With 20 years in the labor movement under my belt, I looked at the actions taken last night by Wisconsin's Republican legislature and Governor Scott Walker and had an unusual response. It wasn't despair or anger. Though once the shock wears off from seeing tens of thousands of workers stripped of their rights, I am sure those feelings will overwhelm me. No. Weirdly, among my first reactions was hope and gratitude.
I wanted to thank the governor. So I wrote him a note.
Since I am simply one of many fighting for working Americans, and not a billionaire financier, he is unlikely to take the time to read a personal note from me. So I decided to share it with all of you in the hope that someone could pass it on.
Dear Governor Walker,
Thank you for making a world where once there were only a few thousand people who would stand up to prevent the oppression of middle class workers and now there will be hundreds of thousands. You have breathed new life into the worker's rights movement and given us a national stage for our struggle.Thank you for showing the whole world just how far you and other conservatives are willing to go to serve your ideology instead of your constituents. This stark example of your rhetoric being contradicted by your actions was a wakeup call that we all needed to keep motivated and focused on our goal of creating a fair economy in our country.
Thank you for taking the labor movement from an increasingly declining and divided entity to a unified and surging force for good with unprecedented public support. We needed the kick in the pants that your gross over-reach created to refocus our efforts and re-fire our members.
Thank you for showing everyone the fallacy of the argument that these kinds of anti-worker initiatives are somehow about rebuilding the economy. If you had actually dealt with fiscal issues, we might have bought into your spin. Now we know that economics is your last concern and political power is your first.
Thank you for being duped by the fake Koch Brother and showing us your real motivations and schemes to trick the Democrats and gain power over middle class workers. That peek into your real mind, while ugly and disturbing, will keep us from being too gullible ourselves and remind us to question the rhetoric we hear until its backed by actions we can see.
Thank you for making us value our democracy and understand how hard we have to fight to protect to it. You showed us how fragile it can be by twisting it so badly to serve your purposes.
Thank you for being a role model for others who want to pursue a dictatorial style of leadership where compromise and collaboration are unheard of. If you had actually sat down and talked man to man (or woman) with the thousands of workers who wanted to step up and help solve the economic crisis facing your state and our country, some might have seen you as a real leader.
Thank you for showing my child and all the children of this country a leader who refuses to honor their commitments or the rule of law. You have ensured the next generation will never support leaders like you and will fight to reverse the damage that you have done.
And finally, thank you for reminding me that even when we are facing what many will call a defeat; we can find the seeds of a larger victory on behalf of working people. We can find new resolve to create real solutions and fight people like you who only want to create scapegoats.
In gratitude,
Amy B. DeanP.S. You've also added some nice momentum for us going into the next election cycle (not to mention the recall efforts). Thanks!
Amy Dean is co-author, with David Reynolds, of A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement. She worked for nearly two decades in the labor movement and now works to develop new and innovative organizing strategies for social change organizations in progressive, labor, and faith communities. You can follow Amy on Twitter at @amybdean, or she can be reached via the Web site, www.amybdean.com.
Follow Amy B. Dean on Twitter: www.twitter.com/amybdean
I know many of you are busy surviving. It does not have to be a large amt. of your time. To start, do it in little chunks. You will be surprised at what you learn along the way.
Americans have short memories and tiny brains,generally. THAT'S how Walker and his other governor counterparts (and don't look now,but the WORST transgressions against our democracy aren't taking place in Wisconsin,they're in Michigan and Texas.) We have to make sure we smarten the f**k up,stop watching Fox and THINK before we vote. THAT'S what we need to do.
But the issue here is what happens to Independant voters. They keep shifting their loyalties back and forth between the two parties every election cycle. In part because they have bought into this "limited government"/"Fiscal responsibility"/"Free market" rhetoric from the right.
The question is whether or not these voters and moderate Republicans will finally wake up to the utter bankruptcy of this ideology. That it is nothing but a cover for allowing the very rich to plunder society without having to worry about taxes, government regulation, or unions demanding decent working conditions and living wages getting in the way.
If they wake up....game on. This could turn into the sort of game-changing event that Proposition 13 and the California tax revolts of the late 70s proved to be to the Conservative Movement.
If they go back to sleep...oh well. This will be little more than a painful speed bump in the steady march of the nation to the right...and the ongoing pointless ness of the "Culture War" in distracting most people to the ongoing economic catastrophe.
Yours Truly,
The American Middle Class
true pro-labor liberal progressive? . who can get the funding to run an in your face
race for any office? who can out spend the LARGE MONEY candidate?
...and I hope they like their handiwork.
It is going to be long, ugly two years until 2012.
There is a REASON why there is the old saying, "Do not let the Perfect become the enemy of the Good."
How many of you make more than $10 million a year? Let's talk about those people who do, if they didn't live in such a great, fruitful country, they wouldn't have what they have, they should be grateful to recirculate, reciprocate, reinvigorate by paying the same or more of a percentage of tax than I do - (with their tax shelters alone they're avoiding paying more than I'll ever make in a life time!)
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Because Fox News say it will....
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they should be grateful to recirculatÂe, reciprocatÂe, reinvigoraÂte by paying the same or more of a percentage of tax than I do
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Commodore Vanderbilt said it succinctly, "The public be d*mned!"
You are assuming that you are dealing with people who look at the world the same way you do. Have the same sense of community and community responsiblity that you do...when the fact of the matter is that you AREN'T...and they DON'T.
They simply wish to accumulate as much wealth and power for themselves and their immediate family as they possibly can...and simply don't care what happens to anyone else.
You are dealing with people who want a society where everything is done for the benefit of the top 1% of society. Who then pays off the top 10% of society to run things...and they get to live comfortably.....
...and the remainging 90% of people are wage slaves who live to serve the needs of the top 10%.
The issue with TPers, is you are dealing with a group of people who are so terrified of change, and so terrified of difference, that they are willing to destroy their own futures for the illusion of safety....and control.
Energizing a demographic that is independent of political partisanship to campaign for your political opponents at the start of the election cycle is baffling.
Collective bargaining rights is not a traditional hotbutton topic.
Immigration, healthcare, dadt, doma, abortion, nation buillding and international intervention, the economy, religious freedom, gun restriction, the environment.
You would think that's a lot of issues to deal with if I didn't leave anything out.
But now, collective bargaining?
I don't know if I am miscalculating anything but I don't see a rate of a return on this investment.
Whatever the republicans believe they will gain by energizing the union vote to support the Democrats must be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Its not really directly addressing the budget and its relation to taxation.
The author doesn't strike me as one to be vulnerable to emotionally influenced distractions.
This is a sophisticated post where negotiations are premeditated and calculated with for a more long term and