There is a good argument that those dozen or so Wisconsin legislators should have stayed in Wisconsin and taken the hit. In other words, some people would say that in a Democratic system, if you are in the minority, you can’t simply opt out and stop everything when you lose the majority.
Anyone with the slightest common sense sees what is happening in Wisconsin. They are clearly and quite obviously trying to break the unions. It is called “union busting” and it was done by the Carnegies and the Rockefellers and all the old moguls of the Gilded Age.
Now it is being tried by a couple of billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, who inherited an oil company from their father and during the oil boom of the last 30 years have turned it into a conglomerate with all kinds of energy related companies. They want to break the unions. And the reason is obvious once you read it.
They want to defeat Democrats because Republicans will do what they ask. They have found that they have far better luck with most Republicans in paying them off to prevent regulations on pollution. Koch Industries is one of the largest polluters in the world. So they want Democrats out. Who is the biggest supporter of the Democratic Party…the unions.
So if they can knock out the unions, they get a “two-fer.” They don’t have to worry as much about unions in their own corporation and they can spend whatever they want to elect all kinds of people and not have any appreciable organized opposition. Even the unions were overwhelmed this last election. That is why you have a Fascist governor in Wisconsin, and Fascist legislators supporting him.
You have a Fascist governor in Ohio one in Florida, one in Michigan, one in New Jersey and one in Indiana. They have all been supported by money from the Koch Family Foundation and other organizations, like Americans for Prosperity. Americans for Prosperity alone, which you can look up on Wikipedia, has $40 million to spend on upcoming elections.
The Neocon Party (Republicans and Neocons) is not just about elections. It is a political party that is about an ongoing lifestyle. They will tell you whether or not you can have an abortion, whether you can be married, whether you can join the military, whether you will learn Evolution, whether you will learn at all (the top Neoncon states…and it is no accident…rank 46th, 47th, 48th, 49th and 50th in national student tests.)
They are the most polluted states, the least educated states and the states whose Senators and Congress people are the bedrock of the Right Wing billionaire lobbying effort. Senators like Mitch McConnell, who is the majority leader, not for any sense of leadership or quality of intellect, but because he, Mr. Turtleneck, has been the Republican’s chief fund raiser. That’s how you get ahead. Do what the corporations want so that they will open up the pocketbook.
Pander to the Koch Family and they will tell Americans for Prosperity to send some of that $40 million they have for political action. Send a few buses into Madison, Wisconsin to try to disrupt the efforts of the teachers and the firemen an police who are demonstrating to keep some semblance of a middle class lifestyle…while the billionaire Koch Brothers literally got millions of dollars in recent tax cuts.
Now here comes the good news.
Mussolini was elected. Hitler got a plurality and in a parliamentary system became Chancellor. The good news is that bad people get elected all the time. In this country, however, we can find out who they are and kick them out. Today we understand that. There is such a thing as being able to recall a Congressman or Senator…or Governor. We do have people who can get the message out when citizens are lied to by Fascists.
The good news is that we are not stuck with bad politicians forever. Do you think the Germans in 1945, sitting amidst the ruins of their cities, begging for food from their conquerors to keep from starving would like to have had their 1933 votes back? Would a lot of Republicans today, knowing what they know about the $13 trillion in deficits…if they could find out the truth….vote for Ronald Reagan or Bush the Dumber again?
Today, the difference is that the legislators opposing the Fascists are not thrown into concentration camps. At least, not yet. They are marginalized, yes, by huge media expenditures from the Right Wing, confusing the issues. More than 9 out of every 10 radio and television programs having a Right Wing Neoconservative host, hammering against the People, day an night.
There is a good argument to be made that Scott Walker is a fascist. He clearly works for an organization that has powerful forces in industry, government, a new group to fascism…the media…and the military. Attacking unions is traditionally what a Fascist state would do. The military officer corps, necessary to a Fascist state, has long supported the Republican Party even though the Republican Party treats their soldiers like dirt, less than dirt…like scum, like animals.
This is a new elitist officer corps since the Vietnam War. The only difference between an Army General and a CEO, is that the general probably has a better leadership education, and if he is a general, has probably had very strong line management experience. Oh yes, he’s also probably jumped out of an airplane at least 100 times and can hit about anything with a rifle or a pistol up to about 50 yards.
Corporations, federal and local government and the military…this is the Fascist combination that worked in Germany, Argentina, elsewhere in Latin America and which the Republican Party would like to bring to the United States.
This is a Republican Party that wanted to cut off any financial help for the 14 million people that they put out of work, while bailing out Wall Street and giving a third tax break to millionaires and billionaires. (This time, $800 billion.) They now are cutting $100 billion from the budget this year while cutting nothing from the military budget which is larger than the military budgets of all the other countries in the world….combined! They refuse to cut a penny. Two worthless, wasted wars and the Republicans will not lift a finger against their military contractor lobbyist pals.
The idea that a twirp of a Junior Senator from Illinois can call a renowned international economist “discredited” this year when the economist disagrees with him but called him “brilliant” two years ago when he was the chief economist for the Republican candidate is preposterous.
This same Senator, when he was a Congressman, voted for both Bush tax cuts, for every bloated Republican spending bill, for both wars, for the $860 billion Prescription Drug bill that was a giveaway to the pharmaceutical industries. He voted for the borrowing of the $800 billion from China and India and Saudi Arabia to pay for the current billionaire tax cut (because we don’t have any money to pay them…we’re broke…thanks to the now Senator from Illinois.)
This pencil-neck little weasel, as bad as he is, is not the worst of the lying scum that inhabit the Senate of the United States. He’s just a little guy who tags along, like a puppy, and quickly scoops up any table scraps tossed his way by the leadership.
The time has come to start sending these guys back where they came from. It should be clear to everyone now who the Republicans work for and whom they work against. All we need to do now is get organized and throw the bums out.
