Rebranding “Union” and “Collective Bargaining”
Words and Labels Have a Shelf Life
Just as shoes, socks, and underwear get worn and torn so do words. If I were writing a Christmas song today, I would probably not include the line: “Don we now our gay apparel”. Words fall out of meaning and lose context just as socks wear to show heel and toes gaping out.
The words and labels connected with the
“Labor Movement” including: union, collective bargaining, and all of the anachronisms like AFL-CIO, AFSME, and WEAC are as glaringly out of sync with the average Joe as “Don we now our gay apparel”.
The need for sprucing up the “labor words” became uncomfortably obvious to me as I watched and heard the statement of one of the Democratic candidates speak on a local news segment, when she said something like, “Collective bargaining rights should be reinstated…”. It made me cringe. Not because I disagree, but because I could only imagine the reaction of the average person to those words.
“Collective Bargaining” Bought and Sold
Let’s face it, the expression “collective bargaining” has been bought and sold by the fringe right. They own it. It has been dragged through the union busting mud of Fox News, talk radio, and the barrage of Koch Bros. and ALEC propaganda spin cycle machines so many times that, to the average person, the label “collective bargaining” might be compared to using the word “bitch” and expecting the listener to imagine a female dog. The same problem exists for many of the words and labels of the labor movement – with the words “Labor Movement” included. When labels have been co-opted to excite an emotionally negative or confused response in the listener, you have a gaping hole in your shoe, and as you continue to wear it, you will eventually develop a limp.
Now, as these issues will be drawn front and center in the upcoming recall elections, it is no time to show up with frayed jeans, and stained shirts. It is time to develop the language, words, and labels surrounding the labor issues and dress them up in the crisp, tailored and pressed uniforms they deserve.
Just because you many
not agree with the fringe right, doesn’t mean you can’t learn from them. If you hear any GOP legislator speak in any forum you are likely to hear words like: “job creators”, “obmacare”, “trillion dollar deficits”, and “spending problem” repeated over and over. Why? Because it works to reinforce their agenda.
If candidates, like the state Senator I heard on the local news, continue to use words and labels that elicit a negative or uncertain response from voters, they are being counter productive to their goal and, in effect, may be supporting the opponent.
Candidates need to dress up their language in positive, forceful, and powerful terms so as not to say “Help Wanted” but “Now Hiring”! The armed forces have rebranded themselves, as has nearly every major company, while the labor movement still hangs on the same words, phrases, and anachronisms, that might as well be Greek to the average person, and have lost their zing and meaning over the years.
Pro Work – Workers Will
So unions are Pro-work forces now enrolling new members. Collective bargaining is little more than the pursuit of happiness through the “Workers’ Will”. Unions are a Pro Work Force consisting of Pro Work teachers, Pro iron workers, Pro electricians. You don’t “join” a union, you are invited into the power of Pro workers.
If you need more, the best in branding is “Now Available”.
Walker Budget Balanced/NOT Balanced
Walker says, wherever he goes, that the Wisconsin budget is “structurally” balanced for the first time in years
Does that mean that the budget
is balanced? No. It is another Walkerism – a half truth – a dangling part truth that sounds good to voters. Wisconsin Public Television’s Here and Now does a great job of explaining the difference between Walker’s “structurally” balanced budget and “real” balanced budget; using generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
GAAP takes into consideration the full scope of assets vs. liabilities, and according to this measurement the Wisconsin budget stands at a 3 billion dollar deficit – the largest deficit ever in Wisconsin’s history!
When Walker ran for office he said over and over and over again that Wisconsin, under Doyle, had a 3 billion dollar deficit – he was using GAAP to support this claim. Now that he is governor, he is using structural accounting, to make the claim that the budget is balanced, when in fact, according to the same measure he used to chide Doyle, the budget is 3 billion dollars in deficit – a greater deficit then Doyle’s!
Below is the video that explains the facts and the shift that Walker uses to claim his accomplishment of a balanced budget.
Watch Capitol Insight on the status of Wisconsin deficit on PBS. See more from Here and Now.
Walker Lawyers Up – BIG TIME
Walker goes to “talk” – with big guns
Walker is going to “talk” to John Doe District Attorney John Chisholm. He is not going in with a legal pad tucked under his arm and a fresh, new bic pen tucked behind his ear.
Was he issued a subpoena; a legal order commanding the person or organization named in the subpoena to give sworn testimony? No one is saying.
Walker has moved out of the arms of the shadow Department of Justice, aka Michael Best. the law firm that has been employed to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars to litigate everything from vote district boundaries and voter ID legislation, to the questionable defense of Justice Gableman. Walkers “Friends” are represented by John Buskupic, yet another spoke of the Michael Best wheel. Read “Walker/Buskupi – A Just Dessert Why did Walker go outside his friends at Michael Best to “talk” to D. A. Chisholm?
Oh to be a fly on the wall
The press release below was issued Friday and does not reveal the exact time and place for the “little talk”. It’s been suggested by the New York Times that the end of the week timing of the release suggests an attempt to squash media coverage.
It appears Walker is desperately struggling to spin his “talk” in a positive light, to a point where his explanations sound more like a riddle: “I hired counsel to insure that I am in the best position possible to continue aiding the inquiry.” Is that like, “I put up an electric fence to insure easy access to my garden?”.
The secrecy involved in a John Doe investigation make for the stuff of a mystery novel or an episode of Sherlock Holmes. One can only imagine what will be said in the “talk”, but here is a bit of possible dialogue”
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Chisholm: Your desk the the County Executive office was about 15 feet from the office of Kelly Rindfleisch?
Walker: Yes. Chisholm: We know that Rindfleisch occupied that office during business hours for months and sent hundreds of emails on a secret network connection in that office. Walker: Yes. Chisholm: Did you know about the illegal campaign activities orchestrated on a daily basis in that office? Walker: (Stay tuned) |
Grand Jury?
Anyone smell a grand jury investigation in Walker’s future?
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them.
A grand jury is so named because it has a greater number of jurors than a trial jury
Yep. Definitely in the Nixon “I am not crook” – stage.
Watergate = Walkergate. Time to call for Walker’s resignation.
Walker’s fate seems to be traveling on the same journey, and it has been commented, and tweeted that Walkergate is now in the “I am not a crook” stage, in reference to a Nixon speech where he said the same shortly after details of Watergate broke. One of the popular songs of the time was written and sung by Arlo Guthrie; “The Presidential Rag”. His lyrics filled the air waves with questions that were circling through the mind’s of people across the country, like “If you didn’t know about that one, then what else don’t you know?”
TAX the Pink out of Foundations with Political Agendas
Is the IRS Sleeping?
Exemption Requirements – Section 501(c)(3) Organizations
To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates IRS
The right wing is out of the closet to expose the skeletons of racism, sexism, disregard of the middle class.
With the new aggression of the right, the
level playing field for campaign contribution has been on “tilt”, allowing the privileged to vote with dollars to a point where Rick Perry spent over $300 per vote in his primary run in Iowa.
But, that isn’t enough. Now, the IRS looks the other way. Right leaning foundations are dealing tax-payers a double whammy. They pay no tax on holdings, while they can award an individual contributor a further tax exemption for a donation. This is all well and good as long as the rules for an exemption are followed and enforced.
Statutes are neither followed or enforced. The right has ratcheted up their power grabbing agenda to upset the playing field from “tilt” to “near vertical”. They are using foundations to “influence legislation as a substantial part of its (their) activities”.
We can expect more announcements like that of the Komen Foundation to dump Planned Parenthood from support.
What can this be but an attempt to influence legislative agenda? Planned Parenthood was clearly dumped because of activities regarding birth control and abortion. Planned Parenthood does not fit into the right wing legislative agenda. Evidence of this new push to the right is exemplified in by the advocacy of Karen Handel.(pictured right)
It wasn’t until 2008 that the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, a 501(c)3, founded the Susan G. Komen For The Cure Advocacy Alliance, a 501(c)4 non-profit that, under IRS rules, can spend unlimited donor funds on lobbying. It’s that arm of the Komen Foundation that former Secretary of State and failed gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel (R-GA) was hired to run in April 2011, despite being once investigated for issuing voter ID regulations that the Department of Justice determined to be discriminatory against non-white voters. She’d been serving “as a consultant” to the organization since January 2011.Komen Foundation ousted their Democratic lobbyist just before hiring Karen Handel
Breaking –
Susan G. Komen Foundation reverses decision to end grants to Planned Parenthood
Susan G. Koman for the Cure has reversed its decision to end grants to Planned Parenthood after twenty-two Democratic senators sent a letter to the group’s founder and CEO urging it to reconsider the decision.Decision Reversed
NOW
What What about the Bradley Foundation
Why does the money pour into the Walker coffers and enable him to shell out a $300,000 media buy?
It is simple, really. It can be boiled down to one word “control”. Most people have never experienced the addictive emotional lift that comes with holding a lot of money. Many can identify with this
lift by recalling the moment they signed the mortgage papers for a house or farm. It is a rush of sorts. It’s not unlike the rush of an addicted gambler who loses the family farm on a bet just to get the rush of the risk, except that the wealthy 1% can afford the gamble with little risk of personal debt or injury. They sit around the poker table of tax exempt foundations, and legislative alliances and lay down their bets in a game to alter public policy to their liking. The rush of the moment is filled with the adrenaline of the gamble for control. What a rush for them. What a “fun” game!
One of the main bullet points, high on the agenda of control, is privatization. Why are these self defined conservatives investing big money in dismantling government in favor of privatization of education, social security, health care, and nearly every other public program? They gain corporate control. The administration of government programs will no longer be influenced by the people of a representative government, but will be run by private, corporate, boards of directors, and the foundation leaders and organizations like the Bradley Foundation, Koch Bros, and Americans for Prosperity will be first in line to gain the power of control of the brave, new corporate America.
Wealth buys power and control of the message

Just such a man is Michael W. Grebe president and chief executive of the Bradley Foundation, which during the period of 2001 to 2009, doled out nearly as much money as the seven Koch and Scaife foundations combined. Less than a week after being elected governor, Scott Walker and his wife met privately with Michael Grebe, one of the most powerful philanthropic forces behind America’s conservative movement. The list of major recipients reads like an all-star roster of conservative think tanks: millions of dollars directed to well-known groups such as the Hudson Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, and the Federalist Society – all trying to put their stamp on three branches of government.
Grebe likened the Bradley Foundation to the 1960s Green Bay Packers, who ruled the football world with a fearsome ground game and a deceptively simple running play, the sweep.
“We’re going to run off tackle, right over there, and we’re telling you we’re going to run there and we’re going to knock you on your butt and carry the ball down the field,” Grebe said during an interview inside the foundation’s headquarters near downtown. “There are no surprises.”
The Bradley Foundation is a “Philanthropic” Organization
As a tax exempt foundation the Bradley Foundation is not allowed to involve itself in political activities. So, how is it that the foundation’s money supports ideas, as well as political leaders like Scott Walker, who have turned those ideas into action, and have helped drive America’s conservative revolution over the past quarter-century?
Good question.
Taking Michael Grebe’s football analogy and running with it, the video below cries foul to the political activities of this tax exempt foundation and its president “Greedy Grebe”
Demand that the IRS review the activities of the Bradley Foundation and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the violation of 501(c)(3) statutes.
NFL players lobby against union busting
NFL Players who have taken a stand against union busting
Left to right – Jay Cutler – Rex-Grossman – Courtney Roby
I am a bit tired of posting pictures of the compromised and corrupt governor, legislators, and their friends and aides.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Quarterbacks Jay Cutler of the Chicago Bears and Rex Grossman of the Washington Redskins are among six NFL players urging Indiana lawmakers to oppose right-to-work legislation.
Cutler, from Santa Claus, Ind., and Grossman, from Bloomington, joined New Orleans’ Courtney Roby, Pittsburgh’s Trai Essex, St. Louis’ Mark Clayton and San Diego’s Kris Dielman in sending letters to Indiana House members Monday. Days earlier, the NFL Players Association came out against the measure that would ban private contracts that require workers to pay union fees for representation.
Cutler called it a “political ploy” against workers.
Supporters including Gov. Mitch Daniels say the ban would attract more jobs to Indiana. House Democrats have boycotted the chamber to stall the measure, and union protesters have packed the Statehouse each day since last week.
Sports Illustrated
Indiana has become the first Rust Belt state to enact the contentious right-to-work labor law prohibiting labor contracts that require workers to pay union representation fees. You can bet Wisconsin is in the sights of the union busting shotgun.
Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the bill Wednesday after it passed the Senate following weeks of discord that saw House Democrats boycott the Legislature and thousands of protesters gather at the Statehouse.Indiana is the first state in a decade to enact a right-to-work law.\
Left to right – Trai Essex – Mark Clayton – Kris Dielman
Of course, these players do not work for minimum wage, but they do know the importance of collective negotiation for protection of their rights in the process of contract negotiations.
They are the NFL super heroes of the week.
Now it is time for a Discounted Workers Double Check
Green Bay Packers Main Switchboard: 920.569.7500
WALKER – RESIGN to Truth
The photo to the right comes from “freeze frame” of a video interview done by WISN TV, as Walker makes his first public comment regarding the John Doe Investigation indictments. Can freeze frames provide a portrait of a split second which might prove to be as effective as a visual lie detector test?
It is clear that Walker is now bound
by the gag of the investigation, meaning that he has been interviewed, and therefore is bound to silence.
The similarities of Walkergate to the Watergate conspiracy have not been missed by observers. It is nearly 40 years ago that the political scandal involving abuse of power and bribery and obstruction of justice; led to the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. Walker’s fate seems to be traveling on the same journey, and it has been commented, and tweeted that Walkergate is now in the “I am not a crook” stage, in reference to a Nixon speech where he said the same shortly after details of Watergate broke.
One of the popular songs of the time was written and sung by Arlo Guthrie; “The Presidential Rag”. His lyrics filled the air waves with questions that were circling through the mind’s of people across the country, like “If you didn’t know about that one, then what else don’t you know?”
The video below sets Arlo Guthrie’s song in the frame of John Doe investigation as it circles closer and closer to Walker, much as another investigation of another era finally forced the first resignation of a sitting President of the United States.
The complete “Presidential Rag” with Arlo Guthte.
Wisconsin – Open for (SHADY) Business
Why does Walker attract and surround himself with such a shady bunch of aides and associates?
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Pictured above in Wisconsin’s State Capital (adorned with New York and Italian marble, Wisconsin oak furniture, a thirty-foot skylight and an Edwin Blashfield mural symbolizing Wisconsin’s past, present and future) are some of the faces of those thus far indicted in John Doe investigation. On the ceiling left: Mike Heubsch ceiling right Kelly Rindflesch framed left: Kevin Kavenaugh Framed right: Brett Davis foreground center: Mike Russell
This is beyond coincidence
They are pictured before Walker in the elegant
and stately surroundings intentionally; to draw the stark contrast of their alleged and shady actions against the background of beauty, to underscore their betrayal of all that is Wisconsin.
The cliches that befit the circumstance run rampant, like a litany of from the lips of a dark, drunken clown – “Won the battle lost the war” – “A man can be judged by the company he keeps” – “To the victor goes the spoils” – “He brought it on himself” (Please feel free to add more in the comment section)
Let’s face it. We know from our own and individual life experience that these things don’t happen by chance or ill luck. Guilty or not, Walker has surrounded himself with the people accused, as a direct result of his own actions; as the wrong answer to a defective equation. You don’t spend years in the company of people with loose morals by chance, but by choice.
Unless This Is Nipped in the Bud
Walker’s habit of surrounding himself with people of questionable credentials, and affiliations did not end when he was County Executive. His most recent, scraping the barrel, appointment was Jocelyn Webster, now WI Dept. of Administration’s Communications Director. She has never lived in Wisconsin before her appointment to the $90,000
job for which she was given a $10,000 stipend to move from Texas. She is linked to shady deals of Karl Rove and the Office of Political Affairs in the Bush Administration. Will she be the next Walker associate to be indicted in a future scandal? She certainly has the resume.
Enter the Deer Czar
James Kroll (pictured left with Walker) will have no problem comfortably adjusting to the title “deer czar.” Kroll is the talkative Texas deer biologist tapped by Gov. Scott Walker to figure out what’s supposedly wrong with the management of Wisconsin’s deer herd and the hunting seasons that are of almost mythical import in the state. He has never lived in Wisconsin. Not a day. Yet, this is a state where John Muir spend his boyhood, and the state where the word “ecology” was born through the work of Aldo Leopold and the “Sand County Almanac” – and Walker needed to import a Deer Czar from
Texas, the same state where he visits regularly to fill his recall campaign war chest?
The John Doe Indictments – A Symptom if Deeper Woes
The embarrassing accusations coming forth in the John Doe (The Deer Czar must not of culled that one) Investigation are only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface is the mass of sharp frozen edges that is tearing a deep hole in the hull of Wisconsin. The Walker course was set with the aid of a national right wing front, dominated by operatives who may truly believe that illegal actions justify the means. We see this daily in the form of vilification of teachers, unions, heath care, and any and all regulations as demonstrated in the mining bill.
The End Of Walker Cannot Come Soon Enough.
“Walker is No Extremist” – Wis. State Journal
Now, just a year laterIt becomes clearer just how Walker was repeatedly re-elected in a hugely Democratic County.
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June 5,2010 Journalism Ethics Conference goes global Journalists and citizens from the United States to India used their laptops and other mobile devices to participate in the second annual journalism ethics conference, “New Journalism – New Ethics?” staged by the UW Center for Journalism Ethics. John Smalley, (Pictured above) editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, speaks during the What Ever Happened to Verification in Journalism? session at the conference. Just before the conference, the center, with partners, published one of the first comprehensive reports on the ethics of not-for-profit investigative newsrooms. The report was discussed at a special session of the conference.Ethics Journalism Conference Ethics is great to discuss, but ethics in action is the mark of the courageous. |
On Integrity – Wiki
Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes.
In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy, in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.
Account for the Discrepancy or Alter Their beliefs
Walker
Judging from his past, it is a safe bet that Walker will blame the unions, the press, the democrats, the protesters, and just about everyone and everything else before he admits complicity in any illegal activities. Infact, the endorsement of Sunday October 10, 2010 was dead wrong – he is an extremist.
Wisconsin State Journal
Apparently, the editorial board of the Wisconsin State Journal should schedule a meeting with a top item on the agenda – Ethics. The board of the newspaper, with a strong and leading political voice, threw their weight behind Walker and, in so doing, holds responsibility for his winning vote.
They now have an ethical responsibility to the people of Wisconsin to account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.
POLL – 41% of Voters Live in Milwaukee?
Many People of All Stripes Surprised – Really? How could this Be?
The Marquette University Law School poll released Tuesday shows 51 percent of 701 registered voters polled approve of Walker’s performance while 46 percent disapprove. The poll has a 3.8 percentage-point margin of error.
I am a lefty blogger, and
even though I try to get my head around the views of the right, my associations and personal values are drastically skewed to the left. That said, after a million signatures were collected to trigger a recall of Gov. Scott Walker, how could a poll reflect that 51% of respondents approve of his performance? Is that possible? Granted, this poll was conducted before the most recent John Doe charges were released, but still…
We all know the problem with polls; how the questions can be slanted to achieve a desired result and that the headlines of news stories do not necessarily reflect the specific results, and methods of any given poll.
The Poll Was Administrated by Charles Franklin
Mr. Franklin is a political scientist who was interviewed on Here and Now last week by host Frederica Freyberg:
Frederica Freyberg:
What are you doing this week?Charles Franklin:
This week we’re interviewing 700 registered voters statewide. We include cell phones, which is increasingly important. And we’ll be out with results on Wednesday at 8:00 a.m.Frederica Freyberg:
Is this who’s ahead for Democrats in a recall?
Charles Franklin:
We’ll be asking a variety of questions, including some questions about the recall.Frederica Freyberg:
I think what you’re telling me is wait for you.Charles Franklin:
Wait for it.
Video of Full Interview
Watch Polling specialist assesses recall movement on PBS. See more from Here and Now.
Franklin currently tweets as @PollsAndVotes
Even Mr. Franklin acknowledges his astonishment at the number of signatures collected to recall Walker.
41% ????
I am not statistician or mathematician, but looking at the polling data by region, something stuck out like a protester in the Assembly Gallery. The data under “Region” seems to suggest that 41% of respondents were drawn from the Milwaukee area?
See Methodology-MLSP Jan
I do know that many people in the “Milwaukee area” are so red that they might approve of Walker even he were indicted. I also know that 41% of of the population of Wisconsin do not reside in the greater Milwaukee area. If you look at the details you will also find a great number of refusals and hang-ups. I doubt the skewing was intentional, but since Mr. Franklin will be polling the people of Wisconsin on a weekly basis, I suggest that he check and correct this obvious flaw in the sampling.
Read More About Mr. Franklin’s Poll
For more on the Right weighting of this poll Walker Poll Grossly Mis-weighted
3rd Down and 7 in Walker STUPIDBOWL
Walker’s Office was 7 yards (25 feet) from Secret Email Network
Russell’s county office was less than 25 feet from Scott Walker’s on the third floor of the Courthouse, the complaint notes. Rindfleisch succeeded Russell as deputy chief of staff.
7 yards
That is the distance
between Walker’s desk and the secret email network. So, Kelly Rindfleisch is sitting in an office just a few steps away from Walker, communicating on a secret network to organize and arrange campaign fund raising events – and he didn’t know what was going on? Well, if Walker was unaware, it certainly smacks of incompetence. For a governor who boasts for merit pay for teachers based on competence, it is time for the Governor take a drastic pay cut – or better yet resign to allow a more competent leader to take his place.
“If you didn’t know about that one, then what else don’t you know?” “You said you’d never go along with that kind of stuff nowhere.” The Presidential Rag
Recognize the lyrics above? It is from a song by Arlo Guthrie. He sung the words in the early days of Watergate scandal, when when Nixon claimed to know nothing about the break in. Below is another quote from the Rindfleisch complaint. A private email from Walker to top staffer shortly after Darlene Wink admitted to campaigning for him on the taxpayer’s dime.
“We cannot afford another story like this one,” Walker wrote to Timothy Russell, his longtime aide and adviser. “No one can give them any reason to do another story. That means no laptops, no websites, no time away during the work day, etc.”
The criminal complaint notes that the activity on the secret email network diminished after Darelene Wink’s resignation. BUT, the email suggests Walker’s knowledge of the secret activities and the illegal activities originating 25 feet from his desk.
What Next – Will Walker go for the 1st Down
Judging from his past, it is a safe bet that Walker will blame the unions, the press, the democrats, the protesters, and just about everyone and everything else before he admits complicity in any illegal activities.
Even as the new charges were being announced, the GOP Assembly shoved through the mining bill against the drumming, protests, and sad and angry tears of dissension. The same thing all over again. Yet, another bill, written in the golden halls of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was pushed, slammed, and bludgeoned through echoing the tactics of so many other legislative maneuvers of the past year.
History repeats itself, so we can expect a similar parade of events that passed over the course of a year in the Nixon White House and Watergate – culminating in the headline:
NIXON (WALKER) RESIGNS!
Arlo Guthrie said and says it all.











