At least I think this is live:
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
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In early 1940 British Air Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris objected to a proposal to drop incendiary bombs on German forests, exclaiming “We can’t do that! It’s private property!”
But several months later, as watched London residential districts burning from German incindiaries dropped during the Blitz, he had a change of heart. ““The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them…. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
I find some similarities with the current political situation. President Obama and traditional Democrats have often made every effort to appease the Republicans, agreeing to give away much of the game before the negotiations even begin, and then allowing compromises and amendments which gut much of the heart out of the bills. The idea is that the Democrats are afraid that if they don’t appear willing to include the Republicans and compromise, they will suffer a backlash in public opinion. But each time they have done so, after giving away much of the game, the Republicans have gone ahead and stopped legislation and appointments through filibusters and silent holds.
In situations where they find themselves in power, as in Wisconsin, they have been contempious of giving Democrates any say in the process or even engaging in any meaningful negotiations. Yet when the Democrats exercise the only tactic they have left, in the Wisconsin case the denial of a quorum, then Republicans become absolutely red-faced that their own tactics should be used against them.
I say, the Republicans should now reap the whirlwind. We should let them know that in every state, every legislature, we will treat them with the same disdain that they have treated the Democratic senators in Wisconsin and the working families there. We will give them no concessions, no courtesy, no cooperation. We will hit every Republican politician with everything we have to make sure they are recalled or don’t survive the next re-election campaign.
By the end of the 2012 election cycle, we should do everything in our power to ensure that the future of Republican politics in our country resembles Berlin in May, 1945.
Berlin 1945
Last night, I briefly switched over to Fox News to see how they were handling the Wisconsin story. The anchor interviewed a Wisoonsin Senator, who said that he hadn’t spoken to any of the Democratic Senators, and also said that none of them have ever attempted to contact their Republican colleagues since they left the state.
Then he said that several of the Democratic Senators had told him they wanted to return, but couldn’t, which he attributed to threats from labor unions “which have such a hold on them”. He went on to claim that the Republicans had to be secreted out of the Capital Building due to fear of the “angry crowd” outside their chambers.
The Fox interviewer never bothered to follow up on such an obvious inconsistency – first he claims that he and no other Republicans have spoken to the Democratic Senators, then claims that they told him they want to come on, and offers no evidence for his presumption that they were essentially being held hostage by the unions.
Obviously, the Republicans can’t keep track of their lies, and Fox News can’t even make a minor attempt at pretending to be real journalists.
Sounds like the New York Councilman who said taht “union members” had told him they were instructed to sand-bag snow removal operations . . . how’d that pan out?
Poor babies had to run and hide. Too bad more didn’t run and hide and read Obamacare before voting that monster mess in place.
Stock market down 200+ Hows those stocks this week Rog?
Record unemployment
The highest monthy deficit in history 223 Billion! Times that by 12 and tell me what the real numbers are this year!
Gas prices up 87% since Omygodamama took office
And Michelle is toting her new $1000 hand bag.. My God do they have a clue what they have done to America?
“You’re Fired”
@1 That’s what virtually everyone at the grassroots level wants to do, and has wanted to do for a very long time, but we are continually let down by spineless Democratic electeds who seem more beholden to corporate interests funding their campaigns than to the voters who elect them.
@5 Frankly, if you guys got the civil war that some of you say you want, I think the stock market would go to damn near zero. Stocks wouldn’t be worth a tinker’s damn if Republicans started behaving like Gaddafi’s mercenaries in the streets of our cities.
What’s Next In Wisconsin?
Unions are discussing a general strike, although some are cautioning against a walkout by public employees, because that would give Gov. Walker the opportunity he craves to engage in mass firings.
There will for certain be legal challenges to Walker’s union-stripping bill. The ultimate resolution of these challenges depends on the makeup of Wisconsin’s state supreme court, which currently has 4 Republicans and 3 Democrats. But Wisconsin has a supreme court election coming up on April 5 with one of the Republican-held seats up for grabs. If the Democratic candidate wins, control of the court will be in Democratic hands, and there are enough procedural irregularities in how the anti-union bill was passed that they could easily overturn it.
Eight of Wisconsin’s Republican state senators are eligible for immediate recall, and with a current 19-14 division in the state senate, Democrats need to win only 3 of them to give the Democratic Party control of the state senate. Thousands of signature gatherers collected 15% of the needed signatures in just one weekend. The recall vote on these 8 senators could come as early as this summer.
But in the immediate future, the most important thing for workers is to win that state supreme court seat next month.
http://www.alternet.org/newsan.....hallenges/
Oh yeah, one more thing, Obama won 6 of those 8 districts, so gaining Democratic control of the state senate is well within reach.
Just for the hell of it, I switched over to a S Carolina conservative station. Where I learned that liberal religion is the latest cancer in American politics. Did you know that these ‘Churches’ felt that “individuals” and “workers” should be treated “fairly!”? That liberal religions were arguing that people mattered more than money? Blasphemy! Several callers felt strongly that “those” churches should have their tax example status pulled because they were against people from having their rights taken away. Because the churches didn’t side with the State Government.
Does anyone know, will the remaining Walker bill still give away the public power plants?
@5 So let’s pretend you’re the King. How are you going to fix this mess? We want details.
Walker can go ahead and do what he wants. 2 or 4 years from now the people of WI will just come in behind him and undo what he’s done. It’s pretty obvious which side of the fence the people are on.
It’s just like when our beloved Democrats in Olympia tried to undo the Clean Energy Act, they knocked that act off pretty quick it when told that all it would do was cause the environmental community to come in behind them and pass a “Clean Energy Act II” that was even stricter.
We know which side the people are on.
You’d Suck Unemployment Dry looking for a job in a democrats world.
And the Unions in this state will soon see the voters furor!
@5
The unions in WI agreed to spending cuts and increased contributions by their members to their retirement and healthcare plans.
Wisconsin’s hardly alone in cutting spending, every state in the union is going through this. What makes Wisconsin stand out is that it’s the only one that can’t seem to make the cuts without pissing people off to the point that things are shut down and people are in the streets and it’s Walker and the Republican’s that are at fault for the people in the streets and the shutdowns.
i’m a bit turned off by how the unions use “public worker” and “working class families” interchangeably. they might share economic status, but their function in society are not the same.
@14
The voters in this state are far more likely to stand with the unions.
Btw, even Forbes magazine says Walker’s screwed the pooch.
A stupid and follish comment by a stupid and foolish kid.
Typical comment from this thoroughly hateful asshole.
Don’t Borrow Their Money To Buy Their Stuff
With Republicans pressing an all-out assault against workers, and doing everything they can to drive down wages of working-class and middle-class Americans, where do they think their businesses will get customers from?
Simple. They want us to go into debt — to them — to maintain a lifestyle that our lowered wages can no longer support. That way, they get us coming and going.
Don’t. Don’t borrow their money to buy their stuff. You don’t need all that stuff anyway. Take my word for it, you’ll do just fine without more “stuff.” You probably have too much “stuff” already.
With workers and wages being suppressed and capitalists ascendant everywhere, the only sensible thing to do is stop being a consumer and become an investor. With workers in a death spiral, the only way you’ll be able to survive in the future is by being an owner of capital instead of a consumer.
And if that means their businesses have no customers … tough fucking shit. You don’t owe that to them. You owe them nothing.
@19 Oh, go ahead and let them break the unions. In the end, they’re just going to end up breaking capitalism.
Lefties, meet the new establishment, you are it. Elitist academics, overpaid public employees, wealthy country club liberals. Are you surprised that Americans are waking up to the class wars, entitlement scams and union hegemony that funds Democrats?
You shouldn’t be. As with the establishment before you, the pendulum swings again. Permanent Progressive Majority? LOL. All that’s left for you now are the irrational union goon death threats towards freely elected representatives in WI. You better hope none of them follow through. How do you think that will sit with moderate voters?
Hmmmm…”Smells like Sock Puppet”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.....hp?ref=fpa
Clearly…capitalism is already broken.
23
It sure does reek of sock puppet. I’d know that fetid, rotting stench anywhere.
@22
The problem isn’t that the public employees are over paid, it’s that the rest of the working class is under paid.
You haven’t seemed to have noticed that there are thousands of people in the streets in Republican controlled states supporting unions and public workers and that even right wingers like Forbes Magazine have said the righties have blown it.
Sucks to be you.
@22: You’re Pudpuller’s mother, aren’t you?
Would you please fill him in on what you really meant when you told him he was “special”?
@22: Fuck you, mother!
Hey Right Wingers,
Refute this:
http://www.stateofworkingameri.....8;end=2008
@22: Speaking of motherfuckers, how’s ol’ Pudpuller doin’?
I’ll say it again. This ain’t pat-a-cake. This is war. No amount of logical blogging is going to turn this tide.
We got good jobs for fair pay with the Homestead Strike, the Coal Strike, the Seattle Strike, and the Flint Strike (to name a few).
The time for sitting on one’s blogging ass is over. Don’t organize and in your lifetime you won’t earn enough to pay for the internets. The banks are sure as s**t not going to loan you money based on the ever growing value of your home.
They’re coming for YOU, and they’re coming fast.
Playing around with the slider on the page YLB linked too, I see that the income share for the bottom 90% started to tank in the late 50’s just about when union membership started to slide…
http://www.stateofworkingameri.....8;end=2008
If you want to breath clean air you might want to consider living in a city. If you move to the country someone might stick a CAFO next door to you.
The Environmental Integrity Project is reporting that federal data reveals that air at some factory farm test sites “is dirtier than in America’s most polluted cities and exposes workers to concentrations of pollutants far above occupational guidelines.”
http://www.dailyyonder.com/thu.....03/10/3224
29, 32
I think the greatest threat our nation currently faces is the rapidly accelerating disparity between rich and poor. A stable society is simply not possible to maintain at the gap we are currently seeing, with the trend completely in the wrong direction. The rich and their Republican flunkies think they are serving their own interests by smashing labor and the middle class. They are, of course, hopelessly shortsighted. Today’s GOP–Marie Antoinette would feel so at home. There is such sick irony in corporate America’s having killed private sector unions so that private labor is vastly underpaid, and now saying “see, public sector employees are overpaid compared to private sector employees.” God, I hate these bastards.
And as the Stock market continues to plummet, even more mony is lost out of the economy. You idiots have no damn idea what a disaster you are creating in this economy.
But you can;t see it cause you’re on the public dole.
Well its a comin your way!
Id,
Do you have any idea how boring your thoughtless drivel is?
@35
Stock Market as of 3/10/2010 : 10,567
Stock Market as of 3/10/2011 : 11,984
You were saying?
We’re in a long term correction/reset/depression/recession/whatever you want to call it, but focus on the long term part. We’ve been here twice before (the long and the great depressions) and both times it took a long time, like about 30 years, to dig ourselves out. What the Democrats are doing is far, far, from perfect, but it has us headed in the right direction.
Maybe, you should try turning off Fox News and reading a book written by someone that doesn’t appear on Fox News.
The ld(iot) is a bought and paid for crack Koch-caine head.
I find the conservatives out and out hatred of anyone of their class, that is doing better than them, truely amazing. They don’t turn this anger and fury on the kings and the lords of America, they turn it on their neighbors and equals who have found a way to still make a tiny bit better living than them. Like crabs in a pot keeping each other down.
@39
Yeah, I don’t get that either.
how is my comment stupid? how am i a stupid kid?