[SamV]

I love how you and Gov Weller can with a straight face try to paint the protesters with a broad brush that they are in some way doing something criminal. Or demonize them for just trying to protect what was a hard won right they fought for long ago, and in doing so they are being unpatriotic in some way. (By the by, don't Weller's pronouncements regarding the protests sound a lot like what we've been hearing coming out of the mouths of old Muammar and his "We will fight to our last bullet" of a kid. I guess not all authoritarian despots are in the middle east.   ) 

And you bring in this crap that somehow a defined benefit pension is in someway flawed and simply can't work. But until the advent of 401k retirement funds it was the primary financial vehicle for a comfortable retirement in both the private and public sectors. Defined benefit pensions are not all that complicated to either set up or finance. Essentially they little else but an annuity.

No, the problem came when corporate owners and state and municipal politicians saw all that money sitting there not doing a thing except earning interest and dividends while waiting to be dispersed to a retiring employee. Much better to raid the pension fund and use the money for something more useful  - like fill in a funding gap in a state or municipal budget. And on the corporate side of things the money usually ended up in some high-risk investment scheme, that might pay off, but more often tanked. And both the corporate owners and the politicians rigged the system so they could do just that so long as they promised the money, along with whatever earnings that should be there would be put back before the retiree, or his beneficiaries began to collect his pension. Unfortunately in way too many cases these greed so-and-soes took the money out and then never even bothered to put it back like they promised.

And one otherr thing Q it isn't just teachers who are protesting in WI. All the unionized public workers are in the protest ranks, along with family, friends, students, and most telling, the police and the firemen too, even thought Gov. Weller's union-busting bill exempts them. I guess the good Gov did that so not to piss off the cops and firemen, since he might need them to protect his life and property when some card carrying NRA member gets totally pissed off over what the Gov's policies did to him and decides to try and take Weller out.       

[TheZookie007]

Alas, the state of WI voted this college dropout in. Again, I DIDN'T. I have loved living in WI - brutal winters and all - since 2002. I don't want to see this place end up like my home state of Florida. And I fear this will happen .

That is just the worst part of this whole affair. It's not as if anyone held a gun to their heads or as if the vote was rigged. They did it to themselves.

The only positive thing to say about this is, it will not last forever. There's gonna be an election in four years or so, and things can change. But in the meantime...

[pedonbio]

That is just the worst part of this whole affair. It's not as if anyone held a gun to their heads or as if the vote was rigged. They did it to themselves.

The only positive thing to say about this is, it will not last forever. There's gonna be an election in four years or so, and things can change. But in the meantime...

Actually, recall petitions are being circulated for 8 Republican state senators, and one will start for Walker as soon as he is eligible. Wisconsin has a silly law that requires that politicians be given a minimum portion of their terms before they can be recalled.

Also, the exemption for police unions, firefighter unions, and the state patrol union wasn't to assure Walker protection--It was a direct payoff for the support of those three groups in his election. <Sure, Teabaggers, he isn't like those others is he?> Two of the unions have already apologized and joined the demonstrations.

And if we're going to talk about honesty, which Q_BE never will, Walker and his ilk didn't say a word about this, even though his owners, the Koch brothers, had prepared the anti-union legislation before the election. This was a stealth project by a bunch of lying assholes. 

[Q_BE]

I love how you and Gov Weller can with a straight face try to paint the protesters with a broad brush that they are in some way doing something criminal. Or demonize them for just trying to protect what was a hard won right they fought for long ago, and in doing so they are being unpatriotic in some way. (By the by, don't Weller's pronouncements regarding the protests sound a lot like what we've been hearing coming out of the mouths of old Muammar and his "We will fight to our last bullet" of a kid. I guess not all authoritarian despots are in the middle east.  )  

Emphasis added

One of them is in the White House, in fact. Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm!

And you bring in this crap that somehow a defined benefit pension is in someway flawed and simply can't work. But until the advent of 401k retirement funds it was the primary financial vehicle for a comfortable retirement in both the private and public sectors. Defined benefit pensions are not all that complicated to either set up or finance. Essentially they little else but an annuity.

Nobody here is saying "Ditch the system entirely." We're saying, "Pay your fair share." Even if these changes to pension and benefit levels were enacted, Wisconsin public-sector employees would only be paying roughly 66% of what the average private sector employee pays for his/her benefits.

No, the problem came when corporate owners and state and municipal politicians saw all that money sitting there not doing a thing except earning interest and dividends while waiting to be dispersed to a retiring employee. Much better to raid the pension fund and use the money for something more useful  - like fill in a funding gap in a state or municipal budget. And on the corporate side of things the money usually ended up in some high-risk investment scheme, that might pay off, but more often tanked. And both the corporate owners and the politicians rigged the system so they could do just that so long as they promised the money, along with whatever earnings that should be there would be put back before the retiree, or his beneficiaries began to collect his pension. Unfortunately in way too many cases these greed so-and-soes took the money out and then never even bothered to put it back like they promised.

Thank the policies of the past for that, SamV, and the Democrats who enacted them. This is Republicans trying to fix the mess with the least pain to the least people.

And one otherr thing Q it isn't just teachers who are protesting in WI. All the unionized public workers are in the protest ranks, along with family, friends, students, and most telling, the police and the firemen too, even thought Gov. Weller's union-busting bill exempts them. I guess the good Gov did that so not to piss off the cops and firemen, since he might need them to protect his life and property when some card carrying AFSCME/ACORN/AFL-CIO member gets totally pissed off over what the Gov's policies did to him and decides to try and take Weller out.  

Fixed.

Q-"Who's violent? Certainly not the Right…"-BE

[Q_BE]

Actually, recall petitions are being circulated for 8 Republican state senators, and one will start for Walker as soon as he is eligible. Wisconsin has a silly law that requires that politicians be given a minimum portion of their terms before they can be recalled.

I'm way ahead of you, Pedonbio. There ought to be some recalls going on around here…

Time to Recall AWOL Lawmakers

Also, the exemption for police unions, firefighter unions, and the state patrol union wasn't to assure Walker protection--It was a direct payoff for the support of those three groups in his election. <Sure, Teabaggers, he isn't like those others is he?> Two of the unions have already apologized and joined the demonstrations.

This is what Scott Walker gets for trying to be nice to unions? Fine then…

Walker may have wasted political capital by sparing Wisconsin's policemen and firemen.

And if we're going to talk about honesty, which Q_BE never will, Walker and his ilk didn't say a word about this, even though his owners, the Koch brothers, had prepared the anti-union legislation before the election. This was a stealth project by a bunch of lying assholes.

Didn't say a word?

June 6, 2010: Walker wants state employees to pay pensions

Q-"Try again, Pedonbio"-BE

[3deroticer]

This isn't about money, because the teacher union agreed to the cut, the only thing they did not agreed to is to ban the union. Now they see the budget was artificially broke and that the Koch brothers have paid for Governor Walker campaign and the Tea party support to fly in to protest, is why more people are siding up for the middle class worker. Oil company have OPEC nation, and congress have a union, while all banker and wall street are a unionize, then why shouldn't the working middle class people have their union?

This myth that teachers are greedy and bottom feeder really perplex me coming from Millionaires, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh for whom both have little education. The worse debate I have heard is that teacher's middle class pay is higher than the private sector for those in their fields. The private schools don't require a college education in the fields of education in order to be a teacher, plus they don't also required to go to school in the summer to be re-certified every year in order to teach and have to pay for their own classes in order to re-certified.

The debate that teachers should make less than teachers of the private sector, is wrong and not good for the economy, when you try to reduce the middle-class. They build the economy, because they spend it while those who have too much money can bank it. Giving a larger tax break for millionaires to create a deficit in the state funding to ban the working people rights to protect their job from abuse is greedy.

Education brotherhood taking over a state a bad thing? Oh no we can't have our people become educated, those pesky teachers always trying to improve our critical thinking! I swear Q_BE You have taken pride in ignorance to a whole new level!

[TheZookie007]

Sam V: I guess not all authoritarian despots are in the middle east.

Q_BE: One of them is in the White House, in fact. Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm!

Courtesy mw.com:

au·thor·i·tar·i·an adj \o?-?thär-?-?ter-?-?n, ?-, -?tho?r-\
Definition of AUTHORITARIAN
1: of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority <had authoritarian parents>
2: of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people <an authoritarian regime>

des·pot noun \?des-p?t, -?pät\
Definition of DESPOT
1a: a Byzantine emperor or prince
1b: a bishop or patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church
1c: an Italian hereditary prince or military leader during the Renaissance

2a: a ruler with absolute power and authority
2b: a person exercising power tyrannically

President Barack Obama was voted into power, fair and square, in a democratic election. He didn't seize power in a coup, palace or otherwise. He hasn't favored "a concentration of power in a leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people". Therefore, he is not authoritarian. He is neither "a Byzantine emperor or prince", nor is he "a bishop or patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church", nor is he "an Italian hereditary prince or military leader during the Renaissance", nor is he "a ruler with absolute power and authority", and nor is he "a person exercising power tyrannically". Therefore, he is not a despot.

However, by your willful misuse of these terms to describe a democratically-elected president of your own country, Q_BE, you have proven yourself once again to be at best a semi-illiterate chauvinist, and at worst to be a dimwitted, borderline racist fool of gargantuan proportions.

Q_BE, you have proven yourself to be incapable of critical independent thought. Unless and until you learn that words have actual, verifiable, commonly-agreed-upon meanings, and that misuse of words have consequences, I shall no longer attempt to exchange ideas with you. You are an embarrassment. It's because of people like you that the following sayings were invented:

"Never bring a knife to a gunfight."
"Never engage in a battle of wits, when your opponent is obviously unarmed."

Go back and read the Constitution. Don't cheat by listening to Rush Limbaugh's or Sean Hannity's or Glenn Beck's misinterpretation of it, and don't go get the Cliff's Notes. Go back and read the actual document. And while you're at it, go back and read the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Once you have a thorough grounding on what democracy is, and how it works, then you can try reading Karl Marx's Das Kapital, so that you learn what Marxism is, and after that you can tackle The Communist Manifesto, so that you can learn what communism is, and then Freidrich Engels's Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, so that you can learn what socialism is. They are all available to read for free in any public library, or on the Internet. While you are reading of all this, make sure that you have an unabridged dictionary available, so that you can find out the true meanings of any words that you come across. I'm sure that you will run across many such words. The fact that you continuously misuse the words "liberal" and "conservative" as nouns instead of using them as adjectives, is proof of that.

All of this reading will achieve two aims. One, you will finally be able to intelligently discuss current affairs, instead of regurgitating biased opinions proffered to you by the fellow intellectual midgets of the Faux News brigade. And two, you will be out of our hair here, as intelligent adults try and discuss current affairs.

Good luck.

[pedonbio]

You're welcome to try, Zookie, but I suggested the same thing a couple of years ago. He'd rather wallow in ignorance; most trolls do. He keeps using the same one-liners because he seriously lacks any research skills. It's really sad, except with him it's willful.

[TheZookie007]

Maybe later I will edit my post to include links to all the books I mentioned, to save him time.

I'm not saying you have to agree with every thing I say, but at least if you are going to argue your corner, make sure that it IS your corner, and not a corner that Rush Limbaugh (a centi-millionaire who continues to claim that the propaganda that he broadcasts to gullible people will improve their lives, when it obviously only does one thing, and that is to make him yet more money) has already warmed with his obese gluteus maximus.

[DruulEmpire]

I somehow don't feel that deeply shamed that Q only broke from the Limbaugh transcript as late as "'So what?' you say" and I'm in no mood to track down whether or not he copied the remainder.  That's still a huge chunk of Limbaugh to quote and not cite -- in which case I don't even see how staggeringly funny (or prophetic) his making a siggy of my question is supposed to be, because I think it still stands.

In any event, the dollars-and-cents end of this is long moot -- though I guess conveniently ignored when you live in a bunker of white noise.  The deal is good to go, has been for days, it's the "Oh, and by the way, we need to erase an eighty-year-old institution" part that's impelling the reaction.

One old joke I've heard against liberals is "The liberal is the one with no stake in the argument."  Conservatives would do well not to make this apply to themselves.  Like Frankenstein reacting to fire, ideologues can insist "Unions bad!" as their next scapegoat, their next hobby, the latest reanimated superstition.  But for the teachers and policemen and firefighters themselves, it's not theory, it's not merely an umbrage du jour.  It's life, and they will fight for life.


I've heard Walker's "chat," and it sounds like petty personal payback, he basically didn't know how to work with unions earlier in his careeer so that's why he says they must be abolished now.  Someone get a "Collective Bargaining for Dummies" book to him stat, it could solve everything.  Heck, I saw this resolved in a "Patty Duke Show" rerun this morning.  What does William Schallert know that the Governor of Wisconsin doesn't?

[SamV]

...Nobody here is saying "Ditch the system entirely." We're saying, "Pay your fair share."

And who is to say what is fair? You? The talking dunderheads at Fox? Gov. Weller - well, unlike you and any others, he might, depending on what a judge might think.

In this case, the various workers negotiated though their union leaders with the managers to hammer out a contract both sides could agreed to. So they had a legal contract - A CONTRACT - and you do know what a contract is, don't you Q? Here let me see if I can explain it to you.

When two or more parties wish to conduct business of some sort they usually do so by means of a document called a contract. First a proposal is drafted which all parties get to look over and voice their objections and suggest changes they want to it. Regardless of whatever terms are in any proposal when in the end both sides agreed to it and sign it it is thus turned in to a binding legal contract. And so long as both sides hold up the terms of that contract it remains in effect until either the terms of the contract are fulfilled, or it expires. Then a new contract can be negotiated. And should any issues arise one party can seek redress by suing for any perceived infraction of the contract. This is the basis of all contract law, whether between individuals, or corporations, or a union and a governmental body. This is why courts love contracts because it spells out in writing what is expected by all parties in their business dealings.

Now you say that the contract the teachers union has been operating under is in someway unfair. But then most courts could not care what you, or any other outside party has to say. WHY - because unless you are in someway a named party in the contract you lack standing in the eyes of the court. That means despite whatever you say is fair or unfair in a signed contract, all you can do about it is pound sand. So you see in the end when a contract is involved the only one who has a say in determining what is fair is the court.

And should one party be unhappy with something in that contract they have a few choices; wait until the present contract expires then make the desired change(s) during the negotiation of the new contract; ask the other parties to re-open the current contract for negotiating the change they want; or break the contract and take the chance the courts will let you get away with it by voiding the contract.

It's unfortunate in the path taken by Gov. Weller and other state governors they decided to do something even worst than the last method, by not merely breaking the contract, but by breaking the union. In attempting this Gov. Weller and the others are all acting like a bunch of wanna be Ronnie Reagans. (BTW I always thought how ironic it was that Ronnie who got his start in politics by being elected the president of SAG, would one day turn around and become a union buster.)       

... This is Republicans trying to fix the mess with the least pain to the least people.

Yeah, I truly love how the Republicans usually go about fixing things.

It seems whenever they do "fix" some mess, in the end it doesn't seem to do much to minimize the pain for the greatest number of people, but it certainly does seem to provide benefits for the moneyed interests in this country.

I imagine once the moneyed interests and their lap dogs are done fixing things I guess American workers everywhere can sing a song in celebration for their new economic paradise. And look how efficient they will be, because that song already exists. 

"You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store"
 

[3deroticer]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/23/948732/-Busted:-Scott-Walker-fell-for-Prankster-posing-as-David-Koch-

This transcript shows just how bad he is and who he'll listen to!

[pedonbio]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/23/948732/-Busted:-Scott-Walker-fell-for-Prankster-posing-as-David-Koch-

This transcript shows just how bad he is and who he'll listen to!

Walker loves to suck Koch.

[DruulEmpire]

I recommend hearing for yourself the Youtube version, available in two ten-minute sections under the heading Koch Whore.  The cynicism of the content is almost secondary.  Walker can't spill enough of his political strategic guts to his contributor, and Ian Murphy's "impression" is laughably transparent, he's fairly begging Walker to say "Wait ... this is David, right?" and it, just, never, happens.

[pedonbio]

.