Omg_a_Black_Conservative:
If (when) Scott Walker wins, it’ll be because fantasy lost and reality won. If your entire argument for why we need unions today hinges on what they did in the early 20th century, then I think it’s safe to say that unions really aren’t necessary today.
And we don’t need vaccines today because no one has polio. And we don’t need environmental regulations today because you can’t set Lake Erie on fire anymore.
This line of thinking is the result of ignorance. You look around and see good results, but you don’t understand that we are where we are because of things like unions, vaccines and environmental regulations.
Conservatism thrives on this kind of ignorance.
Bricker:
That’s a fair point. I don’t deny unions were instrumental in the formation of what we have today.
But I believe the pendulum has swung too far the other way. I don’t mind unions fighting employer abuse by legitimate means. When they use intimidation and threats they go too far. Call replacement workers “scabs” all you want. But throwing eggs on their cars goes too far. Throwing bricks and slashing tires is right out.
That’s fair. Although I’d like to know how common those things are in practice.
Now it’s confirmed that Walker is the target of a criminal investigation. Win or lose, he could wind up trading his office for a cell.
Historian - local Milwaukee. He is much revered. John Gurda is Milwaukee’s non-pareil local historian. The guy is a Wisconsin treasure.
He is not at all known as a political pundit. He was moved, as he said:
Some readers, I know, believe that historians shouldn’t have opinions, even when they’re expressed in the opinion section of a daily newspaper. Well, this historian has definite opinions. I view Walker as an ahistoric figure who represents a sharp and painful break with Wisconsin’s past. He is an ideological outlier whom history will judge as the extremist he is, a divisive figure who has unleashed a toxic cloud of partisanship over the entire state. We can only hope that the aberration is temporary.
How do we extricate ourselves from this morass? Surely there is a balance point that will allow us to live in harmony with our neighbors again. Surely there is a way to govern that the great majority of us can endorse - a middle ground between the nanny state and the nano-state, between spending like drunken sailors and cutting like drunken surgeons. It is emphatically not a middle ground we will ever reach under Walker.
For the sake of Wisconsin’s future, he richly deserves to be recalled.
elucidator:
Ah, good, they are unnecessary, then? Because the terrible practices that made them needful are gone, yes? And the greed that made them so, that has been expunged from our nation, the men who own our country are pure now, and unsullied by avarice. Yes. Of course. Our recent history is clear testimony to their wisdom and generosity.
But still no unicorns? I do so love unicorns in my fairy tales.
i read and heard from someone, that mitt romney is a unicorn. i can’t mention names but a lot of people said this. so…
there be at least one unicorn!
Well, we haven’t seen his birth certificate, so it must be true.
rocking_chair:
i read and heard from someone, that mitt romney is a unicorn. i can’t mention names but a lot of people said this. so…
there be at least one unicorn!
I find it difficult – and undesirable – to associate Mitt with anything having to do with horniness.
Lobohan:
And we don’t need vaccines today because no one has polio. And we don’t need environmental regulations today because you can’t set Lake Erie on fire anymore.
This line of thinking is the result of ignorance. You look around and see good results, but you don’t understand that we are where we are because of things like unions, vaccines and environmental regulations.
Conservatism thrives on this kind of ignorance.
Hey, look. A ridiculous straw man trotted out for no other reason than to avoid the fact that you can’t give any reason why unions should exist today other than because they did some good things in the past! Color me surprised. Or don’t.
First, there is our right under the US Constitution for free association. Secondly, unions continued existence prevents a recurrence of the massive abuse of people that occurred in the past. Including the recent past, and right now. Unions also provide a check and balance on the power of management. Maybe instead of the C-Suite executives and their buddies the board of directors voting themselves big raises and bonuses they would gives raises and bonuses to the people who did the actual work.
Common enough :
LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) — Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.
And :
The United States Attorney’s Office announced today that a federal grand jury has returned a second superseding indictment charging 10 members of Operating Engineers Local 17, based in Hamburg, New York, with engaging in a violent scheme to extort jobs and compensation associated with those jobs from both local and out-of-town businesses and their employees. The second superseding indictment specifically accuses the defendants, including high-ranking officers of Local 17, with conspiracy to commit racketeering, and seven counts of extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, and attempted extortion. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both. In addition, should a defendant be convicted of the racketeering charge, that defendant’s interest in Local 17, including their management positions within the Union, would be subject to forfeiture.
And:
According to court papers, the executive who was stabbed in the neck asked a union organizer what benefit he would get if he hired members of the union. “You guys slash my tires, stab me in the neck, try to beat me up,” he protested. “What are the positives?”
“The positives,” reportedly replied the organizer, “are that the negatives you are complaining about would go away.”
Then there’s:
A United Parcel Service driver who was beaten and stabbed with an ice pick after crossing a picket line during a 1997 strike won an undisclosed settlement in a civil suit against a Teamsters union local in Miami, his lawyers said. Rod Carter, a UPS driver and former linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys football team, was pulled from his UPS truck by a group of men, beaten and stabbed six times with an ice pick Aug. 7, 1997. The attack came during a 15-day Teamsters strike against the package delivery giant. It came one day after Carter was interviewed on a television news broadcast and said he kept working during the strike in order to provide for his family.
And this one:
A union coal miner has been convicted of all Federal charges in the fatal shooting of a nonunion truck driver as the victim crossed a picket line last July.
The defendant, Jerry Dale Lowe of Yolyn, W.Va., was found guilty of shooting Eddie York, 39, of Lenore, in the back of the head at the entrance to a mine owned by the Arch Mineral Corporation. Mr. Lowe was convicted of conspiracy, attempting to disable trucks used in interstate commerce, disabling the driver of a truck and using a firearm in the commission of a Federal crime.
And even if it’s not murder:
But Verizon has taken the union to court seeking an injunction so that employees can go to work without the taunts of picketers. A three-judge panel in Suffolk Superior Court has been hearing testimony for the past three days over whether or not union workers are creating an unsafe environment. Verizon says the thousands of managers doing the striking workers’ jobs are being cursed at, harassed, having things thrown at them and intimidated.
“They are chasing us in their cars,” said Verizon spokesman Phil Santoro. “They are surrounding work locations where we are at a customer’s house or up a pole and trying to do some work and they are trying to prevent us from doing that work.”
Lyons doesn’t dispute that.
“We are definitely trying to slow them down in their efforts to keep business going,” he said. But Lyons says they are obeying the law and there have been no arrests in Massachusetts related to the strike.
And:
Confrontation and intimidation are vital weapons in keeping any strike alive. Oddly, for a profession that thrives on aggression, the football players didn’t seem all that interested in picketing. Although strikers pelted scabs with eggs a few times and some fists flew, many teams were not manning the lines day in and day out. '‘It’s damn important to look a scab in the eye and say, ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ ‘’ says Bernie Hostein, who helped coordinate the steelworkers’ picketing against USX this year.
BigAppleBucky:
Historian - local Milwaukee. He is much revered. John Gurda is Milwaukee’s non-pareil local historian. The guy is a Wisconsin treasure.
He is not at all known as a political pundit. He was moved, as he said:
And yet the voters seem to be ignoring his sage advice.
Those ungrateful voters! Don’t they realize he’s a Wisconsin treasure? A Wisconsin treasure!!
Typo_Knig:
First, there is our right under the US Constitution for free association. Secondly, unions continued existence prevents a recurrence of the massive abuse of people that occurred in the past. Including the recent past, and right now. Unions also provide a check and balance on the power of management. Maybe instead of the C-Suite executives and their buddies the board of directors voting themselves big raises and bonuses they would gives raises and bonuses to the people who did the actual work.
So far as I can tell, no one is telling unions they cannot freely associate, in violation of the First Amendment.
But the right to freely associate does not require that an employer deal with a union. The union can strike, collectively, of course. But the employer can then fire every worker that does not report to work, and hire replacements.
Now, if the employer can’t get replacements with the right skill sets, then the employer may come to believe it’s in their best interest to deal with the union. I have no problem in the world with that.
But if the employer can’t get replacements because the unions workers throw eggs, or punches, at their would-be replacements… THAT I have a problem with.
Omg_a_Black_Conservative:
Hey, look. A ridiculous straw man trotted out for no other reason than to avoid the fact that you can’t give any reason why unions should exist today other than because they did some good things in the past! Color me surprised. Or don’t.
If you use the term “straw man”, it would behoove you to at least try to understand what it means.
I would think that before you (try to) criticize someone for not understanding what a straw man is, I think it would behoove you to ensure that you do know what one is. Otherwise, we end up with posts like the above quoted.
Since Wisconsin allows same-day voter registration, I wonder how much that could potentially skew polling? If one side or the other could get unregistered voters (who presumably haven’t been given much attention by the pollsters up til now) out to the polls to register and vote, that might flip the final vote to a Barrett upset or a Walker blowout.
Happy_Lendervedder:
Since Wisconsin allows same-day voter registration, I wonder how much that could potentially skew polling? If one side or the other could get unregistered voters (who presumably haven’t been given much attention by the pollsters up til now) out to the polls to register and vote, that might flip the final vote to a Barrett upset or a Walker blowout.
The MJS reported that Milwaukee had called in extra poll workers (
Amasia
June 5, 2012, 7:01pm
437
I just finished an 8 hour stint working the polls in Madison. Turnout was high and I registered many voters.
I feel kinda weird just saying it, but thanks for being a part of it.
Come what may, this has been a good effort. The first enemy of progress isn’t the Republicans, its apathy. And I second Lobohan’s shout out to Amasia : you go, person!
Thirding that. Thanks, Amasia .
) because of long lines and lots of new voters.