Did you know Thousands of Protesters Stayed Overnight at Wisconsin St Capitol?

[charrington]

For the last two days, protestors have been marching on the Wisconsin State Capitol, protesting Governor Scott Walker's new union-busting budget proposal. Last night, a public forum was held and protesters got a chance to speak inside the Capitol to let their voices be heard. As of early Wednesday morning, citizens are still speaking to the Joint Finance Committee in the Capitol.

Tuesday, February 15, 10:42 PM: Thousands of demonstrators are inside the Capitol, demanding a chance to speak in an open forum. Officials have been allowing citizens to sign up on a list, but are debating closing down the list due to overcrowding and public safety reasons. Video here.

11:20 PM: I conducted interviews with three members of the University of Wisconsin community, which can all be seen below.

"I'm worried about the future," Jason Kempe, a Spanish teaching assistant, told me. "I don't have a problem with losing, but I do have a problem with abolishing the ability to negotiate," he said. Watch the full interview here.

Then I spoke with Chris McKim, a recent UW graduate who recently spent time abroad in Nepal. "Where I was living in Nepal, they are coming out of 15 years of civil war over very basic human rights, one of them the right to peacefully assemble and collectively bargain in unions," McKim said. "To see something like that stripped from us here at home, it's horrifying." Watch the full interview here.

"We want our professors to be the best and we want our TA's to be the best," said Meghan Ford, an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin. "They work extremely hard and to take away their pay like this is a basic violation of human rights, not just worker's rights." Watch the full interview here.

Wednesday, February 16, 12:22 AM: It's past midnight here but the crowd has not thinned out much.

I just talked to Leif Brottem, a sixth-year PHD student and research assistant at UW-Madison. "Taking away health insurance and taking away bargaining rights of the union really... it's going to negatively effect the university's ability to attract students which are the lifeblood of the university." Watch the full interview here.

Then, I interviewed Zachary DeQuattro, a TAA member and Zoology teaching assistant at UW-Madison. "I'm here tonight in support of my wife whose a Madison school teacher, and in support of myself and other graduate students," DeQuattro told me. He said of the proposed bill, "It's really the start of losing the whole union setup. The union will be eaten up trying to re-certify every year and it's just a real shame." Watch the full interview here.

12:51 AM: Just got word from a student upstairs that this hearing will likely go on all night. The Republicans may leave at 2:00 when they initially anticipated the forum to end, but I'm hearing that this will go on all night.

2:00 AM: It is officially 2:00 AM and the forum is still going strong. I'm with a few hundred people in the atrium of the building, some of whom are fast asleep.

2:02 AM: All of the lights went off for about 10 seconds, which was met wit...

MORE * VIDEO
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-vines/live-updates-protesters-s_b_823836.html

[happyJoy]

Well they are so screwed because the mindset here is so anti-union.
This goes back to the FBI Mob Cointelpro infiltration and takeover of unions since the 40's.

So we should support collective organization of labor.
And create new unions unfettered by FBI/mob corrupted control.

The first attempts at unionization in North America were by cowboys.
Dallas started out as a French Collective - "La Reunion".

Don't believe the Hollywood hype.

[Guns Equal Freedom]

Wow, have the Communists won. Not only did teachers strike, which they aren't even allowed to in their contracts. They brought the kids into their mess too. They should fire all those teachers for using the kids as their pawns in chess, and breech of contact too.

[mr anderson]

Wisconsin Governor Threatens To Call Out National Guard As Union-Busting Tactic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v428RBBeK70

[bigron]

Common Dreams Twitter Feed


Wisconsin Rises Up



HERE


http://www.commondreams.org/uprising

[bigron]

Chomsky: Uprising in the USA?

World-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky discusses the protests in defense of public sector employees and unions in Wisconsin.

By Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky, Democracy Now!
Posted on February 18, 2011, Printed on February 18, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149953/

World-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky discusses several domestic issues in the United States, including the protests in defense of public sector employees and unions in Wisconsin, how the U.S. deification of former President Ronald Reagan resembles North Korea, and the crackdown on political activists with anti-terror laws and FBI raids.

AMY GOODMAN: This month is the 15th anniversary of Democracy Now! on the air, and it’s a real privilege to have MIT professor, analyst, world-renowned political dissident, linguist, Noam Chomsky with us. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan Gonzalez, and we’ve been together for this whole 15 years, Juan. It’s really been quite an amazing journey.

As we talk about this revolution that’s rolling across the Middle East, we put out to our listeners and viewers on Facebook last night that, Noam, you were going to be in. And so, people were sending in their comments and questions. We asked, on Facebook and Twitter, to send us questions. Here is one of the questions.

RYAN ADSERIAS: Hello, Professor Chomsky. My name is Ryan Adserias, and I’m a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and also the child of a long line of working-class union folks. I don’t know if you’ve been noticing, but we’ve been holding a lot of protests and rallies here in our capital to protest Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to break collective bargaining rights that Wisconsin workers worked hard for over 50 years ago and have enjoyed ever since. We closed all the schools around here for tomorrow—today and tomorrow, actually. The teaching assistants here at the university are staging teach-outs. The undergraduates are walking out of class to show solidarity. And all of this is because our governor and governors all around the country are proposing legislation that’s going to end collective bargaining and really break the unions. I’ve also been noticing that there’s not a whole lot of national representation of our struggle and our movement, and it’s really been troubling me. So my question to you is, how exactly is it that we can get the attention of our national Democratic and progressive leaders to speak out against these measures and to help end union busting here in the United States?

NOAM CHOMSKY: It’s very interesting. The reason why you can’t get Democratic leaders to join is because they agree. They are also trying to destroy the unions. In fact, if you take a look at—take, say, the lame-duck session. The great achievement in the lame-duck session for which Obama is greatly praised by Democratic Party leaders is that they achieved bipartisan agreement on several measures. The most important one was the tax cut. And the issue in the tax cut—there was only one issue—should there be a tax cut for the very rich? The population was overwhelmingly against it, I think about two to one. There wasn’t even a discussion of it, they just gave it away. And the very same time, the less noticed was that Obama declared a tax increase for federal workers. Now, it wasn’t called a "tax increase"; it’s called a "freeze." But if you think for 30 seconds, a freeze on pay for a federal workers is fiscally identical to a tax increase for federal workers. And when you extend it for five years, as he said later, that means a decrease, because of population growth, inflation and so on. So he basically declared an increase in taxes for federal workers at the same time that there’s a tax decrease for the very rich.

And there’s been a wave of propaganda over the last couple of months, which is pretty impressive to watch, trying to deflect attention away from those who actually created the economic crisis, like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, their associates in the government who—Federal Reserve and others—let all this go on and helped it. There’s a—to switch attention away from them to the people really responsible for the crisis—teachers, police, firefighters, sanitation workers, their huge pensions, their incredible healthcare benefits, Cadillac healthcare benefits, and their unions, who are the real villains, the ones who are robbing the taxpayer by making sure that policemen may not starve when they retire. And this is pretty amazing, like right in the middle of the Madison affair, which is critical.

The CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, got a $12.5 million bonus, and his base pay was more than tripled. Well, that means he—the rules of corporate governments have been modified in the last 30 years by the U.S. government to allow the chief executive officer to pretty much set their own salaries. There’s various ways in which this has been done, but it’s government policy. And one of the effects of it is—people talk about inequality, but what’s a little less recognized is that although there is extreme inequality, it’s mostly because of the top tiny fraction of the population, so like a fraction of one percent of the population, their wealth has just shot through the stratosphere. You go down to the—you know, the next 10 percent are doing pretty well, but it’s not off the spectrum. And this is by design.

AMY GOODMAN: The New York Times coverage of Madison?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, that was very interesting. In fact, I urge people to take a look at the February 12th issue of the New York Times, the big front-page headline, you know, banner headline, "Mubarak Leaves," its kind of subheadings say, "Army Takes Over." They’re about 60 years late on that; it took over in 1952, but—and it has held power ever since.

But then if you go to an inside page—I don’t know what page it is—there’s an article on the Governor of Wisconsin. And he’s pretty clear about what he wants to do. I mean, certainly he is aware of and senses this attack on public workers, on unions and so on, and he wants to be upfront, so he announced a sharp attack on public service workers and unions, as the questioner said, to ban collective bargaining, take away their pensions. And he also said that he’d call out the National Guard if there was any disruption about this. Now, that’s happening now to Wisconsin. In Egypt, public protests have driven out the president. There’s a lot of problems about what will happen next, but an overwhelming reaction there.

And I was—it was heartening to see that there are tens of thousands of people protesting in Madison day after day, in fact. I mean, that’s the beginning, maybe, of what we really need here: a democracy uprising. Democracy has almost been eviscerated. Take a look at the front-page headlines today, this morning, Financial Times at least. They predict—the big headline, the big story—that the next election is going to break all campaign spending records, and they predict $2 billion of campaign spending. Well, you know, a couple of weeks ago, the Obama administration selected somebody to be in charge of what they call "jobs." "Jobs" is a funny word in the English language. It’s the way of pronouncing an unpronounceable word. I’ll spell it: P-R-O-F-I-T-S. You’re not allowed to say that word, so the way you pronounce that is "jobs." The person he selected to be in charge of creating jobs is Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, which has more than half their workforce overseas. And, you know, I’m sure he’s deeply interested in jobs in the United States. But what he has is deep pockets, and also, not just him, but connections to the tiny sector of the ultra-rich corporate elite, which is going to provide that billion or billion-and-a-half dollars for the campaign. Well, that’s what’s going on.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I’d like to ask you about this whole issue of the assault on unions. Clearly, it has arisen in the last few months in a coordinated way. Here in New York State, all the major business people have gotten together, raised $10 million to begin an ad campaign, and they’re being supported by both the Democratic new governor, Andrew Cuomo, and as well as the Republican-Independent Mayor Bloomberg. But they seem to be going after the public sector unions after having essentially destroyed most of the private sector union movement in the United States. They realize that the public sector unions are still the only vibrant section of the American labor movement, so now they’re really going after them in particular. Yet, you’ve got these labor leaders who helped get Obama elected and who helped get Andy Cuomo elected, and they’re not yet making the stand in a strong enough way to mobilize people against these policies.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. There has been a huge attack against private sector unions. Actually, that’s been going on since the Second World War. After the Second World War, business was terrified about the radicalization of the country during the Depression and then the war, and it started right off—Taft-Hartley was 1947—huge propaganda campaigns to demonize unions. It really—and it continued until you get to the Reagan administration.

Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs—hadn’t been done for a long time, and it’s illegal in most countries—in the air controller strike. Reagan essentially—by "Reagan," I mean his administration; I don’t know what he knew—but they basically told the business world that they’re not going to apply the labor laws. So, that means you can break unions any way you like. And in fact, the number of firing of union organizers, illegal firing, I think probably tripled during the Reagan years.

Then, in fact, by the early '90s, Caterpillar Corporation, first major industrial corporation, called in scabs to break a strike of industrial workers, UAW. That's—I think the only country that allowed that was South Africa. And then it spread.

When Clinton came along, he had another way of destroying unions. It’s called NAFTA. One of the predicted consequences of NAFTA, which in fact worked out, was it would be used as a way to undermine unions—illegally, of course. But when you have a criminal state, it doesn’t matter. So, there was actually a study, under NAFTA rules, that investigated illegal strike breaking organizing efforts by threats, illegal threats, to transfer to Mexico. So, if union organizers are trying to organize, you put up a sign saying, you know, "Transfer operation Mexico." In other words, you shut up, or you’re going to lose your jobs. That’s illegal. But again, if you have a criminal state, it doesn’t matter.

Well, by measures like this, private sector unions have been reduced to, I think, maybe seven percent of the workforce. Now, it’s not that workers don’t want to join unions. In fact, many studies of this, there’s a huge pool of workers who want to join unions, but they can’t. And they’re getting no support from the political system. And part of the reason, not all of it, is these $2 billion campaigns. Now, this really took off in the late '70s and the ’80s. You want to run for office, then you're going to have to dig into very deep pockets. And as the income distribution gets more and more skewed, that means you’re going to have to go after Jeffrey Immelt and Lloyd Blankfein, and so on and so forth, if you want to even be in office. Take a look at the 2008 campaign spending. Obama way outspent McCain. He was funded—his main source of funding was the financial institutions.

MORE

http://www.alternet.org/story/149953/chomsky%3A_uprising_in_the_usa

[bigron]

Wisconsin Is a Battleground Against the Billionaire Kochs' Plan to Break Labor's Back

The war on Wisconsin employees isn't just about the budget or Wisconsin: Koch toady Gov. Walker is just one soldier in the billionaire's offensive to kill labor.


By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet
Posted on February 18, 2011, Printed on February 18, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/149965/

As some 30,000 protesters overwhelmed the state capitol building in Wisconsin today, Democratic state senators hit the road, reportedly with State Police officers in pursuit. The Dems left the state in order to deprive Republicans the necessary quorum for taking a vote on Gov. Scott Walker's bill to strip benefits and collective bargaining rights from state workers. Newsradio 620 WTMJ reported that the Democratic senators were holed up in a Rockford, Illinois, hotel, out of reach of Wisconsin state troopers. Now, it seems, Republican lawmakers are beginning to waver on their support for the union-busting bill.

Last week, Walker threatened to activate the National Guard in the event of any disruption in services from public employees that, he said, could occur as a result of his legislation.

Gov. Walker claims that his war on the public workers in his state is simply about balancing Wisconsin's budget; believe that and there's a collapsed bridge in MInnesota I'd like to sell you. The fact is, Walker is carrying out the wishes of his corporate master, David Koch, who calls the tune these days for Wisconsin Republicans. Walker is just one among many Wisconsin Republicans supported by Koch Industries -- run by David Koch and his brother, Charles -- and Americans For Prosperity, the astroturf group founded and funded by David Koch. The Koch brothers are hell-bent on destroying the labor movement once and for all.

During his election campaign, Walker received the maximum $15,000 contribution from Koch Industries, according to Think Progress, and support worth untold hundreds of thousands from the Koch-funded astroturf group, Americans For Prosperity. AlterNet recently reported the role of Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and Americans For Prosperity in a vote-caging scheme apparently designed to suppress the votes of African-Americans and college students in Milwaukee. In 2008, Walker served as emcee for an awards ceremony held by Americans For Prosperity. There, he conferred the "Defender of the American Dream" award on Rep. Paul Ryan, now chairman of the House Budget Committee.

On Monday, AlterNet reported on the gaggle of Koch-sponsored politicians who individually graced the podium at last weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference (including several from Wisconsin:  Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Ron Johnson). Rep. Michele Bachmann, also a Koch favorite from next-door Minnesota, kicked off the conference.

Not Just About Wisconsin -- or State Workers

It's said that states are the laboratories of democracy, but the Kochs are determined to make Wisconsin a laboratory of corporate oligarchy. Nationwide, the war on public workers -- and government in general -- is not simply a facet of an ideological notion about the virtues of small government. The war on government is a war against the labor movement, which has much higher rates of union membership in the public sector than it does in the private sector.

Labor is seen by corporate leaders as the last strong line of resistance against the wholesale takeover of government (and your tax dollars) by corporations. So, by this line of thought, labor must die.

But it's even deeper than that. The labor movement holds whatever modicum of workplace fairness standards exist for the rest of workers, be they organized or not. Contracts won by organized workers function as a ceiling for what the rest of the workforce is able to demand. Without the labor movement, there's not a worker anywhere in the nation who has much of a bargaining position with her or his employer. And that's the way David Koch and his brother, Charles, want it.

Midwest Frontier Province of Kochistan

Although headquartered in Kansas, Koch Industries has at least 17 facilities and offices in Wisconsin (by my rough count of facilities and companies noted on the Koch Industries "Wisconsin Facts" page), and operates "nearly 4,000 miles of pipeline" through its Koch Pipeline Company, L.P. Which may account for Wisconsin's evolution into the Midwest Frontier Province of Kochistan.


The conglomerate boasts "four terminals and strategically located pipelines" through its Flint Hills Resources, LLC, which it describes as "a leading refining and chemicals company" that markets "gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethanol, olefins, polymers and intermediate chemicals, as well as base oils and asphalt."

The Kochs' Georgia Pacific paper and wood products division has six facilities in Wisconsin. Its C. Reiss Coal Company "is a leading supplier of coal used to generate power," according to the Koch Web site. "The company has locations in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan."

Is it any wonder that Gov. Walker signed Americans For Prosperity's pledge (PDF) against energy reform legislation?

MORE

http://www.alternet.org/story/149965/wisconsin_is_a_battleground_against_the_billionaire_kochs%27_plan_to_break_labor%27s_back

[larsonstdoc]

Wisconsin Governor Threatens To Call Out National Guard As Union-Busting Tactic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v428RBBeK70

  Gee!  Possible blood in the streets. Madison is one of the most liberal places in America.  Now it is biting them in the butt.

[larsonstdoc]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR2011021707325.html


SOETORO joins Wisconsin's budget battle, opposing Republican anti-union bill


By Brady Dennis and Peter Wallsten
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 18, 2011
MADISON, WIS. - President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin's broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits while planning similar action in other state capitals.

Obama accused Scott Walker, the state's new Republican governor, of unleashing an "assault" on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would nullify collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

The president's political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.

Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.

[Jackson Holly]

AUSTERITY ... we have no money!

(Right ... and at the same time pass
the largest PENTAGON budget in history.
We got plenty of money to kill people and
break things, plenty of cash to slop around
the world to tin-horn, godless, despicable,
debauched dictators and KINGS ... but
not enough money to put food on the tables
of our own HARD WORKING people.)

[larsonstdoc]

AUSTERITY ... we have no money!

(Right ... and at the same time pass
the largest PENTAGON budget in history.
We got plenty of money to kill people and
break things, plenty of cash to slop around
the world to tin-horn, godless, despicable,
debauched dictators and KINGS ... but
not enough money to put food on the tables
of our own HARD WORKING people.)

  Right on JH.  Money for the Kings and no money for those with the pitchforks.  Of course it's FIAT MONEY. Print it kings.

[bigron]

Published on Friday, February 18, 2011 by The Nation

'First Amendment Remedies': How Wisconsin Workers Grabbed
the Constitution Back From the Right-Wing Royalists


by John Nichols


David Vines, a University of Wisconsin student joined the mass protests against Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights on Monday. The political science student marched on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He slept overnight in the Capital to make sure that the legislature did not approve Walker’s plan without a fight.

Why? “This is what the founders intended,” says Vines.

And he is right. 


When Democratic members of the Wisconsin State Senate walked out on Capital on Thursday – denying the Republican majority quorum that was necessary to pass the legislation -- they were attacked by Walker and his cronies.  The governor called the boycott a “stunt” and claimed the Democrats were disrepecting democracy. 

After all, Walker’s backers noted, the governor and his Republican allies won an election last Novembe 

That is true. 

But Wisconsin’s greatest governor, Robert M. La Follette, declared: “"We have long rested comfortably in this country upon the assumption that because our form of government was democratic, it was therefore automatically producing democratic results. Now, there is nothing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of democratic institutions that should make them self-operative. Tyranny and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any other. We are slow to realize that democracy is a life; and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated." 

La Follette’s point, apparently lost on Walker, is that democracy does not end on Election Day. That’s when it begins.  Citizens do not elect officials to rule them from one election to the next. Citizens elect officials to represent them, to respond to the will of the people as it evolves.

While conservative zealots talk about “2nd amendment remedies” for the challenges faced by civil society, the Wisconsinites who took to the streets to protest an assault on labor rights opted for another amendment to the founding document that the right tries so very hard to claim as the property of a single ideology. 

The sign that David Vines carried as he marched Thursday declared for: “First Amendment Remedies!”   What did he mean? Read the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

MORE

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/18-7

[bigron]

Published on Friday, February 18, 2011 by The Ed Show / MSNBC


Ed Schultz Talks with John Nichols about the Wisconsin Protests

Ed Schultz wraps up the week in Wisconsin news, saying, "This is about our country, our future."


Ed will again be at the Wisconsin capitol giving on the ground updates, and then hosting a special friday edition of The Ed Show covering the protesting workers.

WATCH VIDEO:

http://www.commondreams.org/video/2011/02/18

[bigron]

Published on Friday, February 18, 2011 by The Nation

A Time for Resistance

by Katrina vanden Heuvel


A friend e-mailed me this morning, "Do you think events taking place in Wisconsin might be as important as what's happening in Cairo, if the media really got the word out? Might it be the spark to halt the Tea Party Express?" Another friend e-mailed, "It's possible that this labor strike in Wisconsin could become our Uncut." (In response to Britain's draconian public spending cuts, citizens there formed UK Uncut, a Twitter-organized movement, to protest wealthy tax evaders. If the rich paid for their fair share of taxes, the movement argues, the pressure on the state budget would diminish or disappear.)

Wisconsin's Republican governor and Republican-dominated legislature are moving to destroy organized labor, moving to abolish democratic rights that were the essence of the New Deal, and treating working-class Americans as though they were meaningless in our country's mosaic. Meanwhile, those who are responsible for the catastrophic financial crisis are riding high--and in the name of deficits they largely caused, they insist that those who worked a lifetime to build and own their homes, to send their children to public schools, to have security in their retirement years, to have decent medical care--that those citizens should pay the price for budgetary crises in honor, dignity and decency.

There are some who still respect the contributions of working people: Contrast what Governor Walker is doing in Wisconsin with the constructive steps the new Democratic Governor of Connecticut, Dannel Malloy, is taking to address the same problems. But there are too many cheerleaders for fiscal austerity roaming our political landscape, abetted by a mindless mainstream media's suffocating consensus.

However, as the events in Cairo, and now Wisconsin, show us, this is a moment of extraordinary possibility. It is a time for global, nonviolent challenge to anti-democratic forces, wherever they may be--forces that have enriched themselves while promising stability based on coercion, suppression of rights and profound corruption.

This remarkable moment is captured in a small book by Stéphane Hessel, a 93-year-old distinguished French diplomat, leader of the Resistance, survivor of Nazi concentration camps and drafter of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Published last October in France, Hessel's "Indignez-Vous!" (which could be translated as "Get Angry!" or--my preference--"Time for Outrage!") and its message of resistance and  nonviolence became a publishing phenomenon--unexpectedly reaching the top of France's bestseller list and selling close to 2 million copies

MORE

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/18-2

[bigron]

Egypt's Spirit Lands in Wisconsin



by Stephen Lendman



February 18, 2011

It landed, but it's too soon to know where it's going or how committed workers are to stay the course and spread it to other US states.

On February 16, however, former Senator Russ Feingold launched Progressives United.org (PU), an initiative he hopes will inspire "a new progressive movement" to hold elected officials accountable by challenging corporate influence in politics.

It also opposes the Supreme Court's January 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, sanctioning unlimited corporate spending in elections (the one dollar = one vote ruling by America's supremely pro-business court). Feingold called it:

"one of the most lawless decisions in the history of our country. The idea of allowing corporations to have unlimited influence on our democracy is very dangerous, obviously. That's exactly what it does. Things were like this 100 years ago....with the huge corporate and business power of the oil companies and others. But this time, it's like the Gilded Age on steroids."

According to Feingold, PU won't take soft money or unlimited contributions, saying:

"We're going to be reporting every dime that we get, whether required by law or not....It will be 100 percent accountable, and that is an important principle that I believe in that we'll follow to the T....as a way of contrasting it to what's going on with the corporate money" that buys politicians like toothpaste.

It remains to be seen whether Feingold will prove true to his word, if his agenda also challenges other major issues, including imperial lawlessness and growing homeland repression. Crucially also is whether it spreads, inspiring similar efforts across America.

American Courts, like Politicians, Support Power, not People

Previous articles discussed the High Court's anti-populist agenda under Chief Justice John Roberts, one of several accessed through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/07/supreme-court-inc-supr
emely-pro.html

The tradition, however, way pre-dated him, notably articulated by John Jay, America's first chief justice, saying the country should be run by those who own it. Also in Marbury v. Madison (1803), establishing the principle of judicial supremacy, making the Court the final arbiter of what is or is not the law, a disturbing precedent subsequent courts abused repeatedly.

Besides trashing civil liberty protections, its Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision (1886) was perhaps its worst by granting corporations personhood under the 14th Amendment, with all accruing rights and privileges but none of the obligations. More than any other ruling, including Citizens United, it gave them unchecked powers to become the dominant institution of our time, able to control Congress, the Executive, and state and federal courts as well as act lawlessly against public welfare interests.

On Wisconsin

Milwaukee's Journal Sentinel (JS) covered the uprising from inception in response to Republican Governor Scott Walker, in office since January 3, waging war against public workers and their unions, aiming to legislate restrictions of their collective bargaining rights to wage negotiations only.

He also wants state employees to double their health insurance and pension contributions, effectively enacting a 7% haircut if passed. In addition, he demands future pay raises not exceed annual Consumer Price Index increases, an index rigged to mask inflation's real toll, including for rent, medical care, food, energy, and other everyday household essentials.

On February 16, JS headlines included:

-- "Crowds growing at the Capitol," citing their numbers, intensity and anger, shouting "kill the bill," and waving placards reading "only the little people pay taxes." They filled the rotunda as Joint Finance Committee members prepared to vote to strip workers of hard won rights they're struggling hard to preserve.

-- "Madison West students walk out," hundreds emptying classrooms to protest school curriculum changes to save money and sabotage their educations.

-- "State's battle lines: Are state union workers beyond belief?" saying politicians follow a long tradition, serving power, not popular interests;

-- "Union chief asks MPS (Milwaukee Public Schools) to close schools Thursday," many teachers joining protesters.

-- "State workers rally at UWM (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)" against proposed cuts in wages, benefits and union rights.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) supports Democrats in congressional elections. Its web site - http://boldprogressives.org/home - urged members to:

"Call your state senator: Vote NO on Walker's radical proposal" and against his threat to use National Guard troops against state residents.

In an email to 13,000 Wisconsin members, it said:

"The idea that a governor can use the military to impose his personal, political will on the people he governs is a primitive relic of the past - one that resulted in a century of bloodshed in this country."

Howard Zinn wrote poignantly about the 1913-14 Ludlow, Colorado coal strike and subsequent massacre, killing 75 or more strikers, strike breakers, and bystanders for defying what he called "feudal kingdoms run by (coal barons that) made the laws," imposed curfews, and ran their operations more like despots than businessmen.

In 1968, force was last used against US workers during Memphis' sanitation strike, days before Martin Luther King's assassination, there to support them.

The last time in Wisconsin was in 1886, days after Chicago's Haymarket massacre killing police and striking workers, when state militia forces fired on striking Milwaukee steel workers, killing seven.

Citizen Action of Wisconsin (CAW) also condemned Walker's threat, its February 14 press release calling it "shockingly extreme, without modern precedent, and an attempt to coerce public workers," violating their First Amendment rights.

CAW's executive director, Robert Kraig, said:

"It is hard to ascribe any motive other than the coercion of public employees to deter them from exercising their Constitutional right to speak out and protest against unjust government actions. It is a classic union busting tactic to use the threat of dire consequences, and even violence, to deter legitimate protest and speech."

To enlist support, CAW launched a new web site, accessed through the following link:
http://www.notmywisconsin.com/

On February 16, New York Times writers Monica Davey and Steven Greenhouse, reporting from Madison, headlined, "Angry Demonstrations in Wisconsin as Cuts Loom," saying:

Defying Walker's threats, "protesters, scores deep, crushed into a corridor leading to (his) office here on Wednesday, their screams echoing through the Capitol: 'Come out, come out, wherever you are!' "

Behind closed doors, Walker issued a press release saying:

If he declares a state of emergency, his "bill authorizes appointing authorities to terminate any employees that are absent for three days without approval of the employer or any employees that participate in an organized action to stop or slow work."

In a separate statement, he added: "We didn't get elected to worry about the politics. For us, it's simple. We're broke," but his solution follows Washington's, making workers pay for Wall Street crimes and corporate enrichment, leaving them free to keep pillaging.

Stanford University's Professor William Gould, a former National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) chairman, said:

"I'm sure we're going to hear more from other states where Republican governors are trying to heap the entire burden of the financial crisis on public employees and (their) unions. I think it's quite possible that if they're successful in doing this, a lot of other Republican governors will emulate" them.

In fact, Gould omitted saying Democrats are as ruthless as Republicans, including Obama and governors in dozens of states - slashing budgets, cutting workforces, and eliminating or reducing benefits since 2008, a process so far with no end in sight on the backs of ordinary workers least able to cope
 
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[No2NWO]

Protests at Capitol keep growing
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/116517683.html

[bigron]

Obama’s cynical posturing on Wisconsin protests


By Patrick Martin



WSWS, February 18, 2011

President Obama gave an interview to a Milwaukee television station Wednesday, trying to posture as a supporter of Wisconsin public workers, as mass working-class protests develop against cuts demanded by Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker.

The content of his remarks—to say nothing of the record of his administration—showed that Obama agrees with Walker’s goals, however, and merely quibbles with his provocative tactics and rhetoric.

Obama spoke with a WTMJ television reporter for ten minutes, an interview set up hastily as the scale of the confrontation in Wisconsin began to become apparent.

The first question was about his reaction to Walker’s actions in pushing through legislation to eliminate collective bargaining rights for most public employees.

"Everybody’s got to make some adjustments to new fiscal realities," he began, endorsing the basic falsification employed by Democratic and Republican politicians alike to justify cuts in public employee wages and benefits.

None of these big-business politicians suggests that the wealthy "make some adjustments." On the contrary, Obama and Congress pushed through a further extension of tax cuts for the rich less than two months ago. This is on top of the trillions of dollars that US authorities have handed to Wall Street during the Obama administration.

Obama also endorsed the hollow claim that wage cuts are necessary to "save jobs," echoing the pretext used by Walker that his cuts were critical to "avoiding layoffs." The president added that he himself had imposed a two-year wage freeze on federal government workers, using the same justification, that it would avert layoffs.

He then continued, "Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally seems like more of an assault on unions." It was wrong to "vilify" these workers, he said, "or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees."

The vague and tepid language is typical of a man who pretends to find middle ground in escalating class conflict. Most significant, however, is the subject Obama avoided: when asked about Walker’s threat to call out the National Guard, he said nothing about it. Nor did he criticize the governor for preparing to use troops to suppress political opposition from the working class.

Obama is opposed to only one aspect of Walker’s policy in Wisconsin: his refusal to enlist the AFL-CIO and teacher union officials to enforce wage and benefit cuts on public employees, as Democratic governors have done in state after state. In other words, he supports the aims of Walker’s policy—the destruction of living standards and democratic rights for working people—but he proposes an alternative method.

This fact is underscored by the comments of Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, at a two-day conference in Denver, Colorado that took place as the crisis in Wisconsin exploded. Duncan has been the point man for the Obama administration’s assault on public school teachers—using the "Race to the Top" funding to incite state governments to outdo each other in taking measures that disregard seniority, gut working conditions, and slash wages and benefits, in the name of improving "failing schools."

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