A woman with lawn chairs supporting her peace-sign drum has a "General Strike!" sign:
A barefoot guy with take-out coffee pads around in the vicinity of a chalking that says "In Wisconsin there is always a place for the poor: PRISON," which has nothing to do with the recent protests (in service of the interests of well-paid — and free — state workers):
As a man poses in shorts, chalk wonders "Why can't we decided? Why no REFERENDUM?" — as if we didn't decide when we voted last November:
And a lone protester holds a sign, while most signs are consigned to the dirt:
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58 comments:
The language of so many of the protest signs is so pathetic. The last four weeks has produced nothing really profound.
Is this a cognition problems that plagues people? Expressing yourself sensibly?
The people in those pictures are corollary to the old wheeze, "There's no such thing as a poor, white liberal". There is such a thing as a poor, white radical.
Man, I'll bet some of those old geezers were some of the Heroes of the Revolution back in '64 who made phone calls to the parents of soldiers killed in 'Nam saying they had gotten what they deserved, they were paid killers.
WV "hosess" A lady hose. Or...
m stone: the State Historical Society and the Smithsonian think the signs were "fab". Now we will use state funds to have a display of the signs so we can all remember the "greatness" of this time in our history.
Union workers. Too lazy to even hold their own protest signs.
Uh oh, a man in shorts.
"piece of crap" Wow. She really knows how to come up with an insult. Next she'll be calling him poopy head.
At least they are doing something about the homeless problem is San Francisco. I'll bet it is down by 50% and some donations to Greyhound bus would get it down to 20%. That would leave only the people who are too stoned to find the bus station.
I used to have fun Photoshopping new messages in protest signs:
My Arms are Very Tired
I Didn't Much Care for the
Continental Breakfast
THE ART OF SIGNAGE
LIES IN GOOD PLAnni
But now the fun of it is gone.
Does anyone know the origins of General Strike's fangy black/red cat?
I thought was Bill the Cat, he was pretty radical.
What do you know. A Democrat who hates brown people.
"Does anyone know the origins of General Strike's fangy black/red cat?"
According to the comfortable upper-class Sunday socialists at Boing Boing, it refers to some antique concept called
a "wildcat strike", and was illustrated by Eric Drooker.
@Palladian, thank you!
A referendum? You want to turn Wisconsin into California? Jaysus.
Are they that delusional? Do they really think non-union taxpayers/voters would vote in a referendum for the public union to fleece the taxpayers, to vote for teachers union to ruin their children's chances for a decent education?
Referendum? Bring it on!
The tone of the blog has turned into something bitter and corrosive and depressing.
A wildcat strike is one that is spontaneous, bottom-up, "we ain't takin' this shit no more" kind of event. They still happened when I was a boy in West Virginia, and in my mind, represent the best instincts of the labor movement.
A wildcat general strike would involve the proletariat rising up in unison against the oppressive...
... and this is where the Underpants Gnomes enter the picture.
The juxtaposition I want to see is the woman with the "brown bag of crap" sign next to the man with the plaster crap wagon.
This will make plain he bag vs. wagon schism in the crap religion.
"The tone of the blog has turned into something bitter and corrosive and depressing."
No, you've turned into something bitter and corrosive and depressing. Why don't you scram, you're really starting to bring the rest of us down.
Ridiculous. Walker isn't brown. He's white.
@Meade: Hi! Went home for a bit. Sorry for the delay in response. We left off with you telling me to go research Carter’s removal of Collective Bargaining rights, and accusing me of being a hypocrite for not protesting Obama when he hasn’t done anything to restore those rights.
Firstly, the Carter deal. I did google the phrase you asked me to, but that only popped up with a yahoo answers site and a few other ones which didn’t really have any worthwhile information on them. So instead I googled the reform itself, and read the Wikipedia page, Carters speech, and a few other areas to get an idea of why the reform was needed, and what it did.
The reform was needed in response to Nixon’s administration, and did much to protect the rights of Federal employees and ensure that whistle blowers would be safe, if they had a valid claim for abuse or misconduct of a Federal office. It split up the duties of the United States Civil Service Commission, which had been created in 1883, into 3 main departments.
The office of Personnel Management (OPM) deals with "recruiting, retaining and honoring a world-class force to serve the American people." An independent, non-political department aimed at moving towards a merit system and less favoritism or personal influence and deals with the hiring and firing of Federal employees.
The Merit Systems Protection Board was also split from the USCSC, and is there to help ensure Federal employees protection from political influence and general problems of upper management corruption or abuse.
The last and most relevant one to this discussion however, is the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which, according to their website: (http://www.flra.gov/introduction-flra):
“The FLRA is an independent administrative federal agency created by Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (also known as the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute) (the Statute). Pub. L. 95-454, 5 U.S.C. §7101 et seq. The Statute allows certain non-postal federal employees to organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their choice in decisions affecting their working lives
-resolving complaints of unfair labor practices,
-determining the appropriateness of units for labor organization representation,
-adjudicating exceptions to arbitrator's awards,
-adjudicating legal issues relating to duty to bargain/negotiability, and
resolving impasses during negotiations.”
That doesn’t sound like an abolishment of collective bargaining, but rather the recognition & protection of that right. It’s another bureaucratic layer to go through obviously, but it’s quite different than complete removal.
I looked up articles about Carter abolishing Collective Bargaining Rights but that only really popped up with unbacked claims in the comment sections of articles. If you want to shoot me a link that can detail exactly how Carter’s reform abolished those rights, let me know.
As far the Obama thing goes, I really don’t see your point. Just because Obama isn't fighting to bring it back doesn't mean he's also actively fighting to take it away like is happening around the nation.
Huh. My post went away.
@Meade: Hi! Went home for a bit. Sorry for the delay in response. We left off with you telling me to go research Carter’s removal of Collective Bargaining rights, and accusing me of being a hypocrite for not protesting Obama when he hasn’t done anything to restore those rights.
Firstly, the Carter deal. I did google the phrase you asked me to, but that only popped up with a yahoo answers site and a few other ones which didn’t really have any worthwhile information on them. So instead I googled the reform itself, and read the Wikipedia page, Carters speech, and a few other areas to get an idea of why the reform was needed, and what it did.
The reform was needed in response to Nixon’s administration, and did much to protect the rights of Federal employees and ensure that whistle blowers would be safe, if they had a valid claim for abuse or misconduct of a Federal office. It split up the duties of the United States Civil Service Commission, which had been created in 1883, into 3 main departments.
The office of Personnel Management (OPM) deals with "recruiting, retaining and honoring a world-class force to serve the American people." An independent, non-political department aimed at moving towards a merit system and less favoritism or personal influence and deals with the hiring and firing of Federal employees.
The Merit Systems Protection Board was also split from the USCSC, and is there to help ensure Federal employees protection from political influence and general problems of upper management corruption or abuse.
The last and most relevant one to this discussion however, is the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which, according to their website: (http://www.flra.gov/introduction-flra):
“The FLRA is an independent administrative federal agency created by Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (also known as the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute) (the Statute). Pub. L. 95-454, 5 U.S.C. §7101 et seq. The Statute allows certain non-postal federal employees to organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their choice in decisions affecting their working lives
-resolving complaints of unfair labor practices,
-determining the appropriateness of units for labor organization representation,
-adjudicating exceptions to arbitrator's awards,
-adjudicating legal issues relating to duty to bargain/negotiability, and
resolving impasses during negotiations.”
That doesn’t sound like an abolishment of collective bargaining, but rather the recognition & protection of that right. It’s another bureaucratic layer to go through obviously, but it’s quite different than complete removal.
I looked up articles about Carter abolishing Collective Bargaining Rights but that only really popped up with unbacked claims in the comment sections of articles. If you want to shoot me a link that can detail exactly how Carter’s reform abolished those rights, let me know.
As far the Obama thing goes, I really don’t see your point. Just because Obama isn't fighting to bring it back doesn't mean he's also actively fighting to take it away like is happening around the nation.
The tone of the blog has turned into something bitter and corrosive and depressing.
Just as the teachers are free to leave their jobs if they don't like them anymore, you are free to stop coming here.
Man, people act like they have no free will and others have to make things better for them.
You're entitled to mock the protesters, but not make them look illiterate by putting your typos on their signs.
The first sign you quoted says "brown bag" not "brown bad." Another one says "Why can't we decide?", not "Why can't we decided?"
@Meade: Hi! Went home for a bit. Sorry for the delay in response. We left off with you telling me to go research Carter’s removal of Collective Bargaining rights, and accusing me of being a hypocrite for not protesting Obama when he hasn’t done anything to restore those rights.
Firstly, the Carter deal. I did google the phrase you asked me to, but that only popped up with a yahoo answers site and a few other ones which didn’t really have any worthwhile information on them. So instead I googled the reform itself, and read the Wikipedia page, Carters speech, and a few other areas to get an idea of why the reform was needed, and what it did.
The reform was needed in response to Nixon’s administration, and did much to protect the rights of Federal employees and ensure that whistle blowers would be safe, if they had a valid claim for abuse or misconduct of a Federal office. It split up the duties of the United States Civil Service Commission, which had been created in 1883, into 3 main departments.
The office of Personnel Management (OPM) deals with "recruiting, retaining and honoring a world-class force to serve the American people." An independent, non-political department aimed at moving towards a merit system and less favoritism or personal influence and deals with the hiring and firing of Federal employees.
The Merit Systems Protection Board was also split from the USCSC, and is there to help ensure Federal employees protection from political influence and general problems of upper management corruption or abuse.
The last and most relevant one to this discussion however, is the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which, according to their website: (http://www.flra.gov/introduction-flra):
“The FLRA is an independent administrative federal agency created by Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (also known as the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute) (the Statute). Pub. L. 95-454, 5 U.S.C. §7101 et seq. The Statute allows certain non-postal federal employees to organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their choice in decisions affecting their working lives
-resolving complaints of unfair labor practices,
-determining the appropriateness of units for labor organization representation,
-adjudicating exceptions to arbitrator's awards,
-adjudicating legal issues relating to duty to bargain/negotiability, and
resolving impasses during negotiations.”
That doesn’t sound like an abolishment of collective bargaining, but rather the recognition & protection of that right. It’s another bureaucratic layer to go through obviously, but it’s quite different than abolishment.
I looked up articles about Carter abolishing Collective Bargaining Rights but that only really popped up with unbacked claims in the comment sections of articles. If you want to shoot me a link that can detail exactly how Carter’s reform abolished those rights, let me know.
As far the Obama thing goes, I really don’t see your point. Just because Obama isn't fighting to bring it back doesn't mean he's also actively fighting to take it away like is happening around the nation.
For sources I started with just looking at the wiki page for the reform itself, then went to Carter's speech on it, and ventured over to the various home pages of the agencies it created. If you have or know of any good articles or events that detail how the act removed Federal employees right to collectively bargain, let me know.
Dr. Leo Marvin
AA's sole purpose in life is to make fun of liberals, so you must cut her some lack when her obsession makes her look like a complete fool!
Get w/the AA disengenuous, limbaugh daily talkin' pts. program lol
cut her some slack
god knows, she needs it ...
Who can forget the Brown Bag Movement?
Old/New Brown Bag Movement
Pre-tty Freaky. I didn't know Walker was so fond of recall elections. But I think in this one case we should follow his advice!
@pallid and stever--
nice exemplifications of my post.
but the blog is such an angry and nitpicking place now--doorknobs and masking tape and tee shirts on statues and who put the handcuffs on the door and professors debating little girls and putting it online for purposes of derision, and then pretending to care.
i once thought there was something more here.
lots of little minds and silly arguments.
you have to know that you are losing ground.
Well Lucid, the coverage has been of Union Brats. I'm sure when we turn to other subjects, the blog will be less depressing for people like you.
@Meade: Hi! Went home for a bit. Sorry for the delay in response. We left off with you telling me to go research Carter’s removal of Collective Bargaining rights, and accusing me of being a hypocrite for not protesting Obama when he hasn’t done anything to restore those rights.
Firstly, the Carter deal. I did google the phrase you asked me to, but that only popped up with a yahoo answers site and a few other ones which didn’t really have any worthwhile information on them. So instead I googled the reform itself, and read the Wikipedia page, Carters speech, and a few other areas to get an idea of why the reform was needed, and what it did.
The reform was needed in response to Nixon’s administration, and did much to protect the rights of Federal employees and ensure that whistle blowers would be safe, if they had a valid claim for abuse or misconduct of a Federal office. It split up the duties of the United States Civil Service Commission, which had been created in 1883, into 3 main departments.
The office of Personnel Management (OPM) deals with "recruiting, retaining and honoring a world-class force to serve the American people." An independent, non-political department aimed at moving towards a merit system and less favoritism or personal influence and deals with the hiring and firing of Federal employees.
The Merit Systems Protection Board was also split from the USCSC, and is there to help ensure Federal employees protection from political influence and general problems of upper management corruption or abuse.
The last and most relevant one to this discussion however, is the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which, according to their website: (http://www.flra.gov/introduction-flra):
“The FLRA is an independent administrative federal agency created by Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (also known as the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute) (the Statute). Pub. L. 95-454, 5 U.S.C. §7101 et seq. The Statute allows certain non-postal federal employees to organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor organizations of their choice in decisions affecting their working lives
-resolving complaints of unfair labor practices,
-determining the appropriateness of units for labor organization representation,
-adjudicating exceptions to arbitrator's awards,
-adjudicating legal issues relating to duty to bargain/negotiability, and
resolving impasses during negotiations.”
That doesn’t sound like an abolishment of collective bargaining, but rather the recognition & protection of that right. It’s another bureaucratic layer to go through obviously, but it’s quite different than abolishment.
I looked up articles about Carter abolishing Collective Bargaining Rights but that only really popped up with unbacked claims in the comment sections of articles. If you want to shoot me a link that can detail exactly how Carter’s reform abolished those rights, let me know.
As far the Obama thing goes, I really don’t see your point. Just because Obama isn't fighting to bring it back doesn't mean he's also actively fighting to take it away like is happening around the nation.
For sources I started with just looking at the wiki page for the reform itself, then went to Carter's speech on it, and ventured over to the various home pages of the agencies it created. If you have or know of any good articles or events that detail how the act removed Federal employees right to collectively bargain, let me know.
nice exemplifications of my post.
I wasn't exemplifying your post, I was telling you if it was such a negative place for you, leave, no one wants to read someone whine about a blog.
Lucid, no one has been more angry, derisive and obsessed with the whole protest business than you have. You're projecting again.
Judging from these photos it looks like the protests have dwindled down to just the usual dead-enders.
@lucid -- A big part of what Althouse has posted the last two months is original reporting on an important, ongoing news event. That may not be your bag, but I'm not sure why it needs to get under your skin so much. Check out for a while, and check back in at some later time. (There's a pattern of that, you know.)
Somebody needs to teach lucid where the little x is in the top right corner of the screen.
stever and lumbering chick:
what you are telling me is similar to what Shankman seems to be telling Ann--you don't like something that is going on here, so leave.
@henry--
I'm not sure I would call it reporting. It seems more like an obsession that like most obsessions make the person irritable and strange and off-kilter in their judgments.
Man, thats not even close to a parallel, I never threatened to throw baseballs on your lawn
I don't see the Public Employee Union loser fairies.
lucid said...
The tone of the blog has turned into something bitter and corrosive and depressing.
Really? How so? Enlighten us. Wait, let me put my goggles on. I don't want anything bitter or corrosive getting into them. Ah, that's better.
I think the best story today is that Sen Hopper's mistress (should I mention he's a Repubican?) got a state job with a 30+% pay boost over the person she replaced.
stever and lumbering chick:
what you are telling me is similar to what Shankman seems to be telling Ann--you don't like something that is going on here, so leave.
Dude, please, this is embarrassing. Do you really need this explained to you?
I think the best story today is that Sen Hopper's mistress (should I mention he's a Repubican?) got a state job with a 30+% pay boost over the person she replaced
Oh, she's another Michelle Obama then? How wonderful.
MadisonMan said...
I think the best story today is that Sen Hopper's mistress (should I mention he's a Repubican?) got a state job with a 30+% pay boost over the person she replaced.
Oh noes!!! The moral equivalency police are out in force again.
what you are telling me is similar to what Shankman seems to be telling Ann--you don't like something that is going on here, so leave.
You know, if that was all that Shankman had told Ann, I don't think she would have had much of a problem with it.
For some reason, you insist on comparing benign insults and disagreements with stalking and physical threats. I don't know if you are genuinely struggling to understand what was wrong with what Shankman did, or if you just have your head up your ass - but either way, if you have the expectation that people aren't going to be as rude to you as you are to others, you've got another thing coming.
Oh, no! I think Santa Claus is holding up the remains of Pinocchio, in the first photo. Tragic. :(
Dylan said...
I've tried to post this in the most current blog post, because I figured it'd be easier to spot there than back two pages on this one. It keeps getting deleted or removed though.
Your comment was not deleted or removed. Blogger has different levels of spam filters and your comment, along with a number of post by other commenters, got held up in the spam filter. If a commenter ever has a question about a comment not showing up, emailing Ann Althouse directly will often resolve the problem as going into the spam filter is not something she regularly does.
@Meade: Hi! Went home for a bit. Sorry for the delay in response. We left off with you telling me to go research Carter’s removal of Collective Bargaining rights, and accusing me of being a hypocrite for not protesting Obama when he hasn’t done anything to restore those rights.
Did I accuse you of being a hypocrite? I don't think I did as accusing people of being hypocrites is just not something I normally do. If I did, please cite for me the exact comment in which I accused you of it. If you can't, I think you may owe me an apology.
I appreciate you looking into the "Carter deal." My point is this: federal public employees, even under President Carter, did not have and never have had the "human" right or the "constitutional" right to collectively bargain. Under Carter's and congress's Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, federal employees' collective bargaining rights were both strengthened and limited. Here's the point: those collective bargaining rights were adjusted precisely because they are, as you mentioned in your comment above, statutory rights. Human rights and constitutional rights cannot be limited or taken away by government. Statutory rights, by definition, can. So my question remains: Since you and your fellow protesters are so certain that Governor Walker and the Republicans are doing something immoral and illegal by legislatively restricting some of Wisconsin public employees' statutory collective bargaining rights, why are you not putting pressure on President Obama and congress to restore and expand the statutory collective bargaining rights of all federal employees? I'm not calling you a hypocrite for your inaction, I'm only suggesting that you are being inconsistent and perhaps the pass you are tacitly giving Obama should temper your anger and moral outrage toward Walker.
There's a grammar of sign operation.
A sign stuck in the dirt is operational; a sign you're holding is operational; but a sign that's been leaned against an object is out of order.
Sometimes highway flagmen don't understand this, and lean their stop sign against their truck instead of holding it; and people don't stop.
The sidewalk is missing a hopscotch court.
Just came back again to poke my head in and I probably won't ever come back (not that it matters to anyone) because the complete lack of logic and awareness of how Wisconsin's political system works just astounds me especially coming from a law prof....
But I have to post about this thread because of the comment about - paraphrasing- as if "we" hadn't decided last November...
These are points everyone knows except a law pro. at UW-Madison.
1. Well, no, "we" had not decided last November, although I did vote. Turnout was 51.7% of eligible Wisconsin voters. Walker got 52% of that. That yields a whopping 27% of total eligible voters picking Walker. That's not much of a "we," now is it?
2. Don't like point 1? Well, Walker never made this election about the collective bargaining issue. None of the Republicans did. No one did. So "we" did not even have a chance to decide these important issues, the issue of rolling back the clock 50 years in Wisconsin labor law. The Republicans would have lost the election if they had talked about it.
3. Even the people you include in the "we" are having "buyer's remorse" because of point 2. So "we" did not pick these republicans in any meaningful sense. You can go out in the state and talk to union members who can at times be very conservative who voted for Walker: he never talked about it in any of his ads and this isn't what they ("we") voted for.
4. Guess what? As the recalls roll thru-- "we" will have a chance to decide to kick these people out of office. (Hopper seems like quite the piece of work.) The state constitution allows for just this kind of recall, even after an election cycle has occurred. It's the perfect remedy to how "we" voted last time around.
Willy, you know your Point 1 is crap and you ought to be embarrassed for even raising it.
Try this on for size-
2008 Presidential turnout: 56.8%
Percentage vote for Obama: 52.9%
Total of the eligible voting population who put Obama in office: 31%
Does that mean that everything Obama has done is illegitimate? How can it count if only 31% of the population actively supported it?
In fact, virtually every election would be meaningless using your standard. Unless turnout is higher than about 95% the winner is never, in practical terms, going to have a majority of the eligible voters.
As a man poses in shorts, chalk wonders "Why can't we decided? Why no REFERENDUM?" — as if we didn't decide when we voted last November:
Correct, the people of Wisconsin did not vote to bust the unions last November.
The professor's increasingly open shift the right is interesting: I predict within 16 months, armed with bucket hat, sunscreen, and folding chair, she will be attending Tea Party rallies.
A referendum? You want to turn Wisconsin into California? Jaysus.
Does no one remember that great Republican,"Fighting Bob" LaFollette, struggling against the Republican Machine and the greedy corporate interests?
The referendum in Wisconsin is a century old. Next year is the centennial of the referendum on women's suffrage (it failed).
Just came back again to poke my head in and I probably won't ever come back (not that it matters to anyone) because the complete lack of logic and awareness of how Wisconsin's political system works just astounds me especially coming from a law prof....
Indeed!
Again Willy, AA's daily self-righteous, never to be questioned offerings are slightly amusing, but wear thin quickly.
Nothing but absolutes at her blog and it truly is surprising she "teaches" law ...
Shiloh, come up with you own stuff instead of attaching yourself to someone else's. Maybe if they were good points you could get away with it. The "yeah what he said" angle has to used carefully.
How can unemployed hippies strike? Does that mean they'd have to find gainful employment?
Wow so much ignorance in the opinions here, I feel like I wasted 10 minutes of my life reading ignorant bias judgemental misinfore opinions. How sad ..people, they don't listen or use critical thinking when their minds are on auto-mode, they just get their facts from their favorite political and religious idols... tsk tsk tsk tsk...and no need to say stupid crap , palladin wtf, steven WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU?!!! are u really saying that the ones who shape our kids future in education should shut up and just take coins for salary?!! SIGH...man divide et impera ( divide and conquer) the translation added as based on the comments I'm pretty sure most don't know the meaning, divide and conquer is an infallible weapon to control the masses and split them in smaller groups, democrat this rep that..... grow up and wake up toxic minds.
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