Workers Unite!

    It's a worker's party....who could ask for more? Everybody's coming, leave your anger at the door. Leave your taxes, anger at the door.

    It's become increasingly clear to me that the middle and lower classes are being stomped on. Government and Big Banks and Corporations have all colluded to take over what little is left of our proud workers and we are now nothing but pawns.

    Call me slow, for finally catching up.  But I'm tired.

    I'm tired of having my salary cut every time I get a new job while I bring an ever-increasing skill set to the table. I'm tired of having my rent and bills increase while my salary remains stagnant. I'm tired of trying to save up for a new car when the cost of the smallest car is still beyond my grasp, and it isn't even Green. I'm tired of seeing the rich get richer while I struggle to pay the rent. I'm tired of being too tired to listen to all the experts tell us why we aren't getting ahead.

    We don't need pitchforks. We don't need torches. We don't need fooling around.

    We need to unite. We need to demand our rights. We need to form a new party. Workers, unite.*

    *This party is open to the unemployed, too. Because we are only one small step ahead of you on the financial scale, my comrades. 

     

    Comments

    I'm tired too! I admire you for still having some fight left in you. Mine is pretty much gone. But I still wonder at the viability of a third party. Not that I think the Democrats are all that great, but it seems like introducing a third party will simply mean a vote split between Democrats and Workers, with Republicans reaping the benefits. Couldn't we co-opt the Democratic party instead--how 'bout a "Latte Party?"


    Maybe we need something in between a union and a party - something that can deliver votes and contributions, but that can demand appropriate legislation and executive decisions. Hmmm, did I just describe a lobby?


    Works for me...pun intended.



    Good one. When we form our union of progressive bloggers we'll know who to recruit. I'm willing to pay dues for this kind of representation.


    LMAO!


    Wow.  Part of me likes it, and part of me is kinda dumbstruck.  What on earth are our Reps for, then, ya know?  Anyway, thanks for the link, DF.  When I have more time this evening I intend to read through your comments, and those of Obey, down below.  It looks like a very interesting discussion (but unfortunately, I'm at work right now and my lunch hour is just about up).  Thanks for this link, in the meantime.

     


    Good post. Workers of the World Unite!--the I.W.W. union/party a century ago. "direct action" was the motto--which got the leaders rounded up and incarcerated in 1917 under the Alien and Sedition Act--to this day a first in "trial by group".  

     

     


    The I.W.W. is still around.


    Thanks! I honestly didnt know that they were still on the planet. "Wild Bill Heywood" must be rustling in his grave. So there's the answer to the corporatocracy--if they can refrain from actually throwing monkey wrenches into machinery, and such. 


    Third parties have never been terrible strong in this country however I do believe that the time has come since there are so many people that have become disgusted with the politics as usual. A strong workers/labor movement that also includes those in the semi-professional semi-white collar areas is necessary. Along with a strong Union movement including those type also.

    And in my opinion a third party is necessary because we are getting very close to a second civil war. Which would be a whole lot messier.


    Join the Wobblies. The Wobblies are back!

    Actually some interesting articles linked from their website. I think I might contribute to their union and probably just contacting their website is an invitation to have my computer monitored. 


    You probably know they were a group of communists and anarchists in 1905, don't you?  Cool

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World


    Hee. The first thing I thought of was Weebles Wobble But They Don't Fall Down. Oh well.

    Workers?  Yes.  Third-parties?  No.  Third parties are not viable in our system.

    However, you are right that American workers have gotten the shaft.  They have continually become more productive, but have not seen the benefit of that increased productivity.  This may sound Marxist to some, but it's simple observation at this point: The marshals of capital have been taking it all for themselves.  Wages have been stagnant for the last three decades, while income inequality is as bad as it's ever been.

    And then people want to brow-beat the working class for borrowing to sustain their standard of living, all while the whole banking and finance structure was rigged to exploit them.


    Unfortunately there aint no way that's ever going to happen in a peaceful manner. The people who own them will simply not let it happen.


    Well, there ain't no way you're going to see third parties in our SMD-P system.  Also, I think if you'd actually read the essay and then consider what we just witnessed in 2010 with the Tea Party then you might reconsider your stance.

    Then again, you could just bank on the fact that third parties are not a statistical impossibility in our system, only an astronomical long-shot.


    "Third parties are not viable in our system."

    - I'll beg to differ. Mainly because any statement of the form 'x is not politically viable' is ...well ... horseshit. It's like a political variant of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis - where if something were viable it already would be the case. Everything in politics is impossible until ... it happens. The fall of the Soviet Empire was impossible, INCONTHEIVABLE!!, one month before it happened. And... okay I'm not going to do the whole History of things-that-were-impossible-that-now-seem-inevitable. But You get the idea.

    On the particular topic of third parties - there are the Lib Dems in Britain, which in electoral structure probably resembles the US system the most in terms of privileging a two party system. The rise of the Lib Dems has to do with the move of Labour to the right. As more and more people got disenchanted with New Labour, many people turned to the Lib Dems as an outlet. Of course now Clegg has gone back on every election promise, so things, um, haven't turned out so good. But ignoring Clegg's actual actions, a vibrant third party is eminently viable when you have the left-most party in a two-party system move too far right-ward.

    The reaction of Labour to the rise of the Lib Dems is also instructive. They have taken a good step to the left after getting crushed in the election. So the point is that 'oh you will never take the presidency or replace the dems' is not an objection. The point is to move the two-party system, make the major parties adjust. Like Gore moving left because of Nader. (obviously an example that traumatizes Dems and explains the general refusal to even talk about third parties).

    In any case, setting up a third party isn't the only way to go. There should be an advocacy organization - like an AARP for workers - on a national level. Something that can get around the difficulties of union organization. There should be Progressive Pride parades every year - with floats, half-naked dancing, and Norwegian house music.

    If you look at what happened in France, the protests weren't organized by the PARTIES of the political left. The Socialist party (the main opposition party) is a mess. It was the unions who organized the protests and strikes and negotiated. The Socialist party leadership just sat on the sidelines cheering like hapless idiots. Was it a success? A huge success. Millions of people out in the street week after week, and now Sarkozy is a dead man walking. He couldn't even fire his own Prime Minister who has distanced himself from Sarkozy's policies. Anyway, my point is just: parties aren't everything.


    Even when third parties don't win elections, they sometimes show to be popular issues which the major parties of the day are steering clear of.  And then sometimes major parties, which are usually highly cautious and risk averse, will try to coopt supporters of third parties by "stealing" the most popular issue(s) the third party ran on, now believing they can gain support in that way.  Which of course is one major non-symbolic reason people invest energy in third parties in the first place.

    It's been awhile since I've read up on my early 20th century Progressive Party history.  But if memory serves, it paved the way for subsequent adoption of several progressive policies in this way, as sort of a guinea pig (or is "canary in the coal mine" the metaphor of choice these days?) for the major parties even though they didn't see themselves in this way. 


    Think 'wobblies'.


    Go Wobblies. Or how about International Consumers of the World, and then plan out consumer strikes and boycotts--but no sabotage this time, the Feds just don't cotton to it. Did you know that the Wobblies were tried as a group--not individually. About 20 of them were jailed. I think Heywood was finally released sometime in the mid-20's. Then I think one of them was tried as a Communist in the '50's and acquitted. I've got to research this, don't know what happened to the Alien and Sedition Act--which was passed about 1913 or so. It's fascinating to me that this group kept itself alive. 


    Think: "Quit fucking wid us or pay da price!"  Oh--did you see who got voted off 'Survivor' last night or whatever....?   ;o)


    The Producer's wife got voted off the planet.


    LOL!  My thing is: I wish none of them  would survive, there weren't such things as 'Idols' and 'Stars'. and Victoria's Secret Ads would just take it all the way.... This 'culture' doesn't seem altogether worth saving, if ya know what I mean.  Cockroaches, dolphins...UNITE!    ;o)


    Look, political scientists have studied election systems around the world and they all find that SMD-P systems almost all have two parties.  There are very few exceptions to this.  Additionally, look at the history of third parties in the American system.  We've basically had two dominant parties since day one in America.  So, when I say they aren't "viable," I'm saying that based on the record both here in America and abroad, not making some kind of crappy snap judgment about what I personally think will or won't fly.  Sure, there are exceptions like the UK, but those are notable exceptions that have notable differences, eg the UK system is parliamentary and not presidential.

    And I agree with you that parties aren't everything, but the continued mewling about "oh, if only we had a third party" is ignorant and wasteful.  Look at what the Tea Party has done.  Specifically, note that they did it by functioning within the GOP.  If you read the Domhoff essay that I linked, it reads like a playbook for what the Tea Party did in the 2010 cycle - except they did it from the right.

    The point is to move the two-party system, make the major parties adjust.

    If left is where you want to go, then I'd say you're right.  Again, if you read the Domhoff essay, he is talking about doing precisely this, but by doing in through recognizing that the two parties we have are essentially legacy structures.  Again, note the success of the Tea Party in 2010, all of whom ran as Republicans in the general elections, not as independent, third party candidates.

    Seriously, we will probably colonize Mars before we have a viable third party in America, at least without drastic changes to the structure of our election system.  It's not fear of Ralph Nader that should have Dems running away from third parties; it's a full grasp of reality - what works and what does not.


    Dude, I thought that Mars colony was planned for 2020... In which case, you're WAY more optimistic about third-parties than me.

    ;0)

    I'm not saying a third party is a cure-all. I'm saying it should be part of the toolbox. That's all.


    I think that third parties fundamentally function as a distraction and as a waste of time and effort in the American system.  That's a reason for them not to be part of the toolbox.  If people are really sure that more parties are necessarily the solution to our problems, a prospect which is far from clear, then what they should do is focus on building support for changing the structure of the system in such a way that third parties could actually compete.  I would support that.  What I wouldn't support is efforts to try to forge a third party in the face of all of the evidence that doing so is a fool's errand.  Look at the support for the Green Party in CA.  In many races, they get less votes than the freaking Libertarian Party!  In California!  At what point will people recognize the facts staring them in the face here?

    Otherwise, lefties should do what the Tea Party has done - focus on re-shaping the Democratic party from within.  Get loud, get active and make the primary system work in our favor.  This is not a prospect that relies on pointing to the outliers in the world like the UK.  It works here, today.


    Okay, so I've got an analogy with a country both culturally similar, and electorally similar, which has gone through pretty much the same dynamics over the past  decades- destruction of the unionized labor base and its political infrastructure, a left-wing party moving right-wards and complicit in financialization of the economy and war-mongering, leading to a large part of the electorate feeling unrepresented by the two main parties, i.e. to a situation with a large potential demand for a third option. Sure, there may be other countries with a first-past-the-post election system where third parties have failed. But calling the country MOST SIMILAR TO THE US AN IRRELEVANT OUTLIER is... ridiculous. Not serious 'science', friend. Statistics be damned.

    As for your parallel with the Tea Party? You're shitting me, right? They operated with the explicit or implicit support of huge media organizations - Fox, talk radio, CNBC, most the GOP big money support either didn't oppose Tea Party candidates or supported them against moderates. They have been allowed to use the party infrastructure freely, without opposition from the leadership. It's not an intra-party insurrection. It's an organ of party discipline by the party's power brokers. Gawd, if you were looking for a parallel, for an example to be followed, you couldn't do much worse.

    As AD says above, part of the reason third-parties are mostly not viable is because the two main parties coopt them, or adjust their politics to cut their support at the knees. If that happens to a workers' party, Great! That is a useful tool in moving the Dems leftward. That is far from a waste of time, even if the Workers' party then becomes a historical anecdote in short order.


    So, statistics be damned, but cherry-picking is "serious science"?  And I've got to be kidding you?

    Sure, there may be other countries with a first-past-the-post election system where third parties have failed.

    That's a pretty blithe dismissal of "other countries" (read: essentially all of them, except for UK and, more regionally, India) for someone who wants to talk about "serious science."

    In terms of electoral structure, the UK is certainly not "the most similar" to the US.  A major difference, which I've already pointed out, is that their system is parliamentary.  That's a fundamental, structural difference.  Why?  Because party coalitions pick who leads the executive, leading to an alignment between the majority party and executive leadership.  We don't have that.  Quite to the contrary, in our system it seems that the tendency is to have the legislative and executive in opposition.  In the UK's system, there's actual room for participating in governance for third parties.  In the US, you can get third party candidates elected to Congress, maybe the Senate, but it is never going to happen with the Presidency.  So what happens to these third partiers in Congress?  They caucus with one party or the other lest they become completely irrelevant.  And they will never, ever get any major legislation passed or get beyond a veto pen held by other one party or the other.

    Cultural and even political similarities do not change this.  These are structural differences and they matter far more than you seem willing to allow.

    RE: Tea - No, I am not shitting you.  I'm aware of the influence that Fox (photo-blogged it!) and FreedomWorks et al had on the rise of the Tea Party.  But if what you want to do is move the Dems to the left, this is the functional model.

    Did Mitch McConnell support Rand Paul initially?  No.  Establishment support for Tea is nowhere near as cut and dried as you portray.  Would you argue that the influence of Tea has not moved the GOP further to the right?  That money was involved is so far beyond the point in American politics.  What, you're going to launch a third party in this system without money?

    Once again, it seems to me that despite all of their horrible ideas about what should be, the right-wing in America far better understands how things are.


    One of the points Sam Tanenhaus made in The Death of Conservatism was to praise William F. Buckley for steering those who supported his harder-edged conservatism (than was characteristic of how Republican Party elected officials operated at that time) to get more, not less, involved in Republican party politics.  Instead of a third party effort or only working outside of the GOP to try to put pressure on it entirely from without.  He encouraged them to get in the game, master the party's rules, processes and inner workings, organize, and move the party rightward in that way.  It took awhile but that's what happened.  Which is your point. 

    I'm scratching my head wondering if I know a single Democratic activist who thinks it is possible to implement a long-term Democratic party strategy along similar lines, and who also thinks there is "time for that" with all of the urgent problems our country and the world face that seemingly cannot await two decade-long solutions.


    LOL! You don't know how this arguing thing works, do you? If we're going to have some model for predicting the success or failure of a third-party strategy in the US, we can either do so with a coarse-grained model based purely on what happens in SMDP systems irrespective of particular differences, or we can do so in a more fine-grained way by looking at SMDP systems with FURTHER relevant similarities in political culture, broad coalitions, recent evolution of policy, credibility, economic situation, etc etc.. Which one is more accurate?! Holy cow, get some sleep guy. You're not thinking clearly.

    Does the presidency make a difference? Huh? Presidential elections are where in recent decades third-party candidates have had the MOST INFLUENCE on the political landscape. Nader? Perot? What planet are you on? As for independents caucusing with the main parties: yes, just as in multi-party parliamentary systems there are inter-party coalitions. I don't see anything interestingly different about the position of minor-party or independent reps in the US, other than that independents tend to have power combined with freedom within that caucus. That sounds like an argument FOR third-party moves, not against.

    And lets take a step back to look at the criterion for 'success' for a third-party move. Success does not necessarily mean that it becomes a major party along side the other two. Probably the most successful third-party move of the twentieth century in the US was the Communist party during the Depression. It was small, but if you read the accounts of how economic policy was formed, you will find that the little Commie party was hugely influential in Washington policy circles. It made the radically unorthodox New Deal seem moderate and mainstream. Basically there was a choice between more-of-the-same Hooverism, radical reparation of Capitalism, or a Communist revolution. Had these commies followed your advice, because 'statistics show...', they wouldn't have had any pull, just being one more backwater of the Dem party, and likely the New Dealers wouldn't have been able to push their reforms through. I'm sure there are other examples, like the Socialists and the McCarthy insurrection in '68, but, jeezus, I'm not going to run through all the obvious examples here. The dynamics are pretty obvious - third parties disappear because the political landscape adjusts to accomodate the third-party forces within the one party or the other. That doesn't mean the third-party effort was a failure. I don't know how many ways I have to make this pretty self-evident point which you refuse to see.

    Now the tea-party. I don't see what you're arguing. Is it not cut-and-dried that it is sanctioned from the top? Apart from a couple of powerless out of touch party elders, I haven't seen much resistance. I contend that this was no insurrection. It was by-and-large a disciplinary action bringing moderates into line with the hard-right leadership. And as such, of course it brought the party to the right. But that isn't an argument for your case or against mine. What we are arguing about is whether this was a bottom-up attack on the party establishment. I can't see that. Though, is there a grass-roots element involved? Yes. But the only defining characteristic of that movement is ... opposition to Obama (as far as I can glean from studies). Which the establishment is just fine with, I'd guess. So if this isn't a threat to the party establishment, then it is painfully obvious that it can't provide a model for how to bring the Dems leftward, since their establishment is firmly ensconced in the center of the national political landscape.

    My point about money, which you seem to have misunderstood, is that the parties have a funding infrastructure, an infrastructure which the leadership can control and direct if it so chooses. It can shut off funding to certain inconvenient candidates (as the GOP does not seem to have done for the TP). It is a lever of power that is hugely important in determining how viable a candidate is, and inevitably also creates all kinds of pressure points on the policy positions the candidate can adopt. Don't play all naive about these influences. When you spend 90% of your time on the phone with this pool of contributors, it's going to skew the way you see the world. A third-party structure with a distinct funding infrastructure makes a world of difference. It's not an accident that it's Bernie Sanders who is organizing an alternative left-wing fiscal plan with outside think-tanks and advocacy groups. No one inside the party can buck the president's commission and have access to those outside outfits in setting up an alternative.

    Really, sorry to get all ornery. But this kind of preemptive beating down of any movement away from full party loyalty is frankly annoying. And you guys are doing it again and again. And EACH TIME it is utterly baseless, as far as I can see. You're really suggesting just 'put up primary candidates'? Given how the party leadership deals with challenges from the left. Remember Lamont? Remember how he ... won the primary? and the party unified around FUCKING LIEBERMAN anyway? The guy who did a TON of harm to the legislation produced over the last two years. And it is with this party that you want to send the kids out to engage in primary challenges. Legacy structure my ass! Rahm made his name as a hardass beating down progressives. That is what the leadership is most expert at doing. Given a choice between corporate money and progressive activism, they'll choose the former each time. That is the party as it is today. Good God. If anything is, relatively speaking, a waste of time, it is going the primary route.

    And, beyond all that, there's the note so minor point that the Dem brand name is in the toilet. Sure, it's not quite as deep down the toilet as the GOP brand, but I'm talking in absolute terms. If you advocate a policy, and that policy has a Democratic Party sticker attached to it, it is immediately suspect to at least half the country. They won't even pay attention to the details. It is just toxic. If you present a policy under another flag, it might just get a fair hearing. That is another, very important, advantage.

    Anyway, I'm ranting again. This kind of discussion just seems like a dead end each time. Have a good day, DF


    Obey, I made your text size larger, per the reader request below.


    Thanks O!

    Excellent points. Obey. 

    In my Tanenhaus/Buckley comment above, there was always going to be strong potential for a semi-insurgency like Buckley was promoting within the GOP party structure to have major and durable financial support, given the interests it was bound to please.  Meaning durable advocacy infrastructure of the sort the Right and the GOP have built up is more difficult to build on the left for that reason alone.  And even then it took the Right and GOP decades to get to where they are now.

    Not so on the Dem side and that's one way the situations are not directly parallel.  I'd further note, as you imply in your comment, Obey, that for a more left populist potential insurgency that is never going to have large, durable financial support, but is up against heavily financed party opposition, it may have to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem, to be freed of the same sources of funding as Buckley's intra-party insurgency strategy cultivated.

    One of the very few advantages a popular insurgency from the left has right now is that on some really, really huge issues that are driving voters, almost no one in power, and certainly not this President, is speaking for what millions and millions of people feel right now and want.  Pelosi's House was the closest and they just went down because they didn't get enough support and were effectively left hung out to dry.  How many people presently disgusted enough to vote for Republicans they despise against Democrats they are furious with for not getting the job done, would seriously consider voting for a third party, well, that's another question.  As is the question of likely consequences.  Progressive Party or a Nader tip to the GOP in 2012?  No one considering going down that road gets to choose.  Nor can those adamantly opposed to doing so prove a priori whether such a course of action will be unhelpful a priori.

    As for me, what I see is Rome burning.  If I can mangle my metaphors again, I am a lot more seriously thinking about throwing the ball down the field if I have 1 time out left, I'm on my 12 yard line and down 7 with 35 seconds to go.  Three yard dumpoff passes ain't getting it done.  So I think the point of view you are advocating, Obey, is very much worth considering seriously. And now is a good time because a lot of folks are wondering where all of this goes these next two years and beyond. I don't see anything that looks even a little like an articulation of a Democratic Party vision or strategy for where it wants to lead the country, and how it plans to get there.  If there is such a thing, maybe if they claim it's supposed to be top secret and leak it, the 15 people out there who are able to retain any passion and belief in the Party may read it.


    Here is some info on the current state of third parties.

    “We need to stop thinking of this as a left-right or liberal-conservative battle,” McMillan said. “If you're pro-democracy then you need to be opposed to the current two-party system that we have. Those parties are controlled or heavily influenced by the multinational corporations. So vote third party. If not the Greens, then check out one of the other third parties. Otherwise we're done as a democracy or a republic. We're done if we don't mount an effective challenge to that in our lifetime.”


    Canada. 5 parties.


    Also parliamentarian, and none of the parties are very fun, either.


    But all 5 to the Left of the Dems.


    Okay, after getting a chance to read through the comments, I'm inclined to agree with you, DF. Having seen the low, low numbers for 3rd party votes in the state-by-state election results, I agree with you. I think perhaps Ross Perot actually came closest to getting third party votes back when he ran (or almost ran) against Clinton and Bush. But, to use everyone's favorite word, ahem, he just couldn't prove to be a viable candidate. But he came close. I'm all for pushing the Dem party further to the left, but so many of us disagree on how to do that, I'm left with daydreams. That being said, I appreciate your feedback on my latest dream.

    I wonder if you might share with the rest of the class by increasing the text size.  ;o)


    Obey, this remains a very cogent post and one of your best. And Timely. I don't think you watch Obermann but there was an interesting segment on "Soros", his meeeting with well heeled Progressive donors, and the statement to the effect "if Obama won't draw the line, we'll look elsewhere"--later spun to be not specificially a primary challenge but an intent to counteract Rove $ Co.'s "independent" fund raising so that Progressives compete more effectively in the public opinion market. I'd be interested, in the context of the above, in your take on the Soros play.


    Sounds like an interesting development, Oxy. I don't have any particular insight into Soros' political strategy, though. If you have any more details, please do let me know...


    The biggest problem I see is that the system as it currently stands is no conducive to public participation like say the parliamentary systems of Canada or the UK or Germany. Where they have local party conventions and people are encouraged to get involved. Here it is mostly open to those who are well fixed financially. Pay to play.

    This is but one area that needs to be changed.


    Unfortunately history has shown us what happens when a workers party comes into power lol.....


    Is that why Dub kept repeating that he was workin' hard while he was really just party-ing?


    Bravo LisB!  Bravo!  And welcome to the millions who have also had enough!

    We might need pitchforks before it's all said and done, but you are spot on that the number one thing we must do is unite.  But for what? 

    Myself, I say we unite and demand that our country's government start responding first and foremost to the needs of the common people instead of the wealthy and powerful who are our true rulers.  But that will be difficult because far too many Democrats (who are supposed to be the ones who fight for the common people) are just as beholden to those very same predatory and parasitic interests as the Republicans. 

    Unfortunately, among those who are beholden to the enemies of common Americans is our President who, as much as any other Democrat these past two years, has gone out of his way to assuage, service, coddle, and otherwise curry the favor of those who profit from our misery, who grow rich by forcing us to pay the interest on the money borrowed to provide their tax cuts not to mention providing all the money to bail out their irresponsible banks and investment houses so their investments would remain sound while our 401 K's were virtually stolen before our very eyes. 

    So yes, unite, but use the power of that unity to separate the wheat from the chaffe and demonstrate that there will be a heavy price paid by anyone who does not respond to the plight of the 15 million unemployed, the 40 million without medical care, the tens of millions who have worked all their lives and should not have to absorb cuts in social security and medicare, etc....  Unite against the incrementalism that will take a century to correct the past thirty years of policies tipping the scales against the common American and in favor of the favored few at the top.


    Yeah, but as long as Obama is our President, I'll still stand behind him while working on new ideas. That's the diff between us, Oleeb. As it always has been.

    You continue to misunderstand.  I will support Obama in the sense that I will back him against our common enemies and particularly against their idiotic and untrue criticisms.  The difference between us is that I don't gloss over his repeated betrayal of the workers you say you want to unite (including yourself).  Obama is undoubtedly better than any Republican offering at this time.  He is not, however, your friend or mine and his record of lies on all his major promises proves it.  Refusing to admit the truth and blindly supporting a politician like Obama who has worked diligently to undermine the interests of the common people makes no sense.  Obama is the opposite of what he said he would be when he was a candidate. Even now he weakens Democratic positions and his clear promise to let the tax cuts for the rich expire by capitulating in advance, he barely speaks up for his own START Treaty, he does nothing to assist the common people in the foreclosure crisis and instead continues to assist the bankers instead and refuses to crack down on them with the regulatory mechanisms in place and that's only the tip o the iceberg.  There's a significant difference between supporting a politican when they deserve the support and blind, unquestioning loyalty in return for betrayal and lies.


    Please see my new post.  And please give me a new argument in the meantime. 

    It is not only I who misunderstands, Oleeb.  It may be both of us.  Ponder that, too.

     


    Ummm....try 40 years.


    Obama is no better or no worse than Clinton or even Bush the first. Truth is that there is an economic elephant in the living room and it's dead and stinks but still there is no one in Washington who is willing to point it out.

    Our economy sucks because this country cannot or will not compete globally and still believes in a free market system that never really existed to begin with. So Washington genuflects to Wall Street in hopes some new industry will magically appear out of no where to save the day when we havent been able to keep the current ones afloat without heavy defense spending and trade manipulation.



    So Washington is Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" who, when Stanley Kowalski (The American People) tears down her paper lantern (Wall Street), and wants to see her in the harsh light of reality, cries out, "I don't want realism, I want magic!" and that makes President Obama ... Mitch?  Okay bad analogy. Never mind.  

    I like the idea of new industries magically appearing. It's the economic version of me waiting to win the mega-millions lottery to solve all my financial problems.  Scary to think I'm America in microcosm. 


    No Wasington is Blanch Devereaux of the Golden Girls!

    I know I am sorry, I just couldn't help it MrSmith!

    Sealed


    This thread appears to be winding down so I'll do a longer comment than I otherwise would.

    The current (Dec) issue of The American Prospect features five articles comprising a special report called "Labor's New Globalism" (scroll down at http://www.prospect.org/cs/current_issue ).  Worth a look for those thinking about where labor is going or might go to build strength.   The summary of the report's major points reads:

    Global companies that resist union organizing in the US often recognize and work with unions in other countries.  And union organizing drives in the US increasingly take the form of international pressure campaigns, focusing on human rights and global agreements.  In this special report, we look at the new era of global labor...

    For those who are new to learning about unions and labor, the human right of freedom of association, interpreted to include the right to organize unions free of suppression and harassment, is considered a human right in international documents to which many countries are signatories.  For more on that, see Lance Compa, Unfair Advantage: Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States Under International Human Rights Standards, 2004.  Compa wrote one of the TAP articles in the current issue. 

    In the US defeating union organizing drives is aided by a cottage industry of consultants who specialize in this field.  Penalties for violating the laws are so weak that companies will sometimes knowingly violate them and consider this just a relatively low and entirely worthwhile cost of doing business, if they are even caught and penalized.

    Contrary to a perception in some quarters that unions are hopelessly insular, narrow-minded and anti-intellectual, there has been much debate within the union movement about alternative strategies for enhancing its strength, and a number of strategies have been tried and argued about. 

    There is thinking from outside the union movement on alternative worker representation options for our day (see Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the 21st Century, Richard B. Freeman, Joni Hersch and Lawrence Mishel). 

    The idea of building an organization, not a union, of comparable size and strength as the AARP, but to represent broadly shared workers' interests, is one that some have been advocating and, I believe, pursuing. Some here at dag, obey I think among them, have made reference to this as an idea they are interested in.

    Labor was usually anti-immigration at an earlier time but some of the successes in recent years have come from organizing recent immigrants (Nathan Newman used to write about this at the cafe sometimes) using more of a "social movement" model.  Union membership has changed dramatically from the days when minorities were excluded from some craft and other unions.  Women and minorities continue to grow as a percentage of union members (see Jo-Ann Mort, who used to write for the cafe, Not Your Father's Union Movement: Inside the AFL-CIO, now 12 years old but the trends it notes are not reversing).

    There is significant feeling within union circles that unions need to be more aggressive and effective in reaching out to form coalitions with other issue and community-based organizations, regionally with a notion of building to the national/international levels as well.  Amy Dean's book A New New Deal outlines that idea and some of the efforts that have been undertaken in that regard, including the one she leads in California.

    Lots of fragmentation and fractiousness (sound familiar?), with some successes and a complete realization of what a difficult position unions are in now, calling for fresh thinking, new approaches and spunk in the face of the forces arrayed against them.   


    Thank you for this, AD.  There's a lot for me to look into, thanks to your 'reading list'.  I appreciate it!  Hopefully I can work my way through it over the next few weeks and come back to blog about what I've learned.  I look forward to having a more cogent piece to write by that point.  Thanks again!

     


    So does globalization of the Labor movement mean we're out-sourcing Unions? Genius!  (joke)


    Let's hope that's a joke.  Sometimes I worry.

     


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