Wisconsin’s Spirit: Courage for Other States to Emulate

Written on February 28th, 2011 in Economy, Society Comments Off

Linked on this blog with Stephen Lendman – USA.  – Published on The People’s Voice, by Stephen Lendman, February 25, 2011.

The issue is simple and straightforward – organized big money v. organized people essential to beat it. Since February 15, Wisconsin public workers, students, and supporters have sustained heroic resistance against corrupted dark forces determined to crush unionism there and across America. A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/02/union-busting-in-america.html

The scheme is old, dirty and ongoing – a conspiracy involving corporate bosses, federal, state and local Democrat and Republican leaders, and corrupted union heads to bust unions, effectively depriving workers of collective bargaining and other hard-won gains, returning them to 19th century harshness when they had none. 

The battle lines are drawn. Across America, public and private worker rights are threatened unless mobilized resistance saves them. Governments at all levels are using dire economic conditions to make ordinary people bear the burden of recovering from the hardest times since the Great Depression. The solution is worse than the problem – the usual IMF diktat, including:

  • wage and benefit cuts;
  • less social spending;
  • eliminating pensions and other entitlements;
  • privatized state resources;
  • mass layoffs;
  • deregulation;
  • debt service superseding public need;
  • lower taxes for corporations and America’s super-rich; and
  • eroding hard won worker gains before eliminating them entirely.

In the 1980s, it was Reaganomics, trickle down and Thatcherism. In the 1990s, it was shock therapy. Today, it’s austerity to make workers pay for a Wall Street/Washington caused crisis – a Main Street Depression, leaving them struggling on their own to get by. Nonetheless, officials are capitalizing on crisis conditions to inflict more pain on the backs of already victimized people.

Causes of State Budget Shortfalls: … (full long text).

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