The Battle for Wisconsin: What's happening and why

The working people of Wisconsin are under attack. The hand-picked corporate stooge that is now Governor of the state has decided to risk his entire political career and the well-being of the people of Wisconsin (admittedly the latter mean little, if anything, to him) to destroy unions, to hurt the opposing political party, and to strip away one of the very few protections left to working people. I intended to blog about what is happening in Wisconsin and what it means, but Mother Jones has already written exactly what I wanted to say! Here is what MJ says (I will add my own thoughts at the end):

What's Happening in Wisconsin: Explained

— By Andy Kroll

| Fri Feb. 18, 2011 3:30 PM PST

Activists protesting new GOP Gov. Scott Walker's anti-union proposals have occupied the rotunda of the Wisconsin capitol building in Madison for the past week, but Walker is pressing ahead anyway.Flickr/Peter Gorman.

If you need to know the basics of what's going on in Wisconsin, read on. If you're already up to speed, you can follow the action on Twitter or jump straight to today's updates from our reporter on the ground in Madison.

—With additional reporting by Nick Baumannand Siddhartha Mahanta

The basics:

For days, demonstrators have been pouring into the streets of Madison, Wisconsin—and the halls of the state's Capitol building—to protest rookie Republican Governor Scott Walker's anti-union proposals. Big national unions, both major political parties, the Tea Party, and Andrew Breitbart are already involved. Democratic state senators have fled the state to prevent the legislature from voting on Walker's proposals. And the protests could soon spread to other states, including Ohio [....]

What's actually being proposed?

Walker says his legislation, which would strip most state employees of any meaningful collective bargaining rights, is necessary to close the state's $137 million budget gap. There are a number of problems with that argument, though. The unions are not to blame for the deficit, and stripping unionized workers of their collective bargaining rights won't in and of itself save any money. Walker says he needs to strip the unions of their rights to close the gap. But public safety officers' unions, which have members who are more likely to support Republicans and who also tend to have the highest salaries and benefits, are exempted from the new rules. Meanwhile, a series of tax breaks and other goodies that Walker and the Republican legislature passed just after his inauguration dramatically increased the deficit that Walker now says he's trying to close. And Wisconsin has closed a much larger budget gap in the past without scrapping worker organizing rights.

What's really going on, as Kevin Drum has explained, is pure partisan warfare: Walker is trying to de-fund the unions that form the backbone of the Democratic party. The unions and the Democrats are, of course, fighting back. The Washington Post's Ezra Klein drops some knowledge [emphasis added]:

The best way to understand Walker's proposal is as a multi-part attack on the state's labor unions. In part one, their ability to bargain benefits for their members is reduced. In part two, their ability to collect dues, and thus spend money organizing members or lobbying the legislature, is undercut. And in part three, workers have to vote the union back into existence every single year. Put it all together and it looks like this: Wisconsin's unions can't deliver value to their members, they're deprived of the resources to change the rules so they can start delivering value to their members again, and because of that, their members eventually give in to employer pressure and shut the union down in one of the annual certification elections.

You may think Walker's proposal is a good idea or a bad idea. But that's what it does. And it's telling that he's exempting the unions that supported him and is trying to obscure his plan's specifics behind misleading language about what unions can still bargain for and misleading rhetoric about the state's budget.

Walker's proposals do have important fiscal elements: they roughly double health care premiums for many state employees. But the heart of the proposals, and the controversy, are the provisions that will effectively destroy public-sector unions in the Badger State. As Matt Yglesias notes, this won't destroy the Democratic party. But it will force the party to seek funding from sources other than unions, and that usually means the same rich businessmen who are the main financial backers for the Republican party. Speaking of which....

Who is Scott Walker?

Walker was elected governor in the GOP landslide of 2010, when Republicans also gained control of the Wisconsin state senate and house of representatives. His political career has been bankrolled by Charles and David Koch, the very rich, very conservative, and very anti-union oil-and-gas magnates. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. They've used their vast fortunes to fight key Obama initiatives on health care and the environment, while writing fat checks to Republican candidates across the country. Walker's take for the 2010 election: $43,000 from the Koch Industries PAC, his second highest intake from any one donor. But that's not all!:

The Koch's PAC also helped Walker via a familiar and much-used political maneuver designed to allow donors to skirt campaign finance limits. The PAC gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which in turn spent $65,000 on independent expenditures to support Walker. The RGA also spent a whopping $3.4 million on TV ads and mailers attacking Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Walker ended up beating Barrett by 5 points. The Koch money, no doubt, helped greatly.

What are the Democrats and the unions doing to respond?

Well, they're protesting, obviously—filling the halls of the Capitol and the streets of Madison with bodies and signs. They're calling their representatives and talking about recalling Walker (who cannot be recalled until next January) or any of eight GOP state senators who are eligible for recall right now. Meanwhile, all of the Democratic state senators have left the state in an attempt to deny Republicans the quorum they need to vote on Walker's proposals, but if just one of them returns (or is hauled back by state troopers), the GOP will have the quorum they need. (Interestingly, the head of the state patrol in the father of the Republican heads of the state senate and house of representatives, who are brothers.) Finally, Wisconsin public school teachers have been calling in sick, forcing schools to close while teachers in over a dozen other school districts picket the capitol, plan vigils, and set up phone banks to try to block Walker's effort.

How could this spread?

Other Republican-governed states are trying to mimic Walker's assault on public employee unions. The GOP won a resounding series of state-level victories in high-union-density states in November. Now they can use their newly-won power to crack down on one of the Democrats' biggest sources of funds, volunteers, and political power. Plans are already under consideration in places like Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.

Speaking of Ohio:

As Suzy Khimm outlined on Friday, an estimated 3,800-5,000 protestors came out in full fury in Columbus, Ohio, to vent their anger over a similar anti-union bill that would limit workers' rights to bargain for health insurance, end automatic pay increases, and infringe upon teachers' rights to pick their classes and schools. As in Wisconsin, both the Ohio state house and governor's mansion flipped from blue to red last year. "This has little to do with balancing this year's budget," former Governor Ted Strickland told the AP. "I think it's a power grab. It's an attempt to diminish the rights of working people. I think it's an assault of the middle class of this state and it's so unfair and out of balance."

How are conservatives working to support Walker?:

It was only a matter of time till the Tea Party got in on the action. Stephanie Mencimerreports that activists are bussing into Madison, and are "promising a massive counter-demonstration." The push is being led by American Majority, a conservative activist group that trains impressionable young foot soldiers to become state-level candidates (check out their ""I Stand With Scott Walker Rally" Facebook page). Founded by Republican operatives, the well-funded group (which, according to tax fillings, had a budget of nearly $2 million in 2009) gets much of its money from a group with ties to those adorable Koch brothers. Conservative media baron Andrew Breitbart will be leading the rally, and will be joined by presidential candidate Herman Cain and maybe—if we're lucky—Joe "The Plumber" Wurtzelbacher. Expect fireworks.

I wish to add to Mother Jone's analysis only this: The rights of workers in this country are under serious assault. This is an absolutely historical moment. If we fail, if Walker successfully destroys the unions in Wisconsin, we are headed back to the age of robber barons and unaccountable corporate power. We have already taken too many steps in that harmful and unjust direction. Not only must we stop walking toward such an abyss, it is time - NO LONG PAST TIME! - that we turned around and walked the other direction.

Other Political Halloween Masks

It turns out that you can find Halloween/monster images of other political figures:

here are a few:

First: Reaganstine

It will be noted that this mask, unlike the Obama mask, is actually rather "cute" and "cuddly." The guy looks more like Herman Munster than the genuine Frankenstein's creature.

Next, Sarah Palin as a "rogue Zombie."

A bit more gruesome than Reaganstein, but still a nice smile and much more clearly a "funny" and "goofy" Halloween Mask.

Again contrast that with the cruel face of Baruckula:

The difference strikes me as very marked. Finally however, there is a parallel to Obama, with Bush as a Vampire:

It would appear, then, that my worries about Racism in portraying Obama were without foundation? Not so fast. Here again is the Obama statue of Liberty/Vampire picture:

Notice that obama's features are greatly exaggerated in a parody of stereotyped ideas of African American faces, but Bush's normal face is used. Why is that?

Why is "Barackula's" mask cruel and malicous looking, but Reaganstine, lovable and grandfatherly? And why is Palin's mask merely goofy?

Perhaps the vampire images of Obama are not racist, I don't insist that they must be, but the differences in portrayal cries out for explanation, and racism is clearly a possible explanation of these different looks.

Obama Vampire Mask: Racism and Xenophobia for Halloween

It is obvious to anyone who has paid attention that Barack Obama has been demonized by the right-wing. He is regularly referred to as a "Keynan anti-colonialist," birthers rave that he was not really born here, and others shriek that he is a secret muslim terroirst!

It appears that this demonization has gone to new extremes. I checked out some of the seasonal Halloween stores the other day and found the mask you see in the above picture.. The mask was called "Barackula." It is normal to make and sell masks of political figures, I have not, however, ever seen one as a vampire. This mask is not an isolated incident, the image of Barackula has been used fairly regularly by the far right, as a simple Google search will reveal.

And look at the picture: Obama is here portrayed clearly has a bloodthirsty demon. I can't help but see racism behind the image. The reason I see racism here, is that the stereotype of African-American physical features are the very features that seem to be cruelly twisted into the the disturbing and demonic features of the vampire. And, then, of course, there is this image form a Tea-Party rally:

Before some reader protests that portraying Obama as a vampire is not racist, remember three things; first the vampire is regularly portrayed as an embodiment of the frightening "other." For instance, in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Count is clearly a foreign and alien power who has come to destroy all that is good about "our" British society. Now, and this is my second point, I've not seen other Presidents portrayed as demons or vampires. I grant, however, that it could have been done. If anyone knows of such a case, please point it out to me. Finally, I could avoid reading "Barackula" in terms of "the other," and the "alien," were it not for the already mentioned hysteria about his Kenyan ancestry, and the lunatic conspiracy theories that he was not born here. It seems likely that the mask is part the fears of some people who see Obama as an alien force, threatening "real Americans."

If this is an instance of racism, it may very well be about Obama's perceived "Muslimness" and not his "blackness." I am even willing to believe it merely reflects anger at "liberals" - though I suspect all three biases are at work here - but it is clearly a demonization. If any of my readers are prepared to see the mask as something intended to simply be funny, look at the image again. The face is cruel, nasty, and terrifying.

But what do my readers think? Am I right to fear that racism, or, at the very least, tremendous hatred of Obama is manifested in this Halloween mask?

Personally, in light of the tradition of portraying "the other" as a vampire, the xenophobia and racism of prominent groups who oppose Obama, and the actual appearance of the mask, I find myself greatly disturbed and can't help but ask the question if this image does not cater to that kind hostility towards our President. In the end, I am strongly inclined to think that it does appeal to the demonization of Obama constantly spewing forth from right wing extremists.

Constitution Day

Today is "Constitution Day," the Anniversary of the ratification of our nation's founding document. Though George W. Bush dismissed the Constitution as "just a god damned piece of paper," most of those who share his right-wing ideology think of themselves as its greatest defenders. The Tea-Baggers carry copies with them to rallies - almost as often as they carry firearms and racists political signs.

Of course many of them have a very narrow and literalist view of the document; much like many of the same people have a very narrow and literalist view of scripture. Just as the Bible, in their mind, is an eternal document and must be followed with wooden and a-contextual literalism, so too the constitution must be read as carved in stone, exhaustive, and eternal.

I encourage those of us who don't share Bush's dismissal or the Tea-Baggers fundamentalism to actually reflect on our constitution today. Think about it deeply, carefully, and critically.

If we do not examine it carefully, we sacrifice our founding document to the constitutional idolatry of the Tea-baggers. And just as we should not sacrifice the Bible to the wacko fundamentalists who worship it, as if paper and ink were their God, we must not allow the Constitution to suffer such a fate either.


Postscript: Here is a little info on Constitution Day

A Move toward Socialism? Hardly.

Nice story from NPR here. Could we stop using the term "Socialist" without understanding what it means or how it works? Please, listen to this interview and let's start to think more clearly about what's really going on.



Rule one: KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!!!!!