unions killing jobs...

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Riot

Funny, in many other first world countries, every worker gets benefits like that.

It's called, "normal".

I laugh at the demonization of unions, by people that hardly mentioned them a year ago <g>

Oh, well, when the demonization of the Muslim Kenyan Non-Citizen Black President has been disproved, and the demonization of "death panel health care" has been disproved, you have to go with something new. Last year the Koch Brothers and the RGA and ALEC decided it would be unions, and passed out the talking points sheets at the annual convention for the governors to initiate at the state level. Politics power grabs. So it goes. GOP-TV (Faux News) got the memo, too, and started in training their listeners that unions are filled with "evil thugs". Those kindergarten teachers and 9-11 NY firefighters, yeah, those thugs! <g>

The GOP has always been good at messaging. Hell, Rupert Murdoch supported Obama, but Roger Ailes had a hissy fit of hate, and was making so much money for Rupert, he let Ailes run with the Obama-hate on Faux. The Tea Party is causing the regular GOP no end of pain, as the TP (formed by GOP operatives) got out of control and talk the talk, but fail to vote the vote the right way in Congress, but the GOP is taking them down one by one and regaining control (Rove against Perry and Bachmann, for example). You need compliance in the underlings to survive in the current GOP theocracy. The power elite aren't giving up any of it, especially to a bunch of fools who don't believe in climate change or evolution.

Kind of a double standard no? Unions are firefighters, police and kidy-garden teachers, but Corporations are evil and are not made up of workers and investors. The reason people are anti-union is they have seen them destroy the automobile industry and the majority of public schools in this country and are concerned about the rest.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

The reason people are anti-union is they have seen them destroy the automobile industry and the majority of public schools in this country and are concerned about the rest.

Unions have not single-handedly destroyed anything (let's talk frankly about the utterly incompetent and terrible management of some of the automobile companies that lead them to the brink far beyond any union pensions they gave to their employees). Let alone the public school system (witness the destruction of "no child left behind" and lack of funding). That's absurd hyperbole to blame the unions for corporate malfeasance. But it is exactly what the GOP wants you to think.

"Sure, we brought the US to the very brink of economic disaster with our Wall Street buddies but ... it was the unions fault! It was the Democrats fault! We are awesome business managers! In fact, what we need is even less regulation, and even less accountability! Then give us what little you have left, Social Security and Medicare, and let us manage that for you, too!" - the Republican Party, speaking for their corporate owners.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Riot

Unions have not single-handedly destroyed anything (let's talk frankly about the utterly incompetent and terrible management of some of the automobile companies that lead them to the brink far beyond any union pensions they gave to their employees). Let alone the public school system (witness the destruction of "no child left behind" and lack of funding). That's absurd hyperbole to blame the unions for corporate malfeasance. But it is exactly what the GOP wants you to think.

"Sure, we brought the US to the very brink of economic disaster with our Wall Street buddies but ... it was the unions fault! It was the Democrats fault! We are awesome business managers! In fact, what we need is even less regulation, and even less accountability! Then give us what little you have left, Social Security and Medicare, and let us manage that for you, too!" - the Republican Party, speaking for their corporate owners.

"Lack of funding" is the absurd. It costs more to send a kid to public school in Newark than it does to Yale. Money isn't the cure, though that is what the all powerful NJEA (insert any other state here) would have you think. Don't stop believing!

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

"Lack of funding" is the absurd. It costs more to send a kid to public school in Newark than it does to Yale. Money isn't the cure, though that is what the all powerful NJEA (insert any other state here) would have you think. Don't stop believing!

Don't you get it? We spend more money on education than other countries, and our education sucks. We are like 9th in reading internationally, and down in the mid-twenties in math and science. It's pathetic. We're incompetent educationally on the international stage. Our kids can't even afford college - and we just took more money from programs that help kids afford it. Republicans want to strip and privatize it, giving the last money left to corporations for making profit off it.

Education is currently being attacked and even mocked as unnecessary. We have multiple candidates for President of the United States that publicly and proudly simply disregard science and education in favor of cults. It's un-effing-believable. We are an international laughingstock, pitied by other countries as they have watched us fall further and further behind.

You blame the teachers unions. Nonsense. It's the targeted funding to programs that work. Bush -yes, Bush - threw tons of money into the useless No Child Left Behind program that encouraged the very thing you decry. Yes, we need proper funding, appropriate funding as part of trying to get our pathetically uneducated kids educated.

The Republican party is desperately stripping every last cent they can out of what's left of this country, to give to private business, and that's pretty much Social Security, Medicare, and school funding. And they can't do it unless they demonize what stands in their way: teachers, firefighters, policemen ("public unions").

[Antitrust32]

No Child left behind was good intentions from Bush, but not a good policy.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Antitrust32

No Child left behind was good intentions from Bush, but not a good policy.

True. It turned disastrous. Obama immediately halted it in like the first month after he was elected. But I fear he is going too much to charter schools, which puts it right into the hands of privateers. Yes, Obama is very Republican in many ways.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Riot

Don't you get it? We spend more money on education than other countries, and our education sucks. We are like 9th in reading internationally, and down in the mid-twenties in math and science. It's pathetic. We're incompetent educationally on the international stage.

You blame the teachers unions. Nonsense. It's the targeted funding to programs that work. Bush -yes, Bush - threw tons of money into the useless No Child Left Behind program that encouraged the very thing you decry. Yes, we need proper funding, appropriate funding.

I hate Obama, Bush, Congress, Senate and Clinton all the same. I blindly follow no one's agenda but my own. Pointing the finger at the NCLB is ludicrous, at least it was an effort to hold teachers accountable and was authored by Miller and Boehner if my memory is correct. Also was very popular among both parties (no doubt the left side was lobbied to love it since it would get $$$ into the pockets of the unions).

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

Kind of a double standard no? Unions are firefighters, police and kidy-garden teachers, but Corporations are evil and are not made up of workers and investors. The reason people are anti-union is they have seen them destroy the automobile industry and the majority of public schools in this country and are concerned about the rest.

I used to be as anti-union as they come however the pendulum has moved so far in favor of business and they have no qualms about destroying your life for the enrichment of a few. My view of unions has changed.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by jms62

I used to be as anti-union as they come however the pendulum has moved so far in favor of business and they have no qualms about destroying your life for the enrichment of a few. My view of unions has changed.

It isn't the people in the unions, it is the union management that fosters the vitriol. Nobody hates teachers, except of course good teachers that cannot stand the other 80% of hangers on just collecting their protected jobs that require very little energy and even less accountability.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

Nobody hates teachers, except of course good teachers that cannot stand the other 80% of hangers on just collecting their protected jobs that require very little energy and even less accountability.

You can't be taken seriously when you accuse 80% of teachers in this country of being incompetent hangers-on. That's absurd, that's without any factual basis. I call bullshit: Prove it. Provide some facts or numbers to support such an extraordinary contention and hatred for teachers.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Riot

You can't be taken seriously when you accuse 80% of teachers in this country of being incompetent hangers-on. That's absurd, that's without any factual basis. I call bullshit: Prove it. Provide some facts or numbers to support such an extraordinary contention and hatred for teachers.

Two teacher friends use that number, just sharing their thoughts. They are both good teachers, cannot stand the union. The combined quote from these two would be surmised as, "the young kids come in here and all they want is tenure and summers off, they think 45K/yr is all the money in the world. The old teachers know they cannot be fired and no longer care, just plodding along toward retirement." This was not everyone but the 80% came from two individuals from separate school systems. I like teachers.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

Two teacher friends use that number, just sharing their thoughts. They are both good teachers, cannot stand the union. The combined quote from these two would be surmised as, "the young kids come in here and all they want is tenure and summers off, they think 45K/yr is all the money in the world. The old teachers know they cannot be fired and no longer care, just plodding along toward retirement." This was not everyone but the 80% came from two individuals from separate school systems. I like teachers.

It seems quite inappropriate to demonize 80% of the hundreds of thousands of teachers in this country as incompetent hanger's-on based upon the opinion of two people about their own personal situations.

And it is completely pathetic that we consider $45K a good salary for one of the most important and respected jobs in the (rest of) the world. No wonder all school districts are getting are people that would be better suited to working behind the counter of the local convenience store. People can't raise a family on $45K.

Smart, educated people are going to get the best careers they can, both mentally and financially rewarding. And teachers have always been rather terribly paid for what they do, and now being actively demonized as evil. Who will go into teaching now in the US?

Meanwhile, in some other countries, teachers are considered important, smart, are revered, the profession is very respected - the smartest and most dedicated are recuited - and are paid very, very well for it.

You get what you pay for, and the United States is cheap and lazy.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Riot

It seems quite inappropriate to demonize 80% of the hundreds of thousands of teachers in this country as incompetent hanger's-on based upon the opinion of two people about their own personal situations.

Since there are no mathematical or scientific methods for measuring a teachers success or ability, the word of co-workers is really all we have. Perhaps the lack of this method is the reason the union proliferation is so grand in that profession.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Riot

It seems quite inappropriate to demonize 80% of the hundreds of thousands of teachers in this country as incompetent hanger's-on based upon the opinion of two people about their own personal situations.

And it is completely pathetic that we consider $45K a good salary for one of the most important and respected jobs in the (rest of) the world. No wonder all school districts are getting are people that would be better suited to working behind the counter of the local convenience store. People can't raise a family on $45K.

Smart, educated people are going to get the best careers they can, both mentally and financially rewarding. And teachers have always been rather terribly paid for what they do, and now being actively demonized as evil. Who will go into teaching now in the US?

Meanwhile, in some other countries, teachers are considered important, smart, are revered, the profession is very respected - the smartest and most dedicated are recuited - and are paid very, very well for it.

You get what you pay for, and the United States is cheap and lazy.

I did forget to mention that 45K is starting and the reason they think it is all the money in the world is because "they are fresh out of college and live with their parents." It is an excellent starting salary and if that is what you make perhaps starting a family is not the best idea.

[Antitrust32]

my mom is a teacher and she told me the thought that bad teachers in unions cant be fired is not true. she said 5 teachers were fired from her school last year.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Antitrust32

my mom is a teacher and she told me the thought that bad teachers in unions cant be fired is not true. she said 5 teachers were fired from her school last year.

depending on location. good for that school district though.

[Antitrust32]

Originally Posted by Clip-Clop

depending on location. good for that school district though.

She teaches in the berbs outside Philly.

[Clip-Clop]

Originally Posted by Antitrust32

She teaches in the berbs outside Philly.

Bucks? I believe Bucks would not permit bad teachers.