I'd like people to consider Jill Stein for president come voting day. She is the Green Party's candidate for office, alongside Cheri Honkala for vice-president. I think the best part of her platform, apart from the obvious environmental connotations of voting Green, is her advocacy of a "Green New Deal" for American workers. I've posted her website text of this policy below. Here is a youtube link to a debate between Stein and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P87kwny9Wic
I'm voting for her as I like her Green New Deal and I want to send a message to the Democrats (not that they'll listen). That said, she has no chance at all and is nothing more than a protest vote while Obama is going to win with above 300 electoral votes (probably 307).
After it became clear Gary Johnson wasn't getting any traction, I switched to Jill Stein when trying to convince my wife to vote 3rd Party. Unfortunately after about thirty minutes of discussion, she said something along the lines of 'Look, you know all this better than I do. And everything you say makes sense, but I WANT to vote Obama' and then marked her ballot. I was able to get her to vote for some state Republicans, but couldn't get her to go against Obama. Oh well....
The main problem with that attitude is that, absent significant electoral reforms, encouraging third party candidacies for President in the future is itself problematic. Each vote for Jill Stein in New York in 2012 makes it that much more likely for a Green candidate to be on the ballot in Florida in 2016. A write-in vote for someone who isn't running makes much more sense than a third party vote if you want to cast a protest vote in a non-swing state, IMO.
I generally just vote for which ever candidate I agree with most and don't worry about the rest. It's not my job to make life easier for the Democrats and it is their job to win me over as a voter. Same goes for the Republicans though, honestly, that party is just so evil (and there is no other way to put it) it would take a complete party make over before I'd ever consider voting for them.
There's a protest element to such a vote, but that shouldn't be all it is. The medium-term aim of a third party should be to get to the 5% level at which they'd attract federal funding - and then they start to become something more, and the more states they run in, the better.
Of course, then you'd just see the bullshit like what the GOP did to the Libertarian party this year. Filing hundreds of frivilious lawsuits against them, all of them baseless, just to bleed the Johnson campaign of money it didn't have. Remember what I said about the Republican Party being just evil? But why not, if you've already gone in whole hog on trying to prevent legal voters from voting what is a bit of legal harassment and frivolous lawsuits?
I could vote for Stein, as Massachusetts is going with Obama by a huge margin. But here's the thing, I'm kind of in agreement with Ancalagon's wife -- Obama is more in line with what I want, not that he or anybody else doesn't have significant flaws. And more importantly, my wife knows Jill, and says she's a bitch, so fuck voting for her.
Third parties don't become something more just because they hit that 5% number. They become gadflies for an election cycle or two until everyone starts ignoring them again. The two party system is very deeply ingrained in American politics. When you combine first past the post elections with the uniquely American extremely expensive election campaigns there's not much room for even a regional third party. You see some executive branch elections at the state and local level where a genuine independent wins, but there's not a state or federal legislator of consequence in the country who doesn't caucus with a major party. A party that can't wield some actual power simply won't get the funding to stick around even if it makes noise for a cycle or two. I don't think that third party votes for President in a non-swing state are a terrible idea--the extent to which they influence future swing state elections is, admittedly, highly speculative--but there really isn't any significant upside to such a vote. The chances of a third party building upon a 5% national Presidential showing to gain a few important legislative seats and to then build upon that to gain actual legislative power and perhaps supplant a major party are infinitesimal compared to the chances of reforming a major party from within, major party realignment for reasons other than deliberate reform, or a major party splitting with one wing of the party collapsing into irrelevance.
Anybody who uses the phrase "Employee Free Choice Act" to refer to card-check legislation, the main point of which is to take away employees' right to a secret ballot and make it easier for union organizers to bully them into signing, I have trouble taking seriously. I'm glad Jill Stein is in the race to provide an alternate voice, but the Green Party basically takes all the core Democratic Party special interest groups and sucks up to them 10 times more.
Under the EFCA unions will be able to organize via 'card check.' Meaning that if a majority of workers sign a card saying they want to join the union, the union comes into force as the representative of the workers. The current law requires that a secret ballot be held first.
wait, you voted Stien because Johnson wasn't getting traction? I have to assume then that all other things being equal, the Green Party was your first choice? Because other than being for ending the war on drugs the two share almost nothing in common policy wise.
Did you not see my ballot in your thread? I'm talking about my discussion with my wife on who SHE should vote for. I tried Gary Johnson, was getting nowhere and then switched to Jill Stein. [edit]If you haven't seen me mention it before Washington is a vote by mail only state. We voted together sitting at the table talking it over. Not understanding that is the only way I can see my post being confusing.
Agreed. Card check shows that unions and leftists are not interested in what the workers want. The unions and leftists who support card check just want to ram in union wherever they can. I also laugh at her right to a living wage nonsense. Who would determine such a thing? Well it would have to be the government. Yeah lets give more power to the government. Might as well just nationalize all business and call ourselves the USSA.
oh okay! Yeah, i saw your ballot pick but momentarrily forgot it when this scanned to me as if you were speaking of YOUR vote. I got it now. Bimbo moment passed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Free_Choice_Act It makes it so that factories can be unionized in one single vote in just 120 days instead of dragging out up to three years and requiring up to three votes. It also makes it easier to prosecute union busting efforts by employers which sadly are endemic in the US. It did have a flaw of allowing the initial employee choice to BEGIN the negotiation process to be with a simple show of hands while the actual VOTE would be secret ballot. The right wing has spent a lot of time making up a lot of lies about the EFCA just like they did with health care reform. The main point of a quick show of hands just to start the process was to make it as easy as possible and avoid the single most common cause of employer delays by suing over the wording of the initial ballot to even begin the process; the actual vote at the end of the process over if they will unionize or not would still be a secret ballot.
What are you like 10 years old? Cause you're a fucking stupid idiot. "section 2 would have eliminated the need for an additional ballot to require an employer recognize a union, if a majority of workers have already signed cards expressing their wish to have a union" That is the proof Sentience that this is hostile to workers. Let us use an example of a company with 100 workers of which you are one..... Under the current system: #1 If the union and the employer agree to the union from the start there is no vote. Of course I don't know of any companies that have ever agreed to a union so now we go to step two. #2 The union will go to the employees and ask them to sign a card stating that they want an opportunity to vote for a union. The union has to get a minimum of 30% (30 of 100 in this fictional company to sign the card) in order for a vote to take place. In practice however unions usually work until they get 50% or more cards signed because to them it indicates that the vote will go in their favor. You don't have to support the union if you sign the card. Lots of people would sign the card just to get the union hack out of their face and then when it comes time to vote the person would vote against the union. Unions of course hate that. Under the new system: #1 is the same as under the old system #2 The union will go to the employees and ask them to sign a card stating that they want an opportunity to vote for a union. The 30% rule needed to hold a vote is still in effect but now there is an extra twist. If the union can get 50% +1 (in this case of our fictional company 51 employees) to sign the card the union is automatically recognized without any vote needing to be held. So now if you are the union are you going to work towards the 30% to force the company to hold a vote or are you going to work towards getting 50% +1 and making the union automatically recognized? Obviously you're going to choose the latter. Now as an employee you are put in a terrible position. Under the old rule you could sign the card just to keep the union people from harassing you. Then you could safely vote in secret to not accept the union. A secret ballot also protects you from the company because the company doesn't know who voted for what. Now you can't do that. If you are against the union you can not sign the card. Signing the card means you support the union. Refusing to sign the card means you don't support the union. It also means everyone else, coworkers, the company, and now the union know which way you fall on the issue. The company isn't likely to harass you if your against the union but do you think the union people will leave you alone when you tell them you won't sign the card? Hell no. They are going to harass you. You're coworkers who are pro-union are going to harass you. Your work environment is going to become a living hell as the union people keep coming after you. Your home environment might be come the same as well. "Hey Sentience I was just passing through the neighborhood and I noticed two of your tires was flat." Of course if you're pro-union the company may decide to harass you because now it knows thanks to the new card check scheme that you wanted the union. Unions worked for a long time to get secret ballots to protect employees from employer retaliation if said employee voted for the union. Now with union membership down and still falling the unions and their Democrat allies in this country want to make it easier to force unions down everyone's throat. Some of those same Democrats sent a letter to Mexico demanding that Mexico make it so voting on unions was done in secret in order to protect the workers. So American workers are less deserving of protection then Mexican ones? The Employee Free Choice Act has nothing to do with free choice. It's about making it easier for a union to force itself upon the workers and the business who employs those workers. The Employee Free Choice Act also takes away the right of the employees to vote on the initial contract. Maybe the employees support the union but they don't like the contract the union negotiated. Well under the Employee Free Choice Act tough shit. You the employee don't get to vote on that first contract no matter how bad you think it is. Anyone who supports taking away the right of employees to vote in secret and taking away their right to vote on a contract is a thug.
From the very introduction to the article you linked: The bill would have, first, allowed a union to be certified as the official union to bargain with an employer if union officials collect signatures of a majority of workers. The bill would have removed the present right of the employer to demand an additional, separate ballot when more than half of employees have already given their signature supporting the union.[4] Second, the bill would have required employers and unions to enter binding arbitration to produce a collective agreement at latest 120 days after a union is recognized. Third, the bill would have increased penalties on employers who discriminate against workers for union involvement. Personally, I think the current law ought to be a little more stringent -- there should always be a secret ballot, and it shouldn't be incumbent on the employer to request one. But the only real purpose of EFCA is to make it easier for union organizers to bully employees into signing up whether they really want to or not.
All it takes to get a secret ballot is a request by the employer or 30% of the employees to request it. That's a damn low bar to cross.
Under the Employee Free Choice Act the union would have to turn in the cards to the NLRB to get the secret vote at 30%. However if the union can get 50% +1 card checks there will be NO VOTE, SECRET OR PUBLIC as the company will be forced to recognize the union. Now tell us dumbass idiot named ConfederateSon if you are trying to form a union are you going to give up at 30% and possibly lose the union or are you going to hold back and work your ass off harassing employees to sign the card check to get 50% +1 in order to skip the vote and force the union into existence? No one. Not even the people on your side support the bullshit your spouting. And just so you know most unions have rules against turning in the cards at 30% because they are afraid that they will lose. They will wait until they have 50% or more cards signed because it is a better sign they will win.
