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Whether we're talking Wisconsin, Washington State, or the Other Washington, nurses, home care workers, school bus drivers, sanitation workers, traffic engineers, cops, firefighters, teachers, and other hourly wage-earners weren't the ones who caused this economic collapse.

They didn't speculate in risky derivatives. They didn't purchase credit default swaps. They didn't issue risky commercial paper. They weren't part of the 1% of the richest Americans who now control 25% of the wealth in the U.S. They didn't vote to extend billions in special tax loopholes for the Wall Street, banks, and multinational corporations.

But when main street America needed a bail-out far more than did banks, Wall Street, airlines, or other large corporations, they stood by while our government put corporate interests ahead of the interests of everyday working Americans.

Politicians like Senator Alexander would have us believe that if only workers were deprived of their rights to associate in unions and stand up for themselves and the services they provide, somehow all of our state and federal budget woes would be solved. The opposite is the case: those who broke the economy ought to be the ones who pay to fix it, and there’s no way to rebuild a vibrant American middle class without a renewed commitment to both organized labor and a robust public sector.

The real agenda of the extreme business right is easy to see - in Wisconsin the labor movement was willing to concede the economic demands made by the governor, after all – it is about permanently changing the balance of economic and political power away from workers and the middle class and towards large corporations and the richest Americans.
If anyone wants to argue that workers are the ones with too much power in this economy, consider the following (much of it from Michael Snyder writing at Yahoo Finance):

•U.S. corporations had their most profitable year ever last year, while unemployment remained stubbornly above 9%.

•66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

•Only the top 5 percent of households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

•For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth than all individual Americans put together.

•In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to over 300 to 1.

•The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

•The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's wealth as they did 15 years ago.

•A generation ago, it was completely common to find a single-income family of four or five living middle-class life; today, it takes two to three incomes to support the same family.

•Real inflation-adjusted wages for private sector hourly wage-earners haven’t risen in 40 years.
And yet, in Wisconsin and around the nation, using unlimited funding from Wall Street, the Koch Brothers, and far-right ideological organizations in D.C., anti-worker politicians like Scott Walker want to convince voters that somehow workers have too much power, when in fact they have far too little. Having facilitated the long, slow, destruction of labor unions in the private sector, the same forces now want to put a swift end to the only remaining institutions left between them and the wholly unmitigated upward transfer of wealth.

Labor unions, like governments, aren’t perfect institutions – we are large, human, messy, and democratic. We are capable of making mistakes. We are sometimes capable of acting in frustratingly short-sighted or bureaucratic ways. The same could be said of almost any company, non-profit organization, government agency or church denomination.

But for those who care about the future of the middle class and the future of democracy, having living, vibrant, strong, unions as the legitimate voice of workers in the workplace and in the halls of government is our last, best hope for a society where all boats rise together, where work is honored, where workers are respected, and where corporate power in the workplace and in the halls of congress has some accountability that can’t be bought and paid for with unlimited campaign funds.

At SEIU, our mission is “improving the lives of workers, and leading the way toward a more just and humane society.” For those who posit that workers lives can be improved, or that a more just or humane society can be achieved, without strong worker organizations playing a prominent role in our economic and civic life, I would respond that nothing in our history or in the current political moment suggests that this is true.

For many of us, the inspiring images from Madison and around the country of workers standing up and fighting back against anti-union attacks and against the wholesale dominance of corporate economic and political power provides us with what little hope we can find in this economy.

If this isn’t what democracy looks like, I don’t know what is.

Whether we're talking Wisconsin, Washington State, or the Other Washington, nurses, home care workers, school bus drivers, sanitation workers, traffic engineers, cops, firefighters, teachers, and other hourly wage-earners weren't the ones who caused this economic collapse.

They didn't speculate in risky derivatives. They didn't purchase credit default swaps. They didn't issue risky commercial paper. They weren't part of the 1% of the richest Americans who now control 25% of the wealth in the U.S. They didn't vote to extend billions in special tax loopholes for the Wall Street, banks, and multinational corporations.

But when main street America needed a bail-out far more than did banks, Wall Street, airlines, or other large corporations, they stood by while our government put corporate interests ahead of the interests of everyday working Americans.

Politicians like Senator Alexander would have us believe that if only workers were deprived of their rights to associate in unions and stand up for themselves and the services they provide, somehow all of our state and federal budget woes would be solved. The opposite is the case: those who broke the economy ought to be the ones who pay to fix it, and there’s no way to rebuild a vibrant American middle class without a renewed commitment to both organized labor and a robust public sector.

The real agenda of the extreme business right is easy to see - in Wisconsin the labor movement was willing to concede the economic demands made by the governor, after all – it is about permanently changing the balance of economic and political power away from workers and the middle class and towards large corporations and the richest Americans.

If anyone wants to argue that workers are the ones with too much power in this economy, consider the following (much of it from Michael Snyder writing at Yahoo Finance):

* U.S. corporations had their most profitable year ever last year, while unemployment remained stubbornly above 9%.

* 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

* Only the top 5 percent of households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

* For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth than all individual Americans put together.

* In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to over 300 to 1.

* The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

* The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's wealth as they did 15 years ago.

* A generation ago, it was completely common to find a single-income family of four or five living middle-class life; today, it takes two to three incomes to support the same family.

* Real inflation-adjusted wages for private sector hourly wage-earners haven’t risen in 40 years.

And yet, in Wisconsin and around the nation, using unlimited funding from Wall Street, the Koch Brothers, and far-right ideological organizations in D.C., anti-worker politicians like Scott Walker want to convince voters that somehow workers have too much power, when in fact they have far too little. Having facilitated the long, slow, destruction of labor unions in the private sector, the same forces now want to put a swift end to the only remaining institutions left between them and the wholly unmitigated upward transfer of wealth.

Labor unions, like governments, aren’t perfect institutions – we are large, human, messy, and democratic. We are capable of making mistakes. We are sometimes capable of acting in frustratingly short-sighted or bureaucratic ways. The same could be said of almost any company, non-profit organization, government agency or church denomination.

But for those who care about the future of the middle class and the future of democracy, having living, vibrant, strong, unions as the legitimate voice of workers in the workplace and in the halls of government is our last, best hope for a society where all boats rise together, where work is honored, where workers are respected, and where corporate power in the workplace and in the halls of congress has some accountability that can’t be bought and paid for with unlimited campaign funds.

At SEIU, our mission is “improving the lives of workers, and leading the way toward a more just and humane society.” For those who posit that workers lives can be improved, or that a more just or humane society can be achieved, without strong worker organizations playing a prominent role in our economic and civic life, I would respond that nothing in our history or in the current political moment suggests that this is true.

For many of us, the inspiring images from Madison and around the country of workers standing up and fighting back against anti-union attacks and against the wholesale dominance of corporate economic and political power provides us with what little hope we can find in this economy.

If this isn’t what democracy looks like, I don’t know what is.

Whether we're talking Wisconsin, Washington State, or the Other Washington, nurses, home care workers, school bus drivers, sanitation workers, traffic engineers, cops, firefighters, teachers, and other hourly wage-earners weren't the ones who caused this economic collapse.

test from ie9

1000 words

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam quis neque vel sapien tincidunt mattis. Aenean pretium elementum eros, non varius lectus blandit ac. Nullam vel ultricies velit. Nullam non turpis sapien, in tristique felis. Cras auctor pulvinar laoreet. Maecenas non eros ac diam varius ullamcorper vitae ac purus. Nam vel lectus nec quam molestie volutpat. Maecenas sed felis quis massa tristique sollicitudin ut ac augue. Vivamus lacinia justo ut ligula aliquet id pharetra lacus dignissim. Nulla non lacus at magna tempor tincidunt eget vel dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ac eros eu nibh ullamcorper cursus. In quis purus neque.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam quis neque vel sapien tincidunt mattis. Aenean pretium elementum eros, non varius lectus blandit ac. Nullam vel ultricies velit. Nullam non turpis sapien, in tristique felis. Cras auctor pulvinar laoreet. Maecenas non eros ac diam varius ullamcorper vitae ac purus. Nam vel lectus nec quam molestie volutpat. Maecenas sed felis quis massa tristique sollicitudin ut ac augue. Vivamus lacinia justo ut ligula aliquet id pharetra lacus dignissim. Nulla non lacus at magna tempor tincidunt eget vel dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ac eros eu nibh ullamcorper cursus. In quis purus neque.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam quis neque vel sapien tincidunt mattis. Aenean pretium elementum eros, non varius lectus blandit ac. Nullam vel ultricies velit. Nullam non turpis sapien, in tristique felis. Cras auctor pulvinar laoreet. Maecenas non eros ac diam varius ullamcorper vitae ac purus. Nam vel lectus nec quam molestie volutpat. Maecenas sed felis quis massa tristique sollicitudin ut ac augue. Vivamus lacinia justo ut ligula aliquet id pharetra lacus dignissim. Nulla non lacus at magna tempor tincidunt eget vel dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ac eros eu nibh ullamcorper cursus. In quis purus neque.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam quis neque vel sapien tincidunt mattis. Aenean pretium elementum eros, non varius lectus blandit ac. Nullam vel ultricies velit. Nullam non turpis sapien, in tristique felis. Cras auctor pulvinar laoreet. Maecenas non eros ac diam varius ullamcorper vitae ac purus. Nam vel lectus nec quam molestie volutpat. Maecenas sed felis quis massa tristique sollicitudin ut ac augue. Vivamus lacinia justo ut ligula aliquet id pharetra lacus dignissim. Nulla non lacus at magna tempor tincidunt eget vel dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ac eros eu nibh ullamcorper cursus. In quis purus neque.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam quis neque vel sapien tincidunt mattis. Aenean pretium elementum eros, non varius lectus blandit ac. Nullam vel ultricies velit. Nullam non turpis sapien, in tristique felis. Cras auctor pulvinar laoreet. Maecenas non eros ac diam varius ullamcorper vitae ac purus. Nam vel lectus nec quam molestie volutpat. Maecenas sed felis quis massa tristique sollicitudin ut ac augue. Vivamus lacinia justo ut ligula aliquet id pharetra lacus dignissim. Nulla non lacus at magna tempor tincidunt eget vel dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ac eros eu nibh ullamcorper cursus. In quis purus neque.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam quis neque vel sapien tincidunt mattis. Aenean pretium elementum eros, non varius lectus blandit ac. Nullam vel ultricies velit. Nullam non turpis sapien, in tristique felis. Cras auctor pulvinar laoreet. Maecenas non eros ac diam varius ullamcorper vitae ac purus. Nam vel lectus nec quam molestie volutpat. Maecenas sed felis quis massa tristique sollicitudin ut ac augue. Vivamus lacinia justo ut ligula aliquet id pharetra lacus dignissim. Nulla non lacus at magna tempor tincidunt eget vel dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ac eros eu nibh ullamcorper cursus. In quis purus neque.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam quis neque vel sapien tincidunt mattis. Aenean pretium elementum eros, non varius lectus blandit ac. Nullam vel ultricies velit. Nullam non turpis sapien, in tristique felis. Cras auctor pulvinar laoreet. Maecenas non eros ac diam varius ullamcorper vitae ac purus. Nam vel lectus nec quam molestie volutpat. Maecenas sed felis quis massa tristique sollicitudin ut ac augue. Vivamus lacinia justo ut ligula aliquet id pharetra lacus dignissim. Nulla non lacus at magna tempor tincidunt eget vel dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ac eros eu nibh ullamcorper cursus. In quis purus neque.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam quis neque vel sapien tincidunt mattis. Aenean pretium elementum eros, non varius lectus blandit ac. Nullam vel ultricies velit. Nullam non turpis sapien, in tristique felis. Cras auctor pulvinar laoreet. Maecenas non eros ac diam varius ullamcorper vitae ac purus. Nam vel lectus nec quam molestie volutpat. Maecenas sed felis quis massa tristique sollicitudin ut ac augue. Vivamus lacinia justo ut ligula aliquet id pharetra lacus dignissim. Nulla non lacus at magna tempor tincidunt eget vel dolor. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ac eros eu nibh ullamcorper cursus. In quis purus neque.

expert comment one for think tank number two

ok... using the corrected id, maybe?

permalink with id?