Public sector unions obviously need to be abolished:
[…] Most important, public sector unions help choose those they negotiate with. Through gigantic campaign contributions and overall clout, they have enormous influence over who gets elected to bargain with them, especially in state and local races.As a result of these imbalanced incentive structures, states with public sector unions tend to run into fiscal crises. […]
That massive public union clout is evident in the latest election in Wisconsin (and Indiana, as Kay notes). As for the second claim, it shows how little Brooks actually knows about real America when he ignores the budget crises in non-unionized Texas and Arizona, and he lives right down the street from Virginia, which doesn’t have collective bargaining and has a budget crisis.
Carnacki
Being right doesn’t pay when you speak for the right. Being stupid, a liar or both is where the pay dirt is at for right wing media figures.
batgirl
I fixed that for Brooks.
Keith G
Fucking A, Bobo….Don’t defense contractors and banks definitely choose who they will be bargaining with?
Edit: And what Batgirl says.
cleek
So, does brooks know he is arguing to keep all mass influence out of politics? No corps, no parties, no unions,no PACs… any entity that might negotiate with the govt should be prohibited from influncing elections! Yay!
Dave C
Oh sweet Jesus, it’s not even 9 am on the east coast, and Sully is already hitting the anti-union button hard:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/02/quo-3.html
Omnes Omnibus
@Dave C: FDR was a truly great President. He also was wrong about a number of things. This is an example of why the argument from authority fallacy is a fallacy. (N.B. This is also an example of why Sully is a douchebag.)
BGK
I was a captive audience for about an hour of Fox News last night, and there was a panel of Der Krauthammer, Juan Williams, and some Weekly Stan-tard holding court on the protests in Wisconsin. While I was spared the captions, one could tell from body language and facial expressions that they Were Not Amused. None of these clowns has ever had a real job. One would think this would disqualify them from running their pieholes about anything labor-related. Yet, lack of direct experience in a given subject seems a prerequisite for conservative gasbaggery. Hmmm…
arguingwithsignposts
@Dave C:
The blast fax of RW talking points is sent out early. And I doubt that’s even Sully posting, since he’s been caught before putting shit other people write under his byline.
Xenos
Actually, that talking point/FDR quote has been circulating for days. It is a fallacy and irrelevant, of course, but it is about the strongest support for Walker et al. that anyone can come up with.
I guess if FDR was weak on civil rights we have to let the GOP take us backwards on civil rights, too?
sparky
i loathe Brooks, but there is one state, interestingly not mentioned, where there is some truth to this argument: New York state and New York City. in those jurisdictions, the public sector unions along with the teachers union and unions like 1199 have immense clout in the legislature. but NYS & NYC are anomalies and it is disingenuous in the extreme to pretend that NY is the norm.
it’s also rather amusingly chickenshit of Brooks to name the state he’s talking about.
all in all it’s the usual piece–support a superstructure of shibboleths with a single anonymous example. opinion journalism at its worst.
YellowDog
And massive corporate contributions determine who gives the corporations nobid contracts. Politics is about winners and losers (except when Republicans lose, then it’s about winners and whiners).
Omnes Omnibus
@Xenos: It is interesting to me that they are relying on this quotation because it is emblematic of the right-wing style argumentation. Find a marginally germane quote from an “authority,” state it, cross arms, and smirk.
Violet
Why do people like Brooks still have jobs? Is this a product of the crappy “old media” system? He’s wrong so often it’s ridiculous. If he had another type of job, and got this much stuff wrong, he’d be fired.
tomvox1
Oh, great. Another day of cosseted and rich “reasonable conservatives” telling the working men and women of this country what’s in their best interests. And that when they collectively bargain against the powerful interests arrayed against them, “America” somehow loses.
Here’s an idea: Let’s consistently ask these douchebag pontificating pundits who have never done a day’s worth of real labor in their lives to volunteer to pay Clinton-era tax rates as a way of “sharing the sacrifice.” And if they refuse, we must regrettably and repeatedly call them the worst insult in the Beltway lexicon: Deeply Unserious People.
Also, too, David Brooks: Did I miss your column condemning Citizens Fucking United?!?
funluvn
From DJ Dionne:
Thanks media! Your tea party is coming home to roost!
arguingwithsignposts
@tomvox1:
Or how about we ask them to post the avg. wages of their pundit staff. also, too – WaPo is a union shop. funny that.
PurpleGirl
I’ll agree to more sacrifice (although after being unemployed for 2+ years, spending down to non-existence my savings and retirement account, almost being evicted several times and begging relatives for help, I’m not sure how much more I can do) when Mr. Bobo agrees to a 75% cut in income (salary, any bonuses he may get, and financial instrument options), and gives up his health insurance (and doesn’t move back to Canada to be a parasite on their system). Hopefully that cut in income will cause him to either be unable to pay rent or face foreclosure on his house.
He motto must be: Austerity for thee but not for me.
anon84
Is he speaking about wealthy political donors and corporations suckling on the public teat with sweetheart government contracts?
There are 125 million employed workers in the United States.
Of these, 103 million are private sector jobs and 22 million are public sector jobs.
Each sector has 7+ million union workers (7.1 million private, 7.6 million public)
Union workers are 11.9 % of the population. Public union workers are 6%.
Bullshit. This smell just like “Saddam has WMDs!” & “Cut Social Security or the deficit will destroy us”. Fearmongering bullshit.
PurpleGirl
@Violet: He does his corporate masters’ bidding quite well.
Southern Beale
And corporations help choose who unions negotiate with by using their enormous economic clout to elect right wing “free market” anti-tax, anti-government and anti-union people to elected office. So, “both sides do it.”
Jesus. I don’t get this obsession with unions involvement in politics. It’s not like the Chamber of Commerce isn’t out there trying to swing elections too. If people are really so chapped about this we could scrap the whole thing and just have public financing of elections. How ’bout it?
russell
I’ll trade him public sector unions for private corporate lobbying and private corporate contributions to any and all political activity.
We don’t want folks who are going to regulated choosing those who are going to regulate them, do we?
Kryptik
@Violet:
That’s because you’re assuming journalism is a meritocracy. A common mistake. It’s a Demeritocracy. As in, the more you fail for the right reasons, the more you succeed. It’s not about telling the truth or getting it right. It’s getting it wrong for the ‘right reasons’ and ‘right people.
And despite how many people are getting up and being heard, I can’t help but simply be depressed by the whole thing, simply because, as history has shown, protests from anywhere but the batshit wing of the right are either ignored or taken as proof of the rightness of the cause being protested, and our leaders end up following suit to fuck us over once more, despite the ‘will of the people’ they listen to boiling down to ‘whoever Broder talked to over at the deli’.
Kryptik
@Southern Beale:
Dude, it’s obvious, don’t you realize?
Corporations good, unions bad! What more do you need to know?! Do you really hate our godly, benevolent corporate gods that much?!
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thinking which is axiomatic in nature, as someone here once called it.
You forgot to mention that this arguing technique can be brought to its pinnacle by the following technique: find a marginally germane quote from an “authority” on the other side of the aisle, state, and go “ha! Your guy said it! What’d you think of that, eh, what’d you think of that!”
Leah
Here’s an answer re; FDR from a labor historian as interviewed in Salon.
Brooks has a comments section; he gets some push back but and an equal number of milk-toast right-leaning centrists. I’d suggest that everyone who leaves a message here go over and leave the same comment at the NYT and emphasize despite this being an opinion piece, facts are facts and right-to-work states are in just as much budget trouble as blue states, and the reason so many are is due to the economic meltdown of 2008 up to this very day, and not union workers.
It might even be worth an attempt to ask the ombudsperson at the Times why it’s okay to misstate facts in an opinion piece, but not okay in a news story, (although it happens often enough there, too). You have to register for the Times, but the facts that have already been placed on view and will continue to be all day might do more good over there. Not an either or suggestion, comment here and there.
You can contact Sully by email. Don’t bother to if you’re too angry to be polite; sometimes he is moved to at least modify a position by what readers send him – he did so on late-term abortions, but abusive or even just a smart-ass tone will only confirm his prejudices.
Just a thought.
If we lose this union issue, our collective liberal-progressive goose-asses are cooked for sure.
Sly
FDR was also not a big fan of people suspected of constituting a “fifth column,” so he and Sullivan actually have two things in common.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude
See, for example, WI, IN, and OH.
Dave C
@Chris:
“Even the liberal
TNRFDR hated public-sector unions!”Cacti
@YellowDog:
And actual people and citizens (public employees), should never enjoy the same rights as fictitious people and citizens (corporations).
redoubt
@Southern Beale: Silly. Only corporations are allowed involvement in politics. The rest of us are not supposed to be involved in politics, or vote as the corporation tells us to.
Scott
Man, they are working the refs really, really hard. I know part of it is to try to convince folks that, hey, all these well-dressed pundits say unions are teh evulz, so jump on the bandwagon to destroy your future! But part of it has to be working to wear everyone else down so they’ll be too fatigued to keep complaining about Our Benevolent Corporate Overlords…
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude
@Leah: The historian is quoted as saying
I’m never comfortable with If condition that didn’t occur then person would have done whatever, for what I think are obvious reasons. Do you suppose this quote will be picked up by the Republicans, who are strongly/violently opposed to virtually everything FDR accomplished?
ETA: Minor clarification.
RalfW
I continue to be amazed that the same people who are terrified of government and unions will cede total control of their lives to a handful of corporations. What the freakin hell is so magical about incorporating that makes it above reproach? I know, it’s money, filthy lucre. Give a man a choice between freedom and an infinitesimal shot at money, and he will, it appears, take the lottery ticket every time.
Kryptik
@RalfW:
Because Corporations are inherently more accountable, duh!!
SiubhanDuinne
@sparky: “a superstructure of shibboleths.”.
I am stealing that.
E.D. Kain
Boy does this argument get tiresome after a while.
Hawes
I read his piece in the Times about how we “all need to hurt”.
My response is rather intemperate.
http://zombieland-nowbrainfree.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-hate-you-david-brooks.html
No where does he talk about raising taxes on the wealthy.
Make everyone hurt? Bend over, you rich fuck. I brought Dwight Eisenhower and his 93% tax rate to fist you with his bony hand.
Exurban Mom
@Southern Beale: Sorry, but that’s easy: unions are one of the few identifiable and attack-able bastions of Democrats. They have a lot of money, they have many foot soldiers during election times, and they are reliably Democrats. They’ve taken down ACORN, they are working on the unions. They had a nefarious plan in place to attack several progressive groups, since brought to light…What’s left of the reliable Democratic infrastructure? Not much, I’m afraid.
PIGL
People laugh at Bobo for his pseudo-intellectual pretentiousness and his ludicrous half-witted pop sociology.
But he’s not funny. He’s a witting, mendacious, treacherous propagandist for the ruling class.
agrippa
The usual stuff from a member of the commentariat.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude
The comments at the NYT on Brooks’s column are generally pretty good, including one from someone who claims to be a top bracket financial maven who thinks taxes on the wealthy should be increased and spending on education and infrastructure should be increased. On the other hand, one commenter from Beverly Hills says
He’s actually describing the David Brooks from Opposite World.
RalfW
Medtronic, a leader in medical technology (pacemakers, stents, etc) just announced 2,000 private sector layoffs. The company is very profitable, but I’m sure Unions are Ruining the place!
Medtronic 3Q Profit Up 11%; To Cut 4%-5% Of Work Force
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude
@E.D. Kain: Which argument? David Brooks is a fool vs. David Brooks is a tool?
Moses2317
Here’s my comment over at the NYT on this ridiculousness from Brooks:
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude
@RalfW: C.mon, dude, the company is only trying to
SatanicPanic
I keep hearing from people yapping about how such and such red state doesn’t have budget problems, but California, New York and all the other blue states do. So I’m planning on moving, because when choosing a state to live in, the most important factor is whether or not its budget is balanced. Things like quality of life and literacy are secondary, at best.
azlib
Unfortunately, all this was avoidable if we had followed the Keynesian economic prescription to boost demand. The reign of the austerians will result in a longer recovery and perhaps a double dip recession, if many of the cuts proposed by Republicans across the country are enacted.
Of course this fits the austerians strategy of prolonging the recovery and keeping the unemployment rate high, so they can gin the anger up in 2012 and take the Presidency. The Dems, including our President, are on defense because they never had a really good long term offensive plan to push back against the destructive austerity agenda.
As for Brooks, I stopped reading him a long time ago. He is simply a shill for his corporate masters and his columns are quite predictable in both tone and message.
Allan
Highlighted the line about David Brooks so he could find it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sullivan does the research and can find no mention of doing away with collective bargaining, so they can take their “Walker won!” argument and cram it.
Meanwhile, the usually lucid (on domestic issues) Jonathon Chait describes “Chuck” Lane–neocon and opponent of the minimum wage and health care reform– as “center-left”.
chopper
so i guess it’s wrong for private union members to own any stock in the company they work for, because then they have a voice in who they negotiate with.