I’ve been thinking about what constitutes the “left” in America. My interest was piqued by a Politico headline that said something to the effect of “Left is pouncing on Wiki Leaks Podesta emails”.
The reason I found that interesting is because I consider John Podesta, Neera Tanden, and the Center for American Progress to be the epicenter of the American left. They work closely with labor unions, environmental groups like Sierra Club, pro choice activists to push forward progressive action at the state and federal level.
Maybe there are two lefts in America, a working left and a critical left. The working left mostly resides in the Democratic Party, with groups like the Progressive Caucus in the House, Progressive Democrats of America (which started Run, Bernie Run), and the Howard Dean inspired Democracy for America.
The working left is solutions oriented. I’d say right now, and with credit to Bernie Sanders, the main issues are fixing Obamacare, making college more affordable, working to make sure that “corporate tax reform” is not a giveaway. Hillary’s tiered estate tax proposal, to raise rates from 40 to 65% for estates over 1 billion, is part of a working left program.
There is also a critical left in America. Perhaps there we find the Green Party, Amy Goodman, Naked Capitalism. They have many fine critiques of America, but they are not focused on pushing through actual solutions.
Sometimes the lines blur. But overall, I see folks like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Raul Grijalva to be the folks I want to follow.
John Podesta, Neera Tanden, and the Center for American Progress to be the epicenter of the American left ???? thats rich
Those are criminals , at best they pay lip service to progressive ideas in public while whoring themselves out to the highest bidder behind closed doors.
Sanders and Warren are not what they seemed , I voted Sanders in the primary but he endorsed Clinton and he became the enemy , Warren sold out as well. The only fix is to burn down the whole party and salt the earth where it stood.
Your working left is some sort of moderate republican party whose solutions involve wallowing in corruption and spouting hypocrisy .
If by “work closely with labor unions, environmental groups like Sierra Club, pro choice activists” you mean actually marginalizing and undermining their agendas then we agree.
Jim Hannan,
“The working left is solutions oriented[:]
fixing Obamacare,
making college more affordable,
working to make sure that “corporate tax reform” is not a giveaway[,] Hillary’s tiered estate tax proposal”
Nothing there at all to rob voters from the D’ump (a contraction). Polls showed Bernie miles ahead of the “D’ump when Hill was a little better than neck-and-neck. Showing that white working voters do have some sense when picking a horse to run for them.
Try:
re-constituting labor union density. 5% union density in private business is analogous to having 20/10 BP. It starves every other healthy process.
If anyone would just raise what should be the most obvious issue in the most progressive states (WA. OR, CA, NV [California is the world’s sixth largest economy], MN, IL, NY, MD, ETC), re-unionizing could pass with flying state legislative majorities in most of them.
States can add to labor protections; they just can’t subtract (think the minimum wage). States can treat union busting like every other form of market muscling: they can make it a felony (it is illegal “nominally” under fed law).
I spend the first four hours of my day reading involved dissections of America’s economic quandaries — every one of which would be a completely different story if we returned to normal union density. Which nobody even seems to think of.
Which is certainly the last thing in the world anybody ever mentions.
I truly strikes me as crazy.
Crazy: Bernie never ever mentions labor unions either. ???????
ON LABOR
Today’s News & Commentary — September 26, 2016
Posted on September 26, 2016 by Emily Miller
“A recent op-ed in the Washington Examiner argued that federal lawmakers may be able to address the standstill in federal labor law simply by authorizing waivers which would allow states to opt out of the federal regime. The waivers would open the door for states to experiment with policy which better addresses the challenges of modern business models and allow unions to take on new responsibilities to better serve their constituents.” https://onlabor.org/2016/09/26/todays-news-commentary-september-26-2016/
WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Waivers can fix out-of-date federal labor laws
By Andrew Stern & Eli Lehrer • 9/22/16
“Few relationships in America suffer as unnecessarily thanks to federal government morass as that between employer and employee. In fact, the fundamental structure of labor relations has changed rather little since the Taft-Hartley Act (1947). […] Current proposals to make significant, nationwide changes to federal labor laws have almost no chance to be signed into law. And indeed, recently the focus has shifted instead to the state and local level.”
“Andrew Stern is former president of Service Employees International Union and a senior fellow at Columbia University. Eli Lehrer is president of the R Street Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.” Nota bene: one major labor leader and one rock-ribbed conservative. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2602523
This could open the way for progressive states (WA, OR, CA, NV, MN, IL, NY, MD, etc.) to supplant (today’s virtually non-existent) federal enforcement of the right to organize by allowing a finding of penalizing organizers or joiners (principally by firing) to lead to a mandated certification election (not anybody’s agenda but mine at the moment; but maybe we’ll get there).
It is even possible to come up with a plausible legal argument that states could impose elections today — on the theory that the doctrine of federal preemption cannot hold sway where there is virtually (substantively) no federal presence to preempt.
There is literally no criminal or civil penalty for muscling employees out of their legally defined right to organize today.
Theoretically there is some protection for organizers (not sure about joiners) in the NLRB’s ability to command they be re-hired with back pay (minus earnings elsewhere). But, even if fired organizers had to be re-hired for life, the labor market power play would remain un-done. The fact that most re-hired are re-fired within twelve months makes even that sop mostly non-existent.
The right to organize a collective bargaining unit is a First Amendment right (commercial freedom of association). Any legislation simply barring organizing would run right smack into a First Amendment barrier.
When the federal government puts in place a setup that claims to preempt actual enforcement of that primary (that’s why it’s the “first”) constitutional right — but which mechanism actually has no power to enforce at all — then, said bogus preemption can reasonably be argued to contradict the First Amendment.
I’m beginning to think that it could be said that there is no Left left in America. Maybe it’s time to retire the dichotomy of left/right as applied to American political ideology. It may be so that Podesta and his Center for American Progress can be described as left, but left of what would be the question? The Clintons come out of the Democratic Leadership Council, the avowed aim was to capture more elections by moving the Democratic Party to the right side of the spectrum as it was seen in the late ’80s. It must be recognized, however, that Podesta, and others of his ilk, earn their daily bread (and large it is) by consulting to American corporate interests. That’s left? If so it might be asked, What’s left?
The people following Trump have some understanding of this, but have no awareness that Trump is akin to fascism. He is not a populist by any stretch of one’s imagination. He is pandering in his quest to lord it over some group. Lord knows the result.
In what sense is pro-choice a “left” position. The conservative position is that government should get off our backs. What business does the government have telling us what to do with our own bodies?
Getting the government out of reproductive choice is profoundly conservative.
Getting the government out of marriage–gay and straight–is profoundly conservative.
Getting government out of the decision of where citizens go to pee is profoundly conservative.
Yes, abortion is arguably murder. But laws against abortion come up against very deep human nature. Abortion is as old as humanity and laws against it just make matters worse.
I don’t know about “forcing” others to “recognize” gay marriage. If you don’t want to recognize it, don’t. but if you mean the law should not recognize a “partnership” between two human beings (who may feel toward each other the same way a heterosexual couple ideally feels about each other… I’d say you are making a cruel mistake. I also think the gay “movement” is making an unnecessary mistake by shoving the nose of those who are uncomfortable with the idea into their private affairs. The law could have been made gender neutral with regard to all the things “we” (the law) have a legitimate interest in without trying to force people to “recognize” a relationship the idea of which makes them profoundly uncomfortable. i should say i am not entirely certain about this: the “gay movement” seems to be making good progress with forcing the rest of us to mind our own business, at least, and i can’t say that their tactics have been “wrong.” just maybe that there might have ben an easier way that would not give so much emotional steam to the hate-your-neighbor right.
as for where you pee. i think this is political correctness gone mad. given that we have been separating male and female bathrooms for practically forever, i think a “if you look like a man, pee in the men’s room; if you look like a woman, pee in the women’s room” policy would make the most sense. if you are uncomfortable with that, find a single occupancy rest room. there is no need to poke everyone else in the eye with your own gender identity issues, and no hope of everyone else becoming sympathetic if you do.
Left and Right are as useless as Liberal and Conservative. They have been obliterated because neither one really defines anything anymore.
I have been thinking for a couple decades a more useful designation is interconnectist vs. individualistic. There are people in the world who revere and acknowledge the potential of human interdependency. They are more likely to acknowledge the power of shared institutional authority. There are also people who revere and insist on solitary autonomy. They are more likely to reject accommodation of shared responsibilities and authorities.
Once you break it down along those lines a lot of other things follow.
america at least was founded on the idea that people are both… need to work together (governemnt) while protecting individual rights.
it’s the only sane way to think. unfortunately it is all too easy to get people to think they “believe” in one vs the other.
maybe that works just as well as the adversarial model in courtrooms: everybody is stupid or lying, but out of the shouting some reasonable (not optimal) course may suggest itself to those who have to decide.
Of course. I meant that once you identify someone who strongly prefers one or the other a lot of things naturally fall out of that preference.
And probably more to the point once you start organizing political parties around those preferences the policy prescriptions tend to write themselves. One of the (acknowledged MANY) things that I believe is broken about politics in the US is that both the democrats and republicans have managed to minimize those preferences, largely out of political expediency. And so the policies (in both parties) tend to be muddles conflicted self contradictory messes. Undermining the potential of the entire process.
If you do not see stark contrasts between the DP and RP platforms I feel sorry for you.
If you have not witnessed clear differences between the actions of Dem and Rep controlled governments over the last several decades you have my condolences.
Not “different enough” for one person or a small group of people does not make them “both the same”.
I would further observe that one of most obvious things rejected by the “individualist” types is representative democracy. My adopted hometown of Austin is a weird hotbed of libertarian activism and philosophy. Observing and interacting with these people close up and in real life has helped me realize they don’t like acknowledging this too much.
You don’t have to scrape off much libertarian topsoil before you reach an anti-democratic bedrock.
The distinction, if only two sided, would be best described as corporatists and workers. Haves and have nots may be a little too extreme. At present I think it fair to categorize nearly the entire Congress as members of the Corporatist Party. Sanders and Warren, and a few others might qualify as Workers Party ideologists, but they’re so marginalized as to not have much influence. That is regardless of Warren’s aggressive stance and Sander’s seemingly wide spread popularity. If the distinction were more widely characterized in that manner someone like Sanders, and others, would come to more power.
The terms in current use, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservative, left and right are vague enough to obscure any true division of ideologies. They lend to obfuscation and propaganda of true intentions on the part of our elected officials.
Sure EM fine. And if you can’t see how badly once popular democratic policy apparatus has been damaged via wholesale adoption of corporate and private interests as priorities I think you’re in for some serious buyer’s remorse. Good luck with it.
Murder is as old as humanity, too, Coberly. Should we just make it legal?
The government is forcing caterers to bake wedding cakes for these faux marriages, forcing adoption agencies to place babies with homosexual couples, and forcing businesses to grant spousal benefits to them. If you really want the government out of the marriage business, then you would oppose such use of government force.
As for where to pee, do you have an objection to the North Carolina law? What objection do you have?
Doesn’t it bother you at all that despite hundreds of millions in advertising and image consulting and social media expenditures, Madame Secretary has a reasonably high (not YUGE praise allah’s mercies) chance of losing this election? To a failed property magnate turned game show host?
Won’t happen, EMichael — at least not for long. Let’s say the demographics assure a huge democrat majority nationwide. What will happen is that the democrats would split for some reason or another, as they did with the Byrd Democrats in Virginia.
The problem is in the two-party system itself. That system is not constitutionally required, but is a byproduct of winner-take-all elections. We can kill two Byrds with one stone, as it were, by removing congressional districts, and having divisible at-large voting. By that, I mean that if you have ten House members in your state, you get ten votes that you may cast any way you choose. You may cast all ten for one candidate, one each for ten different candidates, or anything in between. The top ten vote-getters would be your House members.
First, it would eliminate gerrymandering. No-one could accuse the system of diluting racial minority votes, since minorities could all vote for one of their own, and he would probably be elected. The same would happen for political minorities, such as libertarians and communists, since their parties could just put up one candidate and every libertarian could cast all his votes for the libertarian candidate and every communist could cast all his votes for the communist candidate.
(This idea is not original to me — an appointee of Pres. Clinton’s, I want to say Lani Guinier but I will not swear to it, suggested it.)
Took me a while, but I think I have found (one of) her original articles. It is on JSTOR — The Virginia Law Review, Volume 77, No. 8, “No Two Seats: The Elusive Quest for Political Equality” by Lani Guinier. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1073331?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
not sure the laws against murder any more effective than old fashioned personal (family) retribution. but in any case abortion is a rather special kind of murder if murder it is (i actually don’t know when God puts the soul into a fetus; nor do i know if aborted babies go directly to heaven and so miss out on all the tragedies of life.) What I do know is that women have aborted babies they did not want since the stone age and it seems to be a very personal matter for them. I know that I do not feel I have the right even to have an opinion about it, let alone a call from god to torture women who have abortions.
I think you need to practice making fine distinctions. There is something about abortion that is different from conventional murder. The distinction might justify treating them differently. Me, I’d worry about someone who murdered someone I cared about , or who might murder (again?) people at random and I’d do what I could to stop them… but the law is a murderer too, so I am disposed to say that in the case of some murders i’d look the other way, and that is certainly the case with all abortions…. just not something i have any right to treat as a crime.
You might want to look at the Movie Les Miserables (with Liam Neeson I think) and listen to Inspector Javert and see if you see yourself in him.
I guess it should be the other people in the Ladies Room who get to decide if a self-identified “woman” looks too much like a man for them to be comfortable. They have their own gender identity feelings too, you know.
And like the rest of us, you, she, he, i decide where to pee unless it is offensive to others. Simple courtesy should make that obvious enough.
Frankly, I usually wait till I get home. Smells better. And not all the people who look like a man can be trusted in men’s rooms, you know.
assuming your question is addressed to me… but in the old days we actually addressed the person we were talking to…
what makes you think i have an objection to the north carolina law?
my objection was to your simple minded parsing of the complexity of human experience.
and i lost track of what north carolina law you were talking about.
but i bet a careful reader could tell what, if whether, my objection was just from what i said about the three subjects you did address:
abortion? murder? special case? not my business or yours?
gay marriage? way to have done it without giving the insane right something to feel morally outraged about? most effective way to get people to realize that gays are human? [but specifically i don’t believe the law should force bakers to put two gents or two ladies on the top of a wedding cake. surely the bride and groom can do that without suffering humiliation. and i know many gay bakers, so what’s the problem?
where to pee? are there other choices besides gents ladies and “in public”?
you wanna be careful with that in public thing. if you are mentally ill, or just desperate, and the cops see you, they will beat you to death. and the d.a. will find the killing justified.
and maybe even people with gender identity issues could find a way in their hearts to respect the feelings of others.
Well, Coberly, I was asking about North Carolina’s bathroom bill, which seems to be the focal point for a lot of “right to pee” angst these days. If you don’t have any objection to that law, then I’m glad of it. If you do, then I’d like to know what it is you find objectionable.
I don’t know what the bill says. But if you do, you should be able to tell what i would find objectionable, if anything, from my last three comments addressed to you.
Help us out here Warren. Does this NC bill you find so critical to the maintenance of public safety and order prohibit unwelcome or unwarranted assault in public restrooms in a way that existing law didn’t? I.e. were the NC legislators concerned about actual disorder in public facilities that law enforcement personnel were unable to address?
If people were getting bothered in the privacy of privies that was already illegal wasn’t it? Why weren’t the police properly protecting the private rights of pissers in public accomodations?
Putting it another way, is is possible you have some irrational paranoia about people’s privates? Have you considered seeking counseling? A support group? A prescription for a mood altering agent to help with anxieties?
on the other hand, do you have a compulsion to violate other people’s preference for privacy, especiall what looks to them like a person of another sex watching them pee?
do you wave your privates in public in order to prove your freedom from outmoded sexual hangups?
maybe you need a refresher in common courtesy.
or is only designated members of victim groups who deserve to have their feelings respected?
or are you incapable of understanding how shoving this issue down the throats of the great majority of americans just makes those people despise the “left” and ‘vote against their own interests”?
you, my friend, is what fuels the hate-your-neighbor right.
Warren is the one trying to examine objections to a law, one he hasn’t really shown is needed. Bothering people in bathrooms is (presumably, I’ve never visited there) already illegal. If he’s advocating for new laws it ought to be a reasonable question – why is the existing law not sufficient?
And of course his apparent anxiety about a problem he hasn’t really demonstrated the existence of reveals another potential problem. One he might have. And might be to get help with.
Fear of human genitalia is actually a learned response. So it can probably be unlearned. Anything’s possible.
The proposition runs like this: The law in NC (and as proposed elsewhere) apparently presumes that transgendered people who *merely* desire to use public accomodation for *only the intended necessary function of eliminating waste* are actually committing some crime. Essentially because they are in fact transgendered. It’s a presumption that deserves closer scrutiny. He’s inviting it.
And although I don’t usually bother answering ridiculous questions, it’s you Dale so here we go: No. I don’t have or harbor any such compulsion, nor am I interested in watching anyone pee. And as far as I know people who do were subject to criminal indictment if they indulged those compulsions and desires in public facilities. Already. We agree okay? People who do that are criminally bothering people in a way that would in fact make me uncomfortable enough to try to gain the attention of the responsible civil authorities immediately.
But laws like NC are just stupid. Stupid prejudice in fact. Please consider how a law like this complicates things for corporations. The global technology one I have worked for for over 20 years has hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide. I know personally a few transgendred people that work with me at their site in Austin, including one post-op. They have been getting along just fine using the bathroom associated with their gender identity for over a decade. No harm no foul.
This corporation also in fact maintains a large site in NC. Do the legislators of NC presume my company will need 2 policies? One for NC and one for everywhere else? Do you not see how needlessly stupid this is?
since i don’t know what the law says, i don’t see how ridiculous it is.
and if everyone is happy with trans gender people using their restroom I have no problem with it.
and if you didn’t ask “ridiculous” questions, you wouldn’t get ridiculous questions back (from me anyway).
but that still leaves the question of why all of a sudden is it a national emergency that trans gender people can’t use the bathroom of their “gender identity.”
it seems to me that if they look like a woman and use the women’s room no one is even going to notice. and if they look like a man and use the mens room (the sit down facilities have privacy doors) no one is going to notice.
so, again, why the sudden big problem. my best guess is that’s it’s just another way to horrify the “right” who may never know they have shared a bathroom with “one of those” but who will imagine it and be driven crazy and “vote against their interest.”
nor do i see the reason to villify those people who object. this is another case where if nothing was said there would never have been a problem but since now there is a problem, it would be better if nothing is said.
warren was looking for an argument and i guess i didn’t give him enough to go on. but you were the one that got hysterical first.
asking him if he had some neurosis about genitals certainly invited my question about whether you had some neurosis about genitals.
meanwhile. if it is “learned behavior” that doesn’t mean you can demand that people unlearn it just because you are so enlightened. a little respect for people’s feelings might go a long way toward getting some of them at least to be willing to consider your feelings.
Again. Typing as slowly as I can: I’m not demanding anything. If Warren, you or anybody else prefers freaking out over the possibility that someone of *different genetic gender* than them possibly sharing a public bathroom, hey you’re welcome to it.
But laws regarding public accommodation exist for well established historical reasons. Entities that serve the public, like most businesses are not entitled to arbitrarily ignore those laws at pain of losing their licenses to operate. This is sort of indirectly referred to by Warren’s fears re: “forcing caterers to bake wedding cakes for these faux marriages, forcing adoption agencies to place babies with homosexual couples, and forcing businesses to grant spousal benefits to them.” What force? You comply with the law or you get out of business. End of the story. Sorry.
The whole thing over transgendered bathroom access ought to properly remind people of an earlier irrational concern: That gay marriage would undermine the institution, people would be free to marry animals and other ridiculous notions.
The Supreme Court (eventually) ruled, laws everywhere got changed and… nothing else happened. Here in deep red Bastrop County TX neither me nor my same sex husband had to force anybody to do anything. Everyone we approached about helping with our celebration was completely accepting and gracious and delighted to help. From the county clerk who issued our marriage license, to the caterer, to the limo service to the hotelier it was a non-event, except for the opportunity to serve *a customer*
The thing about Warren’s fears I find puzzling is that in other posting he appears to be at least nominally a pro-business conservative. Businesses that presume the right to discriminate in arbitrary ways that violate the law of the land are likely to be unsuccessful businesses in the long run. Why is it so important to help incompetent businesspeople protect their pitiful prejudices? What public interest is served by protecting them exactly?
EMichael, Ms. Guinier put forth a viable, constitutional method of electing our representatives which addresses both the problem of minority representation and the problem of gerrymandering. I do not understand your reluctance to discuss it. More such discussion, perhaps a change.org petition, and we might start seeing the impossible.
Coberly, I commend your honesty regarding the North Carolina’s bathroom bill.
A.S., it seems, has not read it either, to wit, “The law in NC (and as proposed elsewhere) apparently presumes that transgendered people who *merely* desire to use public accomodation for *only the intended necessary function of eliminating waste* are actually committing some crime.”
The law says no such thing.
Let’s go further: “Please consider how a law like this complicates things for corporations.”
Oh, yes. Do tell us, A.S., how the law complicates things for corporations, since the law puts absolutely no requirements on corporations whatsoever, but in fact removes those placed upon them by the local governments.
“Businesses that presume the right to discriminate in arbitrary ways that violate the law of the land are likely to be unsuccessful businesses in the long run.”
the funny thing is that it sounds just like “businesses that cheat (or poison) there customers won’t be in business for long.” which is what i believe i hear all the time from those folks who don’t need no damn gummint regulation.
I’ve been thinking about what constitutes the “left” in America. My interest was piqued by a Politico headline that said something to the effect of “Left is pouncing on Wiki Leaks Podesta emails”.
The reason I found that interesting is because I consider John Podesta, Neera Tanden, and the Center for American Progress to be the epicenter of the American left. They work closely with labor unions, environmental groups like Sierra Club, pro choice activists to push forward progressive action at the state and federal level.
Maybe there are two lefts in America, a working left and a critical left. The working left mostly resides in the Democratic Party, with groups like the Progressive Caucus in the House, Progressive Democrats of America (which started Run, Bernie Run), and the Howard Dean inspired Democracy for America.
The working left is solutions oriented. I’d say right now, and with credit to Bernie Sanders, the main issues are fixing Obamacare, making college more affordable, working to make sure that “corporate tax reform” is not a giveaway. Hillary’s tiered estate tax proposal, to raise rates from 40 to 65% for estates over 1 billion, is part of a working left program.
There is also a critical left in America. Perhaps there we find the Green Party, Amy Goodman, Naked Capitalism. They have many fine critiques of America, but they are not focused on pushing through actual solutions.
Sometimes the lines blur. But overall, I see folks like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Raul Grijalva to be the folks I want to follow.
John Podesta, Neera Tanden, and the Center for American Progress to be the epicenter of the American left ???? thats rich
Those are criminals , at best they pay lip service to progressive ideas in public while whoring themselves out to the highest bidder behind closed doors.
Sanders and Warren are not what they seemed , I voted Sanders in the primary but he endorsed Clinton and he became the enemy , Warren sold out as well. The only fix is to burn down the whole party and salt the earth where it stood.
Your working left is some sort of moderate republican party whose solutions involve wallowing in corruption and spouting hypocrisy .
Here’s an interesting article on corporate taxes.
http://prospect.org/article/progressive-tax-reform-you%E2%80%99ve-never-heard
If by “work closely with labor unions, environmental groups like Sierra Club, pro choice activists” you mean actually marginalizing and undermining their agendas then we agree.
Jim Hannan,
“The working left is solutions oriented[:]
fixing Obamacare,
making college more affordable,
working to make sure that “corporate tax reform” is not a giveaway[,] Hillary’s tiered estate tax proposal”
Nothing there at all to rob voters from the D’ump (a contraction). Polls showed Bernie miles ahead of the “D’ump when Hill was a little better than neck-and-neck. Showing that white working voters do have some sense when picking a horse to run for them.
Try:
re-constituting labor union density. 5% union density in private business is analogous to having 20/10 BP. It starves every other healthy process.
If anyone would just raise what should be the most obvious issue in the most progressive states (WA. OR, CA, NV [California is the world’s sixth largest economy], MN, IL, NY, MD, ETC), re-unionizing could pass with flying state legislative majorities in most of them.
States can add to labor protections; they just can’t subtract (think the minimum wage). States can treat union busting like every other form of market muscling: they can make it a felony (it is illegal “nominally” under fed law).
I spend the first four hours of my day reading involved dissections of America’s economic quandaries — every one of which would be a completely different story if we returned to normal union density. Which nobody even seems to think of.
Which is certainly the last thing in the world anybody ever mentions.
I truly strikes me as crazy.
Crazy: Bernie never ever mentions labor unions either. ???????
TRULY WISHFUL THINKING?
ON LABOR
Today’s News & Commentary — September 26, 2016
Posted on September 26, 2016 by Emily Miller
“A recent op-ed in the Washington Examiner argued that federal lawmakers may be able to address the standstill in federal labor law simply by authorizing waivers which would allow states to opt out of the federal regime. The waivers would open the door for states to experiment with policy which better addresses the challenges of modern business models and allow unions to take on new responsibilities to better serve their constituents.”
https://onlabor.org/2016/09/26/todays-news-commentary-september-26-2016/
WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Waivers can fix out-of-date federal labor laws
By Andrew Stern & Eli Lehrer • 9/22/16
“Few relationships in America suffer as unnecessarily thanks to federal government morass as that between employer and employee. In fact, the fundamental structure of labor relations has changed rather little since the Taft-Hartley Act (1947). […] Current proposals to make significant, nationwide changes to federal labor laws have almost no chance to be signed into law. And indeed, recently the focus has shifted instead to the state and local level.”
“Andrew Stern is former president of Service Employees International Union and a senior fellow at Columbia University. Eli Lehrer is president of the R Street Institute, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.” Nota bene: one major labor leader and one rock-ribbed conservative.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2602523
This could open the way for progressive states (WA, OR, CA, NV, MN, IL, NY, MD, etc.) to supplant (today’s virtually non-existent) federal enforcement of the right to organize by allowing a finding of penalizing organizers or joiners (principally by firing) to lead to a mandated certification election (not anybody’s agenda but mine at the moment; but maybe we’ll get there).
It is even possible to come up with a plausible legal argument that states could impose elections today — on the theory that the doctrine of federal preemption cannot hold sway where there is virtually (substantively) no federal presence to preempt.
There is literally no criminal or civil penalty for muscling employees out of their legally defined right to organize today.
Theoretically there is some protection for organizers (not sure about joiners) in the NLRB’s ability to command they be re-hired with back pay (minus earnings elsewhere). But, even if fired organizers had to be re-hired for life, the labor market power play would remain un-done. The fact that most re-hired are re-fired within twelve months makes even that sop mostly non-existent.
The right to organize a collective bargaining unit is a First Amendment right (commercial freedom of association). Any legislation simply barring organizing would run right smack into a First Amendment barrier.
When the federal government puts in place a setup that claims to preempt actual enforcement of that primary (that’s why it’s the “first”) constitutional right — but which mechanism actually has no power to enforce at all — then, said bogus preemption can reasonably be argued to contradict the First Amendment.
I’m beginning to think that it could be said that there is no Left left in America. Maybe it’s time to retire the dichotomy of left/right as applied to American political ideology. It may be so that Podesta and his Center for American Progress can be described as left, but left of what would be the question? The Clintons come out of the Democratic Leadership Council, the avowed aim was to capture more elections by moving the Democratic Party to the right side of the spectrum as it was seen in the late ’80s. It must be recognized, however, that Podesta, and others of his ilk, earn their daily bread (and large it is) by consulting to American corporate interests. That’s left? If so it might be asked, What’s left?
The people following Trump have some understanding of this, but have no awareness that Trump is akin to fascism. He is not a populist by any stretch of one’s imagination. He is pandering in his quest to lord it over some group. Lord knows the result.
Too bad the FBI waited until now to realize house republicans can do investigations ……
and there would be no justice department after the impeachment..
In what sense is pro-choice a “left” position. The conservative position is that government should get off our backs. What business does the government have telling us what to do with our own bodies?
Getting the government out of reproductive choice is profoundly conservative.
Getting the government out of marriage–gay and straight–is profoundly conservative.
Getting government out of the decision of where citizens go to pee is profoundly conservative.
On these issues, color me conservative.
> What business does the government have telling us what to do with our own bodies?
When the rights of another human being are involved.
> Getting the government out of reproductive choice is profoundly conservative.
Unless that “choice” is to kill another human being.
> Getting the government out of marriage–gay and straight–is profoundly conservative.
Absolutely, so long as the government does not force others to recognize these faux marriages.
> Getting government out of the decision of where citizens go to pee is profoundly conservative.
You want people to be allowed to urinate in public?
Warren
you went from “colorable” to silly.
Yes, abortion is arguably murder. But laws against abortion come up against very deep human nature. Abortion is as old as humanity and laws against it just make matters worse.
I don’t know about “forcing” others to “recognize” gay marriage. If you don’t want to recognize it, don’t. but if you mean the law should not recognize a “partnership” between two human beings (who may feel toward each other the same way a heterosexual couple ideally feels about each other… I’d say you are making a cruel mistake. I also think the gay “movement” is making an unnecessary mistake by shoving the nose of those who are uncomfortable with the idea into their private affairs. The law could have been made gender neutral with regard to all the things “we” (the law) have a legitimate interest in without trying to force people to “recognize” a relationship the idea of which makes them profoundly uncomfortable. i should say i am not entirely certain about this: the “gay movement” seems to be making good progress with forcing the rest of us to mind our own business, at least, and i can’t say that their tactics have been “wrong.” just maybe that there might have ben an easier way that would not give so much emotional steam to the hate-your-neighbor right.
as for where you pee. i think this is political correctness gone mad. given that we have been separating male and female bathrooms for practically forever, i think a “if you look like a man, pee in the men’s room; if you look like a woman, pee in the women’s room” policy would make the most sense. if you are uncomfortable with that, find a single occupancy rest room. there is no need to poke everyone else in the eye with your own gender identity issues, and no hope of everyone else becoming sympathetic if you do.
but, basically, a plague on both your houses.
Left and Right are as useless as Liberal and Conservative. They have been obliterated because neither one really defines anything anymore.
I have been thinking for a couple decades a more useful designation is interconnectist vs. individualistic. There are people in the world who revere and acknowledge the potential of human interdependency. They are more likely to acknowledge the power of shared institutional authority. There are also people who revere and insist on solitary autonomy. They are more likely to reject accommodation of shared responsibilities and authorities.
Once you break it down along those lines a lot of other things follow.
am soc
america at least was founded on the idea that people are both… need to work together (governemnt) while protecting individual rights.
it’s the only sane way to think. unfortunately it is all too easy to get people to think they “believe” in one vs the other.
maybe that works just as well as the adversarial model in courtrooms: everybody is stupid or lying, but out of the shouting some reasonable (not optimal) course may suggest itself to those who have to decide.
Of course. I meant that once you identify someone who strongly prefers one or the other a lot of things naturally fall out of that preference.
And probably more to the point once you start organizing political parties around those preferences the policy prescriptions tend to write themselves. One of the (acknowledged MANY) things that I believe is broken about politics in the US is that both the democrats and republicans have managed to minimize those preferences, largely out of political expediency. And so the policies (in both parties) tend to be muddles conflicted self contradictory messes. Undermining the potential of the entire process.
More “they’re both the same” bs.
If you do not see stark contrasts between the DP and RP platforms I feel sorry for you.
If you have not witnessed clear differences between the actions of Dem and Rep controlled governments over the last several decades you have my condolences.
Not “different enough” for one person or a small group of people does not make them “both the same”.
I would further observe that one of most obvious things rejected by the “individualist” types is representative democracy. My adopted hometown of Austin is a weird hotbed of libertarian activism and philosophy. Observing and interacting with these people close up and in real life has helped me realize they don’t like acknowledging this too much.
You don’t have to scrape off much libertarian topsoil before you reach an anti-democratic bedrock.
The distinction, if only two sided, would be best described as corporatists and workers. Haves and have nots may be a little too extreme. At present I think it fair to categorize nearly the entire Congress as members of the Corporatist Party. Sanders and Warren, and a few others might qualify as Workers Party ideologists, but they’re so marginalized as to not have much influence. That is regardless of Warren’s aggressive stance and Sander’s seemingly wide spread popularity. If the distinction were more widely characterized in that manner someone like Sanders, and others, would come to more power.
The terms in current use, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservative, left and right are vague enough to obscure any true division of ideologies. They lend to obfuscation and propaganda of true intentions on the part of our elected officials.
Sure EM fine. And if you can’t see how badly once popular democratic policy apparatus has been damaged via wholesale adoption of corporate and private interests as priorities I think you’re in for some serious buyer’s remorse. Good luck with it.
Murder is as old as humanity, too, Coberly. Should we just make it legal?
The government is forcing caterers to bake wedding cakes for these faux marriages, forcing adoption agencies to place babies with homosexual couples, and forcing businesses to grant spousal benefits to them. If you really want the government out of the marriage business, then you would oppose such use of government force.
As for where to pee, do you have an objection to the North Carolina law? What objection do you have?
Doesn’t it bother you at all that despite hundreds of millions in advertising and image consulting and social media expenditures, Madame Secretary has a reasonably high (not YUGE praise allah’s mercies) chance of losing this election? To a failed property magnate turned game show host?
Where should a woman who “looks like a man” go to pee? Who decides that she “looks like a man”?
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-10-29/local/me-13148_1_anaheim-convention-center
AS,
Bother me? It has bothered me for decades.
But you somehow believe it is caused by the parties being the same as opposed to the fact that the US political system is so polarized.
Reps are gonna vote for Reps. Dems are going to vote for Dems.
The days of landslide elections are over and will be over until demographics takes over.
Won’t happen, EMichael — at least not for long. Let’s say the demographics assure a huge democrat majority nationwide. What will happen is that the democrats would split for some reason or another, as they did with the Byrd Democrats in Virginia.
The problem is in the two-party system itself. That system is not constitutionally required, but is a byproduct of winner-take-all elections. We can kill two Byrds with one stone, as it were, by removing congressional districts, and having divisible at-large voting. By that, I mean that if you have ten House members in your state, you get ten votes that you may cast any way you choose. You may cast all ten for one candidate, one each for ten different candidates, or anything in between. The top ten vote-getters would be your House members.
First, it would eliminate gerrymandering. No-one could accuse the system of diluting racial minority votes, since minorities could all vote for one of their own, and he would probably be elected. The same would happen for political minorities, such as libertarians and communists, since their parties could just put up one candidate and every libertarian could cast all his votes for the libertarian candidate and every communist could cast all his votes for the communist candidate.
(This idea is not original to me — an appointee of Pres. Clinton’s, I want to say Lani Guinier but I will not swear to it, suggested it.)
Took me a while, but I think I have found (one of) her original articles. It is on JSTOR — The Virginia Law Review, Volume 77, No. 8, “No Two Seats: The Elusive Quest for Political Equality” by Lani Guinier.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1073331?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Warren
not sure the laws against murder any more effective than old fashioned personal (family) retribution. but in any case abortion is a rather special kind of murder if murder it is (i actually don’t know when God puts the soul into a fetus; nor do i know if aborted babies go directly to heaven and so miss out on all the tragedies of life.) What I do know is that women have aborted babies they did not want since the stone age and it seems to be a very personal matter for them. I know that I do not feel I have the right even to have an opinion about it, let alone a call from god to torture women who have abortions.
I think you need to practice making fine distinctions. There is something about abortion that is different from conventional murder. The distinction might justify treating them differently. Me, I’d worry about someone who murdered someone I cared about , or who might murder (again?) people at random and I’d do what I could to stop them… but the law is a murderer too, so I am disposed to say that in the case of some murders i’d look the other way, and that is certainly the case with all abortions…. just not something i have any right to treat as a crime.
You might want to look at the Movie Les Miserables (with Liam Neeson I think) and listen to Inspector Javert and see if you see yourself in him.
Warren
I guess it should be the other people in the Ladies Room who get to decide if a self-identified “woman” looks too much like a man for them to be comfortable. They have their own gender identity feelings too, you know.
And like the rest of us, you, she, he, i decide where to pee unless it is offensive to others. Simple courtesy should make that obvious enough.
Frankly, I usually wait till I get home. Smells better. And not all the people who look like a man can be trusted in men’s rooms, you know.
So I ask again, What issue do you have with the North Carolina law?
Warren
assuming your question is addressed to me… but in the old days we actually addressed the person we were talking to…
what makes you think i have an objection to the north carolina law?
my objection was to your simple minded parsing of the complexity of human experience.
and i lost track of what north carolina law you were talking about.
but i bet a careful reader could tell what, if whether, my objection was just from what i said about the three subjects you did address:
abortion? murder? special case? not my business or yours?
gay marriage? way to have done it without giving the insane right something to feel morally outraged about? most effective way to get people to realize that gays are human? [but specifically i don’t believe the law should force bakers to put two gents or two ladies on the top of a wedding cake. surely the bride and groom can do that without suffering humiliation. and i know many gay bakers, so what’s the problem?
where to pee? are there other choices besides gents ladies and “in public”?
you wanna be careful with that in public thing. if you are mentally ill, or just desperate, and the cops see you, they will beat you to death. and the d.a. will find the killing justified.
and maybe even people with gender identity issues could find a way in their hearts to respect the feelings of others.
Well, Coberly, I was asking about North Carolina’s bathroom bill, which seems to be the focal point for a lot of “right to pee” angst these days. If you don’t have any objection to that law, then I’m glad of it. If you do, then I’d like to know what it is you find objectionable.
Well, Warren
I don’t know what the bill says. But if you do, you should be able to tell what i would find objectionable, if anything, from my last three comments addressed to you.
Warren,
I see no point in discussing a system that does not exist, and very probably will never exist.
Help us out here Warren. Does this NC bill you find so critical to the maintenance of public safety and order prohibit unwelcome or unwarranted assault in public restrooms in a way that existing law didn’t? I.e. were the NC legislators concerned about actual disorder in public facilities that law enforcement personnel were unable to address?
If people were getting bothered in the privacy of privies that was already illegal wasn’t it? Why weren’t the police properly protecting the private rights of pissers in public accomodations?
Putting it another way, is is possible you have some irrational paranoia about people’s privates? Have you considered seeking counseling? A support group? A prescription for a mood altering agent to help with anxieties?
amateur socialist
on the other hand, do you have a compulsion to violate other people’s preference for privacy, especiall what looks to them like a person of another sex watching them pee?
do you wave your privates in public in order to prove your freedom from outmoded sexual hangups?
maybe you need a refresher in common courtesy.
or is only designated members of victim groups who deserve to have their feelings respected?
or are you incapable of understanding how shoving this issue down the throats of the great majority of americans just makes those people despise the “left” and ‘vote against their own interests”?
you, my friend, is what fuels the hate-your-neighbor right.
It’s not me brother. Hie thee hither elsewhere.
Warren is the one trying to examine objections to a law, one he hasn’t really shown is needed. Bothering people in bathrooms is (presumably, I’ve never visited there) already illegal. If he’s advocating for new laws it ought to be a reasonable question – why is the existing law not sufficient?
And of course his apparent anxiety about a problem he hasn’t really demonstrated the existence of reveals another potential problem. One he might have. And might be to get help with.
Fear of human genitalia is actually a learned response. So it can probably be unlearned. Anything’s possible.
The proposition runs like this: The law in NC (and as proposed elsewhere) apparently presumes that transgendered people who *merely* desire to use public accomodation for *only the intended necessary function of eliminating waste* are actually committing some crime. Essentially because they are in fact transgendered. It’s a presumption that deserves closer scrutiny. He’s inviting it.
And although I don’t usually bother answering ridiculous questions, it’s you Dale so here we go: No. I don’t have or harbor any such compulsion, nor am I interested in watching anyone pee. And as far as I know people who do were subject to criminal indictment if they indulged those compulsions and desires in public facilities. Already. We agree okay? People who do that are criminally bothering people in a way that would in fact make me uncomfortable enough to try to gain the attention of the responsible civil authorities immediately.
But laws like NC are just stupid. Stupid prejudice in fact. Please consider how a law like this complicates things for corporations. The global technology one I have worked for for over 20 years has hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide. I know personally a few transgendred people that work with me at their site in Austin, including one post-op. They have been getting along just fine using the bathroom associated with their gender identity for over a decade. No harm no foul.
This corporation also in fact maintains a large site in NC. Do the legislators of NC presume my company will need 2 policies? One for NC and one for everywhere else? Do you not see how needlessly stupid this is?
Am Soc
since i don’t know what the law says, i don’t see how ridiculous it is.
and if everyone is happy with trans gender people using their restroom I have no problem with it.
and if you didn’t ask “ridiculous” questions, you wouldn’t get ridiculous questions back (from me anyway).
but that still leaves the question of why all of a sudden is it a national emergency that trans gender people can’t use the bathroom of their “gender identity.”
it seems to me that if they look like a woman and use the women’s room no one is even going to notice. and if they look like a man and use the mens room (the sit down facilities have privacy doors) no one is going to notice.
so, again, why the sudden big problem. my best guess is that’s it’s just another way to horrify the “right” who may never know they have shared a bathroom with “one of those” but who will imagine it and be driven crazy and “vote against their interest.”
nor do i see the reason to villify those people who object. this is another case where if nothing was said there would never have been a problem but since now there is a problem, it would be better if nothing is said.
warren was looking for an argument and i guess i didn’t give him enough to go on. but you were the one that got hysterical first.
asking him if he had some neurosis about genitals certainly invited my question about whether you had some neurosis about genitals.
meanwhile. if it is “learned behavior” that doesn’t mean you can demand that people unlearn it just because you are so enlightened. a little respect for people’s feelings might go a long way toward getting some of them at least to be willing to consider your feelings.
Again. Typing as slowly as I can: I’m not demanding anything. If Warren, you or anybody else prefers freaking out over the possibility that someone of *different genetic gender* than them possibly sharing a public bathroom, hey you’re welcome to it.
But laws regarding public accommodation exist for well established historical reasons. Entities that serve the public, like most businesses are not entitled to arbitrarily ignore those laws at pain of losing their licenses to operate. This is sort of indirectly referred to by Warren’s fears re: “forcing caterers to bake wedding cakes for these faux marriages, forcing adoption agencies to place babies with homosexual couples, and forcing businesses to grant spousal benefits to them.” What force? You comply with the law or you get out of business. End of the story. Sorry.
The whole thing over transgendered bathroom access ought to properly remind people of an earlier irrational concern: That gay marriage would undermine the institution, people would be free to marry animals and other ridiculous notions.
The Supreme Court (eventually) ruled, laws everywhere got changed and… nothing else happened. Here in deep red Bastrop County TX neither me nor my same sex husband had to force anybody to do anything. Everyone we approached about helping with our celebration was completely accepting and gracious and delighted to help. From the county clerk who issued our marriage license, to the caterer, to the limo service to the hotelier it was a non-event, except for the opportunity to serve *a customer*
The thing about Warren’s fears I find puzzling is that in other posting he appears to be at least nominally a pro-business conservative. Businesses that presume the right to discriminate in arbitrary ways that violate the law of the land are likely to be unsuccessful businesses in the long run. Why is it so important to help incompetent businesspeople protect their pitiful prejudices? What public interest is served by protecting them exactly?
EMichael, Ms. Guinier put forth a viable, constitutional method of electing our representatives which addresses both the problem of minority representation and the problem of gerrymandering. I do not understand your reluctance to discuss it. More such discussion, perhaps a change.org petition, and we might start seeing the impossible.
Coberly, I commend your honesty regarding the North Carolina’s bathroom bill.
A.S., it seems, has not read it either, to wit, “The law in NC (and as proposed elsewhere) apparently presumes that transgendered people who *merely* desire to use public accomodation for *only the intended necessary function of eliminating waste* are actually committing some crime.”
The law says no such thing.
Let’s go further: “Please consider how a law like this complicates things for corporations.”
Oh, yes. Do tell us, A.S., how the law complicates things for corporations, since the law puts absolutely no requirements on corporations whatsoever, but in fact removes those placed upon them by the local governments.
http://keepmyncsafe.com/wp-content/uploads/H2v4.pdf
“Businesses that presume the right to discriminate in arbitrary ways that violate the law of the land are likely to be unsuccessful businesses in the long run.”
Then why do you need the force of law?
warren
i believe the quote was from Am Soc.
the funny thing is that it sounds just like “businesses that cheat (or poison) there customers won’t be in business for long.” which is what i believe i hear all the time from those folks who don’t need no damn gummint regulation.
can’t say it’s turned out to be true.