Back To The Republican Future

Guarding approach to mills, Lawrence, Mass.
January 12, 1912 ("Bread and Roses" strike)
Library of Congress

Someone is aiming for a quick ascension to Reagan-hood, and has wasted not a moment between his inauguration last month and his threat to call in the National Guard against uppity workers.

Wisconsin resident John Nichols, interviewed by Amy Goodman—

... Governor Walker took office in January, after a campaign in which he really ran as a feel-good Republican. He did not talk about gutting public employee contracts. He didn't talk about getting rid of collective bargaining. He didn't talk about perhaps imposing a sweeping right-to-work law that took away not just collective bargaining rights for public employees but for employees in the private sector. None of this came up. But in January, after taking office, he began to move very quietly behind the scenes to implement this plan. What's fascinating is that while it does, as you note, attempt to take away collective bargaining rights for teachers, also for state, county and municipal employees, there is a special protection written in for police unions and firefighter unions that happened to support him in the last election.

At least some members of the latter unions refused to fall for the divide and conquer move.

I managed to catch a good bit of Thom Hartmann during the week: Nichols was on at least twice, and there were other reports from Madison. Sam Seder interviewed a Madison blogger on February 17. A big point that local observers have been making: Walker arranged to have contract renewals halted until after he took office.

From a report last December:

Union members already have agreed to concessions, and Walker's bluster only aims to pit Wisconsin citizens against their public employees, said Bryan Kennedy, the union's president.

"We are willing to do our part, but make no mistake: Walker is angling to make state employees the political whipping boy for the state of Wisconsin's economy," Kennedy said in a statement.

Walker, a Republican, has asked that no union contracts be approved before he takes office because they could tie his hands in dealing with an estimated $3.3 billion shortfall in the next two-year budget.

Talking Points Memo is running extensive coverage of events, including how Walker set this all in motion by faking the whole budget crisis.

John Nichols noted the ruse, and Walker's real motivation:

The fact is, Wisconsin is not broke. The Fiscal Bureau of Wisconsin just said in January that it will end this year with a $123 million surplus. So the fact of the matter is that this is not being done because of a lack of money. This is being done because political forces, conservative political forces, would like to disempower public employee unions and remove that voice for a strong public sector. That's what austerity really translates as. And I do hope people keep an eye on what's happening in Wisconsin with a similar eye to what they watch protests around the world with. This is a place where we really are going to see a critical test of whether workers have the right and also the power to demand fair play.
...

And there's no doubt in my mind that this is part of a wide Republican and conservative strategy to take down public employee unions, which have done two things: one, they have challenged Republicans at election time—the truth of the matter is, public employee unions are a very important political force in this country; but two, and I think more importantly, they have been the primary advocates in the United States, for the better part of 30 years, for public sector spending and for public education. If you weaken these unions, you really do weaken the public sphere. And frankly, that's something that a lot of right-wing think tanks in Washington would like to see happen.

The national media's coverage of protest in Egypt and beyond was not lost on demonstrators and their messages:

"Hosni" Walker
"ONE DICTATOR TO GO"
And this.

As those demonstrations in Cairo showed, workers' rights are tied to political rights. Bag News Notes posted photojournalist David Degner's observations of what developed there—

The police protest we see in these two photos took place... at the Ministry of Interior ... the location an odd thing in itself. Taking pictures the night of the 29th [of January] was one of the most significant moments of the protests for me. There were kids just one block up trying to get to the Ministry running directly into police gunfire. And now, just a few weeks later, the policemen, in the same spot, are protesting for better housing, health care and wages — and want the people to also know that they are no longer under their former leader, Adly, who was removed as Minister of the Interior.

The cycle continues with a new Bag News post: "Cairo, Wisconsin."

The Wisconsin protest gained more participants over the week, and TPM has this slide show.

Some players on a certain publicly owned team weighed in. But their celebrity is so two weeks ago...

Though national coverage can be expected to increase this weekend, as the billionaires send in the Real American shock troops.

Perhaps they can borrow an idea and ride in this way.