This is war. It has been for years. Only this time, it didn’t go down how it was supposed to. The middle class fought back. The obscenely wealthy and their Republican henchmen have gotten so used to stealing our lunch that they were beyond shocked when we landed a surprise punch square to their jaw.
Wisconsin is at the heart of a historic showdown that will impact the lives of nearly all working Americans. On the surface this fight over collective bargaining rights appears to be a standoff between Gov. Scott Walker and his Republican Party on one side and the teachers, nurses, secretaries and other state workers allied with Democratic lawmakers on the other. Making this all possible is the “Fab 14,” the 14 democrats who have left the state in a filibuster of epic proportions.
Behind the scenes two of America’s richest men are trying to take over our democracy. Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch are positioned to make a lot of money if Gov. Walker’s budget repair bill passes. Walker’s bill would give him special emergency powers that would allow him to sell our state power plants to the Koch’s or anyone else he wants through a no-bid process. Koch Industries registered their lobbyists with the state just days after Gov. Walker took office. They recently opened up a lobbying office on Doty Street and were met with hundreds of protestors.
The Koch brothers are simply looking for a return on their investment. They have spent a lot of money getting Gov. Walker and other Republicans elected across the country. The Koch brothers and their too big to fail companies have gotten fat and lazy on corporate welfare. Evading taxes and getting taxpayer subsidies give them even more cash to buy politicians like Gov. Walker to do their bidding.
Propaganda outlets like FOX News and right wing radio talkers such as Rush Limbaugh repeat the Koch company line as they mislead and misinform average working Americans. In the end we are left with poor and middle class parrots repeating corporate talking points and Republican slogans contrary to their own interest.
As Bill Lueders of Isthmus states, “Walker and the GOP cannot implement their agenda and get away with it without a modicum of public support. And there’s just one way they can get it: by focusing resentment on public employees.”
Walker is using classic divide and conquer authoritarian techniques by turning private sector workers against public sector workers. Finding scapegoats in hard economic times is easy, but the degree of jealousy and anger toward teachers, EMTs, and state office workers is surprising and disturbing. It seems that your average private sector worker has been treated so badly for so long that they think everybody should be treated badly.
Rather than fight each other we should be fighting those forces that hold us all down. To fight each other is mutual destruction. Those of us who work for a living can’t afford to reverse the hundred years of progress that collective bargaining has brought.
The labor movement and unions have built our current American middle class. You can thank unions for having weekends. The 40-hour workweek, overtime pay, health care coverage through employers, vacations, sick leave and the minimum wage are all thanks to the labor movement. If you have it rough at your job, the last people you should blame are union members, especially the ones who taught you how to read, your teachers. Unions are the last check on the huge, incredibly powerful multi-national corporations and super rich 1 percent who own more than 70 percent of the country’s wealth
In the infamous prank phone call with a blogger posing as David Koch, Gov. Walker referred to introducing his repair bill as dropping “the bomb.” He agreed that Wisconsin would be the “first domino” to fall in a nationwide attack on unions.
Walker’s raw political power grab is part of the Koch brothers and their Wall Street buddies plan to kill all unions. If this effort is successful in Wisconsin it likely will be successful across the country. Over the long run we will see a major shift in the balance of power. Democrats will be incredibly weakened, as will all of us in the middle class.
Don’t kill the union, kill the bill.