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...
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…..
