Wisconsin: A real grass roots movement!

[Big Fitz]

If these teachers would stop and think for themselves, they would see they are being asked just to help pay more for their own benefits, and not much more at that. They are not losing their collective bargaining rights for the future if the economy stabilizes.

Most people realize that we all have to bite the bullet and my guess they have uttered those words themselves at some time or another.

The president came out in favor of the unions was no help; saying these were your friends and neighbors, well so are the taxpayers who don't have jobs and sitting in the bankrupt states! As usual, the man does not have a clue. His SEIU slush fund stifles the brain. And he's too busy running for 2012 to think of the country.

A 12% increase in health care costs, and 5% into their pensions.
Or 20k people are to be fired.

I think the math is pretty damn easy. Take the cut and keep working while paying more into your own benefits.

But, I'm starting to wonder if it's really about this or continuing unrest from around the world here in an effort to tear down western civilization. Is this just opportunism, or is it a coinkeydink?

If they had not already made consessions over the last few years, I might agree they are acting unreasonable or illogical, but that is not the case. And these professionals have bills just like you do, so if your wages were cut 17% , could you afford your home and other obligations? I doubt it, because most people are indebted and living pay check to pay check.

Don't ask to dance if you can't afford to pay the fiddler, seems to come to mind here.

They haven't. Hence the temper tantrum now, with organization help from P-BO and his ilk.

Well, if the union wins, the benefit is that there will be 20k jobs ended reducing the total state worker total to about 280k.

But of course you have a ready list of all the concessions the WI public employees have already given in the last 10 years?

If it was me on the line and I had to choose between a 17% pay cut or firing? I'll take the damn pay cut and have to find a new way to make ends meet, just like I do now. So, what would YOU do in that same scenario?

 

[Big Fitz]

Teacher salaries range from 49 to 70 thousand a year in Wisconsin.

They get 22k in health care benefits for free currently too on top of cashy money. Even a 12% increase in their part to the benefit still puts them far below the private sector for costs of equivalent benefits.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

Teacher salaries range from 49 to 70 thousand a year in Wisconsin.

They get 22k in health care benefits for free currently too on top of cashy money. Even a 12% increase in their part to the benefit still puts them far below the private sector for costs of equivalent benefits.

And they're complaining about having to pay a little!! Why arent we hearing about how much they make? After all, the taxpayer is footing the bill here.

 

[Wicked Jester]

I still want to know why all these lib's weren't tearing their hair out as they are now when Obama slapped a pay increase freeze on fed employees.

Oh, that's right, It's ok for the messiah to demand compromise, but if it's a repub trying to do the same the world will implode.

Lib's and their outright hypocrisy is a funny thing.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

What's going on this week in Madison, WI is not AstroTurf, this is a real grass roots movement easily identified by one very obvious sign.

The signs are handmade by the people, not printed by corporate sponsors for events staged and carrried by people bussed in for a rally.

You're being sarcastic right? I think i'm sensing sarcasm. Because these Teacher Union protests are anything but "Grass Roots." They are heavily funded & controlled by far Left Wingnut groups and the Democratic Party. They are actually the exact opposite of Grass Roots. I'm sure many of them are being paid to protest. That's a common practice for the Democrats. Scott Walker is doing the right thing. Teacher Unions do more harm than they do good in our Public Schools. I hope he is successful in reigning them in.

 

[Big Fitz]

I'm sure many of them are being paid to protest.

Every single one of them who called in 'sick' is being paid a sick day.

Therefore, they are committing criminal fraud.

Same goes for every federal and state employee who is assisting with this insurrection against the rightfully elected government of WI.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Being out and about today I just this moment read the response to my earlier post:

"I'm not sure what the Tea Party is, it seems to be a hybrid of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives and callous conservatives who embrace simple ideas and simple solutions to complex problems.

"As a group they tend to ignore problem analysis, such as cause and effect, cost benefit/cost deficit reasoning and waiver not from an ideology of axioms and hypotheses. It seems they support remaking America by going back, way back, to the past they selectively view.

"It's not uncommon for the past to be rewritten in support of the truths they hold true, denying that which places doubt on the dogma of the right, and reinventing people such as Senator McCarthy or President Wilson to fit their needs. The movement even has adherents who set out to have high school textbooks rewritten to conform to the new political correctness they embrace."

The response? Red Herrings. Anyone have anything of substance to add?

 

[Wry Catcher]

"I'm not sure what the Tea Party is, it seems to be a hybrid of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives and callous conservatives who embrace simple ideas and simple solutions to complex problems.

"As a group they tend to ignore problem analysis, such as cause and effect, cost benefit/cost deficit reasoning and waiver not from an ideology of axioms and hypotheses. It seems they support remaking America by going back, way back, to the past they selectively view.

"It's not uncommon for the past to be rewritten in support of the truths they hold true, denying that which places doubt on the dogma of the right, and reinventing people such as Senator McCarthy or President Wilson to fit their needs. The movement even has adherents who set out to have high school textbooks rewritten to conform to the new political correctness they embrace."

The silence of the yams (a yam is somewhat like a turnip, not the smartest veggie). And yes, I'm beginning to believe Tea Party Members did recently fall off the yam truck.

 

[rdking647]

heres what the tea party really is

Tools of Evil Aristocrats

 

[Big Fitz]

I have to say I take a little umbrage to some of the assumptions in this quote

"I'm not sure what the Tea Party is, it seems to be a hybrid of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives and callous conservatives who embrace simple ideas and simple solutions to complex problems.

Callous conservatives? Simple ideas for complex problems? No I'm sorry. Callous is a very poor term for people who believe in, and use 'tough love'. The problems are not complex. They are very simple. Just very painful. The state is broke, and people, particularly government employees need to shoulder their share of the load. It's not callousness, it's necessity, and all the whining in the world will not change economic realities to where they don't owe their private sector neighbors (who pay their salaries) the responsibility to do their own fair share in hard times.

"As a group they tend to ignore problem analysis, such as cause and effect, cost benefit/cost deficit reasoning and waiver not from an ideology of axioms and hypotheses. It seems they support remaking America by going back, way back, to the past they selectively view.

This is a blanket opinion statement masquerading as fact. Most liberals I run into do not do cost benefit analysis in their thinking of consequences for their actions. They do not work through why economic costs are the way they are, and default back to emotions and valueless reasons for why things "shouldn't" be some way when there is no other way they "can" be. They're right. It's not nice that economic hard times are here. But they are, and now we need to make very hard and painful choices to deal with this in an equitable manner. Stop pointing fingers and deal with what IS, not what SHOULD be.

"It's not uncommon for the past to be rewritten in support of the truths they hold true, denying that which places doubt on the dogma of the right, and reinventing people such as Senator McCarthy or President Wilson to fit their needs. The movement even has adherents who set out to have high school textbooks rewritten to conform to the new political correctness they embrace."

This is done by EVERY group. McCarthy, for instance has been tarred and feathered by the same people who used his tactics because, although he was bombastic, and didn't have all his ducks in a row and made an ass of himself on national TV... was none the less right. There were and still are (now in the white house) communists in the government working to bring down the foundational principles of this nation. President Wilson was only the first modern era Vandal to the Constitution of American Politics.

As for textbooks? Hah! most are edited by liberals, thanks to California being the largest purchaser an those public sector unions are maybe a little to the right of Che. Public schools are hotbeds of indoctrination.

The one thing that is illustrated to me by this issue is the desperate need to privatize all education in this nation.

 

[Big Fitz]

heres what the tea party really is

Tools of Evil Aristocrats

Really? Show proof. I want to see evidence of an aristocracy's control in America and their power over the people who went to the tea parties.

Oh, for your edification:

Aristocrat— n 1. a member of the aristocracy; a noble 2. a person who has the manners or qualities of a member of a privileged or superior class

You know any of these in America?

 

[Trajan]

grass roots is besides the point really, the features that exist driving this issue are present in each and every state/budget union mechanism.

obama absolutely needs Wisconsin just as he needs Ohio, who will be next up when the bruhahah ends in Wisconsin, he has gotten himself involved up to his neck, he, has nationalized this. so be it.

The high water mark of public sector unions has reached its crest, I personally think it reached that point several years ago but its taken them attempting to drain every single aggrandizement that craven politicos gave them to get us here....is a anyone aware that in the lame duck session of the Wisconsin legislative session last December tried to ram through more pay and benefits increases for the unions while they still had (they thought), the votes before the new legislature was sworn in?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

What's going on this week in Madison, WI is not AstroTurf, this is a real grass roots movement easily identified by one very obvious sign.

The signs are handmade by the people, not printed by corporate sponsors for events staged and carrried by people bussed in for a rally.

The unions, the DNS, and various left wing organizations busing people in from out of state is a grass roots movement. No wonder you think the Tea Party is Astroturf.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Betcha the "teachers" who are illegally striking gave out extra credit to the cillins for painting their signs.

Since when has it been "illegal" to strike? The extra credit only went to the Retarded righty kids forced to draw signs or get their coward asses kicked in the bathroom.

It has pretty much always been illegal for the public sector to strike.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Well, if one reads the history of the struggles of workers for rights, you will see where the company goons routinely killed children. So why should not children take part in protecting the rights of Americas working citizens.

Amazing.

You justify teachers illegally taking students out of school for political reasons by pointing to ancient history. The weird thing is that you also keep accusing the right wing of wanting to take us backward.

 

[boedicca]

Un-Frelling-Believable.

FDR was right! Government employees shouldn't be allowed to form unions.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Those of us who have our doubts about the sincereity of the TP have them because everything thery are now complaining about could have been complained about when Bush II was in office, too.


Its the timing of this organization's complaints, and the people who are funding this organization that make it suspect as just an astroturf GOP tool.

Is that really all that difficult to figure out?

Maybe you should have paid more attention when Bush II was in office, instead of waiting until Obama got elected before you started paying attention. Plenty of the same people that are now considered the Tea Party complained even louder back then, and everyone ignored them.

 

[Stephanie]

Those of us who have our doubts about the sincereity of the TP have them because everything thery are now complaining about could have been complained about when Bush II was in office, too.


Its the timing of this organization's complaints, and the people who are funding this organization that make it suspect as just an astroturf GOP tool.

Is that really all that difficult to figure out?

Maybe you should have paid more attention when Bush II was in office, instead of waiting until Obama got elected before you started paying attention. Plenty of the same people that are now considered the Tea Party complained even louder back then, and everyone ignored them.

Exactly. I'm surprised I didn't have a visit from the SS once on one e-mail I sent him on Immigration.
There were several others I wrote to him about.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Do you guys really think it's ok to make it ILLEGAL for workers to band together to fight for their livelihoods? That this should no longer be their right... as much pull and voice as corporations have in government today? Really, you think this is a GOOD thing? We should all just let corporations run over us roughshod, work us to death and pay us nothing... and take it, as we have no leverage for bargaining? Wow. Corporate brainwashing is working well, I see. This country is well on its way to third world status. Sad. Very sad.

You know we are talking about 2 separate issues here.

I fully support the right of private sector workers to unionize and demand better pay and conditions. I do this even though I generally oppose unions. Public Sector unions, however, should be illegal. They are not even covered under federal law which actually enforces collective bargaining rights, it was left entirely up to the states.

In the states that permit collective bargaining in the public sector the inevitable result was a very cozy relationship between unions and the political establishment. Unions were able to organize, and elect people that promised them the moon for free.

Here is a pretty good essay laying out some facts and history for you.

The case against public sector unionism - ProfessorBainbridge.com

Would you support a wide spread strike by the police? The fire department? What if the military decided to go on strike during Katrina, would you have supported that? There is a resoan the public sector gives up collective bargaining, and we need to remember that before we are all their slaves.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Even FDR thought government employees should have the right to unionize, bub.

If workers can't trust the government to treat them decently as employees, why on earth should the government be trusted to enforce labor laws and regulations for the private sector?

If government won't honor their contracts they enter in, what stops them from shutting off your utilities and getting away with it?

Why should the government honor impossible contracts? The government did not sign those contracts, politicians elected by the unions did.