Kudos to the good people of Wisconsin for taking to the streets and standing up to their dictatorial new governor who wants to strip collective bargaining rights from state workers. John Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation, though he lives in Wisconsin. He wrote about what’s happening there, and joined us for a few minutes this morning to tell us about it too.
As democracy is spreading virally thought the middle east, I’m hoping that people in the US will take notice of what’s happening in Wisconsin and follow their lead. To be continued…
And although I’m not a football fan, I did cheer for the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl because they’re publicly owned and non-profit. (Can you say Socialism?) And they released this statement today, standing in solidarity with the public sector union employees:
“We know that it is teamwork on and off the field that makes the Packers and Wisconsin great. As a publicly owned team we wouldn’t have been able to win the Super Bowl without the support of our fans.
“It is the same dedication of our public workers every day that makes Wisconsin run. They are the teachers, nurses and child care workers who take care of us and our families. But now in an unprecedented political attack Governor Walker is trying to take away their right to have a voice and bargain at work.
“The right to negotiate wages and benefits is a fundamental underpinning of our middle class. When workers join together it serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising community standards. Wisconsin’s long standing tradition of allowing public sector workers to have a voice on the job has worked for the state since the 1930s. It has created greater consistency in the relationship between labor and management and a shared approach to public work.
“These public workers are Wisconsin’s champions every single day and we urge the Governor and the State Legislature to not take away their rights.”
h/t Nicole Belle @ crooks and liars
And before we leave Wisconsin, former Senator Russ Feingold launched Progressives United! From his email announcing the new organization:
Today I am proud to announce that progressives — demanding change and demanding action — have come together to help me launch a new group: Progressives United.
Together we will empower Americans to fight back against corporate influence and corruption in Washington, D.C., and demand democratic reforms to our election system. We will support candidates who will work for the people, not the corporations. We will call out the media when they hide from the real story.
And we will do it all united.
Now let’s get organized and get moving!
My friend Brad Friedman has been targeted by the right wing smear machine, but the machine is bigger and badder than you ever imagined. He joined me in the second hour to try to make sense of the madness. Read all about it at BradBlog.com.
And it is sheer madness…
As for the rest of the craziness in today’s world, Speaker John Boehner says “So be it” to the prospect of a million jobs lost, and lies about how many federal jobs were created by the Obama administration in the past two years; and the war against women continues as South Dakota moves to legalize killing abortion doctors.
And sorry for the bad link in yesterday’s post to the video of Glenn Beck with an audio “fuck you” to Mika Brzezinski. Click here to find it…