The Stakes in Libya

 

If Qadhafi succeeds in squashing this revolt though the use of massive force, it will send the wrong message to dictators and tyrants elsewhere. They will say: “In Egypt Mubarak did not use violence to hold on to power, and he is gone. In Libya, Qadhafi called in mercenaries and cracked down ruthlessly, and he survived.” What message will other dictators draw from this?

But it is better if the Libyan people succeed in liberating their country themselves, than if foreign governments, particularly those with economic interests in the country, were to send in their own troops to oust Qadhafi. But at what price in human life?

Federal Judge In D.C. Upholds Health Care Reform, Says Some Arguments 'Ignore Reality'

This article explains the opinion of U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler in upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act:

Federal Judge In D.C. Upholds Health Care Reform, Says Some Arguments 'Ignore Reality'

The gist of the argument she relies on is when a person chooses not to purchase health insurance this is an "affirmative action" which has real consequences for interstate commerce which the Federal Government has the constitutional power to regulate. The main real consequence is that it drives up the cost of private health insurance because it forces those individuals and families who do buy it to pay higher costs in order to cover the cost of the "free riders" who use health care services but do not pay for them.

Where else does this "free rider" issue crop up? Well it arises in relation to union collective bargaining agreements as well. In a collective bargaining agreement a union negotiates for favorable terms and conditions of employment on behalf of all of the employees in a bargaining unit. The benefits gained through these negotiations are enjoyed by all employees. But in some states, legislatures have passed so-called "right to work" laws that stipulate that workers who benefit from union agreements cannot be required to pay an agency fee to the union to compensate it for acting on their behalves.

This AFL-CIO page provides a short primer on the reasons why it opposes "right to work" laws. The key point is that allowing bargaining unit members to not pay for benefits they derive from union representation is in fact unfair to the workers who join the union and pay dues. The real consequence of "right to work" is to allow some people the "right to be free riders."

This is one of the ideas that motivates Libertarians and Tea Party Populists: they argue that individuals should enjoy the right to be free riders, that they should not have to pay for benefits that they enjoy that result from public policies and other collective agreements. The more thoughtful proponents of this view say they would rather not enjoy the benefits in the first place, or pay for them themselves, which is one way of avoiding free riding. But the muddled mass of conservatives what to have it both ways -- they want to enjoy to benefits of collective agreements while avoiding the costs of paying for them.

Welfare liberals, on the other hand, want to have publicly negotiated shared social benefits, such as public education and public health care, and insist that in order for these programs to be fair and cost effective, the burden of paying for them must be shared equitably among all of those who benefit.

So why are Republicans, Libertarians, and Tea Party Populists against the unions in Wisconsin and elsewhere? Why are they opposing the affordable health care law? Why are the trying to defund public education? Public broadcasting? And virtually every other public program except those associated with the military industrial complex?

It is because they claim the right to be free riders. This is really the great irony: libertarians often say paying taxes is tantamount to slavery. But, in reality, it is the liberty to free ride that forces other people to pay to support the ones who want to ride for free. Free riding is really a form of economic exploitation that disguises itself as personal liberty.

Wisconsin Is a Battleground Against the Billionaire Kochs' Plan to Break Labor's Back

Wisconsin Is a Battleground Against the Billionaire Kochs' Plan to Break Labor's Back | News & Politics | AlterNet

This article provide more direct evidence for the idea that the plutocracy is intent on destroying the last bastion of unionism in America -- public sector employees. Their strategy is to employ the politics of resentment to pit one segment of the middle class (read working class) against another, in this case, private sector employees most of who are not unionized against public sector employees where 1 in 3 are members of unions such as the AFT.

The propaganda talking point is to suggest that public sector employees who enjoy decent benefits they struggled to get over many decades of tough labor negotiations are somehow responsible for the fiscal problems many states are now facing. The real cause of the state deficits, of course, is the Great Recession, which public employees had no role in producing.

It was produced by greed, lax government regulation of the financial services industry, and the economic ideology known as "market fundamentalism". According to this winners-take-all mentality, there must be no part of the economy that is not subject to corporate rule. That is why the Republicans, who are an entirely owned and controlled subsidiary of Corporate America, are now attacking public sector unions, public broadcasting, public radio, and indeed any social formation that is not directly subservient to corporate control.

But truth has no bearing on this political strategy: it is driven by the idea that one can gain political support among private sector workers by making them resentful of the slightly better benefits that some public sector workers have. This is a classic "leveling-down" strategy of class warfare; the goal is to break public sector unions by convincing non-union workers that their plight is caused by there fellow workers, not by the corpocracy that runs America (and much of the rest of the world). If this campaign is successful it will mark the final triumph of the investing class over the working class and will ensure that income and wealth inequality will not be effectively challenged by the labor movement.

Here is how Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker expressed this divide and rule strategy:

“We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots,” Mr. Walker, a Republican, said in a speech. “The bottom line is that we are going to look at every legal means we have to try to put that balance more on the side of taxpayers.”

This is utter rubbish. Government workers -- civil servants -- are taxpayers too. They are also voters: the latter is what rankles Governor Walker because as voters they did not support him in the election. So this is also political payback: if one wants to ensure that Republicans control even more of the state governments than they presently do, bust the labor unions which (usually) support the Democrats.

However, as the demonstrations in Wisconsin are showing, these union workers are not going down without a fight. Now is the time for solidarity, not only with the demonstrators in the Mideast, but also those in the Midwest.

How the middle class became the underclass - Feb. 16, 2011

How the middle class became the underclass - Feb. 16, 2011

Heading towards class warfare? We have been engaged in class warfare, as this article demonstrates, for several decades. The plutocrats are winning. They have decreed that one can only refer to the struggle as "class warfare" when the middle class and the poor fight back.