On Mar 3, 8:29*am, Jonathan Cook wrote:
On Mar 2, 11:49*am, DaveS wrote:



But in "representative democratic republics" workers
should take it or leave it?

If we say we really want democracy, yes. Otherwise, what we are saying
is that we want to balance democratic power with anti-democratic
institutions. I said they "should not" be needed, I didn't say our
society is in a state where they "are not" needed.

Further, you are not saying that whichever party elects its officials
should have the unfettered right to unilaterally set the conditions of
work, are you?

Last I checked, parties don't vote, people do. If it is the people's
will to give one party that much control over the government, then so
goes democracy.

And when another political party wins an election,
would the winning party get to reset the conditions of work, pensions,
health insurance etc etc?

If it is the people's will to hand that much control to another party.

Or should this be the sole province of
executive branch public managers?

Who work for the government, which was elected by the people.

Which ones of this sterling cast
would you willingly rely on for your family's health and welfare?
Sounds like a formula for chaos or at least instability.

Yes, it does -- IF you have no faith in the people. I'm just saying,
let's call that view what it is: anti-democratic. Perhaps, however, if
what you fear actually happens, the people would learn very quickly
not to elect governments that would change the conditions of work for
the teachers so willy-nilly. Perhaps they'd actually then pay
attention and elect governments that govern for the people and not for
other interests. Perhaps allowing the symptoms to cause (hopefully
short term) pain would be the best path to actually reaching a cure.
As it is now, we simply prefer to take our daily dose of painkillers
rather than figure out what causes the pain, and fix it.

Former member Local 2112 Carpenters, and AFSME
Retired reluctant and successful capitalist
Work Union = live better
AFL-CIO = the folks who bought you the weekend, with their blood.
I post this in remembrance of my fathers organizer half brother,
beaten to death by company thugs and thrown in a ditch, . . . in this
"representative democratic republic."

Hopefully you did not overlook my comment about private sector unions.

Take care,

Jon.

Jon,

You surprise me. The "let it rip" approach you seem to suggest has
already been tried and failed several times. (As I recall it one
attempt was called the "French Revolution," and another the "Chinese
Cultural Revolution." Blood baths both. ;+)) Seriously, the tenor or
your very radical "solution" draws me beyond the immediate Wisconsin
issue, to something far broader, as follows . . . .

At the core of our form of government is a built in conservative bias
in favor of slow and incremental change. It is a bias I favor, and one
that it took Jefferson, for example, a lifetime to appreciate, but
found full if less wordy expression in Washington's actions,
statements and character.

IMHO and that of some others, there is no more important example of
this problem than in the almost 250 year dialogue on what exactly do
DEMOCRACY, Nationality and EQUALITY mean in our nation, and how does
CHANGE properly take place in our system.

We live at a time when media and political clowns purport to parse and
retail the meaning of the "founding fathers" "intentions," without
reference to the arc of how their thinking developed and changed over
the course of their life times. As a result the Right, the Left and
even some supreme court justices regularly mouth platitudes, perhaps
meaningful in the context of a legal brief, but with little to no
historical support when compared to the BODY and temporal context of
the Founder's own words.*

Rather that go on in this vein I would presume to recommend a short
book by Joseph J. Ellis, entitled "Founding Brothers," ("The
Revolutionary Generation",) a non polemic, non ideological examination
of the creation of our system. I guarantee that after a careful
reading you will come away with a renewed appreciation of the tasks,
events, difficulties and practical genius of our system invented by
imperfect men (plus Abigail), under life threatening circumstances,
encumbered with immense hypocrisies.

Take care
Dave Snedeker

* There are IMHO no more important examples of this than 1), the 14
year, post retirement dialogue between John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson, and 2) the earlier beneficial machinations of Madison, and
3) the consistency of Washington's guiding hand.