'This Is What Democracy Looks Like' in Wisconsin, as Largest Crowd Yet --
80,000 -- Opposes Union Busting
by John Nichols
The Nation: February 20, 2010
MADISON -- Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker finished a bad week with a
misstep that emphasized his inability to generate support for his attempt to
strip the state's public employees of collective bargaining rights.
First, the governor's radical proposal went to such extremes in its
anti-labor bias that it sparked a protest movement so large, so steady and
so determined in its demands that it is now commonly compared with the
protests that have rocked Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries.
Then, the man that badges worn by marchers describe as "The Mubarak of the
Middle West" really blew it. Saturday was supposed to be the day when the
governor pushed back against the movement that has challenged his radical
power grab. The governor's Tea Party allies attempted to grab the spotlight
with a rally at the state Capital. Unfortunately, the much-hyped event,
which national Tea Party groups had poured money and organizing energy into
generating, drew an anemic crowd of several thousand. Even by the optimistic
estimates of the Tea Partisans themselves, the pro-Walker turnout was
one-tenth the size of the crowd that came to oppose the governor's so-called
"budget repair bill."
The governor made things worse for himself by going on CNN and announcing
that he had received 19,000 emails from the "quiet majority" of
Wisconsinites since he made his proposal and claimed that most of them were
supportive.
Dumb move. Really dumb move.
Within hours of making his claim, the streets of Madison were filled by what
veteran political organizers described as the largest demonstration ever
seen in the city. Former Mayor Paul Soglin, a key organizer of anti-Vietnam
War protests, said, "We had some big demonstrations in the sixties, but this
is bigger."
Organizers of a 2004 rally featuring Democratic presidential candidate John
Kerry and rocker Bruce Springsteen, where the crowd was estimated at 80,000,
pointed out that Saturday's protest against Walker's budget filled a
significantly larger space. And, they noted, thousands of addition opponents
of the governor's proposal packed the Capitol.
Mahlon Mitchell, the president of the Wisconsin Professional Firefighters
Association, which has been a high-profile participant in the
demonstrations, surveyed the crowd while recounting Walker's boast about the
19,000 emails.
"I think I have 19,000 people behind me," said Mitchell.
Pointing to one edge of the massive audience arrayed before him, he said:
"And 20,000 there."
He pointed to the other edge of the crowd: "And 20,000 there."
Finally, he pointed down State Street, the thoroughfare that stretches from
the Capitol to the University of Wisconsin campus, which was packed with
students who have backed the unions: "And 20,000 there."
Rallying with Mitchell was Wisconsin Education Association Council president
Mary Bell, who picked up on the "this-is-what-democracy-looks-like" theme
that has become so central to the marches, rallies and pickets that have
swept not just Madison but a state where even small towns have seen protests
against Walker's bill.
"The power of government in this state does not come from this Capitol," she
said of the building that was surrounded by teachers, educational
assistants, nurses, snow-plow drivers and state engineers, as well as their
tens of thousands of backers. "The power comes from the people."
And while Scott Walker may claim a "quiet majority" of 19,000 emails
received by his office, a noisy majority of more than 80,000 Wisconsinites
braved a winter day to tell the governor that the people have spoken:
They're
with the unions.
© 2011 The Nation
***
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/5003-the-republican-strategy
The Republican Strategy
By Robert Reich,
Robert Reich's Blog: 19 February 11
The Republican strategy is to split the vast middle and working class -
pitting unionized workers against non-unionized, public-sector workers
against non-public, older workers within sight of Medicare and Social
Security against younger workers who don't believe these programs will be
there for them, and the poor against the working middle class.
By splitting working America along these lines, Republicans want Americans
to believe that we can no longer afford to do what we need to do as a
nation. They hope to deflect attention from the increasing share of total
income and wealth going to the richest 1 percent while the jobs and wages of
everyone else languish.
Republicans would rather no one notice their campaign to shrink the pie even
further with additional tax cuts for the rich - making the Bush tax cuts
permanent, further reducing the estate tax, and allowing the wealthy to
shift ever more of their income into capital gains taxed at 15 percent.
The strategy has three parts.
The Battle Over the Federal Budget
The first is being played out in the budget battle in Washington. As they
raise the alarm over deficit spending and simultaneously squeeze popular
middle-class programs, Republicans want the majority of the American public
to view it all as a giant zero-sum game among average Americans that some
will have to lose.
The President has already fallen into the trap by calling for budget cuts in
programs the poor and working class depend on - assistance with home
heating, community services, college loans, and the like.
In the coming showdown over Medicare and Social Security, House budget chair
Paul Ryan will push a voucher system for Medicare and a partly-privatized
plan for Social Security - both designed to attract younger middle-class
voters.
The Assault on Public Employees
The second part of the Republican strategy is being played out on the state
level where public employees are being blamed for state budget crises.
Unions didn't cause these budget crises - state revenues dropped because of
the Great Recession - but Republicans view them as opportunities to gut
public employee unions, starting with teachers.
Wisconsin's Republican governor Scott Walker and his GOP legislature are
seeking to end almost all union rights for teachers. Ohio's Republican
governor John Kasich is pushing a similar plan in Ohio through a
Republican-dominated legislature. New Jersey's Republican governor Chris
Christie is attempting the same, telling a conservative conference
Wednesday, "I'm attacking the leadership of the union because they're
greedy, and they're selfish and they're self-interested."
The demonizing of public employees is not only based on the lie that they've
caused these budget crises, but it's also premised on a second lie: that
public employees earn more than private-sector workers. They don't, when you
take account of their education. In fact over the last fifteen years the pay
of public-sector workers, including teachers, has dropped relative to
private-sector employees with the same level of education - even including
health and retirement benefits. Moreover, most public employees don't have
generous pensions. After a career with annual pay averaging less than
$45,000, the typical newly-retired public employee receives a pension of
$19,000 a year.
Bargaining rights for public employees haven't caused state deficits to
explode. Some states that deny their employees bargaining rights, such as
Nevada, North Carolina, and Arizona, are running big deficits of over 30
percent of spending. Many states that give employees bargaining rights -
Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Montana - have small deficits of less than 10
percent.
Republicans would rather go after teachers and other public employees than
have us look at the pay of Wall Street traders, private-equity managers, and
heads of hedge funds - many of whom wouldn't have their jobs today were it
not for the giant taxpayer-supported bailout, and most of whose lending and
investing practices were the proximate cause of the Great Depression to
begin with.
Last year, America's top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of
$1 billion each. One of them took home $5 billion. Much of their income is
taxed as capital gains - at 15 percent - due to a tax loophole that
Republican members of Congress have steadfastly guarded.
If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary
income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of
300,000 teachers. Who is more valuable to our society - thirteen hedge-fund
managers or 300,000 teachers? Let's make the question even simpler. Who is
more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?
The Distortion of the Constitution
The third part of the Republican strategy is being played out in the Supreme
Court. It has politicized the Court more than at any time in recent memory.
Last year a majority of the justices determined that corporations have a
right under the First Amendment to provide unlimited amounts of money to
political candidates. Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission is
among the most patently political and legally grotesque decisions of our
highest court - ranking right up there with Bush vs. Gore and Dred Scott.
Among those who voted in the affirmative were Clarence Thomas and Antonin
Scalia. Both have become active strategists in the Republican party.
A month ago, for example, Antonin Scalia met in a closed-door session with
Michele Bachman's Tea Party caucus - something no justice concerned about
maintaining the appearance of impartiality would ever have done.
Both Thomas and Scalia have participated in political retreats organized and
hosted by multi-billionaire financier Charles Koch, a major contributor to
the Tea Party and other conservative organizations, and a crusader for
ending all limits on money in politics. (Not incidentally, Thomas's wife is
the founder of Liberty Central, a Tea Party organization that has been
receiving unlimited corporate contributions due to the Citizens United
decision. On his obligatory financial disclosure filings, Thomas has
repeatedly failed to list her sources of income over the last twenty years,
nor even to include his own four-day retreats courtesy of Charles Koch.)
Some time this year or next, the Supreme Court will be asked to consider
whether the nation's new healthcare law is constitutional. Watch your
wallets.
The Strategy as a Whole
These three aspects of the Republican strategy - a federal budget battle to
shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on;
state efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends
on; and a Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and
entrench the political power of the wealthy - fit perfectly together.
They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention
from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top,
and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and
power.
What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the
rest of us?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California
at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently
as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve
books, including "The Work of Nations," "Locked in the Cabinet,"
"Supercapitalism" and his latest book, "AFTERSHOCK: The Next Economy and
America's Future." His 'Marketplace' commentaries can be found on
publicradio.com and iTunes.
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