The day the Middle Class Died!!!

[mhungerford]

I am sure many of you have seen this but i just wanted to pass it on thought it was a great read...

---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Michael Moore <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 4:38 PMSubject: 30 Years Ago Today: The Day the Middle Class Died ...a letter from Michael MooreTo: [email protected]
30 Years Ago Today: The Day the Middle Class Died ...a letter from Michael Moore
Friday, August 5th, 2011
Friends,
From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated.
Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981."
Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to "go for it" -- to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves.
And they've succeeded.
On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days.
It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us?
Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started -- a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women.
Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way:
* The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left.
* Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here's your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed.
* 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help -- or not.
* Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can't leave now, we're not done. Your kids can make their own dinner.
* You want to go to college? No problem -- just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years!
* What's "a raise"? Get back to work and shut up!
And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help:
The AFL-CIO.
The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that's just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers -- they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly.
Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America.
And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything -- and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn't accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway.
And at every step along the way, the majority of Americans went along with this. There was little opposition or fight-back. The "masses" did not rise up and protect their jobs, their homes, their schools (which used to be the best in the world). They just accepted their fate and took the beating.
I have often wondered what would have happened had we all just stopped flying, period, back in 1981. What if all the unions had said to Reagan, "Give those controllers their jobs back or we're shutting the country down!"? You know what would have happened. The corporate elite and their boy Reagan would have buckled.
But we didn't do it. And so, bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we're now suffering with had its beginning in 1981 (here's a little scene to illustrate that from my last movie).
It all began on this day, 30 years ago. One of the darkest days in American history. And we let it happen to us. Yes, they had the money, and the media and the cops. But we had 200 million of us. Ever wonder what it would look like if 200 million got truly upset and wanted their country, their life, their job, their weekend, their time with their kids back?
Have we all just given up? What are we waiting for? Forget about the 20% who support the Tea Party -- we are the other 80%! This decline will only end when we demand it. And not through an online petition or a tweet. We are going to have to turn the TV and the computer and the video games off and get out in the streets (like they've done in Wisconsin). Some of you need to run for local office next year. We need to demand that the Democrats either get a spine and stop taking corporate money -- or step aside.
When is enough, enough? The middle class dream will not just magically reappear. Wall Street's plan is clear: America is to be a nation of Haves and Have Nothings. Is that OK for you?
Why not use today to pause and think about the little steps you can take to turn this around in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school? Is there any better day to start than today?
Yours,
Michael Moore
[email protected]
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. Here are a few places you can connect with to get the ball rolling:
Showdown in America
Democracy Convention
Occupy Wall Street
October 2011
How to Join a Union, from the AFL-CIO (They've learned their lesson and have a good president now) or UE
Change to Win
MoveOn
High School Newspaper (Just because you're under 18 doesn't mean you can't do anything!)

 

[RockyDog]

that just might make Brudnos head explode. im getting my popcorn ready.

 

[Ben Lamb]

class warfare!!!

 

[BuzzH]

Ronald Reagan...exactly what America deserved for electing a b-rate movie star with, literally, half a firing brain cell, to run the country.

 

[Brudno]

that just might make Brudnos head explode. im getting my popcorn ready.

Meh, I'm turning over a new leaf most of that makes me laugh hysterically like everything else Michael Moore says, I'm one of the many definitions of the prospering middle class success is out there for those willing to work for it. The only problem I see is people now just think there entitled to success as if you don't have to truly work for it, there complacent and incapable of changing with the times I make no attempt to hide the fact I'm only 24 but I knew what I wanted along time ago so I devised a plan to get there, now I've set my goals higher yet and will work to get where I want to be again, through my own hardworking not because I feel entitled to it or because some union tells me they've granted me that. I made my own way same as anyone else can all it takes is a goal and determination, things someday may change I wont feel entitlment that somehow my life wont have to as well to stay where I'm at.

So as far as my head exploding? Nah I know he's wrong every night when I go home to the life I've built for myself or when I take part of my vacation and head to Utah and Wyoming in another 10 days, ill know the dream is alive and well.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Only pinko commies hunt public land.

 

[DRAFTSTUD]

You forgot to post the Picture of M.M. with the article. Here ya go! john

 

[smarandr]

Does anybody really pay attention to what Michael Moore says anymore? I got about a third of the way through it and had to give up. IMHO, people like Moore (and his counterparts on the fringe right) are what's wrong with America today.

 

[mhungerford]

Just thought it was interesting i like to see the point of view from every side not just mine.

 

[DRAFTSTUD]

As MM stated they got in the streets in Wisconsin........here is the rest of the story.


Wisconsin schools buck union to cut health costs
By: Byron York | Chief Political Correspondent Follow Him @ByronYork | 07/07/11 8:05 PM
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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker performs a ceremonial bill signing of the new budget law outside his office at the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 11, 2011 in Madison. The new law helped the Hartland-Lakeside School District save money on health care costs by switching providers.The Hartland-Lakeside School District, about 30 miles west of Milwaukee in tiny Hartland, Wis., had a problem in its collective bargaining contract with the local teachers union.
The contract required the school district to purchase health insurance from a company called WEA Trust. The creation of Wisconsin's largest teachers union -- "WEA" stands for Wisconsin Education Association -- WEA Trust made money when union officials used collective bargaining agreements to steer profitable business its way.

The problem for Hartland-Lakeside was that WEA Trust was charging significantly higher rates than the school district could find on the open market. School officials knew that because they got a better deal from United HealthCare for coverage of nonunion employees. On more than one occasion, Superintendent Glenn Schilling asked WEA Trust why the rates were so high. "I could never get a definitive answer on that," says Schilling.

Changing to a different insurance company would save Hartland-Lakeside hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be spent on key educational priorities -- especially important since the cash-strapped state government was cutting back on education funding. But teachers union officials wouldn't allow it; the WEA Trust requirement was in the contract, and union leaders refused to let Hartland-Lakeside off the hook.

That's where Wisconsin's new budget law came in. The law, bitterly opposed by organized labor in the state and across the nation, limits the collective bargaining powers of some public employees. And it just happens that the Hartland-Lakeside teachers' collective bargaining agreement expired on June 30. So now, freed from the expensive WEA Trust deal, the school district has changed insurers.

"It's going to save us about $690,000 in 2011-2012," says Schilling. Insurance costs that had been about $2.5 million a year will now be around $1.8 million. What union leaders said would be a catastrophe will in fact be a boon to teachers and students.

But the effect of weakening collective bargaining goes beyond money. It also has the potential to reshape the adversarial culture that often afflicts public education. In Hartland-Lakeside, there's been no war between union-busting bureaucrats on one side and impassioned teachers on the other; Schilling speaks with great collegiality toward the teachers and says with pride that they've been able to work together on big issues. But there has been a deep division between the school district and top union executives.

In the health insurance talks, for example, Schilling last year began telling teachers about different insurance plans, some of which, like United HealthCare's, required a higher deductible. "We involved them, and they overwhelmingly endorsed the change to United HealthCare," he says. But even with the teachers on board, when school officials presented a change-in-coverage proposal to union officials, it was immediately rejected. The costly WEA Trust deal stayed in place.

Now, with the collective bargaining agreement gone, Schilling looks forward to working more closely with teachers. "I would say the biggest change is we have a lot more involvement with a wider scope of teachers," he says. When collective bargaining was in effect, "We dealt with a select team of teachers, a small group of three or four who were on the bargaining team, and then the union director. Any information that went to the teachers went through them. Now, we feel that we will have a direct dialogue."

It's not hard to see why union officials hate the new law so much. It not only breaks up cherished and lucrative union monopolies like high-cost health insurance; it also threatens to break through the union-built wall between teachers and administrators and allow the two sides to work together more closely. The old union go-betweens, who controlled what their members could and could not hear, will be left aside.

Hartland-Lakeside isn't the only school district that is pulling free from collective bargaining agreements that mandated WEA Trust coverage. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports the Pewaukee School District, not far from Hartland-Lakeside, will save $378,000 by next year by leaving WEA Trust. The Menomonee Falls School District, farther north, will reportedly save $1.3 million. Facing state cutbacks, the districts can't afford to overpay for union-affiliated coverage.

Look for the unions to fight back with everything they have. If the Wisconsin situation has shown anything, it is that organized labor views the collective bargaining fight as a life-or-death struggle. If the unions lose in Wisconsin, the clamor for change could spread to other states. What happened in Hartland-Lakeside could become a model for other schools looking for new and better ways to do business.



Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/polit...ols-buck-union-cut-health-costs#ixzz1UZJ7Zgot

 

[BuzzH]

Thats a touching story...we'll save the state a gob of $$$$ by charging the shit out of the employees via crap medical coverage and higher deductibles. I find it pretty tough to believe that any teacher would be in favor of higher deductibles.

Of course Schilling wants to negotiate with "all the teachers", pretty simple to figure that one out. They pick on the easiest target from "all the teachers".

I'd love to sit down at a negotiating table with Glenn Schilling...

 

[Brudno]

Thats a touching story...we'll save the state a gob of $$$$ by charging the shit out of the employees via crap medical coverage and higher deductibles. I find it pretty tough to believe that any teacher would be in favor of higher deductibles.

Of course Schilling wants to negotiate with "all the teachers", pretty simple to figure that one out. They pick on the easiest target from "all the teachers".

I'd love to sit down at a negotiating table with Glenn Schilling...

Funding was going to get cut this was an example of how school districts made less money go further or in other words spend smarter, because of the way the law was written in some districts tax payers will see there property taxes cut by 5-10% without cutting any school programs due to the money there going to save. There are unions that refused the cuts, as simple as in some cases contribution a modest amount to there pensions, they refused the districts had no recourse but to go to lay offs.

I dont know where your getting your information that teachers are getting charged the shit out of for medical coverage, it was a simple case of the unions wanting the insurance to be provided by there WEAC union, at a time when revenues are less and we already have one of the highest tax burdens in the nation its just common sense, unless your a fuggin idiot pay more for the same coverage? In fact this will allow school districts to offer performance based pay to there best teachers, instead of going off of tenure. Change and adapt the old system was clearly failing the state of Wisconsin.

In the end state workers were asked to contribute 5.8% to there pensions for there own retirements, in many cases they were paying percentages of 1% towards there pensions and 12.6% of there health care costs, we probably all can agree that being a public employee meant ok pay and great benefits often 30 and out or full pension by 55. But since there was a conflict of interest with unions contributing money to politicans to get kick backs in contracts things have changed there were city bus drivers making over $150,000 in pay alone. They were no longer forced to pay union dues which pretty much covers any increase they saw for there health premiums. The state overcame a 3.6 billion dollar budget deficet without raising taxes or cutting services by making a dollar stretch a little further.

 

[BuzzH]

Judging by that reply, I can see that the Wisconsin school system surely is failing, in particular the English and Math Departments.

 

[noharleyyet]

Judging by that reply, I can see that the Wisconsin school system surely is failing, in particular the English Department.

Union English teachers?

 

[Brudno]

Judging by that reply, I can see that the Wisconsin school system surely is failing, in particular the English Department.

IDK, I'd wager I'm doing better for myself than you are, and you've made it clear you dont have a foot to stand on in this argument, and your about nothing more than union power. I'd love to sit across the table from you.

 

[BuzzH]

Brudno,

I've sat across the table from way better than you...and thats a fact. I'm not much fun to negotiate with.

NHY, pretty tough to teach someone that knows it all at 24, union or not.

 

[Brudno]

Brudno,

I've sat across the table from way better than you...and thats a fact. I'm not much fun to negotiate with.

I guess that explains why you cant come up with 1 reason why what we did in our state was bad for the people in this state and because ed schultz told me so aint a reason either. I say your character judgement skills are flawed on the simple basis that you think so highly of yourself.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Nick,

I'd be interested to hear your take on the 6 recall elections going on in Wisconcin. Seems like plenty of folks are upset over the direction that the Legislature took there.

 

[BuzzH]

I'd also like to talk about the corporate give-aways that Walker is responsible for in Wisconsin.

 

[Brudno]

Nick,

I'd be interested to hear your take on the 6 recall elections going on in Wisconcin. Seems like plenty of folks are upset over the direction that the Legislature took there.

It takes 25% of signatures in a district going off the previous election to trigger a recall. Sounds obvious but voter turnout is the key to who wins the elections today. These are republican districts, these senators won in 2008 when the state voted for O, so that kind of gives you an analysis of the demographics of each district. The unions have spent over $31 million in these recall elections, I would imagine every single one of them will be out to vote to preserve there paychecks, if there sucessful or not, really is dependent on how many republicans and independents get out and vote. Polling shows these districts are still highly republican, but if people turn out to vote for an election in the middle of the summer is anyones guess. They need 3 wins to take back the senate and not lose any of there recalls next week.

3 dems have been up for recall as well, one has already had and election and re-won his district due to a snafu, by the republicans not getting enough falling a few signatures short of 300 to get the candidates name on the primary ballot. Really an embarrasment, they could have won that district otherwise. 2 other Dems including one from my new district are up next week, one in a republican district, the other in a historically democrat district that is now a swing district that the auto jobs have left.

Regardless of what happens, I think all of the districts except for the 2 dem districts will revert back to there origin except maybe the 3 democrat districts. It'll be interesting, they really cant do anything anymore, we passed the budget and we passed a good concealed carry bill, and tax breaks to bring in more illinios business looking to move since they raised there taxes, those were the things they were most against in the past.