Of course they have the right to protest just as much as the Tea Party why then keep on bringing up that Scott Walker won the election in response to the demonstrations? As far as what the teachers are doing for practical purposes they are striking. That is a right to or do you think people shouldn't have freedom to how they exercise their labor.
But here's the problem - it's not Walker's decision. If the only thing the GOP Senate sends to him is the compromise, he has to move on it. It's going to be part of the budget that they send him. If he wants to veto it, that's his choice, but that's fine with Dems - that just means the status quo survives, which is even better. If the Dems and GOP in the Senate come to agreement, there's nothing Walker can do about it - he only can hold his position as long as the GOP Senate and House *both* are united with him. To end any standoff - whether it be in a personal relationship, political, business, anywhere - you have to let the losing side save face. If you say "my way or else", the GOP Senate has no reason to go along with it. If you give them a "compromise" where you lose nothing, you make those moderate GOP Senators look like good guys that helped resolve an ugly situation, which gives them a reason to support it: even though, in actuality, it's EVERYTHING the Dems wanted in the first place (ie, not a real compromise).
That's a good way to destroy the unions. Democrats are terrible at figuring out how to govern. The GOP has no reason to move their position if Democrats don't - they have the better hand. "Raising hell" is not an end-goal political strategy unless Dems are willing to spend the next two years out of state.
Except the compromise takes the Governor out of the equation. If he doesn't have the support of the Senate, his proposal is dead. Of course it wasn't - I never suggested it was. If you actually were reading any of my posts instead of your reflexive "gotta defend Unions" mode, you'd see that in my very first post on this topic, I said the Dems would have to require that part be added in order to support it. Except that's not what happened here. What you said would violate the Constitution. Many states don't allow collective bargaining. This is a perfectly legal policy that a super-majority in Wisconsin has the legal right to implement. These need to make comparisons to illegal things or Egypt or whatever suggests you have a really hard time making your case on the merits and need to create strawmen to argue against. What does Labor lose by losing the right to collective negotiate in a year that they aren't going to collectively negotiate? Quit being vague - spell it out. It shouldn't be that hard if it's such a big thing. W didn't have GOP support, and Dems had enough Senators to filibuster. They actually could stop it in a vote. Dems don't have that luxury here. If Dems simply wait and the GOP simply waits, Dems lose. Try again - your strategy will lead to the dissolution of all the public unions the minute the Dems return home, whether it be next week, next month, or next year. Because I'm guessing the Dem Senators in Wisconsin don't intend to live the rest of their lives in a hotel in Illinois. As such, when they stop, there is going to be a resolution. Your goal should be to make that resolution as favorable to your side as possible. Again, show me the specific path that gets you to a resolution that the GOP can't live with, given that that they have a supermajority leadership.
Again not being fully versed on Wisconsin legislative practices I don't know if Walker can line item veto that part of the budget but leaving that aside the compromise you are suggesting still isn't a compromise from Walker's side as it prevents him from severely weakening the union's position. As the debate as been framed I suspect the unions and Dem Senators understand this and are holding out to keep pressure on the Wisconsin government as a whole. If the moderate Republicans can get most of their caucus to accept the compromise as you've outlined it I suspect the unions would accept it but at the moment since Walker and most of his legislative supporters will not accept it there is no reason to agree to that compromise from either side.
That's true - if you're willing to screw over the Wisconsin people in the process to get ahead politically in the future. Organized labor is the one that would be screwed if we follow the Lincoln model. For someone that claims to care about labor, it's an amusing position for you to take.
These type of moves are always a gamble but consider that raising hell by Tea Partiers and Republican legislators forced many compromises in the health care, most notably doing away with the public option. While the Tea Party and Republicans still complain that there were no compromise I think that says more about how extreme they are than how many concessions where given in the health care debate due to concerted opposition.
They can strike; I was simply telling you why your comparison to the tea party rallies was inaccurate. One is a strike the other is a protest, making the tea party rallies far less obstructive to society. The reason people bring up the election, is because a few(the teachers) are obstructing society in protest to the actions of the elected legislative body, thus undermining democracy.
For the third time, I DON'T CARE ABOUT WALKER. I'm talking about the GOP Senators and Dem Senators compromising. Walker's completely irrelevant if the Senate goes a different direction. If Walker wants to line item veto it, who cares? Then he gets neither the financial cuts or the 1-yr hiatus. That's the best possible outcome for Dems. The Senators are ones holding all the cards. It's no different than the Dems with health care - it didn't matter what the House or the President wanted. You can only pass the least of what the 3 sides agree to. If the Senate is only willing to go so far, then that's the ceiling of what Walker can get. Then what are we arguing about? If Labor talks to the moderate GOPers, and publicly suggests the compromise I proposed, that puts pressure on the GOP. They only need 5 (?) Senators on board to have a majority. Find the ones in the most moderate districts or the ones with the stronger labor bastions and talk to them. But at the end of the day, no politician ever wants to look weak - if you want to give them a reason to agree to your side, you have to let them come out of it looking like the good guys. Otherwise, there's no incentive for them if they are going to suffer the consequences of being the bad guys anyway. Democrats are terrible at political strategy, which is why they keep coming to power when people hate the GOP and immediately get kicked to the curb (1994, 2010). Still no one has suggested an actual path to how this ends in their favor except "protest until the other side unilaterally just agrees to all of our terms". That's a flat out stupid and failed strategy. Flip the two sides. If you had a supermajority and could do whatever the hell you wanted, would you cave to a minority that wasn't willing to compromise? If the US Senate had 70 Dems and the 30 GOPers were griping about health care and were stalling the process, would you think Dems should cave to them, even if lots of people were protesting health care and public opinion was turning against them? Because last I saw, even when it was 59/41, Dems didn't want their Senators caving at all to a GOP that actually had the power to stop the bill.
The GOP had a legislative endgame: they could filibuster to force their views on the table. If the Dems had 70 votes, do you think they would have compromised on the public option? What is the equivalent legislative endgame for the Dems in Wisconsin? The only one I can see is living in Illinois for the next 2 years and hoping the GOP Senator doesn't get sick of it and just use their non-budget workaround to force the issue.
As long as Walker holds a veto he is totally relevant plus he is leader of the Wisconsin GOP. I think you are confusing a line item veto with a regular veto. I don't know off hand if Wisconsin has one but if it does Walker could just veto part of the the bill locking the state into the agreement. You are pushing a compromise that none of the principal players have agreed to for the reasons previously stated. At the moment it is very unlikely but you are pushing it as though it will happen once the unions and Wisconsin Dems agree to it. The problem is even if they did there is little likelyhood it would come to pass at the moment. This is exactly the strategy that Tea Partiers and other opponents of the HCR used but if you notice they didn't put forward a compromise regarding just dropping the public option. What you are missing here is a strategy of gamesmanship in regard to the position you take. If it seems likely that the compromise you suggest is feasible then you take it but there is little incentive at the moment for either side to accept without greater pressure. Again the compromise you are advancing is a unilateral victory from those who want to preserve collective bargaining. Walker is correct that a mere freeze in collective bargaining that also prevents changes to present agreements doesn't structurally change things. For him and others in the GOP that is a meaningless change. While you say that Walker is irrelevant he is the leader of the GOP in Wisconsin and one thing that can be said about the GOP strategy is that they hold to party loyalty better than the Democrats. The only way that can be defeated is to strike enough fear in enough Repub senators. Actually the scenario already existed with the Dems had a 60 vote the majority but what happened was largely protests undermined Democrat cohesion.
The US Senate GOP couldn't filibuster when the Dems had a 60 vote majority. Keep in mind health care had been in the works for months before Scott Brown was elected.
Keep in mind that the obstruction to society is limited since there has been a state holiday during the protests and bad weather has essentially closed the schools for awhile in several parts of Wisconsin. Also large protests still obstruct the normal functioning of society in regard that they shut down traffic and divert public resources. Aren't the rights to assemble and free speech part of democracy? Anytime you protests you are going to obstruct society in some ways, there is no point to protest if it doesn't obstruct the normal function of society.
Walker did it himself? Are you sure it wasn't Hitler? <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/G0Roco3lilA?hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I'm sure the white house has some sort of security software on it's wifi network. Personally, I have Dirtbag Socialist Blocker 2.0 installed.
