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This article seems to me to be spot-on about what I have seen developing in the consciousness of some groups of people in America in the time since Ronald Reagan was elected president...
The 60s were the Age of Aquarius and it showed...
the Vietnam War protests, the Feminist Movement, the Civil Rights struggle that still continued after Johnson left office --
These were all positive forces for good in America--unless you were one of the small groups who felt threatened by the rise of the average man/woman and the power put into the hands of the people..
What is happening in Wisconsin scares me silly--because frankly I think the right parties are going to lose--
The people who are exercising their Constitutional rights of protest, the electors who feel they are being railroaded without a fair hearing, the people who are being lied to about why there is a deficit and what it will take to mend it---they may be in the right in my point of view
BUT the conservative Republicans (those on the Right Wing of political thought) will bully their point of view and ideology into law and everyone is going to suffer--except the people will ride this wave to their benefit--and there are some who will always do that--financially and politically...
and this wave of antipathy to ideas that always before have been viewed as the American spirit and approach to living and dealing with others is going to suffer a blow that we likely won't recover from...
Suggest anyone who does not know what it might be like to live in a religious/facist state--just read "The Handmaid's Tale" and see what might be happening in 10 or 15 yrs...
or read some of the original writings of the Puritan fathers--the guys who came to the New World with a strict, narrow definition of what it meant to be "godly" and who turned around and sold blankets contaminated with smallpox to the local Native Americans hoping God would help them gain more ground to plant after the infestation decimated the tribes...and their plan worked...
This time it is not Native Americans who are being thinned out--at least not the Pequots or the Iroquois--but rather tribes of teachers, and state workers--but not the powerful tribes the Governor made alliance with--the police and firemen.
He is not using poisoned blankets but poisoned words and thoughts in a blind zeal to make his state conform to his view of what a good society is based on...
There is nothing worse than religious zeal (even when it is not Bible-quoting) to turn a blind eye to reason and compromise and even a different truth.
To this Governor and those who believe with him--there IS no other truth...
except unions are bad and should be eradicated--that the social agreement has no basis in government--that God favors those who take care of themselves...
Basically IMO ther protestors in doig awhat they are doig endanger all collective bargain and certainly their jobs by breaking the contract terms. Also the legiclature is acting poorly and avoiding what they know is a votig loss that is not very admirable. Its undemocratic. I the dn they are just beig their own worse enemy really.As Obama said elctions have consequeneces.What is scary or really sad is that these people can't live with anythig like a democratuc vote.
What is scary or really sad is that these people can't live with anythig like a democratuc vote.
That is easy to say when the side doing the bullying is one you agree with--but a democracy is more than about who has more votes...
it is about compromise, justice, and fairness--
what is happening in Wisconsin is only the tip of the iceberg--
this core of right wing conservatives are no longer Republicans--except in that is the party cloak they are hiding behind--
they are really against most improvements in American society for the past 100 yrs or so--
they are supported by a faction of VERY wealthy individuals who would love to break every union, prevent any bridle on business interests doing whatever they want to enrich themselves, disempower women especially from equal rights gained over the past 150 years
From what I read/see the people who are not worried are just not students of history or think they won't be affected by what the end results might be...they believe this will all turn out for the better--
The fact is that it probably will turn out for the better--for about 5% of the people--
the rest of us are going to be up the creek one way or another...
FWIW - collective bargaining is not a right, and certainly inappropriate for a public sector employee.
It's a conflict of interest because the 'employer' is the people, of which the employees are part of. It's like a hand negotiating with the body for more blood.
All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.
There is pretty much no reason to be a teacher once the last bit of decent benefits are gone. I mean who would want crappy pay, crappy benefits, dealing with little bastards and dealing with entitled parents. It sounds like one of the seven circles of hell. Unfortunately we need a educated public for democracy to work.
What is scary or really sad is that these people can't live with anythig like a democratuc vote.
That is easy to say when the side doing the bullying is one you agree with--but a democracy is more than about who has more votes...
it is about compromise, justice, and fairness--
what is happening in Wisconsin is only the tip of the iceberg--
this core of right wing conservatives are no longer Republicans--except in that is the party cloak they are hiding behind--
they are really against most improvements in American society for the past 100 yrs or so--
they are supported by a faction of VERY wealthy individuals who would love to break every union, prevent any bridle on business interests doing whatever they want to enrich themselves, disempower women especially from equal rights gained over the past 150 years
From what I read/see the people who are not worried are just not students of history or think they won't be affected by what the end results might be...they believe this will all turn out for the better--
The fact is that it probably will turn out for the better--for about 5% of the people--
the rest of us are going to be up the creek one way or another...
This is not a struggle between a corporation and a union with collective bargaining. No one is getting rich by trying to get the budget under control when there is a finite amout of tax revenue and the states are by law required to balance their budgets (unlike the federal government and their ability to monitize debt).
Those paying for the results of public employee union collective bargaining are the property taxpayers. So, it benefits everyone in the state who pays taxes to have control on the cost of benefits of public employee unions. Furthermore, the public employees can submit their case in the future, if this bill passes, to the voters at the ballot box for benefit increases. So, how is that only 5% benefitting and why should public employees not be subject to those who they serve, the taxpayer, for their pay increases?
Yes, as students of history we should look across the "pond" and recognize that social entitlement programs and unionized public labor are breaking Western European countries financially. We should recognize that we enjoy more freedom when we do more for ourselves rather than turning responsibility for everything over to the government to handle and trust them blindly to spend our money appropriately.
In WI specifially, as to whom is doing the bullying, is a matter of opinion. I see it in a different perspective than do you.
Last edited by lifelongMOgal; 02-20-2011 at 11:50 PM..
I think that is the point of doing all this--make teaching as unattractive as you can--drive down the quality of education while supposedly exhorting educators to do more with less (to turn water into wine basically), then to complain about the quality of education and how poorly schools are teaching so that they can justify turning public education over to private companies---
there some some people tied to big money/big families already hoping for this in a big way...
FDR also signed Executive Order 9066 which ordered Japanese Americans into internment camps against THEIR Constitutional rights of due process...just because he did it, did not make it right...
and just because Roosevelt did not sanction unions for teachers does not make them illegal or immoral...
IF you think the rights of a group of workers would not be abused by the "people" who employ them--because the "people" would always act with fairness in deciding salaries and working conditions--think again...The nature of Government--that Roosevelt mentions--is not meant to squeeze every dime it can out of the workingmiddle class to fund government spending and support low taxes on business interests --which is exactly what this Governor's budget is designed to do...
Do you think those teachers and state workers are living outside the state--they ARE the public -- as much as any other citizen is...
why should business interests which are third party entities--not individuals as much as the Supreme Court would like to maintain they are people--receive more relief from their fair share of providing for the common good ...
I agree that there should be reasonable compromise--
the teachers' union --at least one of them--apparently made that overture to the Governor and he turned his back--
AND if the Governor wants to have parity--then by all means have PARITY--make ALL public workers in unions abide by the SAME RULES--equal under the law--
that is not something he is willing to do AND it is likely not something that some of the unions are willing to do either...
I think that is the point of doing all this--make teaching as unattractive as you can--drive down the quality of education
Ahem, haven't you been following the inverse relationship between spending per pupil and dropping test scores?
Based on that evidence, we should SCRAP public funded education, for it's a "bad deal".
FWIW- the American education establishment is for credentials - not education. Anyone can learn any time, any place, any way. But one cannot get credentials from learning on your own.
That's why a "C" from Harvard trumps an "A" from Podunk community college.
There is pretty much no reason to be a teacher once the last bit of decent benefits are gone. I mean who would want crappy pay, crappy benefits, dealing with little bastards and dealing with entitled parents. It sounds like one of the seven circles of hell. Unfortunately we need a educated public for democracy to work.
From what I am reading the average salary of teachers in WI is over $100K before benefits. This is half again higher than the average income of the taxpayers stuck with the bill resulting from unionized public employee collective bargaining. I'll add that collective bargaining for public school teachers is a relatively new phenomenon dating only back to about 1980. Have our test scores and students been doing better or worse since 1980? Were they doing better before the federal government formed the NEA? In a word, YES.
I suspect most folks would rather see money spent on the students directly than comparatively inflated salaries and benefits for which the public employees contribute next to nothing of their own income.
Democracy does not work when democratically elected representatives break their oaths of office and purposely bring the process to a halt because they may be on the losing end of a vote. You see, they are supposed to represent ALL the people, not just unions who are the bread and butter of their political donations.
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