Dissent

#dissent | #WhatTheyVotedFor

“Policy dissent is in our culture. We even have awards for it.”

―Unnamed U.S. diplomat serving in Africa

Speaking of movements, what apparently started on home shores, a State Department dissent cable, has gathered some serious moss. Support. Serious support. To wit, the New York Times reports:

Within hours, a State Department dissent cable, asserting that President Trump’s executive order to temporarily bar citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries would not make the nation safer, traveled like a chain letter―or a viral video.

The cable wended its way through dozens of American embassies around the world, quickly emerging as one of the broadest protests by American officials against their president’s policies. And it is not over yet.

By 4 p.m. on Tuesday, the letter had attracted around 1,000 signatures, State Department officials said, far more than any dissent cable in recent years. It was being delivered to management, and department officials said more diplomats wanted to add their names to it.

The State Department has 7,600 Foreign Service officers and 11,000 civil servants.

Two Bugs in an Office with a Severed Head

You know, this time we don’t get to blame Adam; the white-collar rank and file would not have these problems if they had collective bargaining rights.

On the upside, the old lady was already dead; it’s not like the li’l bugger went on a spree.

Which raises another point about spree violence: Economic security might help reduce the number of incidents. So would good mental health benefits.

No, I don’t really have a plan for accomplishing all that, but, hey, if Bernie Sanders can make it this far without studying his own platform, it seems worth mentioning.

Yeah, you know, maybe I should just stick with bad puns and perverse vapidity for filler.

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Image note: Detail of Bug Martini by Adam Huber, 4 May 2016.

The Scott Walker Show (Quality of Life)

The Cowardly Badger wants another do-over, but this time for one of his policy achievements, lowering a worker’s quality of life. Paul Waldman explains Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s dubious presidential ambition:

Scott Walker wants to take his fight against organized labor national. Today he released a plan for a new war not just on union representation, but on worker rights in general.

It’s quite a document, one we might call Scott Walker’s Race to the Bottom.

I have no doubt that Walker is sincere in his desire to see every labor union crushed and every vestige of workers’ power banished — or, in his lingo, “flexibility.” I’d also be surprised if any of the other candidates objected to any part of it. So the plan is worth understanding if you want to grasp what today’s GOP is offering today’s workers.

While he doesn’t say so explicitly, what Walker seems to hope for is really a world without any labor unions at all, or at the very least a world where unions are so weakened that they are unable to advocate for anyone.

This is a fun one: You know how from time to time we hear from Republicans about public sector employees having opulent benefits? Hang on to that for a moment. Okay. So, you know how from time to time we hear reminders that real wages are stagnant, and have remained so for decades?

Right. Two and two. Put them together. The outcome really is that obvious.

There are those who will need your help to understand; thus, put as simply as possible: Those aren’t opulent contracts; other workers could have had them, too, if they had unions guarding their standard of living.

And then, before they get too confused, remind them: This is what voters wanted when Republicans pitched the better life of tomorrow without unions. Yes, this lesser quality of life.

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Waldman, Paul. “Scott Walker’s race to the bottom”. The Washington Post. 14 September 2015.