Anonymous Uncovers Corruption in Wisconsin Labor Dispute

[HentMas]

However, they seem to be able to do whatever they want, whenever they feel like it. Power unchecked makes me nervous.

yeah, but what you dont realize is that anonymous are a bunch of whiny jerks that wouldnt move a finguer if it wasnt worth it, they dont "hold" power, they hold a tool to unleash power, and once they get tired of it they leave and someone else uses that tool for their purposes, ultimatelly, Anon is not one, is many and no one, it probably was me, maybe it will be me later, i bet it was you!, in the end it is not "whenever they feel like it" i can almost asure you that the guys that broke into the law firm maybe dont even know about the guys taking this particular case, and i´m sure that they werent the same that hacked into palins mail and twitter, hell, its not one entity, its the whole world, thats the point of anonimous.

and well, taking down the whole world is kind of hard when you dont know where to beggin, who are the leaders?? no one, who is the guy that thought of this first?? everyone!, get it??

i mean, they were making a campaign about showing the moon its place for gods sake!, its completelly stupid to think the guy that said that is saying this in the same timeframe.

hell, for all you know...

Spoiler

 

[Neferius]

The Revolution will not be Televised ...it will be Tweeted

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

Causing problems for anti-union types is always a good thing in my books.

 

[Dave did I really just post with my last name lol]

That's just not true. The unions in Wisconsin have already voluntarily agreed to a 8% PAY CUT, right off the bat. This isn't about the state trying to save money, that's just a cover. This is really about the Republicans trying to destroy unions so they stop supporting Democratic politicians.

I think this is an excellent example of how hard it is to really get a good grasp on this whole issue. Yes, two large state-wide unions have said that they'll accept having to pay towards their excellent benefits. But numerous smaller unions across the state have already started trying to rush contracts through that still require them not to contribute to pensions or health care. Nobody speaks for all of the unions, and a lot of people are saying a lot of things.

There has been a lot of propaganda in play surrounding the whole issue. (Full disclosure: I'm a conservative Wisconsinite who supports the governor. I'll do my best to be even-handed, but I'm only human; there's bound to be bias.) The legislature is trying to do 2 things: require unionized state employees to contribute ~5% of their pay to their pensions and roughly double how much they pay towards health care; and disallow collective bargaining over such things (but not pay). As Ergoemos mentioned above, this still gives them more collective bargaining than federal employees, but that's more of an aside. The biggest detail, to me, is that the state employees would still have excellent benefits. The pension deal still blows my 401(k) out of the water, and they'll still pay far less than average workers for better coverage.

More directly on topic: while this does have the taste of tin-foil-hat to it, I think it's more an example of Anonymous stumbling across something that's fairly routine in politics and making a big deal of it. But I could be wrong... politics gives me a headache.

(One last thing: there are a lot of factors in play with this craziness, and I only highlighted a couple of points which happen to support my position. I'm not claiming to be laying out everything.)

 

[CD-R]

Not really sure why Anonymous would get involved in this whole thing. Unless those utilities thing also includes internet services as well.

They would and they do. The problem is that ISP is currently classified as a utlity which allows ISP companies to actually sell an internet connection while still controlling the actual speed and potentially limit how much you get.

Could you imagine if actual utilities were treated like bandwidth caps? With water and electricity? Imagine having your heating cut off or your water cut off for the rest of the month.

Oh. Well that makes sense now. Thanks for filling me in.

 

[TheMadJack]

If you dont like the governor, elect a new one at the next election.

So you're saying that it's ok to give them 4 years to pretty much do as they want (if their bill pass) and screw everyone until that four years has passed. Shrug while it happens thinking the bastard won't be reelected?

Do NOT wait until it's too late to act. Maggots like that have to be hung high and short if there is corruption. Anything else is incomprehensible.

 

[SeriousIssues]

Anonymous is beginning to take themselves a bit too seriously.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Are they actually a 'hacker group?' I was never clear on that.

I think that's the point.

 

[Dusk17]

Corporate greed aside, rule by street mobs is not the best alternative either. If you dont like the governor, elect a new one at the next election. The unions are hardly better than Koch. "Well, we are not bankrupt yet, so we want our raises now!" To hell with the consequences.

You really have no idea what was going on in Wisconsin do you?

 

[zehydra]

Are they actually a 'hacker group?' I was never clear on that.

No, they just have hackers with them.

Basically, anyone who visits 4chan's /b/ is more or less automatically a member so long as they remain anonymous. Anonymous is anarchic, it has no structure, and is ruled by nobody.

 

[sansamour14]

All hail the LULZ!

Seriously - they're the best reason to act politically.

i second this opinion

FOR THE LULZ!!!!!!!!!!

 

[manaman]

I would love to support unions but every union shop I have ever been in has made it worse for both the workers and the business. Not to say I don't support the rights of workers to collective bargaining to entire fair wage and benefits but corruption evident in the unions hurts everyone. As well as to much power being on one side of the table.

Unions ability to harass and block workers who are non union should be the first thing to go. As well as allowing a company to completely oust aa non compromising union should be restored as a last ditch effort. A government agency does not have that last ditch option. School cannot shut down while new educators are located and the government cannot stop functioning while new police and firefighters are trained. So I can see how they wish to further lower the powers of unions in those fields.

I can also see how corruption can seep into an otherwise normal pursuit. Locating and removing that corruption should be a priority, but the heart of the issue still stands and shouldn't be ignored or invalidated because of thay corruption.

 

[newwiseman]

Ever since that piece of legislation got passed to allow corporations to give as much as they want to campaign financing the Koch brother pretty much bought the Republican party, considering how many corporations they personally control.

 

[Simalacrum]

Are they actually a 'hacker group?' I was never clear on that.

Nope. Some of us are hackers/hacktivists, but the thing about Anonymous is that its extremely loose. The fact that it has no official position also means that people often self-organise into doing different things under the banner of internet freedom and other elements of freedom of speech. Project Chanology (the whole movement against Scientology), for example, is still up and running despite having less media coverage than other elements of Anonymous these days... that element is mostly comprised of regular people protesting IRL, rather than hackers DDOSing Scientology sites nowadays.