Letters, I Get Letters

Rather than responding to the many comments from this post, I brought a bunch of them topside. Some to reply to; some just because they needed a bigger spotlight.

Hey, I'm an aggregator!

John Puma and the Bush Doctrine,
Indeed. It's Cheney's 1% thinking: If there is a 1% chance unions may pose a political threat in the future, they must be destroyed now. Say it loud enough & the Koch's will buy you a governorship.
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Paul Kroenke,
Ah, how well I remember what it was like to be 16, halfway though my first six pack of Micky's and jerking off to "Atlas Shrugged" while blasting "Ride of the Valkyries".

"One of the most elemental human rights [is] the right to belong to a free trade union." -- Ronald Reagan.
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double nickel,
Almost everyone I have ever known in the public sector (including the many teachers and principals in my own family, and my ex's) have been hard-working middle class people who chose modest salaries doing jobs they loved and were good at, job security and respect...over the larger salaries in the private sector. Now that it is abundantly clear that siding with the Conservatives to gut unions in the private sector was a suicidally stupid decision that has pauperized the middle class, dimwitted "Libertarians" have moved on to trying to pit the victims of 30 years of Reaganomics against each other.

And you gotta love the Libertarians these days who are nothing but "Dine and dash" Bush Conservatives: clowns who having been wrong about everything they said and fucked up everything they touched for years and think that putting on a funny hat fools anyone but their idiot fellow travelers. They bear the same relationship to "Conservatives" that the porn actor who will do everything but farm animals has to the one who will do everything including farm animals.

Except of course I've never heard of an "everything but" porn actor who was actually so lacking in self-awareness that they would lecture everyone else on the superiority of his awesome principles as he stands there in ass-less chaps covered in poo and sprinkles.
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Habitat Vic,
Here you go -- Now available on Flikr

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Glen Tomkins and "Walker is done."

I hope you're right, but I no longer bet against the GOP base's apparently unlimited capacity to be brainwashed and reprogrammed over and over and over again by the same liars and lunatics.
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double nickel,
/shrugs/ They are always wrong, never in doubt and the never change their minds except to slide further down the wingnut rabbit hole.
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Paul Kroenke,
You should expect less from me. I'm the worst of the lot.
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zombie rotten mcdonald,
Reprinting some of your comments verbatim.

It used to be that white collar professionals were protected by demand for their services; good working conditions and wages were necessary to attract decent employees. But In our new, exciting Republican Wage-slave economy, employers are perfectly happy to hold people hostage to employment and most especially, health care.

Unions created the middle class. And that aggravates the Koch brothers no end.
...

It's funny how ["amazing benefits that nobody in the private sector gets anything close to"] is seen as a slam on unions, rather than a failing of non-unionized employment.

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jim,

Reprinting some of your comments verbatim.

...
Breitbart's minions & their many copycats have been giving a free public workshop in how to ruin your opponents for more than a year now, with some real scalps to show for it. Seems like every time someone does the same to some GOP satrap, it's in the form of a harmless & forgettable prank like this one. If the right can do it with heavily-edited bullshit, surely Reality-PAC can do it with the cold hard ugly truth ... it's way past time for the American left to put down the pearls, back away from the hugbox & re-learn how to fight to win.

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CC,
Reprinting some of your comments verbatim.

Paul K said "...it's teachers working 9 months a year in pleasant conditions..."

Yep. Pleasant conditions. 25-30 kids an hour each day in a room with no windows with intermittent heat/air, especially at the change in season; outdated equipment; kids that come to school sick; high stakes tests; being shit on (I mean advised) by asshats (I mean concerned citizens) like you; chalk dust; white board markers; poor lighting. Yep conditions are perfect.

I'd agree that I only work for 9 months of the year. Can I remind you that I plan and grade on my own time (also on the weekends) bringing my weekly hourly work time to somewhere in the area of 70-80 hours a week. So if I spread that over the entire 52 week year (with no time off ever) I would put in about 48 to 55 hours a week. Sounds like a great job for $70K a year...oh wait, it will take me 25 years to reach that pay.

Couple that with the fact I'll take a month in the summer to take a required class (on my own dime) as well as run classes for other dedicated teachers--correction--brothers and sisters.

Teachers unions, while we fight for better pay for teachers, also fight for better conditions for students, better teaching materials, better administrators and school board officials. All of this in addition to trying to provide a quality education for students.

The job is so difficult and stressful that more than 50% of teachers don't make it past the first 5 years. But you're right, screw it, get rid of unions so that you can pay teachers $8 an hour to balance the budget.

I love the work that I do and I do my job well. But try to tie me to my job by my love of it and I'll walk and many of my counterparts will do the same thing. Guess what? We are good at other things. Private sector beware. Teachers will take your jobs.

Thank you.
Could not have said it better.
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