[T]he movement -- a real giant grassroots movement, which flooded the Capitol Square with more than 100,000 people.... began to disintegrate the moment the leaders (and who were they, exactly?) decided to pour everything into the Democratic Party channels rather than explore the full potential of the power that was latent but present in the streets back in February and March of 2011....It was a mistake, Rothschild says, to retreat into the recall effort instead of fighting Governor Walker "with mass civil disobedience." Think of the "creative strategies" that were not tried:
The Teamsters with their 18 wheelers, whose support was so emboldening, could have driven down Interstate 90 and 94 at 45 mph all day long for a week's time to demonstrate that workers in Wisconsin weren't going to take this lying down.Okay, let's be creative! Let's imagine what would have happened, if Teamsters with their 18 wheelers had driven down down Interstate 90 and 94 at 45 mph all day long for a week. Rothschild — he's so creative! — seems to imagine that the public would become enraged at Scott Walker and demand political change. That's the progressive fever dream.
I would have thought that the recall election was a reality slap in the face for progressives. But no, they plunge more deeply into a self-marginalizing fantasy, from which they cannot speak to ordinary people.
But I do agree with Rothschild about one thing: The Democratic Party appropriated the passion and idealism of the protesters and turned it into a hackish pursuit of partisan power. They sucked the life out of it, and the protesters should feel abused.
ADDED: About that Teamsters on I-90/I-94 protest: I love the way lefties totally forget about global warming and carbon footprints whenever anything distracts them
पोस्ट्स
१०८ टिप्पण्या:
This is what democracy looks like. Not all that voting crap.
Don'tcha just love it when the proggs assume everyone is just as dumb as they are.
If I wrinkle up my face and use my little tongue to push these strained peas out of my mouth, I'll bet that giant person with the big silver spoon will only give me strained bananas from now on.
I had no idea Wisconsin only has 13% of the people who hold jobs who qualify to be called "workers" from "working families".
Progressives taught me that this year. Enlightening.
Ann, thanks for the "added" sentence. That was the first thing I thought of. Great, a bunch of 18-wheelers driving up and down "all day" going nowhere in particular, burning God knows how much gasoline.
Guys! A brilliant idea just came to me! Let's inconvenience and annoy people on the roads. That'll win them over!
I'm pretty sure that if I drove 45mph on the highway, people wouldn't be blaming the state government...
"Rothschild — he's so creative! — seems to imagine that the public would become enraged at Scott Walker and demand political change. That's the progressive fever dream." I too have been fascinated by this. Progressives, have you noticed yet that something like half of the people in Wisconsin, and in America, don't agree with you? Do you really think that shouting that Scott Walker is a fascist is going to convince someone who just voted for him?
Protests can be effective to bring a subject to the public eye. But at some point you have to try to convince the undecideds, or the ones who disagree. Don't skip that step.
94 Eastbound is a torn up backed up mess in Milwaukee right now.
If these idiots had added to the now pepetual construction delays heads would have rolled.
The full time display of progresive stupidity and rancor did far more to ensure Walker's surviving the recall than Koch Brother money.
... demonstrate that workers in Wisconsin weren't going to take this lying down.
Hey, lying down on the job is a right!
Working Families!
Working Workers Who Work Doing Great Works of Workishness!
The Teamsters with their 18 wheelers... could have driven down Interstate 90 and 94 at 45 mph all day long for a week's time...
If you cant vote him out.. Smoke him out with emissions.. using a special smoke that only affects Walker.
Cloudy idea.
About that Teamsters on I-90/I-94 protest: I love the way lefties totally forget about global warming and carbon footprints whenever anything distracts them
Not to mention truckers (the majority of whom are not Teamsters) that would think the whole idea bullshit and costly for other reasons
They sucked the life out of it, and the protesters should feel abused.
The life would have eked away no matter what. Unless actual life and death is on the line, popular protests cannot simple go on forever. They reach a crest and come crashing down. If they're luckly, the tide just goes out and they harmlessly wash up here and there. If they are not, the surf pounds them into silica on the beach.
if Teamsters with their 18 wheelers had driven down down Interstate 90 and 94 at 45 mph all day long for a week.
And again, the progressive doesn't understand the details of a business.
18 wheeler diesels trucks have engines that operate within a very narrow range of RPMs, which means that if they go 45 MPH, they are still burning the same amount of fuel, but earning less money per week.
Further, the truck is a fixed cost, the monthly cost of which must be covered by a certain amount of monthly revenue before anyone makes a penny of profit.
Which means that this stupid idea would hurt the teamsters first and foremost.
Might just as well have forced the teamsters to kick into a fund to pay for more advertising for the election.
Oh wait! That already happened.
I think it is more likely that the industrial unions will pull out of the AFL-CIO if it continues on its present course, and the Teamsters may well lead the parade. They have been at odds with the Democrats before.
They sucked the life out of it, and the protesters should feel abused.
Inner Party said: "Matthew, we promise we wont cum in your mouth"
Matthew: "grlllgggh!"
Idiots. I hope you feel used.
Shouldn't he have used "embiggening" instead of "emboldening"?
I don't think many truck drivers who own their trucks (aka 'owner operators') are members of the Teamsters.
The Lefties think everyone's with the unions and that died with the 50s.
As for trusting the DNC, that's what you get for putting your fate in the hands of someone who begins every sentence with "I" and ends it with "me".
"The Democratic Party appropriated the passion and idealism of the protesters and turned it into a hackish pursuit of partisan power."
Indeed. Kind of like how government employee unions appropriated the passion and idealism of the Democratic Party and turned it into hackish pursuit of $dough for themselves. I mean, for working people. No wait, for the children.
Whatever.
Shouldn't he have used "embiggening" instead of "emboldening"?
After all, it's a perfectly cromulent word.
I'm confident that if the Progs ever actually try this kind of thing, they'll really get to meet their neighbors, those whose votes they are trying to nullify, those who they would disenfranchise, the ones participating in a Republic.
Of course, that assumes they would ever actually try in the Real World any of the things they theorize about.
I say give it a shot, let's settle all this in Feingold's name.
Going 45 MPH instead of 65 MPH? What's that, about a 30% reduction in productivity?
That would have been a great message about the presummed productivity of the typical public sector worker.
"I would have thought that the recall election were a reality slap in the face for progressives."
Progressives are so far from reality, I don't see them ever finding their way back. We should send out a serach party.
Nah.
No matter how high their IQ, most libruls lack the logic gene.
If only there were examples of where this kind of thing happens - municipal strikes, highway shut-downs, blocked roads, "civil" disobedience. If only there was some huge continent that had several countries in it who flirt with this behavior in varying degrees.
Then we could look at the results and see if over-turning multiple fair elections with pouting and petulance truly works for the betterment of all.
Imagine the Solidarity Singers rendition of this:
Ah, breaker one-nine, this here's the Rubber Duck. You gotta copy on me, Pig Pen, c'mon? Ah, yeah, 10-4, Pig Pen, fer shure, fer shure. By golly, it's clean clear to Flag Town, c'mon. Yeah, that's a big 10-4 there, Pig Pen, yeah, we definitely got the front door, good buddy. Mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy...
Convoy by C.W. McCall
The teamsters with their 18-wheelers
THEIR 18-wheelers?
Do you have any idea what the owner-operator percentage of teamsters is? The other side of that coin is, do you have any idea what the percentage of company-owned vehicles teamster members drive?
I love the way lefties totally forget about global warming and carbon footprints whenever anything distracts them.
The very same lefties would gladly see all the hydrocarbon resources in the Middle East blown up and burned if it just meant they could get some power.
Can't help but notice the one thing the unions didn't do was go on strike. Were they afraid the public would call their bluff? I think so.
chickenlit speak heap big medicine!
Seriously, Madison folks really need some diversity in their lives. They are totally clueless about how the rest of the world lives and thinks.
I have a cousin who just graduated from UW-Madison. He went in a moderate Christian pro-work guy. Came out a hate-filled lefty who wants the gravey train handed to him.
The only rational explanation for the "fever dream" is that they think if they shout long enough and loud enough, they can shame others into silence. Is this Frankfurt School stuff?
Yeah, you can tell the burnout hippies and their terrorist leaders are the ones speaking here.
"If only we'd starting blowing up buildings and murdering cops and Republican voters, we'd have won! That's true democracy!"
Obama's buddies, terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dorhn, are smiling from their tenure-protected ivory towers and teaching the next generation of Occutards how to build bombs.
And yet, despite this, Althouse will still vote for Obama come fall.
alan markus, since they started at the dark of the moon on the 6th of June they should be getting close to line at the Jersy shore. I doubt they have a doggone dime.
That article, and the one by Ruth Conniff on the same website, just epitomize the Madistan bubble. These people have their heads so far up their own fundaments that they absolutely CANNOT comprehend that they are wrong and increasingly irrelevant.
I hope they keep thinking that way. Then they will be consigned to the ash-heap of history. Plus, it's fun to watch them implode.
From the comments section of the article:
"What no one wants to consider is the larger context of the unsustainability of our infinite growth system under conditions of global climate change. Barrett wasn't going to deal with any of this, so maybe next time."
Sigh. Or ha. Not sure which.
I hate to be so cynical, but this protest was "grassroots" only insofar as the public employees were angry that they'd have to pay more money for retirement and health care.
The REAL energy, and the impetus for the recall, came from the unions, who would no longer be able to automatically deduct union dues from employees paychecks.
Money & Power.
And who is seeding this riot occupy everything force everywhere as fast as he can?
Why it's Barack Obama, the master organiser pouring out our cash through grants and fake charities. He is one evil dude.
"I have a cousin who just graduated from UW-Madison. He went in a moderate Christian pro-work guy. Came out a hate-filled lefty who wants the gravey train handed to him."
The man can't think for himself? That's not Madison's fault.
The REAL energy, and the impetus for the recall, came from the unions, who would no longer be able to automatically deduct union dues from employees paychecks.
Don't forget those interested in keeping the public unions shopping at a single source for health care. Notice how quickly they came off their greasy-palms rates once the veil was lifted?
Truck drivers, Teamsters and otherwise, are paid a fixed amount of money per mile driven. Slowing to 45 mph (driving fewer miles in an hour's time) results in a lower hourly payment.
Is there any doubt that the drivers would happily, gladly do this to show how down they are with the UW TAA?
For a so-called Progressive, Rothschild is stunningly out of touch with how working people earn their livings.
Ah.... Union led civil unrest... A 19th Century solution to a 21st Century problem.
Most Teamsters would have said, "FUCK YOU" to that idea.
Don't you all realize that some of the strongest resentment of these whiner AFSCME people comes from blue collar private sector union workers?
Chuck66,
Seriously, Madison folks really need some diversity in their lives. They are totally clueless about how the rest of the world lives and thinks.
I have a cousin who just graduated from UW-Madison. He went in a moderate Christian pro-work guy. Came out a hate-filled lefty who wants the gravy train handed to him.
Funny, it hit me just the other way. I arrived at UC/Berkeley as a "progressive," and came out of it quite a few ticks rightward.
Moral: Sustained exposure to horsepucky can cause people to like horsepucky, or to find it ever more repulsive. You don't know which until you try the experiment.
"Or unions could have told their members simply to "work to rule" -- doing the bare minimum that their contracts required."
We would have all appreciated the increase in productivity and ROI for our tax dollar.
"But I do agree with Rothschild about one thing: The Democratic Party appropriated the passion and idealism of the protesters and turned it into a hackish pursuit of partisan power. They sucked the life out of it, and the protesters should feel abused."
I think this is crap. The old guard GOP tried, and continues to try, to do this to the Tea Party. And fails. No, the problem with the "passion and idealism" of these moron protesters was that it is not grounded in any sort of reality, truth, or consitaency. They co-opted themselves. And failed to understand that the echo chamber in which they operate is not the actual world they live in.
they plunge more deeply into a self-marginalizing fantasy, from which they cannot speak to ordinary people.
This is because the progressives' entire belief system is based on self-marginalizing fantisies. Like John Lennon, they imagine a world that can never be, a world that goes against the basic nature of humans. And, they try to ram it down our throats.
Michael Haz hit on my other thought, driving 45 mph would costs truckers huge amounts of money. I'm sure those hard working truck drivers would have no problem gving up 20-30% of their pay for some coddled government workers, some of whom make the truckers' jobs more difficult.
Michael Haz,
For a so-called Progressive, Rothschild is stunningly out of touch with how working people earn their livings.
This once surprised me, about a quarter century ago, but now it's news so old that it would be in middle-school history textbooks if the people who wrote them were not part of the problem.
The people who campaign on behalf of the workers and the people who actually do the work don't ordinarily overlap much. WI teachers were an exception, this last year, but of course their campaign meant the terrible hardship of not working (but getting paid anyway, thanks to fraudulent "sick notes"), just as the legislators' flight to Illinois did.
And again, the progressive doesn't understand the details of a business.
18 wheeler diesels trucks have engines that operate within a very narrow range of RPMs, which means that if they go 45 MPH, they are still burning the same amount of fuel, but earning less money per week.
Further, the truck is a fixed cost, the monthly cost of which must be covered by a certain amount of monthly revenue before anyone makes a penny of profit.
Exactly. For a trucker, many of whom are independents, TIME IS MONEY.
Progressives. So dreamy and starry eyed. So impractical. So freaking STUPID.
And since our government has been under the sway of PROGRESSIVE ideas since FDR, is it any wonder we are swirling the drain economically and culturally as a country.
The contemporary liberals have tarnished the "liberal" brand. The generational progressives have tarnished the "progressive" brand. I wonder what semantic change they will embrace next.
Whether it is a selective history or selective science they exist in a selective reality. That is the only place where dreams of instant gratification without consequence can be fulfilled.
"The Democratic Party appropriated the passion and idealism of the protesters and turned it into a hackish pursuit of partisan power..."
Passion, maybe, but idealism? Not in any way, shape or form. The only "ideal' being pursued was that the Unions get 100% of their pension and benefits paid for by their neighbors. As for Big Dem messing up a good thing, okay, but was it Big Dem wrenching cameras from AA's hand, shouting down teen speakers or smashing their way into the Capitol? No, that was the "passionate, idealistic" mob that we apparently needed so much more of.
Global warming is elite left.
Truck protest is moron left.
"I would have thought that the recall election were a reality slap in the face for progressives."
Does someone know enough about subjunctives to comment on the grammar of this sentence?
"I would have thought that the recall election were a reality slap in the face for progressives."
Does somebody know enough about subjunctives to comment on the grammar of that sentence?
I already commented on this aspect of Matt's screed on the Isthmus site. It is of special significance to me as I have become very accustomed to the drive I do over to Michigan once or twice a month. I have noticed a very regular and dangerous pattern on the Interstates these days. One truck very slowly passing another as traffic backs up tightly behind. Matt's little tactic would vastly augment that pattern and its dangers. Matt R's insane indfference to this danger almost outdoes his ludicrous assumption this would make people angry at Walker, not the truck drivers and their union and backers.
I have never understood the left's infatuation with this sort of direct action and how they square it with democracy. In fact, they have to realize it would only add to their marginalization within any sort of democratic framework. It would, that is, lose them votes not gain them votes. I have to conclude that their stated or unconcious presumption is the tactics would win them their way undemocratically. That is, by shutting down the system, they would force the powers that be to cave in to them no matter what the people say, just because they need the highways or whatever to keep making profits. Hence the left's love of violent direct action means they rely on the profit motive to make things happen every bit as much as the Kochs do, except in a far more destructive and perverse way.
HA HA HA HA
This comment from the linked article:
"On Tuesday in Milwaukee a coupleof big buses pulled up and out poured union folkss come to help us take to the streets. A lot of them sat on chairs eating Jimmy John's sandwiches all day."
Perhaps the Unions were just following advice.
"unions could have told their members simply to "work to rule" -- doing the bare minimum that their contracts required."
LOL. Reality sucks don't it?
"For a so-called Progressive, Rothschild is stunningly out of touch with how working people earn their livings."
In the days of the Wobblies and Big Bill Haywood, they knew how workers lived but that was a time when nobody lived as well as the "poor" do now in the US. Except maybe JP Morgan.
Today Progressives knew very little about work.
The party that never ends never has an end game.
* * *
There is a story from my days in upstate New York that goes something like this. State troopers were told that when in their private cars they must always observe the speed limit. A group of troopers took up all the lanes of Interstate 87, and drove a large stretch of it at 55 MPH.
The public was not sympathetic.
The 18-wheeler idea reminds of a certain salt-spreading truck featured on this blog. Think of the creative strategies that could have evolved. Imagine a whole fleet of salt-spreading trucks driving in circles and honking and such.
Show me how. Why don't the TA's go into their classrooms and run up and down the aisles, smoking, for a week? And why doesn't the legislative staff go into the Capital and run up and down the corridors drinking sodas for a week? And why don't the teachers congregate in the bathrooms and smoke for a week? And why ... How can I stop being a bitter clinger extremist member of the majority - just show me how? (But don't suggest that someone else should do my protesting for me - I'm not a liberal yet.)
lefties totally forget about global warming and carbon footprints whenever anything distracts them
Leftwing agenda items are not for supporting or implementing; they are for disapproving of others.
Let these fools start their own party then instead of relying on the DNC for all of their faux greivances. I mean they could create a world workers socialist party. Oh wait, there already is one. They could create the socialist party. Oh wait, there already is one. They could create the Communist Party of the USA. Oh wait, there already is one. Gosh, whatever will they do since none of these parties helped them at all. Or did they?
"But no, they plunge more deeply into a self-marginalizing fantasy, from which they cannot speak to ordinary people. "
True enough, but same fallacy occurs in other contexts. You'd think, for example, that the experience of the GWBush administration and the Great Recession would have been a slap in the face to Wall Street and the right, but no, they plunge more deeply....
Bullshit on blaming the DNC. The problem is not just who or how they get out their message, although that certainly is a big part of their failure. The basic problem IS the message. It's just stupid and wrong, and obviously so to a lot of people. You can not dress that up anymore than you could convincingly put Ernest Borgnine in drag.
The left will be marginalized, and the Democrats will hopefully go back to being respectable, serious human beings with a political hangover.
Lefties totally forget about global warming and carbon footprints whenever anything distracts them.
Fen's Law, madame. Must we point it out each time?
I would have thought that the recall election were a reality slap in the face for progressives.
Oh, it was. For a moment. Which is why I enjoyed Allie's "I may never vote again" meltdown. We've seen it over and over again; to a leftist, the only legitimate election is the one they win. So now they're retreating into their comfortable "What's Wrong With Kansas?" cocoon. They were outspent. Or out-messaged. Or outmaneuvered. And anyway, those stupid proles are all racist anyway. And fuck them if they don't know they're voting against their interests.
Bush / Gore will look like a cotillion when Romney stomps Little Black Jesus into the ground, just you wait.
Let's imagine what would have happened, if Teamsters with their 18 wheelers had driven down down Interstate 90 and 94 at 45 mph all day long for a week. Rothschild — he's so creative! — seems to imagine that the public would become enraged at Scott Walker and demand political change.
Yeah, I've never understood that sort of thing.
"I know, let's protest downtown and screw up everyone's evening commute! That will totally get The People on our side and show how just our cause is!"
Baffling.
(Also note that the Right never seems to do things like that; I blame 60s-era Protest Culture, which naturally only took root in the Left.
Note further that Civil Rights protests didn't aim to inconvenience as many Everyday People as possible, because the leaders (and participants) knew that would be pointless and counterproductive.
But when protest became a fetish (in the anthropological sense), that became irrelevant...)
Well, just for that I will vote again. I might even vote for Romney, so there.
Presidents don't really matter anymore, so what's the difference?
"You'd think, for example, that the experience of the GWBush administration and the Great Recession would have been a slap in the face to Wall Street and the right, but no, they plunge more deeply...."
We have, through the federal government's use of tax dollars, changed the lesson to one where you can take any risk you want because we will bail you out. Very few of the millions of people who acted stupidly in creating the collapse have been forced to pay a price for it. Even the stock market came right back buoyed by seeing that nobody really gets hurt except future tax payers, and who cares about them. Soon we will recognize them in the mirror.
Too lazy and greedy to go on strike themselves, they want to sub it out to the Teamsters. Hilarious.
Presidents don't really matter anymore, so what's the difference?
I'd be interested in knowing one of two things. First, if you're serious in that statement, what facts made you come to that conclusion. Second, if it's just snark, who you're making fun of by making that statement.
Allie, you will vote for Romney, because you know the alternative is just stupid. Between now and the vote you will look for problems with Romney that will give you an excuse, but they won't come.
It's just voting for what you think is best going forward for the country. That is never a betrayal, and never needs an excuse.
Presidents don't really matter anymore, so what's the difference?
A president shouldn't matter, which is one of the many things I find distasteful about the modern fashion for 24/7 coverage of the White House. I much prefer a Coolidge style of governance, where the president is seen, but not heard, and stands as best he can as an honest broker between the parties, although certainly an R or D president will have interests more common to his own "team."
It is local politics that makes the difference. If you want a Walker or a Barrett in the governor's chair, then you have to create the aldermen and city councillors and reps and senators who will work to put him there. It's a lesson you could learn from the TEA Party, Allie. True, permanent change can only come from a ground-up restructuring of the political scene. I think even Cook would agree with that.
So the lefties weren't uncivil, bullying & obnoxious enough. Had they just done more thuggish crap, we all would have agreed with them.
With leading thinkers like this, is their Epic Fail in Wisconsin at all surprising?
Progressives are nostalgic for the days when the suggested disruptive tactics would upset the man. Alas, the man is who they wish to keep in place. These tactics now only annoy the people and are thus counterproductive.
A good idea would have been to occupy your capitol building and sing songs every day and blow horns. I think that might have worked. Off the wall, I know, but still it might have done the trick.
"AllieOop said...
Presidents don't really matter anymore, so what's the difference?"
You won't for Romney, so: Sure they don't. They just hold 1/3 of all power of the most powerful (for now) country on earth.
They never get around to convincing people that it's OK to force everyone to fund whatever the special interest of the day is (in this case, unions).
No, they instead find ways to be thugs. Occupy the people's park. Shout down everyone dissenting at the capital. Fleebag and obstruct the popular representation in the legislature. Obstruct the roads that people need to make their livings and feed their families.
Just generally have a temper tantrum.
These are the people who secretly crave absolute power and would use it in terrible ways.
GIVE ME YOUR MONEY OR ELSE... the speed limit is 45. Or something worse.
Presidents still matter. It's the shitbag Unions who are losing relevance. Thankfully.
Yes, I'm serious, but honestly, I don't care enough to explain my rational. None of you will understand it and I open myself up to insult and I do agree with Christopher in MA somewhat.
I've never understood why the Proggs never coalesced into their political party instead of out-sourcing their leadership to the Democrat party.
Maybe it's because "Progressive" and "leadership" are contradictory ideas.
Too bad these clowns didn't do what they now said they should have done. And done it nationally. I would almost gurantee a Republican landslide at the local, state and federal level and would embolden the Republicans to pass a national right to work act, limit the Wagner Act, repeal the Davis Bacon Act and pretty much defang the public sector unions.
Allie vote your conscience. Its still a free country.
We've seen it over and over again; to a leftist, the only legitimate election is the one they win.
It can't possibly be the message or the methods.
Must be sinister outside money from those Koch brothers.
That's the only possible explanation.
When phlogiston is all gone - the flame goes out! It's proven! And I'll go to the end of my days showing that to be so.
(A teaser for you historians of science.)
I've never understood why the Proggs never coalesced into their political party instead of out-sourcing their leadership to the Democrat party.
Maybe it's because "Progressive" and "leadership" are contradictory ideas.
That's a damn lie!
The guy with the guitar is the leader.
If he's not there, its the lady with the tambourine.
If there are two people with tambourines, its the one with the tambourine that has the largest circumference.
If the two tambourines both have the same circumference, then it is the one that has the tamborine with the most jingles.
I mean its a little unpredictable - and more so since Peter, Paul, and Mary started to die off - but you can't say the system isn't there.
This comment illustrates this fellow's diconnect from average people who have the nerve to use the public roads THAT THEY PAID FOR to accomplish useful things.
When your whole life is spent hunched over a computer or on your bike to the local Whole Foods or d-bag coffee shop, you forget about the salesman on his way to make a call. Or the family of four trying to get away on a vacation.
Perhaps this thought has already been posted, but here's yet another opportunity to compare the Madison/occupy protests to the Tea Party.
The latter has generally worked through, not under, the Republican Party, and not always to the liking of that party's establishment. They have achieved far more influence and maintained far more independence than I thought possible. The "progressives" need ask themselves only why they were so easily rolled by the Democratic establishment
Shutting down the toilets at the airport worked... right?
The problem is that we're more sophisticated, now, and getting f*cked over by someone tends to mean that the person who did it gets the blame.
Granted, had the teamsters driven side by side down the freeway at 45 mph it wouldn't have taken a week, it would have taken part of a single day. It all would have been over much sooner.
Farmer got mad at me yesterday for this... but there is a *reason* that the Tea Party is so very careful to clean up after themselves and it's only marginally because they're responsible, decent, people.
It's because you're judged by your associates.
the goal of such protests is to force a reaction by the authorities so you can cry "now you see the violence inherit in the system! Help! Help! We're being repressed!!!
The biggest regret on the part of the protesters is they didn't get their tear gas moment of martyrdom; the biggest casualty was a little red balloon being popped.
For an interesting thought on how politics will evolve (bitter and not within the bounds of the constitution) as the economy and deficits spiral downward, read article by james piereson at new criterion:
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Future-tense--X--The-fourth-revolution-7395
Quote: As this process unfolds, Americans may then witness the kinds of events not seen in this country since the 1930s or, even, the 1850s and 1860s: protesters invading the U.S. Capitol, politicians refusing to leave office after they have lost elections, defiance of the Supreme Court, the emergence of new leaders, and, possibly, the formation of new political parties. All of this can be expected from a process in which an entrenched system of politics withers and dies and a new one is gradually organized to take its place.
tim
" unions could have told their members simply to "work to rule" -- doing the bare minimum that their contracts required."
And accomplished ... what?
The few left in private-sector unions would only succeed in making their employers less competitive. And perhaps causing at least a few to wonder if it might not be worth it to move to a right-to-work state.
As for government employees, they ultimately depend on the goodwill of the electorate. How, exactly, would it help their cause for the public to see them slacking off to the maximum extent they could get away with?"
"Something is seriously wrong with the union movement ..."
Yes, indeed, it surely is not healthy.
It's not healthy because its influence in private industry has been declining for decades, as employers realized they could not compete successfully in global markets if they were hobbled by unions. And as more talented and driven employees realized that the union's pay-and-retention-by-seniority-only did not serve their interests.
So they doubled down on the public sector unions- only to find that the voting public has become fed up with paying for their automatic years-of-service raises, for their early retirement, especially when combined with ironclad job security that makes it all but impossible to get rid of deadwood.
So, what's a "progressive" to do- become a retro-progressive, longing for the good ol' days when unions were a growth industry?
"We've got to get out there and do the work of politics, which is talking to people and opening eyes and changing minds."
Yet after a huge electoral defeat, you shouldn't listen to others, open your eyes, or consider changing your mind?
"True enough, but same fallacy occurs in other contexts. You'd think, for example, that the experience of the GWBush administration and the Great Recession would have been a slap in the face to Wall Street and the right, but no, they plunge more deeply...."
GWB warned of the mortgage problem with Fanny and Freddy, but he was never EVER right-wing anyway, but firmly and *indisputably* what people like to call moderate, when they're being honest.
He's only Far Right Wing or any flavor of "conservative" in the fever dreams of the left. So, sure, that's gonna be "big government".
In the end, though, what he DID was give the Democrat majority (of *both* houses) every single thing they so much as hinted they wanted so long as they passed and supported efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
So... where is the slap in the face of conservative "small government" policies? Who is "plunging more deeply?" Not a soul on the right. The Tea Party won't let them.
The rhetoric of the left hasn't changed, but Obama's proven who is the "crony capitalist" and the Wall Street toadeater.
Now, the Occupods would like to destroy business and destroy Wall Street all without a second thought as to what their own lives will be like when the creators of wealth are adequately punished. Kill the golden goose and finally everything will be FAIR.
I don't particularly want to be living in equal poverty and joblessness. Smaller government reduces the power of Wall Street and others from having direct and overwhelming control of our lives. When Wall Street can buy concessions from Obama that favor them above others and endless regulation makes competition impossible and hammers small and medium sized businesses that can't afford full time legal staff to sort it all, we *all* lose.
The only people actually suggesting small, unintrusive, government and the liberty to succeed, to build new businesses and create jobs without a foot on their neck are the Tea Party and the libertarian-leaning among conservatives.
"A president shouldn't matter,..."
And political apathy is a blessing and gift from God who loves us with a universe sized love.
I am *not* being sarcastic.
"May you live in interesting times" is a CURSE. The privileged state that allows political apathy is a BLESSING.
The president *should* be unimportant enough, and *powerless* enough, that it doesn't really matter so much if an idiot holds the office for a couple of terms.
The more we demand to be ruled, the more important our rulers become.
The more of our lives we forfeit to government to care for us, keep us safe, keep us healthy, catch us when we fall, protect us from offense, the bigger it all gets, the more powerful it must be and the more profoundly the wrong ruler can destroy our lives.
When people push for more government programs, more regulations (and the power to regulate) and yet another safety-net that morality demands we have, the more power the powerful have, and the more dreadful it is to LOSE.
As the progressive has discovered.
This mild fellow making relatively mild changes is a threat to all... just like Hitler.
Oh yes - the progressive socialist dreams of European style protests - this link is from March, 2012. A few months ago in Spain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/mar/29/eurozone-crisis-spanish-general-strike
I truly believe Rothschild dreams that this kind of thing would have done so much better in Wisconsin.
I suspect the National Guard would have been called in with a day or two and many - many - arrests would be made successfully.
Europe envy = The Progressive Magazine and those who love it.
Imagine this in Wisconsin! I hust don't see it even being remotely possible because we are a government that still works - maybe even working a bit better after Act 10 but we still work.
The Vanguard of the Proletariat - puttering along at 45 MPH.
I love the way lefties totally forget about global warming and carbon footprints whenever anything distracts them
In fairness, the Unions never, as far as I know, even pretended to give a flying goddamn about that.
I don't think the Warmenism - as Blair calls it - is endemic on the Left, just yet.
Here's the deal. These Lib-tard Liberals, Progressives, socialists and commies need to be Alinsky'ed to the point where they are pariahs in the "town square".
Progressive is the new Pedophile.
Don't just defeat them. Beat them until they scurry from the light of day in shame.
Synova@2:16
"The more we demand to be ruled, the more important our rulers become."
Thank you for that. Thank you! Exactly! A free people should be able to survive our bad political decisions as well as our good ones. To the extent that we entwine our present and future to the arbitrary decisions of others, we are just that much less free.
Thank you again, Synova.
Anybody who has been in France during one of their frequent protests, with farmers driving tractors through the Place de la Concorde, knows that this only irritates people. But they have a new Socialist president, mostly because Sark didn't follow Walker's advice, I suspect, so we can see how the progs would do if given the chance. As a friend told me one time, "The French have a Silcone Valley. It's just in the Thames Estuary." The emigration of technical skills will accelerate again. Nothing new.
Nothing says "defender of the downtrodden working man" like the name "Rothschild".
"A graduate of Harvard University, Rothschild prior to coming to The Progressive worked as the editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine founded by Ralph Nader. Rothschild came to The Progressive in 1983, and has worked for the magazine in many different capacities, first as associate editor, then managing editor, then publisher"
It's remarkable how many people on the left spend their entire lives just being professional leftists. Hilary Rosen had a similar background. The fact that they can make a very good living from simply being professional leftists must contribute to the intellectual sclerosis of their movement.
In a free society, the only "work stoppage" that can actually accomplish its goals is one where the customers that are inconvenienced realize that the work simply cannot be done by anyone else but those that are stopping. Otherwise, the strikers are viewed as unrealistic whiners. Heck, if someone else can and will do your job for less, what are you complaining about? At least you have the job.
It is only when the government delegates some degree of coercive power to the workers (e.g. the "right" not to be replaced by the owners) that such actions have any hope of success. And, if they do succeed under such circumstances, the public/customers will not somehow magically be tricked into thinking that it is because of the inherent value of these workers. The success will be resented at some important level, and will therefore be pyrrhic.
The public employee unions have the greatest degree of coercive power over the public and the resentment is therefore the highest. The jig is up. The only hope for them is that they somehow become a majority, but then we will be Greece and the end will come soon anyway.
Both Hilary Clinton and Pres. Obama have thoroughly studied Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and his earlier "Reveille for Radicals". Too bad our homegrown Wisconsin leftists have not. Written as primers for radicals attacking the establishment, these books offer guidance and caution for those interested in changing the status quo.
Paul refers to Rule #13: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." This has long been the favorite liberal tactic, but failed miserably when attempted against Walker.
Our Badger leftists failed miserably by ignoring Rules #7:"A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag" & #11:"The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative." The recall process took too long and became a drag for both sides. More importantly, the spectacular failure of Barrett to offer a constructive alternative sealed his demise.
After studying Alinsky's works in the context of recent Wisconsin events one must wonder whether the inherent problem for the left is that they had become the establishment, the status quo, defenders of the 50 year old blue state model of union power and entitlements. On the other side were a huge new class of "conservatives" bent on rapid implementation of sweeping reform. Could it be? Had the "conservatives" become the masters of Alinsky's lessons? If so, did Republicans morph into insurgent "radicals" suddenly in position to inact "change"?
If the GOP stole the Dems playbook, studied it, and defeated them at their own game, could it also be that they remembered Alinsky's advice that if the radicals become stronger than the opposition, they must “crush the opposition”? The unions and the leftists have been crushed.
Concise summary of the last 16 months in Wisconsin: "A reformation means that masses of our people have reached the point of disillusionment with past ways and values. They don’t know what will work but they do know that the prevailing system is self-defeating, frustrating, and hopeless. They won’t act for change, but won’t strongly oppose those who do".
Saul Alinsky, prologue to "Rules"
Had the Teamsters tried that crap, they would have had hell to pay from those of us non-union drivers, who outnumber them big time. There's an uneasy peace between us for now. That would have re-ignited something best left in the past.
No, you idiots, you should have taken over the Democratic party.
टिप्पणी पोस्ट करा