Evans Liberal Politics, February 19, 2011, sources as noted, commentary by Paul Evans: (Updated below the introductory essay)
From Bloomberg:
In Madison, Wisconsin, crowds that police estimated at 25,000 engulfed the Capitol and its lawns yesterday during a third-straight day of protests as Democratic senators fled the legislative session. In Columbus, Ohio, about 3,800 state workers, teachers and other public employees came to the statehouse for a committee hearing.
In Wisconsin especially, but also in Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere, fed up ordinary citizens have been oppressed to the point where they are saying “hell no” and taking to the streets, in scenes reminiscent of the recent protests in Cairo. Rampant and disgusting union busting in Wisconsin and Ohio, an economic climate where 20 percent of us cannot find a full time job (almost ten percent of us are unemployed, while another ten percent want full time jobs and are either employed part time or unemployed, given up and off of the statistical rolls), and rampant right wing state and federal governments savaging our protections and our benefits, have brought the United States to a tipping point.
The fat cats on Wall Street destroyed 13 trillion dollars of our wealth, yet are giving themselves higher bonuses than ever – tens of billions of dollars worth of bonuses while the stock market soars – while ordinary, working people (or people who want to work) are getting the shaft. Ultracapitalist free market economic leaders and the rampant right wing are fresh from electoral “vindication” for their repressive policies and economic theory. Now even Democratic Party leaders like Obama have quailed, calling for a five year freeze on domestic, discretionary spending and such cuts as Obama’s proposed evisceration of Community Action, which the House just voted on and extended to cut all Title X funds. John Boehner and triumphant House Republicans now will stop the federal government cold dead in their plan to kill planned parenthood and Title X, and cut our budget dangerously to the bone. This at a time when the economy is so bad that only giving ordinary Americans help, tax breaks and making additional, stimulative spending is called for by thoughtful economic analysts such as Robert Reich.
Not satisfied with ruining us financially by destroying our remaining wealth (such as the value of our homes), and buoyed by right wing ultracapitalist theorists, now the Republicans want to destroy our remaining public sector unions, and eviscerate Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security (and the EPA).
Finally, ordinary American workers and liberals and progressives have awoken to the danger and are saying, “no more.” Protests are already huge in Wisconsin, where Democratic lawmakers have walked out of the statehouse rather than provide Republicans with the quorum they need to enact laws which would truly destroy the public sector unions there. Columnists across the internet are describing the spontaneous protests of tens of thousands of workers and ordinary citizens in Wisconsin as our own Cairo. Obama and the Democrats are listening as Organizing for America, the political machine that got Obama elected, is supporting and organizing the protests in Wisconsin. Other OFA personnel in states such as Ohio and Indiana have been contacted as protests swell in Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere.
While I am almost certain that beyond Wisconsin, at this point Republican lawmakers see the protests as an annoyance and plan on going ahead with their repressive measures, these protests are what the founders intended. Here’s news on this from around the web:
Clearinghouse of News from Around the Web
on the Growing Pro-Union Protests
(Updated – Photo AP)
UPDATE: See Wisc. governor: ‘We are willing to take this as long as it takes’, The Raw Story, February 20, 2011, by David Edwards:
As protests escalate in Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker isn’t showing any signs of backing down from his plan to slash union benefits and eliminate collective bargaining rights.
Wisconsin’s 14 Democratic state senators have gone into hiding to prevent Republicans from holding a vote on Walker’s proposal.
In an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace Sunday, Walker said that he had no intention of giving in to protesters demands.
UPDATE: Watch (on site, just click the arrow) Wisconsin Gov.: Budget cuts “about America”, CBS news video, February 20, 2011 – 2:08.
UPDATE: See Madison Protests Hit Largest Numbers On Saturday, AP on The Huffington Post, February 19, 2011, by Associated Press.
UPDDATE: See Republicans attack unions to hurt Democrats: analysts, AFP on The Raw Story, February 19, 2011, by Agence France-Presse:
MADISON, Wisconsin — Republican attempts to disband public workers unions in Wisconsin and other key states are part of a broad strategy to undermine US President Barak Obama and his Democrats at the ballot box, analysts said.
Unions have been the biggest sources of financial and grass roots, get-out-the-vote organizational support for Democrats and have long been a target of business-backed Republicans.
But they’ve seen their power and membership rolls shrink as the manufacturing sector declined and shifted to anti-union southern states, and now represent just 12 percent of US workers.
Public workers account for more than half of union rolls, even though a dozen states prohibit state and local government workers from forming unions.
And now Republican governors in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Iowa are looking to curtail or even eliminate collective bargaining rights for state and local government employees.
UPDATE: See Billionaire tea party tycoons financed Wisconsin’s anti-union governor, records show, The Raw Story, February 19, 2011, by Stephen C. Webster.
UPDATE: See Democratic Strategy In Wisconsin: Kill The Bill, Then Recall Republicans From Office, The Huffington Post, February 19, 2011, by Amanda Terkel:
MADISON, WIS. — Final passage of Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-Wis.) controversial proposal to strip away collective bargaining rights from public employees is currently stalled, thanks to Senate Democrats who left the state in order to prevent their GOP colleagues from reaching a quorum needed to move forward.
But many remained worried that once they come back, Republicans will push through the legislation anyway. Democrats, however, haven’t given up yet and say they have a two-pronged strategy for moving forward.
In an interview with The Huffington Post on Saturday, freshmen Democratic Assembly Member Brett Hulsey said that until the legislation passes, they’re trying to put as much grassroots pressure as possible on Republicans.
“What we’re telling people is to call people you know in Republican districts,” said Hulsey. “Tell them to call their senators and Republican members at home. When you see them at church and at the grocery store, tell them to kill the bill.”
The second strategy will come only if Republicans decide to stick with Walker. According to Wisconsin law, voters can recall any elected official in the state, as long as they’ve been in office for at least a year. This process involves collecting signatures for a recall position and then holding an election with the incumbent against any other candidates who jump in. As ThinkProgress’ Ian Millhiser has reported, there are eight Republicans who could currently be recalled.
WATCH (here on site – click the little arrow): Chanting “Recall Walker”, YouTube video – 1:29.
UPDATE: See Wisconsin: The First Stop in An American Uprising?, CommonDreams.org, February 19, 2011, by Sarah van Gelder of YES! Magazine: “It took awhile, but Wisconsin shows that the poor and middle class of the U.S. may be ready to push back. Madison may be only the beginning.” Even the Green Bay Packers have come out against the bill!
UPDATE: See Union Protests Are Spreading To Ohio As Kasich Tries To Break Collective Bargaining, Crooks and Liars, February 19, 2011, by Susie Madrak.
UPDATE: See Conservatives use divide and conquer rhetoric in Wisconsin union protests, Daily Kos, February 19, 2011, by Susan Gardner.
Watch here on site (click the little arrow): Wisconsin protests spread across US, YouTube video, Russia Today, February 18, 2011 – 4:40.
Watch Live video of the protests in Wisconsin’s capital, Channel3000.com, LIVE.
Want to know what all the fuss is about? Read What Governor Walker Is Really Threatening, Daily Kos, February 19, 2011, by YellerDog.
ENJOY: 70,000 in Solidarity (Photo Diary), Daily Kos, February 19, 2011, by Al Rodgers.
See: It’s Spreading – Labor in Ohio Protests Union Buster Bill, Daily Kos, February 17, 2011, by Keori.
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Common Dreams.org, February 18, 2011, by John Nichols of The Nation:
David Vines, a University of Wisconsin student joined the mass protests against Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights on Monday. The political science student marched on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He slept overnight in the Capital to make sure that the legislature did not approve Walker’s plan without a fight.
Why? “This is what the founders intended,” says Vines.
And he is right.
When Democratic members of the Wisconsin State Senate walked out on Capital on Thursday – denying the Republican majority quorum that was necessary to pass the legislation — they were attacked by Walker and his cronies. The governor called the boycott a “stunt” and claimed the Democrats were disrepecting democracy.
After all, Walker’s backers noted, the governor and his Republican allies won an election last November.
That is true.
But Wisconsin’s greatest governor, Robert M. La Follette, declared: “”We have long rested comfortably in this country upon the assumption that because our form of government was democratic, it was therefore automatically producing democratic results. Now, there is nothing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of democratic institutions that should make them self-operative. Tyranny and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any other. We are slow to realize that democracy is a life; and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated.” ….
Read the full article, here.
Daily Kos, February 19, 2011, by absdoggy:
May I ask a few moments of your time to contemplate the events in Wisconsin? I believe there can be no clearer picture or clearer truth as to where this country is right now, and what the Republican and Tea Party is truly all about.
In the streets, we have Democrats, mostly progressives (i.e. the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party) representing the good, decent, hard working Americans who have spent their lives in service to their fellow Americans. Policemen who keep us safe, firemen who protect us and our property at the risk of their own lives. Teachers who teach our children and work with us to prepare them for the future. Community services workers who take on dozens and dozens of cases, working one distressed family or one orphaned child at a time to help lift their fellow American out of poverty, to give them a chance in life. Elderly services workers who look after those who can’t look after themselves anymore. Mental health workers who help those who have often been abandoned or left helpless by families who don’t care or who can’t afford to care. Public works employees who work in the dead of night, the cold and snow, the heat of summer, to keep our roads up, our drinking water safe, our sanitation services intact.
These people, our neighbors, who have done so much for their community, most of whom donate many of their off hours to the cause, who pay money out of their own pocket to provide a better experience for their students, or provide a treat to a child who will never know what childhood is. These people, who make it possible for the rest of us to go about our day. These men and women – who are not rich, who did not cause the financial sector to blow up one year, then pay themselves billions in bonuses the next. These people, who had the foresight and acted responsibility to take part of their compensation in the form of a pension and retiree health care benefits, to look after their families and retirement.
And how does the Republican and Tea Party treat them? By telling us that these people are to blame for our problems. These people are to blame for deficits. Oh, it’s perfectly fine for the Koch brothers to hire lobbyists to bribe Republicans into spending billions on wasteful agribusiness subsidies and unnecessary defense spending that lines their pockets, but it should be against the law for an elder services worker to join a union or have collective bargaining rights. Many Tea Party activists go even further and suggest that these workers shouldn’t even be allowed to vote because they might benefit if their candidate wins! There’s a real belief in the constitution for you.
Here, then, is the stark naked truth: the Tea Party is naught but those who covet their neighbor’s goods. The “government worker” has a pension? I don’t, it must be his fault. The teacher pays less for health care insurance than I do? – it’s her fault. The poor single mother trying to feed her children – she gets food stamps, I don’t, it must be her fault. Try to tell them that America was at its strongest when income inequality was low and unions were strong, and all they care about is that they think someone else has something they don’t, whether its true or not.
And the Republican Party, the party that calls for responsibility and accountability in government? The party that let the banks write the bankruptcy laws to keep people from “avoiding responsibility” for their debts and then bailed them out? The party that hands billions to General Electric, Haliburton and other companies that have time after time been found guilty of defrauding and overcharging the government? They want to let states or localities declare bankruptcy and walk away from their responsibilities, walk away from the pensions and health care benefits. All the years they should have been funding the retirement obligations, funding the pensions, but they fraudulently underfunded them, creating the deficits in the first place, and now they want to balance the budget on the backs of those who have given the best years of their lives and fulfilled their part of the bargain. Cut social security, a program that keeps approximately 40% of retirees out of poverty, but don’t raise the social security cap back to 90% of wages where it’s supposed to be set per the Reagan administration’s 1983 amendments.
At long last, the cards on the table, the hand is in play. Do we stand with our neighbors who have served us all these years, or do we turn our backs on them and balance the budget on their backs, the backs which have borne so much for us? Do we covet and live our lives in fear that someone else might get something that we don’t have, or do we work together to stop the Republicans from turning this nation into little more than a class based apartheid?
Read the full article here.
The Huffington Post, February 17, 2011, by Amanda Terkel:
WASHINGTON — Building on the momentum in Wisconsin, where tens of thousands of protesters have turned out to oppose Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to strip collective-bargaining rights from the state’s public-employee unions, President Barack Obama’s campaign organization is mobilizing its followers in Ohio and Indiana, where similar measures are being considered.
Thousands descended upon the Ohio statehouse Thursday to protest a bill that would eliminate collective-bargaining rights for state employees and curtail the rights of local-level government employees. The debate is similar to that in Wisconsin: Supporters say it’s necessary to deal with budget problems, while opponents say it’s nothing but a vicious assault on unions.
Now folded into the Democratic National Committee, Obama’s campaign group Organizing For America is already actively engaged in Wisconsin and is beginning to ramp up organizing efforts in Ohio, though observers say the latter process is about a week behind that in Wisconsin. The group is also beginning to dig into Indiana, whose legislature is considering a bill to limit collective bargaining by teachers.
Read the full article, here.
See From Wisconsin to Washington, Budget Cuts Draw Battle Lines Against Public, Common Dreams.org, February 19, 2011, by Michelle Chen of In These Times.
See The Republican Strategy, Robert Reich.org, February 17, 2011, by Robert Reich.
See Wisconsin Protests Set Up Delicate Dance Between Obama And Labor, The Huffington Post, February 18, 2011, by Sam Stein.
See Wisconsin Crowds Swell to 30,000; Key GOP Legislators Waver, Truthout.org, February 17, 2011, by John Nichols of The Nation.
Watch Huge Wisco protests spread to Ohio (VIDEO), YouTube video – 5:43 – watch here on Evans Liberal Politics, just click the little triangle to the left.
Watch Ted Strickland Returns To The Ohio Statehouse To Say No on SB 5, YouTube video – 6:41.
See Wisconsin Is a Battleground Against the Billionaire Kochs’ Plan to Break Labor’s Back, AlterNet, February 18, 2011, by Adele M. Stan: “The war on Wisconsin employees isn’t just about the budget or Wisconsin: Koch toady Gov. Walker is just one soldier in the billionaire’s offensive to kill labor.”
See Organizing recall in Wisconsin, Daiy Kos, February 18, 2011, by fcphantom.
RESOURCES:
Join the Protests – Save Our Nation
WAKE UP AMERICA! Your basic right to have a union, and the basic economic supports we all depend on, are in severe danger. Now is the time to stand up for our rights collectively in massive protest, or we will surely lose those rights and our remaining economic security. Here are some resources:
See resources at 5,000 Converge in Ohio, Urge State to Stand Up for Workers, Education Votes, NEA.
See the Facebook Group: Stop the bill – recall Republican State Senators in Wisconsin NOW.
CALL the Columbus Headquarters of Organizing for America: 614-221-6563 Ext.223
CANTON, OHIO DEMONSTRATION: Demonstrate against Kasich and show your displeasure with him and solidarity with the protests in Columbus, Tuesday, February 22 at 5 p.m. at the Chamber of Commerce Dinner, Canton Ohio Civic Center: Here’s the OFA flyer on Tuesday’s demonstration.
Note by Paul Evans: I have done four Google searches, and called Organizing for America in Columbus, and it is extremely hard to find resources on how to join these protests and who is organizing them. I thought I should put up what I have for you, but I’m working on it. Please leave comments if you have any resources for the people to join these protests, now, before it’s too late.
