Been Trying For Days to Think of a Coherent Argument In Defense of Unions, But the Best I Got Is "Damn You To Hell, Koch Brothers"

The recent fight in Wisconsin (and now other GOP-held states) over Governor Walker's attempt to break the public unions by restricting their rights and basically eliminating unions' right to collectively bargain deserves a ton of commentary, but I can't necessarily come up with anything refined like an essay on the issues.  It's mostly sheer rage at the gall of the Republicans that they are so blatant about going after workers' unions during a jobless economic recession.

So here instead are some links:

Huffington Post article about how union members REALLY ARE NOT THAT OVERPAID.

A reporter faking he was "David Koch", one of the deepest pockets among the GOP financial backers, was able to bluff his way past staffers to get a one-on-one with Governor Walker, who amiably chatted about how he was gonna bust the unions and provide a role model for other GOP governors to do the same.  Jokes about using violence, and a serious discussion on hiring people to infiltrate the protesters to incite violence were part of the discussion


That Walker was planning to trick the absent Democratic senators back to the state under the pretense of negotiation... and then force a quorum to allow the legislature to push through his anti-union bill... means that if those Democrats had any goddamn brain cells in them they'd best wait on returning until Walker can get recalled out of office.  Unfortunately, that's gonna take a year at least...

A review of Walker's planned budget is being labeled a "Bait and Switch".  Meaning it's gonna screw honest people the hardest.

The fact that a guy claiming to be a deep-pocket financial backer can get a direct call to the governor, while ordinary citizens and the press get nothing but static, highlights the serious problem of access that the wealthy have to our politicians.

And the legal and ethical ramifications of what Walker said are floating about the intertubes.

One other thing: Unions don't kill state budgets.  Weak housing markets (and I can attest to that here in "right to work" non-union Florida with its' collapsed home ownership/property development market) do.