Wrestlin' in Wisconsin

Wow! The Navy and the Air Force sent air controllers? Aren't Navy and Air Force Personnel... public employees?

Hmmmmm

Governor Scott Walker and his Wisconsin senate Republicans have laid bare the motives for their coup d'etat. By severing the financial part of the bill (which couldn't be passed without absent Democrats) from the part eliminating the collective bargaining rights of public employees (which could be), and then doing the latter, Wisconsin Republicans have made it crystal clear that their goal has had nothing whatever to do with the state budget. It's been to bust the unions.

That's no surprise to most people who have watched this conflict from the start, but like any coup its ultimate outcome will depend on the public. If most citizens of Wisconsin are now convinced that Walker and his cohorts are extremists willing to go to any lengths for their big-business patrons (including the billionaire Koch brothers), those citizens will recall enough Republican senators to right this wrong.

But it's critically important at this stage that Walker's opponents maintain the self-discipline they have shown until this critical point. Walker would like nothing better than disorder to break out in Madison. Like the leader of any coup d'etat, he wants to show the public his strong-arm methods are made necessary by adversaries whose behavior can be characterized on the media as even more extreme.

Be measured. Stay cool. Know that we are a nation of laws, and those laws will prevail. The People's Party is growing across America -- and the actions of Scott Walker and his Republican colleagues are giving it even greater momentum. So are the actions of congressional Republicans who are using the threat of a government shutdown to strong-arm their way in Washington.

The American public may be divided over many things but we stand united behind our democratic process and the rule of law. And we reject coups in whatever form they occur.

Robert Reich is the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

I don't think I an any more consistent or outcome oriented in my view of this than are you. You have already acknowledged that you view the further restrictions on the use of secret ballots of employees in the proposed card check legislation as justified because they will yield fewer union defeats in their organizing efforts - and not because they provide a more accurate, objective assessment of what the workers really want.

More to the point, I merely noted the somewhat hysterical flavor in your commentary. Terming a provision in the proposed Wisconsin legislation as "explosive" when in fact it has been the law of the land For Federal employees and the employees of numerous state governments as long as they have has public service unions, is hardly an objective or rational action.

True! The democrats shoved through ObamaCare in the same way Walker passed his anti-Union legislation; they were both legal political processes. How they end up in elections is still to be seen.

failures art wrote:

Wow! The Navy and the Air Force sent air controllers? Aren't Navy and Air Force Personnel... public employees?

Hmmmmm

Yes they are. However, lucky for you, they don't have unions and they don't go on strike.

And, as it turned out they did a better job with fewer people than the self-serving jerks they replaced.

How are the two even remotely comparable?

First You Get The Votes, Then You Take The Vote
You’ve sort of got to admire the gritty determination of the Wisconsin GOP. I think when the Democrats first fled the state, the CW in DC was that the public would side with Governor Walker and they’d be forced to cave soon enough. Then when it turned out that the public was actually sided with the unions and the Democrats, the CW quickly became that there would have to be some kind of compromise. But of course there never had to be a compromise . . . the Republicans always had the option of just fiddling with procedure, ramming something through, and hoping they survive the ensuing recall drives. That just didn’t seem to most folks like the kind of thing politicians would do. But they did!

Not to draw an equivalence between a bad bill and a good one, but what it reminds me of is congressional Democrats after Scott Brown’s election. The early CW was that somehow Democrats “had to” back down in the face of their unpopularity. But they didn’t have to do anything. They believed as strongly in universal health care as the Wisconsin GOP believes in crushing labor unions. So they passed the damn bill.

cicerone imposter wrote:

True! The democrats shoved through ObamaCare in the same way Walker passed his anti-Union legislation; they were both legal political processes. How they end up in elections is still to be seen.

How are the two even remotely comparable?

A
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Payoffs are also political games that both parties play.

True! The democrats shoved through ObamaCare in the same way Walker passed his anti-Union legislation; they were both legal political processes.

Well it's true there are differences, and they should be acknowledged. While in both the instances of the passage of Obamacare and the recent action in Wisconsin, the majority party employed most of the parliamentary devices available to them to move their legislation forward, as has been noted, Wisconsin is different in that the majority party hasn't (yet at least) resorted to bribing its own members with public money to get their votes - as was done in the Federal Congress with payoffs for Democrat senators from Nebraska and Louisiana.

What parliamentary procedures are you claiming the Dems used to forward HC reform? Specifically.

Cycloptichorn