This diary explores how we address highly partisan issues, specifically the current Wisconsin anti-Union law. Kos' diary is taken as an example of why the scope of the discussion is limited to one perspective, and how this is ultimately non productive. A personal example of a police union is described.
The words that we have for categories of the written word are limited. We are stuck with terms from the movable type era that we have had to adapt to the multimedia possibilities of the internet age.
There is the special term from the blogisphere "Diary" which is not defined by the traditional content at all, but by the setting. There used to be criteria on DK3 for substantiveness, leading to comments headed "Not a Diary;" but that is no more. Yet, this was a broad useful description, including satire, personal stories, rants, and photos. It also encompassed a common form, "Essay," which implies a personal, more formal expostulation, for this site with a political focus.
I became comfortable with the word, "Diary" as it was used previously in DK3. There was enough discipline to exclude transient thoughts, tweets, yet wide enough to celebrate individual's obsessions, their problems and their joys. It also was open enough to encourage some risk taking, going against the majority opinion. If such opposition was not well crafted, or taken the wrong way, it didn't matter as it would be gone and forgotten the next day.
We are now in a new world, with multiple streams of diaries, some new, some from weeks ago, more easily located when you know how. It promises the potential of a vastly enlarged scope of diary/essays. So far, the results are mixed, with the Kos F.P. story Saturday hate mail-a-palooza illustrating what I see as a failing.
The Wisconsin anti-union story has been the subject of over a thousand diaries on this site, yet among this collection, I have not seen a single one that expands on the issues being contested. Of course, this is a Progressive web site, with the expressed purpose of electing more, and better, Democrats. The conundrum is that Democrats, and especially "better democrats" are differentiated from the right wing, not only by our political positions, but by our process of thinking about such issues. We claim to be the "reality party" yet, on an issue such as this, on this premier site of the Democrats, we have excluded anything that could be construed as breaching what is the party line.
Kos' diary sheds some light on why this is happening. In his diary/F.P story he presented a collection of hate mail, each one vile, illiterate and when coherent, opposing the union position. The message that one takes away is that this is the nature of the opposition, billionaires who are enraging the dregs of society. The racism, the animal like grunts of these letters has an effect, perhaps unintended. It implies that a concerted front against such people, those who are on the other side, is not only appropriate, but required. To quote someone whom we don't like too much here as he spoke after 9-11, "Those who are not with us, are against us."
I have to bring this issue home, to the recent Encinitas California council election, which although nominally non partisan, pitted left against right. On the left was Teresa Barth, the incumbent. On the right was Christine Gaspar, a novice Rotery Club pro-development candidate. Gaspar was well funded, and was able to blanket the town with her signs that read, "Vote Gaspar, Law Enforcement's Choice"
This was the essential part of the letter I had printed in the local weekly:
The Meaning of Gaspar's Claim
It's emblazoned on her large signs next to those of her co-candidate Dan Dalager, "'LAW ENFORCEMENT'S CHOICE" It turns out this claim is based on the endorsement of one group, DSASD, "Deputy Sheriffs' Association of San Diego County." whose web site describes itself as "the professional labor organization" of the county's Sheriff's deputies.
Any public official who has too cozy a relationship with their government employee's union has an inherent conflict of interest, since it is his or her responsibility to represent the taxpayers in negotiating salaries and benefits. This conflict is so clear that candidate Teresa Barth previously refused this union's invitation to be considered for its endorsement.
As a country, we face paying for disproportionate pensions of government unions that displace other vital services, while still creating economy destroying deficits. It's a shame that candidate Gaspar seems oblivious to this.
Al Rodbell
Encinitas CA
We could discuss the merits of my letter, whether the San Diego County Deputy Sheriffs are over compensated or not. This is not the point of this diary. It is that the position that I took in this letter, that taken by candidate Barth, based on the unanimous expressions on this site of a similar issue on government unions, would make my argument easily depicted as "anti-union" and thus my being against working people.
If this were to occur, if government unions became beyond reproach, there would be no opportunity for me to have made a very different point, that the politicization of law enforcement unions specifically, can have dire effects. Such effects were demonstrated in this city before the recent mid-term election as I wrote about in this diary, Police Chaos at Democratic Campaign Event when members of this government employee's union violently attacked a peaceful political fundraiser.
This police force, from the supervisors down to patrol officers, united in defending physical abuse against those holding a peaceful political event. I hesitate to go into details that I learned from those who attended and were arrested, as I've personally gone out on enough of a limb--that's my real name and address on that letter. Even the District Attorney sided with the police force. Only, in settling a civil suit, was it conceded by the county, very quietly, that the officers had acted in flagrant defiance of the law
This simplification of the Wisconsin events makes reasonable discussion of these questions all the more difficult. Issues are always more complex than whether they are supported by Republicans or Democrats. Gaspar's framing worked, as she won by simply associating herself with the conservative majority's pro law enforcement position. (More people saw her signs than read my letter)
Ultimately we choose which party best reflects our own principles, but to squelch exploration of the issues, always more complex to either party's slogans, is a sacrifice of the essence of enlightened democracy. I would hope that this new incarnation of Dailykos will continue to have room for such dialog.