In The USA: the Next Revolution

[Bob's World]

I'm all about leading, controlling is another story.

Leaders are followed out of the influence they possess, as others simply believe they will be better off by sticking close to the leader, so follow of their own accord.

Controllers lay down rules and direct others where to be, how to act, what to think, etc. They aren't followed so much as they direct and herd others to where they want them to be.

Then there are the "out of controllers," people either get out of their way to avoid the collatoral damage, or follow out of a morbid sense of curiosity as to what kind of trouble they are going to get into next.

We've been in that second category for quite a while, with growing fliration with that thrid category...

[91bravojoe]

Here is the 'free world' eminence grise:

[davidbfpo]

Slap and maybe others,

The link is to a UK article on banking, by a student and media froth aside banks are not popular here. It opens with:

The political moment for reform of the banking and shadow-banking industries seems to have passed. UK politics is in thrall to a powerful bank lobby that scores victory after victory.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/openeco...to-soften-soon

The conclusion is "froth" IMHO.

[AdamG]

Got Neighbors?
Jus' sayin'....

Egyptians form makeshift militias to stop looters
As police disappear from residential streets, communities take law into their own hands against armed gangs

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...litias-looters

[slapout9]

Interview of economist Jeffery D. Sachs on the Great Game at home.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW6Lu...layer_embedded

[slapout9]

Protesters took over the Capitol of..........Wisconsin to protest budget cuts. MSNBC "The Ed Show" has reported as many as 30,000 people were protesting outside in the Snow with more planned tomorrow. The Ed Show also reported that there are reports that the Governor has manufactured the budget crisis in order to gain concessions from the Unions. Links to the Ed Show reports are not available yet(should be later) but I did find a link to this article.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...,3272758.story

[jmm99]

212 Chicago Tribune links to this story.

This headline and story, Obama says he's monitoring tensions in Madison, calls Walker's measure 'assault' on unions, says it all - politics as usual.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — President Barack Obama says he's monitoring the tensions in Madison. That's where protesters are criticizing efforts to eliminate collective bargaining rights for state employees.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker is pushing the measure, which would also increase how much public workers pay for their pensions and health care. Thousands are protesting at the Capitol in Madison.

In an interview with WTMJ-TV, Obama says everyone has to make adjustments to new fiscal realities. He notes that he imposed a two-year freeze on pay increases for federal workers, and says adjustments like that "are the right thing to do."

However, he says making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain "seems like more of an assault on unions."

Obama adds that public employees shouldn't be blamed for larger budget problems.

Slap, I fear Wisconsinites will disappoint you as revolutionaries; and will not walk like Egyptians.

Scott Walker (R) won last fall over Tom Barrett (D) - 52% to 46%. Barrett was a strong candidate - and personally has some guts. In 2009, Barrett went to the rescue of a lady who was being assaulted and was injured.

Cheers

Mike

[slapout9]

jmm99, that is what drew my attention to it. When you think of all the places where a Civil Disturbance was/is likely to happen, Wisconsin would not be at the top of my list. Plus if the size (all total to be 30,000 people) is true? That is a good sized protest for most of the media to be largely ignoring. Another point and again IF it is true that the Governor cooked the books in order to manufacture a budget crisis that could have some serious consequences.

[slapout9]

Link to a much smaller protest in Minnesota.


http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4762

[jmm99]

We are speaking of Madison, Wisconsin - with a long history of protests with far more violence than this one. All I see currently is a union demonstration, akin to picketing.

In Madison, that is chump change. E.g., Dow riot (1967):

Definition: Anti-war protest on the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus, Oct. 18, 1967. When hundreds of students protesting recruiters from Dow Chemical, the makers of napalm, blocked access to the University's Commerce Building, Madison police removed them by force. Dozens of students were beaten bloody, tear gas was used for the first time in an anti-war demonstration, and 19 police officers were treated at local hospitals. The violence of the event is credited with politicizing thousands of previously apathetic students and helping to transform the Madison campus into one of the nation's leading anti-war communities

and, ratcheting up from that one, The 1970 Bombing of the Army Math Research Center at the University of Wisconsin:

In 1969-1970 a radical group called the New Year's Gang protested U.S. involvement in Vietnam with a series of firebombings in Madison, Wisconsin, which climaxed in the destruction of the Army Math Research Center and several other buildings on the University of Wisconsin campus. The August 24, 1970, explosion took the life of a physicist, injured several people and destroyed valuable research material. The core members of the gang, led by Karl Armstrong, fled to Canada, where they found refuge in Toronto's antiwar underground. Arrested in 1972, they were extradited to Wisconsin, tried and convicted.

PS: The Ed Show should be watched for fun - not for news content.

Cheers

Mike

[Ken White]

PS: The Ed Show should be watched for fun - not for news content.

News? I never thought it was that funny, personally.

Though Alan Young did have his moments.

[jmm99]

Here's some of the story from Wisconsin's "New York Times" - Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel coverage (from today):

Legislature could act Thursday on budget plan

Madison - Gov. Scott Walker's bill to strip almost all union rights for public workers advanced out of committee Wednesday just before midnight, setting up a pivotal floor vote in the Senate that is expected for Thursday amid massive demonstrations.

Voting 12-4 with all Republicans in favor of the bill and all Democrats against it, the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee added new civil-service protections for local government employees and kept cuts to public worker benefits. Walker has said that the cuts to worker benefits and to decades-old union bargaining laws are needed to help balance the state's gaping budget shortfall in this year and the next two.

The budget committee began debating the bill at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, after Republicans spent hours behind closed doors crafting the changes. The Senate and Assembly could now act on it as early as Thursday.

No further changes will be made to the bill passed by the committee, said Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

"This will pass in that form," Fitzgerald said.

His brother, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon), said he also expected the Legislature to accept the changes the committee adopted and not make any further ones. ... (much more)

and:

Crowds decry budget bill's handling of workers

Madison — Thousands of state union workers and their supporters blanketed the Capitol on Tuesday for a daylong demonstration to protest Gov. Scott Walker's plans to wipe away most of their bargaining rights and reduce fringe benefits.

They shouted slogans such as "kill the bill" and waved placards that said: "Stop the Attack on Wisconsin Families."

Observers said the crowd was one of the largest to descend on the Capitol in recent years. Capitol police said by early afternoon a few thousand people were inside the Capitol and several times that number stood outside.

The gathering was the biggest since the April 2010 tea party rally, when protesters pressed for lower taxes and smaller government. ....(much more)

Some photos from jsonline (68 photos; example):



As I said, a union demonstration - lots of public employees in Wisconsin.

Cheers

Mike

[jmm99]

on the scene outside of the Capitol Bldg (from jsonline):

Madiison Protest.jpg

Complete with Teamsters semi.

Cheers

Mike

[slapout9]

PS: The Ed Show should be watched for fun - not for news content.

Cheers

Mike

jmm99,well the Ed Shoe was better than Glenn Beck who says that the Wisconsin protesters are in cahoots with Islamic radicals and are helping with the protests in Egypt......like they say you just cant make this stuff up


Also Union are not part of the protest is about Wisconsin paying a Wall Street firm 15% per year to manage their Pension Fund. As more State Budgets come under stress I believe you are going to see more Wall Street Tali-Banksters were in the shadows.

[Surferbeetle]

Also Union are not part of the protest is about Wisconsin paying a Wall Street firm 15% per year to manage their Pension Fund. As more State Budgets come under stress I believe you are going to see more Wall Street Tali-Banksters were in the shadows.

Are you the Amazing Carnac?

Wisconsin pension funding for teachers falls $10.9 billion short, report says, By Amy Hetzner of the Journal Sentinel, April 13, 2010

Wisconsin's statewide pension system for public employees may not be as well-funded as the state reports, with a new study estimating it could be as much as $10.9 billion short in meeting its obligations just to teachers.

While the state estimates that the Wisconsin Retirement System is nearly 100% funded, the report by the conservative Manhattan Institute and Foundation for Educational Choice warns that the amount could be far less.

Here is a underfunded pensions chart by state...

...and here is a social security shortfall graph

We are on our own, good thing we have military training; index funds and dollar cost averaging

[jmm99]

this Wisconsin teapot tempest turn into this - Flint Sit Down Strike (Michigan politics), which it isn't.

But, it does have its own humor - from WTMJ (TMJ = The Milwaukee Journal):

Budget Battle: Democrats Who Left State are Located
By The WTMJ News Team

MADISON - Democratic State Senators who protested the budget repair bill by leaving the state have been found.

The lawmakers are in the Best Western Clock Tower Resort in Rockford Illinois.

Law enforcement officials have been looking for at least one Democratic senator to bring in for a quorum required for a fiscal measure, but Democratic Senator Jon Erpenbach confirmed to Newsradio 620 WTMJ that he and all of his Democratic colleagues boarded a bus and left the state.

"We're not in Wisconsin right now," Erpenbach said. "The reason why we're doing this is because there are some jurisdictional issues that we'd be dealing with."

The Senate's Sergeant at Arms cannot compel Senators' attendance in an open session if they are outside of state lines. ...

At the very least, they could have pointed their bus north and stayed at the Watersmeet Casino and given us some tourist dollars.

Cheers

Mike

[Pete]

The Ed Show should be watched for fun - not for news content.

I personally never saw any news content on the Ed Sullivan show.

[jmm99]

Entertainer Eds

3 Eds.jpg

Newsman and Propagandist Ed

Ed Murrow.jpg



Mike

[slapout9]

Are you the Amazing Carnac?

Wisconsin pension funding for teachers falls $10.9 billion short, report says, By Amy Hetzner of the Journal Sentinel, April 13, 2010



Here is a underfunded pensions chart by state...

...and here is a social security shortfall graph

We are on our own, good thing we have military training; index funds and dollar cost averaging

Surferbeetle,no carmac here I live in right to work state so we don't have problems like that but it does get better the new Governor of Florida (bald headed guy can't remember his name) wants to eliminate all pensions for Policemen,Firemen,and Teachers....that will be goodone to watch.

[slapout9]

Entertainer Eds

3 Eds.jpg

Newsman and Propagandist Ed

Ed Murrow.jpg



Mike

Careful Mike, PETA will say your are being cruel to horses