I'm frustrated! There's a problem. There's a big problem in WI and it's an attack on unions in the guise of a BS austerity move to attack unions as jamess lays out. It's a huge problem that only Ed Schulz and Russ Feingold are visibly loudly outraged and standing clearly with organized labor on in WI.
The President isn't because he's fence straddling.
http://www.620wtmj.com/...
"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally seems like more of an assault on unions. And I think it's very important for us to understand that public employees, they're our neighbors, they're our friends. These are folks who are teachers and they're firefighters and they're social workers and they're police officers.
"They make a lot of sacrifices and make a big contribution. And I think it's important not to vilify them or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees."
Notice that wording and sure he offered support for public sector unions on one hand but first said everyone has to "Everyone has to make some adjustments to new fiscal realities" on the other. In other words, sure austerity is awesome, like his menial BS budget freeze giving into RW memes causing the political damage to further much needed Keynesian solutions, but on the other hand he doesn't want people to attack public sector unions. that part sounds good, but consensus schmensus. The problem is giving into austerity memes is actually factually a tactical attack on unions. He also talks about entitlement programs which is more RW austerity framing.
There's a reason they ask this question, Mr. President:
It's not, "which side on one hand-without taking a stand if you look at both points of view as equal are you on?"
This is what a President does who truly unequivocally supports organized labor:
I know, "But but...back then, there were massive strikes, dairy farmers, dock workers were staring down police. The country was at risk of failing and capitalism as we know it! No one is doing this! Everything the president does is OK because there are no more anarchists, socialists, along with ordinary union members to strike this way! That's it! So SHUT UP!
Now that point is not entirely BS. Our New Deal institutions, unemployment insurance, Social Security, have taken away some of that sense of urgency that gets people more riled up and in the streets as we saw in Egypt recently and in what seems the distant past at the sit down strike in Flint in 1936. But to pretend none of that exists within the public anymore is rather cynical for people who claim to have been inspired by a campaign of hope and change.
Perhaps a modern offshoot of that question would be which excuse do you buy? An excuse to protect politicians? Or the austerity excuse tacitly or not tacitly supported by the president equivocating from one hand to the other? Enough is enough. There are no excuses. I find the revisionist excuses the worst, too. The end justifies the demeaning, I guess.
If one truly believes this, why even write diaries about teh awesome president and the Democratic awesome except for 60 votes party?(Not a good excuse as the rule was 2/3rds for cloture) Why not be honest about all of this? Why do you have to write diary after diary dancing around a circle of circular logic and playing the Machiavellian fiddle? I admit I have a little more optimism with politics than this, partly because I choose to, but I prefer a cold harsh reality check straight up with no sugar coated Democratic party team player BS and I prefer it from one of my heroes without the Machiavellian BS if we are going towards being cynical in any way about politics(and per the video the real cynicism is pretending things will get better with no good reason to think so via voting for Democrats and defending everything they do).
I can absolutely respect this even if I am not there yet and I love George Carlin and always will.
But that's not what I am hearing. Referencing FDR is important and though there was a much more galvanizing ambient, there are those that look for historical excuses and will always find them and re-envision them. Except those painful painful facts and that painful painful context involving organized labor and progressive movements working somewhat even in the relatively recent past as we saw in Bloody Harlan County even in the 70s is why we cannot give up on ourselves or labor.
And so Democrats that don't break their relative silence at a time when we need to be screaming about this, deserve all the ridicule there is. They cannot have this both ways. They must pick. It's that important. It's that stark of an issue. Which side are they on? Austerity is anti-labor. Austerity is never considered when bailing out Wall Street, it's only for public sector unions, unions workers, and everyone on Main Street. Tacit support of austerity means tacitly betraying labor with this equivocation which does support austerity. That is not acceptable.
"And if American workers are being denied their right to organize when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States." Barack Obama— 11/3/07, Spartanburg, S.C.
But not just the president, all Democrats need to speak up as if their electoral hopes depended on it like they do when they want labor's support, and I will say so with professional heft.