Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Why Liberal Unionists Should Not Vote Democrat 24
I don't normally read Mother Jones Magazine, but I recently got a whole lot of new friends on Facebook from the left wing.
This article argues that the Democrats actually abandoned labor in the 1970s in favor of more radical agendas- and because of that, ownership of resources in the United States is far out of balance.
I learned back in '64 (Score:1)
not to vote democrat.. took me only a few more years to learn not to vote for republicans either.
<Politics> [youtube.com].. hmmpf! TNX for that link :)
The author doesn't know what he's talking about (Score:2)
the surge of liberalism that started in 2008 lasted scarcely 18 months and produced only two legislative changes really worthy of note: health care reform and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
The fact that he sees that craptacular piece of conservative hogwash as somehow a "surge of liberalism" is all you need to know in order to realize the author is utterly clueless. While indeed, the current democrats are spineless bastards who are fully indistinguishable from the republicans, the actual liberals have not abandoned labor as he claims. Rather, the conservatives in the democratic party have hijacked the term "liberal" for t
seems simple (Score:1)
The Left went global. Any concern they might have genuinely had for the American middle class and our std of living, had been supplanted by their newer, broader "concern": The earth and its environment.
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Absolutely correct. However, concern for the american middle class and concern for the earth and its environment and are not mutually exclusive. Don't know where you pulled that one from.
Also, Democrats != "The Left". You keep making this mistake.
p.s. (Score:1)
I forgot to add, I haven't been following very closely the standoff in the WI legislature over the union issue, but I can't figure out why collective bargaining rights have to go. I understand the need for rolling back the lavish compensation packages, but don't know what one has to do with the other. It looks to me like a Right-wing power grap, taking back more than is necessary.
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It's to keep the circus running so nobody pays attention to the fact that the bill also calls for selling off state property via uncontestable no-bid contracts (the law declares that they are, by definition, "in the best interest of the state" presumably in order to prevent people from trying to get standing to sue to block any such sale) http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/02/21/in-budget-bill-wisconsin-gov-walker-pushing-for-no-bid-sales-of-state-owned-power-plants/ [firedoglake.com]
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Sometimes your trolling isn't so subtle, is it? Those "lavish compensation packages" were more than adequately funded, just like the auto workers, etc. The money was there as it was supposed to be. Wall Street gamblers rob the kitty, and you, like so many others want to blame the union? Did it ever occur to you that maybe the best course of action was to use the bailouts to replace the stolen money and throw the thieves in jail? You are drowning in propaganda.
Some of us "le
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Of the many interesting claims TFA made, one was that back in the 1940's and 50's, the unions used to be for all workers, whether they were in a union or not. Well, presumably that means all workers except mgrs. Or maybe only except executives. But I don't doubt that this artificial division of workers, of making an "us vs. them" out of the working population, is the root of what we have today, where the few have luxurious benefits not to mention above average pay in comparison to the many.
So there's a deat
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I'm trying to understand- but I think you may have an interesting interpretation of Rerum Novarum here:
One big mistake of the unions was separating the workers into *management* vs *workers*- which encouraged higher pay for managers, setting up class warfare.
Is that what you're saying?
It's an interesting thought- especially given the other Catholic alternative to unions, co-ops such as the Mondragon Cooperative in Spain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation [wikipedia.org]
Where every worker including managemen
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I was saying that I think that that mistake, a willingness to separate workers along mgmt. and non-mgmt. lines, paved the way for their mistake in our lifetimes of a willingness to separate workers along union and non-union lines. They should've never began with the precedent of separating workers from other workers.
So what we have today in America is a small %-age of upper mgrs, who are compensated vastly better than the bulk of the middle class, and a small %-age of union workers, who are also compensated
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Upper mgmt. is a small group who try to get absurd goodies for their group. Unions, same thing.
You're just not getting it. The "goodies" were agreed to by both sides under fair negotiations. A right they now want to take away. The money to pay for those goodies was was there, in the bank. A sure thing. A "boat race" I think is what they call it at the track. The bennies placed no extra burden on anybody. They were already paid for. That money was stolen. There is no reason on god's good earth why the worker
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"On your coop corporation angle, it would be nice if more companies were employee-owned, but there's only so many people who have the mix of attributes to run a business, and they generally think they should be compensated more for it. So hardly no one would be in mgmt. of a company where every other worker had has much share as they did. So hardly no such companies could survive."
Note that Fr. Jose (can't spell or say his last name for the life of me, I think you might have to BE Basque to pronounce it) th
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So who sets the wages? I think I'm worth way more than some marketing droid. A CEO might think he's worth more than 9x the janitor. Dang, if it's up for a vote amongst all the employees as to who makes what, yes, you'd usually end up with very little income difference, as there are usually necessarily more people near the bottom than the top.
So you're going to have less talent, because I and the CEO think we can do better in a more traditional organization. Your little commune corporations will end up like
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"So who sets the wages? I think I'm worth way more than some marketing droid. A CEO might think he's worth more than 9x the janitor. "
They're flatter than that- no more than two steps of management between the janitor and the CEO- and the whole company sets the wages democratically based on the old Guild system of Just Wage and Fair Price.
"So you're going to have less talent, because I and the CEO think we can do better in a more traditional organization. Your little commune corporations will end up like un
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But wait, if government and union employees are the beneficiaries of so much unwarranted excess, shouldn't they be attracting better employees than the private sector? Can't have it both ways.
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If you guys really were just interested in helping the worker and there really was no plan to con them into helping tear down their own country and system, then your side wouldn't have set the employee compensation timebomb thru the unions that it did. You can't have it both ways.
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What is this 'employee compensation timebomb' of which you speak?
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I know the answer to this one! But I think I *MIGHT* have a different cause for it than BD.
The employee compensation timebomb hit when inflation stopped but retired pensioners went on. Suddenly there wasn't enough money to continue to pay current workers & fund pensions.
The reason it didn't hit earlier was because before 1974, America *WAS* the top industrial country. We had a monopoly; our unionized oligarchies could basically pass the cost of unionization on to the consumer. Then globalization hit
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Sounds like a reach. Still hoping BD logs in and informs us. And hopefully in a manner that might let slashdot tell me about.
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Collective bargaining rights as a whole aren't on the table. The governor is trying to limit them to wages and one other area only. Not being in Wisconsin, I forget exactly what.
Part of the issue is insurance benefits, the WEA Trust and the ability of school districts to shop around for competitive insurance rates for comparable health plans.
http://townhall.com/columnists/kyleolson/2011/02/23/insurance_scam_driving_wisconsin_union_debate/page/full/ [townhall.com]
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Thank you. That was as eye-opening as what Qzukk linked to.
But I have to tell you, I'm still not completely convinced -- why not just pass a law compelling health insurers in the state to make the anonymized claims histories available? So then how is removal of collective bargaining in this area not overkill?
It seems like each political side is trying to disable the other side's anti-competitive arrangements (which is good), but then to establish their own (which is bad). I don't want govt. wasting my money
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Well, the health insurer bit is just one factor. You can play a game of "whack-a-mole" with specific laws and specific grievances forever. Until you get at the root cause that permits that type of thing to happen, it won't get fixed.
I'm not convinced this isn't also a political hatchet attack against unions in general. I agree that collective bargaining should be a right. If I want to appoint someone, or a representative group, to bargain with an employer for me, I should be able to.
I believe there is e
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I believe there is enough "blame" and corruption go spread fully around.
Union, corporation, government, church... you're dealing with a single mind set in all of these. Their leaders are perfectly interchangeable. So are the followers. Same god different name. And the only thing I see people arguing about is under which authority we, or more importantly, *they* (meaning anybody other than *me* IOW: you) should be under. As if one is any more legitimate than the other.