Sunday, September 28, 2014

Why commit to Walker when he's not that into you?

Voters should reject Walker in November for using them to advance his career at their expense, but not being honest enough to say he has his eye on something bigger and would think nothing of kicking them to the curb.

In no other commitment situation - - pledging to a fiance, hiring a roofer, adopting a puppy - - would you get away with behaving like you'd walk away from your end of the bargain and lapsing into charade mode when directly confronted about your intentions.

Beware an arrangement where the person signing on the dotted line is using disappearing ink.

16 comments:

Jake formerly of the LP said...

James- Actually it's a classic abuser/ abusee relationship, with Walker as the abuser. Scotty treats the average person like garbage to be paid attention to only when it's absolutely necessary. They may throw a gift their way (like a $10 tax cut), and say "You should be happy that you get anything." GOPs also try to install a sense of hopelessness in their abusees- "You shouldn't ask for more, or else you could get nothing, and you'll never do better than what you have with us."

And as long as some weak-minded voters buy into that, and fail to stand up for themselves (and don't hear enough from Dems who say "That person is treating you like garbage and you deserve better"), they'll stick with their abusers in the Wisconsin GOP.

And Scott Walker will laugh all the way to the bank, and leave those weak-minded WisGOP voters behind with the destruction he has caused when he's able to find someone/ something better. You'd think Dems would bring this up.

Anonymous said...

@Jake

Why does anyone owe you anything?

I bust my ass at work in my union job and nothing pisses me off more than to hear that I owe you just because well, you deserve it.

Please tell me why you deserve to be treated so royally in this life.

Anonymous said...

Exactly. All the yard signs proclaim: "We Stand With Scott Walker." Yet Walker does not return the favour; he does not stand with you. The Dems need to re-frame their campaign slogans to unequivocally show that Walker IS NOT for anyone but himself and his cronies. The Repukes want control of all 3 facets of US government and they're almost there. SCOTUS and the House is theirs. We are naive to think they won't skew the election in Wisconsin to enable Walker to be in a position to run as a presidential candidate.

Jake formerly of the LP said...

You don't think you deserve to be rewarded for your work? Thanks for illustrating my point, like whipped spouse you are.

Get off your knees.

Jake formerly of the LP said...

Oh wait, that was satire! Because no one could be so stupid to side with the person that wants them to be destitute and earn less (as Walker does) compared to the guy who thinks you deserve better and to be paid fairer with you right to organize guaranteed (that's me).

Sorry I missed the joke. That was a good one.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous September 28, 2014 at 5:48 PM: Why does anyone owe Scott Walker anything? Believe me, Walker already knows he doesn't owe you anything. Walker & his handlers are salivating to turn Wisconsin into a right to work state. Then you won't have a union job to bust your ass at.
So why does Walker deserve to be defended by you & treated so f'kn royally in this life when he never busted his ass at any job, never graduated from college & cheated his way into the political system?

Anonymous said...

If elected, Walker will begin immediately to run for another, higher office. Expect him to be absent from state business, more often than not, consumed with courting and raising money from the big wigs that can help him get his next job. Expect him to enact programs in WI that provide the headlines he needs to make a nationwide splash whether or not they are what WI needs. Expect him to sell WI land to international interests (he's already changed the law to allow it) if he needs their influence or state property to the private corporations that will fund his run, even without a bid. Remember he is working for himself and his career interests. He's not working for you.

Anonymous said...

The John Doe documents thus far released shed some light on Walker's interests. Remember, these date mostly from the time when Walker was Mke Cty Exec. In the papers of an acting Cty Exec you would expect to find wonkish policy discussions, planning for civic projects, concern expressed for various constuencies, strategies for working with other units of government. But in the Walker docs, you find racist and sexist humor (from aides and advisors), talk about damage control, concern about donors, ridicule of various constituencies and overwhelming interest and concern with political campaigning. There's very little to indicate an interest in life in Mke Cty or in actually governing it. Moreover, when Walker talks about campaigns and coordination, you can almost hear the salivating and the see the damp palms. That's where he seems actually engaged and excited. That's what he's good at. The political schemes and power-plays of his job interests him. Virginia Governor McDonnell was recently convicted of several felonies related to his acceptance of personal gifts like expensive watches and golf vacations. Even his former supporters could see the corruption in the way he enriched himself and his family in return for political favors. Walker is not interested in luxury cars, furs for Tonette or gold cuff links for himself. But if you donate to his political campaign or any group that it coordinating with, he is as quick as McDonnell to offer you the things he has access to as an elected official. How is this not corruption?

Anonymous said...

No satire, Jake.

I realize you're a young man without a significant level of work experience. Let me put this in historical context for you as I've lived through the 1980's workplace.

In late 70's there were many union shops and Wisconsin was a world leader in manufacturing. Then the oil embargo spiked energy costs. To survive, many manufacturing companies found more profitable labor for $1 per hour or less in Mexico. Then as labor cost rose they expanded overseas to new opening markets. Meanwhile, Detroit and Milwaukee were dying of a form of cancer. Detroit, a much larger union city is now a ghost town.

The point - I support unions, but, the biggest pig goes to the butcher first. Government unions were, by far, the biggest pig in the room.

Cry your mantra that everyone owes you once you graduate. Good luck in your employment interviews. A bit of advice, don't apply at Trek.

Anonymous said...

Golly Anon 7:05 am, you make no sense. That is unless you are one of Walker's trolls, paid to promote divide and conquer. Walker's agenda is clear. He supports right-to-work legislation. If you support unions as you say, you can't support Walker.

Jake formerly of the LP said...

1. You don't really know who you're talking to, do you?

2. If you're not a GOP plant (unlikely, but I'll humor you), then you are one self-absorbed fool. If you don't see that the whole game is to drive down the standard of living for everyone who does actual work, and make them destitute and desperate, you really are an abused co-dependent.

Or are you just the Boomer version of an Archie Bunker type that says "I got mine, and screw the rest of you!" In that case, I'd recommend shelling out $5 for a mirror. And remembering what your parents did so you could have a better life.

MadCityVoter said...

"The point - I support unions, but, the biggest pig goes to the butcher first. Government unions were, by far, the biggest pig in the room."

Don't be crazy. A friend whose family owned a deli (not sure if it was Kosher, but I'm pretty sure pork wasn't on the menu) used to always say that people thought they lived on lox but what they didn't know is that the family only got seconds or leftovers or end pieces -- everyone in the family knew that the best pieces went to the paying customers.

Same with your butcher, if he expected to stay in business long.

Same with the public sector unions before Walker blew up the shop. We didn't get the raises and bonuses during the boom times but we did negotiate deferred compensation and health insurance deals that cost less than raises would have while delivering more value to employees. A win-win situation, arrived at by common sense, discussion, give-and-take, compromise -- words that are all foreign to Governor Walker's vocabulary.

Walker and the GOP are about winner-take-all -- he can't even imagine a Legislature (or, God forbid, Congress) and Supreme Court that serve as anything but rubber stamps to his ideological whims and foibles. And speaking of the fat pig, Walker makes a practice of distributing all the prime pork to his cronies, friends, supporters and allies, leaving very little for the paying customers.

With business habits like that how long do you suppose Walker's butcher shop will stay in business? The indicators are not good, and there's a reason for that that has nothing to do with the big bad union thugs who just wanted a place at the table to talk.

Anonymous said...

MCV,

That's silly. If your friend's family had pork on the menu, they might have had a larger customer base thus greater profits. But since they didn't and government grew and taxes increased to pay for things like unfunded early retirement benefits of government employees, they floundered as a family business and it sounds like they had a high fat diet.

Unlike you friend's family, in government job security during ups and downs in the economy use to be a trade off. But then government unions began to demand contracts from elected cronies that provided benefits such as OPEB without funding the liability. That led to terminating government employees while others former retired employees collected checks and strenghted other state economies by retiring in states like Florida with lower taxes. Less government employees working meant less taxes being paid and higher costs to government social services.

What Scott Walker did was slaughter the big pig, and everyone kept their jobs. It allowed all units of state and local government to get their financial house and OPEB costs manageable.

Scott Walker has support from many skilled trades union workers because they saw the abuse and were tired of the name "union" being mentioned in the same context as government unions.

If you think wealthy Mary Burke understands the plights of working people, the democrats are well deserved of your support.

In my opinion, having the highest profile Democrat in Wisconsin, Tom Barrett, lose twice in 3 years to Scott Walker, Mary Burke never had a chance but I wish her and your friend's family the best of luck.

MadCityVoter said...

Anonymous, you seem to be a little confused. My Jewish friend's family ran a Jewish deli. Though not strictly Kosher themselves, many of their customers were, to a greater or lesser degree. If they had sold pork products of any kind their store would have been out of business in no time flat, just as it would have been if they had given all the best lox (smoked salmon) to family members instead of selling it to customers.

You claimed that the butcher -- let's say the deli owner in this case -- keeps the best pieces of meat (or smoked salmon) for himself, implying that public sector unions took unfair advantage of their position to lock in excessive benefits. I said that in reality small business owners can't afford to act that way and neither did the State employee unions -- we sacrificed raises and positions (10,000 jobs cut through attrition under Doyle during the supposedly flush 2000's) in favor of pensions that grow through investments (which saves taxpayers the money they would have had to shell out in wages) and group health insurance that the State could buy cheaply using its 800-pound gorilla clout (which also saved the taxpayers money). And when things got bad in 2008 we agreed to 16 hours a year of unpaid furlough time for two years -- a total of something like $500 to $2000 or more of free work from every single State employee. To save the State money. Because just like anyone dependent on a small business knows, sometimes you have to make sacrifices and expect hand-me-downs or less-than-perfect in return.

But now I see that you've decided that the public sector unions are the pigs, not the butcher. A very telling switch -- I'm sure Scott Walker would approve. No longer human, no longer having a voice or worthy of consideration, a ripe target for bloody fantasies of violent revenge. The perfect talking point for people who don't like to think too much but believe in their hearts that mindless aggression is some kind of praiseworthy accomplishment.

Funny that you talk about slaughtering the pig but you're not very interested in where the meat went. State employees are losing an estimated $800,000,000 a year thanks to Act 10 -- that works out to something like $230 a year for every man, woman and child in Wisconsin, almost $1000 a year for a family of four. Have you seen any of that money? Applying Act 10 to teachers, city and county employees should have saved about twice that on property taxes but Walker scarfed that up too by cutting State aid to schools, municipalities and counties. So more off your income tax, right? Say, $690 a year, every year? I know I'm not seeing anything like that, but WEDC is chowing through $100,000,000 to $130,000,000 a year with little to show for it and even less in the way of oversight. The transportation budget is in a ditch but $700,000 to the right people will buy you a chance to write some legislation that will let you dig a really big ditch anywhere you would like. And if you're one of Scott Walker's cronies not only do you have a cushy State job now,but like magic your salary has doubled or tripled to make up for that $3000-$9000 hit you took from Act 10. Sweet! For Scott Walker's cronies. Not so much for the rest of us.

But, hey, sure, keep on telling yourself that those unions over there are the problem. And when the big money people decide that they can do to your union exactly what they've done to my union I will be happy to remind you of this conversation and all the tax money you supposedly saved out of my pocket by selling out. Divide and conquer never works without people like you; poor Scott Walker would have had to find some honest way to earn a living.

Anonymous said...

You ignored the debt Doyle created, you ignored the OPEB liabilities like fully funded $22k plus health insurance policies for early retirement and the actuarial reductions allow pension payouts at age 55, or the life insurance policies.

If you didn't like your government job why didn't you quit if was so bad.

Because it was the best gig going.

MadCityVoter said...

What debt was that, Anonymous? By statute the budget has to balance at the end of every fiscal period. But if you're going to go all GAAP on me then may I suggest you try scoring Scott Walker the same way you want to score Jim Doyle? Apples to apples.

OPEB? I have no idea what you are talking about. My retirement plan is fully funded and there are no special "deals" for retiring early. If you're talking about that mess in Milwaukee County that Scott Walker made hay out of, well, that's what recalls are for. What are you complaining about? The system worked. The greedy/stupid butcher was put out of business. Now all should suffer because one overstepped? That's a pretty silly argument.

I'm not complaining about my job. I'm complaining about my employer taking away my right to bargain collectively for fair wages, benefits and working conditions. And I'm complaining about people like you who want those protections when it comes to *your* job but are happy to back a bully like Scott Walker when it comes to kicking around someone else. To save a few bucks? Or just because you're the sort who likes to see other people pulled down? Go ahead and feed the monster, but think about how much "freedom" you will have when he's finished with us and he turns on you. I'm sure your employer will be happy to hear that it doesn't have to honor its' obligations either. Plenty of freedom there. "Freedom for the Powerful" ought to be the GOP motto; the rest of us can go suck eggs as far as they are concerned.