Thursday, August 8, 2013

All the Governor Money Can Buy

Well, a woman named Diane Ayers, whom I don’t know, stepped right up to the plate and diagnosed the situation. Here she is:
Re Bill Dunn post, your question: "Why did this never happen in Wisconsin's 165 years of history until Scott Walker became governor?"
Because, Bill, this is the first time in Wisconsin history that the core of state government has been illegitimately seized by corporate-owned political fascists, who do not hesitate to suspend civil liberties and distort or defy the constitutional rights guaranteed to this state's citizens.
Their prime directive is to discredit, divide and destroy all those agencies, civic organizations, labor unions, even community groups of individual citizens seeking to communicate their views and concerns.
Their goal? The permanent destruction of democracy in Wisconsin - and eventually throughout the U.S. - replacing it with an institutionalized oligarchy that maintains its control by doing away with public education, worker rights, voting rights, etc., -- creating a powerless underclass that will work to serve and fear to challenge their corporate masters -now and for generations to come.
Right—got that taken care of. Now—can I go to the beach?
Just a minute, you say—what’s going on in Wisconsin?
Scott Kevin Walker, born 2 November 1967, in Colorado Springs moved to Delavan, Wisconsin when he was ten. An eagle scout, he also attended a two week program called Badger Boys State and Boys Nation in Washington DC. This, he said, inspired him to become a politician.
He entered Marquette University; he dropped out. He worked for IBM and then The Red Cross. At age 22, he ran for the Wisconsin State Assembly and lost. He then moved to a Republican district—Wauwatosa—and won three years later. He served nine years in the Assembly, and then became Milwaukee County executive in 2002. He was elected governor in 2010, and promptly instituted a….
Stop!
I’ve been trying, I’ve really been trying, to be neutral, objective, fair-minded; I’m the son of a newspaperman, after all. But after all, this is not a newspaper; it’s my blog.
So I will tell you that yes, dear Readers plus Diane, this is something not seen before. This is a guy deeply in bed with corporate America, especially the mining and oil interests; guys like the infamous Koch brothers, who contributed big, big money into the recall campaign. How much? Well, I just googled “Koch brothers Scott Walker” and the first citation is from Forbes of 2012: “Scott Walker didn’t get a dime from us,” it reads. The second citation? Politifact.com, saying…well, copy and paste time:
1.              Billionaire Koch brothers gave $8 million to Wisconsin Gov. Scott ...www.politifact.com/.../billionaire-koch-brothers-gave-8-million-wisconsi...
                Cached



Jun 20, 2012 - "In fact, the Koch brothers alone gave twice as much money to Scott Walker as the total amount of money raised by Tom Barrett." Roughly ...

I’ll come clean—I didn’t click on either of the links. Why? Because there is ample evidence that there’s a link between the Koch brothers and Walker. Remember the famous prank call, from a radio host pretending to be David Koch?


Well, revealingly, all I had to do was type “Scott” into the search bar of YouTube and up it came….
And what had Scott Walker done, to get himself into a recall election? He had proposed curing an expected 3.6 billion dollar state deficit by eliminating the right of the public service unions to bargain collectively. And that spurred crowds of up to 100,000 people to camp out in protest in the capitol.
Nor was this all. Here’s Wikipedia on Scott Walker’s social issues:
Social issues played a part in the campaign. Walker has stated that he is "100% pro-life" and that he believes life should be protected from conception to natural death.[43] He opposes abortion, including in cases of rape and incest.[23][44] He supports abstinence-only sex education in the public schools, and opposes state supported clinical services that provide birth control and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases to teens under the age of 18 without parental consent.[23] He supports the right of pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives on religious or moral grounds.[23][45] He supports adult stem cell research, but opposes human embryonic stem cell research.[20][44][46][47]
Right—short version: a reactionary.
Who has subverted the rules, rammed down repressive abortion laws, stripped public service positions in favor of his corporate friends. Oh, and had seven or so of his political staff convicted of various crimes. The most recent revelation, by the way, is that as Milwaukee County executive, his campaign staff was actively involved in handling the tragic death of a fifteen-year old kid who was killed by a falling slab of concrete from a county parking garage.
The protests never really went away, and people began singing protest songs at noon in the capitol rotunda. So Walker decided that people would need a permit to protest in the capitol. That of course, led to howls—the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, as well as the state constitution, guaranteeing the right of assembly.
And now comes the slightly thicker edge of the wedge. It turns out that people cannot even watch, and tourists to the Dairy State are being told: spectating is illegal. In fact, a lawmaker, Sondy Pope, was threatened with arrest for just that.
“He stole the election,” said my friend Gary, referring to the 2012 recall, and went on to give specifics. I’ve forgotten, now, and anyway, it seemed irrelevant.
If he didn’t steal it, he bought it….. 

No comments:

Post a Comment