The Future of the Labor Movement
Darryl Cherness asked:
As election day draws near, it appears extremely likely that Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States. In addition, there is a general consensus, even among Republicans, that the Democrats will pickup seats in congress and may even obtain a “filibuster proof” majority in the Senate.
Currently, the Democrats have 49 seats in the Senate. In addition to those 49 seats, there are 2 independents, Joe Lieberman and Bernard Sanders, who caucus with the Democrats, effectively giving them a 51 seat majority. However, in order to get anything done in the Senate, 60 votes are needed to break Republican sponsored filibusters, the process of talking a bill to death and preventing action on urgently needed legislation.
There is general agreement, given the state of the economy, that 2008 will be a Democratic year. If Democrats pick up 5 seats in the Senate, the minimum they are projected to win, they will have 56 votes and will only need 4 Republican votes to break a filibuster. However, if the Democrats pick up 9 votes, difficult but not impossible, they will be able to shut off debate without crossover Republican votes.
What will it mean for the labor movement to have a filibuster proof, Democratic majority in the Senate?
First and foremost, it means that the Employee Free Choice Act will be enacted into law. The Democratic congress will vote for the Employee Free Choice Act and send that legislation to President Barack Obama who will sign it into law. Once the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law and management can no longer manipulate company based representation elections, it is a safe bet that there should be a significant increase in the number of union represented employees in the United States.
In addition to the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a strong Democratic majority in congress can be counted on to periodically raise the federal minimum wage for the working poor. Hopefully, the days of having to wait nine years for small increases in the minimum wage should become a relic of the past.
Other areas where significant changes can be anticipated include revisions in NAFTA to make it more labor friendly, the elimination of tax incentives to encourage American businesses to relocate overseas, greater regulation of the home loan industry to prevent a reoccurrence of the “subprime” housing debacle, and tax breaks for middle income wage earners.
Another significant change will come in the area of job creation. Unlike George Bush, Senator Obama has made it clear that he intends to spend significant sums of money on promoting renewable energy such as wind, solar, and geothermal energy. The expenditure of these funds should create thousands of new jobs for working men and women.
Finally, it is my belief that it is absolutely inevitable that the Democratic congress and the new Democratic president will allocate significant resources for “public works” projects; i.e. repair of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, sewers, water treatment plants, etc. Rather than rely on the marketplace to generate wealth that will “trickle down” to the masses, Obama and the Democratic congress will take direct action to stimulate our economy and return our nation to prosperity by means of these job creating projects.
I believe that the next four years may very well be recorded by historians as labor’s new “golden age.”
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As election day draws near, it appears extremely likely that Barack Obama will be elected the next President of the United States. In addition, there is a general consensus, even among Republicans, that the Democrats will pickup seats in congress and may even obtain a “filibuster proof” majority in the Senate.
Currently, the Democrats have 49 seats in the Senate. In addition to those 49 seats, there are 2 independents, Joe Lieberman and Bernard Sanders, who caucus with the Democrats, effectively giving them a 51 seat majority. However, in order to get anything done in the Senate, 60 votes are needed to break Republican sponsored filibusters, the process of talking a bill to death and preventing action on urgently needed legislation.
There is general agreement, given the state of the economy, that 2008 will be a Democratic year. If Democrats pick up 5 seats in the Senate, the minimum they are projected to win, they will have 56 votes and will only need 4 Republican votes to break a filibuster. However, if the Democrats pick up 9 votes, difficult but not impossible, they will be able to shut off debate without crossover Republican votes.
What will it mean for the labor movement to have a filibuster proof, Democratic majority in the Senate?
First and foremost, it means that the Employee Free Choice Act will be enacted into law. The Democratic congress will vote for the Employee Free Choice Act and send that legislation to President Barack Obama who will sign it into law. Once the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law and management can no longer manipulate company based representation elections, it is a safe bet that there should be a significant increase in the number of union represented employees in the United States.
In addition to the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, a strong Democratic majority in congress can be counted on to periodically raise the federal minimum wage for the working poor. Hopefully, the days of having to wait nine years for small increases in the minimum wage should become a relic of the past.
Other areas where significant changes can be anticipated include revisions in NAFTA to make it more labor friendly, the elimination of tax incentives to encourage American businesses to relocate overseas, greater regulation of the home loan industry to prevent a reoccurrence of the “subprime” housing debacle, and tax breaks for middle income wage earners.
Another significant change will come in the area of job creation. Unlike George Bush, Senator Obama has made it clear that he intends to spend significant sums of money on promoting renewable energy such as wind, solar, and geothermal energy. The expenditure of these funds should create thousands of new jobs for working men and women.
Finally, it is my belief that it is absolutely inevitable that the Democratic congress and the new Democratic president will allocate significant resources for “public works” projects; i.e. repair of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, sewers, water treatment plants, etc. Rather than rely on the marketplace to generate wealth that will “trickle down” to the masses, Obama and the Democratic congress will take direct action to stimulate our economy and return our nation to prosperity by means of these job creating projects.
I believe that the next four years may very well be recorded by historians as labor’s new “golden age.”
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Logged in as Darryl Cherness. Logout »
The Politics of India-us Nuclear Agreement
Gurumurthy Kalyanaram asked:
The India-US Nuclear agreement is the subject of hope and debate, yet again, in India. Apart from the substance of the pact, the politics (and timing) of the negotiations is mystifying.
First, the substance of the pact: the benefits — immediate access to nuclear technology and nuclear fuel — are very robust. India’s need for energy is monumental and nuclear energy must form a part of the energy portfolio for India.
The United States — President Bush — has made an extra-ordinary offer to India. The President is championing exception (for India) to the 1978 congressional mandate that the non-signatories of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act cannot under any circumstances receive any nuclear technology or fuel from the United States. The so-called Nuclear Suppliers Group follow the United States lead on this matter.
So this is truly historic. India owes a debt of gratitude to President Bush and the United States. However, the Hyde Amendment is troublesome.
The Hyde Amendment which requires the President to advise the Congress every year that India was not diverting nuclear technology and material for weaponry. While it is very true that President George Bush has high respect for India’s integrity and trust. However, what the political landscape would be in 10 or 20 years is anyone guess – it is not clear that a nation’s future can be so tenuously linked to certification by an individual. Look at what happened to Pakistan. The then President Bush in 1990 failed to certify Pakistan’s intentions regarding its nuclear ambitions, and the Pressler amendment called for economic and military sanctions which reverberated till recently.
But President Bush cannot do much about Hyde Amendment — this is the requirement that the U.S. Congress is imposing for the extra-ordinary exception that it is ready to make for India. This requirement is entirely reasonable from the perspective of Congress, however troublesome that it may be to India or subject to the vagaries of time and the whims and fancies of a future President who may be annoyed with India on some other matter and may decide not to certify based on that irritation. There is no basis on which President Bush can push the Congress to do away with the Hyde Amendment — President Bush is already facing strong opposition from the Congress, particularly from the Democrats.
Having said this, if India is ready to accept the risk with the Hyde Amendment the Indian Government must have moved with greater dispatch. It was India’s responsibility to sign India-specific accords with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) before the U.S. Congress can approve the nuclear agreement.
But India has dithered on this matter for almost one year. That is because of the Communists parties who have about 60 parliamentary seats and who have been electoral partners with Congress party are strongly opposed the nuclear agreement — their opposition is well thought-out, and it is mostly based on the Hyde Amendment.
The Congress party has spent one year trying to persuade the Communists parties — and it has not been successful. Finally, the Congress party is threatening to go ahead with the negotiations with IAEA but why now? This is so late.
By the time, India concludes its negotiations with IAEA it will be atleast a couple of months. So the agreement cannot placed before the U.S. Congress before fall. But the agenda for fall for the Congress is set in place — and the Congressional leaders have already said that it is too late for debate and approval of the nuclear agreement.
Unfortunately, President Bush can do only so much — particularly with the U.S. Presidential and congressional elections looming ahead so close. Once the November elections take place (Democratic party is likely to gain substantial number of seats in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, and quite likely even the White House), President Bush’s influence will diminish dramatically.
So what is point of Congress party being so decisive so late? It appears that the Congress party did not want to risk alienating the Communist parties but now since the national elections are only 6-9 months away the Congress party appears ready to roll the dice. Politically, that is not in the self-interest of the Congress party. Unless the Congress party can hold the Communist parties in its fold for the next general elections, its probability of winning those elections will diminish dramatically.
So what is the point? It just does not compute. The nuclear agreement is most unlikely to be approved by the U.S. Congress given the serious time constraints and the dynamics of U.S. political environment. The Congress party is also likely to lower its odds of winning the next elections.
The India-US Nuclear agreement is the subject of hope and debate, yet again, in India. Apart from the substance of the pact, the politics (and timing) of the negotiations is mystifying.
First, the substance of the pact: the benefits — immediate access to nuclear technology and nuclear fuel — are very robust. India’s need for energy is monumental and nuclear energy must form a part of the energy portfolio for India.
The United States — President Bush — has made an extra-ordinary offer to India. The President is championing exception (for India) to the 1978 congressional mandate that the non-signatories of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act cannot under any circumstances receive any nuclear technology or fuel from the United States. The so-called Nuclear Suppliers Group follow the United States lead on this matter.
So this is truly historic. India owes a debt of gratitude to President Bush and the United States. However, the Hyde Amendment is troublesome.
The Hyde Amendment which requires the President to advise the Congress every year that India was not diverting nuclear technology and material for weaponry. While it is very true that President George Bush has high respect for India’s integrity and trust. However, what the political landscape would be in 10 or 20 years is anyone guess – it is not clear that a nation’s future can be so tenuously linked to certification by an individual. Look at what happened to Pakistan. The then President Bush in 1990 failed to certify Pakistan’s intentions regarding its nuclear ambitions, and the Pressler amendment called for economic and military sanctions which reverberated till recently.
But President Bush cannot do much about Hyde Amendment — this is the requirement that the U.S. Congress is imposing for the extra-ordinary exception that it is ready to make for India. This requirement is entirely reasonable from the perspective of Congress, however troublesome that it may be to India or subject to the vagaries of time and the whims and fancies of a future President who may be annoyed with India on some other matter and may decide not to certify based on that irritation. There is no basis on which President Bush can push the Congress to do away with the Hyde Amendment — President Bush is already facing strong opposition from the Congress, particularly from the Democrats.
Having said this, if India is ready to accept the risk with the Hyde Amendment the Indian Government must have moved with greater dispatch. It was India’s responsibility to sign India-specific accords with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) before the U.S. Congress can approve the nuclear agreement.
But India has dithered on this matter for almost one year. That is because of the Communists parties who have about 60 parliamentary seats and who have been electoral partners with Congress party are strongly opposed the nuclear agreement — their opposition is well thought-out, and it is mostly based on the Hyde Amendment.
The Congress party has spent one year trying to persuade the Communists parties — and it has not been successful. Finally, the Congress party is threatening to go ahead with the negotiations with IAEA but why now? This is so late.
By the time, India concludes its negotiations with IAEA it will be atleast a couple of months. So the agreement cannot placed before the U.S. Congress before fall. But the agenda for fall for the Congress is set in place — and the Congressional leaders have already said that it is too late for debate and approval of the nuclear agreement.
Unfortunately, President Bush can do only so much — particularly with the U.S. Presidential and congressional elections looming ahead so close. Once the November elections take place (Democratic party is likely to gain substantial number of seats in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, and quite likely even the White House), President Bush’s influence will diminish dramatically.
So what is point of Congress party being so decisive so late? It appears that the Congress party did not want to risk alienating the Communist parties but now since the national elections are only 6-9 months away the Congress party appears ready to roll the dice. Politically, that is not in the self-interest of the Congress party. Unless the Congress party can hold the Communist parties in its fold for the next general elections, its probability of winning those elections will diminish dramatically.
So what is the point? It just does not compute. The nuclear agreement is most unlikely to be approved by the U.S. Congress given the serious time constraints and the dynamics of U.S. political environment. The Congress party is also likely to lower its odds of winning the next elections.
How and why politicians, journalists, and scientists use analogy
May 26, 2009 by admin
Filed under Journalism
Kevin Dunbar asked:
Analogy in Politics and Science: Like all tools, handle with care!
Kevin Niall Dunbar, University of Toronto
How Analogy is used to persuade the electorate to vote a particular way, propose new theories and make complex issues understandable has been of intrigue to writers, scientists, politicians and speechwriters for decades. Catchy analogies can move a whole nation as when the elder George Bush said that “Saddam Hussein is Hitler” and helped sway the US congress to vote for troops to enter Kuwait and drive Iraqi forces away. Powerful analogies like these are part and parcel of all elections and are used by politicians and journalists to influence public opinion away from the opponent and towards their position. Usually,politicians and journalists, particularly op-ed writers achieve this goal by by projecting a positive emotion for their own side and a negative emotion for the opponent’s side. Isabelle Blanchette and I found that in the final few days of a referendum on whether Quebec should leave the country of Canada hundreds of analogies were used in the newspapers using this strategy.
What happens when analogies are used is that components of something that is well known, like Hockey in Canada, are mapped over onto the political debate, like separating from Canada. What is really amazing or insidious, depending on your point of view, is that the journalist or politician doesn’t have to draw a conclusion for the public to understand the analogy; our brains do it automatically. Just open a newspaper and you will see analogies: In the economic meltdown of 2008-2009 the New York Times helped the public make sense of the heretofore unknown mega companies at the heart of the meltdown (in this case AIG) by saying that it was similar to people “not knowing about the appendix until they feel the pain.” Analogy not only helps make sense of confusing situations such as the first few hours after 9/11 where over a dozen analogies were made by media outlets to prior events like Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma Bombings, IRA attacks in London etc, but analogy allows us to fill in gaps in our knowledge and make predictions. Scientists also use analogy this way. When NASA scientists found that there is water on the planet Mars, they then predicted that there will be life there. Of course, analogies don’t always lead to the correct predictions and we have been waiting for many years to see if there is life on Mars, or on Jupiter’s’ satellite Europa, (which has been likened to a pristine underwater lake in Antarctica called Lake Vostok) that may harbor ancient life forms. Because of this analogy NASA is piloting a mission to Lake Vostok, which is a mile underneath the Antarctic ice to see if NASA can retrieve ancient life forms without contaminating the lake with everyday bacteria or viruses. If this works, then NASA plans to conduct the same type of mission on Europa. Here we can see that an analogy can motivate a multi-million dollar mission to outer space.
So what is analogy? Is it seeing two things as being similar? Yes and no! What is really interesting about analogy is that it is much more than seeing two things as similar. It is seeing the relations between two things as similar. Seeing a computer virus and a human virus as similar has been a very powerful analogy: Both types of viruses cause damage, both infiltrate a host, and both often hijack the hosts’ machinery to cause damage. These are relations between the virus and the host. People can easily map from the relations of the biological virus to the computational virus. The real power of analogy is when something about a familiar situation can be mapped onto a new situation resulting in a new solution to a problem. Continuing with our virus analogy, biological viruses can be immunized against, by mapping from the biological virus to the computer virus, computer programmers have devised ways of immunizing computers against future viruses, often using the same types of mechanisms as the biological viruses.
One final property of analogies is that they are often emotional, particularly in politics and advertising. When politicians want you to choose them rather than their rival, they often use a positive analogy such as a happy family for their side and a divorced family for the opponents’ side. Sports analogies are particularly popular with politicians as most people are familiar with sports and the familiarity combined with emotions and excitement make sports analogies almost irresistible for journalists to use. When Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama were debating in March 2008 the journalist Stephen J Silver used this analogy to add drama to the debate: ”Obama leads Hillary 21 to 10 in a game of football. Hillary is driving with 2 seconds left on the clock. Hillary throws a Hail Mary pass and Obama is called for pass interference. Because the game cannot end on a penalty, Hillary gets one last snap with no time left on the clock. Even if Hillary scores the touchdown and converts a two-point conversion, she cannot win the game. The only way for her to win is if Obama runs on the field and kills one of the referees, forfeiting the game.” This turned a somewhat dry debate into a cliff hanging game of epic proportions. Yet analogies can be overdone as noted in the New York Times in March 2009 about the new chairman of the Republican party: “Most chairmen wave the party flag; Mr. Steele smiles and shreds it. A man of constantly colliding analogies, he compares Republicans to drunks in need of a 12-step program and to the mentally ill. He has insulted Rush Limbaugh and moderate Republican senators alike, and he has promised a “hip-hop makeover” that would attract even “one-armed midgets” to his party”
Analogy in Politics and Science: Like all tools, handle with care!
Kevin Niall Dunbar, University of Toronto
How Analogy is used to persuade the electorate to vote a particular way, propose new theories and make complex issues understandable has been of intrigue to writers, scientists, politicians and speechwriters for decades. Catchy analogies can move a whole nation as when the elder George Bush said that “Saddam Hussein is Hitler” and helped sway the US congress to vote for troops to enter Kuwait and drive Iraqi forces away. Powerful analogies like these are part and parcel of all elections and are used by politicians and journalists to influence public opinion away from the opponent and towards their position. Usually,politicians and journalists, particularly op-ed writers achieve this goal by by projecting a positive emotion for their own side and a negative emotion for the opponent’s side. Isabelle Blanchette and I found that in the final few days of a referendum on whether Quebec should leave the country of Canada hundreds of analogies were used in the newspapers using this strategy.
What happens when analogies are used is that components of something that is well known, like Hockey in Canada, are mapped over onto the political debate, like separating from Canada. What is really amazing or insidious, depending on your point of view, is that the journalist or politician doesn’t have to draw a conclusion for the public to understand the analogy; our brains do it automatically. Just open a newspaper and you will see analogies: In the economic meltdown of 2008-2009 the New York Times helped the public make sense of the heretofore unknown mega companies at the heart of the meltdown (in this case AIG) by saying that it was similar to people “not knowing about the appendix until they feel the pain.” Analogy not only helps make sense of confusing situations such as the first few hours after 9/11 where over a dozen analogies were made by media outlets to prior events like Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma Bombings, IRA attacks in London etc, but analogy allows us to fill in gaps in our knowledge and make predictions. Scientists also use analogy this way. When NASA scientists found that there is water on the planet Mars, they then predicted that there will be life there. Of course, analogies don’t always lead to the correct predictions and we have been waiting for many years to see if there is life on Mars, or on Jupiter’s’ satellite Europa, (which has been likened to a pristine underwater lake in Antarctica called Lake Vostok) that may harbor ancient life forms. Because of this analogy NASA is piloting a mission to Lake Vostok, which is a mile underneath the Antarctic ice to see if NASA can retrieve ancient life forms without contaminating the lake with everyday bacteria or viruses. If this works, then NASA plans to conduct the same type of mission on Europa. Here we can see that an analogy can motivate a multi-million dollar mission to outer space.
So what is analogy? Is it seeing two things as being similar? Yes and no! What is really interesting about analogy is that it is much more than seeing two things as similar. It is seeing the relations between two things as similar. Seeing a computer virus and a human virus as similar has been a very powerful analogy: Both types of viruses cause damage, both infiltrate a host, and both often hijack the hosts’ machinery to cause damage. These are relations between the virus and the host. People can easily map from the relations of the biological virus to the computational virus. The real power of analogy is when something about a familiar situation can be mapped onto a new situation resulting in a new solution to a problem. Continuing with our virus analogy, biological viruses can be immunized against, by mapping from the biological virus to the computer virus, computer programmers have devised ways of immunizing computers against future viruses, often using the same types of mechanisms as the biological viruses.
One final property of analogies is that they are often emotional, particularly in politics and advertising. When politicians want you to choose them rather than their rival, they often use a positive analogy such as a happy family for their side and a divorced family for the opponents’ side. Sports analogies are particularly popular with politicians as most people are familiar with sports and the familiarity combined with emotions and excitement make sports analogies almost irresistible for journalists to use. When Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama were debating in March 2008 the journalist Stephen J Silver used this analogy to add drama to the debate: ”Obama leads Hillary 21 to 10 in a game of football. Hillary is driving with 2 seconds left on the clock. Hillary throws a Hail Mary pass and Obama is called for pass interference. Because the game cannot end on a penalty, Hillary gets one last snap with no time left on the clock. Even if Hillary scores the touchdown and converts a two-point conversion, she cannot win the game. The only way for her to win is if Obama runs on the field and kills one of the referees, forfeiting the game.” This turned a somewhat dry debate into a cliff hanging game of epic proportions. Yet analogies can be overdone as noted in the New York Times in March 2009 about the new chairman of the Republican party: “Most chairmen wave the party flag; Mr. Steele smiles and shreds it. A man of constantly colliding analogies, he compares Republicans to drunks in need of a 12-step program and to the mentally ill. He has insulted Rush Limbaugh and moderate Republican senators alike, and he has promised a “hip-hop makeover” that would attract even “one-armed midgets” to his party”
