7 ms·

This is a fantastic Podcast on the situation and what went down in Wisconsin. The NDA Foxconn made council members sign to where the council couldn't even talk

by swozey 8y ago

This is a fantastic Podcast on the situation and what went down in Wisconsin. The NDA Foxconn made council members sign to where the council couldn't even talk to their citizens about it will really rub you the wrong way; https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-pleasant#episode-player https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount-ple...

dhh2106 8y ago
Yes, and the stories of people getting completely screwed over to make way for Foxconn
quizme2000 8y ago
The 2 things that will make your blood boil is when the city counsel couldn't get some residents to sell their property b/c they had nowhere to go, they declared it blighted/contaminated and forced eviction into actual blighted homes. The second is the town took on a massive loan to buy all the land it needed, it will now default. The state of WI backed the town in the loan and will now have to pay out for this nonsense.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >The 2 things that will make your blood boil is when the city counsel couldn't get some residents to sell their property b/c they had nowhere to go, they declared it blighted/contaminated and forced eviction into actual blighted homes. Not that it makes it less terrible but backhanded stuff like this is not uncommon at all. If you run a business in my state you basically give up your right to stand up to the state/local government about anything (because they will use its power of discretionary enforcement to destroy your business). If you're in the right you can win the head on fight (well, win it 10yr later in court, if that counts) but the government will always out flank you if they want something done but you are in their way. Sucks but it's reality.
- magduf 8y ago
  These Wisconsin residents are getting the government they voted for.
  - npongratz 8y ago
    49% are not getting the government they voted for. And it might be more: the number of [Voted For Something Else] + [Didn't Vote] + [Not Eligible To Vote] is probably far greater than 49% of all residents.
    - magduf 8y ago
      That's the nature of living in a democracy. What's your alternative?
    - tenpies 8y ago
      Alternative thought: this is the way China does business, full stop. Who exactly was in council at the time would not have mattered because the media headline "Council torpedos Foxconn factory deal that would have created X thousand jobs" is about as bad as what happened.
      - bduerst 8y ago
        I don't think so. Mount Pleasant wasn't the only city being considered, and it was all behind closed doors until it was a sure deal. We don't hear about the headlines for the cities that were passed over in this instance.
    - bluGill 8y ago
      Those who didn't vote cannot be counted - they have decided that they don't care one way or the other. Likewise those who are not eligible cannot be counted - they cannot vote because their voice is being intentionally ignored as not relevant (it is fair to argue they shouldn't be excluded but that is a different issue).
      - magduf 8y ago
- mikeryan 8y ago
  This is an inherent problem with city governments. I don’t know how rural Wisconsin city councils work but I know for damn sure Berkeley’s city council would be completely out of their depth negotiating a multi billion dollar deal with the likes of a Foxconn.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    It wasn't a rural city council that made this deal. It was Gov. Scott Walker. The executive for the entire state.
- dabockster 8y ago
  > they declared it blighted/contaminated Wtf? They could have just used eminent domain. Probably wouldn't have had to pay as much too.
  - mikeryan 8y ago
    Declaring a region blighted is a method for triggering eminent domain. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/eminent-domain-can-we-define-blighted https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/eminent-domain-can-we-defin...
duxup 8y ago
>The NDA Foxconn made council members sign to where the council couldn't even talk to their citizens about it Gotta think that would run afoul of open records laws and open meetings laws and etc...
- Scoundreller 8y ago
  I can't speak for Wisconsin, but the laws are usually riddled with exemptions. E.g. records sensitive to a 3rd party.
- pionar 8y ago
  Not always. There's usually exemptions, not that I know how that applies here. I used to (mid-2000s) work for a SaaS company whose main customers were municipalities and universities in the US. We always had NDAs on file for customers we did business with. It was SOP. We weren't swindling them out of billions of dollars, though. It was something that had prices in the 30k-40k annually range.
  - duxup 8y ago
    I can certainly see room for exemptions. Like if your SaaS covers police investigations in progress and such, makes a lot of sense that they don't fork over anything with that or sensitive architecture information. But general terms of a deal and etc.... that's just gotta be known.
spicymaki 8y ago
The podcast really illustrates the anti-intellectualism that has overtaken politics (especially on the right-wing). Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. When questions were asked concerned citizens were shut down. Why listen to economists, technology experts, historians, and well informed citizens? When you can just go with your gut (really greed) and just disenfranchise the people in your constituents. The secrecy was telling; if they actually had an informed democratic debate, the proposal would not cut the mustard. The worst part is this really plays into the hands of the right-wing. Of course no one is going to trust government if they keep sabotaging it.
- roenxi 8y ago
  > especially on the right-wing You just took a great message and made it partisan. Why would you do such a thing? :( Looking at some stats [0] it is plausible that education levels have some influence on voting, but realistically it is probably going to be a proxy for socio-economic status. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by anti-intellecual, but the left has the same tenuous relationship with science as the right. The right just tends to be more obvious, because "science" has become a tool for telling poor people that the moral option is to accept lower living standards (eg, climate change => you are a bad person for consuming, but the rich aren't making sacrifices. Economics -> bankers get government protection from going bust, poor people get ruined with debt). I suspect these people aren't anti-science so much as they are pro-fairness, there are clearly massive class biases in the science that gets foisted on the political discourse. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-midterm-vote-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-mid...
  - sagichmal 8y ago
    There is no comparable anti-intellectual streak in the American left as there is in the right. Attempts to equate the two is pure bothsiderism, as insulting as it is wrong.
    - roenxi 8y ago
      > Attempts to equate the two is pure bothsiderism, as insulting as it is wrong. I'm not letting the irony escape here; you've found the time to express a strong emotional response, but not enough time to actually explain or argue. > There is no comparable anti-intellectual As I hinted at above, how are we defining anti-intellectual today? Because a very quick check suggested to me that "anti-intellectualism" is defined as "republican party policy". Eg, I found a Quora article [0] where someone attempts to spin homosexuality as an intellectualism issue (second point, ironically dismissing the opinions of a neurosurgeon as unscientific in the process). That is off the rails; being homophobic is just plain bigotry. Homophobia is a symptom of intolerance, not anti-intellectualism. The scientific status of homosexuality is probably irrelevant to most bigots. If we define anti-intellectual as anti-science, then it is plague on both houses territory. Both wings of politics have hot-button issues where any attempt to use science will result in angry crowds forming. If we are defining that as right-wing people don't like academics then that seems plausible to me, but also not exactly a problem. Academics can be wrong politically just like the rest of us (academics were famously pro-communism as a body, and look where that went!). With that in mind, it isn't anti-intellectualism as such rather than a recognition that academics aren't supporting issues that right wing voters think are important. Pretend that 60% of plumbers associate right wing - nobody on the left is anti-plumber because they are on the other side of the political spectrum. At worst their political beliefs would be ignored. [0] https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-think-the-GOP-is-anti-intellectual https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-think-the-GOP-is-anti-in...
starik36 8y ago
Except this podcast is not entirely true. https://www.reddit.com/r/gimlet/comments/a4hcv9/reply_all_132_negative_mount_pleasant_not/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gimlet/comments/a4hcv9/reply_all_13...
- nanny 8y ago
  Did you read the comments there? The OP doesn't have it right.
  - starik36 8y ago
    I did read the comments. Keep in mind that it's a subreddit for that particular podcast and the members will be partial to it. Still, the fact remains (I heard that episode too) is that the show portrayed the fellow in the wheelchair as being screwed over by the village, when his mother pocketed the entire amount allocated to the household.
audiometry 8y ago
Interesting how the podcast mostly concentrated on the petty mayor as being responsible for cramming the deal through. Many of the comments here, though, put the blame up to the governor level. (Which probably makes more sense for something this big)

by swozey 8y ago

dhh2106 8y ago

Yes, and the stories of people getting completely screwed over to make way for Foxconn

quizme2000 8y ago

The 2 things that will make your blood boil is when the city counsel couldn't get some residents to sell their property b/c they had nowhere to go, they declared it blighted/contaminated and forced eviction into actual blighted homes. The second is the town took on a massive loan to buy all the land it needed, it will now default. The state of WI backed the town in the loan and will now have to pay out for this nonsense.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>The 2 things that will make your blood boil is when the city counsel couldn't get some residents to sell their property b/c they had nowhere to go, they declared it blighted/contaminated and forced eviction into actual blighted homes. Not that it makes it less terrible but backhanded stuff like this is not uncommon at all. If you run a business in my state you basically give up your right to stand up to the state/local government about anything (because they will use its power of discretionary enforcement to destroy your business). If you're in the right you can win the head on fight (well, win it 10yr later in court, if that counts) but the government will always out flank you if they want something done but you are in their way. Sucks but it's reality.
magduf 8y ago
These Wisconsin residents are getting the government they voted for.
- npongratz 8y ago
  49% are not getting the government they voted for. And it might be more: the number of [Voted For Something Else] + [Didn't Vote] + [Not Eligible To Vote] is probably far greater than 49% of all residents.
  - magduf 8y ago
    That's the nature of living in a democracy. What's your alternative?
  - tenpies 8y ago
    Alternative thought: this is the way China does business, full stop. Who exactly was in council at the time would not have mattered because the media headline "Council torpedos Foxconn factory deal that would have created X thousand jobs" is about as bad as what happened.
    - bduerst 8y ago
      I don't think so. Mount Pleasant wasn't the only city being considered, and it was all behind closed doors until it was a sure deal. We don't hear about the headlines for the cities that were passed over in this instance.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    Those who didn't vote cannot be counted - they have decided that they don't care one way or the other. Likewise those who are not eligible cannot be counted - they cannot vote because their voice is being intentionally ignored as not relevant (it is fair to argue they shouldn't be excluded but that is a different issue).
    - magduf 8y ago
mikeryan 8y ago
This is an inherent problem with city governments. I don’t know how rural Wisconsin city councils work but I know for damn sure Berkeley’s city council would be completely out of their depth negotiating a multi billion dollar deal with the likes of a Foxconn.
- dragontamer 8y ago
  It wasn't a rural city council that made this deal. It was Gov. Scott Walker. The executive for the entire state.
dabockster 8y ago
> they declared it blighted/contaminated Wtf? They could have just used eminent domain. Probably wouldn't have had to pay as much too.
- mikeryan 8y ago
  Declaring a region blighted is a method for triggering eminent domain. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/eminent-domain-can-we-define-blighted https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/eminent-domain-can-we-defin...

duxup 8y ago

>The NDA Foxconn made council members sign to where the council couldn't even talk to their citizens about it Gotta think that would run afoul of open records laws and open meetings laws and etc...

Scoundreller 8y ago
I can't speak for Wisconsin, but the laws are usually riddled with exemptions. E.g. records sensitive to a 3rd party.
pionar 8y ago
Not always. There's usually exemptions, not that I know how that applies here. I used to (mid-2000s) work for a SaaS company whose main customers were municipalities and universities in the US. We always had NDAs on file for customers we did business with. It was SOP. We weren't swindling them out of billions of dollars, though. It was something that had prices in the 30k-40k annually range.
- duxup 8y ago
  I can certainly see room for exemptions. Like if your SaaS covers police investigations in progress and such, makes a lot of sense that they don't fork over anything with that or sensitive architecture information. But general terms of a deal and etc.... that's just gotta be known.

spicymaki 8y ago

The podcast really illustrates the anti-intellectualism that has overtaken politics (especially on the right-wing). Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. When questions were asked concerned citizens were shut down. Why listen to economists, technology experts, historians, and well informed citizens? When you can just go with your gut (really greed) and just disenfranchise the people in your constituents. The secrecy was telling; if they actually had an informed democratic debate, the proposal would not cut the mustard. The worst part is this really plays into the hands of the right-wing. Of course no one is going to trust government if they keep sabotaging it.

roenxi 8y ago
> especially on the right-wing You just took a great message and made it partisan. Why would you do such a thing? :( Looking at some stats [0] it is plausible that education levels have some influence on voting, but realistically it is probably going to be a proxy for socio-economic status. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by anti-intellecual, but the left has the same tenuous relationship with science as the right. The right just tends to be more obvious, because "science" has become a tool for telling poor people that the moral option is to accept lower living standards (eg, climate change => you are a bad person for consuming, but the rich aren't making sacrifices. Economics -> bankers get government protection from going bust, poor people get ruined with debt). I suspect these people aren't anti-science so much as they are pro-fairness, there are clearly massive class biases in the science that gets foisted on the political discourse. [0] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-midterm-vote-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-mid...
- sagichmal 8y ago
  There is no comparable anti-intellectual streak in the American left as there is in the right. Attempts to equate the two is pure bothsiderism, as insulting as it is wrong.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    > Attempts to equate the two is pure bothsiderism, as insulting as it is wrong. I'm not letting the irony escape here; you've found the time to express a strong emotional response, but not enough time to actually explain or argue. > There is no comparable anti-intellectual As I hinted at above, how are we defining anti-intellectual today? Because a very quick check suggested to me that "anti-intellectualism" is defined as "republican party policy". Eg, I found a Quora article [0] where someone attempts to spin homosexuality as an intellectualism issue (second point, ironically dismissing the opinions of a neurosurgeon as unscientific in the process). That is off the rails; being homophobic is just plain bigotry. Homophobia is a symptom of intolerance, not anti-intellectualism. The scientific status of homosexuality is probably irrelevant to most bigots. If we define anti-intellectual as anti-science, then it is plague on both houses territory. Both wings of politics have hot-button issues where any attempt to use science will result in angry crowds forming. If we are defining that as right-wing people don't like academics then that seems plausible to me, but also not exactly a problem. Academics can be wrong politically just like the rest of us (academics were famously pro-communism as a body, and look where that went!). With that in mind, it isn't anti-intellectualism as such rather than a recognition that academics aren't supporting issues that right wing voters think are important. Pretend that 60% of plumbers associate right wing - nobody on the left is anti-plumber because they are on the other side of the political spectrum. At worst their political beliefs would be ignored. [0] https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-think-the-GOP-is-anti-intellectual https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-think-the-GOP-is-anti-in...

starik36 8y ago

Except this podcast is not entirely true. https://www.reddit.com/r/gimlet/comments/a4hcv9/reply_all_132_negative_mount_pleasant_not/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gimlet/comments/a4hcv9/reply_all_13...

nanny 8y ago
Did you read the comments there? The OP doesn't have it right.
- starik36 8y ago
  I did read the comments. Keep in mind that it's a subreddit for that particular podcast and the members will be partial to it. Still, the fact remains (I heard that episode too) is that the show portrayed the fellow in the wheelchair as being screwed over by the village, when his mother pocketed the entire amount allocated to the household.

audiometry 8y ago

Interesting how the podcast mostly concentrated on the petty mayor as being responsible for cramming the deal through. Many of the comments here, though, put the blame up to the governor level. (Which probably makes more sense for something this big)