Is the Obama Administration's health care reform package the end of American freedom and the beginning of broccoli-chewing fascism, or a monumental breakthrough in the centuries-long struggle of ordinary citizens yearning for full participation in society and government finally returning to 'promoting the general welfare'? Well, it may be neither, but it is a rare instance of the average Joe and Joanna stranded at the garage or busstop debating a US Supreme Court decision and how it impacts the most regular working-class folks. Is that good? I'm biased towards 'yes,' you know, because it ought to be good when the hogs look up from the slop, right? 'Course, most of these debates, it seems, are happening 'totally unencumbered' by anything resembling facts. And there are ways to check facts these days.
Showing posts with label laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label laws. Show all posts
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wisconsin, Indiana union-busting
Somebody said to me recently, "the Democrats are at their best when they are not there." Actually, I think that's a little harsh, but there is an important point there. Workers in this country have only rarely been able to count on politicians of any political stripe to back us up, much less pitch in with improvements.
Most often we have to fight like hell just to not get robbed, for example in the state sector when workers' contributions to their own pensions are used -- we should say "stolen" -- to pay the employer's other bills. (Somehow this little tidbit gets lost when the public debate begins over public employee pensions, along with the "pension holidays" we get in Illinois for example when the employer doesn't have to pay its obligations: maybe because so many in office are guilty of this legal racketeering?)
Democrats are often as guilty as Republicans on that score, sometimes moreso.
But these legislators who have fled their states to deny quorum to these reprehensible anti-worker bills are very close to heroes at the moment, , like a kind of more creative Mr.-Smith-goes-to-Washington-type-filibuster. See them as a suit-and-tie 300 in the pass at Thermopylae, if you like. (I actually think of the workers in Wisconsin more that way.) But these legislators are not avoiding their responsibilities, which are after all not to the governor and his nutcase agenda, or to some misbegotten sense of decorum, but to the people.
Don't let anyone tell you they are avoiding anything. They are doing the only responsible thing.
Most often we have to fight like hell just to not get robbed, for example in the state sector when workers' contributions to their own pensions are used -- we should say "stolen" -- to pay the employer's other bills. (Somehow this little tidbit gets lost when the public debate begins over public employee pensions, along with the "pension holidays" we get in Illinois for example when the employer doesn't have to pay its obligations: maybe because so many in office are guilty of this legal racketeering?)
Democrats are often as guilty as Republicans on that score, sometimes moreso.
But these legislators who have fled their states to deny quorum to these reprehensible anti-worker bills are very close to heroes at the moment, , like a kind of more creative Mr.-Smith-goes-to-Washington-type-filibuster. See them as a suit-and-tie 300 in the pass at Thermopylae, if you like. (I actually think of the workers in Wisconsin more that way.) But these legislators are not avoiding their responsibilities, which are after all not to the governor and his nutcase agenda, or to some misbegotten sense of decorum, but to the people.
Don't let anyone tell you they are avoiding anything. They are doing the only responsible thing.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Police policing police
The community where I live is reeling from a fatal police shooting of an unarmed 15 year old black child on Oct. 9. The young man and his friend (who now faces charges of felony "resisting arrest") had often stayed at the house they were allegedly "burglarizing." The homeowner says they were both welcome any time. According to the police, the boys saw two cops appear with weapons drawn and tried to run. But what is that, a capital offense now?
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