What’s happening in Wisconsin is a big, dirty deal

I am not sure if I’ve ever completely tipped my political hand on the “pages” of my blog. These feelings are obviously my own, but my feelings are strong enough that I feel I am compelled to share them publicly. (re-posted from Facebook)

If you’ve received a public education, been cared for by a nurse, hired an electrician,  been saved by a fire fighter or police officer, driven a car, or are one of the Union members who work in these sectors, this message is about what you can do to help them.

The news media has never been very friendly to unions.  There is a mass distortion going on that is hiding an important fact about the dispute over the Budget Repair Bill.  You have probably heard that unions are fighting against the inevitable fiscal facts of tough economic times.  Do not believe it!

1) Our governor gave a tax break to corporations equal to that amount he wants unions to contribute.
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_90196216-3b66-11e0-a327-001cc4c03286.html

2) Nevertheless, Wisconsin’s major unions have offered concessions on all economic portions of the bill, but refuse to give up their rights of collective bargaining (a fact I heard every single large WI union president repeat during a rally this afternoon).
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/blog/article_0b783598-3bb4-11e0-b872-001cc4c03286.html

Said another way: our governor manufactured our state’s financial problem, and even though our labor unions are willing to bend, he and the Republicans are SET on destroying our unions.  This dispute is NOT about money — it is about workers’ rights.

If you see your local (or national) media outlet perpetuating this distortion — call them on it!  If they are not covering it at all — ask why!  Send them a comment online, it’s easy, and it’s vital that all of the players here in WI get a fair shake.

– Is this really an attack on unions?  Why? –

Thanks to the “Wisconsin 14,” we’ve had enough time to dig up the real story on what is going on here.  You are free to make up your own mind, but I find what is going on to be an appalling attack on the working class.

* I’m not a Rachel Maddow viewer, but I think this 15 minute clip paints an accurate picture of what is going on – rich, corporate interests are trying to dismantle their one source of fiscal competition in the political sphere: labor unions.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/41655758

* Where is the money for all of the political action groups that Maddow refers to coming from?  In large part, from the Koch brothers.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/02/wisconsin-scott-walker-koch-brothers

Don’t know the Koch’s?  They are billionaires who use their money (filtered through organizations) to push their far right wing agenda.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

* The Republican party in Wisconsin is also playing games with the process.  When Assembly Democrats tried to offer legit amendments, the Republicans pushed the process along without them.  This has the Assembly Democrats (along with Wisconsin workers) MAD as hell!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZsOKNfNkfQ

When faced with dirty tricks like this, who can blame the Senate Democrats for leaving the state?  Who can blame the 70,000+ people who marched for labor rights at Wisconsin’s capitol today?

I know what I’ve presented here is lot to read and watch, but Wisconsin, workers, and anyone who leans any direction but far right MUST be educated on these issues.  If you can, please boycott these companies that have contributed to our Governor:

Johnsonville, Menards, Home Depot, Quik Trip, Walmart, SC Johnson, Stainmaster, Brawney, Dixie cups, AT&T, TDS, Hal Lenord publishing, Woodmans, Metcalfe’s Sentry

I am not currently a union member, and I would take a financial hit if the budget repair bill passes. Nevertheless, I’ve been at the capitol for the last 5 days because I firmly believe that there is great value in the public sector – these are the workers to which we entrust our health, safety, and public welfare.

Thanks again for your kind words and support.  Forward!

Berners-Lee: Long Live the Web

Web inventor, Tim Burners-Lee pens an article for Scientific American that is an impassioned, yet reasoned argument for open standards and Internet Neutrality (Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality: Scientific American). By couching his argument in principles of liberty, he articulates many of the principles that underlie some of the problems I’ve seen in closed systems like social networking sites and mobile apps.  Here are a couple of highlights that hopefully can stand on their own:

In these cases, no due process of law protects people before they are disconnected or their sites are blocked. Given the many ways the Web is crucial to our lives and our work, disconnection is a form of deprivation of liberty. Looking back to the Magna Carta, we should perhaps now affirm: “No person or organization shall be deprived of the ability to connect to others without due process of law and the presumption of innocence.” …

Some people may think that closed worlds are just fine. The worlds are easy to use and may seem to give those people what they want. But as we saw in the 1990s with the America Online dial-up information system that gave you a restricted subset of the Web, these closed, “walled gardens,” no matter how pleasing, can never compete in diversity, richness and innovation with the mad, throbbing Web market outside their gates. If a walled garden has too tight a hold on a market, however, it can delay that outside growth.

For some reason all of this reminded me that we’re in desperate need of a good mobile browser.  I think that might solve some of the app-etite we’ve been suffering lately.

Books are for keeps

A recent post in the Economist blog, Steal this book: The loan arranger, an argument is made that booksellers might be getting close to a customer-friendly business model for eTexts.  The author throws away a point that I think is worth sharing —  books (like movies and music, and not like some television) are persistent objects and not disposable.

Allowing such ersatz lending is a pretence by booksellers. They wish you to engage in two separate hallucinations. First, that their limited licence to read a work on a device or within software of their choosing is equivalent to the purchase of a physical item. Second, that the vast majority of e-books are persistent objects rather than disposable culture.

I’ve made this argument here before–some media are like newspapers.  They have value in their day, and perhaps as historical artifacts, but quickly become “fishwrap.”  Books and movies are media that a user can go back to, over and over again.  I think this sense is how many justify paying to own something. They want it on their shelf as a reminder, and as an artifact that they might return to over time.

The larger argument in the article is perhaps up for debate.  The author seems to think that cheap rental systems and in-store browsing are viable answers to things like buying used books (thanks to the first-sale rule, which is quickly disintegrating in the digital world).

I, for one, enjoy going to a used bookstore for the adventure.  Digging up a good book is an activity that is driven by more than my hunt for a good deal.  There’s a spirit in used books that sometimes draws you into volumes you might never have found in an Amazon search. Perhaps cheap rentals will work for blockbusters, but I’ll stick to digging for lost treasures in the dim shelves of my local bookstore.