Tag: Scott Walker

When Republican Governor Scott Walker instituted destructive new rules for public unions, public outcry was enormous. I watched the news and saw pictures of thousands of protestors decrying unfair treatment of Wisconsin’s workers. It was obvious the energy was there, so what did the unions do to funnel that energy? Into a fucking voting booth where anything worth your time goes to die. In reality, if the union bosses wanted anything meaningful to happen to reverse these new limitations, they would have shut the state down with mass wild cat strikes within and without the public sector. It was obvious that the public was on their side, so why not? Because the union bosses have become part of the establishment, stationed to maintain the status quo rather than upset it. Now, we can look and see what a pitifully meaningless outcome has come from funneling all that anger into a voting booth.

The recall elections brought forth by the public of Wisconsin netted nothing really. A couple of extra Democrats who can use their newly won station to compromise away every position they lip-synced to get into office. Not even a majority of them. The Republicans still control the body, and Scott Walker’s government is free to destroy worker’s rights and occasionally shut-down the government without consequence. Liberals who told Wisconsinites that they could have their revenge by punching a card for some fuckin’ Democrat politician have strangled off yet another popular uprising of the people, only to help restore an overwhelmingly lopsided status quo that will always favor the rich and powerful over people like you and I.

In this political climate how can anyone believe in electoral victories? We already know in our hearts how this situation will play out. “Progressive” Democrats will still have to get every member of their party and a couple Republicans to vote for truly progressive legislation – just to get the chance to watch the governor veto it. If the union bosses and Democrats had actually wanted to get workers their rights back, they would have helped shut it all down, not validate this unjust system by participating in it.

The culprits for this suicide mission will nonetheless declare victory, telling us that “we” have won! Are union rights going to be restored? Certainly not. Will progressive legislation find new possibilities in the Wisconsin legislature? Hardly. Nothing of value will come from this exercise in lesser-evilism, besides new Blue Dog Democrats to vote out next go-around.

What a waste.

The unions have been busted. Scott Walker, with the helping hand of the establishment, has stripped public unions of their collective bargaining rights. The rights of unions in this country have been won inch by inch with the blood of thousands of workers, and to see them stripped so easily from us speaks to the traitorous and naive leadership that labor has entrusted with its interests. Nothing should be moving in Wisconsin right now, general strikes should be shutting down everything in the state in order for workers to stand in solidarity with these public unions. We wont see that simply because our labor leaders are just as much a part of the status quo as Walker.
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“And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States.”

Barack Obama, 2007

Could this be any more degrading? I know others have written about this but I think it needs to be spread. The man who has just recently frozen the pay of federal workers for two years is the same man who found it within himself to make this statement without laughing. A pay freeze, a unilateral decision that seems to cut the entire process of collective bargain out of the loop, seems like nothing less than a denial of the rights of working men and women. I want to thank Governor Walker of Wisconsin for giving our country yet another example of how little regard Obama has for those of us without millions (or billions) of dollars and helping to expose another lie of our president’s. At this point in his tenure, I would find it hilarious to see President Obama on a picket line for worker’s rights.
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2011 is shaping up to be the beginning of a period of revolution and redefinition for the Middle-East. Governments that defined themselves by decades of inhuman cruelty to the most vulnerable of their citizens are seeing those very people rise-up and chasing them out of their palaces. The beginnings of these revolutions are being sparked by rises in food costs, shrinking wages, disgusting conditions, oppression, and a lack of real democracy. With these numerous examples being acted out every day, showing what the desperate masses are capable of, Obama hands down a budget proposal that only furthers strengthens these motivations and will make a desperate people more desperate.
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