Everyone in Ireland should read this as our
State Public Assets are threatened with
Privatisation.
The Plan to Steal
Everything Wisconsin
Death Trip
By Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers
March 11, 2011
"Counterpunch" - -On
Wednesday evening, in a veritable Night of
the Long Knives, Wisconsin's integrity was
brutally murdered on the floor of the state
Capitol in Madison. On 9 March, integrity and
trust built up over a century was obliterated
as Wisconsin state senators quickly reversed
course and cleaved its budget "repair
bill" in half. Financial items require a
quorum, thus, collective bargaining was split
off from the budget repair bill and voted on
separately so as to permit its being voted on
now. Even so, this still broke the state's
open meeting law requiring 24 hours' notice
to ensure transparency. Instead, the
Wisconsin senate Republicans pulled out this
new legislation without advance notice and
began voting, leaving only a stunned
Democratic legislator, Peter Barca, to read
the open meeting law out loud to prevent the
senators from voting. The senate voted over
his objections anyway.
The Wisconsin brand
has always centered on integrity. This was
really about the only distinctive comparative
advantage the state could lay claim to. Now,
it is gone. With collective bargaining
abolished, huge issues remain beyond labor.
The privatization of public assets is now on
the agenda, with the yet-to-be-voted-on
budget repair bill.
Wisconsin is a
state that invented Progressive Era
Republican rule in the 19th and early 20th
centuries under such progressive populists as
Robert LaFollette. Under their tenure, rent-seeking
from the public domain and similar insider
corruption were checked by a strong public
sector anchored in integrity. The state's
long history of reforms nurtured a prosperous
middle class and made it a model of clean
government, solid infrastructure, trade
unionism and high value-added industry
managed by socialists and the LaFollette
Progressives.
Fast-forward to Scott
Walker today. Representing a new breed apart
from Wisconsin's earlier Republicans, he is
seeking to re-birth the asset-grabbing Gilded
Age. A plague of rent-seekers is seeking
quick gains by privatizng the public sector
and erecting tollbooths to charge access fees
to roads, power plants and other basic
infrastructure.
Economics textbooks,
along with Fox News and shout radio
commentators, spread the myth that fortunes
are gained productively by investing in
capital equipment and employing labor to
produce goods and services that people want
to buy. This may be how economies prosper,
but it is not how fortunes are most easily
made. One need only to turn to the 19th-century
novelists such as Balzac to be reminded that
behind every family fortune lies a great
theft, often long-forgotten or even
undiscovered.
But who is one to
steal from? Most wealth in history has been
acquired either by armed conquest of the land,
or by political insider dealing, such as the
great US railroad land giveaways of the mid
19th century. The great American fortunes
have been founded by prying land, public
enterprises and monopoly rights from the
public domain, because that's where the
assets are to take.
Throughout history the
world's most successful economies have been
those that have kept this kind of primitive
accumulation in check. The US economy today
is faltering largely because its past
barriers against rent-seeking are being
breached.
Nowhere is this more
disturbingly on display than in Wisconsin.
Today, Milwaukee – Wisconsin's largest
city, and once the richest in America –
is ranked among the four poorest large cities
in the United States. Wisconsin is just the
most recent case in this great heist. The US
government itself and its regulatory agencies
effectively are being privatized as the
"final stage" of neoliberal
economic doctrine.
A peek into Governor
Walker's so-called "budget repair bill"
reveals a shop of horrors that is just the
opposite of actually repairing the budget.
Among the items listed in the bill until
Wednesday night were selloffs of state power
generation facilities – in no-bid
contracts notoriously prone to insider
dealing.
The 37 facilities he
wants to sell off that produce heating and
cooling at low cost to the state's
universities and prisons. Walker's budget
repair bill would have unloaded them at a low
price, presumably to campaign contributors
such as Koch Industries – and then stick
the bill for producing this power at higher
rates to Wisconsin taxpayers in perpetuity. (And
this is all being sold as a "taxpayer
relief" plan!) Invariably, this will
make its way into new legislation once
attention is diverted from the current
controversy.
The budget bill also
plans to tear down the Wisconsin Retirement
System (WRS). This is not New Jersey, where a
succession of corrupt governments have
underfunded (read: stolen) the state pension
system in order to shift resources to pay for
budget shortfalls in general revenues caused
by tax breaks for the rich. The WRS is one of
the nation's most stable, well-funded and
best-managed pension systems. Although
Wisconsin is not a big state, the WRS has
amassed $75bn in reserves, and pays out
handsome pensions to its public retirees,
without needing new public subsidy. The
Walker bill has language providing for
tearing down this system, raiding its assets
to pay for further tax cuts for the rich (especially
property owners), and then throwing Wall
Street a meaty bone as public employees would
be shifted to 401k plans handled by money
managers on commission.
In a separate proposal,
Governor Walker would start privatizing the
University of Wisconsin's two flagship
doctorate-granting campuses. Ironically, the
land grant universities – of which
Wisconsin has long been among the best –
were created by protectionist 19th-century
Republicans as an alternative approach to
British free-market doctrine, which dominated
the prestigious and largely anglophile Ivy
League universities. These universities, like
their German counterparts, taught a new
economic policy of state management and
public enterprise that formed the basis for
subsequent US and German development.
Walker would kill off
this tradition, and return intellectual
production to the highest bidder.
Other proposals
suggest selling off Wisconsin's public
northwoods lands with their cornucopia of
mineral and timber wealth. And much more is
said to be in the works.
So Walker's war is not
only against the Democrats and labour, it is
against Wisconsin's Progressive Era
institutions. His policy threatens to
pauperize the state and deal a coup de grace
to Progressive Era institutions and
impoverish the state's middle class. Contra
John Maynard Keynes's gentle suggestion of
"euthanasia of the rentier", it is
the middle class that is being euthanized
– throughout North America and Europe.
Michael
Hudson is professor of
Economics at the University of Missouri (Kansas
City) and chief economic advisor to Rep.
Dennis Kucinich. He has advised the U.S.,
Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as
well as the United Nations Institute for
Training and Research (UNITAR). He is the
author of many books, including Super Imperialism:
The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto
Press, 2002). He can be reached via his
website, mh@michael-hudson.com.
Jeffrey
Sommers is a professor at
Raritan Valley College, NJ, visiting
professor at the Stockholm School of
Economics in Riga, former Fulbrighter to
Latvia, and fellow at Boris
Kagarlitsky’s Institute for Global
Studies in Moscow. He can be reached at jsommers@sseriga.edu.lv.
The Corporate-GOP Attack on
America's Democratic Economy
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's
autocratic attempt to abrogate the democratic
right of public employees to bargain with
their governmental bosses is not wearing well
with the public. Recent polls show that a
mere one-third of Wisconsinites favor his
blatantly political power play, and that if
he had told voters in the last year's
election that he intended to do this, he
would've lost.
After only one month in office, Walker's
approval rating has plummeted. He's become a
national poster boy for right-wing anti-union
extremism--so out of step that even democracy
fighters in Egypt are jeering him.
Yet, Walker is but one of a flock of far-right,
corporate-crested Republican governors and
Congress critters who're waging an all-out
class war on unionized workers. It's a
shameful effort to bust the wage structure
and legal protections that support America's
already endangered middle class.
In Congress, loopy GOP leaders are out to
abolish the legal mechanism through which
workers can form a union and have their
bargaining rights protected. Meanwhile, war-whooping
Republican governors in Ohio, New Jersey,
Indiana, and elsewhere are slashing the
health care and pension benefits owed to
public employees, while blaming these middle-class
workers for their states' fiscal messes.
But it was the economic crash caused by
Wall Street greed and massive tax giveaways
to wealthy elites that depleted state budgets,
not firefighters' pensions or teachers'
health insurance.
And check out Nevada, where the Chamber of
Commerce is even pushing to eliminate the
minimum wage. This corporate-funded
Republican assault isn't about fiscal
responsibility. The corporate powers intend
nothing less than to dismantle the entire
framework of America's economic democracy and
return us to the dark days of Robber Baron
plutocracy.
Louisville Firefighter:
“The working class will not stand idly
by”
On March 2, 2011, hundreds
of union members and their community allies
rallied in downtown
Louisville to express their support for
public
workers, education, public
services, and for all workers, especially
those
in Wisconsin, Indiana, and
Ohio who are fighting for their rights.
The mood was electric as
the crowd cheered on eloquent speakers
including
firefighter Brian
O’Neill, Secretary-Treasurer of Local
345 Louisville
Professional Firefighters.
He has asked us to share his comments:
“I would like to
thank Ms. Scott for organizing this event and
inviting
the LPFF to be a part of
it. Thanks to the members of LPFF Local
#345 for
allowing me to represent
them and speak on their behalf. Mostly,
thanks
to all of the people who
have come out here to show their support for
public workers and make a
statement with their presence that the
working
class will not stand idly
by and watch their hard earned rights get
taken
away by corporate and
financial powers and the politicians that
they have
bought and paid for.
Make no mistake -
what is happening in Wisconsin, Indiana, and
Ohio . .
. and is threatening to
happen in so many other areas of our great
nation
. . . is an attack on
unions, and an attack on the ability of
workers to
organize and collectively
bargain for their rights. There are
many on the
far right that want to see
our nation return to the economics of the
nineteenth century.
They use terms like the ‘FREE
MARKET’ and ‘RIGHT TO
WORK’, but what does
that really mean?
That means that wealthy
plutocrats, the heads of corporations and
financial institutions,
have the freedom to do whatever they wish
without
oversight, without safety
regulations. That they have the freedom
to keep
every bit of the wealth
that their employees earn for them - while
the
workers have the right to
work for whatever scraps the bosses feel like
dropping off the table.
They want a return to the
conditions that packed hundreds of people
desperate to work seven
days a week for pennies, into a textile
plant
like the Triangle
shirtwaist factory in New York. On a
Saturday in 1911,
a fire in that factory
caused the deaths of 146 workers. Most
of the exit
doors had been locked to
keep workers from taking needed breaks in the
stairwells, and the
rickety fire escape collapsed under the
weight of
people trying to save
themselves. Workers could not get out,
and
firefighters could not get
in to save them.
They want a return to the
conditions that make workers so desperate,
that
they will take whatever
job they can at whatever pay they can get,
regardless of the lack of
benefits or safety standards. Like when
our own
firefighters worked a
continuous shift, and only had two days off a
month.
It took the organizing
power of our union to earn for us the right
to
work one day on, and one
day off – and eventually one day on with
two off
– so that now, while
we spend one third of our lives serving our
communities, we now have
the other 2 to enjoy the fruits of our labor
with
our families.
When workers began
organizing in the late 19th and early 20th
century, the
corporate and financial
powers (along with their government influence)
did
all that they could to
prevent it – from firing people, taking
their
property, or even sending
out hired thugs to threaten or beat them and
their families, burn down
their homes, or even murder them. The
courage
and solidarity of those
people built the foundations of the American
workplace and the American
worker as we know it today. The 8 hour
work
day-unions, the 40 hour
work week-unions, the concept of a weekend-unions,
and worker’s
compensation laws – unions.
By the 1950’s, one of
every three American workers belonged to a
union –
and at that time the
middle class was as strong as it has ever
been. The
worker had more buying
power, a higher standard of living, and a
larger
share of the wealth that
they created. But the corporate fat
cat’s want
to keep every bit of the
wealth that their workers create for them.
The average U.S. CEO in
1965 earned 24 times more than an average
worker.
That ratio grew to 35 in
1978. As corporations realized that
they were
having to pay fair wages
and benefits to American workers, they
realized
that they could simply
move their operations overseas – exploit
those
workers by recreating the
unsafe sweatshops that once existed in our
own
country, pay those workers
scraps, and boost their own profits.
Private
sector union membership
declined, and at the same time corporate
revenues
continued to rise.
By 2007, the average U.S. CEO earned 262
times that of
the average worker.
And yet we still see politicians that believe
that
the path to economic
recovery is to give more money and tax breaks
to
those corporations.
Trickle Down Economics
Does Not Work. In our recent economic
crisis,
working families have lost
over $10 Trillion in wealth (income, homes,
benefits, retirement)
- our economy shed 10 million jobs
- and
corporate profits are up
44%. Bankers bonuses since the bailout
are over
$30 Billion and not a
single individual in the financial sector has
seen
the inside of a jail cell.
So what does this mean to
our public sector workers? They
can’t pack up
and move overseas.
Our children are educated by teachers right
here, and
receive police and fire
protection right here. We are one of
the last
obstacles to these
plutocrats. Public sector unions are
one of the most
effective groups when it
comes to mobilizing people to vote – and
they
know that we are not going
to vote for those that wish to take away
workers’ rights.
Our pensions are a great benefit earned by a
life of
hard work and sacrifice,
and wall street institutions want to get
their
hands on that money.
They did such a wonderful job with the
housing
market, so it is no wonder
why we do not want them taking over our
pension
funds.
The average public
employee pension is only $28k a year, yet
millionaire
right wing pundits will
find that one case of a worker that put in
enough
hours and stayed enough
years to earn a much higher pension and try
to use
it as a typical example.
Never mind that the worker put in the extra
hours and the extra years
to earn that pension.
By trying to break up
public sector unions, the corporate,
financial, and
political powers are
trying to remove an obstacle to their power
structure. What the
American public needs to know, what voters
need to
know, is that every right
and every benefit that we have was negotiated
and agreed upon by BOTH
parties – labor and management.
Collective
bargaining works and it
works both ways. It is not over until
an
agreement is reached
between both parties.
The powers working to
destroy public sector unions in WI and IN are
misdirecting people’s
attentions. Rather than comparing the
haves and the
have nots, they are trying
to drive a wedge between the have nots and
the
have a littles. They
point to teachers, police officers, and
firefighters
and say “Look what
they have that you don’t –
let’s take it from them,”
instead of,
“let’s get it for you.”
What we as proud union members say
is, “Do not push down
the middle class, elevate those out of work
back
into it.” Bring
your factories back to America, cut your
earnings back
from 262 times that of the
average worker to a modest 100 times --
and
put America back to work.
For all of our brothers
and sisters fighting for their rights -
the IAFF
stands with you.
Thank you very much.”
Brian O'Neill
Secretary/Treasurer of the
Louisville Professional Firefighters
LPFF Local #345
Sources:
Cornell University School
of Industrial and Labor Relations
National Conference on
Public Employee Retirement Systems
Economic Policy Institute
Distributed by:
All Unions Committee For
Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional
Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway,
Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
Michael Moore "If You Live Within
Driving Distance Of The Wisconsin Capitol GO
THERE!
Posted March 10,
2011
Last night, Wisconsin State Senate
Republicans stripped most public
employees unions of most collective
bargaining rights. After insisting for weeks
that busting the unions was essential to
balancing the state's budget, they broke
Governor Scott Walker's "budget-repair
bill" into two parts. One part contained
the anti-union provisions, the other the
items that Republicans now deemed fiscal.
Then they
jammed the anti-union provisions through a
conference committee of the Assembly and
Senate -- in the extraordinary tape you see
above -- and had the Senate pass that bill
moments later. The Assembly is expected to
pass it this morning. Senate Democrats sound like they haven't
yet decided whether to come back today. Assembly Minority
Leader Peter Barca, whom you see above,
is asking the attorney general to intervene
in what Mr. Barca calls a violation of
Wisconsin's open meetings law. Republicans insist that they
played this one by the numbers. (Check out Ezra Klein on this question.)
The AFL-CIO
is rallying people in Madison this morning.
According to the indispensable WisPolitics, protests will be
held across the state, at "the Dodge
County Administration Building, Eau Claire's
City Hall, Veterans Park in Fond du Lac, the
Green Bay Chamber of Commerce, the La Crosse
County Courthouse, the Milwaukee County
Courthouse, Senator Mike Ellis' district
office in Neenah, the Oshkosh Opera House
Square, Platteville's City Hall, Monument
Square in Racine, the Richland County
Courthouse, in Ripon at 303 Blackburn St. and
the River Falls City Hall."
Last night on
the show, Michael Moore noted ongoing
protests around the nation of union-busting
attempts by other Republican governors. Mr.
Moore called for a national student walkout
on Friday, at 2 p.m. local time. The
demonstrations must go on, he said. "This
has to continue day after day after day, and
these governors are going to have to step
down," he said. "They're going to
be recalled. They're going to be impeached.
They have broken the law. There's no way they
can get away with this."
Thousands
Storm Capitol as GOP Takes Action
By State Journal Staff
March 10, 2011 "Wisconsin State
Journal" --
Thousands of protesters rushed to the
state Capitol Wednesday night, forcing their
way through doors, crawling through windows
and jamming corridors, as word spread of
hastily called votes on Gov. Scott Walker's
controversial bill limiting collective
bargaining rights for public workers.
The Capitol
overnight crowd had gone mostly silent by 2:15
a.m. Thursday after a nearly continuous
stream of protest songs, drumming and the
occasional bagpiping since about 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday. Protesters on the ground floor of
the state Capitol rotunda led others in Woody
Guthrie's "This Land Is Our Land"
just after 2 a.m. then joined about 200
others snoozing in sleeping bags along the
Capitol walls.
Outside the
Assembly chambers, about 50 protesters were
sleeping and planned to remain until the body
takes up the Senate's amended budget-repair
bill, scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday. Police
and protesters continued to get along, with
no incidents reported and no arrests.
Some union
leaders interviewed at the Madison Labor
Temple said the abrupt passage could lead to
strikes. Officials with Madison Teachers Inc.
and the Wisconsin Education Association
Council urged teachers to show up to work
Thursday, despite a call for a mass
demonstration Thursday morning.
"The
Senate's improper and illegal action will be
challenged in court," predicted John
Matthews, MTI's executive director.
Marty Beil,
executive director of the Wisconsin State
Employees Union, declared that the governor
and his Senate "cronies" had "turned
our proud state of Wisconsin into a banana
republic."
"Senate
Republicans have exercised the nuclear option
to ram through their bill attacking Wisconsin's
working families in the dark of night,"
added Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the
Wisconsin State AFL-CIO. "Tonight's
events have demonstrated they will do or say
anything to pass their extreme agenda that
attacks Wisconsin's working families."
Shortly after
8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters
gathered outside the locked King Street
entrance to the Capitol, chanting "Break
down the door!" and "General strike!"
Moments later,
police ceded control of the State Street
doors and allowed the crowd to surge inside,
joining thousands who had already gathered in
the Capitol to protest the votes. The area
outside the Assembly, which is scheduled to
take the bill up at 11 a.m. today, was
crowded with protesters who chanted, "We're
not leaving. Not this time."
Some said
they planned to spend the night in the
Capitol. Last week, a Dane County Circuit
Court judge ordered dozens of protesters who
occupied the Capitol for more than two weeks
to leave.
"I'm
staying. I'm angry enough," said UW-Madison
student, Nathaniel Adragna, who stayed
overnight during earlier protests. "It
feels good to be back."
Department of
Administration spokesman Tim Donovan said
although protesters were being encouraged to
leave, no one would be forcibly removed.
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said he had
instructed Madison Police Chief Noble Wray
not to allow his officers to participate in
removing demonstrators from the building.
At one point,
officials estimated up to 7,000 people had
spilled into the Capitol, some coming through
doors and windows opened from the inside,
including one legislative office and several
bathrooms. Some door knobs and door handles
were removed, Donovan said.
Officers
eventually retrenched to the third floor,
Donovan said, adding, "it was felt by
several law enforcement officials that the
best solution was to keep everybody safe"
and stop trying to keep the crowds out.
Rob Koening,
who has been involved in Madison protests for
decades, exhorted protesters to remain
peaceful.
"I ...
encourage all my brothers and sisters to not
make keeping this house our priority,"
Koening said. "It's not about
maintaining this space. It's about building
this movement."
Cieslewicz
joined the protest, calling the bill's
stealth passage "disgraceful."
Former Mayor Paul Soglin, who is challenging
Cieslewicz in the April election, urged
protesters to boycott businesses whose
executives supported Walker.
The budget
repair bill was stalled in the Senate since
the body's 14 Democrats fled Wisconsin on Feb.
17 in a desperate gambit to slow or stop
passage of the measure, which affects about
175,000 public employees.
Representatives
of the union that represents blue-collar,
technical and safety officers at UW-Madison
said the possibility of a general strike has
been discussed. "Anything is possible,"
said Local 171 steward Carl Aniel.
Aniel said
only locals can call a strike, and it would
be up to each one to do so individually.
Anne Habel, a
steward with AFSCME Local 171, said Wednesday's
action will further inflame the unions, which
have staged repeated protests since Walker
introduced his budget repair bill in mid-February.
"Every
time something happens, people become more
militant," Habel said.
Jim Roberts,
a retired Madison Fire Department lieutenant,
was among those who raced to the Capitol
after hearing about the impending vote.
Wearing a fire helmet and carrying a protest
sign, Roberts said Wednesday's vote made it
clear to him that the real goal was busting
unions, not balancing the state budget.
Ted Lewis, a
union representative for Rock Valley
Education Professionals, led protesters in a
cheer referring to the effort to recall
Walker, in office for two tumultuous months.
"Scott
you don't remember me," Lewis chanted,
"but I can recall you."
State
Journal reporters Sandy Cullen, Steven
Verburg, Ron Seely, Dan Simmons, Devin Rose,
Patricia Simms and Dee J. Hall contributed to
this report.
80,000
wisconsin citizens rise up against
union busters
Update (3:15 pm ET): Indiana deputy attorney
general loses job
The Indiana Attorney General's office announced
Wednesday that the deputy attorney general who called
for Wisconsin riot police to use deadly force on
protesters is no longer employed by the agency, according
to WISH.
Update (2:30 pm ET): Indiana official delete
personal blog
An Indiana deputy attorney general who called for
Wisconsin riot police to use "live ammunition"
on protesters has deleted his personal blog.
Jeff Cox had claimed that Mother Jones would
try to "silence" him.
Original report continues below...
One official in Indiana suggested over the weekend
that riot police should use deadly force on those
protesting Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker's
plan to strip unions of their rights. A Saturday
tweet from Mother Jones reported on the
likelihood that police would soon be clearing the
Wisconsin Capitol building of demonstrators. "Use
live ammunition," a
Twitter user named JCCentCom replied. When
confronted, the Twitter user stood by his words,
insisting that the protesters were "political
enemies" and "thugs." "[A]gainst
thugs physically threatening legally-elected state
legislators & governor? You're damn right I
advocate deadly force," he
wrote.
Mother Jones' Adam Weinstein later
discovered that JCCentCom was a deputy
attorney general at the Office of the Indiana
Attorney General. From the writings on his blog Pro Cynic,
it seemed that this wasn't the first time Cox had
used over-the-top rhetoric against those he disagreed
with. "But he evinces contempt for political
opponents -- from labeling President Obama an 'incompetent
and treasonous' enemy of the nation to comparing
'enviro-Nazis' to Osama bin Laden, likening ex-Labor
Secretary Robert
Reich and Service
Employees International Union members to Nazi 'brownshirts'
on multipleoccasions,
and referring to an Indianapolis teen as 'a
black teenage thug who was (deservedly) beaten up' by
local police," Weinstein noted. In an e-mail,
Mother Jones asked Cox to provide some
context for his remarks. "For 'context?' Or to
silence me? All my comments on twitter & my blog
are my own and no one else's. And I can defend them
all," he replied.
Bryan Corbin, a spokesman for the Indiana attorney
general's office, told the magazine that Cox's
comments were "inflammatory" and would be
reviewed. "We do not condone any comments that
would threaten or imply violence or intimidation
toward anyone," he added. "Individuals have
the First Amendment right to post their own personal
views in online forums on their own time but as
public servants, state employees also should strive
to conduct themselves with professionalism and
appropriate decorum in their interactions with the
public."As of Wednesday morning, Cox had
declined to provide further explanation for his
tweets or writings on his blog.
The battle for union rights was expected to move
next to Indiana, where Democratic state senators
had fled the state to run out the clock on a bill
that would have weakened collective bargaining.
************************************************************************
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
has been playing an increasingly dangerous game of
brinksmanship for his state. And a
potentially very expensive one. His budget and
transportation officials have informed him that he'd
could be forfeiting
millions in transportation funding from the
federal government if his anti-union legislation is
signed into law.
Under an obscure provision of federal labor
law, states risk losing federal funds should they
eliminate "collective bargaining rights"
that existed at the time when federal assistance
was first granted. The provision, known as "protective
arrangements" or "Section 13C
arrangements," is meant as a means of
cushioning union (and even some non-union)
members who, while working on local projects, are
affected by federal grants.
It also could potentially hamstring governors
like Walker who want dramatic changes to labor
laws in their states. Wisconsin received $74
million in federal transit funds this fiscal year.
Of that, $46.6 million would be put at risk
should the collective-bargaining bill come to
pass -- in the process creating an even more
difficult fiscal situation than the one that,
ostensibly, compelled Walker to push the
legislation in the first place.
He probably figures the jobs lost would be union
jobs, so what the hell. Millions of dollars and a
crippled state economy are nothing if he can crush
labor. Wisconsin Dems in the House of Representatives,
not being so sanguine about losing that money, have
crafted an amendment to Walker's bill that would
carve out an exemption for transit workers to protect
their collective bargaining rights. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/23/948789
********************************************************************
Attack on middle class spreading to more states
The response to the billionaire-funded assault
on Wisconsin’s middle class workers has been
inspiring, with 70,000 people attending a rally
Monday at the statehouse in Madison. USAction/TrueMajority
members have been key in the effort --
our affiliate group in Wisconsin is leading the
charge on the ground, getting food for protestors,
and talking to the media. More than 35,000 of our
members across the nation have sent support messages
to Wisconsin ralliers in just the past few days,
which you can read on our website, www.wearewisconsin.org.
But the battle in Wisconsin is only the
beginning. Just today our affiliates in
Maine and Ohio reported new maneuvers from corporate-backed
politicians there to take away the rights to middle-class
jobs, and we need a long-term strategy for fighting
back. Sending money to buy pizzas for protestors is
helpful, but to beat back the billionaire-funded
effort we're coordinating a nationwide campaign with
boots on the ground in multiple states.This is a real
fight, and we’re going to have to organize and
battle in state after state:
-- In Ohio, USAction
affiliate ProgressOhio is rallying in Columbus.
Thousands of nurses, teachers, firefighters and
community members are at the Statehouse to protest a
measure that would limit Ohio workers’ freedoms
to organize and improve their standard of living.
-- In Maine, the Tea Party-backed
governor has announced the first phase of his extreme
agenda, which includes lowering air and water
pollution standards, allowing toxic chemicals back
into children’s toys and baby bottles, and
rezoning 3 million acres of wilderness for sprawling
development. Says the leader of USAction affiliate
Maine People's Alliance: “The next phase will be
an attack on workers. It's time for us to get ready.”Donatioons
are sought to feed protesters etc.
'This Is
What Democracy Looks Like' in Wisconsin, as Largest
Crowd Yet—80,000—Opposes Union Busting
By John Nichols
February 21, 2011 "The Nation" - -Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker finished a bad week with a
misstep that emphasized his inability to generate
support for his attempt to strip the state’s
public employees of collective bargaining rights.
First, the governor’s radical
proposal[1]
went to such extremes in its anti-labor bias that it
sparked a protest movement so large, so steady and so
determined in its demands that it is now commonly
compared with the protests that have rocked Egypt and
other Middle Eastern countries.
Then, the man that
badges worn by marchers describe as “The Mubarak
of the Middle West” really blew it. Saturday was
supposed to be the day when the governor pushed back
against the movement that has challenged his radical
power grab. The governor’s Tea Party allies
attempted to grab the spotlight with a rally at the
state Capital. Unfortunately, the much-hyped event,
which national Tea Party groups had poured money and
organizing energy into generating, drew an anemic
crowd of several thousand. Even by the optimistic
estimates of the Tea Partisans themselves, the pro-Walker
turnout was one-tenth the size of the crowd that came
to oppose the governor’s so-called “budget
repair bill.”
The governor made
things worse for himself by going on CNN and
announcing that he had received 19,000 e-mails from
the “quiet majority” of Wisconsinites since
he made his proposal and claimed that most of them
were supportive.
Dumb move. Really
dumb move.
Within hours of
making his claim, the streets of Madison were filled
by what veteran political organizers described as the
largest demonstration ever seen in the city. Former
Mayor Paul Soglin, a key organizer of
anti–Vietnam War protests, said, “We had
some big demonstrations in the sixties, but this is
bigger.”
Organizers of a 2004
rally featuring Democratic presidential candidate
John Kerry and rocker Bruce Springsteen, where the
crowd was estimated at 80,000, pointed out that
Saturday’s protest against Walker’s budget
filled a significantly larger space. And, they noted,
thousands of addition opponents of the
governor’s proposal packed the Capitol.
Mahlon Mitchell, the
president of the Wisconsin Professional
Firefighters Association[2], which has been a high-profile
participant in the demonstrations, surveyed the crowd
while recounting Walker’s boast about the 19,000
e-mails.
“I think I have
19,000 people behind me,” said Mitchell.
Pointing to one edge
of the massive audience arrayed before him, he said:
“And 20,000 there.”
He pointed to the
other edge of the crowd: “And 20,000 there.”
Finally, he pointed
down State Street, the thoroughfare that stretches
from the Capitol to the University of Wisconsin
campus, which was packed with students who have
backed the unions: “And 20,000 there.”
Rallying with
Mitchell was Wisconsin Education
Association Council [3]president Mary Bell, who
picked up on the “this-is-what-democracy-looks-like”
theme that has become so central to the marches,
rallies and pickets that have swept not just Madison
but a state where even small towns have seen protests
against Walker’s bill.
“The power of
government in this state does not come from this
Capitol,” she said of the building that was
surrounded by teachers, educational assistants,
nurses, snow-plow drivers and state engineers, as
well as their tens of thousands of backers. “The
power comes from the people.”
And while Scott
Walker may claim a “quiet majority”
of 19,000 e-mails received by his office, a noisy
majority of more than 80,000 Wisconsinites braved a
winter day to tell the governor that the people have
spoken: they’re with the unions.
But: 'That would not be something I recognize
as the United States of America,' state patrol
inspector adds
Amid the largest protests Madison, Wisconsin has
seen in decades, newly elected Republican Gov. Scott
Walker last week issued a stark message to public
labor unions occupying the capitol building: we
have options, and using the National Guard
against protesters is among them.
Since then, a myrad of rumors have circulated
through crowds gathered at the state capitol, united
in protest of a bill that would strip public unions
of their collective bargaining rights. One rumor,
which had not yet come to pass, even suggested that
like Egypt's former dictator did in Tahrir Square,
Gov. Walker may call in police to forcibly clear out
the capitol.
And according to a Wisconsin police union
president, whether the police agree or disagree with
their governor's politics, they would "absolutely"
carry out any order given to them ... even if that
order included using force against their fellow
Americans gathered in peaceful protest.
That's the message from Wisconsin Law Enforcement
Association (WLEA) executive board president
Tracy Fuller, who's organization recently issued a
statement condemning the governor's attempt to strip
public unions of their collective bargaining rights.
Fuller is also a Wisconsin State Patrol inspector.
"This bill has some provisions that make no
sense, unless the basic intent is to bust unions,"
he recently wrote, in a post found on the WLEA
website. "One provision makes it illegal for
public employers to collect dues for labor
organizations. The employer can take deductions for
the United Way, or other organizations, but they are
prohibited from collecting union dues.
"How does that repair the budget?"
Fuller explained to Raw Story that he was speaking
only for himself when he wrote of his regrets over
the troopers' endorsement. This detail was initially
misreported by David Schuster, who claimed it was
the Troopers Association itself that had come into a
spot of buyer's remorse over Walker.
That was not the case, Fuller said.
Dividing lines
While the WLEA does not make political
endorsements, he continued, the Wisconsin Troopers
Association does. In the last election cycle,
they endorsed Walker for governor.
Within the governor's "budget repair"
proposal, Fuller explained, is a provision to
literally split the WLEA into groups, dividing in a
very direct manner the size of their union.
"I am trying to fight to maintain the
continuity of our union because of the governor's
proposal," he told Raw Story. "In our union,
we don't just represent the state troopers and
patrols. We also represent the capitol police, the
University of Wisconsin Police Department, all the
communications officers and the Department of
Transportation field agents."
Walker's proposal would effectively remove "half
of our membership," he said, by taking
communications, campus, DMV and capitol officers out
of the union.
"That's pretty close to half of our
membership," Fuller said. "I think that any
reasonable person could understand how that could be
a problem for a union."
He added that while the WLEA is a much younger
group than the troopers' association, many members
belong to both, and both have seen significant
political divisions over the association's
endorsement of Walker.
If push comes to shove
Nevertheless, he said, they would all still don
riot gear and "do their job," even if
Walker's order were to suppress the protests.
"I have worked with the University of
Wisconsin police officers that are there, along with
the capitol police officers, and certainly I've
worked with the state patrol officers because I'm a
state patrol inspector. I'm not able to even fathom
that any of those police officers would not carry out
whatever orders were given to do their job.
"I guess that's the one ironic thing about
this," he continued. "Last night my wife
asked me to make a sign for her to take down there to
protest. On that day, I thought to myself I could be
making a protest sign for my wife to take down there
... Then I could be down there confronting my wife
with the protest sign that I made. God, you see ...
That's ... That's my job.
He said that the conversation of resisting an
order to attack the protesters "hasn't even come
up" between he and fellow officers.
However, Fuller insisted, "I can't even
imagine that the governor or anybody else would think
that's a viable option. The protesters are not being
violent. It's their right to come and protest; it's
public property. The politicians are being allowed to
come and go... I don't know why there would be the
need for clearing anything.
"It would not look like the United States, if
we did that. No one said anything to me about
anything like that."
He also admitted it was "possible,"
given America's history, that some agent provocateurs
could infiltrate the protesters to stir up trouble.
But, Fuller cautioned, "any action like that
would not be something I recognize as the United
States of America. That would be something that
dictatorships in foreign countries do."
Who were among the financiers behind Wisconsin's
Republican Governor, now embroiled in a controversial
attempt to destroy public sector unions?None other
than reviled tea party financiers Charles and David
Koch, is who.
Turns out, the billionaire oil tycoons' political
action committee gave Gov. Scott Walker (R) roughly $100,000
in campaign contributions during the 2010 election,
according to campaign finance records highlighted
by Mother Jones.The contributions came
from the same source -- Koch Industries PAC -- and
though through two channels which were both legal
under current campaign finance law.About $43,000
worth of PAC monies went directly to Walker's
campaign, while the Republican Governors Association
(RGA) sent
$65,000 from the PAC to Walker.Wisconsin's
governor also received help from the RGA by way of a $3.4 million ad buy on television
and direct mail attacks against his political
opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.What's more, it's
not just the Koch presence behind the governor that's
got some worried: it's that the bill causing so much
strife is virtually pulled from the tycoon brothers'
own playbook.
"Koch-backed groups like Americans for
Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have
long taken
a veryantagonisticview
toward public-sector unions," Mother Jones
noted. "Several of these groups have urged the
eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited Mark Mix,
president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense
Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010
confab in Aspen, Colorado;" .
By pulling collective bargaining rights away from
the unions, that's exactly what they'd be doing:
effectively eradicating them. All leverage the
workers have over management would be ended.
As if the connection weren't clear enough, the
Koch brothers front group Americans for Prosperity
produced a website called standwithwalker.com,
encouraging people to support elimination of labor
union rights.Just over 24,000 had signed the Koch
brothers' petition at time of this story's
publication.
Obama
to Teachers: "Drop Dead"
By Mike Whitney
February 21, 2011 "Information Clearing
House"
---Teachers. These are the people who
put Obama in office. They handed out the pamphlets,
went from door to door, stuffed the envelopes, and
manned the phone banks. They buttonholed people
outside grocery stores, waved posters atop freeway
overpasses, and organized neighborhood get-togethers.
They spread the word, attended the rallies and drew
whatever they could from their meager paychecks to
support the man who promised change and inspired hope.
They did everything a candidate could ask of his
supporters and more. And what have they gotten in
return? A bigger war in Afghanistan, a renewal of the
Patriot Act, a porno-scanning system at the airports,
more blank checks for Wall Street, and a lot of empty
posturing about Guantanamo.
And when their pay and pensions and their jobs were
on the line, Obama was no where to be found.
Poof! The vanishing president.
Name one thing that Obama has done for working people?
Health care? That fetid trillion dollar giveaway to
big pharma?
That just doesn't cut it.
Obama has called for a spending freeze government
workers pay for the next 5 years while renewing the $700
billion Bush tax cuts at the same time. That's a feat
that even Reagan couldn't have managed without
igniting a revolt in the ranks. But smooth-talking
Obama pulled it off without a hitch. In fact, his
devotees are more ga-ga over him than ever.
Two weeks ago, Obama wrote an op-ed for the Wall
Street Journal promising to reduce "burdensome"
regulations for his friends in big finance. He
figured that the trillions they'd already been given
wasn't quite enough to keep them happy, so he decided
he'd find more rules that he could eliminate.
Then he slithered over to the Chamber of Commerce to
assure them that he'd do whatever he could to "change
the tone" at the White House to help them
increase profitability. Just days later, Obama
delivered an entirely different message to striking
Wisconsin teachers. He told them that everyone would
have to "make sacrifices" to make up for
state budget shortfalls. Everyone except his rich
friends, that is.
Recently, Obama appointed bank tycoon William Daley
as his new chief of staff, and GE's "outsourcing"
Jeffrey Immelt to lead his new jobs creation program.
Then he finished off the month by throwing his
support behind the latest labor-crushing free trade
bill, this time with South Korea. According to the
Oakland Business Journal: "The proposed trade
deal with South Korea would cost 159,000 U.S. jobs
over seven years and hurt some of the highest paying
industries in the U.S., including motor vehicles and
parts, electronics equipment and metal products,
according to the Economic Policy Institute." Big
labor is against the bill. Obama is for it. What a
surprise.
Obama's new budget calls for big cuts to government
subsidies for home heating oil for needy families,
but allocates $5 million to anti-Chavez groups in
Venezuela via the State Department. What makes this
so ironic, is that Hugo Chavez has been providing
hundreds of thousands of gallons of free heating oil
to needy American families across the US. So, while
the president of Venezuela is trying to make sure
that poor people in America don't freeze to death in
the dark, Obama is doing whatever he can to make sure
that they do.
Obama has abandoned any effort to reduce unemployment,
lower tuition costs, increase welfare, minimize
foreclosures, or decrease homelessness. If you are
part of the growing number of working-poor in America,
don't except help from the Obama team. You're outta
luck.
This is from the World Socialist Web Site:
"Two and half years since the eruption of the
financial crisis, more than 26 million workers cannot
find a full-time job. State governments, under both
Democrats and Republicans, are responding to budget
deficits by closing schools, libraries, clinics and
other public facilities, and carrying out attacks on
state and municipal employees.
Meanwhile, Wall Street share values have fully
recovered since the crash of 2008 and the
corporations and their top executives are richer than
ever. President Obama has refused to provide a penny
of relief to workers losing their jobs, homes and
life savings. Instead he has outlined plans to slash
a trillion dollars from vitally needed social
services, to pay for the bailout of Wall Street, the
extension of the Bush era tax cuts for the rich and
the Pentagon war machine. And this is only the
beginning....
(In Wisconsin) workers are fighting for their very
livelihoods. They cannot live with what amounts to a
20 percent pay cut and devastating cuts in public
education and state universities for their children."
("The struggle of Wisconsin workers enters a new
stage", World Socialist Web Site)
The strike has entered its second week and still no
sign of Obama. Thousands of workers and students from
across the state have braved the freezing
temperatures and joined in the demonstrations while
closing down much of the school system.
The entire country is watching. Many people are
wondering how the GOP crackdown will affect their own
jobs. They're worried about their future and the
future of the country.
Obama could simply fly into Madison, deliver a few
words of support for the strikers, and assure himself
of a landslide victory in 2012. But he won't do that,
because he's not the man that people thought he was.
He won't lift a finger to help his friends even when
they're embroiled in the biggest fight of their lives.
He won't support the people who supported him.
Obama's message to the teachers, "Drop dead!"
Illinois abolishes death penalty
Governor
of 16th US state to get rid of capital punishment
says it was hardest decision he has made
Illinois governor Pat Quinn after
signing legislation abolishing the death penalty at
the state capitol in Springfield. Photograph: Seth
Perlman/AP
Illinois
has abolished the death penalty after two decades of
deliberation on the grounds that the justice system
could execute innocent people by mistake, in a move
that is likely to renew calls for other US states to
follow.
The move will save 15 men from execution who are
on Illinois's death row, moving them to life in
prison with no hope of parole.
Governor Pat Quinn, a Democrat who has long
supported capital
punishment, spent two months deliberating on the
decision, which he described as the most difficult he
has made in office.
"If the system can't be guaranteed, 100%
error-free, then we shouldn't have the system,"
Quinn said. "It cannot stand."
The governor's decision incensed many prosecutors
and relatives of victims of crime.
Republican representative Jim Durkin predicted
Quinn will pay a political price if he seeks re-election
in four years' time.
Quinn said he would oppose any attempt to
reinstate a new version of the death penalty. He also
promised to commute the sentence of anyone who might
receive a death sentence between now and when the
measure takes effect on July 1, a spokeswoman said.
Illinois becomes the 16th state in the US without
a death penalty. New York and New Jersey abolished
the death penalty in 2007. New Mexico followed suit
in 2009.
In his comments, Quinn returned often to the fact
that 20 people sent to death row had seen their cases
overturned after evidence surfaced that they were
innocent or had been convicted improperly.
Campaigners studying capital punishment said
Illinois's move carries more weight than states that
halted executions but had not used the death penalty
often.
"Illinois stands out because it was a state
that used it, reconsidered it and now rejected it,"
said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information
Centre in Washington.
Illinois has executed 12 men since 1977, when the
death penalty was reinstated. The last execution was
Andrew Kokoraleis on 17 March 1999. At the time, the
average length of stay on death row was 13 years.
anti war
protest 1oo arrested outside white house
The demonstration in Washington on Saturday merged
varied causes, including protesters demanding a U.S.
military withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan as well
as those supporting Bradley Manning, the jailed Army
private suspected of giving classified documents to
the website WikiLeaks.
One chant that was repeated was: “Stop the
War! Expose the Lies! Free Bradley Manning!”
There was little talk of the U.S. missile strikes
against Moammar Gadhafi’s forces in Libya on
Saturday, part of an international effort to protect
rebel forces.
Manning is being held in solitary confinement for
all but an hour every day at a Marine Corps brig in
Quantico, Virginia. He is given a suicide-proof smock
to wear to bed and is stripped naked each night. On
Sunday, a protest will be held in Quantico, outside
the brig where Manning is being held.
Ellsberg has publicly defended Manning, calling
him a “brother,” and WikiLeaks.
Hundreds of protesters attended the rally and
marched around the White House, but the crowd —
which included many military veterans — thinned
considerably as the U.S. Park Police warned that
they’d be arrested if they didn’t move. As
officers moved in with handcuffs, one protester who
clutched the gates outside the White House shouted,
“Don’t arrest them! Arrest Obama!” and
“You’re arresting veterans, not war
criminals!”
Authorities said 113 protesters were arrested,
processed and given violation notices for disobeying
an official order. They could pay a small fine and be
released, or be freed with a future court date.
“The majority were cooperative,” said U.S.
Park Police spokesman David Schlosser. “A couple
had to be carried, but altogether a polite and
orderly crowd.”
One military veteran who showed up for the rally
was Paul Markin, a 64-year-old retired U.S. army
colonel from Massachusetts who said he’s
frustrated by what he sees as the U.S.
government’s escalation of the wars. He said
he’s been against wars since coming home from
Vietnam.
“Ever since that time, I’ve gone to the
other side. Instead of a warrior, an anti-warrior,”
Markin said.
Ralph Nader, a consumer advocate who has run
unsuccessfully several times for president, attended
the demonstration and said anti-war protesters needed
to continue putting pressure on government leaders.
He said he believed most Americans and even soldiers
agreed with the views of the protesters.
“I believe they reflect the majority opinion
of the soldiers in Afghanistan,” Nader told the
Associated Press. “This is a majority opinion
movement.”
