Union Perspectives

Roosevelt said if the private sector could or would not hire 11 million of America’s workers while corporations sat on millions of dollars, then he would and make the wealthy in this country pay for it by implementing higher taxes on corporations and the 1%. It’s the same as today. Roosevelt made it clear how they, the corporations and rich, would ultimately benefit from workers having money to buy products the companies made. He also pointed out that the workers might otherwise take over. Same as the OWS are thinking about doing today. Also the unions were demanding that something be done about unemployment and the suffering of the working people. Same as today. In 1956, President Eisenhower said, “Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of joining a union of their choice.” Isn’t it ironic that he was a Republican? There was enough fear of the 99% taking over at the time that the rich and corporations agreed to pay a far more in taxes then they pay now. Roosev...

You know when you’re winning when you get the attention of your opposition and especially when the opposition starts recognizing your organization after first trying to ignore you and then treating you with distain. The message of the 99% is now resonating with increasingly more “Have Nothing,” “Have Little” and “Want Mores.” The win is when the 1% starts to see themselves being boxed into a corner in which there seems no way out other than alienating the 99% of the working people. They are failing to recognize that in the 99%, 70.2% are registered as Independents and 2.4% are registered as Republicans. It is time for the 99% and unions to go for a full-court press for now 99% have the best time for our message to be heard by the lawmakers of our government. They will have to pick a side: the 1% or the 99%. If they do not recognize us, the 99%, there is no doubt the 1% will lose - this by the 1%’s own admission. We must come together and keep up the pressure. We have the 1% on th...

~ Piranhas are prehistoric flesh-eating fish. ~ OWS are still doing the right thing by not giving in to what other people think they should be doing, such as specifying a leader, declaring who they are or what they want, which can then be attacked by the Right. Any little concession by OWS, will be looked upon with disdain. What the OWS 99% care about -- no one party nor one person -- will ever accomplish because no party or group of people will ever be in total agreement 100 percent of the time with what the 99 percent want, need or believe in. This is just a fact of human nature. What is needed to help alleviate the needs and wishes of the 99% is for all members of our law makers to take bites of what they believe in. If they could develop a piranha-type attack on the things which are detrimental to the 99% we can win. I’m not advocating that Democrats or OWS engage in behavior typical of Republicans, which is to eat their own, but to be more assertive or aggressive in some situa...

Elect people who will pass a law to outlaw lobbyists, who are just moneybag people who buy our elected politicians. The politicians, in turn, make laws which make the oligarchs (the 1%) even more money to spend on corrupting more law makers. It’s a vicious cycle. Yes, our unions have lobbyists, but we don’t need them. We are the 99% and that is people power, which trumps money power. We should put limits on how much money can be spent on elections and that money should come from the government’s pot of money. Each citizens of the USA puts $20 per year in the federal pot and for states it is $5 and for counties $2 and cities $1 per person. A total of $28 per year to take back our political system from lobbyists and corporate control. I am sure the rest of the details of the election could be worked out if we, the 99%, wanted to make our country better. We should look hard at all of our free trade treaties and start thinking about what is best for our 99%, and get our people back to ...

The oligarchies, 1%, with ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) buys governments and with ALEC’s help buys new laws to have the advantage over the wage slaves, 99%. With the new anti-union slave wage laws, they can take away the bargaining rights of workers to even have a union rep. With a plutocracy form of government that oligarchy have put in place so that only they can benefit as they cut funding for education for the 99% wage slaves, which keeps the wage slaves at the bottom of the economic ladder. Also, a dumb worker won’t cause much trouble. The wage slaves will probably have to work until they die for the oligarchies. The slave wages provided by employers will not allow the wage slaves to have a pension, and the wage slaves do not make enough money to save for retirement and if they do save, the oligarchies will find a way to take it away (Wall Street) so the wage slaves will have to work until they die. The oligarchies, corporations, and GOP have figured out that ...

Centuries ago, Niccolo Machiavelli declared that there were six types of governments: three were good and three were bad. The three good are principality, aristocracy and democracy. The three bad types are tyranny, oligarchy and anarchy. Those who are to form a government must turn to one of these three good types of governments depending on what seems appropriate to them. However, these three types can easily slip from one form to the others. A principality thus can easily become a tyranny; an aristocracy becomes and oligarchy with ease; and a democracy slips into anarchy with little effort. Thus is the founders of a republic establishes one of three types of government in a country he will establish it for only a short time because no remedy is capable of preventing one form of government from slipping into a contrary form of ruling because of the similarities that exists in each form of government; in this case virtue and vice. Looking at what is going on in the USA today, we...