This is Carl Bernstein in one of those he-said, he-said debates cable tv puts on. Here’s the set-up, followed by Bernstein’s opening:
CHRIS JANSING: A lot of people are saying this is the moment of truth, Carl, for the unions. Norman Adler, a longtime lobbyist for unions, told Politico – I’m going to quote him here – “Whatever happens in Wisconsin, this is going to be replicated elsewhere. The unions can’t back off of this – it would be like hiking up a white flag.” Is he right?
CARL BERNSTEIN, contributing editor, Vanity Fair magazine:
Well yeah, he’s right. First of all, there’s kind of an ahistoricism that’s taking place in Wisconsin, which is to deny the contributions of unions to the lives of working class people in this country. Virtually all of the job security, working conditions, good wages for workers, minimum wage come from the union movement in the 20th century. Less than fourteen percent of the workforce is now in unions, seven percent of them are in public service, public employee unions, and these people deserve the right to have collective bargaining. They’re willing to re-negotiate their pensions, but workers ought to have the right to collective bargaining. It’s a basic right that they’ve always enjoyed. This is also a very political, demagogic move by a governor who knows that the Democratic Party subsists to some extent on union contributions. It’s their biggest source of money, they want to cut it off at the knees, they see an opportunity here, and they utterly forget the role of unions in helping people in this country.
Good statement, and the debate (with Rick Lazio) begins and goes on from there, but that’s not what’s interesting to me.
This is the question Bernstein wants answered, pulled out of the transcript, in the sequence he asks it:
BERNSTEIN: What does it have to do with the right to collective bargaining? The unions are willing to negotiate – re-negotiate pensions. Everybody in America who works in a municipality knows that these pensions, which were given to workers in flush times, need to be adjusted.
BERNSTEIN: What’s it have to do with denying their right to bargain?
BERNSTEIN: Why shouldn’t a majority of workers be able to take a vote in an enterprise to affiliate with a union?
BERNSTEIN: All those questions are legitimate if you allow collective bargaining. That’s what negotiating and collective bargaining is about.
BERNSTEIN: Nobody’s arguing – nobody’s arguing that. What does that have to do with collective bargaining?
BERNSTEIN: When I was a member of a union – I’ve been on many collective bargaining committees, on many negotiating committees. What in the world is so scary about collective bargaining in which workers are able to negotiate with their employers?
BERNSTEIN: That’s more – what you’re saying though, that it’s wrong to fairly and honestly have a negotiation.
Seven times.
Now that Carl Bernstein has identified the only question that Walker and Kasich should have to answer would someone insist they answer it?
cleek
no. that would be unfair to the GOP, which needs its narrative to be the only narrative in play.
slag
Great post, Kay!
So simple. And yet so hard.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
No. SATSQ and all that.
Mark S.
No. Our plutocrats have paid good money to control the media.
A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)
This really is spot on. Great post, Kay. Do workers have the right to bargain collectively, or not? It really is that simple, isn’t it?
danimal
Because public sector unions are different, you see. So that question needs a long, confusing garbling of the message so that “Look, squirrel!”. Also, too.
Did that answer your question?
PeakVT
would someone insist they answer it?
No. Republican daddies don’t need to justify what they do, in the minds of the media.
kay
@A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum):
I like that he said: “what is so scary…”
Because we know what’s so scary, don’t we?
Pooh
@A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum):
More specifically, what does that right have to do with your “emergency” budget?
dr. bloor
Completely off topic, but I really wish Bernstein had kicked Woodward in the nuts, stuffed him into the trunk of a car and rolled it off a cliff about 35 years ago.
HRA
Great work, Kay. Your posts are very enlightening.
Rick Lazio -blech.
Carl Bernstein is awesome. Sorry I missed his appearance.
JGabriel
And with that, Bernstein has effectively summarized the business ethos of the past 30 years (at minimum)in America.
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El Cid
They don’t have anyone grading their essay questions for not answering the questions.
JGabriel
To Whom It May Concern:
BUG REPORT: Starting sometime last night, I can no longer edit my comments, in either Chrome or Opera. OS=WinXP.
When I click edit on a comment, the page goes dark (as in background mode), but the edit box never comes up.
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PurpleGirl
Kay — Great post and thank you for the time is took to prepare and list Bernstein’s asking of the question. It really drives home the rethuglican stance. And Lazio can use a rusty pitchfork on himself.
Paul in KY
@dr. bloor: Would have made a great alternative ending to ‘All the President’s Men’.
kay
@HRA:
I didn’t see it either. I can no longer watch cable television. I have just had it with that. I reached the point where I think it’s ludicrous to listen to highly-paid cable personalities bitch about teacher’s pensions. I have to read the transcript.
cat48
I actually saw this debate live. Was great.
Does it sound like Gov Hosni wants to change some of the Union’s health insurance to anyone else? Everytime I see him he talks about how some of the workers buy it from Source A, but they won’t have to do that anymore because his way is much cheaper from Source B. Can’t remember the names, but one way he’s saving “millions of dollars” he says is by the Source B insurance.
I would be livid if someone “switched” my insurance for me so they could save “millions of dollars”!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
It comes down to personal experience, doesn’t it. Carl has walked in these shoes himself, or something close to it. How many of his fellow pundits can say the same?
It seems to me that one of the most essential characteristics of a news journalist should be to have enough imagination and empathy to travel at least part way across the gap between your own lived experience and that of the people who you are reporting on, because no one individual person could possibly have had a wide enough variety of experiences in one lifetime to come close to those of all the different people in every possible story they will be assigned to cover during their career.
But then of course we don’t have actual news journalists of that sort in this country any more. That species is on the edge of extinction.
jeffreyw
Got time for a little lunch? Cures what ails ye.
cleek
eewww. you linked to Brietbart!
cleek
@JGabriel:
happened to me on FireFox, today, too.
kay
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Good point, and what also comes across is how mundane and work-a-day negotiation is; Bernstein thinks it can be done in the ordinary course, because he’s done it.
Contrast that with the Walker’s delusions-of-grandeur nonsense about how he’s (the imaginary) Reagan and unions are the Berlin wall.
schrodinger's cat
@JGabriel: Neither can I. I am on Windows7 and Firefox.
Tunch borked deh editing function by sitting on it *nods*
rbonotto
I want to read your webpage, but the print keeps messing up, no matter WHAT I do —
JGabriel
Ignore this post. Testing.
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JGabriel
cleek: Thanks. Pretty much confirms it’s the site, then, and not my system.
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schrodinger's cat
@JGabriel: Mt McKinley? What do I win?
dj spellchecka
heard someone on npr this morning say that most gov’t worker pensions are created via legislation not thru collective bargaining… shoots another hole in walker’s crusade
JGabriel
@schrodinger’s cat: Okay, so that extends the problem to: Win XP & Win 7, across Opera, Chrome, and Firefox.
Anyone want to confirm for OS’s Vista, Linux, Mac, and the Safari and Internet Explorer browsers?
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p.a.
Anyone see polling on Walker’s popularity?
25% of those voting in said election, and a 1-year wait are big hurdles.
Maude
@JGabriel:
Doug said in the last thread that the edit function is broken
kdaug
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
There’s a fascinating article in the new issue of Harper’s (dead tree version, don’t know if it’s online yet) by Will Vollmann in which he decides to live as a homeless person in Sacramento for a while, so that he can tell us their stories. THAT’s journalism – walking a mile in another’s shoes, rather than pontificating from behind a desk about your ideological taint, with no personal experience.
There are still people committing real journalism out there, you just have to know where to look.
JGabriel
Testing in IE.
By the way, this site looks like shit in IE, paragraphs aren’t wrapping at all.
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JGabriel
Can’t edit comments in Internet Explorer either. Same problem as in the other browsers.
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JGabriel
And suddenly, paragraphs are wrapping again in IE. Still can’t edit though. Must have been a separate glitch.
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Chuck Butcher
@JGabriel:
If I refresh enough times I can get IE to work, that is with the translation turned on.
agrippa
They will not answer the question.
JGabriel
@Maude: Thanks, Maude. I didn’t read the last thread through. Someone should make a front page announcement so habitual troubleshooters don’t automatically kick into gear like I just did. I’m sure I’m not the only geek here.
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JGabriel
@Chuck Butcher: One more reason not to use IE.
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Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@kay:
Amen. You can read the transcript in a quarter of the time it takes to hear them hem, haw and bloviate the same set of talking points that every other hack is spewing.
Mark S.
OT–Army Used Psy-Ops on US Senators. I’m not exactly clear how any of this is different from the usual propaganda the military uses on us, and I love that they felt the need to deploy it on John Fucking McCain, the biggest war-monger in a chamber full of them. Here, I’ll save you guys some money: Just show Walnuts a picture of Gen. Petraeus and he’ll vote for anything you need.
Mouse Tolliver
Related to this, labor reps have tried to get booked on the Sunday shows but bookers are purposely shutting them out in favoring overexposed anti-union twats like Chris Christie.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/unions-sunday-shows-shutting-out_n_825773.html
Elizabelle
Agreed with Kay and Jewish Steel re transcripts.
Faster. Takes you away from advertising. Removes you from distractions of guest’s appearance and speaking tics. Allows you to double through if a point is not clear.
Plus, occasionally you get links back to source material
Continental Op
Carl Bernsetein is saying something reasonable — thoughtful, even — and neither self-promotion nor sucking up to power seems to be involved.
Only one explanation: the Apocalypse.
Omnes Omnibus
@Continental Op: You might be confusing him with Woodward.
HRA
@kay:
” didn’t see it either. I can no longer watch cable television. I have just had it with that. I reached the point where I think it’s ludicrous to listen to highly-paid cable personalities bitch about teacher’s pensions. I have to read the transcript.”
That’s why I am here and not watching cable. I am getting real updated and information that is mostly unavailable or ignored on cable from you and the other posters. Thank you for your efforts.
In re: to the site -I have been doing ctr F5 and f5 forever lately. Yes, I am on IE. I like the format here.
jeffreyw
And some dessert now? A cherry turnover sounds good.
BGinCHI
Late to the thread, but GREAT fucking post, Kay.
Spot on.
geg6
@Continental Op:
You’ve got the wrong half of Woodstein. You are surely thinking of Woodward. Carl Bernstein is often reasonable, thoughtful, non-self-promoting, and displays few propensities to sucking up to power compared to his former junior partner. I always love when he’s on Real Time.
Paul in KY
@JGabriel: Our theory on the IE Suckage ™ is that there is a rotating ad that has some weird characters that cause the problems.
We IE users are a reviled breed it seems & no one wants to spend any time/money figuring out what the problem is.
If a particular ad had to be removed for this not to happen, I doubt the ad would be removed.
Cris
Screw Rick Lazio. Answer the fucking question!
Continental Op
@geg6 You’ve got the wrong half of Woodstein.
You are right. Early afternoon brain fart. I realized this almost immediately, but the delete comment function wouldn’t load. The Balloon Juice Internet Explorer compatibility problem again, I think.
I apologize to all, particularly Carl Bernstein.
Cris
The big problem as I see it is ability to replicate. It seems like it is a particular ad (or class of ads) but because it appears intermittently — since ads appear on a rotation — it’s pretty difficult to determine exactly which ad or ads cause the problem.
Dennis SGMM
@kay:
I haven’t been able to watch cable TV since late 2008. Turn off the box, it’s good for you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: Balloon Juice caused me to download FF.
Curious Bystander
Walker doesn’t negotiate. So shut up!
Dennis SGMM
@Paul in KY:
IE is not compliant with W3C standards. MS still stubbornly insists on doing it their way. Hopefully IE, which is in other ways a good browser, will eventually fall into compliance.
rikryah
keep posts like these coming. thanks
Aaron
The problem the right has with collective bargaining can all be traced back to the word “collective.” If conservative economics can be categorized in any way, I think it would be the perpetual search for cheap(er) labor. Their arguments are direct descendants from those that argued laws against child labor were fundamental corruptions of the market.
And so it goes that anything that upsets this cheap labor market, or shifts power into the hands of labor, as opposed to capital, is seen a a dangerous element
Egypt Steve
Rick Lazio?? Is there a bigger haz-bin in all of New York? Why not interview Alphonse D’Amato, ferchrissakes?
geg6
@Continental Op:
No, the edit and delete functions seem to be down completely, regardless of browser. It’s not working for me in Firefox, either.
Old Gringo
Perhaps Kasich and Walker just find the term “collective” disturbing and offensive. Maybe if we changed the name to “Freedom Bargaining” they could feel better about it.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: (and Dennis SGMM), Alas, I only have a work PC & I am damned to use IE (maybe you can hear the constant wailing of the demons here in IE Hell).
I’ve actually gotten pretty good at scrolling to the right to see someone’s comments when they go that way. When it first happened, I abandoned BJ for awhile, as I could not deal with the mess. As you can imagine, I couldn’t quit you & I just work around the problem as best I can.
Appreciate y’all trying to help me out, though.
Southern Beale
Don’t know if John Cole has seen this video of the mother of at least one of Judge Ciavarella’s victims confronting him outside of court. From the audio it sounds like more than one angry mother shouting at him.
b-psycho
Capital has collective bargaining too. They just call it “lobbying”.
freelancer
Walker is the gift that keeps on giving. If you’re gonna threaten to fire state employees, make sure your fellow GOP members aren’t married to any of them.
kdaug
@Paul in KY:
Oh, this one dings me personally.
Ever heard of the Khronos group? It’s a working group consortium of Apple, Google, Mozilla, ATI, NVidia, Nokia, Ericsson, Opera, and about 100 other companies. The motto is “Open standards for media authoring and acceleration”. Responsible for OpenGL, Collada, et.al.
They’re working on an open-source 3d platform for 3d rendering directly in your browser, called WebGL. Still beta, and a bit clunky, but it should go live in the next few months (along with WebGL-compatable browser updates to Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari).
Notice who’s missing from the list of companies? Microsoft and Adobe. Adobe has a similar, proprietary project coming out some time in 2012, and Microsoft is putting it’s money there.
So quit whining about how nobody wants to develop for IE. It’s the fucking Compuserve of browsers. Go get a new one (psst — they’re FREE!), and join the 21st century.
horse dave
I don’t know if everyone has the same Ad but I find it humorous that this thread has a “Stand with Walker” ad. Thanks for financially supporting this site Koch. More rethug fail.
jk
OT
Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223?page=1
Paul in KY
@Southern Beale: I’ll tell ya, if she’d killed him, I don’t think any normal jury would have convicted her.
That poor lady. I can only hope the ‘judge’ gets some prison payback.
JGabriel
Mark S.:
jk:
From the article:
MISO Soup, anyone?
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freelancer
@kdaug:
Paul specifically said he’s stuck with it at work, as am I. IE sucks, but it’s the only option we have. We have been expressly forbidden from installing Chrome or FF more specifically because the open source aspect of FF has crashed other software utilized here at my job that is necessary for some cases in Operating Rooms, so like Paul, I’m still stuck in the 20th century during the day.
Paul in KY
@kdaug: You may not have read my previous emails. I cannot get another. I don’t own my PC and even if it is free, I cannot put ‘non approved’ stuff on it.
The ‘reviled breed’ comment was hyperbole. I was laughing when I typed it.
srv
@jk: While I like Taibbi’s work, that article is a bit thin on any actual psy-ops. I don’t see anything a public affairs staff wouldn’t already do to win over the politicos. So it’s a big deal if a non-PAO does it?
Elizabelle
@Aaron:
Spot on.
Kay: excellent post. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Look forward to your follow up when SOMEONE eventually answers the question.
JGabriel
kdaug:
A bit harsh, don’t you think? Paul in KY has already made it clear that he has to use IE at work.
Even if he didn’t, though, IE is still the browser that comes with Windows and is what a lot of non-tech oriented clients use. While I encourage people to switch to a different browser, there’s no need to ridicule those who use it and are having problems.
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Mark S.
@srv:
It’s not by Taibbi, it’s by Michael Hastings, whose previous article brought down General Bud Lime Ice. Also, I’m pretty sure the online version up right now is just an excerpt of a longer article.
drkrick
@Paul in KY:
He may want to hope that too. If ever a person should worry about vigilante justice if he’s walking around free, this would be the guy.
Bulworth
Because shut up that’s why. Only dirty pinko commie islamofacist muslim brotherhood hippies care about collective bargaining.
JGabriel
@srv:
It is if the non-PAO is trained in psy-ops/MISO.
Even if they’re doing nothing wrong, it raises a humongous red flag. And that’s a best case scenario. Why the fuck would you have domestic public affairs operations handled by people trained in psy-ops?
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PurpleGirl
@Paul in KY: That could be a problem with Flash. I have Flash blocked and it makes loading time faster and if I want to see something that requires Flash I have the option to use it. (Animated ads bother me a lot and having Flash blocked helps.)
stuckinred
@JGabriel: These touch-and-go, grip and grin sessions have always been bullshit. All it does is allow these phony motherfuckers to say “I’ve been on the ground”. That jackass Congressman from Florida was bitching a while back because he wanted Obama to go on a goddam LRP to prove his “leadership” when he visited “the war zone”. As always, it’s all bullshit.
Sly
@Egypt Steve:
I think most people don’t realize that Al D’Amato is still alive.
Southern Beale
@freelancer:
Jesus. Wisconsin is more incestuous than Tennessee! So the wife of the wife of state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald has received a preliminary layoff notice. I have a sad.
Let’s remember, she is also (follow along now) the sister-n-law of Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald. And I guess that makes her the daughter in law of the Wisconsin State Police Superintendent Stephen Fitzgerald.
This reminds me of the court of King Henry VIII
Southern Beale
@freelancer:
My comment got embargoed and I don’t know why but basically I said the wife of Wisconsin State Senate leader Fitzgerald getting a layoff notice is interesting because she’s also the sister in law of the assembly speaker and the daughter in law of the state police superintendent.
Weird. What is it with this family?
Southern Beale
@Bulworth:
Correction, sir! Only dirty pinko commie islamofacist muslim brotherhood hippies care about **some workers** collective bargaining rights.
Upstanding merkin patriots care about police and firefighters having the right to collectively bargain, else why would Walker have exempted them? Clearly when police do it it’s TOTALLY NOT THE SAME THING.
jayackroyd
Tweeted this.
asiangrrlMN
@JGabriel: Second third fourth this. I can’t do my patented triple reply, and it’s bugging the shit out of me. FYWP.
@freelancer: Bwahahahahahahahaha! Man, Walker is so fucking inept. How the hell are we losing to these guys again? Still. I really think he’s in way over his head right now.
Chris
@danimal:
Unless they’re cops and firefighters’ unions, which are different. Presumably, cops and firefighters “deserve it” and teachers “do not.”
Litlebritdifrnt
@geg6:
He also schools Scarborough on a regular basis, I like that in a person.
kdaug
@Paul in KY: OK, I retract my vehemence (but not the bit about IE being the Compuserve of browsers). If you’re logging in from work, and IT won’t let you install another browser, you get a pass.
OTOH, if you’re at work reading Balloon Juice…
Chet
“…and they utterly forget the role of unions in helping people in this country.”
This is the one statement of Bernstein’s that I would take issue with.
These bastards remember this only too well, and that’s precisely why they want unions eliminated.
Chet
@Chris: Gosh, even nonwhite cops and firemen?
vheidi
@dr. bloor: this
freelancer
@kdaug:
Isn’t that most of us here?
Malron
I guess now we know why Bob Woodward is the part of the legendary Woodward/Bernstein duo that gets invited on the cable programs.
les
@kdaug:
It’s good to walk a mile in someone’s shoes, because if you decide you like ’em you’re a mile away and they’re barefoot.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
Gaaah, Newsbusters! My eyes feel all slimy now.
JGabriel
@stuckinred:
Agreed, mostly. But that still doesn’t answer the question: What non-nefarious reason is there to have public affairs operations run by a psy-ops/MISO team?
Because I can’t think of any.
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Origuy
@Southern Beale:
I think it’s the word that rhymes with “inbestuous”.
Paul in KY
@PurpleGirl: What is this ‘Flash’ thing you speak about? I’m a mainframe coder who is not very PC-savvy. I just use the damn thing to attach to a TSO screen, send email, & surf net (using the dreaded IE).
Paul in KY
@kdaug: Don’t tell the boss!
Paul in KY
PurpleGirl, can’t edit my comments above, but I wanted to thank you for thinking about my predicament & offering a solution :-)