Or, put another way, everything old is new again: Lech Walesa Is going to visit NYC in, ahem, solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. Maybe we can prevail upon him to make a stop in Boston…?
For those of you scratching your heads saying, ‘big deal’, let me just say that Walesa is an authentic hero who put his life on the line time and time against the communists in Poland in the 70’s and 80’s and who can legitimately claim to be one of the few who struck the first and earliest blows that ultimately felled the Berlin wall. Yes. He’s that important.
I’m taking bets on which of our differently winged friends here at BMG will be first to call him either communist, marxist, socialist or some version of collectivist. I would take bets on which heads will explode after it is explained to them that he is both pro-union and pro-capitalist… but that would be wrong.
Petr – there is a difference between unions per se, and government employee unions which also intervene in political campiagns relating to their own salaries and benefits.
ALL UNIONS intervene in political campaigns relating to their own salaries and benefits. You’ve as much as said nothing…
on those who manipulate the government for their financial advantage?
Answer: Big Oil, Banks to big to fail, all of Wall St., the top 1%, GE………
It’s tough to tell who’s the real American and who’s the fifth columnist these days — the lists change faster in Republican catechism than in Pravda. Thanks for the update.
Aside from Ronald Reagan, is there anyone else whose picture I should ensure is on the wall of the office?
They do for the SEIU and NAGE…
(Again – CANNOT use reply button on petr’s comment. Is ‘reply’ function down?)
It is a terrible product. Your life will be so much better if you switch to Firefox or Chrome. Promise.
For example, it works in Firefox, but not Internet Explorer.
There is enough name-calling on both sides of the spectrum, so you needn’t get on your high horse about it. Of course, Walesa was a superhero in the fight against communism, and yes, one can be both pro-union and pro-capitalism. (I think that porcupine has in mind the public employee unions which are raping the tax payers for their six figure salaries and pensions, not people who actually work for a living)
And, yes, I think that Walesa will actually help the OWS people by clarifying their goals for them.
Here’s the truth: Not only is the average state worker’s salary below $50,000, it’s also well below the average private sector worker’s salary.
You’re entitled to your own opinion, Edgar, but not your own facts – state workers pull down six figure salaries only in your imagination!
This somewhat simplistic chart was produced by the Economic Policy Insititute – here’s their self-described source of funding from thier web site:
That would be like me citing the American Petroleum Institute for proof that drilling is okey-dokey.
BTW – per Wikipedia – “The EPI’s President is Lawrence Mishel, a long-time member of Democratic Socialists of America.[3]”
That said – it isn’t the six-figure salaries that we need to worry about. Most of them AREN’T union members. It’s the large – and increasing – high five figure employees that is bankrupting the pension system with unsustainable benefits. They ARE union members.
This somewhat simplistic reply was produced by your inability to back away from a losing argument.
If, for just one example, the MBTA was well managed rather than a political hackey-sack and a magic rug under which Big Dig excesses were to be hidden, no one would even discuss the much publicized pension issues. Egregiously bad management, over a long time, has nothing whatsoever to say about unions. I’m entirely willing to believe that fantastically bad management at the MBTA ‘gave away the store’ to the unions in the form of unwieldy pensions. That’s a distinct possibility. But that’s neither a fault of the unions nor a problem which nuking the unions can solve. Bad management is bad management and if you scratch the surface on a dodgy pension plan you’re FAR more likely to find bad management underneath. Get rid of the unions and bad management will make our lives miserable in an entirely new way.
This is a problem that won’t be solved until you stop defending BAD MANAGEMENT by impugning labor unions.
Scott Walker, in WI, wanted to reduce ‘union costs’ for public sector unions but he exempted police and firefighters from these reductions… A clear admission, to those of us in the reality based community, of the stunning arbitrariness of the solutions to the posited ‘problem’.
thought we were on the casino thread for a moment, or maybe a thread where someone mentioned “Koch.”. Someone should explain when this is an acceptable tactic.
If you are truly sorry about my opinion you could raise your game and offer rational, constructive debate.
When viewed from the mud, I’m sure it appears as though I’m looking down on you… When you get out of the mud we can look at each other eye to eye. Choice is yours.
teachers, cops, and EMS people are rapists, and you’re comparing paying taxes to being raped.
I think you need a reality check, my friend, and I hope that it comes from learning about former, not the latter.
I suggest that you visit the Boston Herald home page and check out the section,”Your Tax Dollars At Work.” Even the Globe recently published the astonishing salaries of people working in the bureaucracies of the state university system. I did not have in mind teachers (like you), police or fire, etc, but rather the Billy Bulger types who have, indeed, raped the taxpaper.
Really? You had “in mind” Billy Bulger, the chief administrator of the state university system who is LEGALLY BARRED from union membership? Is that who you had in mind when making the claim that government employee unions make too much money? That’s kinda like saying Theo Epstein is the highest paid ballplayer on the Red Sox…
and precise enough to not be misinterpreted. You can’t expect those who read your comments to read your mind. There’s more than enough imprecision in this for broad interpretation:
Public employee unions, for example, are organizations, not individuals. They don’t work for taxpayers. They collect dues, not salaries. I suppose they could organize a gang rape, but I don’t think that’s what you really mean.
The list on the Herald site is just specific enough to confirm your biases. The people listed there, as our BMG friends have pointed out, are mostly administrators who make what the market, unfettered by unions, demands. For comparison’s sake, UNC-Chapel Hill chancelor made $420,000 a year in 2008. Billy Bulger may not have deserved his job as UMass President, but his salary was in line with what administrators of that level are making.
And the handful of professors making over $200,000 (six figures starts at $100,000, about what a high school principal makes). These professors have likely received a grant in some science field. Grants often split the total between the professor(s) who secure them and the college they work for. A half-million dollar grant, in this case, would get split between the professor(s) and UMass. Thus the grant brings both the institution and the academics money. This benefits the taxpayer. That’s not necessarily what’s happening, but it gives you an idea of the kind of stuff the Herald is leaving out. A number out of context may be at least as misleading as it is enlightening.
“Clear and precise” are not what you are going to get no matter how much you ask for it.
a punching bag once in a while. Keeps my chops up.
With that said, Edgar is a guy I probably wouldn’t mind living next door to.
In just the past couple of days we have learned that casinos and pensions are both forms of rape.
As for Walesa, I’ve always felt he blew the biggest hole in communist theory. Anyone can fight tyranny, but when you have a union leader fighting a regime that is premised on uniting the workers of the world, that is sweet irony.
by other means. Switching it up so Hitler will still have a place in shrill commentary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
I very much doubt those people are members of unions. They’re all in mangement.
… and I was trying to reply to edgarthearmenian’s “Kindly refrain…”
The original intent of my statement was to endorse Lech Walesa’ s support of OWS. The second point, not well formulated, was to support porcupine re some public union officials. I don’t really mind being a punching bag for KBusch (whom I still consider to be a friend). 🙂