Thread: Divide And Conquer:

Divide And Conquer: The Union Protests In Wisconsin And Ohio Are Increasing The Hate Between The Left And The Right



What is the perfect way to get the eyes of the American people off of the real economic problems that this country is facing? Get them fighting with each other of course. And what is one issue that is sure to get the left and the right screaming at each other like cats and dogs? Unions. The battle over collective bargaining rights in Wisconsin has been making headlines around the world for weeks and there are no signs that it is going to end any time soon. In fact, Mordecai Lee, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, says that it is "a battle to the death". The Democrats that have gone AWOL appear to be absolutely determined to stay away. The protesters seem equally determined to keep on fighting. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker does not look like he plans to back down either. Meanwhile, both sides are calling each other the most horrible names. "Hitler", "Stalin", "Nazi" and "fascist" are just a few of the terms that are being thrown around by both sides. What has been going on in Wisconsin has captured the imagination of the entire nation and it is creating even more hate between the left and the right in this country. Unfortunately, as the economic pie in this nation continues to shrink, economic battles such as the one in Wisconsin are going to become quite common.

In fact, the war over public unions seems to be spreading. The Ohio Senate has just passed a law that bans public employees from ever going on strike and that forbids them from negotiating on issues such as health care, sick time and pension benefits with the state government.

Needless to say, public employees and union workers in Ohio are not amused.

Several other states are now looking at legislation that would restrict the collective bargaining rights of public employees. Battle lines are being drawn all over the nation.

If you only read conservative websites about all of this, you would be tempted to believe that all union activists are Satanic communists that hate everything that is true and good about America.

If you only read liberal websites about these protests, you would be tempted to believe that all conservatives are heartless Nazi-loving bastards that want to give all the money in America to the rich.

But this is what the establishment loves to do - they love to "divide and conquer" and have us fighting with each other like cats and dogs.

In a recent column, Pat Buchanan described some of the vitriol that has been directed towards Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker recently....

Picketers have carried placards with the face of Gov. Scott Walker in the cross hairs of a gun sight. He has been compared to Hitler, Mussolini, Mubarak. Democrats have fled the state to deny the elected Wisconsin Senate a quorum to vote.

If you even bring up the name "Scott Walker" with some people they will look at you as if you just mentioned the devil.

Not that our public officials are doing much to help tone down the debate. U.S. Representative Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) certainly took the rhetoric up a notch when he recently told a group of union workers in Boston the following....

"Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."

Sadly, this is what politics is turning into in America. You identify the "enemy" and then you hate them with everything that you have inside of you.

Meanwhile, the real sources of our economic problems are never addressed.

Whether the unions win this current battle or the conservatives win this current battle it isn't really going to do much at all to solve the underlying problems that our economy is facing.

For example, most of the people up in Wisconsin probably cannot adequately describe what the Federal Reserve actually is or how it is systematically destroying our national wealth.

The Federal Reserve was designed to get the U.S. government enslaved to a perpetually expanding national debt. This national debt is a massive drain on the wealth of this country and it is literally strangling our economy to death.

In addition, the Federal Reserve is continually destroying the value of our national currency. The U.S. dollar has lost well over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and the pace of dollar devaluation is rapidly accelerating.

But do high profile Democrats or high profile Republicans ever talk about doing something about the Federal Reserve?

Of course not.

Another reason why America's "economic pie" is shrinking is because of the deindustrialization of this nation that is being caused by globalism.

Back in 1980, manufacturing represented 21 percent of U.S. GDP. By 2008, that number had dropped to 13 percent.

Back in 1980, 31 percent of all of the manufacturing in the world was done in the United States. By 2008, that number had dropped to 24 percent.

Between December 2000 and December 2010, the U.S. ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars. In order to fund that shortfall we had to borrow massive amounts of money from the rest of the world.

The truth is that the U.S. is running a trade deficit in almost every major industry that you can think of.

For example, do you remember when the United States was the dominant manufacturer of automobiles and trucks on the globe? Well, in 2010 the U.S. ran a trade deficit in automobiles, trucks and parts of $110 billion.

Ouch.

Well, what about high technology? Aren't we supposed to be the innovators of the globe?

Well, in 2002, the United States had a trade deficit in "advanced technology products" of $16 billion with the rest of the world. In 2010, that number skyrocketed to $82 billion.

The truth is that both Democrats and Republicans have been shipping our factories and our jobs overseas for decades.

Neither major party has been standing up for the American worker.

Instead, both the Democrats and the Republicans have been doing the dirty work of the globalists.

But instead of demanding change, American workers keep voting for the exact same politicians over and over and over.

As the federal budget deficit continues to grow and as the U.S. trade deficit continues to grow, America's "economic pie" is going to continue to get smaller.

For even more reasons why America's "economic pie" is shrinking, please see this article.

Sadly, even though the overall economic pie is shrinking, Wall Street and the gigantic corporations that dominate our economy have managed to carve out even bigger pieces of the pie for themselves.

That leaves the rest of us with fewer scraps to fight over than ever.

According to CNN, in 2009 the wealthiest 10% of all Americans controlled half of all the wealth in America.

Not only that, the average CEO now makes approximately 185 times more money than the average American worker.

Remember, the wealthy are thriving even as the overall economic pie is getting smaller.

So what we have today is a very small group that is doing very well while most of America is suffering. As 2007 began, only about 26 million Americans were on food stamps, but today over 43 million Americans are on food stamps.

Frustration and anger are growing from coast to coast as millions upon millions of Americans find themselves unable to pay their mortgages and feed their families.

But instead of the American people coming together and standing up to Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, NAFTA, the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank, we are endlessly fighting with ourselves.

The establishment loves that most Americans are caught in the false left/right paradigm.

The establishment loves that hatred between liberal and conservatives is rising.

The establishment loves that we are fighting with each other over the scraps instead of asking why the pie is shrinking and why most of the pie is being taken by the elite.

The left and the right are fighting tooth and nail to win minor battles against each other even as our national economy slowly swirls down towards the bottom of the toilet bowl.

Hopefully the American people will wake up. Our economic system is being looted and gutted at an astounding pace and most of our politicians appear to be totally indifferent to what is going on.

But instead of getting educated about real issues, most Americans that are interested in politics seem obsessed with finding someone to hate. The mainstream media tells us that if we are Republicans that we are supposed to hate the Democrats and that if we are Democrats that we are supposed to hate the Republicans.

Meanwhile, the real criminals are having a field day and they are getting away with just about whatever they want to do.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archiv ... -the-right

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has said. "Never waste a good crisis" is how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it before a European audience.

From education to health care reform, President Obama has used the crisis to his advantage and tackled several issues right away. BE AWARE.

It's really common sense, you can not allow your police and firemen to go on strike.

Dixie

Allow or no, I have heard TALKers attacking their wages and early retirement options. This is a class of people that daily go to work never knowing if this is their day to die. They endure a level of stress that most cannot tolerate. One cannot predict if they personally will have insurmountable health problems due to the stress and therefore their wage and early out options are a necessity if one wishes to retain good people. So I say, if they feel the need to strike I support it.

Personally I am weary of this media frenzy to set us apon each other in a mad race to the bottom.

I missed the link to the OP article.

The only power workers have is their numbers. Corporations and governments have money, Unions have people. Collective bargaining and worker strikes are their only power. There is really no reason for public workers to be denied the right to bargaining or to strike if they need to.

If we are talking about the private sector, any money not paid to workers goes into the CEO's pocket. The savings are not passed on to the consumer. Likewise, when public workers are paid less, the savings does not go to the taxpayer. This money also goes to private corporations, in the form of tax cuts for the rich. That is why workers are paid less and less and corporations are getting richer and richer. Taxpayers will pay the same tax regardless of whether the public workers win their fight. The question is, do you want your tax money to go to middle class public workers? Or do you want your tax money to go to rich corporations?

Right now they would like to pit public and private workers against each other to weaken the only power they have, their numbers. All the while, rich corporations are robbing taxpayers of their funds in the form of tax cuts for the rich. This is all done while we private sector and public sector workers are pointing fingers at each other. What we should be doing is pointing our collective fingers at the robbers.

Originally Posted by Dixie

It's really common sense, you can not allow your police and firemen to go on strike.

Dixie

Nope, but you can't lay them off like we are in Houston either.

The big problem is both parties have sold out the American worker to globalism. The America pie is getting smaller. Instead of bringing American jobs home and increasing the amount of money America makes with foreign trade, our government ignores it and creates scape goats and smoke screens. Meanwhile we continue to allow big business to outsource more American jobs and continue to allow illegal aliens to take more American jobs. The rich keep getting richer, while the middle class are made to be scape goats.