I had one of those "Whoah!! moments today while listening

[Jackpine Radical]

to public radio. The top stories were the demonstrations occurring or threateded in (in approx. order) Egypt, Tunisia, Iraq, Yemen, Italy, Madison, Wi, Eau Claire WI…Get the picture?

[Cleita]

1. Yep. The world plebians are fighting back

from their oppression.

[Mojeoux]

39. Yay Plebes!!!!!!

My Peeps!

[knowbody0]

2. dominoes

oh, yeah.

[ZombieHorde]

3. Interesting times. Rec. nt

[slackmaster]

4. Cheesehead rebellion?

[H2O Man]

5. Recommended.

It's time.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. I believe it is, Patrick.

This could go worldwide in an instant. Funny--just last night I finished re-reading Gladwell's Tipping Point, so this has really been reverberating in my head.

[Luciferous]

14. Yeah, it is. I expect to see a lot of protests now that people have been

inspired by the Egyptians to fight back.

[TahitiNut]

25. It's PAST time.

Greets, my friend. :pals:

[loudsue]

36. Tahiti Nut??? Where have you been????

I haven't seen you post for...well, for ages!!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!! You get a big ole hug! :grouphug: and some floaty-hearty things :loveya: ! So good to see you!

[TahitiNut]

41. Been around ... some lurking ... only a couple of posts ... for about 18 months.

But VD is my time to pay DU for being here ... and spread a few hearts. :silly:

[loudsue]

46. It does my heart good just to know you're here.

Just so long as you're ok. I miss your posts and point of view. Glad you're still around! :hi:

[H2O Man]

47. Definitely!

[bluesmail]

54. I worried about you. eom

[Jackpine Radical]

56. Loudsue, Tahitinut, where have BOTH of you been?

Lemme in there :grouphug:

[loudsue]

61. Oh boy!

Come on, sugar....there's plenty of love to go around! :grouphug: :loveya:

[TahitiNut]

64. (LOL)

:rofl:

[RagAss]

6. Italy?????

[MiniMe]

9. Burlesconi

He is an ass

[Tx4obama]

10. Yes. a million people in Italy protested yesterday. They want Berlusconi out of office

he has recently been caught up in a sex scandal.

[RagAss]

18. Wow...I didn't thing anything could get Italy protesting.

[Solly Mack]

7. From there to here

K&R

[scarletwoman]

8. Ordinary people finally getting fed up, it seems to be catching on.

Let's hope it keeps spreading! On Wisconsin!

:toast:
sw

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Woo Hoo

and Skaal! :toast:

[scarletwoman]

15. Skål!

:D

[Jackpine Radical]

19. I was too lazy to switch to my Danish keyboard, but

if you're gonna be a purist,

Skål!

[H2O Man]

20. For no apparent reason,

other than my mind is wandering, I shall post a photo I took yesterday of some Danish artifacts that my cousin bought. They are from the "Later Funnel Beaker Culture":

[Mojorabbit]

38. Beautiful! nt

[scarletwoman]

21. Danish keyboard? Hell, all I did was use the google and copy/pasted.

An old trick I learned some time ago so I wouldn't have to figure out a bunch of alt/stuff on the keyboard. :D

And I'm Norwegian, dammit.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. I have a Mac, so Option-a gives me the character å.

It's easy when I remember to do it. I do also have Danish, German & French keyboards set up for occasional fooling around.

[scarletwoman]

28. :sigh:

Well, all I have is a Commodore 64, smarty pants. (Well, actually, it's a '98 Compaq pc...) :P

[Jackpine Radical]

29. I could loan you my Osborne…

[Hissyspit]

42. Colleague of mine used to use one on the job.

Ooo. Dual floppies. Sexy.

[Jackpine Radical]

48. I wrote a book on one of those monsters.

In Wordstar.

[Odin2005]

35. I use FireFox's ABCTajpu add-on

[Odin2005]

34. A fellow Norskie!!!

:hi:

[Jackpine Radical]

49. En Dansker her.

Min familie kommer fra nær spidsen af Jylland, meget tæt på Norge.

[Odin2005]

50. My family comes from Hornindal.

:hi:

[scarletwoman]

60. And a fellow native-born Minnesotan - although I know you live in Fargo now.

I wish I could speak Norsk, though. My paternal grandmother was first generation U.S. born (up in Dalton, MN), the language didn't pass very far down the line. My dad was the youngest of 6, and he never learned any. :(

:hi:
sw

[Odin2005]

65. I actually live on the Moorhead side of the river, so I'm still in MN!

:hi:

[grahamhgreen]

13. It will happen here as sure as day follows night.

[BeFree]

17. What will happen?

People in the streets demanding freedom?

And if so, what will the rest say? Will it be yelling at us to be quiet: "You're costing us money!"

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. Check out Al Jazeera page. Has a huge list of the protests all over the Middle east.

http://english.aljazeera.net/

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Yes, 1848... I keep mentioning that year for a reason

and we are at one of those moments.

Americans are also starting to wake up by the way.

[Jackpine Radical]

26. One of the main roots of Wisconsin progressivism

is the German "48'ers" who settled in Milwaukee when Europe got too hot for them. Milwaukee had a succession of Socialist mayors, up until 1960. The last one, old Frank Zeidler (Google him for the helluvit), died a few years ago.

[Yavin4]

53. Whoa! Milwaukee Had A Socialist Mayor AND Joe McCarthy as a Senator

both at the same time? How could that be?

[Jackpine Radical]

55. Milwaukee ain't Appleton.

Wisconsin is a land of political extremes. Superior in the northwest, and much of the south shore of Lake Superior have always been very far left because of all the socialist Scandinavians (especially Finns) and Milwaukee in the southwest because of the '48'er Germans. Racine, southeast of Milwaukee, was largely settled by leftist Danes, and Manitowoc up toward Green Bay is another Scandinavian leftist region. Then you have Waukesha, a high-class suburb just outside Milw, that elects people like Sensenbrenner, and Appleton, on the north end of Lake Winnebago, home of Tail Gunner Joe. And then of course there's Madison, in a class by itself.

[Jackpine Radical]

27. It's getting very interesting in Wisconsin right now.

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. That is good to know

[lunatica]

45. The idiocrat Wisconsin governor Walker is setting fires under people

He makes me want to be much more involved in protecting my union.

[LooseWilly]

43. Been reading a lot about 1848 recently, making me hope the lack of staying power isn't mirrored too.

None of those revolutions "stuck"... because workers seemed at a loss of what to demand when they caught the governments "with their pants down".

Do revolutionaries today have a clue what to demand?... What to do?... Or have they been sufficiently indoctrinated regarding the "inherent virtues" of capitalism in one of it's many isomers that they'll take some version that "promises" them some relief? (And spare us the Adam Smith capitalist theory idealism, unless monopolistic corporate capitalism, with state subsidization of losses in the case of "too big to fail," is first outlawed... under penalty of death— until then Adam Smith is no more relevant than the tooth fairy.)

Here in the US, seems to me the unions have been sufficiently vilified in the common imagination to mean that workers won't be given redress without (gasp) taking it, by force. And, most of the unions here (in the US) won't accept force as a legitimate tool. (Correct me if I'm wrong... teachers unions and public service unions, and the occasional teamsters or hotel workers, aren't willing to get into the "trenches" and burn down the houses of software engineers who will argue the virtues of classical liberal bourgeois economic theories to defend the status quo, even while such theories are no longer practiced.)

Unfortunately... I suspect 1848 might indeed be the relevant date for the US. The Irish, Spanish, and Greeks, on the other hand, might have some ideas worth considering.

I suspect that the 1870s are closer to what you are hoping for... early trade union successes... nothing radical, and in the overall un-threatening-ness... longer lasting.

[Jackpine Radical]

57. I look to people like Bob LaFollette and ol' Frank Zeidler

for spiritual guidance.

The Progressive movement, much of which happened in WI, damn well had staying power.

[LooseWilly]

62. I'd never heard of either... but LaFollette in particular sounds epic.

Though, the quickie wiki bio mention of his snubbing the communists in the 20s sounds a shame to me.

"However, after a bitter convention in 1923, the Communist-controlled Workers Party gained control of the national organization's structure. Just prior to its 1924 convention in St. Paul, La Follette denounced the Communists and refused to be considered for the FF-LP endorsement. With La Follette's snub, the FF-LP disintegrated, leaving only the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party."

At a time when his stature might've actually really made a change...

Zeidler seems to have been relatively smaller in impact, though admirable.

Of course... in terms of the "great historic impacts", the likes of which the whole 1848 string of revolutions were being evaluated in the context of... these guys also had little impact. LaFollette probably helped undermine the attempts to marginalize the left during the Red Scare... but then he turned around and dissed the communists in their attempt to enter mainstream politics—effectively assisting the efforts to marginalize the left at the time... as far as I can see. Not to denigrate him, but a major figure association with the communist party at the time might've done wonders for the survival, if perhaps not actual empowerment, of the left in the country.

Zeidler sounds like the Bernie Sanders of his time... pretty much right, but marginalized.

Then again... I only ever heard of either of them 10 minutes or so ago... so I could be wrong. :+

[defendandprotect]

24. Think Michigan has an unemployment rate over 20%? Could start in one of our states -- !!

[robdogbucky]

31. JP, you caught this bit of history listed in an article at Madison.com?

"...Labor unions in Wisconsin started as early as 1865, when the Molders Union Local 125 was formed in Milwaukee. Worker strikes date back even further, to a ship carpenters walkout in Milwaukee in 1848.

But in the first five days of May 1886, a strike led to Wisconsin’s worst labor violence. As part of a nationwide push for an eight-hour work day, Milwaukee workers shut down most of the city’s factories. As several thousand marched toward Bay View Rolling Mills, Milwaukee’s largest employer at the time, the Wisconsin State Militia opened fire, killing seven people. It was the day after the riot in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, where eight police officers and an unknown number of civilians died.

Among other milestones:

• In 1893, the state Federation of Labor, which later became the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO, was founded.

• In 1911, Wisconsin adopted the first workers compensation law in the U.S.

• In 1932, Wisconsin was the first state with an unemployment compensation law.

AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, got its start in Madison in 1932 when a small group of white-collar, professional, state employees held a meeting “to promote, defend and enhance the civil service system,” according to the national organization’s website. During the 1930s and 1940s, public employees in small Wisconsin communities, “largely Republican,” came together and petitioned their town and village boards, “saying, ‘Give us a raise,’” said Kenneth Germanson, former president of the Wisconsin Labor History Society.

In 1959, the Legislature passed the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act, which made Wisconsin the first state to give local government workers and teachers collective bargaining rights. Personnel managers led the way, seeking better relationships with workers, Dresang said. The law was strengthened in 1961 and 1963 and in the mid-1960s, the first “bona fide” labor contracts for public employees were signed, Germanson said. State employees did not win similar rights until the 1970s, said Dresang..."

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_771ea8a7-a71e-5661-8cd4-0f810a91a50d.html



Quite a rich history in the formation/evolution of the labor movement in general. Right up there with Bridges of San Francisco.



Hands off my Social Security!
Hands off Latin America!


rdb

[Jackpine Radical]

32. Thanks for the summary & the link.

[Odin2005]

33. K&R!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jackpine Radical]

58. Mange tak, Odin.

[suffragette]

37. Looks like some pushback from people who are fed up

with being pushed down.

K&R

[fishwax]

40. kick

:kick:

[Enthusiast]

44. K&R

Got the picture.

[Liberal_in_LA]

51. wow. revolution is spreading

[Xenotime]

66. Good. I hope to see peace soon something the corrupt can't seem to do.

[JuniperLea]

52. Non-violence is key...

That is what worked in Egypt. Mowing down non-violent protestors looks so harsh, donchano.

[Jackpine Radical]

59. Indeed, violence s not only destructive but self-destructive.

That's why the favorite tactic of the stooges & plants is to commit & try to incite violence.

[JVS]

67. Egypt wasn't non-violent.

[robdogbucky]

68. I think they spoke of the protestors there

Non violent

The only violence I heard of over there was a fewe rogue drivers that ran through crowds and the Mubarak supporters responding to the Friday of Departure demonstrations, with the army standing by and watching.

I don't consider throwing US-made teargas cannisters and/or rocks back at whomever threw them among the police or Mubarak supporters that openly attacked the protestors.

One of the main reasons, maybe The reason, that the April 6 Movement, dedicated to non-violence, was successful.

I'm happy to be corrected if you can point out where this is not true.




Carry on, regardless

rdb

[JVS]

69. There were a bunch of riots last month.

[shanti]

63. k&r