The news today is too important to sound bite. In the news out of Wisconsin, where the Senate Republicans stripped out the collective bargaining issue of the budget bill (thus proving that it was never about the budget), and by illegally convening and passing the law, demonstrates that they will stop at nothing to disband the unions. What follows will answer last night's question, which was, Why is wealth re-distribution so vilified?
You know what...I'm just over this for tonight. This, I fear, is just gonna get ugly. We all know why where are where we are, and what ultimately led to this. I have not seen this country so polarized since Viet Nam, and we are in the beginning stages. That era started just like this, but we're talking about people's ability just to live here. The stakes are much higher, and there is a growing number of folks in this country getting more and more desperate.
Desperation is a bad enemy to have. SOSAD: There is nothing more dangerous than an enemy with nothing to lose. Caveat: Especially if you're the one trying to take the last of it away.
Irony of the day: The very baubles of technology that they provided us to distract from their agenda are the very things that are going to stop them. We have unprecedented access to the world, and a host of methods with which to organize and defeat them. Fifty thousand people showed up in Madison last Saturday because some guy on Facebook suggested that, even the there was a big rally planned for the following weekend, why not go anyway? Thirty-six hours later, 50,000 people showed up.
Our government is supposed to be a representative system where the politicians are directed by their constituents. Despite polling from every single outfit that does polling telling them that this was not what the voters wanted, they did it anyway. That, Hamsters, is NOT representative government. That's a dictatorship.
And while Wisconsin is the focus, what happened in Michigan is horrifying. Giving the Governor the power to completely dismantle not just unions, but entire city councils, school boards, and government services simply by declaring a fiscal emergency and appointing a single person to take over.
Hamsters, this is more than just about breaking up the unions and destroying the Democratic base...not that either of those by itself is small potatoes, but about the Corporate takeover of America. This is about privatizing services at the state and local level first. Then they can offer the jobs at lower wages and reduced benefits knowing that a job is better to have than not. We'll all be working for the company store.
Corporate America is attempting a coup. Seventeen states, 17, all led by Republican governors are simultaneously launching this attack. Here's a truly disturbing fact: 400 people in this country have more wealth than the bottom 150,000,000 COMBINED.
WTF???
I gotta stop for now, Hamsters. I've never had high blood pressure (I've been mistaken for dead a couple times because it's so low) but I'm pretty sure it's up there right now.
Stay safe, and good luck.
Hamster Prez
Mark, I personally think that the corporatist Fundie elite have made a big mistake with their arrogant displays and the very wide attacks on so many institutions, institutions built over 100s of years of effort, and much blood and many lives. With so many being impacted, I think a sort of revolution is just around the corner, and may have even started. It has for me. I am not talking about guns and an uprising like Libya, but a social, political, and economic revolution to protect and restore the institutions, rights, and progress that has been made. I think 2012 will be a huge election, and if we maintain people's attention we can turn things around. Just today, one piece of news is that firefighters in WI pulled their funds out of a bank that was behind Walker, and the bank went 'Kersplat!' These are the sorts of things we need, and with an organization to focus our efforts. Cats may not get herded, but they also don't get heard.
ReplyDeleteAnd, speaking of being heard, one huge benefit, and vulnerability, is the Internet, so access has to be protected, as a civil communications network and not a corporate moneymaker. Otherwise, they'll cut it off whenever they want to, for any reason they cook up.