"...state Democratic Party chairman Mike Tate has released this statement, vowing to recall all those Republican state Senators who are eligible under the state's recall laws, which require at least one year of a term to be completed -- and to recall Walker next year:
'Using tactics that trample on the traditions of our Legislature, the Republican leadership has betrayed our state. Republicans have rubber-stamped the desire of the Koch Brothers and their godshead Scott Walker to cripple Wisconsin's middle class and lower benefits and wages for every single wage-earner in our state. The vote does nothing to create jobs, does nothing to strengthen our state, and shows finally and utterly that this never was about anything but raw political power. We now put our total focus on recalling the eligible Republican senators who voted for this heinous bill. And we also begin counting the days remaining before Scott Walker is himself eligible for recall.' "
State Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D) who has been in Illinois, released this statement:
"In thirty minutes, 18 State Senators undid fifty years of civil rights in Wisconsin.
"Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten.
"Tonight, 18 Senate Republicans conspired to take government away from the people.
"Tomorrow we will join the people of Wisconsin in taking back their government."The move is likely to have an enormous political impact in the state, as unions remain an important base of the Democratic Party organization in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, the unions and Democrats have been actively organizing recalls of Republican state legislators -- leveraging the power of the tens of thousands of people who have protested the bill, and numerous opinion polls showing that Wisconsin voters oppose breaking the unions.
Wisconsin AFL-CIO president Phil Neuenfeldt has released a statement, entitled "Statement on Scott Walker and Republicans' Despicable, Extreme, Anti-Democratic Activities." Key quotes:
Tonight's trampling of the democratic process in Wisconsin shows that Scott Walker and the Republicans have been lying throughout this entire process and we have been telling the truth - that NONE of the provisions that attacked workers' rights had anything to do with the budget.
Scott Walker and the Republicans' ideological war on the middle class and working families is now indisputable, and their willingness to shred 50 years of labor peace, bipartisanship, and Wisconsin's democratic process to pass a bill that 74% of Wisconsinites oppose is beyond reprehensible and possibly criminal."
h/t TPM
16 comments:
First thing tomorrow morning, I am doubling my contribution to the recall effort in Wisconsin.
There are no words that come even close to the contempt and rage I feel over what has transpired tonight.
I can feel the heat. It is indeed going to be tense watching this play out.
I am disgusted...
Read the ACLU's report about what the Governor of Puerto Rico has been doing. He has done the same thing as Scott Walker for two years.
Walker is using the GOP tactic of creating a financial crisis and attacking worker rights before the smoke clears. The GOP has been doing this for a long time. It's cowardly. His first action in office was to give 140 million in tax breaks to corporatio¬ns, thereby creating a budget shortfall. Then he blamed it on unions so he could bust them.
Wisconsin is republican democracy in action. Do you really want these people running the government?
The next time someone tells you there's no real difference between the parties, remind them of how the Democrats in the Wisconsin state senate behaved in this dispute, and what the Republicans did.
support Wisconsin.... but don't forget other States... like Michigan...
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/02/gary_brown_detroit_will_make_w.html
In the event anyone here is interested -
Act Blue: Join the Recall Effort in Wisconsin
Earlier today, I sent in my contribution - ten times what I gave last time. And if I am just as angry tomorrow as I am today, I'll send another contribution - 100 times more than today - until the proto-fascists have been removed from office.
I'm with you (O)CT(O). I've contributed as well. We all have to pay attention to what Scott Fitzgerald admitted:
Republican Scott Fitzgerald, the state senate GOP leader, admitted to Fox News that the battle was about crippling the unions. He said:
“If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.”
I'll be putting this statement up on my blog for everyone to witness that this anti-union move was NEVER about a budget deficit--it's about defeating Mr. Obama and destroying the Democratic Party so that the fascists in the GOP can turn this country into a one-party rule--just like the commies did.
It's all out there for everyone to see.
But it will not succeed.
Following is an interesting take on fascism which gets bandied about by progressives with respect to conservatives. Intriguing.
The Fascist Bargain
March 30, 2009 8:53 A.M.
By Jonah Goldberg
Given the news these days (and the paucity of posting around here; it’ll pick up before the paperback comes out, I promise), as well as Newt Gingrich’s recent endorsement, I thought some excerpts from the economics chapter might be worthwhile (you might also check this column, or my cover story in the latest issue). For instance, here’s the bit explaining what I call the fascist bargain between big business and government:
Many liberals are correct when they bemoan the collusion of government and corporations. They even have a point when they decry special deals for Halliburton or Archer Daniels Midland as proof of creeping fascism. What they misunderstand completely is that this is the system they set up. This is the system they want. This is the system they mobilize and march for.
Debates about economics these days generally enjoy a climate of bipartisan asininity. Democrats want to “rein in” corporations, while Republicans claim to be “pro-business.” The problem is that being “pro-business” is hardly the same thing as being pro–free market, while “reining in” corporations breeds precisely the climate liberals decry as fascistic.
The fascist bargain goes something like this. The state says to the
industrialist, “You may stay in business and own your factories. In
the spirit of cooperation and unity, we will even guarantee you profits and a lack of serious competition. In exchange, we expect you to agree with—and help implement—our political agenda.”
The moral and economic content of the agenda depends on the nature of the regime. The left looked at German business’s support for the Nazi war machine and leaped to the conclusion that business always supports war. They did the same with American business after World
War I, arguing that because arms manufacturers benefited from the
war, the armaments industry was therefore responsible for it.
It’s fine to say that incestuous relationships between corporations
and governments are fascistic. The problem comes when you claim that such arrangements are inherently right-wing. If the collusion of
big business and government is right-wing, then FDR was a rightwinger. If corporatism and propagandistic militarism are fascist, then Woodrow Wilson was a fascist and so were the New Dealers.
If you understand the right-wing or conservative position to be that of those who argue for free markets, competition, property rights, and the other political values inscribed in the original intent of the American founding fathers, then big business in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and New Deal America was not right-wing; it was left-wing, and it was fascistic. What’s more, it still is.
Sorry Les,
You and Jonah ASSUME that it is government that goes to the poor helpless corportaion and says, "we will give you this if you allow us to do that..."
The reality is it the the US Chamber of Commerce, for example that tells the President, "...we need TARP, we need the stimulus..." and the democrats do exactly as they are told. Only to find out that the US Chamber then follows up in the very next election and campaigns against them BECAUSE they did pass TARP and the stimulus.
Then when the current President, hat in hand, agrees to, on his hands and knees, go before the US Chamber after suffering the greatest loss by one party in a mid term election, and agrees to become more "business friendly" and appoints as his chief of staff, a very "business friendly" person then the Chamber agrees to not campaign against him in 2012!
In Nazi Germany "the left" was being rounded up by the rightwing Nazi and shipped off to concentration camps in 1933. The whole purpose of the Bundestag fire was to create a reason to remove the left from power so that there would be no one left to stand in the way of the Nazi's becoming dictators.
The relationship between business and politics is Fascistic and it is right wing. The New Deal was not fascism and don't forget that a group of business leaders were willing to stage a coup...
"Confusion over whether fascism is of the left or right is due to the inability to fit the economic policies into a clear-cut category, because while fascism is considered on the right politically, fascist economic controls were left-wing,"
A good read on the subject is The Ominous Parallels.
As I said an intriguing subject.
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of POWER AND NOT TRUTH
Friedrich Nietzsche
... AND CURRENTLY THE REPUBLICANS ARE IN POWER IN wISCONSIN
something to think about
"All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of POWER AND NOT TRUTH"
Friedrich Nietzsche
Does this mean there is no truth since everything is open to interpretation and a function of the power "elite" at any given time?
Hm...?
Well, like they say, "History is written by the victors". There are a lot of losers that have a different version.
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