Comments on: CSPAN broadcast of Steven Greenhut’s book signing and debut of Plunder!

By: Larry Gilbert

Larry Gilbert — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:02:29 +0000

BAW. While I won’t fault organized labor representatives asking for broader member benefits as part of any collective bargaining, there comes a time when we will simply have to say no way.
My older brother worked at a (BOP) GM plant in central New Jersey.
I couldn’t believe the many benefits they had negotiated. Fast forward to the past few decades and ask yourself if agressive organized labor negotiations killed the goose that layed the golden eggs. BOP being the acronym for Buick Olds Pontiac. We have just learned what happened to the Pontiac family of cars whose products were popular for over 70 years.
The money tree we planted in our back yard when moving to CA died years ago.

By: Been around a while

Been around a while — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:34:10 +0000

Larry (No. 3) a solution is for government entities to fund their promises based upon actuarial analysis each year, starting now. The longer they wait, the more “unsustainable” it will look. Pay as you go should be required (Hmm, canon fodder for yet another initiative?)

By: Larry Gilbert

Larry Gilbert — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:23:16 +0000

Sunny.
If you check into the CalPERS $100,000 Pension Club you will discover the vast majority are retired police, fire or senior managers. Six months ago the list contained over 5,000 names.
Sorry but we have choices to make. CA is on the verge of bankruptcy. One major difference between Sacramento and DC is that we cannot print money.
Should we cut back on our education funding or continue offering benefit packages that cannot be sustained? I welcome your solution!

By: Vern Nelson

Vern Nelson — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 02:31:02 +0000

I understand why corporations and the rich would be motivated to attack labor and working people. What I don’t get is the psychology of why regular working-class Republicans find organized labor so odious. Matt Taibbi once tried to analyze it as what he called “the peasant mentality” :

It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish… can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs… more here http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/04/14/americas-peasant-mentality/

Wow, that was fun just to copy and paste. Thanks Matt!

By: Sunny

Sunny — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:54:43 +0000

This is nonsense. Conservatives attack public employees because they tend to be unionized, and God forbid anybody should belong to a union. Conservatives won’t be happy until everybody is making third world wages and lacks health insurance.

C-Span uased to be good, but they show a lot of propaganda now.