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Forum Post: Unions sunk our great country

Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 28, 2011, 3:40 p.m. EST by castrofidel (5)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

it amazes me to see some of our strongest look like they love america men turn out to be liberal liberal democrats They would rather turn our country into a communist region so that they can keep getting raises

The police in my rinky dink town in nj earn on average $120,000 a year with several making $200,000 PLUS Very rural town no crime other than teanagers screwing around NJ Morris and Bergen police hve become the weathy Tax them hard

21 Comments

21 Comments


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[-] 2 points by gawdoftruth (3698) from Santa Barbara, CA 13 years ago

sorry, random stupid ignorant repug talking points are not interesting, nobody is interested in communism, and its the corporations which screwed everyone over, not the unions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPR3GlpQQJA

I have been active here since the very beginning, and since the very beginning I have been trying to make some core points. These points clearly have not been digested or fully understood by the mob, and so I'm going to try to make a further attempt here again.

  1. Merely protesting in the streets will not bring change. In fact merely protesting in the streets is in fact a means to the end of avoiding the real work of a revolution, which consists of the evolutionary solutions, answers, problem solving process, and new political alignment we create.
  2. This forum is absolutely disorganized. It won't be read by most people and it won't and can't function as a core organizational system.
  3. Back at the very start of this, I petitioned the admin to add multiple sub forums and a wiki. Multiple sub forums were promised but have never arrived. I think that this tells us that the intention actually of this forum is message control and containment. The entire purpose really of this forum has always been to keep us spinning in disorganization. We are hanging out on a forum that expressly exists to actually keep us confused and disorganized.
  4. The real work of a revolution isn't going to happen on forums, it needs to happen in a much more organized fashion using collaborative software.
  5. The assorted other details about how to collaborate, how to work open source direct democracy, how to focus in on science instead of isms, how to become hyper rational about this, are details which are essential and crucial, without which we can predict the movement to fail.
  6. Technically speaking we are not 99 percent, we are one tenth of one percent attempting to represent the 99 percent. Our core mission must be to communicate to and with the 99 percent, and get them to join us. This forum will not accomplish that and neither will any of the other main websites.
  7. You can follow other people out to other wikis and other websites, where they will try to get you to get involved with what they want and their program, but frankly speaking, there is no other website and no other operation out there which understands the complexities involved with meaningful organization. In short, everyones being led to get involved here there and everywhere else, scattering the movement in directions which ultimately do not gain us critical mass, criticial momentum, or critical systemic lucidity.
  8. I have managed to get a wiki put up and have already put on that wiki evolutionary details which make it more organized than anything else. I can't do this alone. There are 10 or so wikis now out there, most of which were created in response to my pleas for a wiki, and several of which are in domains owned and operated by some corporation, (wikia, etc) And which we can thus assume will simply be closed, shut down, or deleted if they become useful to the movement.
  9. Probably at least half of the invites you have to go participate at some other site are people who are scamming everyone to waste time and energy, distort the movement, co opt it, and etc. When you walk off into a closet ask yourself how you know that the closet isn't created by some fed, or by some republican, or by some democrat, in order to sway things in their direction.
  10. The only meaningful strategic option we have for real change in this country is to create a new third party, and take every political office in this country.
  11. Once that is done, we can have an article 5 convention. If we have an article 5 convention before getting rid of the oligachs, that just opens the genie from the bottle for them to abuse that process with their corruption and evil.

For these reasons, I beg of you to please immediately join me on the wiki. We need to have all of these details and all of these ideas put together in an organized fashion, rather than posted in a long scrawl which will never be read.

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/THE_99%25_POLITICAL_PARTY

http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.followthemoney.org/?gclid=CMbY87bB-qsCFUPt7Qod9HE8mQ

http://maplight.org/us-congress/guide/data/money?9gtype=search&9gkw=list%20of%20campaign%20donations&9gad=6213192521.1&9gag=1786513361&gclid=CP61oYbB-qsCFQFZ7AodcTF0jw

http://www.opensecrets.org/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/our-new-wiki/

http://occupywallst.org/forum/non-violence-evolution-by-paradigm-shift/

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[-] 2 points by vrwithu (6) 13 years ago

A well compensated rank&file of the public sector is essential to keep corruption out. Why do people always raise the communism bogeyman. Communism is dead all the over world dude.. Mccarthyism is so 20th century. Let us devote the energy to find the real culprits and real solutions for our sorry state...

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[-] 2 points by castrofidel (5) 13 years ago

I appreciate your thoughts I just wish you lived in a rural town in NJ To see officers who make $200,000 plus standing in a pathmark shoppimg center putting tickets on windshields where people have parked in disabled spots What a waste of my money If not putting tickets on windshields our force is standing 2 Cars at a time next to some one working on a telephone pole They vote dem socialist progressive communist choose your word they all represent the same phylosophy Goverment run country

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[-] 1 points by bronxj (150) 13 years ago

Absolutely. But who, other than the public sector unions and the politicians that are beholden to them, gets to decide when the line has been crossed from well compensated to overcompensated? is it your position that those of us who are not public workers but obligated to fund these contracts, pensions, tax benefits should NOT get a say through a referendum/ratification process?

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[-] 2 points by vrwithu (6) 13 years ago

We elected the politicians. Every politician, republican or democrat has only one interest. To promote the cause of the group that put them in power. So the question really is how do we make the politicians treat us tax payers us an 'interest group'. Our 'referendum-ratification' process is already there - it is the election. Another layer of election - how will that help.. I do agree that we need to figure out how to stop the collusion of the politicians and the powerbrokers. Every individual who gets taxes cut from their paycheck, sales tax property tax... we are the people who are funding this grand theft..

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[-] 1 points by bronxj (150) 13 years ago

You said: “Our 'referendum-ratification' process is already there - it is the election.” I say no. Even the public sector unions realize that. That’s why no contract becomes effective without a member vote. The simple solution, especially on the state and city level, is give all taxpayers the same “veto” power as the union members when it comes to contract terms and conditions and preferential legislation (BTW, this should be applied to all contracts that have a significant financial impact , not only labor)

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[-] 1 points by vrwithu (6) 13 years ago

But the members vote because the out come affects their livelihood, we elect a person to represent our the tax payers side - and if he doesnt do his job well, we have to replace the elected official. Common people do not have time or energy to take active interest in every union negotiation - even if it their money on the line.. If there is a practical way for the general public to ratify every public sector union contract - then I agree with you that could be the solution.

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[-] 1 points by bronxj (150) 13 years ago

You said: “we elect a person to represent our the tax payers side - and if he doesnt do his job well, we have to replace the elected official” well if that is true what is the point of these protests? People in most states and cities will find the time to evaluate if $Xper hour and state and city tax free retirement at Y years at z% of salary to teach kindergarden is fair or not or if giving Z corp an $X contract over 3 years to 'consult" on this or that is fair or not. Most have an opinion already, just no way to exercise it.

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[-] 2 points by demonstrator (167) 13 years ago

and if we get rid of the rest of the unions- the job creators (1%) will gain more wealth-

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[-] 1 points by daverao (124) 13 years ago

I do not know about country but they are going to sink us at OWS. They have already made some holes. we lost lot of support because of unions. They are steering OWS to benefit them. They dictate where we should demonstrate. They picked up Verizon and walmart.

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[-] 1 points by JackPulliam3rd (205) 13 years ago

steve jobs was right

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[-] 0 points by bronxj (150) 13 years ago

I have no problem with private sector unions where both sides , labor and management, have skin in the game. I do have a problem with collective bargaining as practiced by public sector unions where the side supposedly representing the taxpayers ( including those taxpayers who do not belong to public sector unions) bargain with our, not their own, money . All Union members are given the opportunity to vote on a contract before it is approved. All taxpayers should be given the same opportunity. All municipal labor contracts and any existing preferential legislation (eg in New York public employee pensions are not subject to state or local income tax while private pensions are taxed by the state and city) should be subject to voter referendum and ratification. Those who must burden the costs should have a say which they currently don't.

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[-] 2 points by cmt (1195) from Tolland, CT 13 years ago

In the private sector, if there is a corporation the executives have little or no skin in the game. They are playing with other people's money - shareholders who have very little ability to change the behavior of entrenched boards of directors and their hand-picked CEO's.

And those CEO's are using corporate money - not their own - as well as forcing their managers to donate, to politicians who uphold the 1%.

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[-] 1 points by bronxj (150) 13 years ago

They have skin in the game to the same extent that union leaders have skin in the game---management wants to get the best possible deal for their Boards and shareholders just as the union leaders want to get the best possible deal for their members . In the public sector, there is many times no equivalent objective on behalf of elected officials to get the best possible deal for ALL residents of the municipality

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[-] 1 points by cmt (1195) from Tolland, CT 13 years ago

Then I hope you are working to get better officials in your municipality.

The ones in mine are pretty good, and I am doing my best to make sure that it stays that way.

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[-] 1 points by bronxj (150) 13 years ago

I live in NYC.Anyone running for anything where I am is bought and paid for by one group or the other.

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[-] 1 points by cmt (1195) from Tolland, CT 13 years ago

Suggestion: then see if you can find which candidate is the less bought of the two. Work to defeat the one with the most 1% backing, and if he/she gets defeated, publicize that the WS donations were held against him.

Doing nothing just leaves the 1% with a totally free playing field, and they can't possibly lose that way.

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[-] 1 points by bronxj (150) 13 years ago

Lesser of two evils almost never works. Also, Wall Street is not the only special interest group to use dollars to bend the law unfairly to their advantage and in local government may not even be the largest. Even if they have the greatest sway, knocking only them off the top perch just allows the second largest to take their place.

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[-] 1 points by cmt (1195) from Tolland, CT 13 years ago

I guess I have an incremental point of view. Knock off the worst. Then see who is worst next time, and do it again. Seeing the worst knocked off could encourage someone decent to consider running.

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