On Wisconsin
by digby
I think most of us are riveted on the events in the middle east and the amazing idealistic hope that they will be able to establish democratic governments throughout the region without major bloodshed.
But I’m gobsmacked that some of this protest energy is showing itself in America too. Think Progress reports:
ThinkProgress has been following both Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) recent “budget repair bill,” which would effectively eliminate state workers’ right to collectively bargain, and his coinciding threat to deploy the National Guard to stop a walkout. Yesterday, the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers criticized Walker, saying that collective bargaining is “fundamental” to the middle class. Approximately 13,000 peaceful protesters flooded the state Capitol yesterday, including nearly 800 Madison East High School students who left school to protest Walker’s bill. Democratic lawmakers listened to testimonies from citizens for more than 20 hours, stretching into the early morning. Many people who hadn’t yet gotten to speak pulled out sleeping bags. Responding to his inappropriate threat to use the National Guard against resisting workers, Walker said last night on Greta Van Susteren’s On The Record that the National Guard has contingency plans for natural disasters, and a worker “walk-off is part of [the] contingency plan”:
VAN SUSTEREN: You have the Guard on alert. Why, if that is true? WALKER: No, in our case we have contingency plans that we put into place that are updated from where they were before. The National Guard is part of that. They would be part of that whether it is a snow emergency, tornado, earthquake, flood, anything else. And a work walk-off is part of contingency plan.
Walker also dismissed the huge numbers of protesters, saying that the number of participants (reportedly 13,000) was not significant because there are “about 5.5 million people in the state.”
I continue to be amazed that the Tea Partiers, who are allegedly willing to take up arms against the despotic socialsit government at the drop of a hat, are backing this fellow. If anyone has even a shred of doubt left that these so-called libertarians are nothing more than sad, confused, ideological drama queens, this should eliminate it. After all, what we are seeing in Wisconsin is a “leader” who is stating that he will bring in the army to stop American citizens from exercising their rights. This is the very definition of the “men with guns” libertarian boogeyman.
The good news is that Americans rarely get off their couches unless there’s a big sale at the mall, but this fine fellow seems to have found the formula to get it done. And it’s pretty inspirational. Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Algeria, Wisconsin … the US?
Correction: edited to say “major” bloodshed as people have, in fact, died and been wounded and died.
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