[kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

[Brendan]

Complaining about conspiracy theories on a Killing Joke forum is akin to
lamenting the fact that Geordie doesn't 'let loose on some wild fuckin'
solos'  

 

From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On
Behalf Of The Exorcist
Sent: Wednesday, 17 February 2010 6:48 AM
To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

 

Your inability to make one single focused argument is amazing! 
As is your inability to stick to one of your own previous statements.

Who said anything about jealousy? I pointed out that they are not poor
miserable scabs as you make them out to me.
 the corruption within the union and the greed for power in union politics.

Now, let us see the genius that is Greg Slawson.

"Did it ever occur to you that if one group gets better salary/work
conditions etc, it sets the bar higher for OTHER groups of workers?"
Now in the previous Email you stated the following.
" But they made the mistake of using purely economic motivations (pay
bonuses) (called the Stakanovite system or something)."
& 
"In fact, all the teachers I know are agaisnt Obama & Co's plans to bring
"merit pay" to teachers who boost test scores the most  (many think it's a
scheme to bust teachers unions too). " HUH!!!!????  Psssssst... The Teachers
unions are just afraid of accountability.

Actually the Europeans may be living on borrowed time and money. As the
populations grow the benefits (or money for the benefits) will continue to
diminish.
It's nothing to do with labor unions as much as the type of social system in
place. Many European countries are quite stagnant from
an economic perspective. (It will be interesting to see how the Euro plays
out as well.) However this is all up for interpretation and debate.

("Membership in France's labor unions accounts for approximately 5% of the
private sector work force and is concentrated in the manufacturing, 
transportation, and heavy industry sectors. Most unions are affiliated with
one of the competing national federations, the largest and most powerful of
which are the communist-dominated General Labor Confederation (CGT), the
Workers' Force (FO), and the French Democratic Confederation of Labor
(CFDT)."


The amount of federal money is falling? Is that because there is a big cabal
against teachers or because the feds don't have an 
unlimited amount of money to give? Especially when the US spending per child
as astronomical compared to others. Now recently
the Obama administration did offer money but lots of the unions turned it
down because it would "interfere" with their system.
Whatever ever happened to the mantra "do it for the children"? You of course
found this to be a big conspiracy. (As you do with everything
else.) 

Naturally you'll talk about the military impacting City and State run
programs; but why, I have no clue. There is no connection.
Just like there wasn't any connection in your previous email about public
sector tax payer jobs and private ones.
(Are you also implying that the school system be under rule and thumb of the
gov's as opposed to localities? If they're going to
dump more wads of cash I'm sure they'll want some control/regulation over
what happens to it.) 

Thank you for telling me I'd make a great CEO. I take pride in that.

However regarding your nonsensical rants and horribly though out arguments
that contradict each other within 3 emails
scares the bejesus out of me.

Ps. Stop with the friggin conspiracy theories, isn't it time you grew up a
bit?

At 01:22 PM 2/16/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote:



So are you basically jealous that teachers have benefits/vacations, etc? Did
it ever occur to you that if one group gets better salary/work conditions
etc, it 
sets the bar higher for OTHER groups of workers? Why do Europeans generally
have much better fringe benefits, hours, etc. than US workers? Could it be
b/c the unions
are STRONGER, and there are more strikes?
And you're right about how most $ for teacher salaries come from city and
state, but the amount from the feds has been falling over the years, and it
has
made a difference. At my middle-class school, they plan to lay off about 20%
of the teaching staff next year. Is that a good thing? And yes, I will talk
about the military--how
about if they lay off 20% of their workforce?
You'd make a great corporate CEO--you think just like them.
 

  _____  

Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:49:50 -0500
From: killingjoke at theimmortalfool.com
To: gathering at misera.net
Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

I can give you many more examples as well.

1 in 20 is acceptable for you? Whatever happened to accountability?

I also fail to understand how you can compare teachers which are paid for by
the public (via taxes)
to corporations which are private/semi-private entities and are accountable
only to the head honcho or to the investors that choose to
invest in it.

Teachers barely earn enough to survive?
I wouldn't call this barely.  
http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/DHR/TeacherPrincipalSchoolProfessionals/Salar
y/Salary+Step+and+Differential+Schedules.htm 

Don't forget all holidays are off, and paid summers. Plus if you work
(teaching) during the summer your salary gets an increase for the duration.
Add on more credits and you get another bump up.
Then throw in tenure after only 3 years (Best damn job security ever! Even
if you fuck up big time.) 
plus medical benefits and it's actually quite decent.
Now add on retirement pension plans + cost of living increase.

Those poor poor folks! I wonder how many people on this list have job
security after 3 years.

For every example you can give me of teachers fired for "no reason" I can
give you more that should've been fired and
are kept around. 

Hmmmm, how about this one? Get paid $100,000.00 (Tax payer $$$) a year for
doing... Wait for it... Wait for it... Absolutely nothing!
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/bounce_rubber_flubbers_MrL9ZhEGshrv2H5
ToVTxUK 

And here is the article by the New Yorker. 
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill

You can read more about union cover up and bullshitting in the above
article, as well as teachers who claimed to be
unduly fired/punished/released. And what you basically get out of the
article is that it's one big clusterfuck. 

The unions have lots of power and political clout, they give out quite a
chunk of change to many politicians. Planting cue cards at hearings? Check!
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/31/090831fa_fact_brill

And there is so much more... 

Please don't try to pull the "poor little innocent union" crap with me. 
You can do it to others that don't read up on this but I won't let it fly.

Everything by you is an attack on the little guy, the war mongers, the this,
the that. Plenty (most) of the money comes from local,state and regional
pockets
not DC. (The teachers contract negotiations and powers are not implemented
nor negotiated by Washington.)


At 11:03 PM 2/15/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote:

THat IS interesting. Every teachers union I've read about hates the idea.
And the article from LA weekly is a classic case of taking a few extreme
examples--by 

the articles own admission, about 1 in 20 teachers suck--and making a huge
case of it. How many corporations have at least 1 out of 20 workers who
stink, but are 

not fired? What about the financiers who wrecked the US economy--some of
them now in the Obama administration--and not only were not fired, but grew
even 

richer? Most of the right wing goons like West will let them off the hook,
and attack a few teachers who barely earn enough to survive (in the US
anyway). Another thing these bullshit "news" articles don't mention is that
for the first 3 years of a teacher's career, they can be fired FOR ANY
REASON, no questions asked, until they get tenure. There was a teacher at my
school who was fired after 2 years for loosing a student's homework. He used
to stay late after school every day giving extra help, and used his free
period to tutor kids. I knew another extremely smart and dedicated teacher
who was fired after one year for sending warning notices to all his
students, in order to shake them up a bit. ANd the rules are changing to
give principals more power to fire even tenured teachers. There is a
wholescale attack on teachers unions--currently the largest unions in the
US, which has an extremely rapidly declining union membership--by local,
state, and fed government. It's yet another way to attack ordinary working
people in order to fund the huge military budget (larger than that of all
other countries in the world combined, and over half the total US budget).

 

  _____  

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:14:39 -0500

From: killingjoke at theimmortalfool.com

To: gathering at misera.net

Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

Interesting, in Colorado teachers had recently voted to employ merit pay. 

Not having merit pay is simply a very good tactic to keep all the teachers
in-line and not shake up the teachers union (like the AFT/UFT).

Since all teachers in the union be they good, bad, average or exceptional
have equal votes you can just imagine the havoc it would

wreak were they to introduce merit pay. Pitting one group of union members
against another is bad union politics.

The union is all about money (for itself) and power (power in numbers); to
have anything rock the boat is a big no no.

For a semi-lenghty read on the bullshit that goes on in the teachers unions
feel free to read the linked article below. 

This is one of the latest I've come across.      

http://www.laweekly.com/2010-02-11/news/lausd-s-dance-of-the-lemons/







At 07:06 PM 2/15/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote: 

Sorry Sade, I must have been mixing up 2 different emails. And yes, I meant
competition! One more point about the 'exceptional' issue-- 

communism doesn't mean that no one could ever be exceptional--in fact it
would be (and even was, in the early USSR) encouraged. But they 

made the mistake of using purely economic motivations (pay bonuses) (called
the Stakanovite system or something). My point is that there are 

many other reasons to do your best at something, beyond purely personal
economic gain. There have been studies by economists (in the US) that
confirm this. And, 

as a teacher, I see some teachers who may be considered exceptional, but hey
are not motivated by $$ to be so. In fact, all the teachers I know are
agaisnt 

Obama & Co's plans to bring "merit pay" to teachers who boost test scores
the most  (many think it's a scheme to bust teachers unions too). Many
teachers 

don't even think it makes logical sense... 

 

  _____  

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:40:00 -0800 

From: saulomar1 at yahoo.com 

To: gathering at misera.net 

Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!


>>> ..were it to succeed and everyone became "exceptional"... how would

anyone be exceptional?   


>   ..you're taking the term exceptional is bit too literally! 


  

It seems you took the term "everyone" a bit too literally. (Maybe I
should've said instead, "everyone enough'?) 

  

No one's attacking anyone (much less calling them names), just pointing out
ironies and 

incosistencies the world would be better off without. 

  


> Back to the Haiti example .... the medical folks, have been completly

exceptional. 


> There has been little or no...  Bill Gates/130 year olds, etc. 


  

 That was conflating two seperate points from 2 different people, hence I'm
not sure how (or if) that replies to what I wrote. 

Now, if I were the suspicious type i'd say it was a bit of a straw man to
shoehorn in that last' sumthin' about the poor suckers jumpin' through hoops
- but then again, no one's calling anyone names here... 

  


> There has been little or no completion between them, 


  

   Do you mean competition, instead of 'completion'? 

  

  

  

... ... ... ... ... ... 

[looking at the current state of things..] 

  

'Who has the fun.. 

  ..is it always a man with a gun...? 

    Someone must have told him if you work too hard... you can sweat" 




From: GREG SLAWSON <gregslawson at msn.com> 

To: gathering <gathering at misera.net> 

Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 2:53:47 PM 

Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay! 

I think you're taking the term exceptional is bit too literally! Back to the
Haiti example--from what I've been hearing, most of the volunteers 

that are down there, esp. the medical folks, have been completly
exceptional. There has been little or no completion between them, nor are
there any Bill Gates/130 year olds, etc. 

It's amazing the hoops a couple of people will jump thru just to attack
communism or anything on the left..poor suckers... 

 

  _____  

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:21:37 -0800 

From: saulomar1 at yahoo.com 

To: gathering at misera.net 

Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

   Assuming Ultimate Communism would encourage everyone to be "exceptional,"
were it to succeed and everyone became "exceptional"... how would anyone be
exceptional? Exceptional being a relative term, is there some explanation of
"exceptional" (as in, in relation to what?) that would still hold? 

   Because if everyone had Bill Gates' money, a philosopher's depth, and the
health of a base-jumping 130-year-old twice-reincarnated Himalay Sherpa, no
one could possibly be exceptional. 

  

  

... ... ... ... ... ... 

[looking at the current state of things..] 

  

'Who has the fun.. 

  ..is it always a man with a gun...? 

    Someone must have told him if you work too hard... you can sweat" 




From: GREG SLAWSON <gregslawson at msn.com> 

To: gathering <gathering at misera.net> 

Sent: Mon, February 15, 2010 10:49:12 AM 

Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay! 

Communism would encourage people to be "exceptional". It says nothing about
going over people's needs. And yes, no country has got it 

right yet (it's only been about 100 years--a short time by historical
standards). 

And as for your "it will never work b/c all people care about is $" beliefs,
why are thousands flooding into Haiti, mostly unpaid, to help?

 

  _____  

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:50:01 -0500 

From: killingjoke at theimmortalfool.com 

To: gathering at misera.net 

Subject: Re: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay!

Right on!

If only we all lived in Imaginary Communist Land (because it seems that no
one can ever get it right and communism has never 

ever existed) things would be so much better and we'd all be happy, joyful,
thoughtless providers to the betterment of man kind. 

Should anyone choose to be exceptional we will just maim them till they are
EQUAL with all the others. Should anyone want more than 

what is deemed acceptable to them... Ohhhh boy! I pity the fool!

Greg, I do hope that your salary does not go one penny over your needs and
that if you ever had or will have a pay raise 

you will promptly denounce it and threaten your employer with resignation.

FIGHT THE POWER MUTHAFUCKAS!

At 03:03 PM 2/13/2010, GREG SLAWSON wrote: 

Unfortunately the march toward war doen't depend entirely on who's pres or
PM. It stems from the competition between nations over markets, 

resources, cheap labor, etc. Obama has already stepped up the Afghan war
(where the US wants to build an oil pipeline w/o Taliban interference), and 

has not withdrawn troops from Iraq any faster than Bush would have. As long
as capitalism exists, WWIII will be on it's way (w/China?)... 

  

  _____  

Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:39:38 +0000 

From: adrianwason at btinternet.com 

To: gathering at misera.net 

Subject: [kj] New Topic The war criminal Blair must pay! 

I dont know how many of the gathering outside the UK have heard about the
latest bollocks enquiry about tony & george's ego trip but I found it
alarming how much blair mentioned Iran.My motto is attack is the best form
of defence but it has to be organised. 

  

Can anyone imagine what would have happened if these 2 clowns were left in
power. I never ever thought I would say this but thank God america can get
rid of it's idiots after their terms. 

  

If George & Tony were still in power WW3 would be just around the corner. In
the Uk now we have a one eyed grumpy disorganised threatining(to his staff)
totally fiscally incompetent person who inherited a good economic base and
has totally fucked it up & the USA-who knows. 

  

But thank God it's not Cuba otherwise we could have those simpletons in for
life.

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