Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Warning: You are about to enter the Twilight Zone.
Imagine, if you will, that you live in a state where a governor wields extraordinary power over its residents. Imagine, if you will, that your governor has the legal
authority to appoint an “Emergency Manager” to oversee the local government in the town where you reside. Imagine that the monetary compensation for the Emergency Manager of your community has no cap. Imagine that your Emergency Manager declares that there’s a financial emergency in your town and then takes over control of it. Imagine that the Emergency Manager can break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services—and can also fire duly elected public officials who serve your community. Imagine, if you will, that the Emergency Manager empowered by your governor to run your town has the right to dissolve your school district and to disincorporate your town. AND imagine that you and your fellow residents have no say about what is going on! Just imagine how you might feel if you lived in a state where that kind of thing was going on. Well, the people who live in Michigan may not have to imagine much longer.
Who, you might ask, will be responsible for transforming the state of Michigan into a Rod Serlingesque otherworldly undemocratic Twilight Zone right here in the United States? Why, Governor Rick Snyder and his bold band of Republican state legislators–that’s who. In January, Governor Snyder called for “Emergency Manager” legislation—and the Republican state legislators were more than happy to comply with his request.
This all seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? I’m not making it up. Karen Bouffard of The Detroit News reported the following: Legislation that would allow emergency financial managers to throw out union contracts and overrule elected officials in financially distressed municipalities and school districts was approved Wednesday by the state Senate. Similar legislation passed in the House in February, and the two chambers are working on a final version to send to Gov. Rick Snyder.
In an article published in The Michigan Messenger, Eartha Jane Melzer wrote:
Under the law whole cities or school districts could be eliminated without any public participation or oversight, and amendments designed to provide minimal safeguards and public involvement were voted down.
An amendment to require Emergency Managers to hold monthly public meetings to let people know how they are governing was rejected by Senate Republicans, along with proposals to cap Emergency Manager compensation and require that those appointed to run school districts have some background in education.
Critics say that Republicans are manipulating concerns about budget problems in order to consolidate power by undermining unions.
According to E. D. Kain: Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.
Mark Gaffney, Michigan State President of the AFL-CIO said: This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen.
Do you agree with Mark Gaffney? Do you think what’s going on in Michigan is an assault on democracy?
SOURCES
Rachel Maddow Exposes Michigan Republicans Secret War On Democracy (Politicus USA)
Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers (Forbes)
Michigan Republicans Use Budget Crisis to make Outrageous Assault on Democracy (AFL-CIO)
Michigan Senate passes emergency manager bills (Daily Tribune)
Emergency managers bill sweeps toward final approval (The Michigan Messenger)
Conyers: Emergency Manager bill ‘raises serious constitutional concerns’ (The Michigan Messenger)
Financial manager bill passes Michigan Senate (The Detroit News)
Michigan bill would impose “financial martial law” (CBS News)
Dr. Scribe:
there is a distinct difference between a freeloader and someone down on their luck. The freeloader is a different animal entirely.
A person down on their luck but willing to work deserves the help and anyway they have paid into those social programs when they were working.
But no, I do not have a “social conscience”. I do have an individual conscience though, especially for people willing to make it under their own efforts and not rely on others for their daily bread unless they have exhausted all their options. Why should the mother of 6 working 2 jobs pay for the mother of 4 who is not working? That seems pretty despicable to me.
But that is what socialism does, what are you going to do when you have taken everything the rich folk have? That only amounts to maybe $5 or 6K for every man, woman and child in America. Then where are you going to get it from? You will be forced to take from the mother of 6 to pay for the mother 4 since the mother of 4 has a greater “social need” because she doesn’t have a job.
I wont tell you what I think of that scenario, I imagine you know.
rafflaw,
“Lucky for me, we didn’t have a garage and I could run faster than my big brother!”
Lmao – As the youngest of three I can safely say that two little legs run mighty fast when you’ve got four big ones chasing after you!
OS,
I think our friend may sing a different tune when those hard times show up at his door!
Stamford,
Lucky for me, we didn’t have a garage and I could run faster than my big brother!
Thank you Maury. You did it. I did not think you had it in you. The you say that confession is good for the soul–assuming one has a soul. You write:
Emphasis added, in order to point out that you are admitting you have no social conscience and are willing to deride those who do. Son, you have a long and rocky road ahead of you if you happen to fall on hard times. I hope you are strong enough to avoid filing for “socialist” disability and unemployment benefits, or food stamps.
Tony C:
“In particular, a pretty good argument for resentment in men. I hypothesize that Maury is a failed man; he has failed to get rich, is frustrated with his sex life (or lack thereof), and in his climb to the top has fallen short of his younger aspirations.”
Did you need to read a book to have an insight like that? Holy shit Batman, I could figure that out without a book. It is kinda like Dr. Scribe talking about the Dunning-Kruger effect, we have a saying for it-“the complete authority of the uninformed”. Been saying it for at least 20 years, so Dunning and Kruger did a study to figure that out? Study the obvious and become a master of it, like you and Otteray Scribe – The Doctors Obvious.
Except I only resent free loaders because they take and give nothing back to society except for making people like you and Dr. Scribe feel good about yourselves for their social conscience.
rafflaw,
Wasn’t it great?! Sick little bastards!
LOL – well, I can’t say I blame the kid, I’d cease wearing one as well to lessen the risk 😀
Stamford,
I am a little late, but that was a great Wedgie video! It reminded me of a friend who used to hang his little brother on a nail in the garage by his belt. The kid stopped wearing belts for years as a defense mechanism!
“In case that word “holistic” confuses you, it means “relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts”.
Buddha,
That is so true and it is a concept lost on Brian. We are not a “brain” controlling the body around us. As your words show you know and reject the mind/body split developed by religionists about 600 years ago to bolster the silly concept of “original sin.” We are all “organisms,” where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. While the brain is used as a metaphor for our control center, it is but one aspect of our entire self, a human organism.
My wife and I were discussing this last night with respect to my heart transplant and whether I was a “changed” person because i had a new heart. As my closest outside observer she sees me as the same person I’ve always been, just healthier. Originally though, that was in doubt because until my subsequent lung operation a month after my transplant, I wasn’t getting enough oxygen, thus my reasoning was clouded and my temperament more hostile.
Because the “heart” has long been used as a metaphor for love, courage and feeling, it is given a special place in our pantheon of organs. In truth though, humans also need lungs, livers, kidneys, etc. to go on living. Our brains and our hearts, while of course very important, make up only part of the Gestalt that characterizes any human being.
When I was a child, between the ages of 6 and 11, I was profoundly unhappy and felt alienated from those around me. To deal with this angst I would plot revenge against my tormentors, in fantasy. Since I had felt hurt so much, I never allowed myself to want to destroy even those I despised and felt had hurt me. My idead was that my revenge would be in showing people the hurt they inflicted on me in such a manner that they would be racked with guilt for mistreating me.
The fantasy would consist of making plans whose substance had depth only in thinking about what I proposed to do, yet I for years avoided the fact that I really had no viable plan
to effectuate my goals. Around age 12 I finally began to admit to myself that these “plans” were pipe dreams, not to be taken seriously, since I never even got beyond a rudimentary planning stage. When I had recognized the fantasy’s for what they were, I was able to use them constructively to relieve hurt and anxiety,
while understanding that they would never get any further. This assisted in my maturation and left me less frustrated with the travails of my life.
After all the verbiage Brian has produced, with all his talk of his grandiose experiments and conceptualizations, he has never explained in depth just what his research is. He talks around it
constantly and intertwines it with grandiose claims, with apparently nothing behind them. I believe he is stuck in a similar stage to that I went through in my unhappy childhood, only he uses the defense mechanism of Denial to cloud his vision of what he really is doing.
I feel compassion for him and his pain. Unfortunately, he expresses this immaturity in a torrent of verbiage that is even from a charitable sense annoying and a provocation of hostility.
I’ve never suggested banning anyone here, but damn I wish he would just go away and get some help somewhere.
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes. Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.” George Santayana
Maury,
How ironic that you use this quote. It is an irony that I’m sure is lost on you. Santayana was brilliant and this quote represents a truism that has unfortunately plagued mankind. The irony is of course that you are profoundly guilty of that which you accuse others of doing. There you go projecting again. You’ve failed to learn from the history of this country for the last 31 years. What you espouse politically is the system of thought and economic policy that has held sway since Reagan and it has been an utter failure. That you fail to recognize it only serves as an example of what Santayana was postulating.
Schmuck.
Thanks for admitting your head is up your own ass.
A little truthfulness goes a long way.
That maybe true, but if you would stay out of everyone elses anus and tend to your own anus, then well, we’d all be happier that things didn’t smell like shit.
It came from the one that says, Mind over Matter. You don’t gotta mind so it don’t matter. Can’t you get something right today at least.
And yes, I know my head is not where yours is. Mine is presently residing squarely upon my shoulders. Yours in demonstrably elsewhere. Perhaps somewhere off the coast of Uranus.
Wow.
Not sure where that blown out HTML tag came from, but apologies, ya’ll.
coexist \ˌkō-ig-ˈzist\, v.i.,
1: to exist together or at the same time
science \ˈsī-ən(t)s\, n.,
1: the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
2a : a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study b : something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge
3a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science
religion \ri-ˈli-jən\, n.,
1a : the state of a religious b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness
4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
Words do have meaning. Religion and science are not the same thing hence different nouns. And the verb “coexist”? It is not the same thing as the verb “merge”.
merge \ˈmərj\, v.t.,
1 archaic : to plunge or engulf in something : immerse
2: to cause to combine, unite, or coalesce
3: to blend gradually by stages that blur distinctions
Brian asserts he seeks to merge the two, not that they coexist. Coexisting is a parallel process. Merging is a unitary process. Because science depends upon verifiable empirical proof via the scientific method and religion depends upon unverifiable faith, the two are never capable of merger as a basic order of operation, but merely coexistence.
English.
You should get some, Unci Half-wit.
My head ain’t where you leave yours. Andy and Staff send the very best to you as usual. There is a place for you someplace. Maybe off the coast of Florida.
Albert Einstein on:
Religion and Science
Read this you evil doubter.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
They do coexist.
Unci Sockpuppet,
Go run crying to Andy because you’ve mistaken me from someone who would give a damn about your assessment of my intelligence, Oh He Who Is Unable To Differentiate And Use Multiple Tools.
By the way, when you pull the underwear out, I suggest looking for your head while you’re back there.