Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Unions and Corporations in California:  Mutually Assured Destruction   Gone unnoticed in Governor Schwarzenegger's push for an off-year election to vote on three pet initiatives of his, is the other initiatives that have already qualified for the ballot.  The truly interesting one is Initiative 1084, which would prevent public unions from using either fees or union dues for political purposes without prior written consent by the union member.  Any union member who finds the political objectives of his union truly troubling could simply leave the union, one would think, but this initiative is likely to pass, because it seems, on its face, to be reasonable. In fact, it seems like such a no-brainer that one wonders why no one thought of it before.  Ah, but people have thought of it before.  They neglected to get it on the ballot because they didn't want to provoke the labor unions into proposing a countering initiative, for which signatures are still being gathered.  This uneasy truce has endured for at least a decade, before someone chose to let slip the dogs of war.  The answering proposal is Initiative 1108, which would require stockholder approval for any corporate contributions to political campaigns.  The stockholders would have to give prior written approval of the exact amounts to be spent, and exactly what they would be spent upon.  In addition to the difficulty getting such approval, it means that any stockholder who opposed the politics of the corporation would be able to get word to the opposing side, in advance, of exactly what political maneuvers to expect from the corporation.  Since corporate contributions to political campaigns greatly dwarf union contributions (the last I heard, it was by a margin of 12-1), this trade-off of initiatives will be a disaster for corporate America's efforts to corrupt the political process ever further; it will also hurt the labor unions, though rather less; and most importantly, both votes will be a victory for cleaner, and more transparent, democracy.  Initiative 1108 is, as I said, not on the ballot yet, but all it needs to do is get in front of enough California voters, and they'll sign. 6:54:06 PM    comment []

A Model Prison   Vice President Dick Cheney said that the detainees at Guantanamo are being treated "far better" than they would by "virtually any other government on the face of the Earth"…that in fact it's a model prison.  No, wait.  You can stop laughing.  Rolling in the aisles isn't just impolite; it's a safety hazard.  Someone could trip, and break their neck, purely by accident, like at the model prison.  And anyway, it's not an unfair description.  Don't lots of models starve themselves?  Don't lots of models get beat by their boyfriends?  Aren't models' values, and beliefs, mocked relentlessly by others?  Aren't models sometimes told everything will be much easier if they just do, and say, what they're told?  Well, there you go.  Guantanamo is a model prison:  the prisoners are being treated just like models.  And it's only fair; they're only getting what they deserve; after all, some of the prisoners at Guantanamo are under suspicion of...suspicion.  Maybe some of these prisoners will walk down the runway to a gas chamber.  That would teach them not to threaten a country which values civil rights so highly that it tortures, and sometimes kills, those that disagree with it. To review, just why is the government so insistent on keeping Guantanamo Bay open for business as a prison...spa?  The US government is continuing to hold the prisoners at Guantanamo because the Supreme Court has ruled that Guantanamo Bay, which is technically part of Cuba, is not subject to US laws.  So they can do what they want, and it doesn't count under US law.  What a deal! 9:58:56 AM    comment []

Quote for the Day, 5/14/2005   "Sexual enlightenment is justified insofar as girls cannot learn too soon how children do not come into the world."   -Karl Kraus 3:29:41 AM    comment []