Protesters have left the Wisconsin capitol building after a judge ruled that it be temporarily closed to be cleaned. But the same judge also ruled that “the state violated constitutional protections for free speech and assembly by restricting access to the building,” MSNBC says. I just heard on the Ed Show that the protesters left peacefully once they were reassured they would be allowed back in after 48 hours.
Gov. Walker is threatening to send out layoff notices tomorrow if the impasse he created isn’t resolved, and I can’t see how it would be. He’s basically trying to blackmail the Dems, telling them that 1500 state workers will lose their jobs if the Dems don’t return.
Meanwhile, the Republicans in the state Senate passed a resolution holding the absent Dem senators in contempt. Some of those same Republican senators may face recall, however.
Possibly the most interesting news tonight is that even Rasmussen’s polling is finding that Gov. Walker is losing public support to the Democrats and unions in Wisconsin. Even more interesting, the poll finds that younger voters are siding with the Dems, big time, more than older voters.
In relatively recent times, it has been more common for older voters to be more pro-union than younger voters. But as Steve M. points out, younger voters these days have little memory of unions doing much of anything, especially wielding power. They don’t remember Jimmy Hoffa (senior); they probably don’t even remember the air traffic controller strike that Reagan busted. “How do you sell younger people on the notion of ‘greedy unions’ and ‘union thugs’ when all they’ve ever seen is union shrinkage and union givebacks?” Steve asks.
See also: Palm trees found in Wisconsin; Bill O’Reilly vindicated!
Interstingly, while they can’t initiate a recall for Walker until 2012, they can start to recall those Senators today!
And how long before the right starts a movement to recall ALL of the Democrats who left the state?
Cue – 3… 2… 1…
As far as younger voters and the unions, it’ not just them, but even most of us older people haven’t seen an attempted full blown labor stoppage since the controllers under Reagan, and saw what happened to those poor bastards. Especially the kids. The only work stoppage that might have affected them (and us) recently were the one involving Films/TV a few years ago, and the sports strikes, the most recent was hockey, but with football and basketball actions looming – more as lock-out than strikes. The baseball and football strikes were back in the ’80’s and ’90’s, so most of these kids were very young when they occured and probably vaguely remember them, if at all. And as far as the hockey strike, well, it’s the least popular “major” sport, so that stoppage effected a lot less people than the “Big Three.”
The kids may be seeing that labor, and what it has to offer, like benefits and pensions, are worth fighting for in this world where the rich get substantially and seemingly endlessly richer, and the rest of us rest our hopes on being lucky enough to win a lottery, or be their cabana boys and girls, or paid lackey’s who might make a little in tips. The alternative is ugly.
Maybe they Republicans have arrogantly overplayed their hand. But it’s overplayed AGAIN!. And there never seems to be any penalty for a party that shouldn’t get a vote from any decent person brighter than the average night light.
Democrats need to keep these abuses on the front burner, and not get all bi-partisany on everyone, and help light and keep a fire lit under the MSM.
Yeah, THAT’LL happen!
maha,
What happened to the pre-screening tool so that I could check my gibberish before it permanently displays my lack of rhetorical and grammatical skills for the whole maha-world to see?
Of course he will fire them. That is the perfect excuse he “needs” to turn everything over to no bid private contractors.
It went away. I got it back.
Hey, there it is!
Thank you!!! 🙂
Let’s face it, Republicans are economic royalists. The middle-class was created (1954) when 35% of the labor force was unionized. Obviously, there is a correlation between the 12% of the labor force unionized today and the free-falling demise of the middle-class. The conundrum is that capitalism works best when there is a large middle-class and economic royalists purport to be capitalists. So, are they just stupid, or just self-destructive, or not really capitalists. How about plutocrats.
The problem may be that there is no longer a real alternative to capitalism, except for socialism.
The US became more ‘socialist’ after the Tsar fell, and the USSR rose out of Mother Russia’s ashes.
COMMUNISM!!!
This scared the powers that be here enough so that, after decades of trying to completely eliminate the demands to unionize, and fighting the growing influence of the Socialist and Communist Parties here in America, they bent, so that the people didn’t completely break the system that was here.
The economic collapse of capitalism in 1929, also was the starting point for more ‘socialist’ experimentation like the CCC, the WPA, SS, etc. There was a backlash against what happened, and the powers that be, though they opposed it, were really not in much of a position to bargain, after having pretty much destroyed this countries economy.
The USSR and PR of China were the wedge that workers here could use to gain strength for their unions. Those nations, and their power, scared the Oligarchs enough, that they comprimised. And unions became kind of like a buffer between run-away capitalism and and Autocratic form of Communism. The Oligarchs figured, ‘Better to have the little people get ahead than to lose your head.’
With the USSR dead, and China now running as an autocratic Capitalist country, there is less for the Corporations and top-earners here to fear. So they can outsource jobs, cut people willy-nilly, shave benefits, lower wages, eliminate pensions, etc., with little to fear.
While I don’t miss the USSR at all, and though I think the people of China have a better deal now than under Mao, so I don’t miss him either, I didn’t realize how important those countries were to us here in the USA, keeping the Oligarchs here shaking in their boots, allowing slow union and middle class growth, and for people to get some help in pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, because the Oligarchs knew if the people revolted, it would be tough for the Galtian Overlords to pull THEMSELVES up by their PRADA bootstraps when they’re hanging upside-down from meat hooks in the public square.
cund— had never thought of it that way before. I think you have a very good point
cund – and there is the constant, and mistaken, mix up of communism/capitalism (economic systems) with democracy/totalitarianism (political systems) in our thinking. Marx/Lenin believed, in fact (but wrong, unfortunately) that under a communist system government would all but disappear because the traditional functions of government (to protect us from each, ourselves, and to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves) would be unnecessary. Cradle-to-grave security and a chicken-in-every-pot would result in a kind of utopia, care and conflict free.
I do agree with you that, if Europe is any example, extreme capitalism does seem to eventually evolve into a kind of socialism and if Americans ever lose their unjustified fear of a a socialized economy it’ll happen here. (Of course, most European countries had and have socialist political parties so they were absent the fear of the very mention of the word.)
Felicity,
Believe me, I know, I’m of Russian and Ukrainian blood. First generation American. So I’ve read Marx and Engels, Lenin, and even Stalin – all a long time ago, mind you. And if you want a good laugh, read the Soviet Constitution that was passed in, I think it was 1936. It reads quite a bit like ours, as I remember.
My only point was that fear of Communism was a useful leverage for people here who said, well if you want to keep it the “Good Ol’ USA,” then you need to make come concessions, or else, it’ll be the new USSA!
And with the collapse of the USSR as it went straight to pure Oligarchical rule, and the new aggressive autocratic capitalism practiced by the Chinese, our workers lost some negotiation room. And that’s why the right screams about Socialism and Europe ALL of the time. Fear of all “ism’s’ except capitalism is critical for the continuation of Corporate Oligarchical rule here in the USA. Keeping “We, the people” ignorant and divided is the best way to continue the status quo. The 1930’s to 1970’s scared our little Oligarch’s so much that they exchanged their brown shirts for brown underwear for awhile. And then came Ronnie, to help begin to break up labor, slap “Mau Mau” labels on the young bucks, tell about the Welfare Queens popping out babies like tic-tac’s while driving Cadillac’s, and declare “Morning in America” for every working sucker willing to swallow the BS.
Europe, despite its economic woe’s right now, is a more economically just system. But, since we, unlike many European countries don’t welcome or make it easy for immigrant Muslims to become citizens, we are a more just sociatal system – and yeah, I know how faaaaaaaaaaar we have to go to even reach an acceptable level for a Liberal like me.