew X
I thought the NRO writer who compared this to the Spanish Civil War was rather apt.
February 19, 2011 - 5:41 am Link to this Comment -
86. no mo uro
"The days when a conservative could win points by being a lovable, principled, doormat are gone."
Those days have been gone for a very long time.
One of the great tactical blunders of the center/right since 1988 has been to tell themselves that because they have obviously won the war of ideas WRT free enterprise, social conservatism, and limited government that that is sufficient to result in electoral victory. Sadly, in an era of mass media, it is not. Candidate charisma, Lakoffian control of the "framing" of issues by virtue of media power, and, as we are seeing in WI, public demonstration are also necessary factors.
The Tea Party movement is the first sustained effort by the center/right to counteract the last (the Palm Pilot Riot in 2000 was an effort but merely a blip) and FOX news/talk radio/internet are increasingly making inroads in the second. Putting up candidates like McCain does nothing to deal with the unfortunately necessary charisma factor, maybe the next candidate will change that.
Progress is being made by our side in terms of understanding that winning elections isn't just a function of winning the debate about which ideas are more highly functional and sustainable. But there is a long way to go to catch up with the left.
February 19, 2011 - 6:00 am Link to this Comment -
87. no mo uro
Peter Boston #84
"The CSM article quotes a professor Robert Bruno as a labor movement expert. Here is his quote -"If you're going to take away bargaining rights, you leave them with what?" he says. "You leave them with what they had in the '20s and '30s, you leave them with the streets."
Perhaps it leaves us with the streets as well, Peter.
February 19, 2011 - 6:02 am Link to this Comment -
88. tharkun
Well, well. I think there may be another reason why Obama has inserted himself so early and forcefully into the Wisconsin situation. In addition to his union political alliances, he apparently has a nasty hole card to play against the governor should things turn ugly and violent. Thanks to a 2007 modification of the Insurrection Act of 1807, the window of opportunity and the level of authority of a state's governor to use his state's National Guard to maintain public was significantly compromised. Obama may be planning to step in and federally preempt Gov Walker's control of the Guard.
Governors lose in power struggle over National Guard
A little-noticed change in federal law packs an important change in who is in charge the next time a state is devastated by a disaster such as Hurricane Katrina.
To the dismay of the nation's governors, the White House now will be empowered to go over a governor's head and call up National Guard troops to aid a state in time of natural disasters or other public emergencies. Up to now, governors were the sole commanders in chief of citizen soldiers in local Guard units during emergencies within the state. …
… The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids U.S. troops from being deployed on American soil for law enforcement. The one exception is provided by the Insurrection Act of 1807, which lets the president use the military only for the purpose of putting down rebellions or enforcing constitutional rights if state authorities fail to do so. Under that law, the president can declare an insurrection and call in the armed forces. The act has been invoked only a handful of times in the past 50 years, including in 1957 to desegregate schools and in 1992 during riots in south central Los Angeles after the acquittal of police accused of beating Rodney King. …
… Congress changed the Insurrection Act to list "natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident" as conditions under which the president can deploy U.S. armed forces and federalize state Guard troops if he determines that "authorities of the state or possession are incapable of maintaining public order." …
This usurpation of state governors' authority was ostensibly done by Congress to "correct" the problems encountered by George Bush with the stalling and obstruction of Guard deployment by Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco during Hurricane the Katrina debacle. So I guess, once again, whatever happens in Wisconsin it will be Bush's Fault… /g
February 19, 2011 - 6:16 am Link to this Comment -
89. stoicheion
42. RWE What caliber was the bullet that is alleged to have killed JFK?
The thing about WW2 that I always found amusing is that both Nazi Germany AND Imperial Japan felt they were the Master Race. One had to be wrong.
Turns out Both were, but that's a different chapter.
Sort of like the Christian-Muslim thingie. One of them has to be wrong. Logically, they both are.
Worse then that is there is no chance of compromise between irrational parties. Like in Madison. Is it time for the Doors? A little Peacefrog;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRJKOtM-onM
Western civilization is redeemed by Youtube.
On a tactical note, if the "Protests" continue thru the weekend all those parents staying home to babysit need to take the brats, house apes, curtain climbers, rug rats, et. al. down to the square. Consider it a civics lesson. Do they teach civics nowadays?
I don't think the rioters will be foolish enough to chase 8 year olds thru the streets. Can you picture a sound bite on Prime Time news of 2 Union thugs after a 10 year old girl with pig-tails? Wisconsin has plenty of trees but they will need to import more rope.
Madison Has A Harly plant IIRC. Let the H-D folks go halves on Pizza with Dominos or Pizza Hut and the kids will have a day they will never forget. Plus you cannot buy that sort of advertising. The MSM showing guys on Harlys roaring into the crowd with FREE PIZZA. If Old Milwalkee sends up a couple of truck to help wash down the pizza, the sides might take a break and sit down and talk it out over pizza and beer.
Nah! You never know till you try.February 19, 2011 - 7:02 am Link to this Comment -
90. buddy larsen
western civilization is redeemed by youtube –the truth is spoke. and with western civ, as with this great pop, it's the finish that counts –
February 19, 2011 - 7:35 am Link to this Comment -
91. Neo
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. — Franklin Delano Roosevelt
February 19, 2011 - 7:36 am Link to this Comment -
92. stoicheion
IMHO, 1000 years from now when the historians look back on America it won't be the Atomic bomb, the Internet, Stealth aircraft, putting a man on the moon or any of the other 'miracles' America has produced they remember. It will be that in America a man could get rich putting 5 cents worth of chemicals in a bottle and sell it for $4.99
Marketing. In Madison we have a failure to market the idea that EVERYBODY has to sacrifice to get out of the hole EVERYBODY helped dig. Both Parties have to give up rape, pillage and burn tactics.
The Republicans that control Congress should have proposed ACROSS THE BOARD spending cuts. They missed an opportunity to extend an olive branch across the Isle.
If EVERYBODY has to feel a little pain, it makes us all stronger. The unions have to learn that getting their own is good, but not at the expense of a neighbor.February 19, 2011 - 8:00 am Link to this Comment -
93. Storm-Rider
tharkum 88,
"The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States…"http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii
The President has authority under the Constitution to enforce the Constitution and Bill of Rights with military force, but no authority under the Constitution to undermine the Constitution or Bill of Rights with military force. When States resist un-Constitutional (repeat: un-Constitutional) Federal Law, the President has no Constitutional authority to then intervene against the States (and thereby intervene against the Constitution) with the U.S. Military or the National Guard.
"That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact [U.S. Constitution], to which the states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil." James Madison – 1798 Virginia Resolution
"Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes – delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force… that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers…" Thomas Jefferson – 1798 Kentucky Resolution
"The course & scope of the reasoning [1798 Virginia Resolution] requires that by the rightful authority to interpose in the cases & for the purposes referred to, was meant, not the authority of the States singly & separately, but their authority as the parties to the Constitution., the authority which, in fact, made the Constitution; the authority which being paramount to the Constitution was paramount to the authorities constituted by it, to the Judiciary as well as the other authorities [Congress and President]. The resolution derives the asserted right of interposition for arresting the progress of usurpations by the Federal Government from the fact that its powers were limited to the grant made by the States [Constitution]… The mode of their interposition, in extraordinary cases, is left by the Resolution to the parties [States] themselves…in the event of usurpations of power not remediable under the forms and by the means provided by the Constitution [Article V Amendment]… It is sometimes asked in what mode the States could interpose in their collective character as parties to the Constitution against usurped power. It was not necessary for the object & reasoning of the resolutions & report that the mode should be pointed out. It was sufficient to shew that the authority to interpose existed, and was a resort beyond that of the Supreme Court of the U. S. or any authority derived from the Constitution [Congress and President]." James Madison – 1834 Notes on Nullification
February 19, 2011 - 8:19 am Link to this Comment -
94. Josh
s @ 92: Marketing. In Madison we have a failure to market the idea that EVERYBODY has to sacrifice to get out of the hole EVERYBODY helped dig.
Absolutely bang-on!
Judging from California, people of mostly good intention were lead, a little at a time, to a totally untenable financial position. Decades of bond issues, pay and pension increases, passed the level of reasonable some time ago, but as long as the overall economic bubble kept inflating, it seemed to work! And after twenty or thirty years, nobody listened to the prophets and Cassandras preaching doom. And then, sure as sunrise, doom occurred. Now we have to push back against thirty years teaching that greed is OK and that those guys complaining that that numbers don't work are just geeks and party poopers.
This happens as the Democratic party has utterly lost its mind, judging from that triumvirate, damaged but still running Washington, Obama-Pelosi-Reid. Not to mention an MSM that – well, I am not sure there is a historical precedent anywhere on the planet, for the malignant role they are currently playing, spreading insanity from the privileged position of a formerly useful institution.
And, the Republican party has lost its mojo, just cannot seem to churn up a candidate of sufficient intelligence, drive, and gravitas to engage the electorate and the issues at the same time.
Maybe the job is harder than it used to be, but the consequences are larger, too. A chance for someone to step forward and make a serious name for themselves by saving our sorry asses from what we, as a whole, probably deserve at this point. That the nation elected the likes of an Obama, is a hugely bad sign. That the alternative at the time was the likes of a McCain, was part of that badness. That my state of California is 110% Democratic, even as it was the Democratic policies and worldview that made us sick, is a really, really bad sign. But again, look at the alternatives that the Republican party threw up. My wisdom in all of this comes down to, you can't beat something with nothing, even nothing with a $150,000,000 campaign budget, and "nothing" is a charitable view of what our Republican candidate Meg Whitman represented.
So, here we are.
We're a bit lucky in California, Jerry Brown is just the kind of weird and quirky guy who *might* try to do something good in the circumstances, though I don't rate his odds of success very high. And what he should try – what he is trying, more or less, is what you say, trying to engage everyone in a mess that everyone made. That's logical. I really hope it works, cuz if this doesn't work, the road back may be very long and very rocky indeed.
February 19, 2011 - 8:56 am Link to this Comment -
95. blert
Moving directly to budget issues is bad politics and bad marketing.
Before you can get the patient into surgery you need to diagnose the malady and sell the cure to the patient.
This is why Issa is the point man, not the Speaker.
It's also why the Democrats are tasking their hit team with taking Issa down — one way or another.
I know that our national finances are a mess — but until the public is sold on what's up no cure can be suffered.
It is critical that the MERS scam be fully exposed. Ron Paul is too radical, wordy and anti-Semitic to lead the charge. That's unfortunate. That Frank is a fulsomely corrupt, homosexual Jew and sits right next to him as the Ranking Member is tragic. It means that the fight devolves into personalities and smoking hot emotions. Not good.
It is of the utmost urgency that both the Democrat Unions and the Money Trust suffer Congressional exposure. The average man has no conception WRT the scale of their parasitism. Both crowds have gamed Congress into staggering unearned income: economic rents based upon political corruption.
Both animals have captured Congress and the Federal Government. We are seeing the exact same political-economic gaming that ruined the Roman Republic and later the Empire.
February 19, 2011 - 9:03 am Link to this Comment -
96. trangbang68
Enlighten me, what's it matter if Obama has power over the National Guard in Wisconsin? Unless he intends to arrest Governor Walker and the GOP legislators that seems a moot point. Any misuse of the reserves for political chicanery would be akin to Fort Sumter and impeachable. We may be in trouble but were not Venezuela and he ain't Commandante Piggie.
February 19, 2011 - 9:14 am Link to this Comment -
97. PA Cat
trangbang #96
what's it matter if Obama has power over the National Guard in Wisconsin
Bammy's busy with other matters, like coaching his daughter's basketball team– even when she isn't there!
Where's Sasha? In Colorado, skiing with FLOTUS and friends. (Of course if she had been taught the proper socialist values, she'd be in Madison, screaming and yelling with the other teenyboppers.)
February 19, 2011 - 9:26 am Link to this Comment -
98. erc rodson
My father was a general contractor in Southern California from the late 'Forties through the Mid' Eighties. Quite successful for a while, built many freeways, streets and sidewalks for housing tracts, drainage control works. Always ran a union shop, in fact drew a pension from the carpenter's union after he retired. I was a member of the laborers and hod carriers union for a while.
Dad hated the unions but he was afraid to buck them. With a couple million "back then" dollars worth of earth-moving equipment scattered over couple hundred square miles of jobsites, he knew that they could easily sabotage his stuff or his offices.
Something that is rarely addressed is the prevailing wage laws governing public works projects. These dictate the wages and benefits that must be paid to workers of varying job descriptions. The way the "prevailing wage" is defined is not, as commonly believed, the average wage in a jurisdiction, but the wage that is paid to the largest number of workers in it. Thus, if 10% of the tractor operators are unionized and all paid the same package of wages and benefits, the other 90% of tractor operators are paid a wide but varying range of wages and benefits, the Department of Labor Statistics will set the prevailing wage for tractor operators on public works projects at the union rate.
This has the effect of greatly increasing the labor costs for public works projects over private projects, which are overwhelmingly built by non-union workers.
This was not always the case: back in my Dad's day, the premium for using union equipment operators and laborers was about 25% and about 75% of the construction labor force in Southern California was unionized. Today, the premium is over 100% and the percentages are reversed.
The unions, including the teachers and government employees have been, in many ways, their own wost enemies. By failing to recognize that their compensation had to be sustainable for their employers, they have priced themselves of of business, taking their employers with them.
I don't know how the Wisconsin situation is going to play out, but if something is not sustainable, it will, by definition, end. Timing may uncertain, but the end result is not. You don't have to be a bad person to do a bad job, but if you do a bad job, you won't be doing it forever.
February 19, 2011 - 9:31 am Link to this Comment -
99. Kevin
I just love how the CSM and AP say the protests have been peaceful but that could change once the tea partiers show up. Can you have a country when one side doesn't tolerate dissent?
February 19, 2011 - 9:35 am Link to this Comment -
100. Subotai Bahadur
#81 buddy larsen
"Still think you can control them?"
That sent chills down my spine. I had not seen that since the movie came out. Yes, we did control them. But the Butcher's Bill that had to be paid was horrendous. The bill collector may be coming around again.
Another bit of history, that may or may not be applicable. Politics moves in waves and counter-waves. In a way far more limited than Marxist pseudo-analysis; Hegel was to a degree right. Thesis -> Antithesis -> Synthesis. Some of the major "waves" in American politics came out of Wisconsin. Ignored at first, those waves grew to swamp the existing system.
In the 1850′s, the two primary parties were the pro-slavery Democrats [at least they are consistent over time] and the clueless Whigs [who had no real principles other than a) personal power, b) not wanting to take a definitive stand to offend anybody, and c) keeping control of the Federal budget [much of the argument over "Free States" and "Slave States" was over control of Federal spending. Look at the sources of Federal revenues, and look at where the money was spent.]
In Ripon, Wisconsin on February 28, 1854; what became the Republican Party was founded by a few dozen activists who at least had an idea about what stands to take and hold. By 1856 they were a force in Congress. By 1860, they had swept Congress and had the presidency. Mind you, that sweep led to a Civil War.
By the 1870′s-1880′s, the Republican dominated government had become intensely corrupt. Out of Wisconsin came Robert LaFollette; a Republican senator who created the "Progressive" [no relation to the National Socialists who have absconded with the title because "Liberal" has come to mean Socialist] Movement that created a Civil Service in place of direct patronage positions in government [except in Illinois, of course], did "trust-busting", etc.
We may be seeing another wave forming in Wisconsin, against the now corrupt Civil Services and their masters. I note that both previous waves out of Wisconsin were not all unicorns and skittles. When the waves broke against the opposition, there was violence on both sides. Something to keep in mind as this develops. At noon today CST, there is to be a pro-Walker rally at the Capitol in Madison. I strongly expect Obama's Union thugs to assault the Patriot side. There is the potential, not high probability but real and present, for a Gavrilo Princip moment. And I do literally fear for the physical safety of Governor Walker, the Republicans in the Legislature, and their families. The Unions know that the Federal Department of Justice will do their best to prevent any prosecution for any actions they take. We have multiple recent examples that we are a country of men and not laws on the Federal level.
The Unions and other TWANLOC dare not lose this fight, because they depend so much on their image of omnipotence to suppress resistance to them. We dare not lose this fight, because it will reinforce that image and at least temporarily halt our resistance to them. There is not enough margin left in the system to allow such a halt.
And keep in mind that TWANLOC and their supporters do NOT believe in the rule of law. If they lose legally, they will feel perfectly justified in turning to violence.
Our host has mentioned the meeting engagement at Jutland. My hope is that what we have is closer to Surigao Strait; with us in the role of Jesse Oldendorf's forces, and the Democrats in the role of Shima's. Where the victims of Japan's treachery at Pearl Harbor got some payback. But keep in mind that it may be like the battle off Samar; where the "small boys" had to be sacrificed to save others and allow victory later.
And do not forget that after both Jutland and Leyte Gulf; it was a long, hard slog before things were resolved.
Subotai Bahadur
February 19, 2011 - 9:36 am Link to this Comment -
101. Josh
b @ 95: great post!
It is critical that the MERS scam be fully exposed. Ron Paul is too radical, wordy and anti-Semitic to lead the charge. That's unfortunate. That Frank is a fulsomely corrupt, homosexual Jew and sits right next to him as the Ranking Member is tragic. It means that the fight devolves into personalities and smoking hot emotions. Not good.
you're right of course, and what a picture!
February 19, 2011 - 9:43 am Link to this Comment -
"EVERYBODY has to sacrifice to get out of the hole EVERYBODY helped dig."
That's simply not true; everybody didn't dig the hole. The problem is those who didn't dig the hole have always been sacrificing and can afford to sacrifice no more. Now it is those who haven't sacrificed that must pay the piper if the hole is to be undug.
There are those who, throughout their lifetimes, continually contributed to a big pile of cash to pay the government's expenses. There are others who, throughout their lifetimes, continually extracted cash from that pile.
Both categories have, throughout their lifetimes, played by the rules. As it happens, the rules are wrong. There is no doubt that the former have contributed to the pile of cash; it is the latter who would argue that they, too, have contributed to the pile of cash albeit indirectly. Postal services, police, fire, teachers, etc. are all activities that do contribute indirectly to the pile of cash.
The cash extractions have exceeded the contributions for decades and have recently accelerated logarithmically. The value of the indirect contributions, in other words, has not kept up with the extractions. There is but one solution, the extractions must be reduced.
It is those extractors who, while honoring the rules their entire lives, which must nevertheless pay the price for the faulty rules. The debate now centers upon the correctness of the rules. The extractors refuse to accept the premise that their choice of livelihood has been faulty and that they are being asked to contribute to the undigging disproportionately. It is true, they are going to be required to sacrifice more.
February 19, 2011 - 9:50 am Link to this Comment -
103. Interesting Connections
One more thing for the pResident and his team to worry about.
I don't know how they will keep their shit together.
February 19, 2011 - 9:54 am Link to this Comment -
104. eaglesdontflock
If I was the CIA and wanted to save this country, maybe I would do exactly what Soros and Obama are doing, set up the subversives like Rev. Wright, Jackson, Ayres, Kos, Stern. Jones, Pelosi etal. Look how many crooks and liars are gone from the Senate and House.
Just expose their agenda, give them free rein, let them hang themselves. Disconnect foreign govts from the US teat by revolution, rein in the idiocy by chaos, force the American people to choose and rectify.
February 19, 2011 - 10:01 am Link to this Comment -
stoicheion #64:
True, there is considerable overlap, but that bad news for the Unions, but not the NRA. You see bumper stickers that say "Proud Union Member" but none that say "You'll have to pry my cold dead fingers off my union card."
As to why the Left is fighting so hard in Wisconsin it's simple: As Rush would say, they have one old tired playbook and that is it.
After Desert Storm there were those in the USSR that said "You see! The Americans are every bit as dangerous as we have claimed! We need to redouble our efforts to attain military superiority!" And the response from others in the USSR was "You have been working to achieve that for 70 years, wrecked our economy in the process, and what happened? Saddam had the best equipment we have and the Americans went though his battle hardened superbly equipped forces like eggs through a hen. If they decide to take us on we all dead. Time to give up!"
The definition of fanaticism is redoubling your efforts when you completely lose sight of any chance of achieving your goal.
Rodson #98:
The law you are referring to is called the Davis-Bacon Act. It requires that workers on government-funded construction projects be paid at the prevailing union wage – even if they are not in the union. And if you are in a small town and the nearest union workforce is hundreds of miles away, you still have to pay the big-city union wages.
I recall there was an old fire station on Cape Canaveral that needed the kitchen and break area refurbished. The estimate was $350K. At that time you could buy a new 6 bedroom house with a 5 car garage and a swimming pool in the local area for that price – or follow Davis-Bacon rules and redecorate a kitchen and dining room.
February 19, 2011 - 10:10 am Link to this Comment -
106. stoicheion
"Moving directly to budget issues is bad politics and bad marketing."
I think you misunderstood me.. My fault, since it is incumbent on the person communicating an idea to find a way to be understood. I'll try again.
I'm trying to avoid precise details. That is divisive, since everybody tries to protect their Ox and gore their neighbor's Ox. An across the board cut will buy time while working on the problem.
After all the goal IS to fix the problem, isn't it? If we are just out to fix the blame, that can wait until after we fix the problem.
The marketing comes in in persuading certain people there IS a problem.
One of my brothers is a County worker. He has over 30 years in and could retire with 30 days notice. he gets 65% of his base if he retires now and an extra 5% ever year he stays, Naturally, he plans on staying until he is at 100%. He will be in his early 60′s then. I told him THINGS ARE GONNA CHANGE. He said, "No, they are not."
Talking with a retired teacher last night. She was teacher of the Year a decade or so ago. She thinks everything is just fine. There are those that don't see the same signs we do.
Unionistas are herd animals. They don't see anything wrong with the economy and they are not going to give up their rice bowl for what they see as panic by a bunch of 'chicken littles'. Sorta like a drunk who is surprised that the car is going in the ditch. "Who put that ditch in my way?"
Those are the people we have to reach. Attacking their Ox is just going to start a fight. Remember, they are herd animals. The safety of the herd is what attracted them to gubermint service in the first place. So instead of trying to grab their rice bowel, we say, 'everybody else is giving up a little rice, Why not you?' There will always be the greedy few who will get up off some rice under no circumstances. Fook 'em and feed 'em fish heads. They will get what they deserve in the end.
While a smile and a .38 will get you more then a smile alone, it never hurts to try the smile foirst.February 19, 2011 - 10:23 am Link to this Comment -
s@92: In Madison we have a failure to market the idea that EVERYBODY has to sacrifice to get out of the hole EVERYBODY helped dig.
Demonizing a target group will just make them mad(der), no matter how well or uniformly deserved.
And the only political party remaining in Congress (possibly including the majority of state governments as well) is the one with its hand out. Ideology was long ago subsumed by the baser motives.
But I won't agree with the theme that "we all did this."
The single liability with reach that broad is allowing the political class to deteriorate and even that is arguable on the basis of organizational theory and the exodus of good people out of politics that began back in the 1980′s when Bill Bradley left.
No. My perspective is that several specific groups – use this word – malfunctioned while the rest of us were holding down the fort in our 8 to 5 lives:
(1) Wall St. & the mortgage industry (tipping point for balance);
(2) Foreign policy response to the Sep 2001 terror attack (over-reach leading to resource stress);
(3) Domestic policy response to a collection of problems including labor dislocations, "peak government" border insecurity importing failed state problems from Mexico, educational failures, and demographic stress on entitlement programs.
The Big We were played by the financial elites in (1); the ME entanglements, well, I can't think of a short sound-bite, but they should have been handled "better" by the foreign policy/military/INTEL elites; and domestic policy issues of (3) became a function of "groomed" candidates who were "cronied in" before making their first campaign speech. Selection limited, if not irregular.
So I will not go with the theme that "we all did this." We did not. That only serves to detract from the groups that did and, as several have observed, will shortly be learning the meaning of sustainable behavior.
This was clearly a failure of the elites – or whatever you want to call them.
Until the political "grooming" starts to include serious alternatives, nothing will be changed by "We."
February 19, 2011 - 10:34 am Link to this Comment -
108. Civil Cold Warrior
If the other governors are smart they will get their legislation up for a vote while all of this is going on. Best to attack the enemy on all fronts and strain its ability to bus in troops.
If nothing else it would help the occupancy rates of the hotels in Chicago as all of the Dems flee there to plot their return like so many would be Napoleans on Elba.
The other point is that all of this strife was utterly predictable. Socialist countries are always strife ridden unless a strongman is in charge. When there is only one lever of power then of course everyone will fight over it. When one centralized authority makes decisions on everything from what light bulbs you may use to whether or not you can farm or drill for oil then EVERYTHING becomes political and EVERYONE fights to control the source of power. If there is only one power center then the fight becomes all encompassing. This as much as anything is what Tolkien had in mind with his ring and the strife that it caused.
February 19, 2011 - 10:46 am Link to this Comment -
109. stoicheion
Has no one here ever had to get a horse into the barn?
You try a switch and the horse runs off. That proves the horse is faster then you are and it doesn't like being switched.
Or you take a bucket of oats out pass it under the horse's nose and start walking toward the barn. The horse will follow. EVERY time.
The 'trick' behind selling cars is to listen. The buyer is there because they WANT to buy a car. The best way to get them to buy the car from you instead of Joe down the street is to allow them to 'sell' you the car. They always sell themselves in the process of selling you.
Same with ideas. If the Union presents the idea that they need to give up a little, then allow them to 'sell' you. Getting them to where they want to sell you on what is now their idea is politics.February 19, 2011 - 10:57 am Link to this Comment -
110. Interesting Connections
With the administration trying to fend off attacks on its political funding base (union dues) both in respect to public employees in states and that big new source of union dues from ObamaCare, one wonders whether it (the Administration) will be able to keep its eye on the ball overseas.
February 19, 2011 - 11:00 am Link to this Comment -
The thing about the Solomans Campaign is that it wasn't planned as a strategic necessity. It grew out of a minor support operation for the aborted Port Moresby invasion when the IJN occupied a couple of minor islands. Then they started leisurely building an airstrip on Guadalcanal, no great rush or strategic priority. Allied recon saw the nearly complete airstrip, realized the potential danger it posed to Australian shipping lanes, and the spigot of men and material was thrown wide open for the next year. The struggle created it's own gravitational field and drew in most everything.
I doubt either Dems or Republicans had Wisconsin as a central battleground. Interesting to see how much of a gravity well it creates.
But in writing this, another PTO parallel comes to mind – Truk. It was the main IJN base in the South Pacific, thought to be impenetrable. Then the USN hit it with air raids and completely smashed it. It was a bit stunning to everyone. Midway could be chalked up to luck. Guadalcanal could be called a battle of willpower. Truk was a beat down that showed how powerful the Fast Carriers were.
Will there be something like that on the political scene? A liberal stronghold obliterated? One can hope…
February 19, 2011 - 11:12 am Link to this Comment -
112. mariner
Andrew X @ 85:
I thought the NRO writer who compared this to the Spanish Civil War was rather apt.
Remember who won the Spanish Civil War?
February 19, 2011 - 11:16 am Link to this Comment -
113. Peter Boston
I'm not buying this "We" business either. I go to my default position that human beings are selfish and will automatically take advantage of structural anomalies to feather their own nest and disadvantage everybody else.
Government unions are the worst. They will pillage the public treasury to ruin because unlike private business, governments have the power to increase revenue at the point of a gun, if necessary. It's about as close to the immortal golden goose as you can get.
The only way to prevent government unions from growing into insatiable monsters is to eliminate them.
If you asked 100 WI teachers if they "deserve" to make more than 2x the national average income how many do you think would answer in the negative? Privilege quickly becomes a right to those doing the enjoying.
Government itself is a predatory monster that dispenses privileges to the people who keep the politicians doing the dispensing in power. That is the nature of the beast. Always has been, and always will be. The best that we humans can do is to build walls around the keys to the throne room and the public treasury. That is (or was) the idea behind the American political system.
February 19, 2011 - 11:17 am Link to this Comment -
114. Flipside
The petulant hippies of the sixties are taking over the buildings again. This time the majority elected conservatives have finally had enough and standing up to these bullies. I'd like to see the Speaker of the WI House, gavel in a hand, march right into the fray with several colleagues, baiting the crowd into name calling, spitting, threats, all caught on camera to show the nation who the real racist mob is, none other than white, liberal union thugs. Breitbart, get down there. Film at 11.
February 19, 2011 - 11:27 am Link to this Comment -
115. Interesting Connections
What if the name on the ballot was not the legal name of the pResident?
This is interesting shit.
If the name on the ballot was not the legal name of the pResident, because they forgot about the name change upon adoption, and the legal requirements of that, then the whole house of cards come tumbling down.
Bills signed into law by the imposter become invalid. Indeed, any public office held by the imposter becomes invalid, it would seem.
February 19, 2011 - 11:38 am Link to this Comment -
116. tharkun
93. Storm-Rider
I appreciate your time and effort in posting those references. I have read them before and agree with your point and your sentiments.
Unfortunately, Obama and the other adversaries Gov Walker will be facing as this unfolds do not. They don't care about the pure-pedigreed original intent of the Constitution, nor the concepts of limited government, checks and balances or the genuine meaning of the phrase rule of law. The only thing rule of law means to them is that they define what it is and isn't, and that it's then a bludgeon they can use to rule we the people. It does not apply to them.
Regardless of its legitimate constitutionality, the 2007 Insurrection Act modification is a "law", written down in black and white, that they can and will use to claim jurisdiction and authority if they think it will benefit them. And the media and one-third to half the country will back them.
Right now the President of the United States is brazenly ignoring two judicial rulings and injunctions (on the Gulf oil drilling and Obamacare). They do not care about the fine points of constitutional arguments – only about what they can get away with.
96. trangbang68
Enlighten me, what's it matter if Obama has power over the National Guard in Wisconsin? Unless he intends to arrest Governor Walker and the GOP legislators that seems a moot point. Any misuse of the reserves for political chicanery would be akin to Fort Sumter and impeachable. We may be in trouble but were not Venezuela and he ain't Commandante Piggie.
The reason it matters if things escalate to the point where the Guard is necessary to keep order and if Obama then preempts Walker's control is that the Guard will then be taking orders from Obama. His choices, e.g. who and what to protect, who to take into custody, and the rules of engagement, etc. would give him a leg up in shaping the public dialogue. In addition, I see no evidence to support your disdain of the possibility of any "misuse" of the Guard by Obama, and I believe you overestimate the civic virtues of your fellow citizens and underestimate the ruthlessness of Obama and those he represents.
Subotai in post 100 pegged it correctly:
… I strongly expect Obama's Union thugs to assault the Patriot side. There is the potential, not high probability but real and present, for a Gavrilo Princip moment. And I do literally fear for the physical safety of Governor Walker, the Republicans in the Legislature, and their families. The Unions know that the Federal Department of Justice will do their best to prevent any prosecution for any actions they take. We have multiple recent examples that we are a country of men and not laws on the Federal level. …
Now violence of that sort may not happen today, but the longer this cauldron bubbles and the greater the pressure builds, the greater the likelihood. If the National Guard at that point is charged with keeping order and protecting people whose lives are being threatened, then it makes a great deal of difference who is setting their rules of engagement.
February 19, 2011 - 11:50 am Link to this Comment -
#24 Charles. I don't think I have ever seen a more fallacious, and utterly invalid outline of Popper's Open Society than your post. You've got it completely backwards! Why don't you actually take the time and read the book! I assigned it over the years to many upper level university students; we compared the closed society (tribal, exclusive, totalitarian and deterministic) and the open society (democratic, capable of adaptive interaction, power in the hands of the citizens and their constitution).
Your outline is of chaos! The Open Society is the opposite of chaos, for the Open Society is based on critical analysis, reason, examination of the facts of the current situation and a debate on how to deal with the problems; that's the basic democratic process. The Closed Society rejects democracy, rejects the input of the people, rejects reason; it feels that it has an innate historic predetermined destiny and, by force, its Rulers (holders of this Historic Duty) seek to implement and/or preserve that destiny. It has no adaptive capacities. The ME states are a good example of Closed Societies.
Again- for heaven's sake, read Popper's books.
#78 Peter Boston. Excellent outline. Thanks.
The public service unions MUST be disabled. What has happened over the years is that unions have moved from their original 'help-the-worker' in the private sector to their current practice of functioning as massive and wealth-focused Corporations. In the private sector the aid-to-the worker has been taken over by the govt, with various work regulations, wage scales, worker safety protection etc. The unions moved into the public sector.
Effectively, unions are giant Corporations. They are also Parasites. They feed off the wages of the workers. In the public sector, this is actually parasitic on the taxpayers. The unions have set up a Special Set of citizens in the nation (they really can't be called workers anymore).
This Special Set are privileged. Their salaries are higher than the private sector; salary increases are double that of the private. Benefits are, in many cases, not paid from their salaries but are EXTRA to their wages and are thus, paid for by the private sector taxpayer. These benefits such as health care, pensions, banking of sickdays, travel costs, computers, care etc etc – are all benefits outside of their wages, outside of taxes – and all, paid by the private sector taxpayer. Can or should the taxpayer fund a Special Set of Workers? Why?
These people are unaccountable, tenured – they can't be fired. The unions have thus set themselves up as an important Set of the population. The union dues are used, not merely for the Executive and the Special Set, but for political purposes; the Unions buy politicians. The Unions control the Democratic Party – which works to enhance their financial power. This includes higher wages and benefits; it includes releases from various govt programs (such as health care); it includes releases from taxation…and so on.
In return, unionites vote for the Democratic party. That's why the National Democrats are helping the Wisc. Unions – and why Obama, rejecting the private American citizen, spoke out in support of this Special Set. Because Unions give him a lot of money.
No nation can afford to set up a sector of the population whose membership is so proportionally high to that of the rest of the population (the private sector) – and which is parasitic on the private sector economy.
It has to be broken. These people in this parastic branch of the economy have to return to the real world. And the unions, those massive Corporations, have to be destroyed so that our politicians will be uncorrupted, and made to work for ALL the people of America. Not just a Privileged Set of Parasites.
February 19, 2011 - 11:52 am Link to this Comment -
118. big bob
@15: you could not possibly be a conservative comparing the process followed by the socialists known as Pelosi/Reid/Obama. I don't even know where to begin. But in WI, they are going through the same thing millions of families are doing all over the country: that would be balancing the budget. Pure and simple. Gov. Walker will have to lay off employees if the unions force him to. There is plenty of precedent for that loser tactic!! (steel companies, as one example) But forcing Obamacare on us and trying to cut a budget are as far as the west is from the east. Nov. 2010 was all about Obamacare, in short. This is all about greed and union money. That's it. It's not even about collective bargaining, although that's what the union is trying to portray it as. The real story is that new employees will not have to join the union and that means that democrats will not have that huge pool of forced plunder to run the next election. THat is the real motivation here: democrat forced donations from the unions. Now this is a far cry from lying about every aspect of Obamacare. In short, there is no way you are a conservative….I doubt very seriouly if you voted for Walker. Just sayin……
February 19, 2011 - 11:54 am Link to this Comment -
#118 big bob- exactly. The WI situation is a fight between a massive unaccountable Corporation, called, jokingly, a Union – and the free people.
This Corporation has one and only one interest. Money. It achieves this by a parastic economy. The Union Corporation produces nothing; no goods or services. Nothing. Instead, it feeds off the dues of its members. Obviously, it must increase its membership AND increase the amounts of dues it takes from those members.
It operates within a part of the economy that is public, which is to say, it is financed – not by selling goods and services to consumers who CHOOSE between competiting offerings – but – it is financed by taxpayers. The taxpayers have no choice in paying or not paying. The taxpayers have no choice in using/not using the 'goods/services' provided; they have to pay those taxes regardless.
Then, the Union Corporation moves into the political arena by purchasing politicians. That's right; it purchases politicians. Obama is one of the major recipients of Union money – and union workers who are paid and told to show up at his campaigns and to show up against his opponents.
The alliance between these Public Unions and the Democrats is corrupt.
The existence of Public Unions, parasitic on the taxpayers, is corrupt.It's time to end both situations.
February 19, 2011 - 12:07 pm Link to this Comment -
120. PA Cat
More black comedy: some of the elected parasites need their heads shrunk as well as their salaries:
"Just days before the November midterms, senior staffers of U.S. Rep. David Wu were so alarmed over the Oregon Democrat's erratic behavior that they demanded he enter a hospital for psychiatric treatment, a newspaper reported Friday evening . . . . Wu was increasingly unpredictable on the campaign trial and in private last fall, and had several angry and loud outbursts and sometimes said 'kooky' things to staff and potential voters and donors. . . .
The fact that Wu was in the middle of a difficult re-election campaign from his Portland-area district made his behavior particularly worrisome to staff who organized a meeting with the congressman at his campaign headquarters on Oct. 30, with a psychiatrist joining by speaker phone."
Paging our good friends Batman and Dr. Irons . . .
February 19, 2011 - 12:42 pm Link to this Comment -
121. PA Cat
From Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard:
"If you want to know just how unruly the union protests are at the state capitol in Madison, check out this eye-opening account from a Wisconsin political insider over at a Milwaukee radio station:
Last night one Senator told me they had been told to clear the Capitol because the new groups coming in overnight are filled with with people 'who aren't afraid to be arrested' and the Administration could not guarantee the safety of the legislators and their staffs. In our Capitol.
On Thursday, legislators were advised to return to their offices and lock their doors. Mobs roamed the halls, banging on the glass of the doors, pounding on the walls. No one could move in the halls or enter or leave the building. The glass of the Supreme Court's entrance was broken. Legislators were genuinely afraid. Our elected representatives were afraid. In our Capitol.
A young female reporter trying to get into the Senate chamber struggled to get through the crowd. She arrived disheveled and upset because she had been roughed up as she tried to get through 'Bitch-slapped' the mob told her. A senior senator was spat on. A senator and his female staffer struggled to get into the capitol. He was worried about his staffer because the crowd was grabbing at her and pushing her. University Police were two arms lengths away and did nothing. They, of course, are union.
Hemingway concludes: "Can you imagine the wall-to-wall media coverage if Tea Partiers were acting so disrespectfully?"
February 19, 2011 - 1:04 pm Link to this Comment -
122. Subotai Bahadur
Doctors, or those posing as doctors, are handing out medical excuses en masse to striking teachers at the Capitol in Madison.
video includedAnyone with connections to any Wisconsin school district, the Executive Branch in Wisconsin, or any Republican legislator should pass this on. If these are fake, the teachers need to be busted and fired. If the "doctors" are real doctors, then charges need to be filed with whatever board deals with malpractice and their licenses need to be lifted. Even Obama can't restore a license to practice medicine once it is pulled for malpractice. If they are not doctors, it is also a crime to practice medicine without a license. Prosecute, and make the unions either lose money or credibility [or both] defending them.
Subotai Bahadur
February 19, 2011 - 1:13 pm Link to this Comment -
123. Josh
pac @ 121: If wretchard was wondering about violence, he need wonder no more.
February 19, 2011 - 1:26 pm Link to this Comment -
124. proreason
Seems to me that Republicsscaredoftheirshadows may finally have found something they are willing to fight about.
This is a very very good thing, since there are twice as many adults in the country as children.
The most delicious factor of all is that the lockjawed media, so arrogent and stupid in their own importance, is actually televising the demonstrations, having convinced themselves that the people, of course, support violence in defense of a good cause; ie., the destruction of adult governance.
Bring it on.
February 19, 2011 - 1:39 pm Link to this Comment -
125. Interesting Connections
It is intriguing that hillbuzz.org is bringing attention to the pResidential birth certificate issues, because Hillary Clinton is only fourth in line.
It also seems unlikely that the pResident's name has not been officially changed back to Obama, however, the question is when did that occur? Did it perhaps occur after he first ran for office?
What is the term for someone who runs for public office under a name not their own? Can such a person subsequently run for the highest office in the US?
It seems likely that the Clinton camp have a copy of the full certificate and the details surrounding it, but if they screw up, they could put a Republican in the President's office (Because clearly the ticket was invalid, not just the election of the President if the speculation is correct.)
It is so much fun to speculate.
February 19, 2011 - 1:39 pm Link to this Comment -
126. Blast From the Past
Federalization of the Wisconsin State National Guard would matter for two reasons.
1. It would remove the Guard from the control of the Governor. Otherwise he could at least potentially use them himself to clear protesters from the State Capitol so that the Legislature could resume operation.
2. In the media it would be portrayed as a replay of federalization of the Arkansas Guard at Little Rock to thwart the bigoted efforts of a Governor attempting to resist Integration. The reality that it has nothing to do with that precedent would mean nothing. The press would fall over themselves delivering that story and we could all write the NY Times Editorial in advance for fun.
February 19, 2011 - 1:52 pm Link to this Comment -
Violence is never the answer.
Now lets all come together and do two things.
#1 Find the shooter on the grassy knoll.
#2 Help OJ find Nicole's killer.February 19, 2011 - 1:57 pm Link to this Comment -
128. Tcobb
Last night one Senator told me they had been told to clear the Capitol because the new groups coming in overnight are filled with with people 'who aren't afraid to be arrested' and the Administration could not guarantee the safety of the legislators and their staffs. In our Capitol.
I wonder how afraid they would be of being shot if that was a reasonable consequence of such behavior? Not arrested–shot. I suspect that most of these brave crusaders for social justice would start screaming and running leaving involuntary trails of bodily waste on their way back home to Mommy.
I have always disagreed with those who claim that the main purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that the citizens would have the power to rise up against the government. It is and was a purpose, but I think the primary purpose was to forbid the government from ever having a monopoly on protecting the security of its citizens. Because, after all, sometimes its not in the current government's best political interest to protect the personal security of some segments of the population at all. By refusing to protect them they can force them into submission. But when people have the ability and will to deal with Thugs themselves, you don't need community activists and social workers all that much–just morticians, or at least people who can dig graves.
This kind of incident illustrates it all too well.
February 19, 2011 - 2:01 pm Link to this Comment -
129. Fletcher Christian
#117 ETAB – Agreed in all particulars. However, everything you said also applies to another set of privileged "workers". Bankers. Anyone else got any comments about that?
February 19, 2011 - 2:13 pm Link to this Comment -
130. proreason
#128. Bankers have competitors.
Except, of course, in a fascist state.
Like the U.S., post 2008.
February 19, 2011 - 2:21 pm Link to this Comment -
I believe the answers can be found in our Nobel prize wiinning pResident's book. "The Audacity of Hope"
On Principles & Values:
Americans dislike partisanship–not solution like Dems think Increasingly, the Democratic Party feels the need to match the Republican right in stridency and hardball tactics. The accepted wisdom something like this: The Republican Party has been able to win elections not by expanding its base but by vilifying Democrats, driving wedges into the electorate, energizing its right wing, and disciplining those who stray. I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. For it is the predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face. It is what keeps us locked in "either/or" thinking: the notion that we can only have big government or no government; the assumption that we must either tolerate 46 million uninsured or embrace "socialized medicine."
February 19, 2011 - 2:40 pm Link to this Comment -
132. LeighB
Elections have consequences. The battle between public unions vs. the people will spread across the midwest. If unions continue to demand entitlements no one else has and no one can afford, they will set their movement back 100 years. The flee party (fleece party?) is doing such a great job making the case for the other side, it gives me a whole new appreciation for what community organizers can do (or not).
February 19, 2011 - 2:47 pm Link to this Comment -
133. PA Cat
#122 Subotai
Gerard at American Digest has embedded the same video and is asking whether anyone can identify "the prating slimeball @ 1:30. . . . If anyone recognizes him and has a name, I'd be pleased to know it."
February 19, 2011 - 3:07 pm Link to this Comment -
134. PAthena
Frances Fox Piven is enthusiastic about Greek-style protests about Greek government cutbacks, necessary because Greece is broke, and student protests in Britain about increases in university tuition, again because the British government is short of money. Her enthusiasm, however, does not include any observation of the results: in spite of the protests, which generate no money, Greece is still broke – the protesters have only the deaths of three people in Athens as the effect of their behavior, and perhaps a reduction in tourism, a major source of income for Greece – while the protesters in Britain have not changed the government policy, but only make many people think that they are selfish.
February 19, 2011 - 3:16 pm Link to this Comment -
135. Xennady
Criminal acts, from doctors no less.
I wish I could say I was surprised. The law is club to beat the little people with, not anything the left feels the need to pay any attention to if their interests are threatened.
Of course if Walker and the GOP were simply to pass their bill using the senators that bothered to show up for work no doubt the left would go nuts- to put it mildly.
Because that would violate the law. Or something.
February 19, 2011 - 3:35 pm Link to this Comment -
136. allen
127. Tcobb said…
I wonder how afraid they would be of being shot…no need Tcobb…Remember: when seconds count, the police are only minutes away (unless they belong to an affiliated union).
February 19, 2011 - 3:54 pm Link to this Comment -
Apologies for being too impulsive in believing five minutes was too long a period of time to "moderate" my one sentence. You must have many you need to moderate.
February 19, 2011 - 4:18 pm Link to this Comment -
138. Peter Boston
Things would get really interesting if Gov. Walker fired everybody in the 1 or 2 bigger school districts that are shutting down classes and dragging students to the Capitol.
The state of print journalism is pathetic. I've been through Google news a few times and nearly every story is a copycat. Some do not even mention the budget deficit.
Why does nobody cover the effect of government union collective bargaining on towns across Wisconsin? Cities and towns have almost no discretionary spending because of constant increases in union related expenses, which they cannot even address because contract benefits are a fait accompli.
Why does nobody cover the Teachers Union's manuals and training programs for how to run the table with union favorites in school board elections, and how to get rid of an uncooperative school board member? Anybody interested in writing a story about how government unions subvert democracy has all the pieces right in front of them.
February 19, 2011 - 4:21 pm Link to this Comment -
139. SukieTawdry
So, Rev. Jackson considers teachers and other public employees the "suffering culture" and, what, we taxpayers the "surplus culture?" Expect to get a lot of mileage out of that one, do ya, Jesse??
If Jackson wants to wail about the uninsured living in poverty on food stamps, he's come to the wrong rally because the "suffering culture" at this particular rally is actually rather well taken care of and among the working and middle class elites.
February 19, 2011 - 4:29 pm Link to this Comment -
140. Cybergeezer
RUSH LIMBAUGH IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS Unpatriotic outbreak.
And Hannity has made comments that inflamed the hatred of the Liberals!
Sarah Palin is responsible for being on the scene with a cattle prod, poking these poor, decimated educators, and prohibiting their expressions of FREEDOM.
George Bush has incited the violence with his legacy!
Carl Rove is abetting this demonstration with his VULGAR dialog!
Katy Couric is fomenting the demonstrations with her silence!
Chris Matthews is getting thrills!February 19, 2011 - 4:50 pm Link to this Comment -
141. blert
The Jackson holds that unionized government workers are morally superior because they grace us with their noble higher calling.
Teachers now hold positions of orthodoxy previously held by the priesthood.
Their 'negotiated' incomes represent 'monkian' denial of worldly attainments — limited as they are compared to the worthiness of these souls.
A society silly enough to pay professional athletes box-car incomes is being penurious against their noblest of callings.
The bench-mark is not average incomes: teachers are worth far more than the average Joe. They've punched their ticket and have atta-boy degrees to back up their purse and pride.
The fact that these worthies have self-selected a profession with zero risk passes unnoted and unremarked.
Another sweet fact: the union has negotiated away government control over sticky issues like teacher performance and evaluation.
What could go wrong with that?
February 19, 2011 - 5:08 pm Link to this Comment -
142. maz2
Latest report found.
"We caught up with Wisconsin senator Lena Taylor last night."
"The Protests Continue In Madison, While 13 State Senators Continue To Hide
Reported by: Marty Kasper
Saturday, February 19 2011For the sixth day in a row public workers in Wisconsin have packed the states capital, demanding that governor Scott Walker give up on eliminating their collective bargaining rights.
"We feel that balancing the budget should not be done on the backs of working class citizens who keep our communities running," said one protester.
While protesters rally in Madison, 14 democratic state senators remain in hiding across state lines, stalling a vote on the bill, and waiting for walker to reconsider.
We caught up with Wisconsin senator Lena Taylor last night.
"I'm ready to go back right now, immediately, if we can get out governor to agree that he should sit down at the table or at the very least to allow someone to help to facilitate those conversations," said Taylor.
But it doesn't look like that will happen anytime soon, keeping democrats on the run for a few more days or weeks, since Walker says he's done talking.
"We're broke, we don't have anymore options, we can't do what the previous governor and legislator majorities did, and that is wait for federal government to bail us out," said Walker.
Local AFSCME representative Jay Ferraro took a group of Rockford union members to Madison today, to give their support for the states public workers. Ferraro says being broke is not an excuse to take away people's rights.
"We understand that throughout the whole United States there is problems with money right now, but it doesn't mean you can be taking collective bargaining rights away from employees that have fought so hard to get them years ago," said Ferraro.
The protest will continue tomorrow in Madison but it's also edging closer to the Stateline, a rally is planned in Beloit as well."
February 19, 2011 - 5:12 pm Link to this Comment -
143. Thrasymachus
I'll withhold judgement until this all plays out. But the fact we have these protests at all shows we don't live in a democracy and don't have the rule of law.
February 19, 2011 - 5:13 pm Link to this Comment -
144. A_Nonny_Mouse
" "If you're going to take away bargaining rights, you leave them with what?" "
====================You leave them with the way the PRIVATE SECTOR does business:
1. If you don't *LIKE* the job, you can leave.
2. If you don't *DO* the job, you'll be replaced.Elegantly simple, wouldn't you say?
February 19, 2011 - 5:30 pm Link to this Comment -
145. Tcobb
#128. Fletcher Christian
I believe in Capitalism, but I am and have always been rather suspicious of what I call "paper capitalism," that being banks and their assorted relatives. They create money in the way of promises. By the old formula they were required to lend out to borrowers no more than seven times the amount of deposits they had on hand. So, if they had one thousand dollars in deposits they could lend out seven thousand dollars in loans. Take the interest rate and multiply it by seven and it truly is and was a very good deal for the banks. If you had actual deposits of $1000 lending at the rate of 10% interest didn't yield you $100 per year, but $700 because you were allowed to lend out $7000 worth of loans. Not a bad deal at all for the banks, and the banks always went along with one another to create the artificial money. Bank X always credited a check from bank Y even though they knew bank Y might not be able to actually come up with the money. Its only when a critical mass of depositors had the gall to demand actual currency that the banks had trouble. It was especially bad when the banks lent out more than seven times the actual amount of currency they had on deposit.
But now, there virtually is no such thing as actual currency–its all a fiction. It only works so long as everyone pretends its real. When bankers extend their reach too much it all falls apart.
Bankers, like prostitutes, can and do provide a seedy if valuable social function. But they can get too greedy and abuse the respect and tolerance they deserve. Pick the pocket of your customer–go to jail.
Insofar as bankers are concerned I am content to let them go about their lives so long as their depositors aren't harmed. At that point I would stick them in a 4X4X4 cell and feed them on nothing else but rice and beans until and if every one of the people that have been screwed by them have been repaid or until they die–whichever comes first.
But then again–I am a very heartless bastard.
February 19, 2011 - 5:53 pm Link to this Comment -
146. erc rodson
RWE @105: you are correct, sir. Think about how many more freeways, parks, schools, aqueducts, dams, airfields and other public projects we would have if they ad been built at "market rate". Alternately, we could have had the same number of those kind of projects we have now but used the money not spent on inflated labor costs for more productive uses.
In defense of unions, though, I know of several manufacturers who have "shop unions" that are not associated with any national union but are aware that their ultimate success is tied to the success of their respective employers. They do provide a useful function in giving the employers a single source to negotiate with and they serve as shark repellent for outside unions who would no be similarly responsible. I don't know if this is true of shop unions universally, but unions are not inherently bad in principle, just as employers are not virtuous by definition. Virtuous employers are less likely to find their operations unionized, though.
Don't see what value public employee unions add…
February 19, 2011 - 6:03 pm Link to this Comment -
147. jerry
i have disconnected myself from every liberal i know.
February 19, 2011 - 6:06 pm Link to this Comment -
148. Josh
Neither did Stalin like unions, they fight the state power as should not be allowed, the state has all power in a people's republic.
Under capitalism, salaries should generally find their own levels without union distortions – yet this is certainly not always the case.
I have nothing against unions in principle, in fact I might say they must be a fairly good thing going on (that is against) Stalin's judgement. In practice, any power can be abused, and the actual unions in the US have proven slower moving and less reasonable than almost any other player in the game, which is why they have faded out. Nor are they putting on a good show in Wisconsin.
The teachers unions seem a particular bad example, as they tend to go on strike "for the children", preempting the states' and even parents' role in the children's education, not something that falls within the purview of unions in any story I've heard.
Only thing worse would be "welfare recipients unions", oh please.
February 19, 2011 - 6:06 pm Link to this Comment -
149. grrr
Re 148. Josh
"Neither did Stalin like unions"
Actually, he did. They were another arm (or tool, if you wish) of his state.February 19, 2011 - 6:44 pm Link to this Comment -
151. myth buster
Anyone who stages a sick-out should be fired for malingering.
February 19, 2011 - 7:53 pm Link to this Comment -
152. Ari Tai
re: Whigs.
When will the opposition go the way of the Whigs? They are clearly at the end of their rope, totally corrupt. What will/should replace them? We spent a lot of money during the cold war assuring that folks like Vaclav Havel would exist when the wall fell. What do we (the Belmont Club readers) propose to replace the democrat party with when it implodes? Should the GOP face a true libertarian competitor? i.e. something to the right (more freedom loving) of it?
re: "open society"
How is that everything the left touches is corrupted? As soon as we hear the words Soros associated with another term that represents freedom, liberty, responsibility and voluntary association why do we flinch? Why can we no longer laugh at the references to Animal Farm?
re: left v. progressive.
Someone, probably at the Club but I can't find it, observed that the left/liberal is very much the international socialist. And that a progressive pretty much follows the old national socialist line (i.e. one example being the crony capitalism on display in D.C. (just who is Mr. O meeting with today? Have they been coerced? Would you want to buy a product from them if it was a vote for the status quo?).. shades of the Volk's car promised ages ago).
Re: our friends in public-sector unions.
Oh my. Well, they certainly picked the wrong fight. Whigs indeed.
All in all, an interesting time. Where's my popcorn? And my checkbook/paypal info.. Would be helpful to have a "known good" list of activities worth supporting if we can't attend in person..
February 19, 2011 - 8:11 pm Link to this Comment -
153. Marie Claude
"Someone bet $ 82,500,000 yesterday that the Euro is going to take a beating by March 14, 2011."
bof, someone bet on Greece and Ireland too, still there, money is still available , but what is going to happen is that Germany will rule the game and control the lot, IV Reich without a dead
I tell ya, the Germanz ' got to talk to us in a civilised way, otherwise, like the Maghreb we'll tell them"Dégages" !
February 19, 2011 - 8:19 pm Link to this Comment -
154. twobyfour
grrr, right. Everyone had to be in unions (simplicity–Revolutionary Unions Movement–was the one, so you remembered to which unions you belong) and pay dues (another form of taxation).
February 19, 2011 - 8:28 pm Link to this Comment -
155. Doug
Walker ran for election with this specific plan as part of his agenda.
The unions and the usual suspects campaigned against it.The people voted.
Elections have consequences.
I doubt if the electorate will be impressed by teachers giving extra-credit to students for attending protests, or fake doctor excuses for the union thug teachers to get out of work and act as role models for their students on how to blow off their responsibilities.
Nor will they be impressed by the whining of "teachers" making $89 thousand a year while mere civilians average around $60k.
…withhout the outrageous benefits and 9 month "year"February 19, 2011 - 8:32 pm Link to this Comment -
156. Tcobb
Only thing worse would be "welfare recipients unions", oh please.
What are you talking about? That would be great. Their only form of striking would be to refuse to collect and/or cash their welfare checks. That's a kind of strike I could live with.
Or then again, just to show how tough they are, they might go on a collective hunger strike, foregoing food stamps. I personally would support them in this. But then again we must have mercy and compassion. Anyone wanting to opt out of the strike so they could collect welfare and food stamps could file a form entitling that to them again. Please wait six to twenty weeks while your application to have your welfare and food stamp benefits restored is being processed by your civil servants, and in the meantime–have a nice day :-).
February 19, 2011 - 8:32 pm Link to this Comment -
158. Delia
Fire the whole lot of 'em and send in the scabs.
February 19, 2011 - 9:16 pm Link to this Comment -
159. Marcus Aurelius
#92 Uhhh, no one believes this will be the first or only cut. This move does not get our budget to where it needs to be. Simply put, the action is necessary but not sufficient.
February 19, 2011 - 9:27 pm Link to this Comment -
160. Charles
#24 Charles. I don't think I have ever seen a more fallacious, and utterly invalid outline of Popper's Open Society than your post. You've got it completely backwards! Why don't you actually take the time and read the book! I assigned it over the years to many upper level university students; we compared the closed society (tribal, exclusive, totalitarian and deterministic) and the open society (democratic, capable of adaptive interaction, power in the hands of the citizens and their constitution).
You're right. I didn't read the book. Alas I did not post the entire article–so that you could see how a society that takes popper ideas seriously could be manipulated by outside forces pretty easily. For example a quick wikipedia cliff notes survey of popper say that popper is known for "his vigorous defense of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism that he came to believe made a flourishing "open society" possible.." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_PopperThat reads pretty much like your interpretation of popper that goes: "The Open Society is the opposite of chaos, for the Open Society is based on critical analysis, reason, examination of the facts of the current situation and a debate on how to deal with the problems; that's the basic democratic process."
Great. Now what happens if foreign powers enter into the national discussion for their own ends. We see this all the time in debates at the belmont club. we have a couple russian posters who actually sound like they're posting from some kgb office in moscow. (This is ok here at the belmont but it wasn't ok when Walter Durante was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for lies he told about stalin as a reporter for the New York Times. Even Putin understands Stalin well enough to insist that Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago be taught in russian schools these days
What happens when social criticism becomes so great that the society is debilitated. You wind up with multiculturalism. If you have been reading the newspapers recently, the ministers from france germany and england have come out against multiculturalism. They say it is a failure. Multiculturalism is made possible by cultural relativism. The author of the article above says that cultural relativism is implicit in the open society.
I did not post the article in its entirety as it was too long. It went on to discuss what's happening in Brazil–as well as many other latin american countries.
Please read the rest of the article above. The writer goes on to talk about how the Chavez is only the most apparent of the south american socialists. the real deal is in Brazil where the leftists are driving out conservatives completely. They are basically trying to shut down the political process in a less blatant way than Chavez.
February 19, 2011 - 11:08 pm Link to this Comment -
161. Charles
National Examiner.
Documents show Wisconsin unrest orchestrated and spreading
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/documents-show-wisconsin-unrest-orchestrated-and-spreading#ixzz1ETtdOluZWhile part of the current unrest in Wisconsin is driven by local issues, new information has been uncovered indicating an orchestrated attempt to stir up 'worker protests' not only in Wisconsin but in at least a dozen states. The coordinated effort is part of a 'revolution' spearheaded in part by a group called 'Heartland Revolution,' a Kentucky-based political action organization. The group was first envisioned by a Kentucky Democrat, John Waltz, who announced his candidacy in 2009 to oppose 2-term Republican Geoff Davis for the 4th Congressional District. Waltz was defeated in the November 2010 midterm elections but embarked on an effort to create 'revolution' throughout America, stemming from his anger toward what he terms 'the hijacking of political discourse by right-wing propagandists.' His group is involved in the continuing Wisconsin protests of teachers unions upset over Governor Scott Walker's plan to have them pay for part of their healthcare and pension benefits, to which they currently contribute very little of the total costs.
Waltz frames his revolution in terms of a 'political war,' which he claims is being waged against the middle class by Republicans and corporate interests. His aim is to 'shut down right-wing political cash machines' using whatever means possible.
For example, in Wisconsin members of his organization were instructed to boycott a Subway Sandwhich Shop in downtown Madison during the protests. The reason? The owner of the deli is a large contributor to Governor Scott Walker.
The following Twitter alert from the Walsh organization was sent to Heartland protesters in Madison this morning:
02.19.11ALERT: If you are @ the protests in WI boycott the Subway in the square. The owners are the 2nd largest contributors to Gov. Walker
Waltz makes no attempt to hide the fact that he is a 'progressive.' The term is indicative of a mindset that wishes not only to hide the true intent of those who proudly own the description but promote an agenda that is based on a collectivist view of government and society where decisions concerning the personal lives of citizens can best be made by those in a centralized government complex. The goal is to increase the scope of government so that workers, unions, and others can benefit from a confiscatory tax structure aimed at draining 'the rich' to pad the pockets of others.
But perhaps the most troubling aspect of 'Heartland Revolution' is its coordinated efforts to create unrest across America, beginning in Wisconsin, but extending to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Florida, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.
The map displayed here on the group's blog page will reveal their upcoming plans and targeted areas, along with their Twitter messages to members.
Curiously, the group refers to its protesters as 'boots on the ground,' and war terminology abounds. A cursory scan of Heartland Revolution's website will reveal that members view their efforts as a war, a revolution, with boots on the ground that are determined to intimidate conservatives, overthrow politicians who represent the voices of taxpayers, and target the businesses of those who support them.
Far from being for the 'working poor,' as the group claims, Waltz and his minions are dedicated to preserving and expanding union power and protecting the high salaries and benefit structures enjoyed by many who work for various government entities. For example, in Wisconsin the average city school teacher earns over $100,000 per year including pay and benefits, and pays next to nothing toward their retirement or health care. The benefits are paid overwhelmingly by taxpayers. Waltz and his group, however, believe that asking these teachers to contribute more to their plans like most Americans do is tantamount to 'waging war against workers.'
February 19, 2011 - 11:22 pm Link to this Comment -
162. T.T. Thomas
The whole subject of government State & federal employee's eligibility for union representation is very simple to fix….under a GOP majority party in the House and Senate….even easy if the White House is GOP also.
Pass legislation re-classifying employee's as 'confidential employees' in DOD, DOS, DOJ, NIH, Treasury, Federal Courts & Supreme Court and all the tenant Agencies of those departments. In other words all departments and agencies authorized to receive 'confidential' information and or communiques especially to [any] level(s) of national security.
At the State level all emergency services, health and education employee's would be classified as 'confidential' employee's. After all, this administration has espoused that education is now a matter of national security and for certain, many higher education entities are involved in classified R&D and manage the national labs.
The GOP has long lacked the ability to formulate efficient strategic planning and execution. As our socialist enemies long ago learned, timing is everything and 'chipping' away is ultimately more effective than showing up with a truckload of TNT to effect a BIG blow.
I agree with the need to pull back and or eliminate the power of the corrupted socialist labor unions that is on the desk of many States governor's BUT…I think there were and are better strategic methods of accomplishing the objective with far less high intensity public push back.
For example, an overwhelming number of the nations Local BOE's regulate what percentage level their educators will participate at, for their elected health care benefits. Likewise, the States are free to legislate the 'employers' retirement benefit participation of eligible employees. Again, the States are free to legislate 'strike' clauses with harsh penalties of automatic termination…. for all employees represented by labor unions that take unauthorized time off for strike lines and other general strikes during working hours. The United States Congress is free to attempt to legislate an emergency clause that suspends all or part of private and public sector labor unions rights and the FLRA authorities under certain defined national security and economic crisis.
There are better ways and means of curtailing the labor unions than actions that create immediate widespread national attention and potential unintended consequences that defeat your intentions. You have to be at least as strategically smart as your enemy opponent…or moreso!
February 19, 2011 - 11:30 pm Link to this Comment -
163. Charles
A Philosopher's Warning
Submitted by JR Nyquist on Fri, 18 Feb 2011
According to Carvalho, the Left continues to consolidate its position in Latin America. "It has been following a strategy explicitly presented in a Chinese communist congress a few years ago: to take power by means of legal elections and then erode the democratic system from the inside to prevent the opposition from ever coming back to power in future elections," he explained. "This is to say: they win a first match and then proceed to change the rules of the game. In Brazil this strategy has led to spectacular results. First, the idea was to limit the political field to only two contestants: radical Left and moderate Left. All other forces were dismantled by means of targeted tax audits and corruption charges which did not even need to be proved, since they destroyed reputations once and for all as soon as they were trumpeted by the media."Could America's traditional ally in South America be under the control of a totalitarian movement? How could we miss such an astonishing development? "American opinion-makers have a wrong view of Brazil," said Carvalho, "because the Brazilian government has always acted in a two-faced and camouflaged way. On the one hand, it has been courting American investors to strengthen the Brazilian economy, but on the other, it has been taking advantage of economic success in order to consolidate the Leftist sway at home, to make impossible any political opposition which is not that of the moderate left, and to give effective support to the rise of the Left in neighboring countries, while protecting openly terrorist organizations like the FARC and the Chilean MIR, which thus have ended up controlling the local criminal organization and getting the monopoly of the drug market in Brazil. In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez has also dismantled the opposition, but using more blatant methods."
Since Brazil harbors the core of the communist movement in Latin America, how is the anti-American campaign progressing? According to Carvalho the Left is not always able to move forward. "It follows an alternating rhythm," he explained, "according to whether the important thing at the moment is to flatter foreign investors or to unify and strengthen the Latin American Left."
"For more than ten years," Carvalho noted, "I have been warning that the Worker's Party [in Brazil] is not an organization like the others; that is, willing to alternate with the opposition in power. The Worker's Party is a revolutionary organization committed to reshaping the state and the entire society after its image and likeness, by using, for this purpose, the vilest and most corrupt resources. Since no one has ever believed any of this, everyone has kindly disarmed himself in the face of this rising party, and now that it controls everything, no one can do anything against it. Brazil is governed by a single party which has several names. I see no prospect of changing this situation in the short or medium term."
February 19, 2011 - 11:32 pm Link to this Comment -
164. buddy larsen
"Heartland Revolution" sounds as mom-and-apple-pie as "Midwest Academy" doesn't it?
The Midwest Academy, an organization of the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, is the group that sheparded Obama from his Columbia sojourn into the Chicago crowd which ushered him to the presidency.
Karl Denninger, meanwhile, is pointing out the meaning of Obama's "Organizing for America' being involved in the Madison teacher's revolt:
((excerpted for local brevity, but you should read it it whole:
1. incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government.
2. any action, especially in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion.
3. Archaic . rebellious disorder.I'm going to draw the line between the word sedition and the act of seditious conspiracy; the latter is a federal offense. At least today, that line may still apply. It may be true, however, that as facts develop we will discover that this line has been crossed.
In America we have these things called elections. After the 2008 election Barack Obama was having a discussion with Republican lawmakers where they were objecting to some of his plans. They asked him why they should negotiate with a wall, effectively, and his answer was simple:
"I won."
Ok. Fair enough. Elections have consequences, right, and one of the key points that Barack Obama himself has put forward time and time again as justification for his alleged "mandate" was that he won the 2008 election.
Never mind that he lied about virtually everything he said he was going to do. Among other things he said he did not come to Washington to favor the banksters, but in point of fact he has provided more Lewinskis to them than Monica ever did to Bill Clinton. His so-called Attorney General, Eric "Place" Holder, can't even find a felony to indict and prosecute when they're apparently admitted to under oath before the FCIC.
It is clear at this point that the game is to run the Statute of Limitations so that prosecution becomes impossible. That is, for those who elected Barack Obama, you by doing so – yes, this includes me – provided every bankster a "never go to jail" card for what they did.
In fact, Angelo Mozilo had the criminal probe against him dropped yesterday, if reports are correct.
Of course McStain was going to do the same thing. So it's not like we really had a choice between "D" and "R" in this regard, right? Well, no.
We were also told our health insurance payments would go down. Mine went up – more than 20%. This, despite being told it wouldn't. That we would get "relief." Well, no, we didn't get relief. We got cornholed.
After two years of this blatant abuse Americans had enough. They went to the polls again. And this time they threw a lot of Demoncrats out of office. One of the newly-elected politicians was Republican Governor Walker in Wisconsin.
He ran on a platform that, among other things, promised to do away with collective bargaining for teachers for all items other than pay. That is, pensions, health insurance, work rules, everything else. All those things, if they were going to be larded up on the public, would have to survive a public vote by the people.
What's wrong with this, may I ask? Teachers are employed by the people. Did you notice your property tax bill? You're the boss. You pay the check. You make the rules. And in a representative government, you hire people through the ballots to do as you demand.
Wisconsin did exactly that.
Governor Walker did exactly what he promised. Faced with a monstrous budget problem that was gimmicked and gamed by his predecessor to appear smaller than it really was (just as occurred in New Jersey with Governor Christie) he put forward a bill.
Remember now, the standard is "I won" when it comes to justification – by our own President.
Mr. Walker won.
So what did our President's campaign organization – "Organizing For America" – do?
OfA's Wisconsin field efforts include filling buses and building turnout for the rallies this week in Madison, organizing 15 rapid response phone banks urging supporters to call their state legislators, and working on planning and producing rallies, a Democratic Party official in Washington said.
Our own President's campaign apparatus is attempting to prevent a vote from taking place? To overturn an election? To incite discontent against a duly-elected government, perhaps by importing people who aren't actually Wisconsin residents? And to spread that discontent to other states?
Really? Our own President is doing this?
That's textbook stuff folks. These acts have a word folks: Sedition.
Just a month ago we heard from our very same President that we had a "responsibility" to tone down the political rhetoric. This, incidentally, is why these bussed-in protesters who aren't Wisconsin residents are waving signs that claim Walker is Adolph Hitler and have targets on him?
To anyone who believes that these teachers are in some way deprived, I've run the analysis. The average teacher in Wisconsin receives about $86,000 in total pay and benefits annually. Like all teachers they also get three months off every year. That $86,000 has a huge benefit component, like all public employees – including pension and health care. But the important point is this figure is roughly $25,000 more than the average private-sector worker makes – even when you include the ridiculously over-compensated people like those at Goldman Sachs.
Here's the reality folks: We're broke. The States are broke and so is the Federal Government. We've allowed political hacks from both sides to make promises that can't be kept. That's a fact and no amount of spin is going to change it. We must cut the Federal Budget by more than half and at the same time raise taxes in order to start to pay down the debt.
Five entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and Unemployment consume more than half of the entire Federal Budget. We borrow 42 cents of every dollar. You can cut to zero every other program, including defense, and we can't balance the budget if we do not severely cut these five programs.
This is not a problem for the future, it's a problem that must be solved right now. We could have cut the budget by 10 or 20% a decade ago, but we didn't. Now it's half. Soon it will collapse. And this same picture exists in the States.
But today, the issue is this: We have a President who is attempting to overturn the results of an election in a State. That election was held, the people spoke, and the majority of Wisconsin residents support what Governor Walker is doing. The President has exactly zero right to interfere in the sovereign matters of a State's Government in violation of the expressed will of The People and by doing so he has, in my opinion, committed an impeachable offense.
Second, Governor Walker needs to sign an executive order declaring a State of Emergency and ordering the Senate to come to order. If the Democrats refuse he should then declare their seats abdicated and hold special elections. The Democrats need only lose one seat in that special election to be irretrievably screwed. It is fine to disagree but the fact remains that a legislator has a job, and that is to legislate. That means showing up, speaking your peace, debating in a civil manner and voting. That's how we do things in America.
Finally, to those in Organizing for America who are playing these games, let me make this very, very clear: You set the standard in 2008 when your President, who heads your group, said "I won" as justification for refusing to compromise on his bills. Well, this time you lost. Live to your own standards or you risk the people deciding to shut down commerce. To de-fund the government and your goon squads by doing an entirely-legal thing – deciding to cease all commerce and demonstrate via peaceful means exactly as was done in Egypt.
Government exists only because it has a believed ability to raise revenues via taxation. That's what allows government at all levels to sell bonds and transact business.
We the people, via peaceful and lawful means, always have the right to revoke that belief among those who buy those bonds and transact business, and I believe we are not far from a critical mass in this country of people who are willing to do exactly that, particularly when our government refuses to honor the just results of a fair election of representatives and governors.
I call upon all Ticker readers to call Darryl Issa's office Tuesday, along with their Representative and Senators, and demand an immediate halt to this interference in the affairs of Wisconsin and other States. And while you're at it, demand that Mr. Issa issue subpoenas and find out exactly where the money came from for those buses, where the people came from, and who's coordinating what.
There may be a federal offense in there.
Speaking of which, is it time to impeach Eric Holder yet?
end quote))
special note; please see above, Denninger's observation about Obama intending to protect the financial crash of 2008′s bankster echelon (see blert's fulminations) via running out the statute of limitations for them.
Re the "Walker is trying to union-bust" charge blasting forth from Madison, omne notes the news that the Green River Killer was sentenced to another life term –49 life terms now –due to yet another victim's remains being discovered. One wonders why he doesn't stand up in the docket and hurl "The Court is Serial Killer Busting!"
February 19, 2011 - 11:58 pm Link to this Comment -
165. f47
Buddy, one of my greatest fears is that come 2012, either no election or 0bama will refuse to leave office.
A dictatorship of the clueless.February 20, 2011 - 12:34 am Link to this Comment -
166. buddy larsen
f47; he'd need a grave national security emergency. He'd never deliberately bring one on — why that would be tantamount to deliberately crashing the global economy or deliberately poisoning America's third coast.
February 20, 2011 - 12:39 am Link to this Comment -
167. Doug
A seven year moratorium on elections will be put into effect unless and until the mystery of what went wrong with the BOP in the last election is solved.
February 20, 2011 - 1:34 am Link to this Comment -
168. Xennady
It's a little late to ring up the Justice Department and tell them the left is guilty of sedition after all these years. They've been getting away with it at least since Hanoi Jane infamously peeped through the gunsites of those NVA AA guns.
All outcomes here are bad for the left. Either Scott Walker breaks the union- enough said- or he doesn't and they have to return to work having given the finger to the people of Wisconsin and pulled the mask away long enough for them to see the naked and ruthless thuggery behind all the leftist happy-talk.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant and for a long time left has thrived in its absence. Now thanks to the grim necessity and desperate need to block this reform bill they've had to come out into the open and stop pretending to be loyal Americans willing to work through the democratic process.
They aren't. And now millions more Americans know it. This isn't a good thing, for them.
February 20, 2011 - 1:34 am Link to this Comment -
169. Old Salt
Wow, 168 comments – I'm late to this party.
Well, my 2 cents: Wisconsin is a side show.
The problem is that polarization may now be unavoidable because the positions between the major elements are so far apart that it has come to resemble a zero-sum game. That process may have begun with the passage of Obamacare, or maybe from the viewpoint of the Left, it began when GWB invaded Iraq. But it started sometime and hasn't stopped since.
But, if a world war doesn't consume us all, the bureaucrats need to be sent packing. People will build, drill and convert. It will be like a wartime boom, except that people won't be building weapons. They'll be growing food, putting plants online, delivering stuff, transferring knowledge so great will be the crisis demand; so vast the need.
The union chumps are being sold a pig in a poke. "Hang on to this anchor boys, while we go aboard this yacht for a spell." They're being played for saps.
Wisconsin is a contrived "crisis". It's political in nature, and there is no catalyst there to spur widespread or systematic violence, rebellion, or civil war.
California is the most likely touch point for something of that nature. California is nearly a year's revenue in debt. It cannot pay its debts, not to vendors for the "hard goods" required to keep the state's wheels moving, nor to it's civil service employees. California cannot print currency – it has tried that in the past using Warrants, but banks refused to honor them a year or two ago. It has few safety valves left to tap; very soon someone does not get paid.
Though official unemployment is about 12%, it's 16% in the central valley, and much, much higher among young minorities aged 16 to 25. True unemployment is over 25% statewide. Foreclosure rates are climbing. I'm moving out of California after 50 years, i.e. I'm already working out of state and am liquidating assets and moving my business. I just noted that housing sales prices dropped 18% in my Southern California zip code (my house is about 60% off of the 2006 high). Housing prices are diving again, and a whole wave of new foreclosures is a quite reasonable expectation.
Businesses are still leaving the state: An historic emigration of both business and population resources has been occurring over the past two years and is accelerating. California is losing its key income and tax revenue generators.
Bottom line: The public employee unions now own California, lock, stock, and down to the last barrel-shaped Democrat or RINO Republican. However, public employees will be furloughed and NOT paid. Outside vendors will stop deliveries, and operate on a "cash and carry" basis. The California tax revenue stream will further atrophy. Its bond rating will soon be further downgraded, increasing the percentage of the budget which will be unavailable for services or public employee payrolls, as the debt must be serviced or defaulted. When the state money stops flowing, very bad things will happen.
What will a general and uncontrolled default look like in California? It will look like Madison, Wisconsin, but in 15 California cities, with street clashes and riots in the major cities. Food and fuel supplies could be disrupted.
Wisconsin is much better off than California, because it is AT LEAST having the discussion required to keep the state solvent, and appears to have resolute leaders in charge that recognize the fiscal danger and will act to prevent it. California is a good SIX YEARS past the point of where Wisconsin is now, and California just double-downed, voting to put left-wing Socialist-Democrats in charge of every lever of state government. Those running California neither appreciate the dimension of the problem, nor are they politically positioned to act to resolve it.
Watch California. It is in terminal velocity mode, impacted by events that can no longer be controlled, and accelerated by multiple catalysts. Wisconsin is simply a side show by comparison. California will lead the nation by negative example, and could serve as the clarion call needed in government (Fed, State, and local) to clean house, balance the books, and de-regulate.
Old Salt
February 20, 2011 - 1:56 am Link to this Comment -
170. daveinboca
Richard F. is right. The docs' fake scripts denoting illness are one sign that the scofflaws in the union movement are a tribe of scum-sucking bottomfeeders who break the law without compunction and flash the Italian salute at anyone who objects. The whole situation reminds one of the old Jewish saw: "What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable…."
In addition, the hegira of 14 WI state senators to the neighboring People's Republic of Illinois is not popular AT ALL with the native Wisconsinites. Dishonesty from special pleading that the Minority Leader Miller, whining that the senators weren't given enough time to debate, when the outcome was a foregone conclusion because the dishonest crook, Gov. Doyle, had disgraced the Dems with malfeasance & total disregard of the GOP during his long tenure. The whining childish wimps in the Dem caucus are not popular as they hang out in the home of the hated Bears. Of course, the polls indicating how unpopular the Dem senators are canvassed by the Journal-Sentinel are not being published in the national media, the aptly-named lamestream media, which is also ignoring the inflammatory posters of the protesters with Gov. Walker's face on a target and wearing a Hitler mustache. In fact, the MSM is the choir to the Indonesian Imbecile's silly intervention, when he lumped police and firemen into the aggrieved protesters, even though they were not under the decertification of negotiating benefits.
And the national lamestreamers are completely ignoring that Walker's bill does not strip the teachers' and other unions [besides the exempt firefighters & police] from all collective bargaining, and leaves them freedom to negotiate as a union for wages only. This is a massive onslaught against democracy by a self-absorbed and decaying collection of elites in the coastal states who want to halt GOP gains illegally and by violent means, if necessary.
This is par for the course and as a native Wisconsinite, albeit now transplanted, I think the state's traditional sense of fair play is being violated. Also, the intrusion of the Indonesian Imbecile and Trumka and JJackson are not appreciated except by die-hard supporters. Remember this is concerning around 100,000 public servants earning at a minimum, 50% above teachers in parochial schools, which intriguingly have a MUCH HIGHER test score and graduation rate than the second-rate public schools. My brother who teaches in a Catholic school and earns a pittance is coming to Boca next week, financed almost totally by his wife's retirement benefits, as she taught in the public school system.
All the signs point to a PR disaster for the Dems in WI and nationally for the Indonesian Imbecile. Let's hope that the feeling of disgust for the Demonrats' overweening arrogance is transmitted by word of mouth, since the media is in full cry supporting the illegal and undemocratic methods of the protesters and their 14 maverick senators.
February 20, 2011 - 3:02 am Link to this Comment -
171. Tim
Maybe we could all collectively bargain a retirement plan for Jesse Jackson and get him to retire, hopefully remove him from the American media/political front.
Economically this country is breathing through a straw, the unions and persons like Jesse are making waves lap over the straw.
February 20, 2011 - 3:14 am Link to this Comment -
172. The Ledge
0bama and his union cronies are poised to use the Taxpayer as a side of prime beef for the hacking. 0bama intends on taking his "prime cut" with a meat cleaver wielded by his government paid cronies and organized thugs.
He will try to distance him self from hacking via the MSM and other spin masters but, it will be clear 0bama will be the beneficiary… Unless some people stop him.
It's is a 'David v. Goliath' situation where wealthy government paid cronies are pitted against the economically weakened Taxpayer. 0bama will use is union and MSM proxies to directly attack the Taxpayers.
So far, the Taxpayers have put up a good fight. But, there is more to come. I would hope that lavishly paid civil servants learn that they Taxpayers are their Employers instead of the other way around.
If civil servants continue to act as if the whole world revolves around them I suggest giving them a swift boot to the rear and a pink slip reading "you are fired!" Let these ex-civil servants find a job in the open market. I think it is time that deflation hit the entire Civil Servant Sector.
February 20, 2011 - 3:17 am Link to this Comment -
173. Brian Richard Allen
America's mobbed-up unionized "teachers" have long long long also been its Greeks — and now they are revolting, too.
And have provided Wisconsin's governor — and every other — with the perfect storm from which to pull off the perfect Reagan Moment.
And fire them!
February 20, 2011 - 3:55 am Link to this Comment -
174. SamRitter5000
Private-sector unions need to stand with the Wisconsin Governor. Government workers should never have been given collective bargaining rights. The majority of Americans are opposed to public unions. If the Private-sector unions do not break from their support, they just may go down with them.
Check out more at:
http://samschaos.blogspot.com/2011/02/fdr-afl-cio-opposed-public-unions.htmlFebruary 20, 2011 - 4:28 am Link to this Comment -
175. buddy larsen
–catch the photo on drudge –a WI protester holding a yellow placard saying,
–man, that's rich. Why not
Here's where that mentality is going, if unchecked:
February 20, 2011 - 4:32 am Link to this Comment -
176. Cybergeezer
Have they got the National Guard using tear gas and rubber bullets yet? It's long overdue.
February 20, 2011 - 4:37 am Link to this Comment -
177. gokart-mozart
daveinboca @ 170 : "All the signs point to a PR disaster for the Dems in WI and nationally for the Indonesian Imbecile"
"Obama", October 2008 : "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America".
What, you didn't believe him?
"Obama" and OFA, together with their labor allies and the gaggle of useful idiots and fellow travelers are not concerned with PR. They are concerned with transformation. The Democratic leadership has not accepted the simple arithmetical counting of votes as a token of legitimacy since November 2000, and perhaps before.
Gore's handlers appealed to "intent" because, in their view, they represent the General Will and the Republicans do not. As such, when they win an election, all well and good. But when they lose?
If it's close, pace Florida 2000, Washington State 2004, Minnesota 2006, they recount until they are ahead and declare victory. What they learned from the failure of this method in Florida 2000 allowed them to improve their technique – just ask Governor Gregoire and Senator Franken.
But when it's not close? Wisconsin is the laboratory. I agree with Old Salt @ 169 that the situation in California is much more likely (although not very likely, still) to precipitate civil war. But the difference between Wisconsin and California is this: The actions of the government in Wisconsin have been commanded, and commanded recently, by the people.
The labor movement and "Obama" are openly and blatantly trying to reverse an election the result of which is beyond the reach of recounting. If they are successful, they really don't need to be concerned with the PR ramifications.
It is time to recognize that, within the FORM of electoral republicanism, the two national parties are playing very different games. The Democrats are becoming, or have become, a Leninist party for which elections are at best a piece of scenery for a play about a revolutionary vanguard. They believe they should rule EVEN IF false consciousness has the working class temporarily deluded as to their actual best interests. Read Thomas Franks' "What's the Matter With Kansas?", a straightforward lifting of Lenin's "What is to Be Done?", revised and updated for the 2004 election.
The significance of Wisconsin goes far beyond anything that happens in California. If Obama and his SA win this one, then they will become incomparably more powerful, because they will finally have the veto over elections that they have sought since Florida. All the fussing over who will run against "Obama" will become unimportant, because, if the people don't reelect "Obama", the Left will mobilize to bring the house down.
February 20, 2011 - 4:58 am Link to this Comment -
178. Doug
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said it would be "wise" for President Obama to keep his attentions on Washington, not Wisconsin.
"We're focused on balancing our budget,"
he said in a television interview."It would be wise for the president and others in Washington to be focused on balancing their budget, which they're a long ways from doing."
ht – Deuce
February 20, 2011 - 5:02 am Link to this Comment -
179. Dandapani
Public union teachers who make 2x the average income of normal folks are dispossessed? No, we are the ones who are dispossessed of our mental faculties to have let it get to this point.
February 20, 2011 - 5:07 am Link to this Comment -
180. Peter Boston
#177 gozart
That is as good an explanation of the Big Stakes up for grabs in WI as can be said.
February 20, 2011 - 5:21 am Link to this Comment -
181. buddy larsen
i second PB –excellent piece of writing at 177.
If i had to write the headline for it, it would be:
Rule or Ruin
February 20, 2011 - 5:38 am Link to this Comment -
Now if any of you have been paying attention I have said for years that we are headed for a revolution…Old Salt thinks Wisconsin is a side show, well Ole Salty, Wisconsin has been the seat of radicalism in the USA for decades. It's where all the socialist Germans who immigrated to the US landed with their Hegelian/Feuerbachian/Marxism fully in tack and they've never deviated from it. They are in the vanguard of socialism in the US. In fact the entire upper tier of the US, the Dakotas, MIch, Wisc, all the places where the Germans landed are all deeply socialist.
Secondly I've never seen a post as long as Buddy's until #167 so he's en fuego about the state of things, which he should be….they suck, especially with Socialist in charge, comrade obama, who needs to go down at the polls in 2012 if we are to avoid a revolution and in between is about to get his substantial ears legislatively boxed over the next two years.
I warned about the DAS well over two years ago and got zero feedback as the assembled masses thought bout what they were going to write ,just as it happens with the spoken word where people's eyes glaze over prior to finish listening to what is being said.
I could go on but if I am correct this post will never be published so why waste the time. If w begins to treat me with the respect I deserve then I'll continue but if it doesn't coincide with his thinking then good luck ….some of you sycophants try going against him over an issue and see how long you get to continue to post…….
February 20, 2011 - 5:51 am Link to this Comment -
Wednesday, February 16, 2011At Clinton Speech:
Military and CIA Veteran Bloodied, Bruised and Arrested for Standing Silently
As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her speech at George Washington University yesterday condemning governments that arrest protestors and do not allow free expression, 71-year-old Ray McGovern was grabbed from the audience in plain view of her by police and an unidentified official in plain clothes, brutalized and left bleeding in jail. She never paused speaking. When Secretary Clinton began her speech, Mr. McGovern remained standing silently in the audience and turned his back. Mr. McGovern, a veteran Army officer who also worked as a C.I.A. analyst for 27 years, was wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt.
Blind-sided by security officers who pounced upon him, Mr. McGovern remarked, as he was hauled out the door, "So this is America?" Mr. McGovern is covered with bruises, lacerations and contusions inflicted in the assault.
Mr. McGovern is being represented by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF). "It is the ultimate definition of lip service that Secretary of State Clinton would be trumpeting the U.S. government's supposed concerns for free speech rights and this man would be simultaneously brutalized and arrested for engaging in a peaceful act of dissent at her speech," stated attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the PCJF.
Mr. McGovern now works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
Source: http://pepcj.convio.net/site/MessageViewer?em_id=4163.0&dlv_id=7803
February 20, 2011 - 6:03 am Link to this Comment -
184. Charles Martel
The union protesters in Wisconsin are protesting recently elected people doing what the campaigned to do.
They are employees of the voters rebelling against the voters and thinking they will win?
February 20, 2011 - 6:09 am Link to this Comment -
185. xschild
At the beginning of the Egyptian riots (protests) I wrote a comment on one the articles to sit back and wait. Wait for it. Coming to a city, town, state near you. The negative polictcal movements ( Marxism, Communisim, Socialism and all the other isms)have not been dormant all these years. They have been quiet. These groups have the ability to organize on the internet
and pick and choose spots to disrupt for an enormous amount of media coverage. For every riot and every protest they get stronger. This is a giant beehive of evil and all people in every country have been told by their leaders, it does not exist. Now we have a perfect storm to release the disruption of governments everywhere. They do exist. Be it in the Middle East, Egypt, North Africa, Europe or America. Anarchists abound. No matter what they call themselves, Social Justice, Code Pink, Ayers and Dorn, Priven, Media. They are all grouped together and are called Anarchists. From Egypt to America is a short distance. Just hook up to the internet to release the screaming hoards. This is not just about Wisconsin. It is a movement to change the face of the world. Hope and change came and went.February 20, 2011 - 6:24 am Link to this Comment -
187. ⚢ Teresita
Habu, how dare you accuse Wretchard of breaking your balls on this moderation business. PJM has a bug (or feature) whereby when you edit a post and increase the size of your original post by a certain threshold, it goes into automatic hold awaiting moderation. And W is a busy man on the other side of the globe, he can't sit there breathlessly awaiting to approve your latest masterpiece.
February 20, 2011 - 6:30 am Link to this Comment -
188. gokart-mozart
Charles Martel @184 "They are employees of the voters rebelling against the voters and thinking they will win?"
Yes, of course that's what they think.
Doesn't anybody study communism anymore? Or history, for that matter?
The will of the voters only matters when all parties to the transaction recognize that arithmetical counting of votes confers legitimacy.
Marxist-Leninists like "Obama" DO NOT ACCEPT THIS. It is IRRELEVANT to them what the voters of Wisconsin did in November, or what they want. There is a whole century-plus of Bolshevik praxis, with tons of theoretical writing to back it up, for you to catch up on.
Lenin (1902) "What Is To Be Done?" explains it all for you. Thomas Franks (2004) dumbs it all down in "What's the Matter With Kansas".
To make a long story short, Marxists believe that History is a science which predestines the working class to rule. Marx believed this would occur by the 1870s. Lenin brings violence to the table, since by 1900 at the latest it was clear that Marx's predictions were not coming true. The Marxist-Leninist synthesis holds that the working class does not correctly understand its best interest, because of what amounts to brainwashing by the bourgeoisie and the rich, so that power must be seized by a revolutionary vanguard which will rule as a dictatorship until the working class (or their children) can be reeducated.
They really believe this crap. The answer to your question, "[are they] thinking they will win?" is emphatically YES. Oh, the teachers may not win. They may very well be crushed. But, as Lenin himself said, "If you want to make an omlette, you must be willing to break a few eggs".
February 20, 2011 - 6:35 am Link to this Comment -
189. gokart-mozart
xschild @185: "This is not just about Wisconsin. It is a movement to change the face of the world"
Exactly. And, for all that people like to talk about Reagan and Thatcher, they didn't even slow them down.
For that, you need Pinochet, or Suharto.
February 20, 2011 - 6:37 am Link to this Comment -
#117 Charles. Again, please read Popper's book; you shouldn't rely on secondary and ignorant outlines.
Your first question, about what to do is a 'foreign power' (or different point of view?) intervenes in the discussion? Are you against freedom of speech? If that different view is ungrounded, non-factual, irrational, then freedom of speech and thought means that the listeners/readers will THINK and reject that perspective. The Open Society is based on the individual freedom to think and evaluate. Do you think that a Higher Authority should decide what we citizens are allowed to listen to and read? Such censorship exists in the Closed Society – the communist, fascist, socialist regimes all around the world.
Your next question about 'cultural relativism' again shows your ignorance of Popper's Open Society. The Open Society, based as it is on the freedom and duty of the individual to think, reason, question, debate – means that the individual can evaluate. Multiculturalism rejects evaluation. The Authoritarian Ruler in the Closed Society says: Multiculturalism is good. We, the people are not allowed to evaluate the beliefs and behavior of others and reject or accept them.
Again, read the book. It's a critique of centralist, authoritarian Rule, an 'essentialist' Rule based on an idea of destiny, sovereign Will, centralism…etc..as found in Plato, Hegel and Marx. And, a strong support for the individual freedom to reason, evaluate, debate and make local decisions (rather than centralist authority)…within a system of checks and balances (constitution and rule of law).
Notice that Obama is all about Sovereign Will (his Will), and his rejection of debate and the people…Obama has shown his disdain for the people right from the start – with his insistence that Congress, which IS the people, pass His Bills (stimulus, health care etc) without debate or reading the bills! Obama wanted them passed without debate or reading! Why? Because you, the people (aka Congress) were expected to act based, not on your own reasoning capacity, but based on your Trust-In-The-Leader.
Obama rejects the power of the people. And that's, as has been pointed out by others (thanks 164 Buddy Larsen and 177 gokart for really excellent analyses)….is what WI is all about. A centralist set of Rulers versus the people.
This centralist Set of Rulers are the elite. They are unelected (eg Obama's czars); they view elections and the decisions of the people as irrelevant Obama has ignored the November elections and is ignoring that in WI, the voters elected the governor to do just what he is doing – remove the elite.
The Democratic Party is aligning itself as a political power with unelected forces – namely the public unions – who control all public services. That is, they are holding the people of the US hostage. That's why this is an important event – for the people to take back power from totalitarian rulers and the elite.
February 20, 2011 - 6:39 am Link to this Comment -
191. Peter Boston
The Wisconsin Teachers Union is publishing the names and home addresses of the Wisconsin legislators, along with party affiliation of course, on its website – although it says that is providing only names and email addresses.
For what purpose would they do that other than to give their thugs an address to go to?
This is a perfect example of how the government unions, in this case, but the Left in general, treat political disagreements as an opportunity to at least physically intimidate if not do personal harm to their political opponents.
It's built into the DNA of the Left. I believe that the only difference between XX (attach any name with a D that you want) and the Bolsheviks' eagerness to liquidate their opponents is the opportunity to do so.
February 20, 2011 - 6:44 am Link to this Comment -
192. Charles
Popular Science
Development of Tiny Thorium Reactors Could Wean the World Off Oil In Just Five Years
By Rebecca Boyle Posted 08.30.2010
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/thorium-reactors-could-wean-world-oil-just-five-yearsFebruary 20, 2011 - 6:47 am Link to this Comment -
193. gokart-mozart
pb @191: "I believe that the only difference between XX (attach any name with a D that you want) and the Bolsheviks' eagerness to liquidate their opponents is the opportunity to do so."
Lenin, even now, is more alive than all the living.
February 20, 2011 - 6:52 am Link to this Comment -
194. gokart-mozart
ETAB @190: "Notice that Obama is all about Sovereign Will (his Will)"
Revolutionary figures who claim the mantle of the General (or Sovereign) Will appear really to believe that they are merely vessels who concentrate and focus power that derives from the People, or at least from the People the way they should be.
I don't want to violate Godwin's Law, but there are plenty of examples other than AH.
February 20, 2011 - 6:57 am Link to this Comment -
E@190: Obama has shown his disdain for the people right from the start – with his insistence that Congress, which IS the people, pass His Bills (stimulus, health care etc) without debate or reading the bills!
That is a factually incorrect statement for the health care legislation, the language not only originating in Congress, but also in previous legislative sessions going back 18 years to HRC. In fact, Rahm Emanuel advised Obama to support a minimalist version as hedge against likely failure to pass but Pelosi insisted that the full bill go forward. The health care legislation belongs to Congress.
The so-called stimulus legislation was a compromise amount between Dems advocating government spending (two thirds) and Republicans favoring tax cuts (one third), based on recommendations from a group of private sector economists/academics. As I recall, Congress voted to suspend $400 billion (plus or minus) in authorized spending. Also as I recall, the debate around that was pretty heated and public.
February 20, 2011 - 7:08 am Link to this Comment -
Obama is speaking publicly on the side of the public unions; he needs their support for his re-election, and the Democrats need their support for their own election. The unions provide massive financial support for the Democrats and also, require their members to act as 'volunteers' providing a huge unpaid work force for the Democrats.
That is, Obama and the Democrat support for the unions is all about power. It has nothing to do with the betterment of the US, of the American economy, of the American people. Nothing. It's all about personal power.
Notice the rhetoric – how twisted it is, a key characteristic of Obama-rhetoric is always, to misinform and manipulate.
The unions are being defined as 'the victims, the middle class, the workers'. Totally absent from this scenario is that these public employees are none of the above. They are an elite. Protected from all accountability for their work or lack of work (including absence from teaching – a violation of their contract, including fake medical certificates), secure in their jobs for life (Obama's stimulus wasn't about the private sector but to keep them paid)..and receiving benefits and salaries 25% and more above that of the private sector – with at least 1/3 of that untaxed.
Who pays for this elite? The real middle class, the private sector who have none of those salaries, wage increases, benefits and pensions of this Elite…and yet…who pay for it all!! Obama and the Democrats ignore these people – the people who have to pay for this Elite set of Rulers.
This Elite set of Rulers have the power to hold the people hostage because they control public services. Public service unions are thus corrupt for the people have no option to choose another service provider. That's a key aspect of the Elite Rulers – the people have no option to choose to reject them. Public unions and centralist rule (Obama) reject the basic infrastructure of democracy.
February 20, 2011 - 7:08 am Link to this Comment -
197. tomw
196 etab:This Elite set of Rulers have the power to hold the people hostage because they control public services. Public service unions are thus corrupt for the people have no option to choose another service provider.
Can't you just wait until Obamacare decides your physician and level of care and you have no option to choose another service provider? Talk about power.
The 'level of service' provided by the current public education system is sub-standard, with results that would, in an open and competitive market, be ridiculed and force them out of business. That this set of actors should demand, with no option, control over their pay and benefits is absurd. Their product is faulty and over priced. Let the market will out.
tomFebruary 20, 2011 - 7:29 am Link to this Comment -
198. stoicheion
Accurate is not always correct. Telling a lie by using truths is an old political trick. You are not the only one that does it. Nixon was a master. I can't because I don't have the time to waste. Debates in Congress are not always reflected in the bills that pass. The debate may be public, but the bill that's passed isn't until the GPO prints it. Which happens waaaaay after the bill is passed and signed.
Did you know that what POTUS actually signs is a cover sheet? The actual wording in a bill is written by legislative aides. Congress critters don't even read the words they get credit for writing.February 20, 2011 - 7:30 am Link to this Comment -
#194 gokart – yes, the totalitarian always assumes the mantle of Sovereign Will, as an innate, essentialist force of inevitable history of which he, The Leader, is just a humble 'spoke in the wheel of history'.
Of course, AH is one famous example. But Mubarak's (in)famous speech when he refused to resign set up the same tone, with him telling the people that he was 'their Father', who wanted what was best for Egypt. Any and all totalitarian leaders – Mao, Chavez, Mussolini, Stalin, the Middle East gang.
It's the notion of total autonomy and a Will or agency tied to some a priori, utopian, essentialist abstract general Force. In this sense, the Sovereign Leader has detached himself from the people, who lack what he has: that intimate connection with The Inevitable Essential Will of History. And, he has thereby detached himself from morality, for, in his view, anything that He does is right because of this connection He, and he alone, has with a Divine Will.
Obama is another example of a Sovereign Leader. Consider: his disdain for the people, his rejection of their voting and commentary actions. Recall his indifference to the GOP wanting to debate health care and his telling them that he can talk as long as he wants while they were limited to only one question and no debate because, he said, "I'm the President'.
Then, there's his contempt for Congress and rejection of their duty to read and debate. Then, there's his indifference to what the people say – with his either pretending that the Tea Party doesn't exist, or denigrating them as ignorant and uninformed; that is, he considers that the ONLY reason people reject His Will is because they are ignorant and don't understand.
And now, Obama is siding with yet another undemocratic force, the public service unions. They, like his czars, are unelected and unaccountable. The fact that these unions, which are massive corporations, have no shareholders to account to is important for that means that these unions have no limits on their power. The members HAVE to me in the union or they don't have a job. The unions take member dues and give it to one political party, the Democrats – regardless of whether or not the union workers even want such donations made. And, the unions hold the public hostage because they insist on a monopoly of their services. This is what Obama and the Democrats support. For one reason: power.
February 20, 2011 - 7:36 am Link to this Comment -
Obama insisted that His stimulus bill must be passed – or an apocalpytic economic collapse would be imminent. There was little debate or analysis – and it wasn't until later that Obama's insistence that it was focused on 'shovel-ready projects' in the private sector was found to be a total lie. It was all about propping up the public sector employees in the various states. Pelosi and Reid wrote the bill. Obama wouldn't recognize a policy or program if he walked into it.
Same with the health care bill. To say that because Pelosi and Reid and their gang wrote it up, does not mean that its rules and regulations 'originated in Congress'.
Obama insisted that it be passed without reading or debate. The Congress Democrats in the majority admitted that they hadn't read its thousands of pages. The set-up televised 'debate' that Obama finally agreed to between the Democrats and the GOP, with Obama chairing, was a mockery – with the GOP confined to one question and no follow-up and Obama pontificating his answers forever..filled with inaccuracies and fallacies – which the GOP were not allowed to confront.
The heated debates in public, with Obama declaring that 'greedy doctors' must be stopped their cutting off of limbs or taking out tonsils for money…and that 'you can keep your own insurance'..and so on – was all Sovereign Rhetoric and not genuine, informed debate.
February 20, 2011 - 7:54 am Link to this Comment -
201. emrys
Unions are necessary. Take a look at history and the circumstances that spawned unions. The "profit motive" has no compassion built in, nor should it. Entrepreneurs will charge what ever the market will bear. However, success fosters competition. Competition drives business owners to look for every opportunity to cut costs to improve profits. In fact, if I could figure out a way to make my employees pay me for the privilege of working I would. Keep in mind that without a profit, I can not stay in business.
However, if my business failed and I were to find myself forced to work as an employee again, you can bet your bottom dollar I would join a union without being asked. One voice against management is no voice at all. There is no "rugged individualism" on an assembly line.
But, the unions as they exist today have gotten out of control. The simple truth is that they have been too successful. For many businesses (to include the public sector), each employee is, in many cases, being paid more than they bring in to the business. No business (nor a state) will survive that way. A balance needs to be achieved. In my humble opinion, it has become an existential issue for America. Business and Union must learn to work together. Yeah, I can hear y'all now – Good luck with that Emrys.
February 20, 2011 - 8:01 am Link to this Comment -
202. trangbang68
Habu, You ought to quit selling wolf tickets on here. "The respect you deserve"… Somebody comes to my house and starts breaking the furniture. kicking the dog, dissing my wife's cooking; respect ain't what they're going to get, take a chill pill, Secret Agent Man.
February 20, 2011 - 8:22 am Link to this Comment -
203. maz2
Hope* and Fear*.
"Fear in Libya, hope in Bahrain"
BBC News – 29 minutes ago
A wave of protests has been rocking states from the Gulf to North Africa. But whereas Bahrain's royal family has backed off from violently confronting the protesters, Libya's security forces are reported to have killed dozens of people."
*Hope and Fear*:
Charles Lamb:
"Hope* is charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, & I am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her, her younger sister, fear*, a white liver'd-lilly-cheeked, bashful palpitating, awkward hussey that hangs like a green girl at her sister's apron strings & will go with her whithersoever she goes."
(Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb)
February 20, 2011 - 8:36 am Link to this Comment -
#201 emrys – unions were necessary, in the private sector, at the begining of industrial expansion to protect the worker. But the govt moved in with these basic protections with its regulations about work hours, safety regulations, minimum pay etc. That ended the need for the unions. After all, if one private company's workers struck for whatever…then, another company could profit.
They moved into the public sector which is no longer about the benefits of the workers but about the benefits of Unions-as-Corporations. Unions in the public sector have nothing to do with the old private sector unions. These public sector unions are massive, wealthy, profit and power-oriented corporations.
I'm all in favor of profit, for without profit, our economy is no-growth and static. Profit is the basis of investment – in more factories, more jobs, expansion of goods and services.
But the public sector union-Corporations are corrupt because they do not operate in a competitive economic environment. They are set up as inviolate monopolies over essential services: education, government services..and Obama's latest, one-sixth of the economy: health care.
Their agenda is also profit. But they provide no goods or services for the consumer to choose from; their goods and services MUST be purchased by the people. No choice. If you don't like their product – you can't do a thing about it. The teacher won't be fired or demoted, the educational system won't change, the health care won't be evaluated, you can't choose, you can't complain about govt services. They just take your money.
These Union-Corporations set up an enormous set of Elite 'Workers' with salaries and benefits, paid by the private sector, but totally out of reach of that private sector. And a large portion of these benefit amounts is untaxed!
Then, these Union-Corporations purchase politicians: Obama is one example of being purchased by them. So – they use their member dues (and membership is obligatory or you don't have a job)…to purchase political votes (and remember, the members don't have the democratic right to forbid the executive to 'donate' to the Democrats).. – which give them the power to get more members, move into more work areas, get more from the taxpayer…and yes, they invest their money and receive lots more money! They are heavily involved in profit-making!
These unions have no role in a free and competitive capitalist democracy.
February 20, 2011 - 8:37 am Link to this Comment -
RE: C@192 Tiny Thorium Reactors
Interesting comments but I want to focus on this one:
I heard the head of our energy department say that just updating the electric grid will take two to three generations – because, I studied on and found out that the job is in the hands of the current utilities which with stretch the job of transitioning out as long as possible to better their own financial take.
I am agreeing with that – at least to a degree.
(As a point of clarification, lost in headlines such as "thorium reactors could wean the world off oil in just five years," there are two energy streams – electric for power and liquid fuel for transportation; oil obviously used primarily for the latter, as well as a source of refinery by-products used in just about every industry you can think of. So headlines about the death of oil due to some new power reactor are … premature (as is the electric car and the battery issues.))
Back to the power infrastructure. Who will benefit financially if/when the transition to various reactors replaces coal for power? Utilities and Wall St. Corporate management within the utilities sector is … volatile and unpredictable, the Goldman Sacks M&A portfolio playing a not insignificant role in their sordid little "buy, strip, sell off the assets, dump liabilities on the GSE's and fire sale whatever is left" deals. Build-out of the infrastructure will likely make LA Dept Water & Power look pristine in comparison. In short, I am not so sure that the 'barriers to entry' into this field are all technological. I would guess at least 30% to 40% is utility companies with a legacy mindset jawboning for the best Wall St deal rather than building a business.
In another comment someone raised the weaponization issue as a security liability with mini reactors.
My favorite comment:
The Wynn hotel in Vegas cost 2.7 billion to construct. Why can't some rich guy pay for all this?
February 20, 2011 - 8:44 am Link to this Comment -
206. Marcus Aurelius
Here is what needs to happen after WI winds down (succeed or fail).
1.) Other states looking to do similarly need to coordinate their efforts. A group of states do the same thing at around the same time, group by region, that way unionistas in one state have their own battle and can not unite in another state.
2.) Stagger the activity over a regular period between now and the 2012 general election. This way the unions are fighting constantly and regularly and will have limited funds and energy for 2012. So group A starts let us say in August of this year, another group hits the unions in January, group C in March of '12, etc.
3.) If your legislature is subject to goofy parliamentary moves such as our Dem senators (never thought I'ld want them back) then get some groups in targeted districts ready to leap into action with the recall process.
4.) Cultivate the media relations in advance
February 20, 2011 - 8:57 am Link to this Comment -
207. emrys
Good points, all. But, even teachers deserve the right to collective bargaining. The unions that you describe are indeed out of control. To me the obvious answer is to allow (as in free enterprise) market forces to bring them back under control. I think that what the striking teachers in WI (and that is really what they are doing) have lost sight of is that without major concessions on their part, there will be major lay offs. So be it if that is what they choose. Even the unions should recognize the major income hit they will take with a reduction in work force. The WI governor and the unions need to work together for a best result.
February 20, 2011 - 8:58 am Link to this Comment -
208. Old Salt
I could go on but if I am correct this post will never be published so why waste the time. If w begins to treat me with the respect I deserve then I'll continue but if it doesn't coincide with his thinking then good luck ….some of you sycophants try going against him over an issue and see how long you get to continue to post……
Guests should respect the host. They should not turn the host's house into a toilet. Go cool down and either apologize or leave this forum.
Jim Robinson personally kicked me off Free Republic after I politely explained why refused to support Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election. His response was something along the lines of "if you're not with us then you're against us..". I couldn't believe Robinson's reaction to a reasonable, conservative reaction to Schwarzenegger's obvious sell out to the liberals. Robinson was all in for Schwarzenegger at that time, and was tossing all dissenters off FR.
I thought he was being short-sighted, however, FR was his baby. I was a man about it, respected his prerogative, and haven't been back to FR since.
Whatever Richard Fernandez may have done to censor expression on this forum, yours or others, it's probably about time. With no discipline, anonymous internet expression from some can become pretty unbalanced.
There's something good going on here in Wretchard's house. Don't sh*t on it. You seem like a better man than that.
Old Salt
February 20, 2011 - 8:58 am Link to this Comment -
209. erc rodson
YBR @ 205, c @ 192:
India is running several thorium cycle reactors but they haven't caught on elsewhere. They probably represent a future alternative to uranium fuel cycle reactors.
Note that with any distributed generating system, the grid is more like a net, with all the strings of about the same size, and less like a tree with a trunk and decreasing sizes of branches and twigs. Lot less line losses with a distributed system and more redundancy, so it is easier to take units off line for maintenance and easier to bring additional units on line for peak power requirements.
Security remains an issue for anything fissionable: still, sealed units with minimal in and out connections, buried underground should be doable. Less upgrading of the grid is required if we don't dump power into it in a few large doses.
But, someone has to sell the idea and it is not inherently sexy. Except to engineers/geeks.
February 20, 2011 - 8:58 am Link to this Comment -
210. Old Salt
#201 emrys
Unions are necessary. … But, the unions as they exist today have gotten out of control. The simple truth is that they have been too successful.
Remove compulsory union dues, and unions collapse. Unions in practice are in no way democratic. They are simply another autocracy, a self-interested third party promoting the interests of the few at the top at the expense of both the employees and employer. Union's are simply another loss of individual, God-given freedom.
Disclosure: I was a card-carrying member of the Teamsters union in my youth, e.g. my pre-Navy days. I know a few things about unions.
Old Salt
February 20, 2011 - 9:10 am Link to this Comment -
The actual wording in a bill is written by legislative aides.
That's under the best of circumstances. According to Mandy Grunwald (and others), the complicated bills are (literally) written by industry lobbyists (telecom legislation).
The debate may be public, but the bill that's passed isn't until the GPO prints it. Which happens waaaaay after the bill is passed and signed.
As I recall, the stimulus legislation contained a sizable number of tax cuts (one third of total) only as a result of the public howls … or … debate, the original plan being all spending. I also recall that the female academic (whose name escapes me) responsible for designing the spending parts of the bill, retired not long after passage, back to her … family and university position.
Congress critters don't even read the words they get credit for writing.
I am aware of that. Nothing I have written contradicts my disapproval of said practice. There are any number of process issues related to legislative performance at the federal level. They cannot all be dumped on whoever is sitting in the Executive office. It might not be true that Obama is a good leader but he is far from being a Dear Leader.
February 20, 2011 - 9:19 am Link to this Comment -
#207 emrys – I'm not sure I would support the idea of 'collective bargaining as a right'. I suppose the word 'right' bothers me. I'd rather calm myself down with 'collective bargaining as a responsible duty'.
Most collective bargaining (CB) in the public sector is irresponsible; it's focused on that sense of 'inherent right to get as much as possible from you Evil Bosses'. The problem with CB in the public sector is that it rejects market forces. Since it is both a monopoly and a necessity, and does not sell its products/services on the market but requires purchase by the taxpayer – then – how can market forces operate if CB is considered a 'right'?
The CB agents for the employees have to be part of the government; that way they would be working within the constraints of the budget.
Instead, the CB is in the hands of an entirely separate-from-the government Corporation. This Union Corporation has only one agenda: money. Remember, it has no overhead, no raw resources to purchase, no manufacturing equipment to purchase, upgrade and repair. Equally, it has no product to develop, hone to perfection, research and test. No overhead. No costs.
All it takes in from its membership dues – is pure profit. [I acknowledge the high salaries of the union executive and their offices etc but this is miniscule in comparison to the wealth that the Union-Corporation accumulates].
And, these Union-Corporations, because the purchase of their goods and services is not on the market but mandatory – they can threaten to withold these services – unless they get more and more and more wealth. That is, they hold the taxpayer hostage.
And they use that wealth to purchase political power. This is the basic infrastructure of corruption – and the fact that these Union-Corporations in the public sector are taking over more and more of the US economy (eg Obama's health care is 1/6th of the US economy) – means that more and more decisions about both the economy and the political realm – are moving into a totalitarian mode. These Union-Corporations are taking our democratic infrastructure away from the American people.
February 20, 2011 - 9:25 am Link to this Comment -
213. emrys
Old Salt:210,
Union's are simply another loss of individual, God-given freedom.IMO, yes and no. I, too, have been around the world twice and met everyone at least once. I have, on occasion, had to take a principled stand against oppression and I have been darn glad that I was not alone. A one spear phalanx ain't very awe inspiring.
Having got that off my chest, I agree strongly with most of your comment. But, IMHO, a balance must be maintained and in my experience relying upon the willingness of your employer to care about individual employees is not a winning play. Hence, my early venture into business for my self. However, as they say on the interwebz, YMMV.
February 20, 2011 - 9:26 am Link to this Comment -
"there are two energy streams – electric for power and liquid fuel for transportation"
There are three types of power: base power, peak power and portable power. Coal, hydro and nuclear plants provide primary base power; natural gas and oil plants provide the peak power demands that are unmet by base power; gasoline, diesel, battery, fuel cells, etc. provide portable power.
Coal, hydro and nuclear power are most efficient when generating constant energy output, hence their specialization for base power. Gas and oil are easily throttled and lend themselves to peak power generation. Gasoline and diesel are highly concentrated energy sources that are ideal for use as portable power; ethanol and hydrogen – not so much.
Portable power will ultimately be derived from base power as our liquid fuel supplies wind down, most likely through battery replenishment and hydrogen generation. Nuclear power has limited usage as portable power for large vessels such as ships and submarines.
Wind generators and photovoltaic cells are unsuitable for any mainstream power uses. Both must be backed by mainstream power plants when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. Efficient manufacturing processes cannot tolerate power degradation whether brownouts or outages.
February 20, 2011 - 9:30 am Link to this Comment -
215. Marcus Aurelius
Wisconsin as you all know by now is not a right to work state. If a shop is closed and you want to work there you have to pay the union dues and with Obama in office the decision that says Unions have to refund portions of dues used for political activities is not being enforced.
Last year there were a series of union contracts up for renegotiation. The first was with a company that is on the small side and they also had a plant in LA which is a right to work state. The Union a local of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers stood firm and would not grant concessions, the governor at that time a Dem did nothing to try to mediate the situation and so the company shut down manufacturing operations in WI and moved it all to LA. They warned they would do so w/o concessions, unfortunately Joe Worker is out of a job and the IBEW may have to cut its leadership conference in some posh resort short by a few hours.
Next was Mercury Marine, again they have a plant in Stillwater OK where they mfg the I/O engines and management said they would like to consolidate operations, and went to the union International Association of Machinists to accept some concessions, most were aimed at new hires. Again they refused so the next day after the vote, management announced they were going to shut down the Fon Du Lac plant and move it all to Stillwater, the union had two more votes one was aborted and the last one finally gave in, unfortunately for the Stillwater folks who lost it, but Mercury is a place I've done consulting work at and did not look forward to a flood of newly unemployed IT people in my region.
Harley Davidson and Kohler both had the same situations and rank & file understood the consequences of intransigence.
The upshot is Union leadership gives not a rip about the jobs of their members, but keeping the $ flowing into their coffers.
An interesting note. The public school teacher's health plan is a private plan run by the state teacher's union.
February 20, 2011 - 9:34 am Link to this Comment -
Every warm body in the country wanted the government to "do something." Those arguing for a "let er rip" denouement were a vocal but decided minority.
Health care belongs to Congress – HRC's Congress to be specific.
February 20, 2011 - 9:43 am Link to this Comment -
MSO@14: Yes. Thank you. I am aware of that. I was trying to keep it short because I think about 2/3 of this site gets it (better than I!) but a persistent 1/3 (not incl Charles!) seems to confuse gasoline with electricity, the concept of density not yet part of the public discussion. It was just a reminder.
February 20, 2011 - 9:48 am Link to this Comment -
218. Unsk
Emrys:" But, even teachers deserve the right to collective bargaining. "
Collective bargaining is not a right. In fact, it grossly violates the fifth amendment's rights to life, liberty and property. It takes away the individual's right to bargain for himself, and coerces membership and paying of dues to a union. No government entity under any circumstances should enter a collective bargaining agreement with a union.
February 20, 2011 - 9:53 am Link to this Comment -
219. Blast From the Past
Confrontational and occasionally offensive, to your credit generally not unintentionally, as you are you have contributed good information to this forum. If you ran your own blog, a name like "The Farm" might be appropriate, it would draw traffic, perhaps 10% of what Wretchard gets. So insofar as you go to all this effort to be read, and if not that would be Onanism of which I do not accuse you, the success of this forum should be important to you. You owe the host some courtesy, he does not charge in coin, for his considerable efforts. If this was your house you would not tolerate someone being rude. You know better, you were raised better, and double standards are not I think your vice. Your outburst may simply be an effect of some passing condition, you mentioned a surgery and some pain, if so then a tour of the North Forty fence posts may be in order. If the issue is deeper than that, and you do have periodic episodes that vary demonstrably from what you can contribute, then that is an issue that you need to address.February 20, 2011 - 9:59 am Link to this Comment -
220. no mo uro
Giving this some thought, ultimately what this crisis reflects is a gradual but entrenched attitudinal change. Americans of the 1770′s were largely concerned with government guarantees of civil rights; Americans now are largely concerned with government guarantees of income stream.
We've really let the Founders down.
February 20, 2011 - 10:05 am Link to this Comment -
221. Habu
MANY OF YOU FORGET THE MOST PRIMARY OF THINGS……WE MADE w NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND …SEE THOSE SPONSORS ..WE PUT THEM THERE.
Have a nice day.
February 20, 2011 - 10:07 am Link to this Comment -
222. emrys
OK, OK, already. Collective bargaining is not mentioned in the Constitution. I went off and googled the first amendment, etc. and I found that although the United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama that the freedom of association is an essential part of the Freedom of Speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others, collective bargaining is not specifically mentioned.
However, I would certainly assert that if I and a group of like minded individuals wanted to associate with the purpose of bargaining for higher wages together, we can as result of at the very least, NAACP v. Alabama.
Do you all feel better now? I do. Thanks to you I learned something today.
February 20, 2011 - 10:11 am Link to this Comment -
By the end of the week, the union protesters will be gone from the State Capitol building and the clean-up will begin…it should be televised so that the public can see what pigs these commies are. Gov. Walker isnt going to back down and there is no need for compromise. The run away Dem senators will come limping back to Madison next week after there are recall petitions filed on Monday. This is a done deal and the Unions know it. They have to fire off all of their guns, and stage their outrage in public because, besides thug tactics,and buying votes, that's all they have left. The Obamski and his class warfare act has worn very thin on the working class, and because this is all about economics, and people vote with their pocketbooks, this is all turning out badly for The One. 2012 is coming at us much faster than imagined and I can already smell the smoke.
February 20, 2011 - 10:13 am Link to this Comment -
224. Jacobite
Conservatives are helpless in America post-1933. They accept the changes foisted on this country by Old Rubberlegs, and try to work within the new boundaries. Right-wingers understand that the whole superstructure of entitlements and exemptions for Leftists must be demolished. Unions are illegal conspiracies to extort. Strikes are illegal, as plain extortion. The labor laws of the 30s should be repealed and unions abolished under punishment of law (RICO is perfect!). As inherently criminal enterprises, it is inevitable that their members will behave lawlessly.
February 20, 2011 - 10:19 am Link to this Comment -
225. Habu
187. ⚢ Teresita
Habu, how dare you accuse Wretchard of breaking your balls on this moderation business. PJM has a bug (or feature) whereby when you edit a post and increase the size of your original post by a certain threshold, it goes into automatic hold awaiting moderation. And W is a busy man on the other side of the globe, he can't sit there breathlessly awaiting to approve your latest masterpiece."Ms. T, when a one sentence "moderation" is included in the mix it spoils your "knowledge base". W was harassing me and one of the principles I follow in life is that you get treated as you allow people to treat you. I'm not the type to take harassement or allow it to continue without letting the harraser know when enough is enough. W does not have a license to continue to harass. He may cut ( I wouldn't like that I enjoy this site best of all sites) you off but to dangle you in the wind is a bit much so I thought the time had come to let him know….you habdle your affairs the way you care to and I'll handle mine.. I enjoy this site and when he asked for me to cease using the N word I did following some humor … but the harassmnt continued.
Now I've had my say, lets move forward.
February 20, 2011 - 10:28 am Link to this Comment -
226. Das
Habu #221
You mistake vehemence for persuasion. You seem to lack — as William Gass wrote, "…security which comes to a mind which has been released from dogma. If there is too much earnestness, too great a need to persuade, a want of correct convictions in the reader is implied, and therefore an absence of community."The Belmont Club is nothing if not a community of writers and your constant bashing of those who disagree with you, even slightly, is far from productive. It's not that we are oversensitive, pastel-loving tenderfeets who wince at the shadow of a leaf falling from a tree —no, not at all. Simply, your storming rages redound to the paucity of your ideas and keep them earthbound.
February 20, 2011 - 10:41 am Link to this Comment -
Sorry I had to miss yesterday's festivities in Madison. Am now back in Wisconsin and will attempt to keep BC updated as I hear stuff.
Nothing earth shattering to report at the moment, but it's worth mentioning the buzz and demeanor of the Republicans over the past couple of days. From Scott Walker on down, they have been very matter-of-fact in stating that this bill will pass. (Soon?) I don't have any special insights about the end game that will bring about this result. Hoping the Republican attitude is not just bluster.
February 20, 2011 - 10:48 am Link to this Comment -
228. Leo Linbeck III
Unions don't appear ex nihilo. They emerge in response to certain conditions, and then engage in behavior that reinforces those conditions.
1. An organization (or a small group of coordinating organizations) acquires significant market power – let's call this the "consumer monopolization" phase, although it need not be a true monopoly, since a small cartel can behave the same way. This happened in the auto industry, with the Big Three grabbing significant market share and emerging as a cartel that controlled the car market. It also happens any time the government establishes an effective monopoly over an industry (e.g. K-12 education). If you dig deep, you will almost always find that monopolization occurs because of government regulations that undermine potential competitors.
2. By controlling the market for products and services, monopolies begin behaving badly with their employees. Why? By controlling the consumer market, they end up controlling the labor market. If you wanted to work as a car designer, the only game for decades was working for the Big Three. Let's call this the "labor monopsonization" phase, meaning they are the only buyer of labor. This concentration of power leads to all sorts of bad behavior; after all, if your employees have nowhere else to ply their trade, what's the downside of abusing them? And as time goes on, the organizations actually begin selecting managers who become more adept at squeezing their employees. They become truly awful places to work, driven by politics more than true merit.
3. After suffering repeated abuse, enterprising types begin organizing workers to push back against their employers. Let's call this the "unionization" phase, when employees begin the painful process of aggregating their power to create a more balanced negotiating position. The motivation during this phase is almost always working conditions: work hours, safety, due process in firing, etc.
4. Having acquired power through aggregating labor, unions begin achieving success. They obtain concessions and changes to work rules that deliver what the workers were demanding. Managers give in on these demands because they're relatively low cost, and employee productivity actually rises due to increased satisfaction. This increased productivity counteracts the negative effects of turning work rules into legal requirements. Let's call this the "consolidation" phase. Unions, of which there are many during the unionization phase, begin combining so as to increase their power.
5. Once the unions complete their consolidation, they begin working to protect the very monopoly to which they owe their existence. Unions and monopolists start going to the government to enact further laws and restrictions. These restrictions further increase barriers to entry, which strengthen employers' market power. Those employers then use this power to generate more economic rents, which are then shared with the unions, further consolidating their position (although managers begin keeping a big chunk of these rents, refusing to even share them with shareholders or taxpayers). This phase is the "bilateral monopoly" phase, whereby unions and organizations team up on consumers and the supply chain to extract and share more money. In the case of the public sector, the extraction of rents comes in the form of tax increases justified by "expanded services," although in later stages the services are not real, but simply promises or "needs" generated by earlier monopoly or union or government failures.
6. The management-union beast grows and grows, extracting more and more rents. After a while, more market power creates no marginal revenues because consumers simply can't pay any more. Management can't give any more current benefits, so it begins making promises of future benefits, which they know they can't deliver but no matter. The union accepts those benefits because it needs to "deliver the goods" to maintain its power. Employees are once again exploited, but the residual trust in the union allows this to continue longer than it would otherwise. The defined benefit pension becomes the vehicle for making these promises. This is the "corruption" phase, when management and union leadership collude to benefit each other at the expense of the consumers and actual producers.
7. The parasite eventually kills the host. It is sometimes a slow wasting, sometimes a rapid demise. The proximate cause is a competitor – in the case of the auto industry, it was Honda and Toyota; for urban school districts, it is charter schools and suburban district; for state governments it is other states (Alabama and Texas competing against Ohio and Michigan). For the US, it could be China, India, Canada, Europe, etc. although is still a while off, believe it or not. We're really so far ahead of everyone else, we have lots of design margin (although I could be wrong – it's just a hunch).
All of these developments are not the result of some clever master plan. They are simply the consequence of increasing power that comes increasing scale which results from protecting producers from competition, plus the corruptibility of human nature, resulting in reinforcing loops of power and corruption that have been repeated over and over throughout human history, always leading to the same outcome: organizational death.
So the key is never to start the process by granting a permanent monopoly. To anyone. Even (or especially) governments. We need government, but monopolies are bad. Therein lies the fundamental paradox of public governance.
Anyway, what is the point of all this? Just this: the original problem was not unionization; it was monopolization. Fighting the unions is fine, even necessary, but they didn't start this mess. The voters allowed this happen, even encouraged it in some cases, but being uninvolved or lazily preferring to let others bear the costs of our goodies. This was the case for me; I assumed keeping an eye on the political sector was someone else's job. But it's not. Self-governance requires engagement.
But even though they didn't create the problem, they're now part of it. An important part. And they are in the way of fixing the problem. They must either reform, or they will have to go away. Things that can't go on forever don't.
Regardless, them days of a supine citizenry is over. The people are re-engaging, because if we don't the host (i.e. our republic) will die. The question is whether there is enough residual desire for self-governance to get us through the transition. Like chemotherapy, this will be rough, but we're strong enough to withstand it.
Self-governance must be restored. Let the chemo being.
February 20, 2011 - 11:06 am Link to this Comment -
229. Unsk
Emrys, There is nothing wrong with joining a union of your own free will. It is when you are coerced by the State to do so that I and many others have a problem.
February 20, 2011 - 11:10 am Link to this Comment -
230. emrys
I agree with you on this. Just as LL3 above says, it's the monopoly that is bad.By the way, apropos of nothing, just asking, no particular reason at all, can anyone show me how to make an emoticon that conveys smiling through gritted teeth?
February 20, 2011 - 11:22 am Link to this Comment -
231. Isahiah62
I would like to comment on the videos:
jesse jackson rattling off a lot of numbers about unemployment,lack of health insurance – hellooo JEsse- this group you are standing with has both job and benefits (they do not have to pay one dime extra for like the rest of us do) others here posted that some of these are making big salaries as well- so none of the things he is crying about apply to these strikers- what about being forced to pay union dues? or no right NOT to join union? JJ sees that as fair? crock o crap from Jesse the opportunist- Yes sorry Obumbler upstaged you long ago- too late now to be relevant, the man you called "not like us" and now you are for him?
any one of us that has children has experienced that exact behavior from our kids at one time or other- actually in my case ONE TIME- the moms and dads who do as the man in the vid, just stand idly and watch, or worse cave in to childish demands create monsters for life; monsters all teachers and bosses are all too familiar with. People who make demands they do not deserve and cry, bitch and whine thinking they will get their way by being loud– hitting is not even required, though some parents do deal with tantrums with a slap or smack- In my case screaming dau was immediaately hauled out of store (so others do not have to be inconvenienced) and told sit in the car and scream till you drop- it will not change one thing- Told in no uncertain terms that not only would she not receive the desired object but other privileges would be taken and she would be barred from all stores if this ever happened again- it did not.February 20, 2011 - 11:32 am Link to this Comment -
232. ⚢ Teresita
Habu: …WE MADE w NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND…
Wow, good thing no one lets Habu actually get near the nuclear codes.
218 Unsk: Collective bargaining is not a right. In fact, it grossly violates the fifth amendment's rights to life, liberty and property.
On the contrary, it is written that the government shall make no law abridging the right of the people to peaceably assemble for a redress of grievances. On the other hand, what's happening in Wisconsin right now isn't peaceable.
February 20, 2011 - 11:43 am Link to this Comment -
233. Josh
ybr @ 205: The Wynn hotel in Vegas cost 2.7 billion to construct. Why can't some rich guy pay for all this?
well, if you change "rich guy" to "private enterprise", I quite agree.
but on the specifics, I don't think Steve Wynn is so foolish as to use his own money to build hotels – nor do I think he has nearly that much money in his own name.
otoh, if there's a project that would seem to be eminently appropriate for government funding or at least encouragement, this would be it. so, why hasn't it happened?
February 20, 2011 - 11:47 am Link to this Comment -
234. gadfly
"Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald said he decided to adjourn the Assembly this evening because Gov. Scott Walker called minutes before lawmakers took the floor to tell him to get his caucus members and staff out of the building because their safety could no longer be assured."
"Madtown" has a long history of riots which included the death of a researcher in the 1970 Sterling Hall bombing . . . and that incident is but the tip of the iceberg.
It is little wonder that former Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus referred to Madison as "30 square miles surrounded by reality."
February 20, 2011 - 11:49 am Link to this Comment -
235. Teresita
Habu: W was harassing me and one of the principles I follow in life is that you get treated as you allow people to treat you. I'm not the type to take harassement or allow it to continue without letting the harraser know when enough is enough. W does not have a license to continue to harass.
Your analysis of the situation is deficient. I myself have had some of my innocuous posts placed under moderation, but since by nature I am not a paranoid person given to conspiracy theories about birth certificates, WTC #7, Bilderburgers, central banks, and the like, I was able to come to a scientific conclusion that it was a software issue and not Wretchard playing God. Unfortunately, you chose to push out your intelligence "product" before it had time to be confirmed, and now you have burned a number of bridges before coming to them. If this was the Agency you would be immediately re-assigned to analyzing SIGINT from the Kingdom of Lesotho's Navy.
February 20, 2011 - 11:54 am Link to this Comment -
The Wynn Hotel is not my statement, just to be clear. I thought the 'rich guy' solution was … rich.
As to how much money he has in his own name, I have no doubt that his net worth is well beyond a couple million but probably a few decimals shy of a cool billion.
As to why "it" hasn't happened, this is an interesting question. The answer seems to be an alphabet soup of reasons – structural, political, economic, and technological, and possibly even dialectical in the sense of creating a context that favors a paradigm shift.
Some of the smartest writers I know are on opposite sides of the peak oil question, just as an example. As another example I do not discount the marketing power of the oil and gas industry. I expect much of the information that escapes is filtered. A third issue I believe is lack of entrepreneurial spirit and/or a Goldman/Sachs type financial backer. I have no evidence, but I see a great many applications that are technically feasible, cost-effective … and sitting on the shelf.
February 20, 2011 - 12:09 pm Link to this Comment -
237. Mr. X
"So the key is never to start the process by granting a permanent monopoly. To anyone."
Couldn't agree more with this quote from L3. Glenn Beck may have gone off his meds but the fact is he's on to something with Google stacking the deck against a number of unpopular folks or causes and/or promoting certain Twitterati in Egypt and elsewhere. Anyway, Google has way too much power to rig the results of info searches and to track what people are searching for in real time. Bring on strong competition from Yandex and Baidu I say.
February 20, 2011 - 12:14 pm Link to this Comment -
238. Unsk
T, Emrys;
From Wikipedia: "the National Labor Relations Act (1935) act… makes it illegal for employers to discriminate, spy on, harass, or terminate the employment of workers because of their union membership or to retaliate against them for engaging in organizing campaigns or other "concerted activities" to form "company unions", or to refuse to engage in collective bargaining with the union that represents their employees. At a workplace where workers have voted for union representation, a committee of employees and union representatives negotiate a contract with the management regarding wages, hours, benefits, and other terms and conditions of employment, such as protection from termination of employment without just cause. "
The National Labor Relations Act coerces the employer to 'collective bargain" with the union and sets up rules that once a vote for union membership is approved all employees in union shop states must join the union. Tell me how that is does not deny the right to life, liberty and property?
Now maybe one can use the term 'collective bargaining" outside the rules of the National Labor Relations Act in a way that is not coercive. But I believe the NLRA forces a coercive "collective bargaining" under it's rules.
February 20, 2011 - 12:16 pm Link to this Comment -
239. Doug
Tea Party activist confronts Wisconsin democrats as they flee Illinois resort
"Senator! Senator! Wait
…you forgot your toga."—
BREAKING: Andrew Breitbart Contracts "Walker Pneumonia" In Madison, Wisconsin!
While on the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, Andrew Breitbart contracted a horrible case of Walker Pneumonia!
He was diagnosed by a street "doctor" who was apparently handing out fraudulent Dr.'s excuses to union protesters. [youtube j8fQZPapyAI]
Not to worry, a second opinion by the "supervisor" rendered Andrew a clean bill of health. Praise Tea
February 20, 2011 - 12:19 pm Link to this Comment -
#238 unsk- Nice comments. On the other side of the issue, what protection is there for the worker against the union?
The union is, in many cases, a closed shop. You have to belong or you don't work – thus denying a basic right of 'freedom of association'. And unions most certainly do harass and intimidate their members to go out and work on electoral campaigns (Democrat campaigns of course).
There should be no unions allowed in monopoly services, i.e., no public unions. The basic reason is that the public institutions do not provide competitive goods or services and exist only for profit. This profit is not returned to the members but is used for political power – to buy politicians and to get them elected. This connection between the unions, who are using wealth from their members – without the permission of those members – to seek more wealth – is corrupt.
After all, the unions shut out other possible service providers from the private sector – by corrupting those politicians who make the decisions about contracts. The private sector contracts are almost always less costly and more efficient than the public sector.
The unions hold the public hostage by strikes and slowdowns – and because they hold a monopoly – their actions must be viewed as extortion.
End public unions. End this special set of Elite Workers who are parasitic on the private sector.
February 20, 2011 - 12:36 pm Link to this Comment -
242. Eggplant
A few weeks ago, I speculated about where the MSM was getting its information about the vast wealth Mubarak supposedly stole. It was clear that Mubarak would have stolen some money since he was a dictator and needed to prepare an escape option. However the number of 40-70 billion dollars seemed unbelievable. Also there was the question concerning how the MSM could have acquired an accurate number given the stringent banking secrecy laws in Switzerland, Luxembourg, etc. I concluded the MSM simply pulled the number out of their behind and the initial lie gained credibility through constant repetition (standard Goebbels' propaganda procedure). Anyway, it came out today that the original story was in fact a lie initiated by ABC, refer to:
Once again, we are reminded to always assume the MSM is lying particularly if the story propagates a left wing narrative.
February 20, 2011 - 12:38 pm Link to this Comment -
243. Don Rodrigo
I've noticed some egregious, balnket union-bashing in parts of this thread. This is a mistake.
While coerced collective bargaining, union monopolies of certain trades, and unionizing government workers are all problematic and best prohibited, the underlying premise of a "union" is protected by the freedom of association and peaceable assembly notions of the Constitution.
Remember also that the precursors of unions, trade and craftsmen's guilds, were an important foundation for 1) the acquiring of greater individual freedom for the non-aristocracy, and 2) the creation of what would eventually be known as the middle class. Without those phenomena, the demographics of the American colonies would not have been conducive for rebellion, independence, and the governing philosophy we Belmonters claim to love.
The problem of modern unions are twofold: 1) overall corruption and acquisition of power and influence beyond their numbers, and 2) the unionization of government workers. "Abolition" of unionism is a very stupid notion.
February 20, 2011 - 12:45 pm Link to this Comment -
244. Mr. X
Ah Teresita, at least unlike Senor Equis you don't have to wonder if posting at Belmont Club and having worked in gasPutin's Evil Empire mean you'll never work in the U.S. again.
Certainly, posting here probably isn't career enhancing. Perhaps that's the era we're entering, when dissenters aren't rounded up, they just find themselves mysteriously SOW.
Anyway, I don't support all of the union busting sentiments expressed here. But it's pathetic that the only unions left in America that can guarantee their membership, however mediocre, a middle class existence are in the public sector.
February 20, 2011 - 12:47 pm Link to this Comment -
245. emrys
Thanks again for useful information.
Here is a list of "Right to work" states where employees are not coerced (at least obviously) to join the union.
This is probably, in my opinion, the real issue at play in Wisconsin. As has been previously said, the existing situation provides a conduit for money to the Democrats that they are loathe to lose.
And as I have stated before, if I were forced to work for an employer again, I would immediately join the union without coercion out of pure unadulterated self-interest.
February 20, 2011 - 12:48 pm Link to this Comment -
246. Armageddon Rex
Speaking as an experienced SIGINT analyst. I would, and I believe my bosses would find any intercepts from Lesotho's Navy to be both highly suspect and incredibly interesting…
The Taliban and associates in Afghani-Paki-stan sure use a lot of marine band VHF comms for their ops. Hmmmm!
I wish both you and Habu would knock off the verbal sparring. Your both have far more interesting and useful things to comment on when you address the issues brought up in the thread at hand or when either of you choose to put forth some new topic regarding noteworthy events BCers may find interesting.
Although I write here very infrequently, because it tends to get me into trouble with folks at work, I also find my contributions often seem to take a very long time to appear.
I don't know yet if it is purely a software issue or if some vetting of comments is taking place. Either way, I hope both of you will continue to make meaningful contributions to BC. It would be a shame to miss your comments as we enter such an "interesting" period of history.
With respect to both you and Habu,
Semper paratus
Armageddon RexFebruary 20, 2011 - 12:53 pm Link to this Comment -
247. stoicheion
Actually Habu, you are off base here.
Wretchard started a blog. People like his blog and started responding. Since W. is both an advocate and practioner of free speech, other like minded people were attracted. BC club doesn't depend on it's posters. IF Wretchard wanted to start another blog, it would end up where we are now. All the poster here would ( and do I'll bet) post elsewhere.
AFIK, nobody is marched to the keyboard at gunpoint. There are those here that earn their dime, but that is just a fact of web life in the 21st century. Most of the dimers aren't worth a nickle, so it works out. Relax, have a beer. Baseball is just around the corner and this year the Braves will crush the Pillies.PJM does practice censorship. I know that for a fact. I got pissed over a debate on homosexuals and collected a lot of facts about why homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder. Right up until the Qu33rs took over the Psychiatry Board and said it wasn't. I figured the post would be deleted so I copied it. When they censored it, I did a cut and paste and put it back up. Went thru that about 4 times ( maybe 5?) before the main post was dropped from PJM.
I think that is a workable solution to censorship. Machine censorship ( Autocensors?) can be fooled. There are sites that let you float your ISN to flank the Autocensor. Changing your nome de' net and E-mail address is a snap. So if you are having issues, Drop periscope, flood the tanks and run silent run deep.
No need to work up a lather over anything.February 20, 2011 - 12:55 pm Link to this Comment -
#243 don rodrigo – I think that most of us who are engaged in what you refer to as 'union bashing' are well aware of the ORIGINAL role of unions, and acknowledge their benefits.
However, these were associations of workers within the private sector, where the demands of either the employer and the employee were mitigated by the reality of competition. You could go work for someone else; and, if your products were cheapened by too cheap manufacture – the consumer wouldn't purchase them.
Certainly, the trade guilds were important, but I hesitate to link them directly to the formation and function of unions, which had less to do with developing skills and more to do with confronting exploitative employers.
Plus, the basic needs of employees with regard to safety, fairness of employment and work, wage levels – have all been taken over by government regulations. What's the function then, of these unions in our modern era? I don't see any.
The real problem, as you and we, have pointed out, is that the unions have moved out of any focus on the needs of workers, and have, instead become massive exclusive profit and power-seeking Corporations.
They have: (1) set up an Elite Set of workers, public employees, parasitic on the taxpayer and operating as a monopoly. And (2) have moved into alliances with the political side of government, to entrench and enhance their corporate economic power.
Any hint, any whiff, of their assumed original nature has disappeared. Even the term 'union' should not be applied to such a corrupt wealth-seeking Corporation.
It's quite hypocritical of Obama, to deride and sneer at 'those who are just focused on wealth' when he himself aligns himself with these same wealth and power seeking corruptions.
February 20, 2011 - 1:04 pm Link to this Comment -
249. Charles
No chance that I'll ever read Popper. Perhaps my loss. But then as you write you seem to get the drift of things in wisconsin and the problems with multiculturalism–so so I don't think that popper has done you harm.
Further, I do agree that Medvenav has come out pretty consistently for a two party system in Russia.
We'll see. Russia these days is considered to a mafia state with a still intact Pushkin bureaucracy. These forces push for a one party system there. Putin like Medvenav is a Russian nationalist but Putin is more pro chinese in a real politic sort of way. Of course he's not real keen to see his countrymen slaughtered again–especially by a Georgian. But beyond that he could be accused of thinking that –if oil money keeps keeps the state moving — why mess with a good thing.February 20, 2011 - 1:06 pm Link to this Comment -
250. stoicheion
243. Don Rodrigo
I've noticed some egregious, balnket union-bashing in parts of this thread. This is a mistake.No, it's a feature
"From colonial times, trade unionists found the going difficult in North America. There was no prevailing ideology of "working-class solidarity," and unions were far from respectable; in fact, they had a well-earned reputation for being antisocial, even criminal."Unions are un-American. Period. They are the nose of Communism, sneaking into the tent. Evil incarnate. They accomplish no purpose beyond enriching Union officials/maggots.
They are a constraint on trade, a violation of human rights and useless as tits on a boar hog. Wages are set by the government (Dept of Labor) and safety is also ( OSHA). Get the government out of safety and wages and the Unions MIGHT have a place. If you want the Unions to set Minimum wage and safety standards, then get the Gobermint out of it. Not enough room in the tent for both and the working stiff. There should be no wages negotiated beyond minimum wage. The worker is free to go elsewhere if he feels he is underpaid. Unless the Union controls everything, in which case his good work gets a pay increase for the worthless jerk 2 bays down.February 20, 2011 - 1:12 pm Link to this Comment -
251. Josh
ybr @ 236: ok, clear on who said what.
I think that the anti-nuclear fears in the US mitigate strongly against any investment in any nuclear technology, it's that simple, no crazy conspiracies required.
c @ 249: Popper on science is classic and excellent, perhaps a little dated, but you have to get into it bigtime before you can argue that. Try a nice collection, "Conjectures and Refutations". Hmm, it has some of his political stuff in the back, maybe I'll post it in the reading room for the next week or two. (g) I've never read Popper's "Open Society", but I know what it says, it was the context of liberalism in the 1950s thru about the 1970s, and for the most part also classic and excellent, intellectual in just the way that modern "liberals" have completely and totally lost, paradoxically continuing to claim the term, as if a modern Roman still thought that their empire and Berlesconi still ruled the known world.
habu: dude, can I buy you a drink or seventeen?
February 20, 2011 - 1:19 pm Link to this Comment -
252. Don Rodrigo
I appreciate the replies to my post at #243. Most of all, I'm gratified by the clarifications. My post was meant as a challenge to generate both discussion and clarification.
I don't argue with the rebuttals, I just wanted to be sure that folks understood the underlying premise of "freedom of association," and I believe that by the answers I got back that folks here do.
February 20, 2011 - 1:35 pm Link to this Comment -
253. ⚢ Teresita
246: I wish both you and Habu would knock off the verbal sparring. Your both have far more interesting and useful things to comment on when you address the issues brought up in the thread at hand…
I hope it comes out in the way that I write that any "verbal sparring" I do is with a minimum of personal animosity, and more to highlight the humor of a situation.
I don't know yet if it is purely a software issue or if some vetting of comments is taking place.
I find it is the most probable theory. The last instance that even approached a verifiable moderation incident by Wretchard was when he gently asked Whiskey to motorvate out of here with his Grand Unified Gender-and-Race-As-Destiny theories that were taking Belmont Club where Wretchard didn't want it to go. Fortunately, Whiskey has a large enough audience on his own blog to satisfy his ego, so he was willing to comply.
As for you, Habu, a David Lynch quote from an episode of Twin Peaks comes to mind:
February 20, 2011 - 1:38 pm Link to this Comment -
254. blert
Cut Habu some slack: he's still recovering from his operation. His pain meds have kicked in.
February 20, 2011 - 1:45 pm Link to this Comment -
J@251: I think that the anti-nuclear fears in the US mitigate strongly against any investment in any nuclear technology, it's that simple, no crazy conspiracies required.
Disagree. Public sentiment isn't driving any of the energy dynamics. None. Nada. Zip.
In fact, just considering the range of rhetorical tone within this thread alone – ostensibly focused on public unions – the general public 'erupts' into loud opinions only when money, religion or abortion are involved.
The chicken little stuff will be trumped by reduced utility bills, increased security through reduced dependency on foreign oil, increased reliability and capacity, and reduced maintenance. No crazy conspiracy required – unless of course one posits that the potential flames of a nuclear meltdown are intentionally fanned by … whomever.
Phoenix has the largest nuclear power plant in the country, Palo Verde, in operation for close to 25 years. Just upgraded too. I don't think it's ever been picketed.
February 20, 2011 - 1:49 pm Link to this Comment -
256. steeple
PB 191, correct. If you go to WEAC.org, one can pull up the pdf file with all of the legislators home addresses. It did not, however, provide instructions on how to produce a Molitov cocktail; I presume that any union member who protests in front of someone's home probably knows how to do that already.
February 20, 2011 - 1:57 pm Link to this Comment -
Monopolies: Let us not forget the most important one of all – government's monopoly on the legal use of coercive violence. That's one very good reason to be highly skeptical of public sector unions. As others have mentioned on this thread, even FDR thought this to be a very bad idea.
P.J. O'Rourke has noted,
"When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state … this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people."
I believe that powerful public sector unions constitute a large step in the direction that is of concern to Mr. O'Rourke. Naturally, government control of finance (Frank-Dodd) is a similar problem.
February 20, 2011 - 2:02 pm Link to this Comment -
258. Storm-Rider
Barry Goldwater expressed both the pathology and potential virtue of labor unions.
"Graft and corruption are symptoms of the illness that besets the labor movement, not the cause of it. The cause is the enormous economic and political power now concentrated in the hands of union leaders. Such power hurts the nation's economy by forcing on employers contract terms that encourage inefficiency, lower production and high prices – all of which result in a lower standard of living for the American people. It corrupts the nation's political life by exerting undue influence on the selection of public officials. It gravely compromises the freedom of millions of individual workers who are able to register a dissent against the practice of union leaders only at risk of losing their jobs… Unions can be an instrument for achieving economic justice for the working man. Moreover, they are an alternative to, and thus discourage State Socialism. Most important of all, they are an expression of freedom. Trade unions properly conceived is an expression of man's inalienable right to associate with other men… The natural function of a trade union and the one for which it was historically conceived is to represent those employees who want collective representation in bargaining with their employers over terms of employment. But note that this function is perverted the moment a union claims the right to represent employees who do not want representation, or conducts activities that have nothing to do with terms of employment (e.g. political activities), or tries to deal with an industry as a whole instead of with individual employers… As long as union leaders can force workers to join their organization, they have no incentive to act responsibly… It is in…these areas, that of political contributions, that labor unions seriously compromise American freedom. They do this by spending the money of union members without prior consultation for purposes the individual members may or may not approve of… In short, they perform all the functions of a regular party organization… Now the evil here is twofold. For one thing, the union's decision whether to support candidate X or candidate Y – whether to help the Republican Party or the Democratic Party – is not reached by a poll of the union membership. It is made by a handful of top union officers. These few men are thus able to wield tremendous political power in virtue of their ability to spend other people's money. " Barry Goldwater "The Conscience of a Conservative"
February 20, 2011 - 3:07 pm Link to this Comment -
259. RHJunior
Apt final video. Union workers are deplorable spoiled brats. They still have their bargaining rights, collective or otherwise: they are just too rotten to realize the bargaining is OVER, and the other side of the table is tired of giving them everything they scream for and getting nothing in return.
Bargaining is where BOTH sides get something. The American taxpayers and wagepayers have gotten NOTHING. No, this is not an end to bargaining; it's an end to extortion.
February 20, 2011 - 3:59 pm Link to this Comment -
260. Marie Claude
Habu is a greaat poster, that doesn't leave anyone indifferent. He often has interesting inputs
February 20, 2011 - 4:42 pm Link to this Comment -
261. JC in KZ
@Leo Linbeck III #228
Monopolies, yes. I've wondered idly whether one move by Walker might be to introduce the rapid privatization of the WI public schooling system, via vouchers and the like. It would be possible to move rapidly in that direction by "closing" public schools and renting the property to private schools for upkeep costs + a little profit.
Can't have a public union if it's not public, no?
PS. I know the idea is borderline silly in the short-term, but within two years he could flip alot of schools like this and at least provide adequate competition in urban areas–assuming the private sector could move fast enough to pick up the slack.
February 20, 2011 - 9:42 pm Link to this Comment -
262. buddy larsen
Re thorium reactors, China just last month started up a large program to bring the Canadian CANDU system from the lab into industry.
Re backgrounders on why the major effort in WI, most everything has been mentioned above, but not sure the pension fund issue*, nor the Craig Becker issue, has.
Seems pretty clear that the Becker recess appt is to get card-check into operation by hook or crook, so that the bosses can cover the pension funds they've been destroying since the late 90s.
Why WI and why now, i think Trumka, Obama and gang simply got wrong-footed by Scott Walker and crew, and have launched a Banzai attack –which may include "sit-ins" at the school plants after they lose the upcoming vote. The unions need to flip public sympathy now, and will want some little old lady teachers –film at 7! –being drug out of beloved classrooms by da pigs.
* ((from the July 2009 WSJ article listed at the link:
Poor management probably deserves a lot of the blame for the union decline, but the exact causes are a mystery. An even bigger mystery is that the unions do a far better job with funds created for their officers and employees than for mere workers. The SEIU Affiliates, Officers and Employees Pension Plan—which covers the staff and bosses at its locals—was funded as of 2007 at 102.2%. The plan for the folks at SEIU international headquarters was funded at 84.8%.
Union officer benefits are also far more generous than anything dues-paying workers enjoy. Consider again the SEIU, probably the country's most powerful union. Their officers and employees get a yearly 3% cost of living increase, but SEIU members get none; officers qualify for an early pension at 50 or after more than 30 years of service, but workers can't retire early with a pension; officers qualify for disability retirement after a year's service, but workers need 10 years. In the land of union retirement, some workers are more equal than others.
We suspect most current union members would be surprised to learn how their leaders are handling their hard-earned retirement money. The 93% of the private workforce that doesn't belong to a union, but that might have little choice if Big Labor's agenda becomes law, would be even more interested.
close quote))
Yep, in the Worker's Pair o Dice, it's Workers of the World, Untie!
February 20, 2011 - 11:27 pm Link to this Comment -
263. buddy larsen
–and habu, you do got to watch those pain pills. i first tried 'em when i had to have a tooth pulled. i finally got off of 'em two years later, after i had run out of teeth, and can now say with conviction, "be carebul wis dose fings, dey're bery addictife"
February 20, 2011 - 11:54 pm Link to this Comment -
An 83-yr old relative was prescribed some variant of oxycodone while in the hospital recovering from a broken hip. She experienced multiple hallucinations. In one, she woke up in a panic thinking she was trapped in a crack house. A day later she called home around midnight and wanted the family to come pick her up because she was lost in her home town one state away.
I've woken up in a cold sweat from some serious nightmares, but never hallucinated.
(The stories I could tell about her insurance etc. Stay healthy.)
RB@227: stating that this bill will pass
I wondered about the next step as well – guessing judicial review and/or civil disobedience. Not sure what form a law suit would take.
February 21, 2011 - 3:54 am Link to this Comment -
265. Doug
Wisconsin vs. Big Labor – Michelle Malkin
Welcome to the reckoning. We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation. Let us pray it does not go the way of the decrepit welfare states of the European Union.
The lowdown:
State government workers in the Badger State pay piddling amounts for generous taxpayer-subsidized health benefits. Faced with a $3.6 billion budget hole and a state constitutional ban on running a deficit, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker wants public unions to pony up a little more. He has proposed raising the public employee share of health insurance premiums from less than 5 percent to 12.4 percent. He is also pushing for state workers to cover half of their pension contributions. To spare taxpayers the soaring costs of Byzantine union-negotiated work rules, he would rein in Big Labor's collective bargaining power to cover only wages unless approved at the ballot box.
As the free-market MacIver Institute in Wisconsin points out, the benefits concessions Walker is asking public union workers to make would still maintain their health insurance contribution rates at the second-lowest among Midwest states for family coverage. Moreover, a new analysis by benefits think tank HCTrends shows that the new rate "would also be less than the employee contributions required at 85 percent of large Milwaukee_area employers."
This modest call for shared sacrifice has triggered the wrath of the White House-Big Labor-Michael Moore axis. On Thursday, President Obama lamented the "assault on unions." AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union bosses dubbed Walker the "Mubarak of the Midwest" while their minions toted posters of Walker's face superimposed on Hitler's. Moore goaded thousands of striking union protesters to "shut down" the "new Cairo" while the state's Democratic legislators bailed on floor debate over the union reform package.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan spurned the opportunity to condemn thousands of Wisconsin public school teachers for lying about being "sick" and shutting down at least eight school districts across the state to attend capitol protests (many of whom dragged their students on a social justice field trip with them).
Instead, Duncan defended teachers for "doing probably the most important work in society." Only striking government teachers could win federal praise for NOT doing their jobs.
February 21, 2011 - 6:12 am Link to this Comment -
266. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn
Buddy Larsen @ 262
"…from the lab into industry…"
February 21, 2011 - 6:23 am Link to this Comment -
267. buddy larsen
HYK –CANDU can do Thorium to fuel breeding, but it isn't yet doing it commercially. That's what i read in the papers anyhoo –best i can interpret it. Breeder reactors still need Uranium, and the last so and so number of years it has been cheaper to use old weapons material already 'bred' (Plutonium and Mickeyminnieium) so to speak. What the Chinee are doing –and the articles are on the net so no need for my neanderthal grunting gesticulation –is a big plumbing fabrication program building the hardware for large-scale breeding from Thorium and using it industrially. The science ain't new, application scale is, is the drift i think.
February 21, 2011 - 6:42 am Link to this Comment -
268. Kelly
I don't see any resemblance of Egypt in the Wisconsin protests whatsoever. Unreasonable teachers who are already paid some of the highest teacher wages and benefits in the U.S. are upset because they want more and more each year in spite of a failing state economy that is overburdened with their lifetime benefits that begin at what, 57 years young? Average salary in the range of $55,000 and they get about 4 months off each year. Boo hoo for them.
Huge difference between that and the repressive dictatorship government in Egypt where you were lucky if you had any benefit in your entire life. Heck, you're lucky if you have enough food to eat. From the images I've seen in Wisconsin, no one is exactly going hungry or being repressed in any way.
February 21, 2011 - 6:57 am Link to this Comment -
269. buddy larsen
kelly/268, and
in Wisconsin you can hardly be fired
in Egypt you can hardly be hired***
oil futures WTI: for-March-delivery is up today almost $4 to $89
–but the for-April-delivery is at $94 as we speak.February 21, 2011 - 7:08 am Link to this Comment -
270. heyyoukidsgetoffmylawn
Buddy Larsen @ 267
So what your suggesting is I do actual in depth research rather than relying on shallow reflexive instantaneous responses.
Well sure, pfft, it could catch on.
Probably about the time I start using a rolled umbrella to thwack my way through hordes of human responsibilities lawyers.
February 21, 2011 - 8:07 am Link to this Comment -
From the Malkin piece:
We have met the fiscal apocalypse, and it is smack dab in the middle of the heartland. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the nation.
Wisconsin is as far from "the heartland" as Seattle or San Francisco.
As Wisconsin goes, so goes … Wisconsin.
Leo Linbeck's summary of the evolution of unionized structure, and the Barry Goldwater cite from Storm-Rider both capture an all important contextual framework for approaching this issue without demonizing a large chunk of the Middle Class, which is not a winning platform this soon after 2008.
Someone upthread came up with the term "middle class elite" to side step the issue. That's a little too special.
What is required is good leadership, which we are not likely to get (ref Ezra Klein's reporting on Gov Walker's full suite of budgetary changes which include business tax cuts that contribute to the state deficit), not the kind that puts us all in the same boiling pot, but the kind that makes a persuasive case inre numbers and presentation, neither of which is a particular virtue of the current crop of political players (who can begin by stoppin' droppin' the seventh letter of the alphabet.)
February 21, 2011 - 8:27 am Link to this Comment -
The good news: We're not in Egypt anymore, Toto.
The bad news: We're in Wisconsin! A mere heartbeat from Kansas!
February 21, 2011 - 8:34 am Link to this Comment -
273. buddy larsen
hyk/270; well as they (ought to) say, "a little danger is a knowledgeable thing!"
February 21, 2011 - 8:55 am Link to this Comment -
274. buddy larsen
ybr/271, i know you know and just forgot for a sec that business tax cuts may or may not contribute to the deficit (or subtract from it). Use that old 'to the limit' cognitive trick: "if business paid 100% of revenues to taxes, could business expand (and hire) more better, or more worser, than if it paid less than 100% of revenue to taxes?"
check one:
"More better" __
"More worser" __February 21, 2011 - 9:03 am Link to this Comment -
bl@274: business tax cuts may or may not contribute to the deficit (or subtract from it)
Sure, but proximity (over space and time) complicate the absolute (in a vacuum) view. Business tax breaks – in isolation – have strength of argument (long-term), but side-by-side with compensation reductions – from the middle class! – in the short-term! – is like handing a match to an arsonist. Or something like that.
(Whatever happened to the idea of phased implementation? Didn't the Simpson SS Plan kick in at 50 years out or some such ridiculous phasing?)
I'll stick with the word 'marketing' used above by blert but at the risk of being hooted out of the gallery, the words circumspection and diplomacy also come to mind (maybe leadership?)
Nothing wrong with a good dog fight but they're usually best out in the back alley. As I said, I hope that the class warfare and sloganeering are kept to a minimum. The Great Bank Robbery of 2008 still being fresh in our minds.
February 21, 2011 - 9:24 am Link to this Comment
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