Madison Rally Bigger Than Biggest Tea Party Rally

[dmcoco84 4]

Yes those are snippets of Amazons posts... about Koch.

Did you not read the posts between she and I above it?

Oh Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaamazon.

Your turn... or do you not have the courage of your convictions?

[dreamdancer 0]

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Workers in this country paid for their rights by suffering brutal beatings, mass expulsions from company housing and jobs, crippling strikes, targeted assassinations of union leaders and armed battles with hired gun thugs and state militias. The Rockefellers, the Mellons, the Carnegies and the Morgans—the Koch Brothers Industries, Goldman Sachs and Wal-Mart of their day—never gave a damn about workers. All they cared about was profit. The eight-hour workday, the minimum wage, Social Security, pensions, job safety, paid vacations, retirement benefits and health insurance were achieved because hundreds of thousands of workers physically fought a system of capitalist exploitation. They rallied around radicals such as “Mother” Jones, United Mine Workers’ President John L. Lewis and “Big” Bill Haywood and his Wobblies as well as the socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs.

Lewis said, “I have pleaded your case from the pulpit and from the public platform—not in the quavering tones of a feeble mendicant asking alms, but in the thundering voice of the captain of a mighty host, demanding the rights to which free men are entitled.”

Those who fought to achieve these rights endured tremendous suffering, pain and deprivation. It is they who made possible our middle class and opened up our democracy. The elite hired goons and criminal militias to evict striking miners from company houses, infiltrate fledgling union organizations and murder suspected union leaders and sympathizers. Federal marshals, state militias, sheriff’s deputies and at times Army troops, along with the courts and legislative bodies, were repeatedly used to crush and stymie worker revolts. Striking sugar cane workers were gunned down in Thibodaux, La., in 1887. Steel workers were shot to death in 1892 in Homestead, Pa. Railroad workers in the Pullman strike of 1894 were murdered. Coal miners at Ludlow, Colo., in 1914 and at Matewan, W.Va., in 1920 were massacred. Our freedoms and rights were paid for with their courage and blood.

http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/150248/hedges%3A_power_concedes_nothing_without_demand_--_we_must_say%2C_%22no%21%22_to_wall_st.%2C_the_kochs%2C_and_our_cowardly_political_class/

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[dmcoco84 4]

Private sector unions still have all their rights... the public sector is fundamentally different.

If you disagree... why? Amazon can't seem to answer...

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fought a system of capitalist exploitation.

Are you an anti-capitalist?

Do you support capitalism if we actually had capitalism, and not crony capitalism?

Or do you want something different?

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Those who fought to achieve these rights endured tremendous suffering, pain and deprivation. It is they who made possible our middle class and opened up our democracy.

We Are Not A Democracy.

The Founders gave us a Republic, for very specific reasons.



I find it interesting, all this talk about workers rights and conditions...

Anyone familiar with the horrors that the workers for the Hover Dam were put through? And that was an FDR project... seems hypocritical, ey?

[billvon 2,398]

>I find it interesting, all this talk about workers rights and conditions...

>Anyone familiar with the horrors that the workers for the Hover Dam were
>put through?

Yep. And workers on the Panama Canal, and the transcontinental railroad, and the textile mills of the early 20th century. Fortunately conditions have improved greatly since then - due in large part to unions.

[rushmc 18]

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>I find it interesting, all this talk about workers rights and conditions...

>Anyone familiar with the horrors that the workers for the Hover Dam were
>put through?

Yep. And workers on the Panama Canal, and the transcontinental railroad, and the textile mills of the early 20th century. Fortunately conditions have improved greatly since then - due in large part to unions.

Absolutely And where I work we are working to hand the safety programs back to the union. They want to do it and it works that way

That however, does not give the public sector unions the right to launder money for the Dems or shove their thugery in our faces

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[TimBSky 0]

My wife has been in education as a teacher and counselor for 17 years, My understanding is that collective bargaining doesn't give the unions any power other than to bargain pay and benefits for the teachers as a group. The school district doesn't have to agree to anything and are free to offer what they think is fair. Also, the teachers have to vote on whether to accept the agreement. During the past 3 years, my wife's union has negotiated pay cuts resulting in about $8,000 less pay than 3 years ago and it's not like she was making more, or even as much, as someone in the private sector with a Master's degree and 7 years of college. I fail to understand why allowing people to bargain collectively as a group is such a problem for the tea party people and why it should matter whether they are public or private employees. I thought the tea party was about less government control over our lives, not more.

[billvon 2,398]

>I thought the tea party was about less government control over our lives, not more.

Well, in theory. In practice they are the right fringe of the republican party, and thus carry a lot of the conservative baggage (i.e. anti-union and anti-labor positions.)

[Amazon 7]

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I spent over an hour on that...

Your Turn.

Hmm that must be a sad life..... need a towel??

I spent a few seconds on that

[rushmc 18]

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My wife has been in education as a teacher and counselor for 17 years, My understanding is that collective bargaining doesn't give the unions any power other than to bargain pay and benefits for the teachers as a group. The school district doesn't have to agree to anything and are free to offer what they think is fair. Also, the teachers have to vote on whether to accept the agreement. During the past 3 years, my wife's union has negotiated pay cuts resulting in about $8,000 less pay than 3 years ago and it's not like she was making more, or even as much, as someone in the private sector with a Master's degree and 7 years of college. I fail to understand why allowing people to bargain collectively as a group is such a problem for the tea party people and why it should matter whether they are public or private employees. I thought the tea party was about less government control over our lives, not more.

I have posted the FDR quote regarding this topic for public sector workers. Google it if you missed it.

Also I have been at the negotiating table with union elite leaders

That I can not explain. Lets just say, they (the union leaders) are in a world of their own

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

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>I thought the tea party was about less government control over our lives, not more.

Well, in theory. In practice they are the right fringe of the republican party, and thus carry a lot of the conservative baggage (i.e. anti-union and anti-labor positions.)

Ah yes

from the man who defines "we" as the US

Way to go Bill!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

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I spent over an hour on that...

Your Turn.

Hmm that must be a sad life..... need a towel??

I spent a few seconds on that

Cause that is all you got

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Trafficdiver 8]

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My understanding is that collective bargaining doesn't give the unions any power other than to bargain pay and benefits for the teachers as a group.

This is the key problem with collective bargaining. It treats the workers as a collective, as though each of them are equal and deserves equal pay and benefits. They are not. Not in teaching, carpentry or any profession for that matter and each should bargain according to their personal value, not what some union shop steward can force the employer into paying with the threat of strike.

And if you think this Wisconsin protest is grass root i would hate to see your lawn. It's Union paid.

[TimBSky 0]

Coming from a family of teachers, I can say that your image of some union steward forcing an employer to pay by threatening a strike doesn't hold true, at least not for teachers (maybe unions should only be abolished in the private sector?). I can't ever remember my mom's school district threatening a strike, and I'm almost 50. In my wife's district, the union negotiates with the district and then the teachers vote on it. Usually, there are several different elements of the proposal that can be voted on and they've never failed to come to an agreement. There are a lot of things that I don't like about unions like laying off based on seniority (that cost my wife her counseling position) and my point wasn't that there isn't a lot to not like. I also don't believe that anyone should have to join a union in order to work somewhere. My point was that a freedom was taken away from a group of people and it seems to contradict the philosophy of the greatest supporters of taking away this freedom - the tea party.

[Amazon 7]

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I spent over an hour on that...

Your Turn.

Hmm that must be a sad life..... need a towel??

I spent a few seconds on that

Cause that is all you got

Oh look its the far right pollute America FanBoi himself

[kallend 1,623]

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My understanding is that collective bargaining doesn't give the unions any power other than to bargain pay and benefits for the teachers as a group.

This is the key problem with collective bargaining. It treats the workers as a collective.

Rather like the government is a collective and a corporation is a collective. Did you actually have a point?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Trafficdiver 8]

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My understanding is that collective bargaining doesn't give the unions any power other than to bargain pay and benefits for the teachers as a group.

This is the key problem with collective bargaining. It treats the workers as a collective.

Rather like the government is a collective and a corporation is a collective. Did you actually have a point?

Yes, workers are individuals, some are better than others, some are worth more than others. All workers for one factory shouldn't be paid x amount of dollars per hour just because they all do the same job. Unions tend to protect the worst workers at the expense of the best workers.


This does not happen in a private corporation. A private corporation is not a collective in anyway. I don't know where you came up with that.

[Trafficdiver 8]

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Coming from a family of teachers, I can say that your image of some union steward forcing an employer to pay by threatening a strike doesn't hold true, at least not for teachers

That is your limited experience. That does not mean that all unions do not strike. Public sector unions are just dealing with people spending other people money, why would they put the union in a position to strike. One of major problems in the next 5 years are going to be paying for all the pensions that were given to public sector union members over the past 30 years.

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There are a lot of things that I don't like about unions like laying off based on seniority (that cost my wife her counseling position) and my point wasn't that there isn't a lot to not like. I also don't believe that anyone should have to join a union in order to work somewhere.

Here we agree.

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My point was that a freedom was taken away from a group of people and it seems to contradict the philosophy of the greatest supporters of taking away this freedom - the tea party.

You have a warped view of freedom. You are not guaranteed a government job. It is not your freedom to get paid by an entity that forces it's customers to pay. Any of these union members can get a job elsewhere if they don't like the deal they are getting. This isn't USSR, no one is forcing you to work for the government or a particular union. In fact 80% of us are not in a union.

[dreamdancer 0]

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Not content to spread misinformation and singlemindedly pursue an extreme agenda, Fox decided in 2009 it would contribute explicitly to the rise of a social movement. Fox spent disproportionate airtime rallying people to join the Tea Party, the radical right group that was formed in the wake of the presidential election in 2008. Over ten days in April of 2009, Fox aired 107 ads for its coverage of Tea Party protests and, in that same time period, featured at least 20 segments on the upcoming protests. By contrast, in the recent legislative battle over collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, Fox called the protesting union supporters a "shrieking leftist mob".

http://www.alternet.org/media/150251/scary%3A_people_who_watch_and_trust_fox_news_will_surprise_you/

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[rushmc 18]

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Not content to spread misinformation and singlemindedly pursue an extreme agenda, Fox decided in 2009 it would contribute explicitly to the rise of a social movement. Fox spent disproportionate airtime rallying people to join the Tea Party, the radical right group that was formed in the wake of the presidential election in 2008. Over ten days in April of 2009, Fox aired 107 ads for its coverage of Tea Party protests and, in that same time period, featured at least 20 segments on the upcoming protests. By contrast, in the recent legislative battle over collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin, Fox called the protesting union supporters a "shrieking leftist mob".

http://www.alternet.org/media/150251/scary%3A_people_who_watch_and_trust_fox_news_will_surprise_you/

...you do not have mandatory drug testing where you work




do you.........

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[TimBSky 0]

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You have a warped view of freedom. You are not guaranteed a government job. It is not your freedom to get paid by an entity that forces it's customers to pay. Any of these union members can get a job elsewhere if they don't like the deal they are getting. This isn't USSR, no one is forcing you to work for the government or a particular union. In fact 80% of us are not in a union.

I never said the freedom that was being taken away was the guarantee of a government job. I also never said they can't try to find a job elsewhere if they don't like the deal they're getting. The freedom being taken away is the freedom to bargain collectively. I believe that if a group of people want to bargain for wages and benefits collectively instead of individually, they should have that right.