Workers' Rights Are Under Threat Across the World

Bruce Springsteen's Angry Patriotism

Theology for Dummies

FOCUS: The Crazy Rush to Attack Iran

Navy SEALs: Obama's Secret Army

FOCUS: How Companies Learn Your Secrets

Keith Ewing writes: "But as we stand in solidarity with brothers and sisters in Wisconsin, we do so in the knowledge that theirs is not a struggle confined to a single US state. Nor - as the neoliberal strategy of Governor Walker stretches to other states - is it a uniquely US problem. It is a global problem, demanding a global response."

Demonstrators gather in the Capitol rotunda in Wisconsin, 03/10/11. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Comments

+6 # Charles A. Hall 2011-04-06 02:12

"THERE CAN BE NO PROGRESS WITHOUT A STURGGLE. IF YOU WANT THE WATER TO NORISH YOUR CROPS THEN YOU MUST BE ABLE TO TOLORATE THE THUNDER AND LIGHTING THAT BRINGS THE RAIN"
FREDRICK DOUGHLAS

+5 # Glen 2011-04-06 05:17

A great quote, Charles. Sometimes that water must be hauled in on the backs of laborers to assist those crops, as well. Break the backs of those laborers and nothing is accomplished at all.

Break those backs, break the spirits. It can be done, and if the power of those governing is great enough (and it is growing) more backs will be broken, more spirits, more societies.

The struggle will be enormous in combating those efforts. I'm not certain it can be done.

+7 # Ralph Averill 2011-04-06 02:59

Maybe the Republican assault on the middle class/working people can do some good after all. If it can awakens people to what has happened to the value of wages, the erosion of workers' rights, and the migration of wealth and political power to the very few over the last 40 yrs, it would be a positive accomplishment indeed.

+8 # rm 2011-04-06 03:19

The Global War on Terror has really been all along a Global War on the Working Class. A Global Conquest for Control of Natural Resources. That is what capitalism has always done. Obama is now opening a new "scramble for Africa."

We who are not capitalist must commit ourselves to a global war against capitalism, against the corruption of governments by corporations (i.e., fascism) and against the exploitation of natural resources that belong to other nations and peoples.

I'm sorry to have to us the "war" metaphor. MLK would not have used it. Rather he meant standing for the rights of all people and against the power of privilege and money with absolute determination. Never back down. Our best tactic is a tax revolt -- simply stop paying taxes to the federal government. Protests are just be ignored, but if the working class which pays about 90% of the government's money stopped paying, we could then make demands for real changes, the exact changes MLK stood for.

+4 # buckles 2011-04-06 06:39

The vote tally here in Wisconsin for the Supreme Court has this retired union Veteran dissapointed, could have been a landslide for Joanna Kloppenburg. But not one word from our leader Obama and the Democrats to stir up the race prior to yesterdays vote. How sad.

+2 # tomo 2011-04-06 14:42

Yesterday, I found myself thinking about Booker T. Washington and his hope that the black people of America would, in his day, win the admiration of white society by reason of their hard work; and I thought, too, how Karl Marx--in more ways than are usually recognized, a child of the Old Testament and an echo of the great Jewish prophets, Jeremiah and Isaiah--said that when laborers add value to the things they work on, they deserve to reap benefits from that increase; and I thought of the clear beautiful baritone voice of MLK...when I thought of these things, I thought how sad it is that the laborer today, all over the world, is valued simply for his or her place in a worldwide "auction to the bottom": the one who offers to do the job for the least compensation is the one who gets to work. It pains me to think this truly evil approach, this readiness to value our fellow human only to the degree we can exploit him or her, is taught in our business schools today all across our great land.

+3 # m 2011-04-06 19:33

My Opinion:
One of the best places to focus Worker Anger is on Domestic Media Ownership Regulations. They have been so DEREGULATED over the past 3 decades, that now, almost all Media Enterprises are owned and exploited by just a very few Global Corporations.
Rupert Murdoch owns a HUGE swath of American Media.., Cable, Broadcast, Print, Entertainment, etc.
The most extreme nonsense can be presented now as the most reasonable way to run OUR Country and what YOU should support and vote for.
Why are so many Americans supporting policies which are obviously making the their lives and the lives of 90% of Americans more difficult?
PROPAGANDA MEDIA..!
Media in America is also now Global Corporate Exploited without having to operate under any kind of Fairness Doctrine as it did prior to the Reagan Era.
Murdoch owns a vast Media Empire not only in America, but around the world and my guess is that he is using it everywhere for whatever his agenda might be just like he seems to be here in OUR Country.
We are NOT a Well Informed Public in America. We are instead, a well MEDIA-MANIPULATED-PUBLIC in America.
And, this is probably the nature of what is going on around the world.
Where is the 'FREE PRESS'..? What does FREE SPEECH mean when almost all the pipelines for it are controlled by just a few Global Corporations?

+3 # wrodwell 2011-04-07 12:01

Mr. Ewing of the UK: you gotta be kidding!! Governor Walker of Wisconsin - a neo-liberal???? Who knew!!
His actions and "beliefs", combined with his moral and ethical bankruptcy, are the work of someone who can only be defined as a proto-fascist. An alternative definition that fits equally well is neo-fascist. Take your pick; it's the same animal.

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