Now Walker gets mean

Really, now the Gov is threatening to send layoff notices next week if the Senate Democrats don't bend, blink, become submissive and subservient to his agenda. This is democracy? To threaten workers with unemployment as retaliation for not getting his way on the budget bill? Then he'll say, "see, you made me do it."

Problem is, a lot of people will believe him. A lot of people watch Fox News and listen to Charlie Sykes and Rush Limbaugh. It's sad because this is all a charade, a feint - "Hey, look over there," while over here they are tearing to shreds the livelihoods of millions of US Americans, and thousands and thousands of Wisconsinites.

Why not use public workers as pawns in this struggle? Demonize them first, of course, that helps the cause. Then turn on them as if they are not educating our kids, plowing our streets, providing health care for the poor, picking up the garbage, taking care of our state parks, staffing offices where we go for state services of all kinds, etc., etc.

Hey, you can contract out that work to the private sector!!! Low wages, no benefits, lots of turnover, lots of abuse - but, hey, we'll save a few bucks and then we can lower taxes for the rich and for corporations even more!!  Good deal for the Koch brothers (this link takes you to an article every Wisconsin resident ought to read) and the Club for Growth.

Rachel Maddow did a great job of exposing Walker's woeful incompetence in the matter of privatizing public workers when he was Milwaukee County Executive (see video below). His attempt wasn't even legal. Cost the strapped county hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now the guy is governor.We see what we have in store.

This guy is becoming really destructive. He is ripping people apart, driving wedges among struggling working people, unemployed, and underemployed.  He's got a cushy job. He's got the backing of the Koch brothers  and Fox News. So what has he got to lose? What did Sarah Palin have to lose, or Michelle Bachman? They both became millionaires whether or not they ever win another elective office.

The right takes care of its own.

Now the question is - will we Wisconsinites take care of the people who work for us? But more, much more - will we refuse to be divided, private sector workers v. public sector workers, unemployed v. those with jobs, folks with health insurance v. those without? Instead of trying to take rights and well-being away from one group of workers, will we come together instead to restore those rights in the private sector? Instead of seeking to lower the floor for wages and working conditions, will we struggle to have the floor raised for all workers?

Bosses have always tried to control workers by strategies of divide and conquer. The Club for Growth ads on TV are doing exactly that - and we have to stop being duped by or ignorant about what is really going on. These guys, Walker and Senate Republicans, are the bosses trying to divide and conquer so that they can give our state's resources and tax money to the corporations that contribute to their campaigns. The community of those 'hard-working taxpayers' that Walker keeps talking about, as if this is what he really cares about, has to come together now across all those lines that seemingly divide. The quality of life in our state and nation is not being eroded by public sector workers. It is being eroded by the corporatization of government, by the ecological wreckage of our biosphere and atmosphere, by the takeover of our democracy by the power of corporate money.

There are other ways to balance the budget - like returning tax rates on wealth and on large corporations to where they once were - before Reagan, before the assault on the middle class, before the assault on worker rights and dignity, on government services and the public sector, on public education. One thing about this nation - though never perfect and always marred by inequality and injustice, it did create a very broad base for quality of life and democratic rights for a vast majority of its population. It ain't public workers that have eroded that. Nope, it is not them.

I promise you, this road on which Walker wants to take this state will not end well for the vast majority of us. There is more at stake here than a balanced budget.

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Hard times coming

Did you see NBC Nightly News last night (the 15th)? I want to put this story (see below) in the context of our current Wisconsin political situation.  In recent years, we have seen more and more companies and politicians gut the welfare and rights of workers. In a time of high unemployment and weakened unions, it has made business sense to do this - to increase profit margins by lowering the costs of labor. With the economy weakened by recession and unemployed folks desperate for any job they can get - especially as unemployment benefits run out - leverage for salaried workers has plummeted.

A sad reality of the global economy is that wages have been stagnant or even on the decrease in the past couple of decades while corporate profits are up, bonuses for executives of financial institutions have reached record levels, the stock market is roaring back from the lows of 2008, and the gap between rich and poor in this country has widened, now one of the highest in the world.

Great time for the powers-that-be to wage a divide-and-conquer campaign against organized labor, even now pitting struggling private sector workers against public sector workers - as if workers don't have much more in common with each other than they do with their bosses. But people are scared and labor solidarity is probably not high on the list of priorities for frightened people who don't really understand what is happening to them and why.

It's an old tactic, and an effective one, until workers begin to realize once again that only as a collective do they have any bargaining rights against corporate bosses or libertarian, anti-government, anti-tax politicians.

Now get ready for the next big whammy - which is what this story is about. Just at a time when politicians are bent on balancing budgets on the backs of the most vulnerable of our community, we are about to be clobbered with sharply rising prices for what we eat, what we wear, and how we get around.

The cultural discourse on this looming crisis is barely to be heard. No one wants to prepare us for this. No one really wants to talk about it much. Because there is only one way to deal with a crisis like this - for the wealthy to pay more, much more, in taxes to support the needs of those who are being dumped into the margins of the economy, or left out altogether.

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15,000 protest Gov Walker's anti-labor legislation

Enjoy! I did. Maybe this assault on workers rights, the most important of them being the right to collective bargaining, can help wake up a slumbering labor constituency. If ever there was a time for solidarity among workers and all of us served by them, the time is now.

Unions, taxes on wealth - that's what brought you the middle class

Can we no longer afford a middle class? And why has the middle class turned on the very means that brought them the ability to be middle class? Good wages and benefits, a strong social safety net, workers rights (like the 40-hr work week, paid vacation, grievance mediation, and more), all these things brought to you by organized labor and collective bargaining.

In another era, particularly that which emerged from World War II, unions organized to defend the rights and dignity of workers. My uncles worked in factories here, like Allis Chalmers, or in construction. Back in that day, they earned enough to buy houses, their taxes supported decent public schools, they had cars, went hunting on their vacations, and more.

Now we have the most anti-labor culture in decades. First, corporate America began sending jobs overseas. This was called 'free trade.' It was anything but. And this was a weapon they could later use as leverage to get workers here to accept the gutting of their wages and benefits in exchange for low-paying jobs, with the threat of moving factories if they did not submit. Now the public sector is at it, no better manifested right now than in our new Gov. Walker and the Republican legislature.

Workers no longer seem to realize that hostility towards unions and the right to collective bargaining is an assault on their own ability to have a decent job at decent pay. Without organized labor, each worker is an isolated individual up against the very organized, socialized, corporate sector, holding all the power, all the leverage.

Meanwhile, the rich pay the lowest tax rates in modern times. Once upon a time, wealth was taxed at 50, 60, even 80 percent, and those folks did just fine, thank you.

Workers and the middle class have been sold a bill of goods. But given the results from what they have bought, why are they still buying it? One of the results is that the US can now boast one of the largest gaps between rich and poor in the world.

And then they accuse us of waging a class war.  Could it get anymore cynical than this?