Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

How does US politics work?

zion said:
Nino_savatte,



I don't think you're lying. It would be valuable to me in my work to know exactly what the law says.

As far as I know, Democrats receive substantial funds from trade unions. Several political candidates I have known personally have had substantial union support.
Click to expand...

Let's put it this way, only certain parties and candidates are allowed to receive funding from trade unions: one of them is the Democrats. The CPUSA relied heavily on union funding and Taft-Hartley put an end to that. Whatever you think of communists and communism, it is hardly democratic for the state to choke off funding because it doesn't like the political party in question. Especially when that country constantly boasts of how much more democratic it is than other countries.

So what is your work? Why would knowledge of Taft-Hartley be beneficial to you? Furthermore, why do you want me to provide you with information when you can readily obtain it yourself? Is there something that you're not telling me?


Dubya recently invoked Taft-Hartley

Hours after the breakdown in negotiations, President Bush took the first step toward invoking Taft-Hartley by appointing the required board of inquiry to report to him on the economic damage of the shutdown and the likelihood that the parties involved could settle the dispute on their own. The board reported back to the president the following day, October 8, stating that they had "no confidence that the parties [would] resolve the West Coast port dispute within a reasonable time." President Bush then requested that the Federal District Court in San Francisco issue a court order halting the lockout.
http://hnn.us/articles/1036.html
Click to expand...


Interesting piece from Ralph Nader on Taft-Hartley.
http://www.counterpunch.org/nader09062004.html

In spite of the fact that there are trade unions in the US, it is difficult to form a union and even more difficult to get an employer to recognise the union. Nixon had union support in 1969 and 1973, that should tell you something about the nature of trade unionism in the US.
 
Nino,

Let's put it this way, only certain parties and candidates are allowed to receive funding from trade unions: one of them is the Democrats.
Click to expand...

Since you didn't provide any citation to the actual text of the Taft-Hartley Act or to any article that cited the relevant text, I had to go and trawl around for it myself.

The section of the Act that relates to what you're talking about reads as follows:

(h) No investigation shall be made by the Board of any question affecting commerce concerning the representation of employees, raised by a labor organization under subsection (c) of this section, no petition under section 9 (e) (1) shall be entertained, and no complaint shall be issued pursuant to a charge made by a labor organization under subsection (b) of section 10, unless there is on file with the Board an affidavit executed contemporaneously or within the preceding twelvemonth period by each officer of such labor organization and the officers of any national or international labor organization of which it is an affiliate or constituent unit that he is not a member of the Communist Party or affiliated with such party, and that he does not believe in, and is not a member of or supports any organization that believes in or teaches, the overthrow of the United States Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods.
Click to expand...

HOWEVER, on further research it emerged that the Supreme Court held that this requirement was an unconstitutional bill of attainder in 1965. There are now no limits that I can find within Taft-Hartley on which parties can "receive funding from trade unions". Next time you allege something like this, please actually check that it's a current abuse rather than an abuse that ceased to be lawful over forty years ago. It's your responsibility to back up what you say and to speak the truth. I shouldn't have to do an hour of primary research to discover that you're full of it on this matter.

Certainly, the remaining sections of Taft-Hartley illegitimately limit workers' ability to organize, and certainly unions are much weaker in many US states than they are in the UK.

My work involves community organizing among low-income people, and knowledge of Taft-Hartley would help me understand how much workplace organizing is possible within the law. However, it seems that I can't consider you a reliable source for what parts of Taft-Hartley are actually in force.
 
zion said:
Nino,



Since you didn't provide any citation to the actual text of the Taft-Hartley Act or to any article that cited the relevant text, I had to go and trawl around for it myself.

The section of the Act that relates to what you're talking about reads as follows:



HOWEVER, on further research it emerged that the Supreme Court held that this requirement was an unconstitutional bill of attainder in 1965. There are now no limits that I can find within Taft-Hartley on which parties can "receive funding from trade unions". Next time you allege something like this, please actually check that it's a current abuse rather than an abuse that ceased to be lawful over forty years ago. It's your responsibility to back up what you say and to speak the truth. I shouldn't have to do an hour of primary research to discover that you're full of it on this matter.

Certainly, the remaining sections of Taft-Hartley illegitimately limit workers' ability to organize, and certainly unions are much weaker in many US states than they are in the UK.

My work involves community organizing among low-income people, and knowledge of Taft-Hartley would help me understand how much workplace organizing is possible within the law. However, it seems that I can't consider you a reliable source for what parts of Taft-Hartley are actually in force.
Click to expand...

Have a think about the word "organise" and then get back to me.
 
We pay a full-time community organizer to help local tenants fight for better living conditions and combat racism, mostly using funds provided by the Ricanne Hadrian Initiative for Community Organizing. Are we somehow not doing legitimate organizing? And why have you decided not to acknowledge that you were trying to push as factually true something that hasn't been true since the mid-1960s?
 
danny la rouge said:
:D If I'm understanding you, as I suspect I am now, then yes, you are being over pedantic.

Good work. :p
Click to expand...

:D

i think what i was thinking about, and not being clear, is that registered party members and other voters, don't always vote for the same party, they "split the ticket" and maybe go for a democrat in congress, and a republican president, in the same way as someone might vote differently in a local election as in a general election
 
zion said:
We pay a full-time community organizer to help local tenants fight for better living conditions and combat racism, mostly using funds provided by the Ricanne Hadrian Initiative for Community Organizing. Are we somehow not doing legitimate organizing? And why have you decided not to acknowledge that you were trying to push as factually true something that hasn't been true since the mid-1960s?
Click to expand...

You're a patronising one for sure. How dare you accuse me of "pushing something that isn't true"? How dare you accuse me of being "unreliable"? It is clear that you are pushing a hidden discourse here, friend. You are so obviously too wrapped up in your right wing paradise that anything that is considered vaguely left-wing is automatically 'evil' in your eyes. I gave you an example of how Bush recently used Taft-Hartley and you ignored it and you ignored it because you are hiding something. You are also, quite obviously, an unreconstructed red-baiter/basher. It seems to me that you were already aware of Taft-Hartley and were playing some sad wee game but you're number's up, friend. You've been sussed.

You only read what you want to read and you have the affrontery to accuse me - in not so many words - of lying. That's rich coming from you, sunshine.
 
I'm a bit of an American politics junkie, truth be told. Sad, I know.

1) Zion - isn't Bill Frist retiring at this election? Don't know who the new Republican Senate leader will be, if so....

2) Primaries are so confusing not only because we don't have anything similar in the UK, but because rules vary from state to state. In some places only voters registered with the party in question can vote in primaries. In others, registered voters of the party and independent voters can do so. In others, everyone can, regardless of registration. Such a patchwork of different regulations results from such a decentralised, federal system, in which states often get to work out their own electoral rules (within the boundaries of the Constitution as interpreted by the US Supreme Court).

3) Some of you might be interested to know that the US is about to elect its first openly socialist Senator (current Rep. Bernie Sanders - Vermont)...and that he is the brother of the Leader of Oxfordshire County Council Green Party. :)

Matt
 
How does US politics work?

The same as every other so called democracy, a minority of people vote for a limited choice of candidates who tinker at the edges for a few years and then ask for you to vote for them again

It’s the political equivalent of the Emperors new clothes
 
You insist on ignoring this, zion

Bush Secures Taft-Hartley Court Order in Lockout

President George W. Bush secured a court order Oct. 8 ordering the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) to temporarily end its lockout of 10,500 dockworkers at 29 West Coast ports and ordering work to resume without a contract. Dockworkers are expected to resume work the afternoon of Oct. 9.

http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/ns10082002.cfm
Click to expand...

This is from the AFL-CIO website, so you can't accuse it of being "biased".
 
Nino,

I didn't ignore you on Bush's lockout: I substantially agree with you - as I said,

Certainly, the remaining sections of Taft-Hartley illegitimately limit workers' ability to organize, and certainly unions are much weaker in many US states than they are in the UK.
Click to expand...

It should be obvious to you that I was mainly talking about your untrue assertion that Taft-Hartley still discriminates against communists. You didn't know that that provision had been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1965, and you thought it was still in force. That means that you said something that wasn't true. Get over it.

I was generally aware that the laws on unions in the US were not strong enough to enable workers to organize effectively. However, I had never looked at the specific legislation because we tend to do tenant organizing rather than workplace organizing.

Yeah, Nino, I'm real right-wing. I eat my toast with union worker jam. Sheesh. If you're suspicious of my political leanings then you're welcome to check out my blog, which lists my endorsements for the upcoming election.

Matt S.,

Isn't Bill Frist retiring at this election?
Click to expand...

Oh, you're right. He's going to run for President.

Primary rules vary from state to state.
Click to expand...

Quite right.
 
nino_savatte said:
You're a patronising one for sure. How dare you accuse me of "pushing something that isn't true"? How dare you accuse me of being "unreliable"? It is clear that you are pushing a hidden discourse here, friend. You are so obviously too wrapped up in your right wing paradise that anything that is considered vaguely left-wing is automatically 'evil' in your eyes. I gave you an example of how Bush recently used Taft-Hartley and you ignored it and you ignored it because you are hiding something. You are also, quite obviously, an unreconstructed red-baiter/basher. It seems to me that you were already aware of Taft-Hartley and were playing some sad wee game but you're number's up, friend. You've been sussed.

You only read what you want to read and you have the affrontery to accuse me - in not so many words - of lying. That's rich coming from you, sunshine.
Click to expand...

You know very well that socalist enjoy spiecial treatment in this regard, we have disscused it before. :rolleyes:

So you are either lying or you have the memory of a 99 year old.........


Monday, July 21, 2003

Back in April, in a little-noticed move, the Federal Elections Commission voted 4-2 to extend the Socialist Workers Party's exemption from laws requiring political parties to disclose the source of their political contributions. This month a Freedom Socialist Party candidate for office in Seattle has requested an exemption from state elections disclosure laws there. Do such exemptions make sense?

The Socialist Workers Party's exemption goes back to the Supreme Court's 1982 ruling in Brown et al v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign Committee. Under Ohio's Campaign Expense Reporting Law, political parties were required to disclose campaign contributions. The SWP refused to comply with this requirement on the grounds that making its donor list publicly available would subject donors to harassment and thereby interfere with their right to freely associate with the party.

The Supreme Court ultimately agreed with this argument, ruling that not only did minor parties like this have a right not to report who gave them money, but they could also withhold who they gave the money to if they could show that there was a likelihood of harassment in doing so. Writing for the majority, Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote,
Click to expand...

http://www.leftwatch.com/archives/years/2003/000023.html
 
zion said:
Nino,

I didn't ignore you on Bush's lockout: I substantially agree with you - as I said,



It should be obvious to you that I was mainly talking about your untrue assertion that Taft-Hartley still discriminates against communists. You didn't know that that provision had been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1965, and you thought it was still in force. That means that you said something that wasn't true. Get over it.

I was generally aware that the laws on unions in the US were not strong enough to enable workers to organize effectively. However, I had never looked at the specific legislation because we tend to do tenant organizing rather than workplace organizing.

Yeah, Nino, I'm real right-wing. I eat my toast with union worker jam. Sheesh. If you're suspicious of my political leanings then you're welcome to check out my blog, which lists my endorsements for the upcoming election.

Matt S.,



Oh, you're right. He's going to run for President.



Quite right.
Click to expand...


Aye, sorry to have shattered your illusions that I am some sort of Delphic oracle. :rolleyes: But I have to disappoint you there, friend. I guess I'm not as perfect as you - eh?

I was unaware of current legislation and I was unaware of the 1965 ruling. Nonetheless, at a state level - that is to say, macro-state/federal - there remains an anti-working class philosophy. The unions have fuck all power and the working class are, by and large, disenfranchised (it isn't much better here).

Oh and please lose the pomposity. You don't do yourself any favours.
 
Yeah, Nino, I'm real right-wing. I eat my toast with union worker jam. Sheesh. If you're suspicious of my political leanings then you're welcome to check out my blog, which lists my endorsements for the upcoming election.
Click to expand...

Aye, well, whatever you are, you are likely to be on a different planet to me, ideologically speaking. "Union worker jam"? Not sure if that's supposed to be funny....is it?

I hope you're not one of these gradualists. Booker T Washington was a gradualist...
 
No, Nino, it was completely serious. I kill union workers, chop them up, boil their bones to make jam and then eat the jam with my toast. Of course it was supposed to be funny, you humorless dim git.

As for my pomposity, I'm sure that everyone who calls you on tripe you post is (naturally) unbearably pompous to do so. Whatever. At least you admitted it, even if you had to toss another insult my way while you did.
 
Nino and Zion it would be great if you two could look at your common ground. Now Zion may be a Liberal but he seems like a decent one.

I'm sure both of you are both worried about for example the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the de-facto repeal of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act.

Zion I've a feeling that the militarization of the police and the possibility of martial law, all in the name of homeland security, will concern you even though it's now legal.
 
Does the US have anything similar to the UK's "honours" system? By that, is there an annual award of medals/titles to citizens' deemed to have made extra contribution to the nation in someway?
 
i simply can't understand why nino and zion's exchange has to derail an interesting thread. and while we're about it - let's not worry ourselves with pbman, eh? is there a US equivalent of "Daily Mail man" cos that would be more accurate than 'fascist' surely? perhaps 'bushbot'?

can i repeat an earlier question?

when the civil rights movement was doing 'voter registration' drives - is that to vote itself? ie is that something you had to actively do (which seemed to be the implication) or was the idea that unless Black people registered with one or other party they wouldn't have an input into candidate choice and policy?

the implication we got over here was that without 'registration' (whatever that means) they wouldn't be able to vote at all. is that still the situation?
 
bruise said:
when the civil rights movement was doing 'voter registration' drives - is that to vote itself? ie is that something you had to actively do (which seemed to be the implication) or was the idea that unless Black people registered with one or other party they wouldn't have an input into candidate choice and policy?
Click to expand...
TBH, it always struck me as a self-defeating move. Sort of like; "Oppose the establishment - by voting for it!". :rolleyes:
 
such drives are normally targetted - ie democrats go after youth and black voters as they are more likely to vote for them, republicans go for overseas voters - but they are/were simply for voting at all. Registering as a party supporter is a seperate process that can't (I think) be done without being on the electoral role.
 
Right, My long dormant 'Merican Studies teachings have started showing themselevs again, so I may be able to answer questions on US Politix - where are we & what needs to be answered ?

( PS, Ive just remembered that did indeed opt for a LIterature final year specialism and spent hours reading and discussing Nat. Hawthorne & Ezra fuckin pound. Luckily I have no real recollection of these things, but do seem to recall that melville did harp on about a whale at some length. I think )
 
zoltan69 said:
Right, My long dormant 'Merican Studies teachings have started showing themselevs again, so I may be able to answer questions on US Politix -
Click to expand...

i did 'merican studies as well...long time ago, the 80s when reagan was king
 
Yield,

Darn straight. I'm worried about them both.

Poster,

There is no equivalent to the honours system, because the Constitution forbids the holding of any title by any American citizen. There is the Congressional Medal of Honor, which would be somewhat equivalent to the George and Victoria Crosses, but that's about it.

Belboid,

This is the process for voter registration. Being registered to vote is like being on the electoral roll, in that it's being registered that enables you to vote. All adults are eligible to register to vote (except, in some states, convicted felons). Every time you move, you have to re-register in your district. In most places, you have to register some time before the election, but in a few (mostly Democratic) states you can register to vote at the polls themselves. In a very few towns, non-citizens can register to vote in local and state elections. When you register to vote, you identify your party affiliation or register as an "independent".

Democratic and Republican party activists encourage people to register to vote, and each party focuses on registering the people most likely to vote for them. Republicans and southern Democrats have a long history of also trying to suppress the vote of people they don't want to vote, by raising the barriers to registration.
 
And it's on a combination of voter registration and use of marketing targeting software that Rove has been so good at getting the Republican vote out, especially in the 72 hours prior to voting - it usually works by ID-ing the voter, sending them personally tailored election materials slagging the local democrat off, and will often involve calls on the day of the election saying 'go and vote'.

The registration thing is also what enalbled Bush (J) to scam Florida in 2000, and supposedly Ohio in 2004 (as well as a few other states apparently) - the same software is also used to 'clean' electoral roll lists, and if that happens to include the odd 10,000 or so black and other democratic voters in key swing districts being denied the vote, well, that's democracy!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

ska invita
US policy towards 'the middle east' this century
Replies
8
Views
223
Yossarian
Yossarian
breadandcircuse
General US Politics - for broader chat about everything not just specific to Trump
2
Replies
46
Views
2K
Cloo
Cloo
spring-peeper
US rallies against Trump
2 3 4 5 6
Replies
151
Views
6K
Coffeecup
C
breadandcircuse
Should the upcoming sporting events in the US be moved to another country?
2
Replies
48
Views
1K
isvicthere?
isvicthere?
teqniq
Good ole USA in shocking double standards of alleged Israeli sex offender allowed to leave the US and still detained in Israel Palestinian American
Replies
0
Views
234
teqniq
teqniq
Back
Top Bottom