Dammit not how I wanted things to start and for Ford this whole thing is personal and people were tired of waiting. Firing someone who refuses to come in to work for Four Months in my mind is perfectly legal the issue is the economy is all ready in a bad state.
He is very explicitly attempting to break this strike and he doesnt have the Governor's backing, only the Attorney General.
The violence didn't start the first time, the Red Guards just blocked the scab workers from reaching the factories. The violence started the next day when said scabs were led by Minutemen.
At this stage I doubt the ability of the National Guard and even the military as a whole being honest, to be able to pursue any of the options that involve either moving between the Minutemen and Red Guard or trying to actively fight both of them and I am also inclined to favor the strikers given that they really have just been what they've been doing for 4 months already and that it is Ford and Long who have manufactured this current escalation of crisis.
[X] Federalize the Michigan National Guard and order them to stop the Minutemen and scab workers and have the FBI arrest Ford
What would be our grounds for arresting Ford. The man has a right to fire employees especially people who have been refusing to come to work for Four Months on Ideological grounds. The Red Guards decided to take over the streets while armed and block any one getting to Fords property and others as well. Since those that worked for Ford have been fired they had no grounds to be on the property let alone be out with firearms. I have faith in the National Guard to deal with both groups and we well need to deal with both groups plus this group of the Red Guards are not a bunch of innocents who have committed no crime.
[X] Federalize the Michigan National Guard and order them to crush the Minutemen and Red Guards and have the FBI arrest Ford
Screw Scabs, and screw the Right to Work. Nuts to these anti-Union fat cats.
I would ask what grounds we have to arrest Ford. I would also argue that a Union that is not voluntary tends to become corrupt like the Teamsters under Jimmy Hoffa. I am a member of the Union that covers TSA employees working for the Federal government so I can say they can be very useful for some one who is just started his job.
While I don't like it this is a better vote then the one that's winning.
[X] Federalize the Michigan National Guard and order them to crush the Minutemen and Red Guards and have the FBI arrest Ford
Alright I'm still processing but definitely we are on firm Consitutional grounds in opposing the Scabs, the Minutemen, and Ford. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution is the Commerce clause which gives Congress the power "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;", bolding mine.
Obviously we just passed passed legislation through Congress regarding this, so Olson wouldn't be making policy in opposing the AFP and Ford, just enforcing the law which makes it harder to make an executive overreach argument.
I don't think any of this falls under Clause 3 at the moment. And as our QM said the legality of us Arresting Ford is going to be fraught with issues.
[X] Federalize the Michigan National Guard and order them to stop the Minutemen and scab workers and have the FBI arrest Ford
Let's not fight a three way civil war please? We've gotten really close to stabilizing around a repeat of the last civil war and taking the wind out of the SPA's revolutionary sails, no point to waste it at the last minute.
I don't think we are going to get out of a confrontation with Reed and his bunch considering we are trying to cut some of the Unions out from under him with the Legislation we passed.
I strongly recommend against trying to fight both the Red Guards and the Minutemen at once. This is the heart of SPA electoral success and this is just not a practicable space to just go and pick a fight with everybody given the at best semi-professional nature of the National Guard.
I also really advise against the options that would allows scabs in. It would be a complete reversal of our policies thusfar with the Fair Deal and particularly the hard fought fight for the NLRA. It just doesn't seem sensible to me to stab organized labor in the back at this junction when I feel that they haven't been particularly escalatory in this encounter. It is Long who has sent over the scabs, and it is Ford who has coordinated with other big businessmen and received them. The Red Guards turned the scabs away, but the fighting did not start until the Minutemen led the march to the factories the next day.
This scab initiative is what many big businessmen have staked their odds on, will it really make that significant of a difference if we fired on the Red Guard or not as long as we are still stopping scabs and firing on Minutemen? On the inverse, we have still thusfar dealt with organized labor in good faith and it would be a large and meaningful betrayal at this stage to fire on the strikers and Red Guards.
Trying to interpose the semi-professional National Guard and telling them simply to prevent violence just isn't going to work out between 2 violently ideologically opposed paramilitaries. Doing nothing is not an option, and I have voiced my opposition to assassination earlier.
I am settled now on arresting Ford and stopping the minutemen and scabs.
We can deal with both sides in this with a sufficient show of force and we already have plans to get the army involved so it won't be just the National Guard for long.
We are going to have a conflict with Reed and his bunch so best to have it on our terms. The Red Guard are not Innocent in this. Some of their members got fired and what did they do. They decided to take over the streets while armed and then threatened anyone trying to go near the property of Ford and others to work.
They have broken the law in several ways and need to be reminded that they can't just march in to streets armed and start threatening people and engaging in gun fights.
Hrm...
I'm skeptical, but I think backing the unions on this one is a good idea. Unions only aren't allowed to exist yet on the technicality that the NLRB hasn't been set up yet, but they're soon to be allowed. And we don't really know who started the violence, though I expect it was the Minutemen, since the difference between the day without shooting and the day with shooting was whether the Minutemen were heading up the charge. We can't prove or know anything though.
On the other side, strikebreaking is 100% illegal under our current laws and everyone involved in instigating it is fucked, with no grey areas that we can acknowledge. We're on pretty solid ground to oppose this, unless they feel like challenging it in the courts as they should. Which they almost certainly will, given that either of the likely routes forward has us arresting Ford.
I would like to smash both of the paramilitaries and arrest Ford. I think it's still supporting the CSA in the end. We're dismantling paramilitaries which are actively causing violence and disorder on the streets, but arresting Ford makes no bones about the fact that the strikebreaking was illegal. If we get the jump on messaging, which we should given that we have the advantage of being the first to know about what we're about to do, we can get that message out before Reed can spin it his way, that we're oppressing the workers by removing their protection without having established the NLRB just yet.
The problem there is that I think Sturmi is correct to say that the National Guard is probably going to be quite compromised by radicals, and given that it's more or less a militia, it isn't miles better than either paramilitary. Trying to confront both, especially when this isn't a state that voted for Olson, feels like asking for trouble. I think we could pull off trying to keep the peace, but the problem is that that's dithering and not making a hard statement in support of strikebreaking being illegal in the same way that arresting Ford is. It's a matter of practicality, much as I think the Radical Centrism route would be the best choice if we could guarantee it worked.
[X] Federalize the Michigan National Guard and order them to stop the Minutemen and scab workers and have the FBI arrest Ford
I think that with the ability to bring in the army to support the National Guard we can deal with both groups as the Guard would not be alone.
Plus as the Jeeshadow said weather what Ford did was illegal under the current law we passed is shaky grounds to arrest him on and if we don't show that we aren't going to let the Reds take over the streets arm when they are pissed I think we stand to lose a good bit of support.
So let's arrest Ford, test things out in court, while also dealing with both groups of people who think it's okay to take over the streets and shoot each other and guys who are out of work and need a job.
