I don't know Paul, as a consumer, I've been "striking" network "news" and mainstream bird cage liners for over 30 years and I think it's starting to take.

Do lefty bloggers REALLY want a code of professional standards?

Never interrupt your enemy while they are making a mistake. I think the idea of a union for liberal bloggers who can go on strike in 2008 for better health care is a great one.

She must need the health insurance to reverse the spread of her ass across the chair? How about exercise sweetheart?

One of these moonbats gave as a reason for organizing the fact that the government social support network was too weak to allow she and her husband to quit work and blog full time. She intends for the government to support her blogging habit.
=============================

Kos' new platform, workers compensation insurance for bloggers' carpal tunnel syndrome.

They just want money and their paypal buttons aren't being used enough. So what's a moronic progressive to do? Well, there's getting money from the gov't and unions.
I look forward to them trying to figure out a way for the gov't to pay them for their poo-flinging.
If I had read a book about the lefty-blogosphere 15 years ago, I would have been angry at the author for not even coming up with something plausible.

Bloggers forming a union? Definitely the wrong approach. Among other things, IIRC, aren't most bloggers self-employed?

"Dude, I'm sick of workin' for the Man!"

"Umm ... actually ... "

That said, a professional association for bloggers might not be a bad idea -- something similar to the Editorial Freelance Association, the AMA, local bar associations, or similar. The association, in turn, wouldn't necessarily be useful for labor disputes so much as providing a forum for members to congregate in, negotiating group rates on health insurance, and similar matters.

If you've ever shopped for individual insurance, you know that latter can be quite important.

--|PW|--

Don't mind me, but...

Who's the employer these folks are going to demand things from?

And what employer has more than a couple on its payroll?

I can imagine the representation election. One man, one vote, literally.

Actually, let me amend. There is a group of bloggers for whom a union makes quite a bit of sense, and it really doesn't have to do with political activist bloggers.

A number of media outlets, particularly in the Northeast, are union shops -- the reportes and editors are members of the union, receive union benefits, etc. I don't know if any outlets do this, but it strikes me that more than one outlet would try to claim that its online operations are separate from its print or broadcast operations, and therefore the online "bloggers" don't merit the same pay level as the print/broadcast writers or "talent."

In that case, yeah, unionizing, especially membership in the same union representing employees in the traditional media operation, makes sense.

--|PW|--

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ... wheeze .... HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

Must start breathing again.

It IS amusing. If they're unionized, where's the management to contend with over work issues? I remember light years ago I was mad at Paul for deleting one of my comments, so I told him to take this job and shove it and demanded my back pay.

I got it, too.
===============

wavemaker:

Who's the employer?

Soros, probably.

My first thought, yeah...OK. The comedic value would be enormous reading their picket signs when they went on "strike."

Think Code Pink.

Then reality set in... something these loonbats only have a passing interest in. Who the hell are they going to withhold their "services" from? Who will be paying for this health care as a result of their new found "barginning power?"

ICANN?

Just read Capt Ed has a salient point:

But this is the point; blogging, with only a few exceptions, isn't a job at all. The blog writers own their own publishing, which is the entire point of blogging. In essence, the suggestions by Susie Madrak and Kirsten Burgard amount to a call to organize owners, not labor. From whom will the union protect us -- ourselves? Will we have to have a union steward to make sure we pay ourselves overtime?

Wouldn't that be like a cartel, kinda like OPEC?

Maybe the U.N. could be our "employer" and we can strike them. Officially!

Sure, they could probably use collective bargaining power for insurance rates among other things. And that's not such a bad idea. But that's not a "Union" - capital "U". That's an Association.

They're implying all manner of things that simply don't apply to bloggers. Like equal pay, decent working hours and conditions, etc.

Complaining about having to sit in a chair all day is ludicrous. That's their CHOICE. To expect recognition monetarily is ridiculous.

Please allow me to use an emoticon here:

O_o

As if someone else wouldn't gleefully fill the void for free when they strike. What are they gonna do then? Make union membership compulsory in order to blog?

It dosnt matter since most of these labor unions are connected to organzied crime and the mafia

I'll support their effort by initiating my own boycott of leftie blogs.

There. Done. Suprisingly easy.

Why don't the all just Crash the Gate and make millions from their writing skills like Kos did? Oh yeah...

Hey how about a union with benefits for writing in your diary or the weekend duffers union or the cleaning out my gutters union or the knitters' union or the porn collectors union or...

My first thought is that I don't live in a "right to work" state. My second, immediately following, is that they can still shove it. My third, and probably most useful, is that this is really about rent-seeking and control: what they probably want is for the government to pay them (pandering for votes could easily lead to that kind of thing if the "union" was big enough and their side won) and for the government to attempt to regulate blogs with something akin to the fairness doctrine, so that only their point of view gets heard.

First, no one except themselves is forcing these webloggers to remain "tethered" to their computers, writing their vitriolic spew. It is a choice they have made, of their own free will, and in fully knowledge of the potential and probable repercussions.

As such, considering the fact that the decision to remain at the computer is their own free choice, it is also their own free choice to not pursue other, potentially more lucrative jobs, exercise to keep their bodies in shape, etc. etc.

Therefore, if they are voluntarily opting out of those activities and suchlike, why should someone else be forced to provide it for them? Sure, they could claim they were "called" to weblogging... but what "calling" is there that does not come with a few little sacrifices here and there?

See? Logic is not hard. Unless, of course, you are a liberal.

This reminds me of the joke about three merchant princes that got shipwrecked on an empty island while out seeking goods.

They were found 20 years later, and by then all three had grown fabulously wealthy by trading their hats back and forth.

Unionizing bloggers will work about the same way.

Goes to show that one criterion for being a liberal anything -- liberal politician, liberal actor, liberal author, liberal blogger -- is a very weak grasp of how economics works.

RAH had an anecdote about a fellow whose job it was to polish the brass cannon in front of City Hall. After 20 years, he decided to go into business for himself, so he took his savings and bought his own brass cannon....

I wish to start a masterbator's union. Its hard work doing that three times a day.

I wish to start a masterbator's union. Its hard work doing that three times a day.

Make sure you negotiate a good vision plan.

--|PW|--

Lemme just close by wondering aloud where this movement will be in Feb of 2008. You can guess my answer.

Where every other bowel movement belongs...down the toilet.

Mayhaps tho the whole union idea is the thin edge of the wedge leading to govt licensing of journalism/political-blogging? Esp if the union is first licensed itself to "set standards."

I'd be careful. Prob just a trial ballon but you never know....

I can't see your point, pennywit.
===================

C'mon... noones talking about going on strike.. that WOULD be idiotic. You highlighted "collective bargaining", but didn't understand that it's wouldn't be for wages or benefits from an employer, but for good deals from insurance companies, etc...

They are really talking about a professional association... I think they are calling it a union to keep the right-wingers out. Good idea, really.

No, I think they're calling it a union because that's what they think it is, a union.

Not surprising that they wouldn't know the difference between a union and an association. I haven't found the lefty blogosphere to be the sharpest tools in the shed...