The Union News.: 2/26/10

2/26/10

How Liberal-Progs Think

Klavan exposes collectivists' beliefs

Video:

Bonus links:
• Summary of Saul Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals'
• More Saul Alinsky stories: here
• 'Rules for Radicals' at amazon.com

Ridicule is man's most potent weapon - Saul Alinsky

Union-organizer job surge plagues U.S.

Finding work in the New Prog economy

Based on this data , I am thinking that the good life starts the day one gets a job as an employee of your local Labor Union and in fact those overpaid financial sector people might want to change jobs!

This table, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows the changes in the wages in three sectors: the private sector, the Labor Union industry and the financial industry. According to the BLS, the Labor Union industry “comprises establishments primarily engaged in promoting the interests of organized labor and union employees.” That’s basically all the guys who work in a Union. The financial industry is “The Finance and Insurance sector comprises establishments primarily engaged in financial transactions (transactions involving the creation, liquidation, or change in ownership of financial assets) and/or in facilitating financial transactions.” So the Goldman Sacks, AIG and others.

As one can see clearly here since the beginning of the recession, private sector employees have seen their wages grown by 3.3 percent (roughly the rate of inflation.) The financial sector employees have been slightly better off with wages growing at a 4.1 percent rate.

Meanwhile, wages in the labor unions have continued to increase. And not by 5 percent or 7 percent but by over 24.9 percent!!!

(from biggovernment.com)

Public rejects unionist thuggery

Realism sets in since Dems took D.C. back

According to Pew, “Favorable views of labor unions have plummeted since 2007, amid growing public skepticism about unions’ purpose and power.”

(click here for more polls on union officials)

One hates to surmise, but it seems probable such a shift comes from such little things as crippling the Big 3, pushing card check on working Americans, cutting disgusting deals to exempt their members from a new tax on healthcare plans, pimping ACORN, and just being all-around-un-swell guys.

One also hates to draw a correlation/causation line, but didn’t something interesting happen in 2008 that would have raised the profile of union bosses to a point where more people would see their antics? Yes, there was something in 08 …

(from biggovernment.com)

We must break the backs of the SEIU

Greece lights the way for U.S. reformers

These pictures were taken earlier today in Greece. They are emblematic of much of Europe as weighty public-sector union obligations crush the enfeebled private sector.

The toxins administered by public-sector unions are now -- at this very moment -- poisoning Europe. The continent is experiencing the spasmodic social and political convulsions that presage a true depression.

In Greece, the combination of rampant private unemployment with nearly a third of all workers employed by the government has resulted in skyrocketing and unsustainable debt.

• Greek's debt is nearing $450 billion or about 115% of its GDP. Yesterday, a union-backed general strike ground transportation to a halt.

• After a wage freeze was imposed on public-sector union members, Portugal is expected to suffer from a massive general strike on March 4th.

• In Spain, plans to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 has resulted in major strikes with entire cities paralyzed.

If not addressed soon, these woes will spread to the United States as certainly as night follows day. The financial stability of cities and towns, counties and states and even the federal government itself hinges on crushing public-sector unions.

We must fire every single public-sector employee and hire the best and brightest back as "at will" employees or, better yet, privatize most functions and bid them out only to non-union shops.

We must break the backs of the SEIU and its ilk before they break this country.

(from directorblue.blogspot.com)

The rise, fall and rise of SEIU-backed fraud

Collectivist Wade Rathke teaches the U.S. a lesson

Scandal-plagued community group ACORN may be dissolving its national structure, and spinning off its local and state chapters as independent organizations. ACORN, already facing intense criticism over voter-registration fraud allegations, imploded after conservative activists, posing as a pimp and a prostitute, last year secretly videotaped organization employees giving advice on evading taxes and setting up a brothel. Here, a quick timeline of the rise and fall of ACORN:

ACORN is founded, 1970
Wade Rathke, a 22-year old community organizer and recent Williams College graduate, forms Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. Rathke had been sent to Little Rock as an organizer for the National Welfare Rights Organization. His new group's first focus is helping the poor obtain food and clothing.

ACORN gets political, 1972
ACORN first became involved in politics by endorsing two of its members who ran for the Little Rock School Board. Soon after, if opened its first office outside Arkansas, and began stepping into national politics.

The group goes national, 1980
While remaining focused on community organizing, ACORN wraps up a big expansion push, the 20/80 campaign, to put the group into 20 states by 1980. In the same year, ACORN made its debut in national politics by presenting its official positions on energy, health care, taxes, housing, community development, banking, jobs, and other issues to presidential candidates in both parties.

Civil disobedience, 1982
Thousands of ACORN members establish "Reagan Ranches" in 35 cities to protest then-president Ronald Reagan's massive military spending and reduced social spending. The activists set up one of the tent cities near the White House, despite attempts by the National Parks Service to break up the camp.

Housing for the poor, 1986
The group establishes the ACORN Housing Corporation, which, according to its website, has helped more than 45,000 families become first-time homeowners.

ACORN takes on the banks, 1992
ACORN holds a summit and gets big banks, including Continental, First Fidelity, and Mellon, to establish programs to help low- and moderate-income applicants qualify for mortgages. Citibank, the nation's largest bank, didn't participate, so ACORN activists protested at Citibank's Manhattan headquarters. Citibank agreed to a meeting.

Barack Obama, community organizer, 1992
Obama headed the Project Vote campaign in Chicago. The group, which was affiliated with ACORN, registered 150,000 voters and helped elect Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate. Obama later worked on a team of lawyers who represented ACORN when it sued Illinois for allegedly violating federal polling laws.

Voter registration fraud, 1998
A series of voter registration fraud accusations hit ACORN. In 1998, an Arkansas employee is arrested for falsifying voter registration forms. Shortly thereafter, Philadelphia authorities spot hundreds of registration papers they suspect were filled out by the same person.

The founder's brother gets in trouble, 1999
Dale Rathke, the brother of founder Wade Rathke, embezzles almost $1 million from ACORN and its affiliates over two years. The family finds out and agrees to put the money back, but doesn't tell ACORN's board or the police. Dale Rathke remains on ACORN's payroll until word gets out and he resigns in June 2008.

Fraud charges persist, 2004
ACORN -- which now stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- claimed it registered more than 1 million new voters nationwide in 2004, a presidential election year. But authorities in Minnesota, Ohio, Florida, and other states suspect that some ACORN workers filed phony papers.
Conservative outrage builds as fraud charges mount, 2008
During the 2008 presidential campaign, ACORN collected more than 1.3 million voter registrations in 21 states. About 400,000 are rejected as incomplete, duplicated or fraudulent.

Criminal charges, 2009
The state of Nevada files criminal charges against ACORN, saying its leaders illegally paid workers to register voters.

The video sting, September 2009
ACORN's troubles spin out of control after independent filmmaker James O'Keefe and conservative activist Hannah Giles pose as a pimp and a prostitute and secretly videotape workers in several ACORN offices giving them advice on dodging taxes and establishing a brothel with underage girls. Congress strips ACORN of millions in federal funding.

Conservative opposition builds, November 2009
Fifty-two percent of Republicans polled by Public Policy Polling say they believe ACORN stole the presidential election for Barack Obama.

ACORN dissolves ... or does it? February 2010
A source close to ACORN says the organization is dissolving at the national level so that its local parts can survive on their own, many with new names. But ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan says that the group remains intact, although it has lost some major chapters. "It is not true that ACORN is closed for business all across the country," Whelan says. "It still exists."

(from theweek.com)

Angela Davis month continues

Leftwing terror always welcomed on campus

Angela Davis, who depending on one's views is among the most famous or infamous academics to ever teach in California, talked politics and a variety of other subjects before a crowd of hundreds Thursday at Cal State San Bernardino.
"I don't care about the famous part, but I really hope I continue to be a radical," Davis said.

(from sbsun.com)