Michigan Proposal 2 - News Flashback: Gov Romney Supports Michigan Public Employees Right to Collectively Bargain

A little known fact: Gov. George W. Romney signed into law PERA – The Public Employees Rights Act in 1965 – that protected the right of collective bargaining in Michigan.

Michigan Govenor George W. Romney Signs the PERA Act in 1965 - Michigan Teachers Stand at His Side

The critical question for today on the eve of the 2012 Presidential election is: If you, Mitt Romney, are so committed a Moderate Republican like your father George, and as wife Ann has touted in these last weeks throughout Michigan and Ohio: Why are you not fully in support of your father’s legacy as a Collective Bargaining Rights statesman?

Young Teachers watch Gov. George Romney signs PERA into law (1965)

Representative s of Public Employee Unions look on as Gov. George Romney signs PERA (1965)

For more depth on George W. Romney “an example of ethical leadership” look up: DOCUMENTARY on George W. Romney by BYU-TV October 1, 2008.

PROVO, Utah – Oct 1, 2008 – "The Romney Code: The Life and Ethics of George W. Romney" will premiere on BYU Television Monday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m. MDT. The premiere will include the 30-minute documentary followed by a special 30-minute discussion with Romney family members. An advanced preview of the documentary will air on Saturday, Oct. 4, at 12:30 p.m. between sessions of general conference.

Airing as part of "LDS Lives", a series on influential Mormons, "The Romney Code: The Life and Ethics of George W. Romney" takes viewers from Romney's childhood through his business and political careers to the volunteerism efforts that capped his life.

Director Ethan Vincent weaves interviews with Romney's children, colleagues and historians with photographs, video and voice recordings of the man to tell a visually compelling story. Vincent says the documentary will help audiences see Romney's diverse influence and unique approach to politics as three-term Michigan Governor.

"What he did supersedes the way politics are done today," Vincent says. "Now you are either a republican or a democrat, but he was able to collaborate effectively on both sides."

Brigham Young University's Romney Institute of Public Management, was named for George W. Romney in 1998. The Romney Institute offers a master's degree in public administration and seeks to prepare young people for careers in public service. (Emphasis added)

Source: “BYU-TV to Premiere George Romney Documentary” Brigham Young University - Marriott School (October 2008)

Reed Larson of the John Birch Society: Long History of Working with the LDS on "Right to Work (for Less)" Laws

   

Church of Latter Day Saints or Mormon Church and the John Birch Society A Perspective: Radical Counterpoint to George Romney: Mormon’s & the Rise of the John Birch Society in America Excerpted from "How Mormon Leaders Built the John Birch Society":

“The Mormon Church has always staked out positions among the political far right. In the 1920's Reed Smoot, the first Mormon senator and the most powerful LDS leader in politics at the time, was good friends with Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. By passing the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, Hoover sent America into the Great Depression. The Mormon hierarchy sided with the most reactionary conservatives to oppose FDR and Democrats trying to pull America out of the economic abyss. Mormon president/prophet Heber J. Grant, "detested the Democrat's New Deal policies." (The Mormon Corporate Empire, p.37)”

(Break)

“When Joseph McCarthy went on his anti-communist crusade claiming communists had infested the State Department, his first stop was Salt Lake City, where he flew in and "participated in a Lincoln Day banquet held at the Newhouse Hotel." Presumably McCarthy met with First Counselor J. Reuben Clark Jr., the staunch anti-communist "whose many years of service in the State Department gave him a broad exposure to world politics." It was (during) his visit to Utah that McCarthy settled on the number 57 as the number of communists in the State Department.”

READ original posting “How Mormon Leaders Built the John Birch Society” by Baracks Backers (DailyKos October 2012)

In 1984 Reed Larson gave an exclusive interview to the John Birch Society publication, Review of the News. The interviewer was John Rees, who had been an editor for Western Goals Foundation publications.

Described as a “Fighter for Worker Rights,” Larson was asked about the power of labor unions. This additional anti-union information from the Mormon backed John Birch radicalism. From the interview of right-winger Reed Larson:

JBS: You are talking about political power.

[Reed] Larson: I think union officials should enjoy the same rights and freedoms as everyone else, but no more. That’s the problem. Today they are specially privileged individuals. In fact, as Nobel-laureate Friedrich Hayek has put it: “We have now reached a state where unions have become uniquely privileged institutions…. It cannot be stressed enough that the coercion that the unions have been permitted to exercise contrary to all principles of freedom under the law is primarily the coercion of fellow workers.” That’s the problem which our National Right to Work Committee is out to solve.

Tremendous political power has been put in the hands of union officials; and that power, almost without exception, is used on the side of collectivism, more government, less individual freedom, and greater control of the individual.

A look at the current positions of the nation’s largest union the National Education Association - shows that the union position in the philosophical spectrum has changed little.
(Emphasis added)

There you have it, a little history.

Related Slates:
George W. Romney’s Franken-Son: Mitt & His ‘Noble’ Lies (October 2012) - Middling Mitt Romney Not of His Fathers'Sterling Civic Michigan Mettle (Gaskell & George Romney) (June 2012) - For Mitt Romney, Billy Graham ‘Sells Out’ His Faith &Jesus for Political Advantage (October 2012) - The Crushing Blow to Mitt’s Quix-Toxic Quest: ‘Good Samaritan’or ‘Corporate Bandit’ (October 2012) or all posts on Mitt Romney or George Romney.

Cross-posted to Kos.

The Gizzi-Monster and the Raging Radical: Gingrich Gone John Bircher Rogue

Concerning the John Birch Society (JBS) John Gizzi writes braggadocioishly in support of the Newt's pledge to slog on to Tampa's GOP National Convention - counting down 46 more states. "Gingrich never formally conceded to Romney and reports were widespread that he did not call to congratulate the primary victor," on the heels of the trouncing The Newt took in Florida Tuesday.

Welcomed into the "fold" at the Michigan View is that old Bircher Gizzi, the salt and pepper maned-wolf with the Dirksenian-gravel voice, that wily codger represents the old, but still angry JBS. The ghost of John Birch is still at it. JBS never misses a good chance to wedge issues nearest and dearest to their fossilized hearts and their dunderhead mentality. THEY LIVE IN 60 YEARS OF HEMLOCKEN CASKS OF ANGST AND BITTER VENGEFULNESS stemming from their ongoing exile from polite and reasoned civility-due to their untoward behaviors and subversion of the political process for gnarled pleasure and the company it creates for them at gun shows and Tea Party beer halls.

Old Birchers are in their senior glory with Newt! Gingrich's our Guy!

Gizzi showed up, invited, at the Republican Mackinac Island Leadership Conference September of 2011 as a star presenter and has subsequently been comfortably settled into a feathered bed column at The Michigan View. Great. Gizzi joins with Saul Anuzis and a a"set of ardent stragglers" who have found a niche in Michigan GOP politics over the years. Saul is a disciple of Human Events and a close ally with and Newt the orfanatorio promoter. Saul is cloven to all things Extreme Far Right.

Following the rough and raw politics of insider insurgency and dark conspiracy, Saul Anuzis (Maven of HUMAN EVENTS) is at the tipping point of being so anti-government and anti-tax (as is his bosom buddy, Grover Norquist - whom Saul hosted at the GOP Mackinac Island Conference in 2009) as to have become a practical/activist anarchist.

Saul, a life-long political wonk and partisan advantage seeker, feels right at home with the grandiose/homicidal tendencies of Grover Norquist, who dreams of regicide, drowning an imperial government shrunk small enough to be "drown in a bathtub." If that isn't graphic enough, try viewing Grover as doggedly committed to a Pro-Death-to-Government-commitment and a pre-pubescent dreamer set out on a career of trying to achieve that end.

Saul has been chumming with and promoting Newt for a long time. He and Newt were together on Mackinac Island at the Bi-Annual Leadership Conference where Newt ginned up an overflow crowd at the Grand Hotel's Ballroom. Newt laid out a scheme for then GOP Legislative Leadership tailored to disrupt and obstruct former Gov. Granholm and make all things economic and tax-based more difficult; to bring Granholm and Democrats down. Senate Leader Mike Bishop did just as Newt had proposed (Bishop was hectored by Gingrich before that huge pro-Newt crowd in the Ballroom) and made obstruction the rule of the day- shutting down Michigan Government and pushing the state further into planned partisan failure.

Prophetic in his warnings, Reince Priebus, the GOP National Chairman, spoke to the insider crowd on the island September 2011 prophesying and exhorting them:

"National Republican Party chairman, Reince Priebus, urged party activists to rally behind the nominee - whoever it is: 'There is no such thing as an absolutely perfect candidate. Only one perfect person has walked the earth,' Mr. Priebus said. 'WE'RE GOING TO WIN THIS ELECTION BY ADDITION AND MULTIPLICATION, NOT DIVISION AND SUBTRACTION.' "

(emphasis added) 

Obviously Priebus did not understand the MO of the Birchers and the blood-lust style Newt has for a fierce, pitched, no-holds-barred battle and wild mythical mayhem; Newt sees himself right up there with Churchill and Gen. George Patton! Newt is way out there-as though as historian Connop Thrilwall noted "Alexander had appeared to him, armed for combat."

Gizzi and the Old Birchers love this sort of imbroglio; it's their favorite sandbox game. However, the "who can-be-the-most-radically- conservative (troupe of would be nominees in the GOP primaries) throwing sand in each other's faces will not restore Michigan or the Nation to sound policy and economic recovery.

Those who yearn for backroom power and subsequent elevation to prominence as Anuzis hankers, include: Gizzi himself, Clark Durant (son of Mr. Bullhorn, Rad Right heckler-Clark's father), and all those who serve the Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity via its grip on Michigan and Wisconsin, Ohio and other states via The pre-packaged legislation piped into state bills under the radar via The American Legislative Exchange Council (A.L.E.C.).

All those who slavishly serve the aggressive Corporatocracy and those politicos (who still hold to towing-along with JBS) are dangerous and offensive to our cherished traditions and civil rights.

"United we stand divided we fall."

Speaking of lack of unity and going it alone! What about Thomas Dean Sellers, Bloomfield Hills, owner Dean Ford, national John Bircher board member? Sellers has given Rep. Ron Paul a sizable contribution. What a subversive thing to do! Sellers wayward act makes it one "big stick" less-a-bundle for the JBS goal promotion of Gingrich or does it !/?

Ideological idiocy is just one Michigan primary victory away for Gingrich.


Original.