Message to the American Worker

Glenn's message to the average hard working American, union or non-union..it does not matter because though we may disagree on certain issues, we will all have to weather this storm together. Right now, we are all finding ourselves in the same situation- it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet. Union members are now in a situation that every American may soon find themselves in..rich and poor. They are being asked to lose a pension, take a cut or lose a job. The cuts are necessary, but they have worked hard for their pensions. We are all going to have make sacrifices very soon…

Video:  Message to the American Worker

Glenn Beck Show Notes (3.1.11)

On tonight’s TV show, Glenn asked what the American Dream really meant, and how it could really be achieved. He spoke to everyday Americans, including and especially the typical union worker, and talked about the difference between those who think man can rule himself and those who think that man has to be ruled because he doesn’t know what is best for them.

Those who are arguing for bigger government don’t think man can rule himself. These are men like Richard Trumka and Cass Sunstein who say they are helping when they are really regulating. They bring change but remove choice. They bring help but breed dependence. That’s not the American Experiment.

Glenn also touched on:

Charlie Sheen
Noodle Guy
Louis Farrakhan

All super happy fun topics!

Links to stories and information used in tonight’s program:

1. Gas prices up for 7 days in a row
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/01/news/economy/gas_prices/index.htm

2. No Inflation? That’s Not What Food Prices Are Saying
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41831886

3. Cotton Soars on Tightening World Supply; Orange Juice Fluctuates
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-01/cotton-soars-on-tightening-world-supply-orange-juice-fluctuates.html

Young Madison Socialist Reveals Popular ‘Noodles & Company‘ Restaurant Is Actually Harsh ’Dictatorship’
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/young-madison-socialist-reveals-popular-noodles-company-restaurant-is-actually-harsh-dictatorship/ <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/young-madison-socialist-reveals-popular-noodles-company-restaurant-is-actually-harsh-dictatorship/>

• The nationwide chain has several locations in Madison, Wisconsin. One young socialist, Rob Lewis (ISO member) who is involved in the protests around Madison is now blowing the lid off the real story.
• Aaron Kennedy, the founder of Noodles, grew up on a farm with few to no connections to money. Like my friend Rob, Kennedy also studied at the University of Wisconsin. At 29, while eating at a Chinese restaurant, Kennedy had an idea, and scribbled his business plan on a napkin.
• Scraping some money together from his friends and family and maxing out eight credit cards, Kennedy opened the first Noodles in his basement, and then put together a team with whom he’d build and operate 100 Noodles branches all on their own. It is now a $75 million franchise with 240 locations in 18 different states, providing jobs to over 3,000 employees just like Rob. This is what the American Dream looks like.
• Under Lewis’ vision, however everything Kennedy has worked for would be taken away from him. The status he has earned for himself through his achievements would be reduced to that of one filling out an application for the very business he built from the ground up. Perhaps my imagination is limited, but I at the moment I cannot imagine a greater humiliation. This is what socialism looks like.

ABOUT AARON KENNEDY, FOUNDER & FORMER CHAIRMAN OF NOODLES
(source: <http://www.bus.wisc.edu/alumni/profiles/aaron_kennedy.asp> Univ of Wisconsin)

• Earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism and English at Augustana College in his home state of Illinois and his MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• He is on the board of the University of Wisconsin Business School, has been named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and is a guest lecturer at several universities including the University of Colorado, University of Denver, University of Wisconsin and the Cooking School of the Rockies.
• It all began when Kennedy, then the marketing director of a New York City design agency, visited an Asian noodle shop in Greenwich Village in 1993. As he sampled the restaurant’s collection of Asian-influenced dishes, he realized noodles are a staple all over the world. Although Kennedy had never considered a job in the restaurant industry, his previous experience as a brand manager at Oscar Mayer and PepsiCo was relevant to the task he had in mind.
• That weekend he took his wife out to dinner and shared his idea, jotting down a rough business plan right there. He refined the concept and approached 25 friends and family members for the $250,000 needed to get started.
• Kennedy and Executive Chef Ross Kamens opened the first restaurant in Denver, Colorado, in 1995. The second restaurant opened in downtown Madison, Wisconsin, six months later.

ROB LEWIS SOTS
ROB LEWIS IS A NOODLES EMPLOYEE & MEMBER OF ISO. DURING THE INTERVIEW HE INVITES THE REPORTER TO COME TO A SOCIALIST MEETING THE FOLLOWING DAY CALLED “ FROM CAIRO TO MADISON”

Rob on classes SOT

• There are two fundamental classes that are just a plain fact in society. You either work for someone else or you work for yourself. Most people work for someone else in a way that they aren’t free. You don’t really get to decide your worth. For example I work at Noodles, the restaurant, and basically it’s a dictatorship there. We’re told exactly what to cook, how we’re going to cook it. what time we’re going to get there. And basically if they don’t like what we’re doing, they try to tell us what to do. If we don’t listen they get rid of us. We’re not actually allowed to cooperate in a way that we make decisions together.

Rob on Unions SOT

• I try to convince my fellow employees that we should have a union at Noodles. IT’s a source of power to start with. And then I think in terms of the bigger picture, when you look at revolutions, the way that you actually get rid of any sort of dictatorship is by having workers take control of the place where they work.

Rob on business owners SOT

• If the owner wanted to cooperate with us as an equal, and provide his skills that he had, we would definitely cooperate with him. // We’d have to abdicate his position as being an owner and controller of us. He would have to recognize that we run Noodles together. And basically if he doesn’t want to cooperate with us, he’s against us.

Rob on IRS (socialist magazine)

• It’s an in-depth kind of analysis that goes deeper than just saying what’s happening with current events but kinda goes into the details of analyzing the picture of Who’s involved? what are they trying to do? and kind of a deeper understanding of what’s behind this?

SOTS FROM SOCIALIST MEETING

Phil Gasper, former professor – Feb 23

• We’re linked together as part of a global capitalist economy that’s destroying the environment, that’s destroying people’s lives around the world. And that’s why the parallels that everybody’s been drawing between Cairo and Madison make sense.

Phil Gasper, former professor – Feb 23

• If you want to know what the next 5, or 10, or 20 years is going to look like, it’s not going to look like the last 20 to 30 years. It’s gonna look a lot more like the last month in Egypt and the last week in Wisconsin. Not every day is gonna look like that. But it’s gonna happen more and more and more often.

Mike Imbrogno, AFSCME Local 171 ((at socialist meeting))

• I feel like we can actually have an effect by organizing folks together. No concessions, tax the rich. It’s not our mess, it’s your mess clean it up. it’s the Koch brothers, we need to fight back, etc.

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000149 EndHTML:0000010161 StartFragment:0000000199 EndFragment:0000010127 StartSelection:0000000199 EndSelection:0000010127 NEW FARRAKHAN SOTS FROM SAVIOURS’ DAY 2011
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/this-is-the-day-of-your-doom-farrakhan-says-mideast-uprisings-will-come-to-americas-door/ <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/this-is-the-day-of-your-doom-farrakhan-says-mideast-uprisings-will-come-to-americas-door/>

FARRAKHAN SPEECH, Feb. 27

• War. They love war over peace. They love wrong over right, and injustice over justice. This is the day of your doom, the end of your world and life (applause)

• What you’re looking at in Tunisia, in Egypt, in Yemen, in Jordan, in Libya, in Bahrain and soon, very soon in all the nations of the world. And even sooner to take place in America so don’t you get bent out of shape what you see happening there, while it’s happening there, you better prepare because it will be coming to your door America. And I hope that President Obama will remember his instructions to other nations. Be careful how you attack and kill innocent people who are protesting. Take your own words into your busom and be reminded when it comes to your door (applause)

• This is a sign that the great Madhi that the Muslim world has been looking for is present in the world. The Christ that you hoped for. The Christ that we long for is present in the world. And all tyrants will be sent down. God is stimulating the rise of the masses. Soon it will come to these shores. Indeed it has already begun.

About Saviours’ Day 2011, Feb. 25 -27 in Rosemont, IL
http://www.noi.org/sd2011/

• The 2011 Saviours’ Day convention marks the 81st year of the Nation of Islam’s existence in North America. Each year, to commemorate the birth of its founder Master W. Fard Muhammad (February 26, 1877), thousands of members and supporters of the Nation of Islam from around the world make the journey to attend the annual convention during the last week of February for a weekend of fellowship, networking, information dissemination and spiritual renewal

Belief of Madhi Among Muslims
http://books.google.com/books?id=BgP72cgvn-gC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Siege+of+Mecca+by+Yaroslav+Trofimov&hl=en&ei=OS9tTfDFH4GBlAevitHZBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Mahdi&f=false

• “The idea of Mahdi has fueled Muslim imagination for centuries. There is no mention of it in the Quran itself. But Prophet Mohammed, according to some narrators, had forecast that God will one day dispatch a redeemer – a Mahdi – to command a Mulsim world and establish an ideal society, after an apocalyptic clash of forces of evil. The Mahdi cannot be killed by mere mortals – at least not during the first seven years of his reign.”

Louis Farrakhan says Moammar Gadhafi has always been a friend
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/4047358-418/louis-farrakhan-says-moammar-gadhafi-has-always-been-a-friend.html

• Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan says Moammar Gadhafi has always been a friend and he won’t distance himself from the Libyan dictator.
• But the 77-year-old said no leader has been loved by 100 percent of his people and said that if Gadhafi is persecuted for crimes against humanity, the same should apply to former President George W. Bush for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Farrakhan visited Gadhafi in the 1980s and in 1996 accepted a humanitarian award from him. But during his speech Sunday he warned the wave of revolution spreading across the Middle East is coming to the United States

FARRAKHAN – WRIGHT CONNECTION

02/26/2008, “Meet the Press”

• RUSSERT: The title of one of your books, “Audacity of Hope,” you acknowledge you got from a sermon from Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the head of the Trinity United Church. He said that Louis Farrakhan “epitomizes greatness.” He said that he went to Libya in 1984 with Louis Farrakhan to visit with Moammar Gadhafi and that, when your political opponents found out about that, quote, “your Jewish support would dry up quicker than a snowball in Hell.”

Obama’s Farrakhan Test by Richard Cohen, Wash Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011402083.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011402083.html?hpid=opinionsbox1>

• He has vilified whites and singled out Jews to blame for crimes large and small, either committed by others as well or not at all. (A dominant role in the slave trade, for instance.) He has talked of Jewish conspiracies to set a media line for the whole nation. He has reviled Jews in a manner that brings Hitler to mind.
• And yet Wright heaped praise on Farrakhan. According to Trumpet, he applauded his “depth of analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation.” He praised “his integrity and honesty.” He called him “an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose.” These are the words of a man who prayed with Obama just before the Illinois senator announced his run for the presidency. Will he pray with him just before his inaugural?

OBAMA’S RESPONSE – JAN. 15, 2008

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Obama_knocks_Farrakhan.html

• Richard Cohen in the Post <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011402083.html?hpid=opinionsbox1> made Louis Farrakhan — a former State Senate constituent of Obama’s, and the honoree of a publication by his church — an issue today, and Obama has a comment out now:
• I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.

h/t to the Daily Beck

Must-Read - Unions vs. Right to Work

The Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal has been a bastion of common sense in a world of ridiculously biased print news media. In fact, other than the Washington Times, there is no other national newspaper that contains a shred of the sort of common sense we regularly find on the WSJ's Editorial Page.

Obviously, the same cannot be said for the rest of that newspaper, but at least it's partially good, like Fox News Channel has Glenn Beck, and despite Shep and the rest of the biased, hardcore leftists (and confused 'Progressives' like Bill O'Reilly) working at FNC, Glenn (and sometimes Hannity and Megyn Kelly) is NOT part of the problem; he (and sometimes they) are definitely part of the solution!

Anyway, this Op-Ed discussion unions and the right to work is excellent, as one might expect when one considers the source; I love the subtitle of this article: "Collective Bargaining on a Broad Scale Is More Similar to an Antitrust Violation Than to a Civil Liberty." That is so true! Also, this is a pretty short, but sweet article; great for a short break at work. I think you'll enjoy it:

Unions vs. the Right to Work

Collective Bargaining on a Broad Scale Is More Similar to an Antitrust Violation Than to a Civil Liberty.

By ROBERT BARRO | FEBRUARY 28, 2011

How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions. Wisconsin was the first state to allow collective bargaining for government workers (in 1959), following a tradition where it was the first to introduce a personal income tax (in 1911, before the introduction of the current form of individual income tax in 1913 by the federal government).

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

In fact, labor unions were subject to U.S. antitrust laws in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was first applied in 1894 to the American Railway Union. However, organized labor managed to obtain exemption from federal antitrust laws in subsequent legislation, notably the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
Remarkably, labor unions are not only immune from antitrust laws but can also negotiate a "union shop," which requires nonunion employees to join the union or pay nearly equivalent dues. Somehow, despite many attempts, organized labor has lacked the political power to repeal the key portion of the 1947 Taft Hartley Act that allowed states to pass right-to-work laws, which now prohibit the union shop in 22 states. From the standpoint of civil liberties, the individual right to work—without being forced to join a union or pay dues—has a much better claim than collective bargaining. (Not to mention that "right to work" has a much more pleasant, liberal sound than "collective bargaining.") The push for right-to-work laws, which haven't been enacted anywhere but Oklahoma over the last 20 years, seems about to take off.

The current pushback against labor-union power stems from the collision between overly generous benefits for public employees— notably for pensions and health care—and the fiscal crises of state and local governments. Teachers and other public-employee unions went too far in convincing weak or complicit state and local governments to agree to obligations, particularly defined-benefit pension plans, that created excessive burdens on taxpayers.

In recognition of this fiscal reality, even the unions and their Democratic allies in Wisconsin have agreed to Gov. Scott Walker's proposed cutbacks of benefits, as long as he drops the restrictions on collective bargaining. The problem is that this "compromise" leaves intact the structure of strong public-employee unions that helped to create the unsustainable fiscal situation; after all, the next governor may have less fiscal discipline. A long-run solution requires a change in structure, for example, by restricting collective bargaining for public employees and, to go further, by introducing a right-to-work law.

There is evidence that right-to-work laws—or, more broadly, the pro-business policies offered by right-to-work states—matter for economic growth. In research published in 2000, economist Thomas Holmes of the University of Minnesota compared counties close to the border between states with and without right-to-work laws (thereby holding constant an array of factors related to geography and climate). He found that the cumulative growth of employment in manufacturing (the traditional area of union strength prior to the rise of public-employee unions) in the right-to-work states was 26 percentage points greater than that in the non-right-to-work states.

Beyond Wisconsin, a key issue is which states are likely to be the next political battlegrounds on labor issues. In fact, one can interpret the extreme reactions by union demonstrators and absent Democratic legislators in Wisconsin not so much as attempts to influence that state—which may be a lost cause—but rather to deter politicians in other states from taking similar actions. This strategy may be working in Michigan, where Gov. Rick Snyder recently asserted that he would not "pick fights" with labor unions.

In general, the most likely arenas are states in which the governor and both houses of the state legislature are Republican (often because of the 2010 elections), and in which substantial rights for collective bargaining by public employees currently exist. This group includes Indiana, which has recently been as active as Wisconsin on labor issues; ironically, Indiana enacted a right-to-work law in 1957 but repealed it in 1965. Otherwise, my tentative list includes Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maine, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska (with a nominally nonpartisan legislature), Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The national fiscal crisis and recession that began in 2008 had many ill effects, including the ongoing crises of pension and health-care obligations in many states. But at least one positive consequence is that the required return to fiscal discipline has caused reexamination of the growth in economic and political power of public-employee unions. Hopefully, embattled politicians like Gov. Walker in Wisconsin will maintain their resolve and achieve a more sensible long-term structure for the taxpayers in their states.

Mr. Barro is a professor of economics at Harvard and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

h/t to Jared Law at the 912 Project

Related: 

Organized in Wisconsin  -  You Will Want to Read These!

Government Unions vs. American Taxpayers

Heritage Foundation:

Government Unions vs American Taxpayers

The Washington Post reports today that "the daunting tower of national, state and local debt in the United States will reach a level this year unmatched just after World War II and already exceeds the size of the entire economy, according to government estimates." But there are a number of big differences between our national debt now and the debt in 1946. The Post reports: "State and municipal governments from Sacramento to Madison to Harrisburg have racked up about $2.4 trillion in debt, or more than 15 percent of GDP."

And even this total is understating the problem. Recent studies show that state and local governments are severely underestimating their pension and benefit promises, including a $574 billion shortfall for the nation’s top major cities and a possible $3.4 trillion shortfall for the states. The cause of these crippling pension and benefit obligations is no secret. The Post explains: "Public employees often enjoy more generous pension and health-care benefits, and these are at the root of the long-term budget problems confronting many states."

How did this happen? Why did so many state and local governments not only spend too much today but promise future spending far beyond the means of taxpayers to pay for it? Government unions. And across the country, legislators and governors are beginning to fight back.

The professional left (including the AFL-CIO, the SEIU, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the NEA, AFSCME and President Barack Obama) is trying to portray these budget battles as an assault against all unions. But as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R), who is pushing legislation to curtail government union bargaining power, explained last night, this is just plain false:

The bill I put forward isn’t aimed at state workers, and it certainly isn’t a battle with unions. If it was, we would have eliminated collective bargaining entirely or we would have gone after the private-sector unions. But, we did not because they are our partners in economic development. We need them to help us put 250,000 people to work in the private sector over the next four years.

Walker is right: Government unions are inherently different from private-sector unions. The purpose of private-sector unions is to get workers a larger share of the profits they helped create. But government is a monopoly and earns no profits. All government unions do is redistribute more tax dollars from taxpayers to unions. The left used to understand this. Not only did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt write in 1937: "All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service," but as recently as 1959, the AFL-CIO Executive Council stated that "government workers have no right [to collectively bargain] beyond the authority to petition Congress—a right available to every citizen."
Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) also recognizes the key difference between private-sector and government unions, telling the Associated Press Monday:

We have an $8 billion budget hole in Ohio. We have a third of our college students that leave Ohio after three years. We’ve lost 600,000 jobs in the last 10 years. Only California and Michigan have lost more than that. And part of the reason why we are pushing collective bargaining is we frankly want to give the managers in our local communities and our schools the ability to control their costs so they don’t have to raise taxes and drive businesses out and more jobs out.

By granting government workers the power to collectively bargain, government unions have completely politicized the civil service. State and local employees in 28 states are required to pay full union dues or get fired. Using this government coercion, government unions have amassed tremendous financial resources that they use to campaign for higher taxes and higher pay for government workers. The top outside spender in the last election was the American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees ($91 million).Governor Mitch Daniels (R–IN), who signed an executive order ending state worker collective bargaining his first month in office, spoke in support of Walker yesterday:

The people who are doing the demonstrating, and their allies … spent that state broke. … The most powerful special interests in America today are the government unions. They’re the leading financial contributors. They have muscle, a lot of times their contracts provide for time off to go politick and lobby.

And lobby and politick government unions have. Across the country, from Arizona to California to Minnesota to Maine to New Jersey and more, government unions have pushed legislation and ballot measures that raise taxes and spending. In Trenton, New Jersey, last night, Governor Chris Christie (R) framed the debate:

In Wisconsin and Ohio, they have decided there can no longer be two classes of citizens: one that receives the rich health and pension benefits, and the rest who are left to pay for them. These ideas are not red or blue. They are the black and white of truth.

Conservative governors across the nation should absolutely work to reform the way public-sector unions drain our economy. As Governor Christie told MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' today: "We're not trying to break the unions, the unions are trying to break the middle class."

Video:  Radical Public Union Protest! ATL, GA

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Van’s Grand Plan to Span the Land:  A Union Protest at Every State Capitol

Shocking Level of Influence Exposed:  Union Boss Trumpka Talks to White House Every Day and Visits a Couple Times a Week

Obama Triggers Union Uprisings – Wisconsin Governor:  GOP Won’t Be ‘Bullied’ by Union Bill Protestors