Get to the picket lines.

The NLRB move reminds me of Bush’s assault on Common Article 3. He used a casual definition of “international war” to deny the detainees the protections they were due. The Supreme Court wouldn’t put up with it. If its composition holds steady (or Bush loses the Senate), Taft-Hartley should get a fair reading. Meanwhile, there’s a big difference between labor and Guantanamo detainees: Workers can strike! What the nurses are doing shows they have sized up the battle. Bush has a way of waking sleeping giants. No exception here.

The paycheck initiative (I can’t use its official name!) is also an overreach. Before 1977 a state could limit a corporation’s political activity to matters affecting its business and assets. The power was lifted on first amendment grounds in Bank of Boston v. Bellotti. Now, having won this power and corrupted our politics, capital wants to reduce the worker’s voice even more.

I predict a good outcome here, too, if the Court stays the same, because the first amendment is implicated. But what people have to see is how viciously class warfare is being waged through this initiative. It looks like simple partisan politics because we don’t think in terms of class here, and because the Republicans’ other target is the trial bar, which contributes to Dems. But in this area it’s simple class warfare. The sooner people realize this, the better. Thanks to you, more will sooner.

And their lobbying? How about when they ride pols around on the corporate jet?

The jets are chump change for the corporations. A roundtrip flight DC West Coast is “just” a year of income for their average employee (I know, it’s obscene).

Also personal contributions by lobbyists are not a big part of the overall money. The way a lobbyist works is by pedling to candidates his clients’ network of contributors : essentially all the corporation’s principals, officers and wannabees and their family (2 adults 3 kids = $10,000 twice per cycle) and the associated PACs. Add the PACs “independent” expenditures. That’s the laundered money.

But if you are looking for the real money, coming directly from company coffers as a check signed by the CFO in the name of the company, you have to look at bullshit 501(c)(3) like the Competitive Enterprise Institute or the Center for Union Fact.

The problem is that you cannot look.

Those “charitable” “educative” organizations have no reporting requirements. Contributions are totally unlimited, unreported and untraceable.

I apologize.

I guess what I’m wondering is how much better the Democrats would be on these issues. They seem to treat labor about the same way Republicans use fundies. They want them for money and GOTV (much like the netroots) but not much else. It seems like the choice between the lesser of two evils: one pretty malevolent and one merely insipid. Correct me if I’m wrong.

An important part of the answer is in the second paragraph of Jordan’s post:

This afternoon, George W. Bush’s National Labor Relations Board, in a party line 3-2 decision, took away bargaining rights for millions of American workers.

Appointments to the nation’s regulatory agencies make important policy decisions that affect everyone, sooner or later. Democratic Presidents (and Senate) make (consent to) very different appointees than do radical Republican Presidents and Senates. The story is the same in every federal agency. Bush’s appointments are destroying fair public policy everywhere.

I have stopped working for large corporations
I have run for local office
I have reduced my gasoline consumption by 95 percent in the last two years
I have been arrested while protesting war
I have my dignity and will always fight for liberty

yay for you Eureka Springs AR! Bravo!

I guess what I’m wondering is how much better the Democrats would be on these issues. They seem to treat labor about the same way Republicans use fundies. They want them for money and GOTV (much like the netroots) but not much else. It seems like the choice between the lesser of two evils: one pretty malevolent and one merely insipid. Correct me if I’m wrong.

There’s all kinds of Democrats. We’re trying to get more of the good ones elected.

And there are no good Republicans. You could say that Lincoln Chafee has some nice positions, but he organizes Republican. And that means their committee chairman are in charge, and we all lose.

And I don’t want to hear one more so called progressive getting cold feet before November elections where we (We the People) might actually win.