Rico,

Unlike mostTDers, both Left and Right, I continually stumble over facts that get in the way of “The Truth”.  They just side-step those “inconvenient” facts.

samo:

My apologies- thought you were talking about J Edgar Hoover. And it wasn’t established that the army killed the two protesters- in fact, it was very likely the DC police. MacArthur’s six tanks weren’t used. Truman said, “The buck stops here.”

****************

““That was Truman. I am not encouraged by your ignorance of
basic history.”“
********************

Damn you’re a shit. You didn’t even bother to go to the link I
provided, yet you portend to be the last word on any subject and
everybody commenting has to live up to standards you set. Just
keep you asshole opinions to yourself.

I’ll add another link, which your hubris most likely won’t allow
you check because you fucking know it all, I DARE YOU to go
here and then check the previous link I provided:

http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/bonusm.htm

Obvious you don’t know jack shit beans about anything of a
bonus army or who was president and who was head of military
departments during any year or presidential terms. And
especially what the u.s. military IS CAPABLE OF DOING TO THE
CITIZENS!

When I fly again, you can bet I’ll make sure you are NOT the
pilot.

ITW:

“Yet the funny thing is: slavery and vast amounts of unemployed are contradictory.  Slavery arises when there is a scarcity of labor, rather than an abundance.”

Your willingness to make a statement like that is why I value your posts. You have a sense of economic reality not shared by most td’ers. Thanks.

samo:

“Then Hoover, WHERE THE GODDAMN BUCK STOPS,..”

That was Truman. I am not encouraged by your ignorance of basic history.

“So even though you seemingly approve of our government’s actions against military veterans…”

Show me one quote of mine anywhere, any time that supports that accusation. All I did was challenge your chain-of-command fantasy. (And you’re telling me that Hoover, Patton, MacArthur, Eisenhower and the DC Police could muster only enough firepower among them to kill TWO veterans??? Where do you find this shit?)

“Your assumptions give the cause to think you really enjoyed the deaths of the students at Kent State…”

What assumptions? I don’t know where you were in the spring of 1970, DICKHEAD, but I was on the barricades protesting the war, just like those kids at Kent.

Then I learned how the real world works, grew up and moved on. Et toi?

Fat Freddy, I’ve been wanting to ask you a question. Quite a long time ago, I realized that most people’s view of laws is that they apply to other people, but they personally should be permitted to do whatever the fuck they want. Now I’m wondering if this is what libertarianism has become. Everyone vaunts Ron Paul as a libertarian, but I don’t see libertarianism as being consistent with controlling women’s bodies.

I don’t know why in the world you would think public employees have no right to collective bargaining. Are you just another one of those people who think you have rights and all the rest of us don’t?

To Go Right Young Man - Your statement:

“NAFTA did not turn Flint into a ghost-town.  More than any single factor it was union demands that we all pay an individual in excess of $48.00 per hour to push a broom which killed the great town of Flint.”

Do you have actual proof of your two assertions? 1) NAFTA did not turn Flint into a ghost-town, and) that it was the unions that killed Flint?

Your point (if there really is a point) would be true if it weren’t so one dimensional. What about the Companies? What about management? What about a dozen other reasons why manufacturing costs were so high?

The right to Unionize and belong to a Union is just as important as the right to Vote. Apparently most people working as a salaried employee or Manager of non-salaried employees have no concern for the welfare of the non-salaried. The salaried or managerial employee typically has more education and/or experience, combined with a level of confidence and general self-worth. The average non-salaried employee wants to work, wants to feel appreciated, and wants to feel a sense of job security. Most of them do not have a high level of self-worth, which can be attributed to lack of education/poor education, family traits, minor handicap or physical appearance.
I learned early on in my career that the average employee considered Job Security and Management Appreciation of a job well done as being much more important than Money. Of course reasonable pay was/is important, but on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the least important, Money was 5 and Job Security 1. Using the same criteria I placed Job Satisfaction 1 and Money 2 with Job Security at 5; I was confident I could always find another or better job.
The Union provides the Job Security so badly needed by the average worker. It is especially important for an employee who has spent most of their working life in the present job. They can at least go home at the end of the day knowing that they can’t be let-go and be replaced by an employee with much less seniority and wage. They all realize that cut-backs/lay-offs is now part of the job environment. Without the Union the older higher-paid employee is toast.

****************

Doesn’t seem possible that you don’t know what happened and
how, so here, read this as Hoover AG, mitchell ordered the
veterans removed from all government property. Resistance to
removal ended in 2 veterans killed. Then Hoover, WHERE THE
GODDAMN BUCK STOPS, ordered the whole ordered the army to
clear the veterans’ campsite. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas
MacArthur commanded the infantry and cavalry supported by six
tanks. The Bonus Army marchers with their wives and children
were driven out, and their shelters and belongings burned.

So even though you seemingly approve of our government’s
actions against military veterans or don’t know what happened
and probably don’t conceive of the military turning on american
citizens, this is history that hasn’t been disappeared. Then my
breathtaking ignorance must have been the general way I stated
this attack of people suffering and seeking some relief from a
government that left them behind big time. Just like today where
whatever could be considered a government is ‘BIG TIME’ leaving
people behind to protect those ‘national treasures’ who can’t be
bothered with demonstrations and protests. Your assumptions
give the cause to think you really enjoyed the deaths of the
students at Kent State and those 2 veterans seeking aid that
another ‘worst president of the u.s.’ denied in order to protect
the ‘elite’ of the day back then. And you could be an archie
bunker type who loved to sing that little ditty at the opening of
the show that bunker crooned ‘we could use another herbert
hoover again’.

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

I have lived in Wisconsin all my life and worked for a Company that had plants in 4-states. The Wisconsin plant and one other have a Union-shop. The Wisconsin Plant has always paid the highest wages, but also had the highest productivity, typically exceeding the other plants by more than 20%; they also had the best bottom line. As a Technical Manager it is obvious to me that good Management is key to productivity. The Union workers are proud of their productivity, quality and loyalty to the Company. However, I see the Union Brotherhood as being a key to the success of the Wisconsin Plant.

I see nothing good coming out of the moves being made by the Republican Leadership in Wisconsin or Washington D.C. Dishonor the workers and at some point human-nature will prevail; they will get revenge and we all lose.

Is Gov. Scott Walker going to outsource Wisconsin state government jobs?  Hire illegals to give out tickets and enforce anti immigration laws?

The unions serve as a counterweight to appointed bureaucrats who are in office for a few years before they are replaced by others.

Within the building trade unions, the employer sends the fringe benefits directly to the union to administer, when the employee retires, quits or is layed off they find them a new job, pay retirement or train them for another job within that trades jurisdiction.

Collective bargining of pay and benefits can go up or it can go down depending on how many members are on the ‘bench’.  It is in the best interests of that union to make a deal to but members back to work so benefits into the funds can be paid by those put back to work.

I, like many believe government workers recieve excess benefits for the work involved, the simple solution is to renegotiate when the contract becomes due and if the union refuses to do so, layoff unessential employees.  I’m sure police, firefighters and public safety have a no strike clause in their contracts. 

The answer is not to get rid of the unions but to get them to negotiate in ernest for the benefit of their members.

purplewolf,

NAFTA did not turn Flint into a ghost-town.  More than any single factor it was union demands that we all pay an individual in excess of $48.00 per hour to push a broom which killed the great town of Flint. - Pay a college student half that amount to push that broom.  Manufacturing costs would plummet.  Student wages would skyrocket.  Flint’s entire manufacturing base would breath life once again.

When an employer is unable to terminate the employment of someone caught stealing, or doing drugs on the job, or paying another to punch a time card while the employee goes home, or caught bilking a work-comp claim for a decade - that employer will pack up and do business elsewhere.

The unions of our Grandfathers is no more.  Today most trade unions are analogous to a for-profit business.

Unions and collective bargaining? Yes!  After they are torn-asunder and rebuilt to actually work to the benefit of the employee instead of the union itself.

“Without unions making employers treat their employees as people rather than lower than animals, working in unsafe conditions,no concern for the well being of their employees and whether they can even support a family for the wages paid after working all week.”

That is SO 1930s. Come on now. It’s the 21st century. Live in it.
***************

No, Rico. In nations all over the world, from China to Indonesia, to our neighbor to the South, Mexico, the “1930’s” are happening in 2011.

And, while it may still (at least for now) be illegal in most, if not all of the United States, it’s happening here, too, right now.  That Hamlet, North Carolina chicken plant fire, where the fire doors were chained shut was 1991—not 1930.

Case after case is being found of immigrants held in slavery.

Yet the funny thing is: slavery and vast amounts of unemployed are contradictory.  Slavery arises when there is a scarcity of labor, rather than an abundance.

But the more people are unemployed the easier it is to exploit them, to underpay them, to force them to be exposed to hazardous, life-shortening toxins, and to work under dangerous conditions without obvious protections: Helmets, safety lines, insulated platforms, etc.  People will do ANYTHING to feed their hungry families, and there will be more and more in America soon.

Unions saved America once.  They need to be re-formed to save it again. Otherwise, soon, we’ll look like Egypt, but without the brave young people to stand up and say “NO!”

samo:

I see- Because the army has the potential to kill people, by your lights it always will.

Even though Hoover couldn’t “send” MacArthur anywhere, I’ll wear your tinfoil hat for a minute and ask you to throw a little context into that remark.

Rico: Your comment “that’s so 1930 etc. Perhaps I may have tunnel vision as to what is reality here, but I still live in Flint as my home is paid for and I cannot afford anything else, even though it is worth less than when I bought it in 1970. It is between a ghost town and a ghetto in my home town. Jobs are scarce and as most the union jobs were eliminated from this area starting with the NAFTA, most pay minimum wage or less in many instances. Sure some parts of this country may have a healthy working environment, but not here. Sine I am no longer in the work force due to medical,I don’t have to worry about being down sized,cut back,deleted, fired,or whatever term you might use to describe the unemployed. Everyone unfortunately is not as lucky as you seem to be from some of your other posts.

Yes, this is the 21st century, but those who wield the power are trying to drag the bottom 98+% back into the dark ages when employment was unsafe for workers and paid slave wages. I would rather see people working in healthy environments and be paid enough that they would be able to buy a home, raise a family and maybe have a little money left after each paycheck to save or invest over having the majority of the population struggle daily to try and cover the necessities of life while the top -2% stealing the very lifeblood from it’s employees. After all, once you become a billionaire, you could never live long enough to spent all that money unless you are a republican and they only spend other peoples money.

****************

rico,
always happy to take your breath away.

To keep your ego tripping, just what was ignorant, as certainly
the national guard killed 4 at Kent State and the u.s. army did kill
members of the bonus army and any time a governor orders out
their national guard, well I say that I would hope the national
guard would be as ‘friendly’ as the Egyptian army was to the
citizens of Egypt.

Couple a republican authoritarian and disciplinarian governor,
you tell me what nice potentials abound in that scenario.

It is an anti-union push to be sure.  They are running
ads claiming that government workers are the bane of
society with their good benefits, what a joke.  The
problem here is during the last election the republicans
took control of both houses in the Wisconsin
legislature.  This is not the first thing Walker has
ram-rodded through since his election.  Walker is BAD
BAD BAD for Wisconsin and the country and his union
breaking is only the beginning of his agenda.

Here in WA State, where fewer than 7% of State workers are union members, the “capitalists” are claiming the same thing, to wit, that unions are busting the budget. Never mind, whenever one brings up THE FACTS, the business community, politicians and all the other Neanderthals (fat freddy…that would be you) have no real data to support their claims.

And here’s a special piece of information:

In WA State it is a well-known fact that many of our “premier” corporations such as Boeing, Microsoft, Paccar, Amazon, etc. pay far less in taxes than they should. There are a myriad of tax loopholes and business practices that cheat the state out of legitimate revenue (yes, my dear libertarian friends….taxes for operating in a state are legitimate).

But what’s so emblematic of the “business” community is that, when pressed about paying taxes, they threaten that they will simply go somewhere else…..even though, through the other side of their collective mouth they claim to “support education and innovation.”

I’m sorry to be so crass, but all of you libertarian types, you Ayn Rand jerk-weeds and greedy corporate assholes…........you can go fuck yourselves. I can think of a few reasons to dislike labour unions, but I can think of a MILLION reasons to despise the plutocrats that are in control of our government, our economy and our lives…...

samo:

” The u.s. military, be it the army or national guard, has no compunction in gunning down american citizens. Kent State taught us that as did hoover’s sending in gen. macarthur with maj george patton leading the charge and maj dwight eisenhower playing liaison with the d.c. police.”

Thank you for that breathtaking display of ignorance.

Nice rejoinder Freddy.

And, why, pray tell, should Wisconsin call out the Guard against progressive union types? I thought it was only Tea Partiers who threatened and actually perpetrated violence. Why, we all know that SEIU and AFSCME look to Ghandi for their tactics.

purple:

“Without unions making employers treat their employees as people rather than lower than animals, working in unsafe conditions,no concern for the well being of their employees and whether they can even support a family for the wages paid after working all week.”

That is SO 1930s. Come on now. It’s the 21st century. Live in it.

****************

Goes without saying, he cuts the public sector(that’s socialism)
by ending collective bargaining and then he gets the kick backs
and lobby dollars all to himself. Looking at his punk face in the
photo shows that; not to mention the goal of the neocon’s, no
more socialism unless it is bribery..uh, lobbying giveaways or
corporate welfare.

Purplewolf, only the Egyptian army will not fire on that country’s
citizens. The u.s. military, be it the army or national guard, has
no compunction in gunning down american citizens. Kent State
taught us that as did hoover’s sending in gen. macarthur with
maj george patton leading the charge and maj dwight
eisenhower playing liaison with the d.c. police.

And now little frat boy, scott walker, is going to hide behind the
guns of his national guard. If only the guard would turn around
and arrest little scott walker and protect those wanting to
collective bargain.

Ah, Bernium, you make the same mistake I do sometimes, trying to talk sense to libertarian like Fat Freddy. He and his knuckle-dragging ilk still believe the world would be a paradise if government of the people and labor unions didn’t pick on those poor, helpless multinational corporations. Why didn’t you know that all we have to do to be millionaires is start our own businesses, be honest, and keep our collective noses to the grindstone, and all the wildest dreams of Avarice will be thrust upon us by the unchained free market. Because everybody knows that all businessmen and corporations do eveything on the up and up. They never use their riches and influence to manipulate markets and keep the average Joe from ever achieving success. Libertarians just all skip hand in hand down a sunlit forest path where everyone is treated equally in some sort of capitalistic utopia.

Honey, wake up! it’s time to got to work!

Sorry, I dozed off there for a second. I was dreaming that we didn’t live in a dog-eat-dog world of unrestrained capitalism, where the uber wealthy and their major corporations were using their libertarian freedoms to move as many jobes as possible to the third world, where they can simultaniously hide in tax shelters and destroy labor unions that were reponsible for the civilization that the nations of the west have enjoyed for nearly 100 years.

People like fat freddy believe that libertarians and capitalists are inherently altruistic.

Bullshit! It has never worker that way, and it never will. I believe Thomas Jefferson once said “Let us hear no more in the confidence in man, but let him be bound by the chains of the Constitution”. Only markets regulated by a mandate from the masses can succeed in benefitting the majority of the people. The alternative is to live in some sort of de-evolving feudal state.

fat freddy: Alas, you make the usual but deceitful equilivalence of government with politicians. Government, according to the oft cited constitution, is to be an instrument of the common good whereas politicians, especially those in the employ of the plutocracy, employ it as a cudgel to suppress the masses from exerting the rights guarenteed by said document. Government isn’t bad, its the people running it at any given time and unfortunately, they are the ones we ourselves so foolishly elect! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!!!!

purplewolf

You don’t see a difference between public sector and private sector unions? Public employees need unions to protect them from the big, bad government? Glad you agree that the government is evil, and statism is slavery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGq_1710U4

The republican party, along with a goodly number of domocrats, has proven itself to be a criminal and treasonous organization as evidenced by their subservience to the multinational corporatocracy which blatantly bribes it to pursue policy and legislative agendas contrary and detrimental to the constitution and citizens of the USA! The corruption and complicity extends to the SCOTUS as well as the executive branch both in terms of their decisions and personnel choices as advisors and consultants. Its most unfortunate that there are so many ignorant, indolent, and bigoted people in this nation as this impairs a unified and powerful response to the forces of reaction currently attempting to regress this country to an era of economic feudalism! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!!!!

Don’t forget the beginning of Martial Law out in the open by putting the National Guard on alert. I thought all of our National Guard are in Iraq and other places rather than here in America. Wonder how these “Guards” feel about turning on their fellow country people? America, we can really be proud of the freedoms? we have here at home.

AHHH! More UNION busting. Isn’t it grand. We’ll show those little peons who is in charge now and it ain’t them. We’ll toss a lot of them out on their ass, cut wages and benefits and make em pay more and get less for it. America, what a great place to ruin, I mean run.

As living in the city where the first sit down strike happened, I have seen first hand how our economy has died and flat lined ling ago.Without unions making employers treat their employees as people rather than lower than animals, working in unsafe conditions,no concern for the well being of their employees and whether they can even support a family for the wages paid after working all week. Why do Repukelicans continue to brainwash, mostly those in the southern states, that unions are bad for workers. Do you think that employers would do the right thing for their employees? Few and very far. After all there are virtually hundreds and sometimes thousands of people lined up for each job opening in many parts of the country. I have seen it in the 1970’s when they first started to send our GM jobs to Mexico. AC Spark Plug-no longer in operation for those who still remember it, in 1976 had over 3,000 people line up for the rumor of 5 or less openings in their former factory, You could not even drive in the area as cars and people took ap all the available space around the factory. It will only be worse now as the population of this country and others as well who will work for less than $2.00 a day or less and all the while the prices of everything continue to go up as in other countries where we have been witnessing for the past 3 weeks.

America your day is over, continue to let the GOP make the rich richer and cut all your goods and services they make you pay for and if you are lucky enough to still have a job, watch your wages and benefits disappear as we become the newest 3rd world country in the world. And that unemployment you and your employer paid into just in case you became unemployed is no longer going to be paid to you, the right have stolen it for the rich tax cuts, but watch, your taxed amount for this will still be taken out of your checks.

Hope you all like bananas.