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| Labor supporter march down Market Street Tuesday evening in San Francisco. Demonstrations were held across the Bay Area in solidarity with public employee union members in Wisconsin, whose collective bargaining rights were stripped last month by the state Legislature. Rallies were also held in Oakland, Berkeley and San Jose. A small throng of union backers in Castro Valley were seen holding signs and chanting pro-worker slogans to rush hour drivers on Castro Valley Boulevard. (Photo: Tanya Sevilla) |
Castro Valley, protests, San Francisco, unions, wisconsin
ebcitizen.com 
Frank–just go to bed with Manuel and get it over with?
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Manuel,
Voce descobriu que o autor anonimo que accesses voce de ser e Paulo Santos? Lembre-se que “entrevista” Stephen teve com o velho e tudo o que ele fez foi reclamar Paulo, quando ele nunca escreve aqui? O que um perdedor. Continuem o bom trabalho de Manuel, voce tem esses imbecis na corrida. Acredito Santos responsabiliza por sua perda. Voce tem un amigo de Portugal comigo.
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How about you doing some reading and supporting your opinion? I work for a living and live in my own house in SL. Do you still live in your parents house in the Floresta area?
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You're an idiot. You pop off numbers that are false and expect us to believe them? You don't know squat, you're a parasite and want to just sponge off those who work for a living.
Manuel
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Manuel,
400 Americans control more wealth than the bottom 155 million Americans. Most of those 155 million work at jobs that pay less than a living wage. Huge mega-corporations now control America and tea bagger RepubliCON's like yourself are helping them create a third world country.
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Frank,
These baboozes here are just lazy. They don't want to go out and work and earn a living. They want to feed off of the government. The facts are undisputable that America has the best economic system and all these worthless pigs want to do is complain and their only answer is “more welfare”.
Manuel
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Frank you and Manny never posted a fact in your lives–only baseless and worthless opinions–that's an opinion and a fact.
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Manuel,
Meu primo Portugues, porque se preocupa com esses idiotas que estao abaixo de sua inteligencia e nao pode discutir com voce sobre os fatos que eles tem a esconder, como as meninas que sao? Nao fique chateado por eles.
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Babooze's can't argue with the facts. Once again you're arguments are not only baseless but factless.
Manuel
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Manuel=Paul Vargas=caveman
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Let me say something in the vernacular you can understand; ooga booga caveman, fire hot.
Manuel
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Manuel, please try and say something intelligent!
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More lies for the dull, Ray????
Manuel
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We can't afford welfare for the rich any more.
…The top 400 taxpayers — who have more wealth than half of all Americans combined — are paying lower taxes than they have in a generation, as their tax responsibilities have slowly collapsed since the New Deal era and working families have been asked to pay more and more…”
See this chart to learn more:
http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/tax.png
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You have to look at what and who are in the Democrat Party; people with little ambition, the lazy, the dull, those who lack imagination, cognitive skills and those that are inable to think rationally or analytically. This can be attributed to many factors, but the most part is that they have an extremely negative and prejudicial view of others. That breeds resentment and jealousy.
Manoel
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There's a lot of jealously and lies in the Democratic party. That's sad.
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -Mark Twain
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The main point of the San Francisco rally pictured here was that there are 17 extremely wealthy downtown building owners who are refusing to pay their City property taxes at the assessed value rate. This is costing San Francisco $24 million a year.
We can't afford the continued lawless and irresponsible behavior of many rich people, financial institutions and corporations and our government which enables them. Their irresponsibility and greed is a much more important driver of our public debt than currently underfunded public pensions.
See for yourself. Take a close look at the graph in Figure 1:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036
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John, just admit you're a Communist and your freakish ideas have no grounding or basis in the Constitution. You are a very disturbed and insecure person and your vision of a “society” is very frightening indeed.
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You're right, that's changed. Increasingly, the government is for the rich and corporations. They are enjoying getting their lessers to fight each other for crumbs, on this blog and elsewhere, while they take all the money.
Our liberty and pursuit of happiness are interfered with when are jobs are taken away by multinational corporations and our money is stolen by corrupt financial institutions. Our government now leaves these powers alone to abuse us in these ways, and then fails to ensure that they are paying their fair share in taxes.
I'll concede that we're not entitled to a government which prevents these abuses. We must fight to get our government to act on behalf of “We The People”. I'll fight.
Someone quoted from Martin Luther King's last speech recently. I'll offer another portion from the great man on his last night: “All we say to America is, 'Be true to what you said on paper.'”
I don't believe the rich must be the only ones to pay. They must be made to pay their fair share. If they are allowed to shirk their responsibilities our government falls apart for everyone, including for you and those you would find worthy of decent wages, access to a good education and government assistance.
The highest marginal tax rate during Reagan's first six years in office was 50%. If we were merely to return to that level of taxation, we would do much to repair the budget defcit. If we were to raise the cap on FICA from just over $100K to a higher amount, that would keep Social Security able to pay out full benefits well past its current 2037 date. In each case, the upper middle class and wealthy would still be upper middle class and wealthy.
If you work for the state, your taxes would be affected by neither of these changes, but your job, wages and pension will be more secure. What do you think of the fact that wealthy people, corporations and major financial institutions are trying to take your pension away from you?
Is it right that Exxon/Mobil, Wells Fargo, Citibank, GE, Google and many huge profit-taking corporations either pay no income taxes or pay very little (single-digit percentages), while you and I pay much, much more?
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John Evans…I work for the state…and I havent seen a loss in pay, even with furloughs (and I posted that comment). I work with A LOT of lazy and ungrateful employees that abuse the system and their job.
We are all in this together, you're right…but many on the left think the rich must be the only ones that pay. My former party thinks because some are down, that they should do nothing but be entitled. I don't think that way. We are not entitled to a government that respects and cares for the common person. The rich are equal to the middle class and poor, and must also be cared for; you would disagree or back peddle. We are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (you make your own happiness), we are not entitled to the government in which you say. It shall be a govt of, for and by the people.
Thats changed.
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You claim to be concerned with those in the private sector. What do you think of the current GOP House of Representatives' economic proposal which will cut wages and benefits for private sector workera? The Republican Party's own study paper says so.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/economy/gop-prescription-spending-cuts-and-lower-wages-equal-more-jobs-20110325
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John, you are entitled to NOTHING! Plain and simple. You seem to have no problem when private sector workers pay and disposable income is shackled by high taxes to pay for the non-productive state workers.
Manuel
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We are entitled. We are entitled to a govenment which respects and cares for the common person.
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“Anonymous” lies. Furlough days are NOT PAID, and the losses in pay will not be made up retroactively. Workers throughout the State have already lost nearly 10% of their pay through these unpaid days off.
Is it good for the economy when working people have no disposable income? Is it good for our neighborhoods when working people are forced into foreclosure? Is it good for our government when the lower and middle class pay to finance it but most corporations do not and most of the rich do not pay their fair share?
He also doesn't read carefully. I would concede that “We Are One” is similar in meaning to “We The People”, in that we all have the right to a govenment which takes into account reasonable needs of the entire population. “Liberal” comes from the word “liberating”- what could be more liberating than a government that gained self-rule by throwing off the shackles of an overseas kingdom?
“We The People” means we're all in this together. Since “Anonymous” thinks it's good that the middle class is shrinking, that's obvioulsly not him.
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Furlough = paid vacation day (they eventually make up for it retroactively)…so why do people not like furloughs?
These people don't really believe in the original meaning of “We The People.” They can't, it's not a progressive, socialist thing. What they believe in is, “We The People Are Entitled…”
This looks like a tea party gathering…these folks must be racists too.
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What happened? Did Francesco's call off Happy Hour?
Manuel
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These “We Are One” protests got plenty of traction. Over 3,000 in San Francisco, over 1,000 in Oakland and on the Zampa/Carquinez Bridge, both in the middle of the day. The mass media is owned by corporations. That's why these events got so little coverage.
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Well at least Manuel/Paul Vargas is posting under Anonymous again as the above post is definitely his, misspellings and all. Stupid=Manny!
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You are all idiots. These are not private sector unios you morons. These are government worker parasites who suck money out of the people. So put the utopian crap back in the can.
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the term “competitive wages” did not exist before unionazation. even non union jobs are affected by unions because those non union jobs are constantly trying to keep up with their unionized competitors (ex. good benefits, competitive wages) just so their employees don't also unuionize like their competitors did. unions level the playing field between management and employee. even the worst union is still better than no union at all.
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Amazing this got so little traction! Unions brought us out of Dickensian conditions for working people – child labor, dangerous working conditions for what is now our shrinking middle class, yet we ignore the fate of this vital part of our country – the base on which we stand.
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