Unions.

[beccatoria]

I've been following the story of the Unions vs Scott Walker, the Wisconsin Governor pretty much since it broke nationally. Now it's expanded to encompass Indiana, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey (don't let me down, Jersey; before now the worst anyone could say about you was that you were secretly run by the Mafia!), many others.

I haven't posted anything because, well, I'm overseas, and what could I say beyond the obvious? That I am not only impressed but moved by the protesters, by their tenacity and their integrity. That I desperately want them to succeed. That I think about them often. Anyone who knows me at all could have guessed that, but now, after the catastrophically cowardly behaviour of the Wisconsin Republicans yesterday in passing the bill, instead of feeling like I'd be crowding the airwaves with fuzzy support everyone probably already knows I feel, I feel the least I can do is publicly state my allegiance to that cause and my disgust with the way in which the bill was passed.

I am Welsh and I'm American. My father raised me with stories of the Miners' Union Strikes that I'm too young to remember, that went on for over a year, that ultimately failed (after armed conveys escorting the coal; after families were ripped apart because the choice to cross the picket line was literally a choice about whether you could feed your family) and that have left - to this day - the Valleys as one of the poorest areas in the UK. My mother raised me with a strong sense of patriotism towards America and its idiosyncratic, devolved, town-and-city level raucous politics. Not to listen to the anti-US sentiment often expressed over here and to understand the idealistic importance of what the US could and should be, even if that's not what it was right then. I guess that's why I care so much about what's happening right now - what's happening to one of my countries, and how much I don't want it to turn out like what happened to the other one.

Stand firm, Wisconsin. I believe in you.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

What's happening?

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

This is the most recent thing.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/117656563.html

Last week, the public was shut out of the capitol altogether (which I think is actually illegal), and the Democrats were climbing out their windows to talk to people.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Some of the Democrats took their desks outside too, which I think was super awesome.

I think the legal issue is that it does have to be open during normal opening hours (which it wasn't/isn't) but that it wasn't actually required to be open like, at night when they weren't normally open? But I'm hazy on that. I know for a while people were talking about Dems volunteering to hold office hours at night to keep it "open" but...IT'S ALL JUST SUCH A HAZE.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

From my understanding, as long as 'office hours' for hearings or consultations are being held, the building was supposed to be open. Hence, the volunteering.

I think, initially, Walker didn't think there was a point in kicking people out--there weren't even metal detectors until the second week (iirc). But they didn't go away, so, y'know, what better way to get them disbanding than closing the building down?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the impetus is for the Republicans to be moving so heavy handedly.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I think I can actually answer this if you want my left-wing media consuming addled response.

Basically a fairly recent supreme court decision (and there is evidence two of the justices who voted in favour of it ought to have recused themselves as having an interest in the outcome, but I digress) massively deregulated the way people (and corporations!) can fund campaigns. The effect being that MILLIONS of dollars of anonymous donations and ad campaigns and stuff are now being run in the US almost entirely in favour of Republican candidates. Sometimes the Republicans don't even know (or claim to know) who's running these ads for them. (That's partly why in a lot of American political ads you'll hear, "I'm [insert name] and I endorse this message!" at the end of stuff; other people can and do run ads in campaigns too - the difference is they used to have to tell you who they were). I'm...probably manging the details horribly but that's the gist.

Anyway, the top financial contributors to campaigns are now massively skewed towards corporations that fund Republican candidates almost exclusively. The only groups that can compete on that level (and they're still outnumbered and outgunned) are Unions. And they tend to vote left.

The Republicans want to break the Unions so that the Democrats' last large funding group can no longer fund them and they'll win the ideological war based on a barrage of media-based propaganda in every election from now until...whenever.

At least that's the theory I'm currently buying. Because it sure as hell hasn't got anything to do with actually balancing any budget.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

that follows. I suppose the unions are the last organised bastion of resistence against the fascist christian corporate hegemony.

Though oddly I did recently see some roman catholic bishops talking out against the republican party.

i find it so bizarre that the generally poor working class people who would benefit most from unions, tend to be republican voters.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's entirely true about the class thing, actually. Sure there's a segment, same as in the UK there's a segment of Daily Mail reading poor Tory voters, but generally, the poor tend to vote Democratic I...think.

As to the Catholic issue, I think - and again I'm far from certain - that's another idiosyncrasy of the political system - the Catholic Church are kinda Democratic too? I mean, Kennedy was the first Catholic president. ;) But for serious for a minute, I think there's an element of defining themselves against the fundamentalist evangelical side of Christianity.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

It depends on which segment of the poor you're talking about.

For a real eye opener read "Deer Hunting with Jesus" which is all about the working class poor and why they're Republicans.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks for the suggestion. I mean, we have a lot of that here too - with people voting against their economic interests. Here it tends to be social moral panic rather than religious, but...I think it's pretty much the same at the end of the day.

[chaila.livejournal.com]

+1 for the above comment. Or What's the Matter with Kansas, which is less angrily righteous than Deer Hunting, but is about how conservatives are often able to deflect attention from economic issues like this with social issues like abortion and gay marriage to get many middle or lower class people in the rural American Midwest to vote against their own economic interests. Or see Republicans' outright racism with Nixon, which turned the American South Republican for a long time, despite economic interests.

The American Catholic Church is...definitely not Democratic in my experience (which, like, is obviously skewed by geography, where in the Midwest they aren't AT ALL Democratic because that would be radical and the Catholic Church is never that, and in NYC where the church is, like probably a bit more open-minded, but has to hate anyone who's pro-choice, which is like...everyone). Possibly solely because of issues like abortion and even birth control. Which is, again, myopic. Maybe it's changing?

Oh politics. WE AMERICANS ARE SO DUMB ABOUT THEM. :(

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Dude, I think everyone is dumb about them. And I also think I'm getting the Catholic Church now mixed up with the Catholic Church in like, decades past when I think they were more Democrat-leaning, but you know, that was before abortion was a political issue. And if you go back that far, the whole freaking South was Democratic too until, like you mention, the Southern Strategy and shit. SOOOOOO. I am probably wrong is what I'm saying. ;)

As I said, it's a little less about social issues based in religion here, and I am genuinely grateful for that because it tends to mean it at least doesn't involve violence and stuff, but the right has similar strategies here to deflect with moral panic issues (the same ones I know get used over there too - omgs immigrants, omgs money, omgs muslims, omgs benefit cheats) in order to stir up people to vote for them when they'd be financially much better off under a left-wing government. It's heartbreaking.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

In Wisconsin? Okay, almost-certainly-slight-inaccurate Cliff's Notes Version:

About three weeks ago the newly elected Governor decided to give a bunch of tax breaks to corporations thus worsening his state's deficit (which I believe might not have been so bad before that move, but I may be wrong on that point). Regardless, he asked for a bunch of financial concessions from state employees, such as paying more towards their pensions and benefits and stuff. This was agreed to. His plan also called for stripping the Unions' rights to collectively bargain over stuff, so like, their actual ability to be a union. So the Unions (and more importantly the people in them) said, "Dude, we already gave you all the financial concessions you needed, why you gotta take away our right to be a union too?" and started protesting and stuff and it's still going on.

It's been going on for so long because the State Senate has 19 Republican Senators and 14 Democratic Senators, but to vote on anything fiscal - like the budget repair bill, you need a quorum of at least 20 senators. When the Republicans told the Democrats that they were not willing to negotiate on anything or debate anything, the Democratic senators FLED TO ILLINOIS in order to deny the senate a quorum so the vote couldn't take place and the Wisconsin State Troopers couldn't arrest them because they were over the border in another state, and in Illinois they hadn't done anything wrong.

Cue many awesome moments of Protesting Power, including some of the Democratic Representatives (who did not flee; they're different to senators) moving their desks outside the Capitol Building in solidarity with the protesters after they got thrown out (some had been sleeping there for weeks), and the Police Union announcing that rather than throwing out the protesters, they were sending representatives in to join them for a night, to name two. Three weeks later, they still have thousands of people there every day and tens of thousands every weekend.

Finally, yesterday, despite the fact they've always claimed it was about the budget, they pulled the rights-stripping portion of the bill out and put it in its own bill (because it doesn't actually have ANY FISCAL IMPACT, which was the Union's whole point - they'd already conceded all the fiscal issues), and voted on it without the quorum of 20 because you don't need that if it's not a fiscal issue. But there's an argument that because they didn't announce what they were planning to do 24 hours ahead of time they violated a law about open meetings, so...now there might be legal involvement on that point. The footage where it happens is amazing. There's this democratic representative literally yelling at everyone that the meeting they are in at that moment is illegal and they're just ignoring him and calling the roll over him.

Meanwhile in Michigan they're passing a law that means if the Governor declares a town is in a state of financial emergency he can bring in an Emergency Manager who can unilaterally terminate any and all contracts and remove elected officials. How do you know you're in a state of financial emergency? The Governor tells you. At least they amended the bill from its original form which stated that a CORPORATION could be the Emergency Manager. Now it's at least gotta be a genuine dude. O_O

[skipthedemon.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that before Gov. Walker was elected, the state actually had a surplus. Then he pushed the tax cuts through. This is all a set up straw man false dichotomy that he and his circle have *created* as far as I'm concerned.

Lest you think I don't care, I think collective bargain is an essential right that the government should protect, particularly the free market capitalist economy that most Americans say they value so much.

(I'm an American, but I'm a bit of a dirty socialist. Too bad we don't have a real party.)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Right! I thought I might have heard that. So yes, marks to the Governor for creating the whole situation in the first place. Blargh.

You should come to Wales. Our Assembly (which doesn't have as many rights as a State legislature, but does have some lawmaking power) is ruled in a coalition between the left wing mainstream party and some socialists. Well, a party whose economic policy is based on decentralist socialism. ;)

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Okay that's pretty awesome.

The republicans did get arrogant after 8 years of Bush running rampage across the very notion of law.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

See, I think that in addition to that arrogance in some ways it was a massive bonus for them to lose the election right as the economy tanked. Because even though wall street crashed before the election, Obama came into power in a place where the economy was fucked and so they got to fudge the fact it was all their fault for two years (Obama did a worse job of branding the financial crisis as the fault of the previous administration than Cameron did, and also it was just so new and raw people associated him with it). And ragging on him for spending to keep the economy from tanking rather than the "common sense" policy of cutting spending. So now they have this excuse and platform to cut spending, this whole narrative that they're taking back the country from government bloat and they're the only ones who can fix this, which is BANANAS, but some people bought and is now being used as an excuse to do whatever the fuck they want.

WE HAVE A MONEY PROBLEM. QUICK, GIVE ME ALL YOUR RIGHTS!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Yes. I was very surprised the Obama administration didn't use the words 'We have inherited this financial mess' every time they were on tv talking about anything, in the same way the Tories have done. Because for the REpublicans to have the sheer nerve to say that they are the party that can fix the economy just... staggers me.

Difficult to win elections when you have some voters stupid enough to fall for that shit.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

Actually, they stripped the fiscal measures from the budget fixing bill and then passed that. BECAUSE IT IS ALL ABOUT THE BUDGET. REALLY. (This could not get more ridiculous if they tried)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

AHAHHA SRSLY? Okay, I didn't know that - I thought they split it off into its own bill and just hadn't voted on the budget repair bill yet. But that's...special.

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjCEW2J30oM

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Bye bye democracy, hello dictatorship.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thanks for the link!

[plausiblyremote.livejournal.com]

Hi there. I am totally jumping onto your comments here, as I saw your post come up through a mutual friend's journal. I am actually in Madison, and just got back from the capitol building about an hour ago. I've been out there with thousands of people for weeks now, and last night's vote was just such an emotional and psychological blow.

I've tried to provide some coverage on my lj, with pictures and such, though it's by no means sharp or insightful. More along the "looks at some pictures" spectrum. But, if you'd like a look, feel free to friend me.

Mostly, though, I wanted to say thanks for the support. It's really sad here today, but we're not leaving.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, amazing - that's such a fantastic thing for you to be doing right now. My support seems so totally inadequate next to that, but I'm glad it means something. I'm glad you're not leaving. Thanks so much for the information, and if you don't mind, I will take you up on the offer of taking a look at your write-ups which I'm sure to an outside perspective are way more insightful than you give yourself credit for.

[kuwdora.livejournal.com]

I'm from Wisconsin but I haven't lived there in a few years and I have to say that this is striking such a blow to me. I wish I could be there in person to show my support.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Duuuuude, I'm so sorry this is happening in your state and that you can't be there. I really, really hope you guys manage to fight this thing all the way to the end. You deserve it. It's just been such an inspiring show of solidarity and principle.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

As far as NJ, don't think Christie isn't taking notes.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I hope he's taking notes on how it'll expend all his political capital and turn him into a national pariah but I fear he's learning the opposite messsage...

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

Definitely the opposite. They don't believe that there are that many people against their policies.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

Thinkprogress.com is a good site with lots of detail and up-to-the-minute reporting.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/10/randy-hopper-union-bill-2012/

They admitted why they're going after the Unions. Nothing to do with balancing a state budget (which was actually quite fine until they gave the store away to the Koch brothers in huge tax cuts.) They're trying to disrupt funds given to the Democrats, as the unions donate big money to Democrat pols. The Republicans get $$ from billionaires and corporations, the Democrats get union money. These guys want to render us a one-party system of government.

The bill was passed completely illegally, here's hoping it's overturned quickly.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. I agree it sounds totally illegal - I really believe they can overturn this and not let it get buried but wow I'm just amazed by the blatancy of their behaviour.