What Steve Said... mostly.
Dec. 19th, 2008 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
home_and_awayNot sure whether I should be comforted by how much I'm agreeing with Steve Brust's political analysis, given his personal lens.
Although I'll be the first to admit that I do not grok Trotsky's brand of Marxism (or, in fact, Marxism in general) in anything like fullness. In that and many other things, I am just an egg.
I'll stray on one point:
As a person who grew up watching her father pay union dues whether he was working or not, and knowing that some of the time he spent not working was because he didn't play toadying political games with the headmen of that union... And watching that union slip through loopholes any time he tried to lean back on the net he was paying them to hold for him, while supporting less able, more slick people... and watching that union bully employers into untenable situations...
~headshake~
I've got to say, I'm not entirely convinced a little bit of union-breaking is a bad idea.
Got an employer who literally or metaphorically abuses its employees, knowing that there's a nigh endless supply to replace the ones it breaks (*cough*Wal-Mart*cough*)? Yeah. That could use a union. That could use a nice left hook from the proletariat to remind the capitalists where their money comes from. I'm sold. That's a product-price-increase I'll take smiling.
But I've seen a teacher's union keep a job for a flagrantly unfit teacher, all power to hire and fire taken out of the hands of people who cared for quality in the school.
And I've got a sneaking suspicion that I know who's strangling the auto industry. It's not the government.
So. ~shrug~
Still. Steve sums things up neatly:
So then: Obama’s agenda, judging from his appointments, seems to be: Continue the attacks on education, drive food prices up while destroying the small farmer, continue the war, continue the attacks on our personal freedom, and continue raping the environment so long as it is in the interest of Wall Street.
...Look: if you want to include that (Rev. Warren's invitation) in the long list of either What We Can Expect From Obama, or How Obama Betrayed Me, then fine. But to single out that one item, it feels like I’m being told, “I don’t mind if you take away my freedom, continue invading and torturing around the world, destroy the lives of individuals and the environment so the rich can stay rich, but don’t you DARE mess with the right of affectional preference!”
Someone has priorities screwed up and I don’t think it’s me.
For the most part, sir? I don't either.
Speak on.
Although I'll be the first to admit that I do not grok Trotsky's brand of Marxism (or, in fact, Marxism in general) in anything like fullness. In that and many other things, I am just an egg.
I'll stray on one point:
As a person who grew up watching her father pay union dues whether he was working or not, and knowing that some of the time he spent not working was because he didn't play toadying political games with the headmen of that union... And watching that union slip through loopholes any time he tried to lean back on the net he was paying them to hold for him, while supporting less able, more slick people... and watching that union bully employers into untenable situations...
~headshake~
I've got to say, I'm not entirely convinced a little bit of union-breaking is a bad idea.
Got an employer who literally or metaphorically abuses its employees, knowing that there's a nigh endless supply to replace the ones it breaks (*cough*Wal-Mart*cough*)? Yeah. That could use a union. That could use a nice left hook from the proletariat to remind the capitalists where their money comes from. I'm sold. That's a product-price-increase I'll take smiling.
But I've seen a teacher's union keep a job for a flagrantly unfit teacher, all power to hire and fire taken out of the hands of people who cared for quality in the school.
And I've got a sneaking suspicion that I know who's strangling the auto industry. It's not the government.
So. ~shrug~
Still. Steve sums things up neatly:
So then: Obama’s agenda, judging from his appointments, seems to be: Continue the attacks on education, drive food prices up while destroying the small farmer, continue the war, continue the attacks on our personal freedom, and continue raping the environment so long as it is in the interest of Wall Street.
...Look: if you want to include that (Rev. Warren's invitation) in the long list of either What We Can Expect From Obama, or How Obama Betrayed Me, then fine. But to single out that one item, it feels like I’m being told, “I don’t mind if you take away my freedom, continue invading and torturing around the world, destroy the lives of individuals and the environment so the rich can stay rich, but don’t you DARE mess with the right of affectional preference!”
Someone has priorities screwed up and I don’t think it’s me.
For the most part, sir? I don't either.
Speak on.
