Thank a union

 

 

 

 

 

We have Labor Day for a reason

 

I was just wondering....

What will the Republicans have when they finally achieve all the things that they care about?

They don't want to create jobs. Obviously. That would make the government actually functional.

They want to make government so incompetent that people cease to look to the government for help. Even though government has been created by the very voters to help when citizens need assistance. Government is not a separate entity but interwoven into our society and is made to last, as Lincoln said: "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." But the Republicans want to drown government in the bathtub. Government gets in the way of making money. People who count on the government for assistance will die. Republicans don't care. Drowning government will get them votes and money.

They want to remove a woman's control over her own body and reproduction, and remove abortion as an option of choice. Women will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to negate gays from society. Republicans apparently think gays should have no rights as human beings. Gays will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to allow virulent racism to be unleashed. It helps their voters to be afraid and rally around the Republican flag. People of color will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to remove Medicare and Social Security. This makes rich people happy. Older Americans and people with disabilities and children will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to let religious extremism into government, finally breaking the wall between church and state. This helps them get more votes. Wars about which religion is the right one have started in this way. People of other faiths (other than the one religion finally chosen as the right one) and atheists will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want to erase the power unions have because it impedes the progress of corporations. The workers will have less rights and protections. Workers will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

They want corporations to ignore any regulation that hinders its ability to make money. This means poisoning the earth, the water, the food. The quality of the product corporations will produce will be as cheap as possible to make and as expensive as possible to buy. People will die because of this. They don't care. This will get them votes and money.

What on earth DO they care about? They worship the almighty dollar. But dollars won't keep your community happy, healthy, unafraid, and working unless money aimed at helping people and communities prosper. Corporations will lose money in the long run. Corporations will die because of this. No corporations, no money, no votes. Do Republicans care?

If cats reported the news

Stripes says everything looks great from his perspective...

Scale of the universe.

Admission by Walker that it was all about union busting. And questions mount over the supreme court vote in Wisconsin.

Atlas Shrugged Part 1.

Bashing teachers is as much fun as hippie punching. Or tasering kids.

Obama's budget cuts

Refighting the Civil War

This is what a decade of war looks like.

Roger Ebert remembers Sydney Lumet

France bans the burqa

Tracking Japanese radiation around the world and the US. And apparently sea salt and baking soda will fight radiation exposure.... (I suggest buying stock)

Firing the entire city management of Benton Harbor, Michigan. You know these guys wanted to do this like forever....

In St. Ronnie's very words:

"Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost." Ronald Reagan,1980

Exactly.

On Wisconsin!

Keith Olbermann, to the point describing Governor Scott Walker as: the cross-eyed Koch-sucker.

Wisconsin high school students.

Wisconsin GOP overreaches: Wisconsin GOP Bill Allows State to Fire Employees for Strikes, Walk-Outs

Robert Reich: Governor Walker's Coup D'Etat

Why Wisconsin matters

From Chris Hayes' article:

The other problem is that our system is responsive only to voices at the top of the social pyramid—the bankers and businessmen who are raking in record bonuses and the professional upper middle class, which is recovering much faster than the nation as a whole. In a 2007 paper titled “Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness in the United States,” Princeton political scientist Martin Gilens analyzed 2,000 survey questions from 1981 to 2002, looking for the relationship between public opinion and policy outcomes. He found that “when Americans with different income levels differ in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear little relationship to the preferences of poor or middle income Americans.”

There is only so much social distance a society can take. The social science literature shows that as social distance increases, trust declines and aberrant and predatory behavior increases. The basic mechanisms of representation erode, and the social fabric tears. “An imbalance between rich and poor,” Plutarch warned, “is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.”

It’s against this backdrop of creeping dissolution that the word “union” takes on a renewed power. That’s why the struggles of the protesters in Wisconsin have resonated so profoundly. In banding together to oppose Republican Governor Scott Walker’s power grab, the students, teachers, cops, firefighters and neighbors have willed themselves to shrink the social distance those in power are cynically using to pit constituencies against one another. Walker exempted cops and firefighters from his bill’s radical limits on collective bargaining, but they joined the protests anyway. “An assault on one is an assault on all,” proclaimed Wisconsin Professional Firefighters Association president Mahlon Mitchell.

It’s in Wisconsin and across the Midwest that union members like Mitchell and his allies are showing us the antidote to the social distance that threatens the core of American democracy.

Michael Moore saves America

(h/t to Steve Bates)

Making the rounds on Facebook

This one by Dave Abston: "Quote of the Day: “We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike.” Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, 2011? No, Der Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, 1932.

Governor Scott Walker's lies

20 and counting.

A note to Senator McConnell

Federal employees are Americans. They pay taxes. And they vote.

I read the news today oh boy...

Daily Kos discusses the reason Citizens United included unions... so they could be attacked. (h/t to mahakal for the scary link.)

Koch brothers own America.

Glenn Greenwald on why the military and the media are attacking journalist Hastings for his reporting.

Think before you drink? Water?

The women of the legislature who are actually helping run the country.

How Gabrielle Giffords and husband Mark Kelly are doing.

David Corn exposes Fox News' Roger Ailes' lies: Roger Ailes' Sex-and-Lies Tale: There Is Something Different About Fox

Finally. Our national attention is caught by this fact: You Have More Money In Your Wallet Than Bank Of America Pays In Federal Taxes

This is what democracy looks like

We Are Wisconsin from Finn Ryan on Vimeo.

(h/t to mahakal on Facebook)

Exactly.

Athenae* [Scout] of First Draft has a video up

From Wisconsin:



*This was done by Scout for First Draft.

Money talks

Koch industries orchestrating anti-union 'Tea Party' protests in Wisconsin

Ratcheting up the threats

An official with SEIU, which has been sending members to town halls to counterbalance the Tea Party brigade, sends over this audio of a phone call the union says it received on its central voicemail system, threatening to teach union officials a thing or two about “the Second Amendment”…



The thugs are unleashed.

Employee Free Choice Act

A reminder of what we stand for and why we need to stand together

Jordan of Confined Space is leaving, but his last post packs a punch:

Over the past four years, I’ve written more than 2,800 posts here at Confined Space. My original goal was not just to educate people about what is happening in American workplaces, but also to put workplace safety and health into a political context. You won't read in any newspapers that if the 12 deaths at Sago last year, or the 15 deaths at the BP Texas City refinery the year before had been the only workplace fatalities on those days, those would have been good days in the American workplace. More than 15 workers are killed every day on the job in this country and a worker becomes injured or ill on the job every 2.5 seconds. The overwhelming majority of deaths, injuries and illnesses could have been easily prevented had the employers simply provided a safe workplace and complied with well-recognized OSHA regulations or other safe practices.

And you'll never learn from the evening news that we have more fish and wildlife inspectors than OSHA inspectors, or that the penalties from a chemical release that kills fish is higher than a chemical release that kills a worker. Not many are aware that workers are often afraid to complain about health and safety hazards or file a complaint with OSHA. Almost no one understands that OSHA inspections are so infrequent and penalties for endangering workers are so insignificant that there is almost no disincentive for employers to break the law. Employers are almost never criminally prosecuted for killing workers even when they knew they were violating OSHA standards.

You know these things. But most Americans – including our political leaders -- don’t have a clue. And most of this nation’s newspapers and other media aren’t helping.

And there are still far too many health and safety professionals that don’t understand that to a very great extent, who lives and who dies in the workplace is determined by politics – both power relationships in the workplace, and traditional politics that determines who controls our government. What that means is that organizing unions and electing politicians who will fight against unlimited corporate control over our regulatory agencies, our workplaces and the environment are of vital importance to protecting the health and safety of American workers.