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Mar 2, 2011
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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
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WTFing HELL is the matter with this country???
I can't believe I'm the 1st post on this!
You'll have to blame Frizzelle for this one. He edits the features.
Amusing rumor I heard today about Governor "Tunnel and Debt" Gregoire wanting to run for a Third Term.
But who can the Dem's put up as a strong candidate against him? It may not be worth infesting too much in the Dems at this point?
http://www.wsfb.com/system/files/WFB+Lab…
Him and his friends are REAL class acts.
Dude, those things didn't just have "an advent"-they were WON by the labor movement, and sometimes working people died winning them. Now, the rich are trying to take them all away.
If we become a totally union-free country, you and I will be living like our ancestors did in the 19th Century-and living like that was what made people WANT unions. Read Howard Zinn to find out what those days were like here.
If that's too remote for you, the look at how people live today in places like the Philippines, Guatemala, Mexico and, in fact, most of the world outside North America and Europe. THAT's what a "right-to-work" country looks like, sport.
Don't let Fox News trick you into giving up your dignity.
And no, I do NOT want to go back to the 19th century, thanks!
The state supreme court decision did not grant unions the right to use members dues for politics, as you said. Rather, that decision threw out a law that required the union to get permission to use NON-members' dues for politics. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state supremes and said it's constitutional to require unions to ask permission before using nonmember dues.
By the way, it was a 9-0 ruling...not even Ginsberg, Breyer or Stevens agreed with the WEA.
I only had so many words, but the point's the same: McKenna appealed a pro-union State Supreme Court ruling, and chose that case as his first appearance before the SCOTUS.
Taxpayers (who, by the way, include public employees)pay for the total compensation of their government employees. Compensation includes benefits: Health insurance, vacation, sick leave, retirement. Just like a private company, the the total package is part of the renumeration for working.....you earn every penny--well, maybe not in your case.
From what you're saying, you consider your benefits (if you have any) as some kind of gift from the sky? And when you interviewed, you didn't even bother to ask about the company benefits?
And if you take a $2.00/hr pay cut to have $2.00/hr contributed to your retirement, do you really believe that is the "company's" money?
Are you really that stupid, Jake?
As far as effective representation by at least Washington's Federation of State Employees union, the state of Washington appears to be no Wisconsin.
It is important to retain the right to collectively bargain, but who leads collective bargaining is totally up for grabs. So if the primary union representing state employees wants to drive home the point of relevancy to its own membership, they are going to start having to invest some resources into making a positive difference in the work lives of those members. Otherwise, to many, my guess is that the union just looks like another layer of bureaucracy to its members.
What people like McKenna leaves out of the "unions cost us pension money" argument is how much the state pays for exempt employees retirement packages. You know, like McKenna.
And frankly the current crop of democrats we have on a state and national level haven't really made me thrilled to vote for most of them.
I don't know, is Washington state in the hole??? IF it is, then some sort of balancing of cash flow might be in order.
But for you to assume the cuts will be exactly like what IS HAPPENING in Wisconsin...is "journalism" at IT'S WORST.
Actually, what you're doing ISN'T journalism at all, it's publishing your opinion on what MIGHT happen.
Jinning up the left on your supposition is reckless and unfounded.
I knew your paper pandered to your readership, but what you're doing is STUPID.
What's even more stupid are the people lapping up your vomit, and calling it a movement.
Thank GOD you're at the extreme fringes of this Union.
"I knew your paper pandered to your readership, but what you're doing is STUPID."
You sound a little worried and insecure, osage2112. If it is any solace to you, Fox News jins up the right wing every day, but on a more widely broadcast scale.
As does all the other media outlets in the U.S.
Why is it such a burr under your saddle that Fox exist alongside ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC???
As I count it, that is FIVE biggies and one FOX.
Sounds like you're the insecure one...even with a majority of the news outlets spewing lib opinions.
A little brevity, editing, coherence and consistency of thought might help. Even when you preach to the choir they'll stop going to church if you bore them to tears.
All that aside, McKenna might have a slim shot at governor, especially if Inslee is the choice of Democrats. A Republican Legislature stretches things to the extreme. You're in fantasy land there.
Life will be not be comfortable for unions if McKenna is elected. They have owned the shop for quite some time now. I would hope he would end the unsustainable pension system, bring the benefits more in line with the private sector and find a way to undo the ever-rising and nation's-highest minimum wage.
But end collective bargaining for public employees? Though it would be fun to see that battle fought in Washington it is extremely unlikely. Extremely. Several thousand words haven't convinced me otherwise.
But I guess it's never too early to start painting the boogeyman mask on McKenna. If you're a partisan hack.
That has already happened, dude. And if things get worse, there comes a tipping point not when more people fight back but when the patient is too sick to recover, the ecology collapses, the car is totaled. Then people can't fight back because they are struggling too hard to survive. People have lived in grinding and relentless poverty and oppression far more often than they have rebelled. Don't go there. Fight back now and hard, while you can.
Nice post... so silly the way thestranger just has to get the red-flags flying before there is even a wind up.
Red-baiting if there ever was.
As for the other 5 news organizations, they are heavily edited corporate outlets that will not uncover uncomfortable truths that are a threat to the power structure. ABC, et al. were complicit in covering up uncomfortable facts about Iraq War, for example. They are far from liberal news organizations, but small kernels of truth that at times come out of them expose the class warfare that the right wing is deliberately waging on the working class. The truth is what threatens the right wing.
OMG...we have a Che Guevera-wannabe among us.
I must be a dupe then, because I'm all for a person having ALL the tools at their disposal to achieve (take a look at all the ILLEGAL ALIENS with their own businesses...that's great) and all for getting as many warehoused humans (read generational welfare families) off of the system as moocher and back into the system as producers (and not just more babies)
Class warfare???...you are so zonked.
You clearly don't know what the fuck you are talking about.
Your constrictive criticism is greatly appreciated.
Fuck you very much.
Lemme guess you're a hipter that thinks ol' uncle Che was a loveable-huggable kind of communist.
Typical.
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little… I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-nourished."
“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.”
"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth."
"Taxes, after all, are the dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society."
OMG a fucking canuck sticking his nose in everyone's business.
Keep your opinions in BC.
Take your "know better than the U.S. and can comment on how you should do it" attitude and cram it, asshole.
As soon as you move in a MOOCHER that contributes NOTHING into your home, spend all your time and money taking care of him...then get absolutely TIRED of wasting your time on that MOOCHER...then you can talk about taking more of my money.
If you've never met a MOOCHER, then that means you have steered clear of them...meaning you want nothing to do with them.
WHY, then would you think it's OK for someone else to take care of MOOCHERS???
Are you a MOOCHER needing to be taken care of???
Are you a crank-infused human/porcupine hybrid?
I'm also richer, better looking, and get more blow jobs.
Sucks to be you, dipshit.
HEY, you hurt my FEELING.
I only had one, and you went and hurt it.
You turds.
Why don't you two hook up??? Just leave me out of it!!!
ROFL!!!!!!!!!1
Franklin D. Roosevelt, an elite capitalist, saved our economic system from collapse through successful government intervention. Many in our country were joining the Communist Party during the Great Depression and the United States was closer to bloody revolution than many people realize. But I see from your posts, though, that you have to resort to insults because you are rather insecure in your own convictions, or you are afraid of the truth.
Boeing Boondoggle: Pork Can Fly
“Building the tanker means Boeing can continue to make the wide body 767 jet on which the plane is based. The backlog on the 767 has dwindled to 50 orders as customers await the 787 Dreamliner, the composite-plastic plane now about three years behind schedule. … The news is an antidote to Boeing’s struggle in recent months with the Dreamliner and the 747-jumbo jet. The passenger version of the 747-8 is a year late, and Boeing is running two years behind schedule on the freighter model.”
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/boei…
What truth?
You talk a good circle...por qua?
Learn2activitytracker, mah boi!
Great post! Basically, I didn't ask that question b/c anyone that thinks FOX is the bane of their existence will have boogeyman-stories to back up their psychosis...so why bother?
For a sizable Seattle segment, they comfort themselves by calling the Tea Party, teabaggers...that segment is beyond diversity and civility.
Mayhap as well ask a PIG to stop stinking. Ain't going to happen...and the PIG IS STILL IN BLISS.
On one account I think the libs and I can agree...in my heart, I don't think there is a rational dem/lib out there...it's ALL rank emotion and insults. They think there is not a repub/conservative w/ a heart.
One way to get a lib to realize throwing money at a problem has NEVER worked is...ask them if they liked the MOOCHERS they've known in their lives.
TO a T, they will say NO...moochers are vile.
So why do they believe the MOOCHERS of society should be pandered too?
The answer will be ALL EMOTION, not logic.
WHITE GUILT is bankable baby.
Seattle is eat up with the gullible hipster cat.
Cha-CHING.
Are you planning to live past 65? You're a MOOCHER too.
I call them Teahadist Koch suckers: basically religious nutjob glibertarians -- essentially Ellen Craswell's base -- ignorant fucks.
If there was any there, there we'd have had Clint Didier to crush in the general and no "everything but marriage" law on the books, etc.
The Teahadists are a paper tiger.
But Goldy is exactly correct: McKenna is a menace because of a carefully constructed lie that he's a "reasonable Republican."
The golden age of the American middle class, not coincidentally, mapped to a period of massive unionization of the workforce (as well as high taxes levied against the wealthy (between about 70-90%) who were expected to pay their fair share).
So, in the end , there are only two kinds of people believe there is no need for unions - the rich and the stupid.
The golden age of the American middle class, not coincidentally, mapped to a period of massive unionization of the workforce (as well as high taxes levied against the wealthy (between about 70-90%) who were expected to pay their fair share).
BTW - the minimum wage has been whittled down to a pittance and hardly represents the buying power it once did (which (if contrasted against 60s levels) would now be more like $12/hour - which is still a pittance compared to some forward thinking European nations)
LAWSUIT (your caps, not mine) - The union, through its collective strength and capital, is the de facto mechanism through which an individual has the economic means to sue a larger and much more economically viable corporations. Without that, its a simple matter attrition. Corporations own the messaging via their economic might, own the an army of lawyers and as such, own the courts. Even when finding in favor of a individual, the corporation can and historically has filed appeal after appeal until the plaintiffs are incapable of proceeding - and in many cases simply die off.
So, in the end , there are only two kinds of people believe there is no need for unions - the rich and the stupid.
Its a racket and you know it.
The closest activity to a democracy is the Internet; unfortunately, net neutrality is dead -- both politically a done deal -- and in reality, it has been over for at least a year, with the backroom dealing of the top telcos, both American and globally.
The only possible postive outcome would derive from exterminating all republiCONs. Period. Nothing else would suffice.
Next, a complete and total purging of what passes for the dem party, and either jailing or mass executions of the banksters.
They've rigged everything, and flim-flammed everyone completely.
People still exist who believe Noam Chomsky is anthing other than The Great Confuser, and still believe the great fraudster, Jeremy Rifkin, to be an "environmentalist."
People on the payroll...people on the payroll.
Nice little racket you got there. Too bad if something can't last, it won't.
You are soooo miopic. In your world, there is no evil, no swindlers, no grifters, no cheaters.
The people you talk about have PAID INTO the system...got it?
The people I'm talking about HAVE NOT.
You do support the HAVE NOTS???
Just wondering if you can see the yang of the yin.
Sayin'
To the meat of your argument... do I support the have-nots? As in, people who have not the resources or the capacity to work for a living wage, for reasons as varied as illness, lack of education, or the vagaries of the global economy? Do I support people who have not the influence to buy politicians and lobby for laws and regulations that benefit them? Do I support the people who have not the family connections and wealth that buy them entrance to the best schools in the best neighbourhoods, where they make the connections that get them the best jobs? Do I support the people who have not benefited from bank and corporate bailouts, who have not seen their assets skyrocket as income inequality has increased?
Yes. Yes I do. Because I recognize that my wealth and my success are products of both hard work and good fortune. Because I recognize that a fair and just society benefits all citizens. Because I recognize that it isn't right to let someone die on street because they aren't as smart, or as hard-working, or as lucky as me.
This is how you band together for survival: Go to meetings, sit through boring speeches, argue with redneck assholes in your membership, pay dues, vote. This is how fish and monkeys in the wild survive. You don't last on good looks and the kindness of strangers forever. Yes, a lot of government and industry interests have made what unions do illegal. My leadership could be fined and thrown in jail for calling a strike during contract negotiations, labor arbitrators are notoriously sympathetic with crybaby industrialists, state and municipal governments consistently offer tax breaks to corporations that bust unions. A systematic grinding away of union power has been in place since WWII, and the middle income earning class has shrunk with it.
Now state governments have gotten into the act of busting unions by declaring collective bargaining by public servants illegal, and apparently taxpayers who aren't in unions agree with them. I don't know about you, but I don't have that much trust in my fellow man to let the boss decide how much I get paid.
Is this writing style intended to draw young , semliliterate Tea Party activists?
Haven't gotten a raise in 10+ years?
Taken a hit on your insurance premiums or not have insurance at all?
Had your productivity rise but not been compensated for it?
Working longer hours just to keep your job?
Then you're probably one of those rugged individualists that wants to go it alone and need no one to support or stand with you.
Back when unions represented 30% of the working force the bottom 90% received 50% of the GDP. Now with only about 12% the bottom 90% receive only 10% of the GDP.
These teabaggers keep saying "If you don't get paid enough, get a better job." Well, unions provide better jobs, so the teabaggers scream about how unfair it is!
Integrity counts to some of us.
* But let's talk about illegal immigration, and the fact Gregoire and virtually all the other politicians sit on their butts and do nothing, why? Hoping the illegals will vote for them. By my information, McKenna is a 'path to amnesty' conservative, which makes him no good choice for governor, which is too bad. Most of his other fiscal positions fit with me and the majority, but we're also looking for someone to stop illegals from being rewarded in this state, which means there is nobody yet likely to run that I would vote for.
Just because a governor is no labeled as right wing does not mean that she isn't pursuing a similar agenda to what we have seen in the midwest. In this day and age, labels mean exactly nothing. We don't need to wait for McKenna, Gregoire and Co. have already brought Wisconsin here.
Also, Osage2112, you sir, are an used douchebag with some douchey unsubstantiated ideas and some really low respect for fellow human beings as you clearly have been expressing nothing but malice on this board.
Your comments on Fox News repeating falsehoods--there have been many sources pointing to evidence--largely the issue is more half-truths & the allowance of outright falsehoods stated by public figures to not be fact checked if those figures happen to agree with their political base. They rile up the political base and they fail to report anything near enough depth to possibly inspire any critical thinking. They're not news, they're infotainment and the result of this is simple idiocy when it comes to knowing the facts of world, national and even local events--especially if those events actually MEAN something. I've watched plenty of videos where a news anchor has parroted outright lies told by congress criters -- I don't have links now, but found this site that has a bit of fact checking on Murdoch's little meme empire -- http://www.newshounds.us/
Peace and don't vote for douches!
Also, for what it's worth I have never worked for a union job, but I would not be opposed to it anymore than I have been opposed to working for large corporations that handed me a sufficient paycheck to do work that wasn't morally reprehensible in some way.
Look at it this way--unions allow the employees that WORK TOGETHER (for the most part) add some tension to the system--it's a shame that this doesn't happen more within private companies (it's virtually impossible to establish similar in private industry) as it would help keep execs accountable. Again, I am pro-capitalism. I am also pro-democracy, and I believe that there should ALWAYS be a healthy tension between the two ideals as idiological purity will only lead to failure.