What the Union Fight is Really About: Defunding the Left

[xchrom]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/scott-walker-defunding-democratic-donors




When Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took on his state's public-sector unions last January, it seemed to require no explanation. Republicans are sympathetic to corporate interests and opposed to organized labor, and challenging public-sector workers' pay and benefits appeared to be just one more skirmish in a longstanding ideological battle.

But Walker went one crucial step further. He deliberately sparked a dangerous, months-long war by proposing to end the public-sector unions' collective bargaining rights entirely. Why take that risk?

Here's why: Politics in the United States is a game played on multiple levels, and ideology is only the first. Walker was playing on a second, deeper level, where the issues are secondary. Here, the goal is not so much to advance one party's agenda, but to actively undermine the infrastructure that allows the opposing party to exist at all. And on this level, one of America's two political parties routinely outplays the other: Defunding the left is a longtime goal of the smartest and savviest Republican strategists, and they've pursued it for decades.

The old-school version of this tactic began in the '70s and '80s with the right's campaign to undermine private-sector unions, traditionally one of the Democratic Party's biggest sources of funding and campaign support. In the early '70s, a newly aggressive and politicized Chamber of Commerce, joined by newcomers like the Business Roundtable and a new breed of "union avoidance" consultants (PDF), took advantage of divisions on the left and the decline of manufacturing industries to block labor reforms and gut rules against union-busting. All this made it nearly impossible to organize new workplaces in the growing service sector, which led to unions' long, steady decline: Since 1970, private-sector union membership has dropped from 29 percent of the workforce to less than 7 percent. And with that decline, the Democratic Party has lost a major source of its funding.

[sendero]

1. Yes..

...... and hate to tell y'all but this battle is all but over. We lost.

[TBF]

5. We lost 30 years ago. nt

[guardian]

7. That is pretty defeatist.

This is OUR time. Look at Obama. Look at Occupy. One election in one state doesn't mean losing the war.

[TBF]

9. Well I've been around awhile -

have watched this country slowly being consumed by the fundies. I hope you (meaning your generation) can do a better job.

[ananda]

10. This is (non) pretty reality.

Destroy unions, destroy the left.

Easy pickins for the 1 percenters then.

The fundie and teabag haters just continue stewing
in their hate delusionally thinking they've won something.

[HiPointDem]

15. Obama's policies support de-unionization in teaching, & occupy has been pretty quiet since

winter.

Look at wisconsin. look at michigan. etc.

where's the push-back?

[Rain Mcloud]

2. Quite a fancy way of saying divide and conquer.

Nikita Kruschev once told Henry Ford Jr. that greed would be the noose that hung the capitalist west and it would be an American business man who would gladly sell the rope.

I might also point out that by destroying the middle class and lowering the rights,privilege and buying power of the lowest of the 99 that these morons are also cutting their own throats.
Once everyone is living in third world american slums then who is going to buy their bullshit and services?

[Scootaloo]

3. We won't ever reach the "third world slum" part of that.

We'll probably kill and eat the rich before then.

[TBF]

6. I wouldn't bet on it -

Wisconsin just voted away their public sector unions yesterday - they voted themselves into poverty. Willingly.

[Rain Mcloud]

11. I pray

for the sakes of my kids and G'kids and everyone else's,that You are right.

[Scootaloo]

13. I hope I'm not

Do you have any idea how much cholesterol you intake if you at lee Raymond?

[progressoid]

4. And sadly, people on the left are supporting this shit.

[HiPointDem]

16. you mean blue dogs, dinos & third way democrats? are they on the left? i doubt there are

few people actually on the left who support it, since to actually be on the left means to oppose it.

[bonniebgood]

8. Voted themselves in poverty. which is

why i have no respect for the democratic party. After reading what Donna Brazille
said about John Edwards, and all the Dems who eats their own, including Ed Shultz, I will
never donate to another Dem. those same dems who bash Edwards has nothing to
say about the lying adulterous republicons. Top Dem who has a mic, a voice out there who bash other dem don't see how THEY are destroying and depressing the base.
Question is: What has John Edwards done that no Republicon has done and still in Office?
Even some DU's are buying the bashing Edwards campaign. shameful.
What Edwards done is between him and his family.
Bill Cllinton is out there doing more to harm dems than Edwards. Fuck the moral highground.
Moral highground don't win elections.

[HooptieWagon]

12. Well duh.

Defeat a powerful funding and organizational force for the left, and the corporatists have free rein to drive salaries into the basement. This isnt a war on the poor anymore, they already lost, this is a war on the middle class... driving them into poverty. The 1% wants to create a nation of indentured servants... willing to work for whatever meager crumbs they toss us.

[exelwood]

14. Nail > Head.

We must never forget the truth of that statement. The symbiotic bond between the unions and the Democratic party are the strongest in politics. The attack on the unions is an effort to destroy and marginalize the party to the point they 'can drown it in the bathtub' to paraphrase the rabid Norquist.

We have to pay close attention, the game really has changed and so will politics. The ground is shifting and frankly, I have no idea what is going to happen.

[TheKentuckian]

17. Hell, the money is one thing but the organization and human resources are even bigger

Many of these folks are much more than just a willing body and they have purpose. They know neighborhoods.
Might know who to talk to. Maybe have some campaigns under the belt, sometimes more than the folks running the show.

[HiPointDem]

18. and what is the democratic party going to stand for without unions or labor? right-wing economics,

right-wing foreign policy, identity politics + abortion?

i don't think that's a winner.