Public Union Logic Part 2 - Teachers

   I have lacked the time to get back to this before now, but this is a continuation on the first post regarding public unions. The current concerted attack on public unions by the GOP and its Tea Party wing, is just a stepping stone for a larger attack on working Americans. We all know that governments on all levels, local to national are suffering terrible financial crises. This fact has been a major motivating factor in the pattern of the last two election cycles.
    As it continues to be more and more difficult to meet basic needs, Americans are suffering and afraid. Well....most of us anyway. The exception would be the top one or two percent who are buying the services of our governments at all levels, local to national. Those folks are in better shape than they ever have been . The current income disparity in the US is the widest in our history. They also seem to have a pressing interest in ensuring that the US economy will continue to be structured to re-distribute wealth... Upward.... To them. The attack on the public unions is a keystone in this re-distribution plan.

Suckerpunch Review

Suckerpunch...Yaaahh. Gonna throw out the minor spoiler alerts right off. Also going to put out the recommendation right off. Here it is:
Do not see this movie unless you are very VERY VERY high!!

Which is likely the state that Director turned writer and story man Zack Snyder and his co-writer Steve Shibuya were in during the writing and production of this movie. Seriously, and not in a good way.

   Suckerpunch is the latest offering from director Zack Snyder. Previous efforts from Snyder include the film adaptations of the graphic novels "300" and "Watchmen", and the remake of "Dawn of the Dead". This is the first outing for him as both story creator AND writer (with Steve Shibuya) AND director.

   Suckerpunch is the story of a young woman (Baby Doll) wrongly imprisoned in a mental institution by her evil stepfather. This occurs after the death of her young sister during Baby Doll's attempt to save said sister from rape/beating/murder (take your pick) by said evil stepfather. Naturally, the stepfather pays a corrupt orderly (who is apparently sexually abusing and perhaps prostituting the female inmates) to ensure that the girl will be lobotomized to further ensure that Stepfather will control her inheritance from her mother, and that she will be forever unable to testify against him. Baby Doll retreats from the exploitation environment of her Stepfather and the Asylum, to a fantasy world where she plans her escape from the institution. 

   Baby Doll's chosen fantasy land? A forced prostitution club where her almost supernatural (and mercifully never seen) ability to dance mesmerizes bad guys and transports her to secondary fantasies wherein she and several of her fellow prisoners don Katana's, heavy artillery and really cool but completely impractical corset and boots combos, to do everything from slaying dragons and orcs to slaying clockwork Nazi's. In each "mission" they gather certain items (from the mesmerized bad guys in fantasy world 1) which have been laid out for them by yoda..er Scott Glenn (perpetually spouting nonsense, cliche quotations) as necessary for their escape.
   Of course, trials and tribulations ensue...and eventually an escape or two...kind of..

   I had not read any reviews of the movie prior to viewing. I had barely seen a trailer in fact, so I was expecting a girl-power, anime inspired action flick. And I think that might have been what the creators were after. The first ten minutes, which were a brilliant piece of wordless, set to music, BEAUTIFUL story set up, gave me hope for a realization of the expectations and perhaps a bit more. Unfortunately they failed miserably. The entire movie was a sequence of very pretty but utterly nonsensical and completely unrelated fantasy action scenes, interspersed with positively painful sequences of "plot".
    The intro leads one to expect an adventure of feminine self-empowerment with the added bennies of big guns and cool warrior-chick togs. One of my fellow sufferers informs me (she read reviews before hand) that it was in fact the intent of the creators to produce an exploitation style film that was not exploitation but empowerment instead. Again. Epic fail. There is, a pervasive miasma of misogyny throughout the movie and all of its settings. It is not quite 100% exploitation, but is close enough to be a turn-on for those who seek that kind of porn. However, since it is PG-13 there is no actual sex, so I suppose it fails in that vein as well. The overall message is that the best women can hope for is either learning how to live with exploitation, enslavement and violation, or a lobotomy to make one forget it.
  We all came away rather confused and not at all sure what we thought. We did however agree that there were two features of the movie that were complete wins. Double thumbs up all the way around. The first is the sound-track, which is a wonderful collection of classic rock songs done up as thoroughly modernized covers. REALLY good! The other plus? Well, that is more subjective but we were all in agreement. REALLY awesome shoes! OK yes, girly perhaps. But then, it was a Girl's Night Out activity.
   Final remarks. Snyder should stick strictly to adapting the work of others to the screen. He has amazing vision for, well, visuals. He should also stay away from the hallucinogenics, and finally, if he is straight, he should definitely get out and date more. He has NO idea what makes women tick. He does, however have great taste in soundtracks and shoes...hey wait a minute!...hmmmm.....OK I have to stop now before I get too much farther down that Freudian rabbit-hole.

Public Union Logic

I spent a great deal of time a few nights ago tweeting with a gentleman who had brought himself to my attention by jumping on one of the folks I follow, demanding the logic behind public sector unions. My followee had responded with something to the effect of (paraphrased....loosely) " For the obvious reason. To reward those who want to give public service." I completely agreed with that sentiment. The gentleman however did not find that adequate and reiterated a desire for the "logic". The argument basically distilled, on my part (he wandered a bit to other subjects) to the concept of why Public employees not only deserve, but NEED to retain collective bargaining power.

 After spending some increasingly frustrating time attempting to convey the argument in 140 character bits and pieces, I gave up and introduced myself to Twit Longer, a service ( to be used judiciously) which allows one to create a MUCH longer post that then links to Twitter. After producing the "tweet", I decided it pretty well encapsulated the argument and that it would, in fact make decent blog post. There are some modifications I have made to further flesh out my points because, well...its my blog, I have space if I wanna. What follows is the modified text of the umm....longer twit?....

 "OK here it is. Public employees (except, arguably the elected ones) don't go into it to get rich. The legendary job security of the public sector is a myth, especially in this age of tax cuts (governments run mainly on taxes) and skyrocketing materials costs associated with explosive growth in places like China and India. Layoffs are as rampant as they are in the private sector.

Many of the jobs associated with public employment have more hazard and stress involved (we agree there). Some have VERY large potential consequences for failure, and I'm not talking just about police and fire. People die if the infrastructure is not working right as well. Most of the jobs of this nature, are also jobs that fall under collective bargaining groups, otherwise known as unions.

So, you have high stress/dangerous/"better NOT screw it up or people die" jobs. Those jobs, on average pay less than equivalents in the private sector, especially at state and local levels.  Many state and local governments regularly lose really good people to private sector jobs. If as a society we want (and we do) really qualified good people to keep us safe, save our stuff and make sure our infrastructure works and does not kill us, there MUST be a way to attract and retain excellent people to do that. We have already established that money is NOT that method. Nor is job security. So you are asking people with high stress jobs, to do those jobs with no say over any aspect of their working conditions? Really? 

Don't forget that we all owe the existence of things like safe working conditions, limited work weeks, pay for overtime and holidays, paid vacation (or even just the ability to take vacation and still have your job when you get back), to the unions. Many things we take for granted these days as normal, reasonable and expected in our employment environments came out of the union movement. Additionally, the types of public jobs we are discussing often involve very long hours, often in nasty conditions, with no regard for holidays, standard schedule, etc. All necessary to keep things running, all day every day, for the rest of us. To not allow those unions in the public sector basic rights that everyone else has, to bargain for their working conditions, is attempting to create a public sector slave class. Again, not the best way to attract the best people for important jobs.  

Taking away from public employees a last right that private employees still have, is only adding to the disincentive for the really good, really qualified people to opt for the lower pay and greater stress jobs. That equals less safety, security and general well being for all of us.

That is my take on the subject, make of it what you will. :-)"

I further elaborated that the main reason to preserve public sector bargaining power was to spare ourselves from the effects of having the important "Do NOT screw it up or people will die" jobs done by the people who would be willing to work constant 80 hour weeks in unsafe conditions for $5 an hour. Upshot. Cushy government employment conditions.....MYTH. Awesome cushy paychecks for cushy jobs.....MYTH. Legendary job security for cushy jobs and cushy pay.....MYTH. So what, exactly do we have to offer to entice people to do these important jobs (besides the increasingly rare basic desire to serve their fellow citizens, which should be rewarded in itself )? Really only the fact that they still have the ability to join together in a collective unit to bargain for how and under what conditions their difficult, critical, and often dangerous jobs are to be done.