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.

____________________

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

The Ted Cruz Show (Hair-on-Fire Apoplexy)

“As ridiculous as Cruz’s posturing seems, it’s important to remember the broader context: national GOP candidates have a built-in incentive to be as hysterical as possible right now, in the hopes of currying favor with the party’s base. Mild, reasoned disappointment with the court doesn’t impress far-right activists; unrestrained, hair-on-fire apoplexy does.”

―Steve Benen

This is an obvious point, or, at least one might think.

Steve Benen points to his msnbc colleague Benjy Sarlin’s report Friday last detailing the 2016 GOP presidential reactions following the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in favor of same sex marriage:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) went so far as to call for a constitutional convention to overturn the court’s decision while campaigning in Iowa, according to CNN. In an interview with Sean Hannity he called the back-to-back rulings on health care and gay marriage “some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history.”

While the Texas junior is hardly the only Republican presidential candidate opting to skip out on posturing his response within the realm of general dignity, Mr. Benen responded aptly:

Hannity, incidentally, found Cruz’s rhetoric quite compelling, responding, “I couldn’t say it more eloquently.”

For what it’s worth, it’s not hard to think of some genuinely tragic 24-hour periods in American history. The Lincoln assassination comes to mind. So does the time British troops burned the White House. There were days during the Civil War in which tens of thousands of Americans died on the battlefield. Just in the last century, we witnessed the JFK assassination, Pearl Harbor, and a corrupt president resign in disgrace.

For the Republican presidential hopeful, learning that Americans will have health benefits and loving couples will get married belongs on the same list.

The thing is that Mr. Cruz is not entirely wrong; the rest, as Benen points out, is a matter of perspective.

An Important Difference

Sometimes it really does make a difference.

With Gov. Kate Brown’s signature Thursday, Oregon women will be the first in the nation who can get a year’s supply of birth control with one prescription.

When the change takes effect Jan. 1, women will no longer have to renew their prescriptions every 30 to 90 days. After an initial three-month supply, refills of the same prescription can be obtained for one year.

“We knew that the medical research was very clear that filling a yearlong prescription all at once is a significant contributor to improving the effectiveness of birth control,” Mary Nolan, interim executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, told the Associated Press before the signing.

(Winter)

Many are the occasions on which we might hear a neighbor bitterly proclaim that politicians are all the same, that it doesn’t matter who you vote for because it doesn’t make a difference. This argument is intended to help one of the parties. As Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) reminds yet again, there really is a difference, and some days it can be really, really important.

____________________

Image note: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) signs new legislation allowing one-year prescriptions for birth control, 11 June 2015, in Salem. (AP Photo)

Winter, Michael. “Oregon women first to get yearlong birth control”. USA Today. 11 June 2015.

A Cheeky Chickie Champloo

The thing about “prevention” advocacy is that it can actually empower what it seeks to “prevent”. Consider all the things we deign to inform women about rape; there comes a point when telling women what they should and shouldn’t do becomes a quality of life issue. To wit, what about your clothes? When you go out on the town, wear clothes and shoes suitable for running, and you know, get a better haircut. At some point it sounds like this infintite prevention advocacy comes down to: “Plan your life around being sexually assaulted.” This would seem to invoke some sort of quality of life issue. Human rights. Who the hell other than women do we expect to live in perpetual fear?

No, really. Think about it. A year and a half ago, amid a string of sexual assaults and attempted abductions, Anna Minard of The Stranger (Seattle’s Only Newspaper) threw down the obvious gauntlet:

So, to review: Seattleites—and let’s be honest, we’re talking mostly to women here—as you go about your business, constantly scan your surroundings, memorizing detailed physical descriptions of people you encounter. Always know, down to the exact block, where you are and where the nearest security guard is and the hours of nearby businesses. Wear running shoes and loose, appropriate clothing—aka clothing appropriate for running away in. Bring your cell phone, but don’t use it to listen to music or text. And as you walk through the city like a human danger-scanner, walk confidently and keep your face neutral. You’re “in charge”!

WHAT THE FUCK?

I’m sure the police department is working to solve these crimes. I’m sure they just want to remind people that we live in a city and crime is real and it can happen to you. But this is exactly the kind of shit that we are talking about when we talk about women being raised in a culture of fear and conditioned to certain behaviors and expectations—like the expectation that we’re the ducks in a giant game of Duck Hunt™ ....

.... Here, as a refresher, are the best rape prevention tips I’ve ever read:

8. Use the Buddy System! If it is inconvenient for you to stop yourself from raping women, ask a trusted friend to accompany you at all times.

That is the conversation I would like to see happening at the Seattle Police Department, and not just among women on women’s blogs. Not a convoluted and ever-growing list of how to prevent your own rape by wearing the right non-rapey hairstyle or crossing the street in the most anti-rape fashion or sleeping in past the raping hour.

That is not helping women and, obviously, it is not ending rape.

We might mention this particular iteration for any number of reasons, suffice to say that there do exist in this world social circles where the 2013 events in Seattle triggered a long-running dispute between associates, a microcosmic reiteration of a genuinely ridiculous debate.