Wisconsin and Unions

 I don't think Obama's support of general collective bargaining rights is a matter of going by polls -- the USA Today/Gallup poll showing 61% of respondents oppose the changes in the law proposed by Gov. Walker was only released this week.   There is a principle involved here.

Remember "slippery slopes"? How if we didn't assemble an army in Southeast Asia the commies would take over all Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, India, Malaysia, the Phillippines, and move on to Hawaii and California? A/K/A domino theory?

There is a "slippery slope" argument that if we allow collective bargianing rights on the part of public employees to be curtailed by law, then it is only another step to passing laws against all collective bargaining rights.

Remember too that if you are a member of a union, or have a member in your family, then you are brother and sister to those in any other union. You stick together, because sticking together is the heart and soul of unionism. Solidarity. The only way to stand when faced by the combined power of juggernaut business interests and the government that they bought and paid for. You break ranks and you are trodden underfoot by the warhorses and elephants.  Think pikemen and Greek phalanxes.

Just as Americans look with pride at the blood shed at Breed's Hill and Concord, so do union members remember those shot down by national guardsmen and Pinkertons in the pay of America's biggest corporations. When you think "Union" you stand, remove your cap, and stand in respect. People were beaten and died for your union rights.

For your right to work an eight-hour day, with time off on weekends, for overtime, for the right to take coffee breaks, for the right to not have your job taken by a starving 13-year old kid who would earn half as much as you do.  For your right to not get fired on the spot if you are injured.   For each of these rights, a war was fought, a literal war of bruises and blood and hunger and imprisonment.

That's how it was. A long and bloody struggle of David against Goliath. Unfortunately "history" is a subject that goes in one ear and out the other, assuming your particular history teacher even covered the history of labor and class in America.

So don't demean anyone supporting union rights, any more than you would jeer at someone crying in front of the Vietnam war memorial. In the union movement, a lot of blood and sweat was shed, and there, unlike Vietnam, something lasting was accomplished--unless we allow those gains to be eroded!

My thinking about government employees is this: in a climate of high unemployment, employees generally have no tool or weapon except to strike, to boycott, to bargain collectively. Even if a big company is a "publicly traded corporation," there is nothing an employee can do except strike. With government employees, there is something. They and their family and friends can vote. They can lobby their congressperson. Therefore, IMO, the case for union rights for government employees is thinner. 

Should the military be allowed to unionize?  If not, should the police?  Firemen?  Any public employees?There are a lot of issues here that I haven't studied and don't understand, but I do think there is a possible dividing line where it comes to government employees -- if th line can be held there.

More on the Demonstrations Across the Arab World

Fascinating to follow, too long in coming, a light that the wind threatens to blow out.

Like those of Tiananmen Square, a demonstration is poised on a knife edge of destiny.    The movement can either take off in a chain reaction or falter and fail, with the light of dissent forever extinguished.  It is so risky to go out on a limb that way, staking your life and future on success or failure.

Has the undercurrent reached critical mass?  Will it flame up and burn out its fuel and die, leaving nothing but darkness? 

Demonstrations against a powerful state unafraid of world opinion are so dangerous.

We on the outside can only watch.  

What happens will affect us, in small ways.  We are not the titans seen silhouetted by the flames, dancing in the ire, arms and voices raised. Those with the real stake in the outcome, those gambling their lives out there, are like the heroes of books and movies.  Do they see themselves that way, as characters in a drama of real life and death?

Armchair pundits from safe homes and offices a world away warn about the outcomes of successful revolution.  And sure, when an American ally is overthrown, it is unlikely that any successor government will be as friendly toward us.    But that is in the nature of freedom.  Freedom means the freedom to choose, and to choose to be our enemy.  If we act to alter that, then we are acting to limit or to control freedom, which is a contradiction in terms, a contradiction of our own history.

On Obama's Handling of the Egypt Situation

Republicans have been trying to make hay of Liall Ferguson's criticisms of the way the Egyptian situation was handled by Washington.   Can the administration be blamed for not being prepared for all this? Probably.

But remember, the best intelligence in the Middle East comes from ... the Mossad. Which was blindsided. The speed at which demonstrations are mobilized via facebook can take intelligence services by surprise. There can be chronic discontent, but in an instant it can boil over into mass action that was not forseen or forseeable, except in hindsight.

And what kind of policy is it to fund dissenting/revolutionary groups when you are allied with the guy they want to rebel against? Playing both sides is a dangerous game. You end up as the enemy of whoever wins out.

What is almost humorous is that Obama would have been criticized whatever had been done. Fund Egyptian dissent and you get blamed for the fall of a long time ally. Don't fund dissent and you get blamed for not preparing for Mubarak's exit. Support Mubarak's rule publicly and you are exposed as a damn fool and a friend of dictators when he falls or dies. Whatever you do there will be carping and second guessing.

Sure there are what we from our point of view deem undesirable elements that are going to have more voice in Egyptian government. But that is in the nature of democracy. If you shut out selected groups from the democratic process, then what you end up with is not democracy.