Scott Walker, the Koch Brothers, and the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page as Bull Connor

    By AmericanDreamer on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 10:12am |

    There are others here who could write this post a lot better than I could.  If I had the elementary technical skills to do so I'd paste in one of the iconic photographs of African American citizens being "pacified" or whatever Bull Connor thought he was doing with those fire hoses and police dogs.  If I were a cartoonist I'd figure out a way to substitute in for the folks on the receiving end of those assaults on their dignity and humanity any of the many subgroups of middle-class, or once middle-class, and poor fellow citizens who are getting hammered--impersonally, usually, but no less mercilessly or cruelly on that account--in our day.

    Here's the link to today's WSJ editorial, "Taxpayers Win in Wisconsin": http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704823004576192483295290652.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

    The Stephen Moore Club for Growth, "Plutocracy Oligarchy Capitalism Great, Democracy Not So Much" view of the world, in all its glory. 

    For you young 'uns out there, link to some basic info on Bull Connor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor

    Time for a Solidarity Summer in this country.  In which the labor movement extends open arms to interested individuals from all social classes, especially those not traditionally represented by unions, and all Americans of good will from whatever walk of life, to spend some concentrated time this summer learning how to organize a workplace. And in which plans are made in advance for whatever material support can be given to all of the individuals who will try to do this and will be fired by private sector employers as a minor cost of doing business, which is the reality in this country now.  All of which needs to be documented and publicized so that the broader public hopefully can come to see why we need changes in the labor laws in this country.  

    This resurgent labor movement will need to include a broader swath of Americans who heretofore have not seen labor unions as something they might want or even need.  To appeal to many more professional and technical workers it will need to be primarily about facilitating collaboration between workers and management on improving the product or service offered so as to enhance its quality and viability, but also about confrontation where necessary, where employers are seeking to treat workers unfairly.  Collaboration where possible, confrontation where necessary.  That's what the research shows about what these folks tend to want.  There are unions that walk that line successfully now.  It can be done.  It requires extremely skilled union leadership.  Which can be developed if it can be financed.  George Soros, or some enlightened very, very wealthy person, where are you?

    I blind emailed Amy Dean, who I don't know, yesterday.  She has a union background but a broader experience base on top of that.  (her latest book is A New New Deal, if you want to get an idea of how she thinks about the current situation.)  I asked her to write a HuffPo piece calling for a Labor Summer.  (but on second thought I prefer "Solidarity Summer" as a name.)  Just freakin' do it was my message, in different words.  No one from On High is going to tell the "correct" individual to step up (even though King did share an experience where after one of the numerous death threats he prayed to God and God told him to rise up, to stand up.  And maybe he interpreted that experience as a prompt for him to step forward and try to lead.)  No one or no entity told Martin Luther King, Jr. to step up in the ways he did.  He turned out to be the right person at the right time. 

    Thank goodness.  

    Amy's book was blurbed positively by Trumka, with words to the effect that today's labor movement cannot be the same as the labor movement of days gone by if it is to be effective.  Who knows if Trumka even saw, let alone wrote, the blurb, but I'm sure he knows Amy Dean.  I hope the two of them, and a small number of other really sharp and savvy people will talk amongst themselves about how to pull this off.  Now.  While the moment presents itself.  Trying to organize something like this by this summer will be incredibly difficult to pull off, even if financing does miraculously become available.       

    Comments

    "Solidarity Summer"

    I like the sound of that, AD.


    by wabby on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 10:24am

    That name, symbolized in the person and actions of Lech Walesa, seemed to work in Poland, or at least not get in the way.  I think it helps capture the moral high ground by conveying that this struggle is not best thought of as some zero-sum pushmepullyou tug of war where one "side's" gains have to be the other "side's" losses, and the economy flounders as a casualty of class conflict. 

    I think most of the attentive public is very well aware that we need to grow the economy and that we also need to focus more on products and services that help address the environmental challenges and are sustainable.  Workers have an enormous amount of knowledge about product and service quality, how to make it better, that often isn't tapped because those higher up the food change don't ask or aren't interested or receptive.  A great source of frustration to many workers who know full well that if their enterprise does not survive they'll need to find another job. 

    I don't think Obama was wrong to say we need to Win the Future.  I just disagree that some of the policies he has been promoting are effective in doing that (notably on education, for example, where we are really going off the rails and backwards with the so-called "education reform" agenda that dominates policy focus today).  And I think he also omits essential aspects of what will help us "win a future" that is worth winning.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 10:43am

    Wisconsin has been a galvanizing event, but it has been a reactive one. What drew the crowds to Madison was protection of the status quo.

    For the Wisconsin moment to become a movement, labor will need to attract a mass audience to a new positive agenda.

    From what I could tell from the blurbs and reviews, Dean's book is more about the mechanisms than the agenda--how to mobilize support for a New New Deal rather than what a New New Deal would look like. But maybe that's an inaccurate representation.

    In any case, let this be my challenge to the blog--What would a New New Deal look like?


    by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 12:54pm

    Amy Dean's focus is on regional-level coalition building.  As such, she has more of an organizer's perspective where the issue priorities are what the people in that community who get involved decide they are.  From what I know of her she is certainly looking to build coalitions among and between the labor, environmental, minority and progressive faith communities, as well as with willing business partners. 

    Some things I like about her are that she has hands-on experience trying to organize white-collar workers (Silicon Valley tech workers) so she is familiar with some of the challenges that presents, she understands the critical importance of coalition-building at the grassroots level and has much experience doing that, and she is young, in her 40s, and energetic.  I might be mistaken but I don't believe she is overly associated with either the Sweeney or the Stern camps which fought so bitterly a few years ago.  She represents a different face, one with a lot to offer, I think.

    One could question, of course, whether her strategy of supporting regional coalition building could be aggregated successfully at the state and national levels.   

    On your challenge to lay out what a new new deal might look like...great topic.  I'd like to see that one discussed under a separate thread.


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 6:01pm

    What would a New New Deal look like?

    Well, for openers, it would look like people coming together to protect and preserve the advancements gained in the Old New Deal. I mean, I ain't really asking for much, but regression to status quo ante ain't in the books, IMHO.

    Consider the above as the conversation in Washington continues - not along the lines of a New New Deal - but rather just how much we are willing to surrender of Medicare, Soc Sec, and even transparency in government and reform in the furtherance of the MIC, our highly profitable Imperial Capitalism, and those others in the category of "Those who matter" in today's political reality in Washington.

    The Old New Deal looks like a breath of fresh air compared to the hellhole to which the powers-that-be would prefer to assign us. The old looks new again, but we gotta fight for it or it all goes away.


    by SleepinJeezus on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 6:48pm

    The old New Deal was great, but it's 80 years old. Dreamer spoke of a new movement, but a new movement needs new ideals.

    Preserving the status quo will only mobilize people when they feel that the the status quo is threatened. In that case, labor's resurgence becomes dependent on the right wing. You can only get people marching in response to anti-labor initiatives.

    If you really want to revitalize labor, you needs a cause other than stopping Governor Walker's overreaching agenda. Labor had that in the 1930s. It was a force of progress. Now it's just a force of non-regress.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 2:06am

    I'm truly perplexed by your response. It lacks any coherence whatsoever, or else I am just totally missing the point.

    80 years old? What relevance does the age of the programs and the ideas have, other than to support the notion that they were sustainable and popularly positioned and now have the advantage of being a "settled matter" - the status quo, if you will? The New Deal defined the Middle Class as it was created in the last century. To now disparage it as an irrelevant relic would seem to buy into the Grover Norquist meme that the Middle Class is itself a relic of our "socialist past," that somehow we are better as a nation if we (the workers and our families) will just accept our proper place as non-participants in the neo-liberal economy. We are treated in Washington as if our role is to be newly proscribed as the "human resource" in this economy, nothing more.

    People are indeed becoming mobilized as they increasingly perceive the threat against the "status quo." And they are sounding the alarm and rallying as a force of "non-regress." It's a logical progression, really. You propose we somehow advance on Berlin, when it's first important to get to the boats at Dunkirk so we can live to fight another day.

    The Middle Class is quite rapidly awakening to the fact that they are in a fight for their lives. And it is this latest, most aggressive assault on the New Deal and our Progessive Socialist underpinnings that has them marching in the streets. To suggest they should simply abandon their identity in pursuit of discussions about redefining themselves is precisely the conversation that is occurring in Washington now, under the sponsorship of the Kochs and Norquist and Armey and those who have pre-ordained our surrender into THEIR desired reality.

    The people ain't buying it. Trash Medicare? Ain't happening. Slash Social Security? Don't even think about it. Permanent war and increased trillions into the MIC at expense of education and other domestic spending? Not a supportable choice. Tax cuts for the wealthy paid for by diminished social programs for the rest of us? In a pig's eye!

    The people know who they are. And they identify themselves - quite rightly - as a creation of the New Deal. And they don't really give a rat's ass if it's an identity that goes back 80 or 8 or 800 years. They just know that they expect it to be theirs tomorrow, and for many years to come. And they will fight you for it. Count on it.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 2:59am

    Right on, Sleepy. Genghis is wrong. We don't need no stinkin' new ideals.

    The key ideal the New Deal recognized was the dignity of labor. The people who ran the country then cut that deal because it was just over a decade since the Russian Revolution, and Americans -- impoverished by a financial collapse -- had also started taking to the streets.

    Now it's two decades since the Soviet experiment collapsed, and plutocrats have lost their fear. Why can't we just go back to the good old days when kids were sent to work the mines at age 7?

    So it's time to take to the streets again. Maybe this time we should forget about cutting a deal with these asshats and finish the job.


    by acanuck on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 3:22am

    I'm not disparaging the labor movement. I'm just trying to explain why it's no longer much of a movement. A movement implies progression, change.

    Threats to labor and social security will mobilize people, but the mobilization is entirely reactive. It depends on Republican efforts undercut the unions.

    There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm very glad people are fighting the Republican efforts, but some folks are comparing the activity in Wisconsin to the civil rights movement or the New Deal. Those efforts were proactive. It wasn't called the New Deal for nothing.

    So if you want to channel the recent energy into a powerful and enduring force that attracts the idealistic youth and doesn't go back to sleep whenever the Republicans shut up, you'll need some new ideas to strive for.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 10:16am

    Permit me to suggest a quote:

    Growth and change are the law of all life. Yesterday's answers are inadequate for today's problems—just as the solutions of today will not fill the needs of tomorrow.

    Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless they have fresh meaning for every new social situation.

    --Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address at University of Pennsylvania., Sept. 20, 1940

    And another:

    The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

    ---Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address at Oglethorpe University, May 22, 1932

    And a word: Reactionary


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 11:04am

    Thanks for the quotes.  One of the things I most admire about FDR was his ability to explain things with common sense.  

    I have never doubted that he was capable of making his case for even an 180 degree turn on every New Deal progam ever enacted if he deemed it prudent and necessary.

    He was a true leader and had few if any sacred cows.


    by EmmaZahn on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 12:00pm

    I just happened to be refreshing my past 'studies' (which consisted of basically reading all the major bios ) with some extra reading. You might also be interested in his Veto of the Bonus Bill; May, 1935; excerpt:

    I cannot in honesty assert to you that to increase that deficit this year by two billion two hundred million dollars will in itself bankrupt the United States. Today the credit of the United States is safe. But it cannot ultimately be safe if we engage in a policy of yielding to each and all of the groups that are able to enforce upon the Congress claims for special consideration. To do so is to abandon the principle of government by and for the American people and to put in its place government by and for political coercion by minorities. We can afford all that we need; but we cannot afford all that we want.

    Wikipedia on the Bonus Army: In 1936, a Democratic-led Congress overrode President Franklin D. Roosevelt's veto to pay the veterans their bonus years early. Belies the whole solidarity narrative one oftens sees in the blogosphere about FDR and the Dem Congress, not to mention that it shows he did not always give in to strong protest movements.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 12:27pm

    Perfect quotes, AA. Thanks.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:32am

    Oh and what's ironic (and almost hilarious) is that Scott Walker's political advisors obviously get what you are trying to say--his current damage control apparently is to spin the whole shebang as progressive and innovative. Depending on what he does hereafter with the laws he's enacting, I could see how that might actually work with some Wisconsin independents and swings, especially in the land of not just Republican/Progressive La Follette but also governors like Lee Dreyfus. And I really don't see a narrative of "Samuel Gompers forever" playing real well as an alternative version. But that's just judging by my own select group of family, friends,and acquaintances including business ones, in my home state of Wisconsin, mostly liberals, with a lot of working class in the older generation and many in my generation as well.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 12:44pm

    Does anyone consider the revocation of many of our free trade agreements and the implementation of some, or a lot, of trade protectionism, as a way to benefit the American worker and thus the whole of America. Of course, many have, but they get shouted down quickly by those who have accepted the reigning economic philosophy that free trade is unquestionably good for our country. One way to give the American worker some power to influence their wage and benefit package is to make the American worker a vital part of our economy while at the same time improving the fundamental strength of that economy. It seems to me that at the foundation of our countries wealth is its abundance of natural resources, its developed [though quickly degrading] infrastructure, and its hardworking people who can take those resources and turn them into a finished product, thereby adding value. Right now, the Chinese worker ispossibly a more vital part of our economy.


    One way that the American worker could be protected is to give to American workers jobs producing the things Americans want and need.

    How long ago was it that we heard how America’s economy was morphing into a service industry? I remember when the phrase “service economy” was starting to gain relevance and having conversations about it with my similarly simple minded union worker friends. Not being economists, we could not understand how we could mow each others lawns and give each other a good rate of pay for that service and all live happily and prosperously ever after. Never mind that we would have to buy our lawn mowers from China. We could though, see how a few people at the top of the supply train could get rich taking a very small profit off the sale of every single lawn mower imported into the country which no longer built lawn mowers and how that would be simpler than running one of several lawn mower production companies and dealing with all the complications of competition and labor relations with workers who wanted a fair share of the profit that comes from taking raw materials and adding value to them by turning them into an end product. Screw that, they said, lets have free trade instead. That will make a few Americans, those powerful enough and correctly positioned to implement free trade, filthy rich while the country  transfers into an “Information Economy”.

    The only area of production in which America still excels is in the manufacture of weapons and fantasy. Movies, which are a large percentage of our positive foreign trade, are only one form of the fantasy sold here and abroad. We give the weapons to some countries and other countries then need to buy weapons to stay “secure” and to maintain a “balance of power”. The result is a world in which we are further pushing our country towards banckruptcy because we feel the need to spend as much on our own military as the rest of the world combined does on theirs so that “we” can feel secure in a highly armed and pissed off world.

    A  warplane that costs a gazillion dollars to build and fifty thousand dollars an hour to carry out its function of killing people puts quite a few Americans to work but those same skilled workers could be building machine tools and solar arrays and wind generators and power grids and developing fuel efficient cars and high speed rail and myriad other products that would directly affect America in a positive way.
     Free trade has had the result of sending the manufacturing jobs to other countries. I realize that that has helped those countries but the question here is how to help America. Free trade has created a bubble of consumption that has eaten our countries wealth and is well on the way to finishing up the desert, which is America's credit.
     Maybe it is as important, and possibly a vital sequential step, for supporters of the American worker to push for a realignment of our trade policies as it is important to push for the right to bargain for their share of a shrinking, and spoiling, pie.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 1:53pm

    Yes I think about this argument, I think about it a lot when I see it. It kind of drives me nuts. I have always been mystified where this "American masses yearning for factory floor jobs and assembly line jobs" argument comes from.

    Absolutely some would be glad to get some right now in high unemployment areas in the rust belt, but it's not like it's their dream scenario for the future and for their children. When I see the argument I always suspect it's someone that would never deign to work at such a job himself or herself. Are you actually wanting such a job, will you yourself be down there to apply for it if they come up with some like next month? You really want to manufacture solar panels on an assembly line? Do you know any that say their dream is to do that?

    The people fighting in Wisconsin right now are schoolteachers, university employees, policemen, game wardens, social workers, agricultural extension workers, DMV clerks, systems maintenance of all types, data entry persons and the like. Are you saying they would be happy with more manufacturing so they could have manufacturing jobs instead?

    Furthermore, there isn't a working class Depression-era baby I know or knew (dead or alive) in my home state of Wisconsin, or those I've met elsehwere, that wanted their children or grandchildren to have factory jobs. They wanted them to do anything else, something else, preferably white collar.

    It was them that got the G.I. Bill (kind of a plan to diminish the size of the blue-collar working class, doncha think!?) passed so they could get off the factory floor or off the farm and into white collar jobs.

    The back pages of magazines in my boomer childhood were filled with advertisements along the lines of "get out of that dead end factory job, learn to be a TV repairman!" and every factory worker daddy I knew envied the truck drivers their freedom of the road or the mail carriers or consruction workers their freedom from the shop, the insurance and real estate salesman their commission work, the shopkeepers with their own business, and the yes, the teachers that mythically "had three months off in the summertime."

    Furthermore every single one of the Depression-era babies I know or knew, including my parents, were simply thrilled with the fruits of globaliztion and free trade, often nearly gaga over the ability to be able to afford on modest income things like TV's and washing machines that no longer cost 3 months wages, as well as everything from cheap microwaves to sewing machines to above ground pools to VCRS and rented movies to toys for the grandkids, and all manner of beautiful inexpensive clothing and home decorations, and later computers and cell phones.

    They love a bargain, made in Japan or China or wherever (where "somebody else's kids are working on the factory line now since we won WWII,") at prices preferably lowered even further with special sale days and coupons that cut merchants margins to the bone. To a one they get/got a high out of the bargain itself over the product purchased. I.E., more goods for less work, yay! (Reminds me that my illerate Polish immmigrant grandma, having raised a family of 7 on a farm while her husband worked full time at the foundry, would wander a store in her later years saying "goods! goods! goods!" in amazement at the bounty of stuff there was to buy compared to what was available in her past.)

    They are also proud that most of their children no longer have work on the factory assembly lines. And they loved that they were the first generation that were able to afford homes in mass that allowed for them to have some wealth at their death to pass on to their children.

    Who in the U.S. is actually going to make this stuff and be happy to continue to do it long term? Even the all the immigrants I know want their children to get out of factory work if they manage to be in such work in the first place. Many aren't in it from the start, if not part of the farm migrant group, they go into business or service work if they can avoid the Perdue chicken packaging plant that's just like what's in the home country, that's what they come here for.

    Maybe the next generation wants to see those jobs developed, is that what you think?  Even if so, they don't vote in midterms yet. And of the greatest generation still alive, they regularly show up at those elections like clockwork, and I think most of em still want to get our people off the factory floor.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 5:26pm

     Thanks for the response. I wish I could say thanks for the thoughtful response. I'd like to point out that nothing in my preceeding comment attempts to point out how to achieve a utopia where everybody loves their day job so much that they don't want to go home. The premise of what I said was that our economy has to produce something of value to be strong economically. I said that we cannot all live comfortably if we all belong to some menial level of the service economy or even if we all try to go into the information economy. Somebody has to make something and in doing so add value to raw materials by the work they do. We must have, in part, a manufacturing economy if we are to spend most of our wealth on manufactured goods. I said, in affect, that we cannot all be gardeners or writers, or artists, and sell each other roses and novels and pretty pictures while we buy cars and appliances and toys built in other countries. Maybe I am wrong to think that but you did not dispute that at all.  You did not address it in any way.

    Maybe we will have reached utopia for all when robots do all the work of building things but it won't be utopia for us if other country's robots are doing it in another country. If, in the meantime, we get back to a self-supporting economy we can get back to the point that workers will have real value and can collectively bargain for safe, clean, and comfortable working conditions at a job that will support a family. Then, on the way home they can buy a flower for their lover and a good book to read after watching a movie on the tube.  If the economy goes tits-up though, even the artists might actually starve.
     When we did have a strong economy based on manufacturing there were plenty of opportunities for people to do other things and many obviously made that choice. Not all manufacturing work is drudgery,though a lot is, and not all of it is done on the assembly line or with a pick and a shovel. Go, sometime, to a machine shop. if you can still find one, and see the beauty of a finely crafted machine part and the machines that make that part and observe the talent and education and skill it takes to produce it. Many machinists love their work and do it as a hobby when they get home.

     'You really want to manufacture solar panels on an assembly line? Do you know any that say their dream is to do that?' AA

     Do you think that is somehow degrading compared to building F-22s on an assembly line? I have worked on an assembly line and no, I did not like it but many are ok with it as long as they can pursue their other interests after work and don't have to take a second job just to get by.  I also worked outdoors doing manual labor for twenty years. There were parts of that that I actually did like quite a bit but I spent the last five years positioning myself to leave and do something else. Then I left and did something else. That something else included building and renovating a couple houses. I found it quite satisfying at times even though it involved vulgar namual labor.Almost all of my friends and work associates stayed at my old place of employment and I believe most of them are pretty happy with their situation in life and the fact that their union job lets them live comfortably, enjoy some toys and trips etc, as well as sending their kids to college, or the doctor when necessary. Their particular job is not under a great deal of pressure right now and most of them do not pay much attention to politics and do not give much support to their union and do not worry much that our country might go broke. They are still making good money hauling coal from Montana to Texas, Japanese cars from California to all point east, and thousand upon thousands of containers of other consumer goods from the Pacific rim manufacturers to disperse all over America. Talk to someone who works at one of the west coat ports. Almost all of those containers go back empty.
     Do you think that it is okay if all the assembly lines disappear from America just because you always had what you consider higher aspirations and apparently never saw a job on one as a way, even as a stepping stone, to achieve your goals and you just cannot imagine being such a primitive who would do manual labor for a paycheck and have a satisfying family life and a life of the mind at the same time.


    "Furthermore every single one of the Depression-era babies I know or knew, including my parents, were simply thrilled with the fruits of globaliztion and free trade, often nearly gaga over the ability to be able to afford on modest income things like TV's and washing machines that no longer cost 3 months wages, as well as everything from cheap microwaves to sewing machines to above ground pools to VCRS and rented movies to toys for the grandkids, and all manner of beautiful inexpensive clothing and home decorations, and later computers and cell phones." AA

    You know, ultimately we are not comparing depression era grunt labor jobs that payed starvation wages for workers doing dangerous and health damaging work and who could be discarded if they were hurt or became sick.  Of course nobody in their right mind would like to return to that era and a job which provided a living during those times, even if not plush, and allowed a person to work in a clean area while wearing nice clothes surely looked better, but I do not think that is the nature of the factories in China that manufactured your TV and Microwave and VCR and camera and on and on.
     I live in a college town where many graduates choose to stay. Many, though, would leave but cannot leave because they cannot find a job anywhere else, except maybe at another Walmart, to replace the job they have here at the local Walmart which drove out so many small businesses by being the most successful at providing an outlet for Chinese products. Those small retailers once sold American manufactured goods. Those small retailers provided many jobs that were similar to the  jobs at Walmart but being smaller gave each employee a wider range of duties and responsibilities and, I believe, must have been so much more interesting and pleasant to do and might have even engendered loyalty between the owner and the employees. Even if they did not require a degree in philosophy or art history to do well.  I have a tenant who works in a local high-tech electronics manufacturing firm. He is a technition and seems to do pretty well. His girlfriend works there on an assembly line. She left a job as a cocktail waitress in Nevada and says she is much happier, though she makes less money. The company's main contract is for communication gear for the military.

    AA, I am always impressed by your range of knowledge and the access you have maintained to so much pertinent information and your great memory. You would have made an outstanding librarian and they are valuable and some will have that job which is hopefully also their avocation as long as the economy is strong enough to make people willing to pay for libraries. It is a job that I couldn't have happily done. I would probably be happier doing manual labor as long as it wasn't killingly hard.  I often agree with you but don't  respond with an attaboy when I do which is something you anyway seem to disdain in the run of the mill blogger, but like you, I sometimes am annoyed at ridiculous drivel about wrongheaded ideas.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 7:57pm

    I agree with quite a bit of what you have written here AA, and I think in many ways you are absolutely correct.  Indeed, it is perhaps presumptuous and sometimes condescending to glorify assembly line blue collar work.  On the other hand, we are facing a new challenge economically with globalization, and it's not at all clear to me that there are opportunities away from the factory floor that can provide the kind of basic, economic stability of a 9-5 job on some dusty and noisy shop floor.  One thing you could say about so many of the disappearing rust belt jobs is that they provided basic healthcare and increasingly rare defined benefit pension plans.  As reflected in that article you posted from today's Times about pensions in the public sector, they are on the way out there too.

    So I'm really concerned.  I've been around unions and union members long enough to know that many of them would be utterly dumb-founded to have it suggested to them that they should be out there leading some kind of mass movement for "progressive" change.  And you are correct that the folks out there in Madison are by and large not the folks making steel and brewing beer.  That's just not the way people think just because they have a union card.  But I do think that it is important to point out as you do that part of the American Dream has always been to get your kids the education you never had so that they could move out of the factory, it is equally true that the loss of those factory jobs leaves quite a few American parents wondering what they can do until retirement (if retirement remains a realistic objective), and wondering what, if anything, awaits their children and grandchildren.

    And I don't pretend to have the answers.

     


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:01pm

    Agreed! The Madison Post Office announced last week that they are laying off 57 workers. That takes the force down to May of 1996 on the seniority level. Devastating!

    The question that would seem to be relevant here was posed to me by one of those in the crosshairs: "Where do I go from here to even begin to find a family-supporting job?" 

    There is no answer. And Obama's WTF cruelly offers nothing but perhaps the potential to become (as Obey puts it) "an innovative hobo." Others seem to think the answer is that we can all become Hedge Fund Managers or Masters of the Universe, despite the absurdity presented by the sheer numbers of jobs that are required versus the number of IT professionals and barristas we can employ.

    Talk all you want about the worker's preference for this type of employment or that. But in the end, they now confront abject hopelessness for anything like a better future for themselves and their children. And THAT'S a profound failure of our economic system to sustain our middle class, even as the profit-takers grow fatter and more rapacious as ever.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:59pm

    This is a fascinating discussion.  I offer it as exhibit A for why unions are a vital step toward our better future. 

    I couldn't agree more with the idea that no one in there right mind seeks an existense for themselves or their children toiling in a sweat shop.  But there is plenty of purpose and dignity to be found in creating and delivering the goods we all need and want.  It all depends upon how we organize ourselves for the task.  If we come together in the decision making to ensure safe working conditions and fair compensation, and we share in the rewards and responsibilities of bringing an idea to market, we create jobs folks from all walks of life can thrive in.  To begin to achieve these qualities we start with collective bargaining.  And what now amounts to a tough fight, eventually becomes the democratic control of the means of production. (Long story short.)

    It amazes me that my three year old son has so much enthusiasm about making things and driving trucks and building roads.  He knows something.  I'm convinced his enthusiasm will be maintained in direct proportion to his ability to share in the terms of his participation.


    by kyle flynn on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 5:37pm

    In a couple of years you can take him to this place. It will be full of inventers and craftsmen who love the chance to get their hands on.

    http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/03/techshop-san-francisco-video/


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 5:50pm

    Before you can even begin offering "new ideas to strive for," you must first have in place the narrative that suggests you are entitled to them.

    The present neo-lib narrative that consumes Washington is that the middle class is no longer entitled to participation in the economy as an owner; as agents who are entitled to a share of the pie as is the underlying premise of The New Deal. We are now assigned status as a human resource, nothing more. Grist for the mill which, if applied properly and with great efficiencies, will provide for an ever-growing "economy."

    Such things as Medicare and Social Security; Labor Rights and middle class living standards; environmental and all manner of regulations; these are all perceived to be drags upon the "economy." We can experience economic growth best by eliminating these inefficiencies that bleed profit from the system. So sayeth the neo-libs.

    Before we can even begin to press for new programs or new ideas that reflect a belief in the rights of workers to receive benefit from our economic enterprise, we must first reestablish our authority to make such a claim against the system. That comes by framing what is happening presently within a "class war" reference. It comes from sounding the alarm that we are in full-scale retreat away from the "social contract" (the New Deal) that supported the creation and sustainability of the middle class. And it comes in rallying the troops to fight back in asserting our rightful claim that the benefits of our economic enterprise must accrue to EVERYONE and not just to the Darwinian profit-takers at the top.

    We in the Labor Movement are up to our eyeballs in efforts to at last begin redefining the operative narrative in a way that reaffirms the tenets of the New Deal. It's exciting to see a reinvigorated middle class that's now saying "To hell with retreat and surrender into a future that doesn't support my interests! We're fighting back!"

    You seem to suggest, somehow, that we must instead turn our energies from this intense struggle to first define the terms of our engagement going forward to instead make our case for specific policies and ideas to promote within the present political reality. In my estimation, what you are suggesting is that we must continue to simply piss into the wind and see what trickles down upon us.

    I don't find much in that approach to recommend it, especially after thirty years of trying that very thing and suffering the consequences of allowing others to shape my destiny by redefining the "proper role" I will be assigned in the neo-lib world. I'd rather focus like a laser upon telling the other side to take their profits and their DJIA and their threats to export my livelihood and all the rest of their neo-lib construct and shove it up their ass. There's a war going on, and I ain't got time to negotiate peaceful coexistence with the enemy or, god forfend, complete the ongoing discussion in Washington that will provide the terms for our surrender.

    This war goes on, and I'm proud of those who at at last are fighting back and confident in their ability to prevail. It's an exciting time to be alive and to take a position at the front, even as others consider that this is "no longer much of a movement" at their peril.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 3:25pm

    While "class war" resonates with some because of the current dynamics, as rallying cry it tends to fall flat because it is built on win-lose proposition which is the inherent in a war, as opposed to a win-win proposition where the low income and middle income household win, but also so do the companies who are a major employer of those desired middle class jobs whether in the factory or the cubicle-land.  Unless you can provide an alternative employer who will provide the middle class jobs.

    Because the question is not about what you are willing to do, but about getting you sizeable back up as you charge into the breach.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 3:43pm

    The veiled threat that we must surrender our dignity in subservience to those who "provides the jobs" is no longer relevant. To be valued, a job must be described as more than simply something  to do with your free time. Wage cuts, "competitiveness," "efficiency," and all other demands have reached such a level of overreach that the prospect of the jobs being offered no longer hold any substantial or sustaining value. The workers are beginning to look into the future proscribed for them and react in horror. The old "bow down and worship the bosses" meme simply rings hollow at best. In fact, it is increasingly insulting to those of us who still believe in the dignity of the American worker. Insulting enough to drive workers into the breach, ready to stick in the neck any corpulent pig who stands in their way issuing such threats as you present here.

    It is not workers who have threatened the corporations ability to thrive and prosper, nor have we denied them their role to play as engines in OUR economy. But we will never allow the corporations to assume dominion over us. Not on my watch. And not for so long as there remains a working class that retains a shred of their dignity and their hopes and aspirations for the future health and prosperity of themselves and their children.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 4:46pm

    We're all entitled to use the rhetorical flourishes which make sense to us.  Lord knows I have mine (which don't resonate much at all with many here).  But lets think about say the middle manager in some local bank that makes 50K a year (and whose spouse maybe make something like 35K at some local company, too.)  Both have by country standards decent health care package and 401K plan (let's say the company does an automatic 3% contribution and will match another 3%).  This worker's supervisor is decent folk and tries to do right by those he or she oversees.  Where is all this talk about dignity.  Is this person going feel like a slave, that he or she is being severely abused by the company?  That the only way to improve their prospects is to take to the streets and man the barricades?  Probably not.  And while they might feel sympathetic and even empathetic to the plight of laid off workers or those who have take cuts in pay and benefits, they aren't going to jeopardize their own fiscal well-being for something like "dignity of all workers." 

    What seems to come across to me in your response is that what is important is not only finding a solution out of this mess, but that there is an application of some grand sense of justice to the situation.  In other words, it seems that the only acceptable solution is one in which those at the top suffer while those at the bottom rise.  Personally, if those if the bottom are able to rise, and those at the top who caused this mess get away scot free it won't bother me in the final analysis.  Because the simple fact, in the course of human history, the times the ones on the bottom ever benefited pales in comparison to the number of times those at the top not only stay at the top but get "richer."


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 5:48pm

    It is indeed a matter of Justice.

    "An injury to one is an injury to all."

    This really is more than a rhetorical flourish used to rally the crowd in Madison. It's a fundamental belief - a principle that lays at the very foundation of this Movement.

    That you cannot grasp the way in which such a principle translates into pursuit of a person's self-interest doesn't diminish its impact. It simply invites a sympathetic sorrow for those who have such barrenness of soul to insist that we're instead motivated by some kind of more closely defined selfishness.

    I've tried on your worldview, Trope. It really stinks! 


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:03pm

    Look, I spend so much of my time trying to convinve people that giving their money and their time to help a low income family become more financially stable improves the quality of life of everyone.  So having said that, I can count that you and everyone on this thread to give me their email addresses so I can get a financial donation for my particular organization and the work we do?  I mean if you don't give to my organization and the families we help then I will take that as meaning you just don't get how helping one family in my town helps us all.  I will feel sorry for your bareness of soul and how you are really just motivated by some closely defined selfishness.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:44pm

    Thanks Jeezus, I agree that establishing (or re-establishing) a narrative is critical, but it must not exclude new ideas, which are also critical. The two should go together.

    I'm also not arguing that you should redirect your energies. But I believe that someone out there must generate new ideas capable of capturing the country's enthusiasm and imagination if this movement is to thrive. And I suggest that the greatest flaw of modern progressivism--which has helped enable these conservative attacks on labor--is the lack of new compelling ideas.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:31am

    I don't think we are in substantial disagreement at all.

    I guess I remain unconcerned for now that these "new, compelling ideas" will somehow fail to be forthcoming once we manage to beat back this assault and actually get the forces in place to mount an offensive.

    This "resurgence" we've witnessed in the Labor Movement is in fact reactionary. After lying dormant for so many years, the troops are now being rallied (quite effectively!) in a defensive action to repel those who have targeted the working class for its destruction. It's an existential fight being waged, and the response is invigorating. The other side over-reached. They thought this was going to be a cakewalk, and they've encountered a strong resistance. The battle is not over, by any means, but it looks like there's a good chance to beat them back and to live to fight another day.

    And it is that "another day" that I believe is the focus of your concern. If we somehow succeed in beating them back to status quo ante and quit there, we most assuredly do nothing but assure they will be back on the assault as quickly as they can re-group from this rout - only with more guns and better strategies. 

    No, we need to continue the fight. And that involves going on offense by making inroads on their territory; by going at them hammer and tongs until they are beaten into such a degree of submission that they will sue for surrender.

    Having first planted our flag in announcing that we are at war and that we are righteously engaged on the side of the working families, we will need to go on the offensive. What does that look like? It means, for example, making incursions into the political landscape where it is determined that health care is a universal right that supercedes ANY corporation's right to make a profit from our health care needs. It includes a capture of the principle that all workers are afforded dignity and respect - and OWNERSHIP of their share of the profit and benefts of our common economic enterprise.

    I don't share your concern that there is a surfeit of plans on ways to legislate "compelling ideas" into specific policies and laws that support and enhance the resurgence of the middle class. ("Fair Trade" in place of "Free Trade;" reversal of Citizen's United; legitimate HCR; government reform of corruption; etc.)

    It's just that for now, attention remains focused on first beating back the vandals at the gates to offer some time and room to maneuver. Then, it will be important to make certain that we have in place all the resources necessary (sympathetic and uncompromised elected officials; strategic off-sets to corruption in the political realities; organization and strategy; etc.) to mount a counter-offensive that will overwhelm the enemy. And then we go full-bore to at last knock these fat bastards on their asses!

    And I see it all eminently doable within the context of that old relic, the Labor Movement. In fact, I don't see any of this war progressing successfully in defense and then promotion of the middle class in any other fashion. Solidarity, forever!


    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:37pm

    Yes, exactly, "another day" is my focus of concern.

    The trouble is that I don't know what going on the offensive means for labor in 2011. There are states that have been quietly rolling back labor protections, such as Indiana, which banned collective bargaining by state employees in 2005. So that seems likea good place to start, but what then? What's to keep the labor movement from going back to sleep?

    My concern is not that the labor movement has failed to produce new ideas in the past few weeks. The focus is rightly on Wisconsin, and new ideas don't come along every day.

    But where have the progressive innovators been for the past 30 years? We continue to read all the time about stagnant wages and income disparities, but I've read very few compelling proposals for dealing with it. The few ideas that are out there, such as job stimulus and taxing the rich, are nothing new and have frankly failed to capture average Americans' enthusiasm.

    In other words, what the hell is the New New Deal that Amy Dean referred to? What's in it? And how can it inspire people to fight for something other than preserving what they already have?


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 8:22pm

    HCR is precisely one such example of what might be included in a "New New Deal." And as we've seen it play out in present political realities, it becomes increasingly apparent that the corporations have veto power over everything. Single payer universal health coverage? Don't even think about it! Public option? Absolutely not! Cygna would never stand for that! Empowerment first, then the advance of ideas and Programs. And empowerment itself won't be easily won. In fact, the Kochs are fighting against it now like their lives depended on the outcome. They ain't interested in "making nice." They wish to continue having it all.

    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 9:06pm

    HCR was the last great unrealized progressive project (arguably still unrealized). Also not a particularly new idea.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 9:22pm

    Wow! This fascination with - and insistence upon - "new" is spinning right off into absurdity, IMO. The protection, stabilization, and sustainability of Soc Sec and Medicare isn't sufficient to motivate the middle class to now fight back hard against those who would simply abolish them? The need for a focus upon creation and sustained growth of family-supporting jobs doesn't do it? Clean government and accountability in govt and business and a voice in real democracy just doesn't stir the people to become engaged with the Labor Movement on it's present terms? It's gotta be something "new" to capture their interest? I don't see that working families are so concerned about "new" in their present circumstances. No, what I see is a very intense longing for those days when New Deal Programs and ideals were so well-established that we could all become fat, dumb, and happy in a complacency that assumed they would always be there as a basis upon which to build a just and fair society.

    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 10:53pm

    What do you mean by "new" ideas?  It isn't enough to have good ideas?  They have to be "new" as well?  Says who?  Will updated good ideas that have worked in the US past and/or in other countries, falling short of "never before thought of" ideas, suffice?  Why would "new" ideas, presumably inherently untested in any context, be preferable to updating "old" ideas that have worked well in actual historical circumstances and/or elsewhere in our day?

    I understand what you're saying about being able to inspire people.  Although I think that may be overrated.  Those who are feeling under intense assault may have a more durable source of motivation than those pursuing the latest idea on how to build a better mousetrap, never tested, cooked up in some think tank or offered by some pundit biased against, or simply bored with, what does not claim to be new.  

    Is it innovative policy ("reform"?) per se that is suggested as necessary (and for political purposes, policy purposes, or both?) Or good, effective policy?  The two are not the same. 

    It's an excellent question you ask.  If no one else beats me to it I'll start a thread that tries to offer some thoughts in response to your question on the substance of a progressive agenda, and invites others to do likewise.  I might not get to it until late this week or next weekend. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 10:01pm

    Let's go with new good ideas.

    You don't necessarily need new ideas if you're still fighting for old ones. But the progressive movement is a victim of its success. Labor made huge strides in the first half of the 20th century, which paved the way for the growing middle class of the second half. Since then, labor gains have been very small by comparison.

    In the 60s, progressives shifted their focus to civil rights, race/gender equality, and safety nets. Again, they made huge strides. And the gains since the 1970s have again been relatively small. HCR is the last of the Great Society objectives.

    The question is what's next? Where do we go from here?


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 1:30am

    Just to elaborate a bit, psychological research (applicable beyond late 20th/early 21st century American subjects, who relatively speaking, if not always as they see it, materially and with respect to personal freedoms "have" a lot?) confirms what community and labor organizers know--that people will do more to avoid a perceived harm than to attain a perceived good.

    The fundraising appeals the Dems and Reps send out don't lead with "we have some new ideas to make a better society".  First they establish a narrative whereby the reader is reminded that s/he is under assault by the bad guys.  If it's a Dem letter it's the Republicans who are bound and determined to destroy our middle class. If it's a Rep letter it's the socialistic Democrats who despise your success and will stop at nothing to take it away from you. 

    Remember the conversation we had awhile back on victim envy, not as something limited to one political philosophy or party but as, arguably, a cultural characteristic?  All of that is rooted in a belief, pretty well-founded, that if you're trying to get people to do something the best short-term thing you can do is get them worked up about the injustices that are being inflicted on them by those so-and-so bad guys.

    I am suggesting that I think this is a "good" thing, just that this seems to be the (dominant--some people don't just they are repelled by negative appeals while responding to them anyway, but really are repelled by negative appeals; some people are motivated to a far greater degree by positive, non-protective aspirations) the way things are. 

    It is not at all unproblematic.  One could make a case that these dominant tendencies don't just reflect, but actually foster, conflict and social discord, and undermines the kind of social trust that arguably is necessary to create a society founded on a much broader and deeper sense of mutuality, or solidarity, if you will.


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 9:19am

    I'm somewhat familiar with the efficacy of scare tactics. ;)

    But I wasn't really addressing positive vs negative tactics so much as new vs old ideas. Even scare stories get stale. In the 70s and 80s, the right was obsessed with secular humanism. There were books, documentaries, and parent meetings about it. You never hear the word anymore.

    The left does it too. Two years ago, no one had even heard of the Koch brothers. Now it turns out that they're vanguard of the evil corporate oligarchs, and liberals feel obliged to curse them every third breath. In another two years, I expect that we'll be on to some new villain.

    The most powerful new ideas, however, tend to be the big positive ideas that drive movements. Those movements may incorporate both positive and negative tactics. Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative sparked an ideological revolution on the right that led to Ronald Reagan's presidency. It also spawned two spinoffs, neo-conservatism and cultural conservatism, which contributed to Gingrich's Republican Revolution, George W. Bush's presidency, and the Tea Parties.

    By contrast, liberals haven't produced any new big ideas since the 1960s. That's why we're now forced into the position of struggling to sustain the fruits of our old big ideas.


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 11:29am

    Not sure about this, "liberals haven't produced any new big ideas since the 1960s."

    That is, the Conservatives haven't really either, as you can trace the rise of the Right back at least to the 1960's and Goldwater.

    Now, I'm not sure you can really credit "liberals" with producing them, and yes (as always) the roots run deeper, but the environmental movement, as well as the latest wave of the women's movement, really launched in a mass way in the late 60's and 1970's.

    Since then, we've also seen the rise of the Internet, and oddly-enough, I'd argue that much of its culture and m.o. flow from the environmental movement as well as liberal ideals. Yes, there's a "libertarian" element (though you might just as easily label it "anarchist"), but whatever it is, it's not "conservative" in the traditional sense (of authority, hierarchy, etc.); nor is it a creature of the rich; nor is it being created or controlled by existing large corporations; etc.

    In short, there are lots of ideas out there large enough to spawn world-changing movements - which in turn generate more ideas. What I would argue is that the "liberal" political creed hasn't done the serious work of fully-integrating and transforming its beliefs with these views at the center, as opposed to merely attempting to incorporate them as "special interests." 


    by quinn esq on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 5:04pm

    I was thinking about the women's movement, though not environmentalism. In either case, I'm happy to push back the last big liberal idea by a couple of years.

    The Internet isn't an idea, but I guess that you could call the democratization of information a big idea. I agree that political liberals have not made it a core element of the platform, as evidenced by the muted debate about net neutrality. I can't imagine it spawning a movement equivalent to the women's or labor movements, but that could just be a failure of imagination.

    Conservatives are still trying to implement Goldwater's ideas, as well as the neo-con and culture war initiatives of the late 1970s and 80s, so the ideas still have potency. They've been successful on guns and somewhat successful on taxes and deregulation, though not nearly as much as they'd like. Culture war goals like banning abortion still largely elude them.

    As I mentioned previously, liberals are a victim of their own success. For instance, feminism is a dwindling issue on college campuses largely because the women's movement was so successful (which is not to say that its work is done).


    by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 5:41pm

    BTW, were/are any of these Conservative ideas in any way "new?" Even in the 60's or 70s?

    e.g. Guns... taxes... regulation... God... wimmen... Commies... anti-liberals/socialists... etc.?


    by quinn esq on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 6:30pm

    In short, there are lots of ideas out there large enough to spawn world-changing movements - which in turn generate more ideas. What I would argue is that the "liberal" political creed hasn't done the serious work of fully-integrating and transforming its beliefs with these views at the center, as opposed to merely attempting to incorporate them as "special interests." 

    Interesting.  I said I'll start a New Deal 2.0, or a New New Deal? thread to pick up on this thread subtopic if no one else has gone ahead and done so, probably not until Friday or this weekend.  I hope you'll elaborate on what you wrote above and offer your thoughts, quinn.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 6:02pm

    In line with sleepin' and acanuck's replies, I'm not sure there is a need for a new ideal.  What would that mean? Is it possible to invent an ideal never before thought of? Is that even desirable? 

    But the world is different in many ways than it was when earlier labor movements were born.  So there may very well be a need for modified means to attain some old--and venerable--ends and ideals. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 7:36am

    Maybe ideal was the wrong word. I'll settle for new ideas. Americans had many great ideas in the 19th and 20th centuries and worked hard to achieve them--from labor laws to civil rights protection. People rallied around these ideas and pushed the country forward.

    But with the exception of the last few civil rights barriers and progress towards universal health care, we're not really moving forward at this point, and there aren't a lot of new ideas out there that I am aware of. When you lose momentum, you risk the possibility of reversing direction, which is what has been happening lately. So without new ideas, we're doomed for more Wisconsin battles just to preserve what we've got--or perhaps worse, a slow, quiet regress.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 10:56am

    For a movement to be able to sustain itself over the long haul, it needs the prize upon which everyone keeps their eyes.  The civil rights movment that started in the 50s in earnest was about such grand ideals like human dignity and the end of racial discrimination.  But the prize was what eventually manifested itself in the Civil Rights Act. 

    Something similiar is needed for the labor movement, something that can gain broad support across the country.  One of the reasons that the Civil Rights Movement was able to prevail in the end was because the cause had a the force of morality which eventually could no longer be denied.  This is harder to achieve when it is a matter of production being moved from a union shop to a non-union shop, where the pay and benefits are less but still not at the level of a "sweat shop."  Part of the problem is that for many, capitalism, the "free market" and the right to make a profit have the force of morality behind them. 

    Maybe it is because I cannot see what that idea or ideas are which would constitute the prize in this country when it comes to a labor movement is why I don't see much happening from Wisconsin beyond stoking the dems in places for the next election.  Which is no small thing.  But what will get the workers in Topeka or Boise to come out into the streets and march in solidarity 6 months from now?  No clue.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 11:33am

    But what will get the workers in Topeka or Boise to come out into the streets and march in solidarity 6 months from now?

    How about no gas and no food?


    by wabby on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 12:00pm

    When I say the workers I am mainly thinking of the ones who are employed.  And while the price of gas is high, there is gas, and while the price of food is going up, there is food.  I don't remember during OPEC crisis when we were also dealing with inflation people even remotely going into the streets.  Even in the recent past when Bush was president and gas was hitting 5 dollars a gallon in places, it wasn't getting people out into streets in large numbers.

    But here is the significant question.  Even if the pressures of filling up one's tank and stocking one's cupboards gets them into the street, what is exactly that we're going to be all demanding?  The tea party shows it's not to hard to get people to rally to say "I don't like this" and "I'm outraged about that."  And that outrage may be completely justified.  But if it going to be a sustainable progressive movement, there has to be something about the solution to the outrage.  This is where I think we are still fractured as a society.

    Which is a significant force behind the desire for another FDR or MLK to come along and save us from ourselves.  Someone who can articulate a destination, a prize, we can all agree to and which we can rally around, march arm and arm towards, and be willing to suffer the attack dogs and firehoses and whatever else is thrown in the way. 


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 12:30pm

    Well, I was talking about the workers that are employed, too.  The ones with and without representation by a private union who just got a pay cut because the public union workers took a pay cut before they did.  This is six months in the future we are talking about, are we not? After the oil fields are done being blown up in Libya and the corn crop dries up from a drought, who knows what the situation will be.

    As for your significant question, "What are we going to be demanding?"

    How about the return of bargaining rights for starters?

    As I have said before, wages, benefits and pensions are only side issues of what the real fight is about.  This, what is happening now, is about keeping the right to offer input as to working conditions, safety, problem-solving, etc., so that the end result of whatever job the worker does is done properly, in a cost efficient manner.  Workers are not unaware attention must be paid to the corporate/business/government bottom line.

    Genghis is wrong when he says we are only fighting to maintain the status quo.

    The fight is for the return of the status quo.

    The aftermath of OPEC was when the word 'consession' started popping up with more frequency in labor negotiations.  The little give backs that started 30+ years ago have snowballed into the union busting that is happening right now.  Gutting wages and benefits is nothing when compared to losing dignity in the workplace.

    It took some searching, but I found a blog I wrote nearly two years ago showing the erosion of union strength.

    The Long Slow Goodbye

    Unions, public and private, have NOT maintained their status quo. 

    This fight is to regain it.

    As for FDR or MLK...here is where I again differ in thought from many here at dagblog...a single political or social leader is not necessary for this movement (although 'movement' sounds kind of ...pantywaist to me).  A coalition of group leaders is enough, preferably all of whom can keep their ego in check.  It's harder to squelch a bunch of opinionated so-and-so's than it is just one. 

    This is not a job for politicians anyway.

    This is a job for people.


    by wabby on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 2:35pm

    I will speak here of my personal situation.  I am in the nonprofit sector.  We don't have a union and most of us are considered exempt workers (ie work 60 hours a week and we still get the same pay).  In my organization, we all have had our wages frozen for the past two years, and it looks the same going into the next budget cycle because of the economy's impact on fundraising.  The only way to get a raise is if we let someone go.  There just isn't enough money to do otherwise.  In fact this year, staff may have to decide whether to take a pay cut so everyone keeps their job.  If you came into our office and started talking about collective bargaining, it would roll off everyone.  All the collective bargaining in the world would not change our budget situation.  We know "management" and our Board of Directors would like to give us a raise. 

    (I would add that I am in the rust belt and our local economic downturn has been going on for over a decade as the factories have closed down and all the union jobs have been lost.  Over the years I have been privy to a lot of different conversations, and I can say that most of those in the nonprofit sector in this area, many who grew up in the area, will come into any conversation about unionization, etc with the scales balanced against it.)

    In short, collective bargaining for all is something I just don't see as getting folks from the charities to the banks out in the streets.  That is just my opinion about the "reality" on the ground.  It definitely will be hard to show people how fighting for that is going to help them put gasoline into their SUVs in the here-and-now. 

    And on last point, as I my point to most of the staff in my office being exempt employees, is that the traditional division of management vs worker doesn't translate well to many companies, where a sizeable portion, especially those which make up the Middle Class which we're all trying to pull into this movement, would be considered closer to management than the workers (with the added point that many of these folks if not management per se are in the process of working to to become management - in the similiar way that demonizing the upper classes doesn't work on a number of the Middle Class because they see themselves as being one of them in the future, and want the benefits currently given to the upper class.)


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 2:58pm

    Collective bargaining doesn't mean crap to a whoooole lot of workers, trope.  They don't make the connection between how they are treated in their workplace and the reasons behind that treatment.  They just know they get a break for lunch and some vacation time with pay every year.  Usually, they believe it is because of 'some law' the government passed.  They don't have a clue that their respectful treatment by management came by way of sometimes violent and deadly protests of working conditions. 

    Here's a point I would like to make.  Not everyone is gonna drop what they're doing and run out into the street with a clever sign.  Not everyone is gonna get excited.  No one is saying they have to.  I get the impression from what you write that this has to be a mass event, that every citizen in the country has to take part.

    You know, it doesn't even have to be a majority involved to restore balance to what labor has lost.

    It just has to be enough.

    You have also been saying that the voters elected these union busting governments into power so it's the people's fault.

    Well, that's true.  Sorta.  Half truths and opaque agendas will net results such as that.  After all, like part of that old Lincoln quote...you can fool all of the people some of the time.  But, sooner or later it comes back to bite you in the ass.

    When you cast a vote for a candidate, you cast a vote on faith that, if elected, that candidate will do what's best for the constituency as a whole, not just for the constituents who are members of their political party.  Thinking this may put me in a minority here.

    But, the voters were betrayed and now there is a disconnection of voter faith.  If nothing else, maybe that will bring the people out into the streets.

    *******

    That's too bad that the organization you work for has frozen your wages.  Still, it's better than having your income decrease by 2/3 over the past four years like what happened to Mr. flowerchild.  He's been layed off since November because work has dried up.  He's not union, either.


    by wabby on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 4:35pm

    And while no one is "happy" about having their wages frozen, everyone understands why.  Everyone is basically just happy to still have a job.  It has nothing to do with someone attempting to abuse them. It's just the nature of sector at this time where many nonprofits have had to scale back their staff.  And I'm sorry about Mr. Flowerchild.  My brother who is in the construction business, nor is his specialty one which has a union, has been out of work for over a year now.

    And as I have pointed out in some fashion before, even as a drug abusing teenager I saw how Reagan went after the air traffic controllers, and my fellow cultural rejects and I were aware that Republicans were out to go after the unions.  If we aren't going to scrap this experiment in democracy entirely, we have to accept results of the voting behavior of the people and work like hell to bring some enlightment in between the trips to polling booths.  Blaming the Kochs and the Rushes is just looking for an excuse not to put the responsibility where it ultimately belongs in a country that is built on the principles of democracy. 

    And in the end, what is "enough"?  Are we really willing to allow the minority to dictate policy and legislation because they are motivated enough to disrupt things?  This is all fine and good when one agrees with that minority.  But what about the radical tea party folks?  If "enough" of them take to the streets, should they be able to drive the direction this country takes?

    The right of the majority while protecting the minority in a democracy is never easily solved.  No matter what the issue.  But what I think is being talked about here in a broad sense is leveraging Wisconsin et al and building something that is undeniable majority in the nation, one which by its sheer numbers imposes its will on the powers to be.  And how to make this happen is the question. 


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:07pm

    "Everyone is just happy to have a job?' Everyone, Trope?

    I can't speak for everyone, but I'd actually prefer a rich girlfriend.

    Meanwhile, that job's gotta mean something more than "something to do with my spare time."

    When I look at the redistribution upwards of wealth and income as has occurred these last thirty years, your insistence that "everyone understands why" they must take additional cuts in wages and wealth is laughably absurd.

    But it's your story to sell. I invite you to go to the Square in Madison and tell it to the assembly gathered there: "Be thankful you've got a job!"

    I think they've moved beyond such "gratitude," but I could be wrong. But you remind me how remarkable it is that they have remained non-violent in response to such insult for so long.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:18pm

    Part of my perspective may have to do that the vast majority of the revenue we receive comes from those companies and individuals which are on the "other side."  If these executives and management folks didn't open their "check books" to help the poor and disempowered (not to mention volunteer their time), we'd have to close our doors.  As I remarked before, there is certain insanity in the individual who will fight to reduce their taxes by $500 and then turn around and write a check for $5,000 for the free health clinic.  I've seen it too many times.

    But the point is that even if we had the strongest, most robust union in the world, it wouldn't have been able to increase our pay.  In fact, the Board of Directors has allowed our overhead to rise above the generally acceptable limit.  Which makes it difficult when someone calls and asks how cents of every dollar actually goes to direct services.  But keeping from throwing another person into the realm of the unemployed is more important than 83 cents of every dollar and 79 cents of every dollar.  Right?

    In the end, it is all a case by case basis.  My job puts me in contact with a number of business owers, the kind that have 120 or 200 employees.  Not your mega corporation (not many of those around here).  They personally haven't seen any huge surge in wealth.  They've seen their wealth flat line at best (what with the stock market).  They struggle to not lay people off, and I believe really do care about their employees.  Some of them are union shops, others not.  But in one particular case, there were concessions to be asked of the workers, not so more profits could go into the owner's bank account, but so that they could keep everyone employed.  Because of the relationship he had built with his employees, they went with the concessions.  And I might add it wasn't a union shop.  Which is not to say unions don't play a role.  But reducing every situation to the same dynamic is not only wrong, it hurts the union movement.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:34pm

    Actually, Trope, your belief in the beneficence of the "free market" probably DOES represent a substantial point of departure between me and you. To me, corporations are amoral, at best. Any wealth accumulated at that level is not available for redistribution unless - and only unless! - it somehow is deemed to contribute to the profit line on the spreadsheet. It's written into their charters. Profits matter. And nothing else is allowed to get in the way of profits.

    Corporations are not social animals. They are not "people." They are engines (or instruments; tools) that drive the economy. Nothing more. They should require no more wealth to accrue to them than is necessary to ensure their growth and stability. The rest of the "profits" or benefits gained from this economy should be available for the betterment of society in the aggregate, not just the elite class of profit-takers who are presently so "inefficient" that they demand more and more of our financial resources at the expense of the common good. It's time we put them on a "low wage - low benefit" diet to increase THEIR productivity and THEIR efficiency. We've done more than enough already, as reflected in the growing gaps in wealth and income between middle class and upper.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 1:05am

    And ultimately, Trope, your expressions of some kind of fealty to these fat bastards as our supposed "benefactors" simply reminds me that it is hopeless to assume that the proper messaging for this Movement will be adopted by all.

    But that's ok. We've got the advantage in the numbers of people who are at last saying they aren't buying that bullshit anymore. We've got you covered.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:43pm

    Trope, I'm just curious, when you say you're exempt from overtime, on what basis do you say that?  I guess the simple question is, if you worked 55 hours one week, would your pay be reduced from what it would be if you worked the 60 hour week?


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:03pm

    It means i'm salaried.  I get the same amount each payday regardless if I work 55 hours or 30 hours.  There is the benefit that if there is a snow storm and the office closed for the day, I still get the same pay as if it was open, as opposed to the person who is working on hourly basis.  Since this person didn't work, they don't get paid.  On the other hand, when the job requires me to be, say at some special event in the evening or the weekend, then I have to be there, do my job and my pay is still the same. 


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:11pm

    Thanks, I didn't mean to pry.  It's just that there are so many people in the workforce who are under the assumption that they are exempt from overtime benefits when, in fact, they're eligible for overtime.  It sounds like you're a true "salaried" employee and then the only other question would be whether the job you have falls within one of the exempt categories under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  You'd be surprised at how many people don't get paid overtime and are really entitled to it.  People might be into checking out the link below and apply it to their own circumstances.

    http://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/faq.htm


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:18pm

    Just checking, bslev. I work @63 hours per week, all at "straight time." I'm a truck driver (non-unon) employed by a contractor for USPS, and I am exempt (I'm told) under provisions of Davis-Bacon Act. I believe this is correctly applied, although I certainly have other concerns about the way other H&W provisions, etc., are applied. How does one ever get an informed review of the law and its application? Any reference you can provide? (Apologize for the trolling for free advice, but you DID raise the question. ;O)


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:26pm

    Hey SJ,

    Yea I wouldn't wanna start practicing law on the internets, but there are motor carrier exemptions from overtime, that may or may not be applicable to your situation.  Here's a link that may be helpful to you:

    http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Mar/16/131327.html


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:30pm

    Thanks! It's helpful.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:43pm

    Sorry AD, don't meant to go OT, but I'm going to put a pretty good link below on overtime exemptions from an Albany law firm I have no affiliation with.  See below.


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:38pm

    Oh no problem at all, Bruce.  Glad someone might end up getting some short-term tangible benefit out of the thread. Smile  I hope the requests for a little pro bono legal advice don't discourage you from writing at dag more frequently, as your time and inclination permit.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:54pm

    Thanks AD, the pro bono thingie is no problem at all; it's those ethical obligations and stuff about practicing in a jurisdiction where one might not be admitted, etc.  Excellent post from you as always.


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 7:03pm

    It is definitely the one area that is most screwed up in the arena of "human resources," usually not out malvolence but ignorance.  I have done a lot of research on the topic, in part at one point, believe it or not, to fight someone who was trying to keep me from working on the weekend.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:38pm

    Agreed.  It's a nightmare.


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:41pm

    IMO, a New New Deal must start with a dispassionate evaluation of how well those systems accomplish what they are supposed to; what new problems they may have caused; how they have been subverted or abused; and, whether new information and new technologies can better accomplish their missions.  On second thought, reclarifying their missions for new generations probably would be a better place to start.

    Treating FDR and his New Deal as sacred cows is as wrong as conservatives treating him and them as if they were Satan and Hell incarnate.


    by EmmaZahn on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 12:21pm

    This comment of yours has been rattling around in my head a couple of days now.  Frankly I can't figure out what you mean.  Of course the goings on in Wisconsin are reactive.  It's the nature of class struggle.  The progressive movement, by definition is reactionary.    And nothing regarding its agenda, new or old, is negative.  Again, by definition, the agenda of the progressive movement is positive.  As for your challenge, the "New New Deal" looks every bit like the "Old" one, which itself was simply a continuation of a class struggle, at least decades in the making,on our way to a better world for all.  The notion that what's happening now is merely an attempt to protect the status quo is a terrible mischaracterization.  It's merely the logical next step with a hundred more to follow.


    by kyle flynn on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 4:31pm

    I share you perplexity, kyle. But I think maybe we got a handle on the distinctions and agreements upthread. I'd be curious to get your perspective as I await Genghis'.


    by SleepinJeezus on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 4:37pm

    I've followed this thread closely.  Facinating discussions.  Those distinctions to which you refer help some, but still leave me scratching my head.  Unfortunately elbow room on this blog is at a premium.


    by kyle flynn on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 7:57pm

    April 4 is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's murder, as he campaigned in support of striking black sanitation workers. The AFL-CIO has just decided a good way to honor his example would be a Nationwide Day of Action on that date. The theme is simple: Stand Up for Workers' Rights.

    Member unions are planning rallies and other events, and the NAACP is on board too. People sometimes forget labor rights are at their core civil rights.

    "On April 4 this year, the anniversary of Dr. King's death, we will stand together across this country for those same human rights and human dignity for working men and women," the call to action states. "We will remember the courage and determination of those 1,300 workers who endured assault and arrest as they walked a picket line for two months, as we stand with public workers whose bargaining rights are under attack, with private workers who can't get bargaining rights, and against those politicians and their allies who want to silence our political voice."

    So there's the start of your Solidarity Summer.


    by acanuck on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 2:59pm

    So there's the start of your Solidarity Summer.

    It could be...if the people it would take to develop and implement a strong plan for a Solidarity Summer don't, to too great an extent, have the time they would need to do that taken up with the April 4 event.  April 4 could lead nicely into a Solidarity Summer.


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 6:05pm

    I thought civil-rights and labor-movement activists honoring their common goals and common history was exactly what you were talking about. Also that the development of the solidarity you call for would necessarily be an organic process. Exactly who do you think is going to organize the coming-together of energies you envision? I don't see April 4 as a one-off before everyone heads off to the cottage. Maybe you do. Sorry if I'm testy.


    by acanuck on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 11:03pm

    Not sure if I'm understanding you.  The April 4 as I understand it is consciousness-raising.  Solidarity Summer would be much more structured, down to brass tacks, skill and knowledge building for individuals seriously interested in trying to do workplace-based organizing.  That was the thought I had, at any rate. I'm not at all sure there would be enough time to pull something like that off by this summer even if a decision to try were made by people with authority to do so today.  


    by AmericanDreamer on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 11:32pm

    There are no "people with authority to do so." George Soros can't descend from heaven with bags of money, a schedule and an organigram. If he did, it wouldn't work. Like I said, it has to be organic. Organizers from different groups, with different agendas, have to get each others' email addresses, exchange ideas, pass the good ones on to others, refine them further, and get started implementing them. And the way that begins is by first working together.

    Like by merging forces for a a "consciousness-raising" event like April 4. Your reference to Bull Connor is what reminded me of April 4 (and what the AFL-CIO is calling for). I mentioned the NAACP specifically, but other groups taking part include La Raza, the National Urban League, American Association of People with Disabilities, Center for American Progress, Common Cause, the Sierra Club, and many more.

    It isn't totally bottom-up, of course. You have to start at the level of people who are already active, already engaged. But consciousness-raising is an unalloyed good, so there's no question of any of the effort going into April 4 being wasted, even if nothing structured comes directly from it. But if there is any eventual realignment and coalescing of energies, it's going to come from people at the grass roots recognizing their common interests and common threats. Like you said, solidarity.


    by acanuck on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 2:55am

    And we're in agreement, the process is going to take lots more than one summer. We've got time.


    by acanuck on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 2:58am

    I'm not sure we disagree.  I might not have been clear in what I wrote so I'll try to clarify.

    You can bet your bottom dollar that the kinds of conversations you talk about *are* taking place, in response to assaults on labor and labor's membership in literally just about every US state (legislation seeking to reduce pension benefits for public employees has been, or is expected to be, introduced in 49 state legislatures this year, for example.), and now galvanized by the response to the Madison uprising.

    My thought was that if someone with stature (roughly, someone who might be able to get a conversation with George Soros) advocates a Solidarity Summer, say at HuffPo where it will get attention, that could stimulate or advance discussion ("wow--people high up with ties to the labor movement look like they're really serious about this!") among grassroots activists.  If the AFL-CIO is focused exclusively right now on April 4 and is not necessarily thinking about a Solidarity Summer to follow after that, a HuffPo column from Amy Dean saying, in effect, "Let's do this." might stimulate or advance those conversations.

    I guess I am assuming that if there is going to be a Solidarity Summer event focused on skill and knowledge-building for a wave of organizing efforts soon, the AFL-CIO and perhaps other big players who either have resources or who can get conversations with Soros types who do, would need to be having focused discussions on that right now.  Maybe those kinds of conversations are happening right now for all I know.  What I'm saying is that having people who have standing, people such as Amy Dean, publicly push this kind of thinking seems to me as though it could only help increase the chances that the necessary further conversations to pull something like this off could happen.

    That was my thinking, at any rate. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 7:50am

    Further clarification--I mention Soros because building or rebuilding durable, sustainable institutions for the long haul struggle takes resources far in excess of what US organized labor has on hand.  It wouldn't have to be him--in fact, better if there are more other wealthy people who are helping out. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 7:56am

    If you two could stop agreeing for a moment, the rest of us could perhaps focus on the task at hand - hating Genghis. Personally.

    If you think about it, cross-site, unanimous support for this one little idea - this "seed of freedom" if you will - could do more to bring together progressives, liberals and gutless, pathetic centrists than all the so-called "policy" debates we've been having. 

    [Joke done, these sorts of movements and events - headed toward something like a Solidarity Summer - often grow and change as much as a result of the personalities, odd actions, offhand comments and unusual events that arise as much as planning, agendas, etc. You know, things like crank calls to the unwary pol. Not saying not to do the work, just saying... I wonder how this will unfold?][And now, back to "Genghis Hatred & Solidarity Summer.]


    by quinn esq on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 1:09pm

    Multitask, quinn. Learn to multitask.


    by acanuck on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 4:41pm

    The power grab in a nutshell, Marketwatch Washington Bureau Chief, Rex Nutting, channeling Michael Moore in:  "Capitalists Tighten Grip":

    This country is a mess: Twenty million people can’t find a decent job. Twenty million live in a home that’s worth less than what they owe on it. Forty-three million can’t afford to eat without handouts from the government. Health care is increasingly expensive and humiliating. Retirement is out of reach. Our bridges and roads are crumbling. Our children aren’t learning.

    But there’s one group that’s doing just fine: the capitalists, you know, the people who own just about everything, the people we work for, shop for, die for.

    Things look pretty good from where they sit, which is on a mountain of cash. The stock market is way up. Profits are soaring. Their incomes and wealth took a hit from the Great Recession, but they’ve weathered the storm pretty well.

    Best of all, the capitalists — and the corporations they own and run — have captured our governments, and are bending our public institutions to their will.

    You see it everywhere, from Washington to Madison, where so-called fiscal conservatives are mounting a highly visible attack on government spending. I say “so-called fiscal conservatives” because it’s increasingly clear that their attacks have little to do with balancing budgets and a whole lot to do with weakening federal, state and local governments and turning them into wholly-controlled subsidiaries of the corporations...........Then the corporations will have achieved their goal of the perfect banana republic, where everyone’s duty is to the corporate bottom line. And if that bottom line says you must lose your job, or burden yourself with debt, or choke on toxic air? In the immortal words of John Boehner, “so be it.”  see link for the whole article.


    by NCD on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 6:27pm

    Marketwatch? This was on Marketwatch?

    Can you imagine this being introduced into the discussion even a few short months ago?

    Me neither. The times, they are a'changing. Stay tuned. I'm not so sure we are going to require a whole lot of organizing to experience a "Solidarity Summer." It seems to be growing on itself right along with the Spring flowers.


    by SleepinJeezus on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 6:54pm

    A new FOURTH OF JULY ....., the day we won our Independence from the Corporate Government.

    The day we took our country back.

    Is Marketwatch a part of NPR?


    by Resistance on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 7:14pm

    From the website: MarketWatch.com, wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

    I wonder if Mr. Nutting has a back-up job? 

    Maybe some folks at Dow Jones don't think a Kochocracy will be good for their business, or America, so they tolerate 'different'  viewpoints from the usual MSM/Fox infotainment, obfuscation and mindless propaganda.


    by NCD on Fri, 03/11/2011 - 11:30pm

    Resistance, I think you may be confusing it with Marketplace, which is a show on NPR stations:

    http://marketplace.publicradio.org/


    by artappraiser on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 12:33am

    The Republicans have an appreciation of the importance of what is left of the US labor movement that many Democrats and progressives clearly do not.  Why do you think they are working so assiduously to finish it off?  They don't think it is some irrelevant dinosaur from days gone by.    They are salivating at what they will be able to do once they finish the job.

    If they succeed...for those who feel disempowered now, who feel dissatisfied with what even Democratic Presidents and Congressional majorities can get done, or for those who believe the sort of gradualistic, incrementalist legislative approach that has characterized much of the history of social reform in the US is what should not just be accepted, but embraced enthusiastically as the best case scenario for positive change...I'll make a rare prediction.

    You will long for the days when there were ugly, shriveled, warts-and-all labor unions in this country.  Oh, and a second prediction: what the national Democratic party will be able to get done in the event that happens will make the first two years of the Obama Administration look like the Golden Era of Progress in comparison.  Unless--and I think there is no historical ground for believing this remotely possible--alternative, comparably powerful institutions serving progressive purposes can be created virtually overnight.

    One measure what Solidarity means: when esteemed denizens stop saying to the SJs "*your* problem is..." and start internalizing that this is *our* problem, in this country, for all of us, that will be a sign of the kind of change of consciousness that will be necessary in my view if this country is going to halt and reverse its journey down the road to serfdom.  I'm bothered by the refrain "Which Side are You On?". I think matters are more complicated than that, and I'm not at all sure that is an effective refrain.  I prefer Howard Zinn: You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train.

    Reform, update, upgrade, expand the labor movement--absolutely.  I think that is almost surely necessary.  If labor unions are finished off, one or more comparably (at least) powerful institutions will have to be reinvented from scratch for there to be any possibility for progressive change.  Maybe that's what some what.  Having a crystal ball no more than anyone else, it's possible that our society will be able to move in directions anyone here might consider "progress" without labor unions or some institutions serving similar functions which could in theory be created to take their place.

    Personally, I have no desire to roll the dice on that.  One commenter in the thread spoke only about the negative and unintended consequences of unions.  Are there some?  Yes.  As with all institutions.  What about the positive consequences?  The well-documented advantageous effects on compensation and working conditions not just for union members but non-union members.  The political power unions have supplied without which any number of social, non-economic progressive reforms would never have been enacted, civil rights included.  The greater voice, dignity, and safety unions have provided to workers at their places of employment.  Unions have *never* been only about just their members. That is a pernicious myth.  

    Another point that seems implied in some comments I read is that the reason the labor presence has withered so much is because unions have so little appeal to employees.  Unions indeed are not appealing to many workers.  There are also many who say they would want a union at their place of work.  Unfortunately we'll never any idea of what the real level of interest in unionization is because the labor laws in the US are so tilted towards employers that firing employees who try to organize private sector workplaces is almost laughably easy for employers of any significant size.  Create something resembling a level playing field through labor law reform and then let's see how things shake out.  It would be an understatement to say that the level of public awareness of this reality is microscopic. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 1:02pm

    I would basically agree with everything you've said.  One of the critical comments, of course, is:

    Reform, update, upgrade, expand the labor movement--absolutely.

    As with any institution, the first step to reform, update, etc is to acknowledge where the problems are.  At the moment, because of Walker et al., there is a sense the labor unions are being under seige and this tends to create a circle the wagons.  Someone who brings up design flaws in the wagons at such a moment tend to be ignored in one fashion or another.  Another problem is that the format of comments tends to facilitate any particular commenter to take one angle or another.  So either one says something positive about unions, in which case others will accuse said commentor of ignoring the warts, or one will say something negative, in which case others will accuse said commentor from not understanding everything the unions have done for the country. 

    So the crux of our problem is how do you reform an institution at the same time rally people around that institution.  That also brings up the issue that unions are institutions, and it is more difficult to get people passionate about institutions than more glamorous and lofty ideals, which one is arguing are only achievable, or definitely more likely to be achieved, through said institution.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 2:35pm

    I think that is a false intellectual conundrum, not resolvable in the abstract, which goes away when people who see the necessity of an institution and also think it needs to be improved get involved and acquire inside influence, if they have the staying power.  If new people, not part of labor now, get involved, it *will* change.  Whether for better or worse is impossible to say before the fact.  Having new people get involved will lead to lots of tension between the folks who are involved with the unions now, and the "newbies".  The former will mistrust the latter, fearing they will pull labor away from its roots and its best values.  The latter will mistrust the former for being resistant to needed change. 

    This is just the way it is when institutions draw new people in.  Even if personalities and egos were not all part of it.  Lovely, right?  This is the way change processes are.  They are messy.  Very messy.  And there is never any guarantee as to how they will turn out. 

    Imagine if the Founders and all of the little people without whose efforts that struggle would never have succeeded, taking a hard sober look at all the things that could go wrong if they rebelled against the British, concluded such an effort was doomed to failure and decided to call it off.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 3:47pm

    I'm not advocating not doing something because we don't know how things will turn out.  But just based on the dialogue on this site, I in no way feel welcomed to the "movement" because I am not a total rah-rah-rah kind of person.  Y'all don't want me to be part of it, fine.  But you can't have your cake and eat it, too.  In other words, you want a mass movement then somehow you have to find a way to include those with serious feeling of ambivalence. 


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:17pm

    You don't want to be a part of any movement that works to improve the quality of life for the Working Class, which includes you, by the way.  You've made that repeatedly crystal clear over the past few months.  You've given up on everything, it seems, except in your desire to recruit others to lay down their hope with you.  Fine.  The funny thing is, you can have your cake and eat it too.  In other words, you can sit back and let everyone else do the heavy lifting and benefit from the victories anyway.  The SS, the weekends, the paid holidays, the family leave, the Medicare, the safe working conditions, the representation at the bargaining table, the access to health care, the access to education.  They're all there, or will be, for you to enjoy, because of the commitment and sacrifice of those who were and are willing to fight for them.  It'd be a bit easier, if you'd step up, though.  I'm sorry you require an engraved invite.  Too bad.  How does our man in the WH put it?  Oh yeah.  Don't worry Trope, we got this.


    by kyle flynn on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 11:47pm

    If you read all my posts, including those on this thread you'd realize that pretty much every day of every week I am working to helping working individuals and families below the poverty line find some stability and the chance to take the opportunities available to them to move to a better situation.  So sorry if I hurt your feelings that so far your movement hasn't convinced me you're offering anything in the scheme of things that will make an actual difference in the lives of the working poor.  What it will do is make a bunch of activists and wanna be activists feel good about themselves as the wave the flag of the "People."  Now actions like the firefighters pulling their money from a bank that supported Walker, now we're talking.  But spare me your revolutionary rhetoric.  In fact, the "powers-to-be" take a whole lot of glee in watching most of the actions in the streets because it usually (the operative word is usually) ends in nothing more than that.  The difference usally lies in those who have a clear objective, one that will bring people out day after day, week after week, year after year. 

    That is what Genghis was driving at in my opinion (but I could be wrong).  Personally I've spent enough time banging my head against the wall with protest signs to know it is one strategy, and a very limited one.

    So I am not asking for engraved invite.  I am asking for someone who wants me to join a national movement to offer opportunity to participate in something that has the remote chance of being meaningful (which is different than being successful).  In the meantime I will keep my focus on working on a grassroots level to address the needs of working poor. Because my guess is that you're not coming to my neighborhood anytime soon to do any lifting.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:15am

    FWIW I believe AT is a deeply good man.  I hope that when the time comes when my doubts or despair leave me in a similar situation as AT may be at this time, he or someone else will offer a kind or encouraging word, or a helping hand to me.  Not all of us in the same place on any of these matters.  It doesn't work that way.  I know many are passionate (as am I) in beseeching fellow citizens to step up now, while there is a window. Real solidarity implies empathy, compassion, and humility.  JMO.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 8:25am

    I believe AT is a deeply good man. 

    I don't know about the 'deeply', but I'll concur. He reminds me of that old volvo ad...

    http://boxybutgood.us/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/t-shirt-back-resized.jpg

    And, I'll just add, I think it is no longer the time to be boxy, it's

    sexy time (for solidarity, that is...)

    ;0)


    by Obey on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 8:45am

    Learn.To.Read.


    by LisB on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 10:25pm

    I stand by my response to Trope.  It's based on a large body of his work by now.  I'm not asking you or anyone else to agree with me.  But c'mon, Learn.To.Read.?  You must admit, that's pretty silly.  Why not "go jump in a lake?"  That's kinda funny along with being a brush off. 


    by kyle flynn on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:18pm

    Learn.to.jump.in.a.lake.dude.


    by we are stardust on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:44pm

    even better

    by kyle flynn on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:54pm

    Doing.more.than.treading.water.helps.


    by LisB on Mon, 03/14/2011 - 1:21am

    Good summation, Dreamer. And thanks for the added clarity on whether the labor movement can be supplanted by something different, newer and better: "I think there is no historical ground for believing ... alternative, comparably powerful institutions serving progressive purposes can be created virtually overnight." 

    Many existing unions and labor groupings have flaws -- chiefly issues of democracy, transparency and aging, entrenched leadership. Over the past decade, I've seen change begin in all three areas, and I'm confident the current challenge is going to speed things even more. The timing couldn't be better -- thank you, Scott Walker.

    I'm still baffled by objections to revival of the phrase "Which side are you on?" -- with some people reading it as a threat. The song was written by the wife of a Harlan County mine-union organizer in 1931, after company "deputies" paid a visit intending to harm or perhaps kill her husband. He was away, so they terrorized her and her children instead. The theme of the song is simple: faced with brute force, you can't rationalize sitting on the sidelines. Zinn may say the same thing, but I think Florence Reece says it more powerfully.


    by acanuck on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 4:38pm

    acanuck, I throw this out as just a possible explanation of this expressed desire to fold what is happening into some kind of "New" movement that relegates the Labor Movement to the past as a relic.

    Is it possible that this concern arises out of a discomfort of some to identify themselves as "brothers and sisters" in the Labor Movement? That somehow, their interests as they perceive them from within their described place in the "middle class" is not in alignment with the union-labor model? I see a lot of expressions that unions are irrelevant to some of these people's daily lives. I am fully prepared to argue against such a perspective, but that perspective remains valid for so long as people use it to inform their actions and recommendations for such action.

    It's an interesting perspective I see being addressed throughout this thread, and I thank AD for sparking the discussion. I find great energy and possibilities made available to us in the Labor Movement, despite the valid concerns regarding the "baggage" you address that exists within many of the unions themselves. It is not only government that can become hide-bound and complacent. The Unions have themselves suffered corruption and ineffective leadership, etc. 

    But the job of organizing in Madison has been astoundingly complex and effective. I have been proud to witness so many of the "young turks" within these memberships taking charge to make it all happen in grand fashion. I have seen the manner in which students and young people; mid-level managers and the unemployed; non-represented and union workers from both private and public employment; and all manner of people have come together to fight back against this tyranny of the purse. I have no reservations about this movement's ability to "fight the good fight." This FEELS every bit as righteous and indignant and aggrieved and angry and empowered and scared and brave as Florence Reese's complaint, so poignantly shared with the world when she asked "Which side are you on?"

    There are two sides to this fight. It truly is about Justice over profits. It can be defined just about as narrowly as that. We are in a fight here for the future viability of the middle class, however you wish to define your place within that broad category. But beneath it all is a belief that we are ALL worthy of respect and are entitled to our dignity. It is the unions and the Labor Movement leading the charge as they always have. And they are now waving the bloody shirt that very effectively stirs us to action in appreciation of all those who made the fight in the past.

    Don't underestimate the value of the Labor Movement's tradition in this fight. Don't diminish the possibilities that are available to those who will once again answer Florence Reese's call for solidarity. In the end, I guess I would say "Don't fuck with success!" LOL!

    This is class war. There are two sides. Commit to victory.  THAT'S what matters. YOUR commitment to fight back. And it begins by making the decision presented to you: "Which side are you on?"

    And don't EVER assume that your interests are not aligned with the interests of the hundreds of thousands who have participated in these protests in Madison. I'm sorry, but you're just not that uniquely special from those who are engaged in this fight on OUR side. This is YOUR fight. With or without your committed involvement, this is YOUR fight. But we need all hands on deck. And so, yes, it's appropriate to ask: "Which side are you on?" Ask yourself that question at every juncture when confronted with choices to be made in your civic affairs. Let it inform your actions. Let it serve as the call to arms that will win for us all the changes required to restore Justice in place of profit, and that will give us back our common dignity in place of the nightmare we now confront as our fate at the hands of those who claim dominion over us all.

    Solidarity!


    by SleepinJeezus on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 5:51pm

    In answer to your initial suggestion, Sleepless, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I'm pretty sure a lot of people, even here on this liberal site, perhaps unconsciously think union member = working class = lower class. I saw that assumption creeping into a previous thread (I think it was a previous one; they get so long) and I tried to point out that lots of professionals are unionized.

    But I can see why that idea seems contrafactual in the U.S., where just 7% of private-sector workers belong to a union. It's like union membership has fallen below a critical mass, to the point where such people are invisible or, where they can be identified, are seen as sucklers at the taxpayers' teat.

    You don't find the same alienation from organized labor in Canada, where combined private-public membership is 30%. And you certainly don't get it in Scandinavia, where it peaks at around 80%. But America is, as always, exceptional. When Genghis says he has difficulty relating because he's felt no labor-movement influence in his friends or family, I accept that not as a cop-out but a simple statement of fact. My experience has been different: a quarter-century as a union member, 10 as an officer, all three of my sisters at one point union members, all their husbands ditto, one a grievance officer. (In passing, let me state a bald truth: all grievance officers go to heaven. All of them. They may be ax-murderers in their spare time; God understands and forgives. They've prepaid for their sins, by going through hell on earth.)

    I've already expressed bafflement at the reaction to "Which side are you on?" The reaction was even more visceral to your assertion, "This is class war." Some accused you of seeking class war. I agreed with you, and considered it a simple statement of fact, like FDR's: "Since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."

    I get it that Americans by their nature wish to imagine themselves as upwardly mobile -- middle class but bound for upper-classdom. But take a look at recent history. The middle class is shrinking -- and not because the upper 2-5% are recruiting. No, the middle class are being squeezed downward, into lower-paying jobs, or no jobs at all, bankruptcy and foreclosure. Much as you'd like to believe otherwise, your interests do not coincide with those of the ultra-rich.

    I'll join the Sleepmeister in saying thanks, Dreamer, for starting a good thread and keeping it on track.


    by acanuck on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 10:26pm

    Nearly forgot: Solidarity! Like, forever.


    by acanuck on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 10:27pm

    I don't have much time, so I haven't read a lot of the comment thread, but I thought I'd offer a couple thoughts that may or may not be OT, or part of a new movement.  One was a question I'd seen asked in the past day or two: "Why don't unions create banks?", and it was, of course, as an alternative to Greedy Big Banks, and I assume, commercial-only or credit unions.

    The other concerns the many, many organizatons on the left that exist, and how difficult it's been herding them together.  One Nation Working Together has tried, likely many others, but they do seem to elbow each other for dominance, and that's a problem.  Some unifiers might pull in organizations, and I think that some sort of secular version of Social Gospel would be good, and a stated aim of brotherhood and community and fairness/justice at the base.


    by we are stardust on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:36pm

    Well, as much as I don't think you want to hear my two cents, regarding your second concern, I think a major problem is that there seems to be a desire to make translate the civil rights movement to the current struggle.  I don;t think, and I could wrong here, and in some ways I would like to think I am, that we can achieve some kind of meaningful Workers Dignity Act in the same way we achieved the Civil Rights Act. 

    The fact that we are still battling the implementation of the CRA over 40 years later says that the likelihood of the government (especially in the current atmosphere) agreeing on exactly how private employers are to run their business is pretty slim at best.  Because that is what we're taling about: how much they will pay, the difference between how much the CEO makes and the receptionist makes, whether they can move their production from Seattle to Atlanta or Shanghai, not only if they will offer benefits but the amount of benefits offered. 

    We're barely okay with base minimum that is acceptable...as in wages, worker safety, sexual harrassment.  But the base minimum isn't going to turn the tide. 

    I don't have any answers, although I would say if there is one it has to do with turning to the community.  To the extent that we support those companies that are local, and who make a commitment to the local community both through jobs and reinvesting in the nonprofit sector which provides what government does not, along with an agreement to pay higher taxes to provide the services that improves the quality of life for everyone, is the extent we will begin to turn the tide.


    by Elusive Trope on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:36am

    On overtime exemptions, per a somewhat OT discussion above:

    http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/12/2011 - 6:40pm

    This is from the quote from the WSJ:  "Government unions know that financial concessions (and layoffs) they agree to during recessions are typically won back when tax revenues increase and the public stops paying attention."  Or, to put it another way, wages should stay down they knock them down.  They should sink in bad times and remain unchanged in good times.   Good times are not to be enjoyed by all, just a self-selected few.  In bad times, it's open season!


    by Gregor Zap on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 3:45am

    Thanks for keeping us posted. I haven't read it myself since the day after Vincent Foster's suicide when instead of an expression of sympathy with his family they ran an editorial defending their coverage of his role in the White House. A disgusting performance. Beneath contempt.


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 8:25am

    One other tidbit I'd like to share for now.

    I started writing at a political blog site at the cafe when it was initially created (2004? 2005?).  There are a few folks here who were there as well at its beginning--including bslev.  The stuff I wrote at the cafe for a very long time, for years, did not receive much attention, at least as suggested by the available indicators (number of people "recommending" a post, number of comments in initiated threads, and, later, number of "followers", which in my case for a very long time was in single digits and ended up at maybe around 22 or 23.  A number of others here--Genghis, Orlando, quinn, artappraiser, bslev, D-Day among them, had far larger followings, and deservedly so, I felt.

    In those early days, I'd write posts and quite often there would be a total of one person who recommended it.  That person, invariably, was artappraiser.  Many of these posts had 1 or 2 comments.  Where that was the case, the person commenting was, usually, artappraiser.  I tried to contact her privately just to thank her for what felt like some form of encouragement to me, even if not intended that way, on her part.  Like me she is private, only even more so and requested I not contact her offline after I once got through to her. Of course I respect that.

    During those years the thought certainly occurred to me that maybe this blogging thing isn't something I'm very good at, and perhaps I should content myself with reading some of the plentiful great stuff out there, as a "lurker" if you will.  I didn't stop writing. I thought, and think, highly of artappraiser.  I figured well, at least artappraiser seems to like my stuff.  

    So I kept writing there, not often in the form of posts but more commenting on other peoples' threads.  One thing led to another and I can tell you it has made my week--made my year--to see the kind of traffic this and the preceding post I wrote at dag have generated, which dwarfs that of anything else I've written. 

    Artappraiser drives me bananas with some of the things she writes. We strongly disagree on any number of matters.  I see her as a wonderful and puzzling maze of contradictions, among many other things, and think of her as a friend even though we've never met FTF and probably never will.  I suspect I write stuff that--now that she knows perhaps the only reason I am writing in the blogosphere today is because she, seemingly alone, read and commented on stuff I wrote years ago at the cafe--may now leave her wishing she hadn't offered me encouragement of a sort back then.  

    Each of us has stories of encouragement received and given.  Sometimes the encourager later learns of surprising consequences she or he would not have imagined at the time of seemingly small acts.  But often not. Many great novels, short stories, plays, and movies remind us of that. 

    That's it.  That's all I got.  Nothing profound or original.  Just wanted to share that.


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 10:38am

    That's a beautiful tribute. Your writing is great, Dreamer. Keep it coming.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:11am

    What Ghengis said AD.  You are a very special contributor.  Back in those early days I was probably too busy wrestling to the death with that shmegegge MJ Rosenberg to notice your special talent.  I sure as heck do now. 

    And I feel the same way about Artappraiser, or Art as Seaton refers to her with affection, for so many reasons.  There was a time when AA was one of the few keeping me in the Rosenberg mishigas with those "5" ratings, and I was like, who is this person, is he or she as  whacky as I am?  When AA announced that she had been cut-off from the Cafe I vowed never to post there again, and I haven't, even when Ghengis and his book were featured there (sorry Gheng, couldn't cross the picket line ya know).

    In any event, I don't want to get all sentimental and stuff, but I have to say Ghengis has done something very special here.  Yasher Koach to him.

    Best to you AD and do keep them coming.

    Bruce


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 11:47am

    Thanks Bruce. I forgive you for skipping the book club, but learn how to spell my screen name for cryin out loud.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:06pm

    Getting a little demanding now that you have all this power, eh?  Empires will do that to a guy.


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 12:37pm

    We know what you're up to "Bruce." We're watching you veeeeeeerrry closely.


    by Michael Wolraich on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 1:09pm

    Why should you guys be different than anyone else?  Get in line dude!


    by Bruce Levine on Sun, 03/13/2011 - 2:09pm

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