UPDATE: In compliance with a court order the protesters have left the capitol.
http://www.isthmus.com/daily/a…
Just a short post tonight. I came across a blog you may find interesting, written by an activist involved in the occupation of the Wisconsin State House.
The information is fragmentary, but it appears that the protesters have taken the governor to court for his actions in barring access to the capitol in violation of the state constitution.
The Blog from Inside the Capitol Endures…
Keep checking back for updates.
What is happening is Wisconsin is one more eruption of a virulent and pernicious disease that infects our culture: “scapegoatism.” Sure, it happens in our countries and cultures, but this is my country and my culture and I won’t let these sins in other places avert my eyes from their existence in my own.
What is happening in Wisconsin hearkens back sixty years to another Wisconsin politician who rose to national infamy using smears and tactics similar to Gov. Scott Walker; that politician was U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy. McCarthy rose to infamy with his Red-baiting, black-listing and scapegoating. Yet, over time, the U.S. public tired of his rants and his wrath.
Perhaps the final pinprick that deflated the McCarthyism balloon were these comments by Joseph Nye Welch, the legal counsel for the Army during McCarthy’s efforts to root out “communists” in the U.S. Army. To one of McCarthy’s accusations, Welch responded:
“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness[…]” When McCarthy resumed his attack, Welch interrupted him: “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” When McCarthy once again persisted, Welch cut him off and demanded the chairman “call the next witness”. At that point, the gallery erupted in applause and a recess was called.”
Now, I once ran a union, and I know that unions can sometimes overreach. (Any overreaching by unions pales to the overreaching having been done collectively by corporate interests in American history.) Yet, I cannot stomach this latest attempt to demonize unions. Today, “unions” is just another term for prior epithets used against those without power by those in power: “women”, “Catholics”, “Jews”, “the Irish”, “niggers”, “immigrants” and the list unfortunately goes on and on and on.
The ultimate question, though, is not whether Scott Walker has any sense of decency. The ultimate question is whether we, as Americans, have enough decency to repel these attacks, to be the antibodies of defense against that pernicious strain of infection that threatens our body politic. I hope so!
Scott Walker’s ostensible reason for crushing the unions is a $3billion shortfall. Jim Douglas tried to put our then-$150 million shortfall on the backs of the state workers (I am one) using a 5% pay cut. I reported to his tax commission that a 1.2% surcharged on the top households in Vermont would achieve the same result with less pain for a group of people who did not average $40,000 a year.
It occurred to me that Vermont can help Wisconsin by having those same top households limiit their average post-tax income to $1.3 million and send the rest to reduce Wisconsin’s debt. How much would they be sending?
$1.8 bilion.
There is a message in this about equitable taxation, but I’m not sure what it is.