[P2P-F] 12 things you need to know about protests in Wisconsin, USA + Unions and P2P alternatives

Sun Feb 20 04:32:50 CET 2011

On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 9:28 PM, Richard Adler <richardcadler at gmail.com> wrote:
> The Koch brothers are referenced in the article Sam linked to, but this
> piece from Forbes expands on the role they are playing behind the scenes in
> Walker's plan. It's unsettling to see how often the Koch's are turning up
> behind different right-wing ventures of late:
>
> http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/18/koch-brothers-behind-wisconsin-effort-to-kill-public-unions/
>
> RCA
>

Thanks Rick. You are right, the Koch's are bleeding into everything
related to this activity it seems. In several discussions this week, I
had people who are proponents of "Tea Party" viewpoints offering
arguments and perspectives that I traced back to
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_Prosperity
which, indeed, is connected with the Koch.

>
> On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 8:53 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Sam,
>>
>> thanks for this and for trying out real p2p work in the Midwest ...
>>
>> please use our blog and Ning for reporting about progress, and we'll do
>> what we can to refract it abroad,
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 8:19 AM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> "What's happening in Wisconsin is not complicated. At the beginning of
>>> this year, the state was on course to end 2011 with a budget surplus
>>> of $120 million. As Ezra Klein explained, newly elected GOP Governor
>>> Scott Walker then " signed two business tax breaks and a conservative
>>> health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among
>>> other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a
>>> surplus into a deficit."
>>>
>>> Walker then used the deficit he'd created as the justification for
>>> assaulting his state's public employees. He used a law cooked up by a
>>> right-wing advocacy group called the American Legislative Exchange
>>> Council (ALEC). ALEC likes to fly beneath the radar, but I described
>>> the organization in a 2005 article as "the connective tissue that
>>> links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax
>>> activists and corporate money." Similar laws are on the table in Ohio
>>> and Indiana.
>>>
>>> Walker's bill would strip public employees of the right to bargain
>>> collectively for anything but higher pay (and would cap the amount of
>>> wage hikes they might end up gaining in negotiations). His intentions
>>> are clear -- before assuming office, Walker threatened to decertify
>>> the state's employees' unions (until he discovered that the governor
>>> doesn't have that power)."
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/479560/12_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_uprising_in_wisconsin/
>>> _______
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Aso worth reading:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://prop-press.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/report-from-day-five-first-chance-to-reflect.html
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________________________________________________
>>>
>>>
>>> I think the time is here to start talking with people about
>>>
>>> http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Political_Principles_of_Peer-to-Peer_Advocacy
>>> here, in the Industrial Midwest (which includes WI)
>>>
>>> One simple way to route around party politics is to give people a
>>> direct p2p way to actively reflect existing poltics as we saw in
>>> iceland with http://skuggathing.is/portal based on
>>> https://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy
>>>
>>> Another parallel approach is to start applying collective decision
>>> making and pooling of resources directly to problems people are
>>> addressing. In addition, creating cooperatives, supporting alternative
>>> currencies when appropriate.
>>>
>>> Unions in all of these states have resources, including pension funds,
>>> that they could invest directly in worker-owned cooperative companies,
>>> as has been discussed by Richard Schulte of flywheeltechcollective in
>>> the past. Some of them have expressed interest in doing this. These
>>> kinds of changes for entities like unions are long term changes and
>>> investments, and will take time. However, I think every year that goes
>>> by makes more and more on the left receptive to p2p alternatives.
>>>
>>> If people are interested in working on P2P political advocacy and
>>> approaches in 2011-2012, let's talk here and continue to build towards
>>> thing people can really use in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan,
>>> Eastern Europe, South America, etc
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>> Sam Rose
>>> Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
>>> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
>>> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
>>> skype: samuelrose
>>> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
>>> http://forwardfound.org
>>> http://futureforwardinstitute.org
>>> http://hollymeadcapital.com
>>> http://p2pfoundation.net
>>> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
>>>
>>> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
>>> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
>>> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
>>> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>> http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>>
>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>
>> Commons Strategies Group, http://www.commonsstrategies.org/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
--
Sam Rose
Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
skype: samuelrose
email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
http://forwardfound.org
http://futureforwardinstitute.org
http://hollymeadcapital.com
http://p2pfoundation.net
http://socialmediaclassroom.com

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan