Waiting for the Market to open this morning I came across Margaret Carlson’s excellent analysis.
“It isn’t fair!” is a cry we try in kindergarten and never give up. To tamp down this thirst for instant justice, the nuns at my school invoked the sweet hereafter, where all wrongs would be righted, as a reason for us to suck it up at recess.
As an adult, and a lucky one, the last thing I want now is fairness. I could be waiting on tables instead of being served at them, delivering the papers instead of writing for them.
In that, I’m like Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker. He didn’t want fairness to kick in after he assumed power in January and used the rubric of “budget repair” to bully the folks who clean his office and guard his prisoners.
The sweet hereafter made an early appearance in Wisconsin on Tuesday. A Democrat, Chris Abele, cruised to victory in the race to fill Walker’s former post, Milwaukee County executive. And state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, part of a 4-3 conservative majority seen as likely to support Walker’s assault on unions, ended up in a too-close-to-call election that may result in a recount. Just six weeks ago, Prosser was expected to coast to victory over JoAnne Kloppenburg, an assistant attorney general. Only five incumbent Supreme Court judges have been defeated since 1852.
Ordinarily it takes four years to right an electoral wrong. Not this time. Liberal and conservative groups descended on Wisconsin to turn what would normally be a ho-hum election into a referendum on Walker…
Regardless of the eventual outcome, Kloppenburg’s out-of- nowhere showing is a cautionary tale for those governors following in Walker’s path by curtailing workers’ bargaining rights, and for the Tea Party, which you’d think would be fighting for the little guy, not the big bully…
On April 5, voters in South Central Wisconsin approved two historic referenda by overwhelming margins. These referenda asked whether voters support amending the U.S. Constitution to make clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech. The City of Madison referendum passed with 84% of the vote, and the similar Dane County referendum passed with 78%.
These referenda are the first anywhere in the country to call for a constitutional amendment in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. FEC decision. Members of South Central Wisconsin Move to Amend (SCWMTA), the local group that pushed for the referenda, believe they will not be the last. “Amending the Constitution will not be easy, and to succeed people across the country will need to stand up and demand it,” says Kaja Rebane, SCWMTA Co-Chair. “We hope our success will inspire others to organize their own efforts.”
The 2010 Citizens United case declared that limiting the amount corporations can spend to influence elections would violate the “free speech rights” of corporate “people” under the First Amendment. National polls have shown broad opposition to the Citizens United decision (85% of Democrats, 81% of Independents, 76% of Republicans), and widespread support for a constitutional amendment to undo it (87% of Democrats, 82% of Independents, 68% of Republicans).
“This really is common sense. Even a small child can tell the difference between a corporation and a living, breathing human being. How can this be so hard for the Supreme Court to understand?” asks Madison resident Kevin Gundlach.
Anyone else remember “We the People” being more important than “Them the Corporations”?
Thanks, Cinaedh
Good article.
..In the driver’s seat .. Walker rammed through a tax cut for business, then used the deficit he’d just increased as justification for going after the pay and benefits of state employees…
Key point above. On a national scale, this is what’s happening in America. The Cheney Administration rammed tax cuts to the filthy rich and the resulting deficit as justification to fuck the middle the middle class.
Here you have the constituent sheeple astonishingly applauding the rape taking place.
I really don’t like being so negative this early “in the morning,” but:
Since when did it really matter what was in the constitution when we have Obama engaging in an illegal war, the Feds trampling all over states rights in the War Against Drugs, and the detainees in Guantanamo? — the list goes on.
Corporations still have enough money and power to skate through tax loopholes (cough, cough GE) for crying out loud. Although some loopholes are being addressed (the DISCLOSE Act [H.R. 5175] as an example), it may be too little, too late.
With all that being said, I am all for this proposed constitutional amendment.
I would love to see corporate personhood overturned.
Note — it should also affect unions as they are corporations, too.
AFTROTA — interesting things going on in WI. Anybody know how many other seats are up for recall?
Anyone who thinks cutting taxes for the wealthy is going to help the middle class is nuts. That doesn’t mean that Gov at all levels isn’t spending too much money – in many many cases it is.
That said if people think we should have a middle class (as apposed to a few wealthy and the rest working poor) then someone has to be paid a middle class wage.
Let me assure you if Gov workers are paid less private sector will follow suite. We only have a majority working middle class instead working poor because Business and Gov was forced to pay workers more.
If you think paying people less is the solution – then just admit you think having a working middle class is wrong and you want most people to be working poor and move on.
One comment I see over and over is similar to this:
When a Republican is winning by a narrow margin “It’s the will of the American People”.
When a Democrat is winning by a narrow margin “It’s Voter Fraud!”
Of course the parties can be changed depending on which you support.
Well we do need to GET CORPORATE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS !!! If Corporations have any money, it should be paid out to the stockholders who then can donate to their political choice, but funds shouldn’t be a SLUSH FUND FOR THE CEOs !!!
And I hope those RECALL ELECTIONS ***CLEAN HOUSE*** – TOSS THOSE REPUKES OUT ON THEIR FAT A$$E$ !!!
I second JimD!!!! HERE HERE!!!
#7
First your double negative, failure to use conjunctions, and general sentence structure makes your post confusing. Second, a basic understanding of economics would help you better realize the effect of price controls on a people’s quality of life. Price controls only make sense, economically that is, if there is no competition in the marketplace. Minimum wage and collective bargaining are forms of price control that have a detrimental effect. Unemployment tends to go up when you try and control wages as it encourages corporations to hire fewer workers. Its very simple. Supply and demand. If a worker does not want to do a job for a certain wage, someone else will. If no one will do a job for a certain wage, the employer has no other choice than to increase the wage he is willing to pay. A brief look at history in markets around the world will verify this fact for anyone curious about it.
Yeah we were also promised that lower corporate taxes and bailouts would produce jobs……..still waiting.
Why is a court supposed to overrule the legislature’s ‘assault on unions’? Liberals show they have no respect for the law, they just want the court to act as dictator.
#11 …direct (anger) at the politicians getting bribed, make them disclose every change to law, tax code, they do…then we can deduce who is bribing them by who the changes benefit.
What a show of hypocrisy and idiocy, you POS. You applaud having the Supreme Court allow UNLIMITED
UNLIMITED
UNLIMITED
UNLIMITED
UNLIMITED
bribe money from corporations and here you are with a dumb ass comment about ‘finding the culprit’. Where’s my gun.
MikeN,
What part about freedom of association and assembly and addressing issues don’t you understand? A union is a group of people who have agreed to form a common cause. You are the one who doesn’t respect the law.
Corporations are not people, money is not speech, that crap may be currently law, but it is certainly not constitutional.
#17, smartalix, so you think a court should throw out the union rule changes? You say I don’t respect the law, but it is the Wisconsin legislature that just made the law. So you think it is somehow unconstitutional for this state legislature to say that the state should not deduct union dues from worker’s paychecks? Or that unions should hold elections every year? Or that public sector unions can only bargain for wages?
You think a court should just write your policy preferences into law?
That a union is a group of people who have agreed to form a common cause, is not in dispute. However, there is no obligation for the state to negotiate with the union leaders.
@ Dr Steve.
By your logic, we could end up with people being employed at the lower levels of a corporation not being paid a living wage. Sure more people are employed but they still are not able to live on it. What it boils down to is do you want the goverment in control or corporations? I would much rather have goverment in control as right now it is the lesser of the two evils.
#12: Bull Shit – I don’t need the history lesson you do.
We only have a working middle class because of past labor movements. There has never been enough demand for labor to create a middle class. It was labor’s demand to share more in the wealth they helped create that formed a middle class.
What is and always has been in question is how the wealth that is created by people working is divided up.
Working class people can either agree to be the working poor, effectively surfs, or demand to be paid enough to build and sustain a middle class.
Corporations have to have some level or “personhood,” or else they would not be able to enter into contracts, have standing in court, or be sued.
re: Wisconsin – still a ‘progressive’ state with a lot of union thuggery going on. Election results can be ‘modified’ if necessary.
A problem – though not insurmountable – for conservatives.
re: corporations – my solution: only tax individuals, not corporations. Of course you can tax the individual’s income, bonuses, stock earnings, etc.
Get rid of corporations that make billions and pay no taxes.
Also, only allow election donations from individuals, not corporations or organizations – unlimited if that individual can vote on who he’s donating to, limited if he can’t.
#15…….um…..it’s the removal of regulations that got this country into the mess it was in with the housing market.
MIkeN said, on April 7th, 2011 at 9:56 am
Why is a court supposed to overrule the legislature’s ‘assault on unions’? Liberals show they have no respect for the law, they just want the court to act as dictator.
So Scott Walker’s ignoring a court order is ok? He’s above the law somehow?
This Wisconsin issue just what shows Democrats will do to protect their political alliance with labor unions. Walker attempts to curtail the conflict of interest of government employee unions bargaining with the public officials they help elect through their political support by limiting what they can bargain for, and the public gets fooled into believing this is a general attack on all unions.
Segue to Indiana where there is a measure to pass “right to work” and again the childish Democrats flee the state so they can preserve the legally enforced monopoly power of labor unions in the workplace… because those unions have paid big bucks to be protected from competition.
Well said #20
#23 what court order has Walker violated?
True payback would be to recall Scott Walker or the Republicans who passed the bill.
This whole Wisconsin Supreme Court thing demonstrated a few things:
1. Unions do not have as much influence as they think. The final vote tally was mighty thin.
2. Those interested in correcting economic problems in other states can look at Wisconsin for a nice blueprint on how to defeat the Unions, whose sole purpose to suck at the public taxpayer teat.
The unions are gonna lose. First, because economic reality is that all they want is “more, more, more” in a new financial reality where taxpayer dollars are scarce.
Non-thinkers can live in whatever denial reality they want to, even in so-called liberal states the question is either curtailing public sector benefits or just cutting public sector jobs.
I think the problem is mostly that public sector employees have been pampered for 40 years with lavish benefits and are not willing to make sacrifices like the rest of us; but it is the rest of us that pays the bills.
Corporations are protectorates and creations of the state (government…not individual states). As such, they are granted certain privileges should be subject to any rules and restrictions that the state sees fit to attach.
Despite the misguided Supreme Court dictates of the past, corporations are not “persons” and it’s about time that the government of the people got it straight.
I applaud the citizens of Wisconsin!
Haha. Prosser now leads in Wisconsin after Winnebago County adds 244 net votes to his total.
Prosser is the winner.
http://goo.gl/kQWb8
Silly range of opinion on display. From the ignorantly wrong to the irrelevant. HMeyers as usual very much on target.
Ignorantly Wrong: Alfie. I don’t even have to read his drivel to know it.
Irrelevant: the normally reliable Sea Lawyer first opines: “Corporations have to have some level or “personhood,” or else they would not be able to enter into contracts, have standing in court, or be sued.” /// Taking your argument on your terms, no one objects to Corps in these roles. The RELEVANT ISSUE is their unlimited political speech and spending. Did you correct this with your second missive?
#24–Sea Lawyer==lets parse:
This Wisconsin issue just what shows Democrats will do to protect their political alliance with labor unions. /// Lets hope so and hope their energy does not flag as it evidences itself in other states with the same assault.
Walker attempts to curtail the conflict of interest of government employee unions bargaining with the public officials they help elect through their political support by limiting what they can bargain for, and the public gets fooled into believing this is a general attack on all unions. /// How is it not a general attack? You mean Walker didn’t take the same position against Unions that support him? Doesn’t that demonstrate the very complaint you use to justify the action to being with? What kind of shit for brains do you have?
Segue to Indiana where there is a measure to pass “right to work” and again the childish Democrats flee the state so they can preserve the legally enforced monopoly power of labor unions in the workplace… because those unions have paid big bucks to be protected from competition. //// Very stirring language but the argument is all sound, no substance. The “right to work law” imposes a monopoly of employer preferences no different in coercion than the monopoly you complain of–just who gets benefited by the operation of law: labor or capital.
So much stupidity and self mutilation as too many working class folks confuse their desire for “liberty” with the fight to the bottom maneuvered by the Super Rich.
Wake Up Fools. The Republicans want to Kill America and they can’t do it without your vote.
Hmeyers I think you’re right that unions are going to lose, particularly public-sector unions.
What I think happens is that voters just got a wake-up call in WI, IN, MI, OH. If you elect wingnuts like Walker and Snyder, all kinds of crazy shit can happen, and none of it is good unless you’re one of their big donors.
Walker is going to have to survive a recall, and here in Michigan there are a lot of people upset at what Snyder is doing. I’m understating the mood in Michigan about him…he’ll be lucky to survive one term.
#9, GET CORPORATE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS
#16, bribe money from corporations and here you are with a dumb ass comment about ‘finding the culprit’.
Unions are corporations, also. Sounds like you are ready to have the Unions’ voices silenced as well. Congrats, to the both of you.
#17, A union is a group of people who have agreed to form a common cause.
From Dictionary.com: A Corporation is any group of persons united or regarded as united in one body.
Sounds a LOT like a union to me.
#21, I’ve always been uneasy about that fine line between freedom to associate and not. However, since the SCOTUS ruling on unlimited donations to PACS from corporations, I’ve been leaning in the direction of not. Right to free speech should belong to the individual and not a legal entity designed specifically to shield these individuals from legal harm. That goes for BP as well as the UAW.
#24, And it IS a conflict of interest. When the guys you help elect, through mandatory wage garnishment, are directly responsible for your pay, what else could it be?
Heh, heh.
Chalk up an additional 200 votes to Prosser thanks to New Berlin re-canvassing.
Sweet. The Tea Party nails the Government Union thugs.
The Canadian election system still needs a lot of improvement, but one of the best changes recently has been banning all campaign contributions from corporations and unions. Only individuals can make contributions (limited to about $1000 annually), and no cash contributions above $20 can be accepted.