General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Has the banning of dkf made you more reluctant to criticize certain things on DU? [View all]Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)I started working for a company in Georgia, a Right to Work state, which had a Union move less than six months after I started. I was asked to sign a pledge card, and I refused knowing that if the vote failed, those who had signed the cards would be targeted. I said I would probably vote for the union, but I had no intention of advertising that fact to Management. I was too new, and needed the job desperately. The person asking me to sign said. "Those who don't sign could have bad things happen, like a brick through your windshield, and it can get worse."
Now, I don't know about you, but that is the absolute definition of a union thug. I went from a pro union stance to more ambivalent in about a second. The vote failed despite my vote in favor, and while I did not get a brick through my windshield, the threat was there. I left that company a couple years later for a better job, but I've never forgotten the feeling that those kinds of threats probably did more to defeat the union vote than anything Management said.
Now, am I anti-Union for doing this? My prediction was proven correct, as those who were pushing the Union the hardest were all fired for various reasons after the vote failed, oh it took a while, but it happened. Some were "tardy" too often. Others were substandard work performance, and still others were argumentative with Management. But the result was about a third of those who signed the cards were fired over the next eighteen months. Again, I voted for the Union, but we lost, and that was that.
I had a post hidden once for posting the RW talking points. My intention as stated in the thread was to help us come up with talking points and arguments to counter them. The idea was to help get as much information as possible to counter the arguments. The average voter is not going to research the lies from Faux News, and remember it is the highest rated 24 hour network out there. So we needed to have more info on how to counter the arguments.
Roughly 80% of Democrats support the ACA in polling. http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2013/7/24/poll-moderate-conservative-democrats-support-of-aca-slipping But there is going to be a faction who do not. Those are people who want single payer, or people who want less regulations than the current law has. That means that as far as this board is concerned, roughly one in five Democrats are merely shills and trolls as far as the standards of the members of this community are concerned.
We need to be careful with our litmus tests. Because we are liable to end up with a very small, ideologically pure, party that is stuck in the minority. Seven Democrats voted with the Republicans on one bill. They were named in a thread and the poster asked how anyone could support them. I pointed out that in accordance with the site rules, I wholeheartedly supported my Congressman, John Barrow, who voted with the republicans. It was a meaningless vote, the Repugs were going to win it, and with that vote Barrow was able to establish his "conservative" credentials while costing the Democrats nothing. In rural Georgia, getting a Democrat elected is tough, getting a liberal democrat elected is neigh on impossible. But if several of the members of this board had their way, Barrow and others like him would be tossed out of the party. It was thanks to people like Barrow who could and did win in Conservative districts that we had Speaker Pelosi, and it was those conservative blue dogs who were targeted by the RW to shift the balance of power in the House in 2010.
So am I an anti-union troll? I detest the drone strikes. I am opposed to a large military, and would love nothing more than to see it reduced by 50% or more. I am absolutely on the record as being anti NSA spying both domestic and foreign. I can understand and agree with the need for reasonable targeted espionage. Yet the vacuum everything up approach is abhorrent to me. Especially domestically, where I think the letter and spirit of the 4th Amendment is being shat upon.
The only posts that could be considered "Anti ACA" (I don't like the term Obamacare, it was intended as an insult from the RW, and I rarely use it except when I am paraphrasing someone else or quoting them) is where I pointed out truthfully that one size does not fit all, and while it is helping many people who absolutely need it, it is going to be a strain on other people. When we Democrats passed it, we said we could fix it later. Before we can fix it, we have to be able to discuss what is really broken, or needs improvement.
Being a Democrat is not just a job as a cheerleader. It is being more for the common man, more for the ideals of equal opportunity, and opposed to abuses. I speak out about systemic abuses of the police, and other times the abuses of any power. Just because we are Democratic Party supporters does not mean we are expected to have the same ideals and principals. Some times I struggle to find any principle in our party. So far as I can tell regarding some Democratic Party Members, we are in favor of winning elections, and opposed to losing them, everything else is negotiable. Right now there are numerous threads about proposals from Democrats to cut "entitlements" and apparently that is an acceptable topic to disagree with the Democratic Party elected officials.
It sickens me from time to time, to see our party shifting to the right on so many issues. We were opposed to the war, and the needless cycle of death, until we were in charge, then we absolutely demanded that we support the President. I can support President Obama and still want more from him. Arguing that it is impossible is like saying that parents who say their child can do better when they get a B on a test are not supportive. You push, pull, cajole, argue, and entice people sometimes. We are not robots, and we can't expect to win elections based upon what people should know. We need to be able to discuss the issues as honestly as possible, because only that way can we arrive at good, logical, common sense, and morally correct decisions.
DKF may have been a troll for ten years, but here is the thing. No troll can possibly hope to change the minds of Democratic Party people here. At most, such a person can only strengthen our ability to argue for our side of the issue. Some Democrats may support Zimmerman over Martin. Some Democrats may support the absolute authority of the police, and others like myself oppose such ideals on principle. The people on this board have two things in common, we are Democrats, and we are alive.