From: David Shemano
"When asked to choose between two sides one representing public unions
and the other representing corporate interests, the people of
Wisconsin chose the corporate interests."
Why do you says they chose "corporate interests" instead of their own
self-interests? As Mr. Rhone stated, I assume most people who voted
for Walker saw themselves as part of the "tax-paying" class as opposed
to the "tax-receiving" class, at least with respect to government
employee benefits, so Walker's actions aligned with their
self-interest.
David Shemano
^^^^^^^
CB: I think this is accurate. I also think that part of anti-Big
Gov'ment madness in America is due to the fact that government is the
one big enterprise that the "little guy" gets to be boss of. So, we
have government bashing as a national pass time, and as here, lots of
"little people" thinking as the "bosses" of their government cutting
the wages and benefits of their workers in government. Lots of
average Americans still buy into the need for government austerity,
not being members of PEN-L or readers of Paul Krugman. There is also
resentment at the relatively good wages and benefits of govt. workers
compared to those many private sector workers.
Our old Comrade Barkley Rosser pointed out:
"In the matter of Wisconsin, the Dems did take control of the state
Senate, although nearly nobody seems to have noticed. That may not
mean a rollback of what Walker has done, but no more will go through,
at least for now. And voters there have said in polls they just do not
like recalls except for gross malfeasance."- Barkley Rosser
Charles Brown: I don't really know, but I suspect that a lot of
Wisconsiners who voted for Walker the last time were too proud, like
most voters everywhere, to admit that they made a big mistake the
first time they voted for him just a short time ago. So, they develop a sort
of deafness to allegations against him when he's not convicted yet.
They think "oh, that's Obama trying to get him through the FBI" and
the like. That's my guess. Also, you probably have resentment at
"outsiders" coming in and campaigning, especially among parochial and
narrow minded types that would tend to vote for Walker. We think it's
great that there's a big national movement in support of Wisconsin
labor. Village idiot types are susceptible to deomonizing the
outstaters from big cities, etc.
There's this , too:
"Neither Barrett nor the Democrats nor organized labor
emphasized the dispute that began the Wisconsin
Uprising: the evisceration of collective bargaining
rights for public sector workers. The argument that
worker rights are human rights was muted, and used
mainly in labor circles, but the majority of voters
knew that the Democrats, and even labor leaders, were
reticent to make this case to the general public." (!!! ??)
They probably failed to raise this because of he unpopularity of
unions as mentioned by Doug.
Heartbreak in the Heartland: Voices from Wisconsin
June 6, 2012
http://labornotes.org/2012/06/voices-wisconsin-heartbreak-heartland
Tom Barrett got 154,000 more votes against Scott Walker
yesterday than in 2010, but it wasn't enough, because
Walker got 202,000 more votes than last time around. In
2010, he beat Barrett 52-47 percent, by 125,000 votes.
This time, he beat Barrett 53-46 percent, by 173,000
votes.
We're sharing some immediate reactions to the defeat in
Wisconsin. Please join in and add your comments below.
What Happened in Wisconsin, and Why?
by David Nack
Why did Scott Walker comfortably defeat the recall by
better than 53 to 46 percent? With so much energy and
effort by thousands of workers, activists, students,
and young people going into the Wisconsin Uprising, why
did this movement fail to achieve its prime immediate
political goal? How did Walker persuade 38 percent of
members of union households to vote for him?
Walker's huge sums of money, most of it raised outside
Wisconsin, was a factor; he outspent Tom Barrett by 7
to 1 or better. The governor flooded the state with
commercials arguing that Wisconsin had gained 23,000
jobs while he was in office, flatly contradicting the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed a job
loss greater than that for 2011. Other Walker
commercials contrasted this claim with job losses in
Milwaukee under Barrett.
Walker's ideological framework, simultaneously populist
in tone and demagogic, was that public sector workers
were the "haves" and those in the private sector were
the "have nots." Obviously, some private sector
workers, battered by job losses and pay and benefit
cuts, were open to this appeal.
For the most part Barrett did not directly counter this
image of greedy public sector workers. Instead he
focused on the ongoing investigation of Walker's
operation when he was a county executive. But many
Wisconsinites dismissed that investigation, in which
some of Walker's former staff pled guilty to doing
political work on county time, as "just politics."
Neither Barrett nor the Democrats nor organized labor
emphasized the dispute that began the Wisconsin
Uprising: the evisceration of collective bargaining
rights for public sector workers. The argument that
worker rights are human rights was muted, and used
mainly in labor circles, but the majority of voters
knew that the Democrats, and even labor leaders, were
reticent to make this case to the general public.
If the case for defending unions had been made more
strongly, could that have convinced a good chunk of the
38 percent of union household members who went for
Walker? If half of just those voters had pulled the
lever for Barrett, the result would have swung the
other way.
Barrett didn't even run on a progressive platform.
Little or nothing was said about raising state revenues
by taxing the wealthy and corporations, or the need to
invest in education, social services, and
infrastructure. Despite high unemployment, there was
little or no talk of the need to create jobs, by either
the Democrats or the unions.
Driven by concern that arguing too strongly for these
policies might cost the votes of some political
independents and moderates, Barrett and his supporters
may have bypassed their most persuasive arguments. They
provided plenty of reasons to oppose Walker, but few
reasons why voters should support them.
For decades Democratic politicians have been running
further rightward and declining to provide a different
vision, fearing to turn off "moderates." Wouldn't a
different strategy, where we counterposed our vision to
the Walkers' and the Kochs', at least be worth trying?
The Wisconsin recall gave us no chance to find out.
David Nack is a member of United Faculty and Academic
Staff in Madison.
The Recall that Wasn't
by Mark Serafinn
The birthplace of the public sector unions, a blue
state that voted Obama to a double-digit win in
2008--the outcome in Wisconsin couldn't have been more
critical for the labor movement.
Luckily the Democratic National Committee saw the
potential disaster and mobilized all of its resources
to win this election for labor, one of its main
supporters. President Obama suspended his own campaign
fundraising and instead concentrated on the Wisconsin
battle, raising millions to battle the $18 million
Scott Walker pulled in from conservative groups like
the Koch brothers. The president sent his ground
operation to Wisconsin to knock on every door and make
sure every Democrat made it to the polls as they did in
2008.
It was a great sight as Air Force One landed in Madison
with the president and first lady, who threw their
support behind the candidates fighting for labor's
cause. President Obama's speeches in Madison,
Milwaukee, Green Bay, and La Crosse were the tipping
point and by June 5 the election was secured.
Alas, but a dream. The inaction by the Democrats and
Obama has set the labor movement back 50 years, not
just in Wisconsin but all across the country as
Republicans will seek to copy the Walker playbook. This
disaster could have been avoided.
Mark Serafinn is a retired Teamster and former
president of IBT Local 722. What We're Learning
by Mike Amato
Since 100,000 workers and students occupied the state
Capitol last year, I've thrown myself into working with
my union and the We Are Wisconsin coalition against
Scott Walker's agenda of austerity, oppression, and
environmental devastation. Despite last night's
stinging loss, I would do it again.
What have we learned from the experience? People will
make tremendous sacrifices for a cause they believe in.
I helped coordinate canvassing and phonebanking out of
the Madison Labor Temple. Young and old, union and
non-union, people came in every day to do whatever they
could to help. Thousands volunteered, often for two
shifts in a row.
I've learned that we need to talk with everyone. I've
heard growing concern that we are overly reliant on
increasingly sophisticated models of likely voters and
voting tendencies, with the result that our door-knocks
and phone calls are only reaching a narrow slice of the
electorate. There are two sides to this
problem--unlikely voters and unfriendly voters. We've
long heard about the need to organize unlikely voters,
particularly the urban poor, both for electoral
necessity and as a matter of justice. Wisconsin's
unions have made considerable investments in the last
year doing just that.
But we also need to reach out to unfriendly voters and
bring them to our side. One of the lists we were
calling last week was union members who hunt. Walker
had recently hired a "deer czar" with a record in Texas
of selling off public hunting lands to be turned into
private, fee-based game farms, which dramatically
raised the cost of hunting for many Texans. Those calls
were some of the most successful we made. Privatization
of public resources and jobs has been a Walker
hallmark, and we were able to mobilize voters who would
have stayed home, and even converted some Walker
supporters to Tom Barrett.
Unions suffered a disappointment in the primary. While
Kathleen Falk was a clear pro-labor candidate, she was
considered too progressive for the rest of Wisconsin.
At least that was the story I heard over and over from
the hundreds of Democratic and independent voters whose
doors I knocked on during the primary, who told me they
were voting for Barrett. They liked Falk, but they
thought other voters would be more likely to vote for
Barrett.
We'll never know how a Falk/Walker election might have
turned out, but it would have been a very different
campaign. Collective bargaining rights would have been
front and center. That might have turned the
disturbingly high number of union members who voted for
Walker against him. Falk would also have communicated
to the non-union public that unions are really about
democracy and voice, not bilking taxpayers and
protecting lazy teachers. That was a huge missed
opportunity.
Mike Amato is chair of the Teaching Assistants'
Association (AFT) political education committee.
We Fight On
http://wisaflcio.typepad.com/
Wisconsin AFL-CIO
06/06/2012
One day longer, one day stronger. Thank you for your
dedication, hard work and solidarity in this fight -- a
struggle which is far from over.
Though Walker was shielded with a flood of secret
corporate cash, Wisconsin made its voice heard. While
we came closer to recalling Walker than many expected,
we ended up coming just short.
The work we did together was about much more than just
this one election.
We laid the groundwork for a powerful movement to push
back against extremist policies everywhere. Messages of
solidarity and support have been pouring in from around
the country and around the world. Our energy and
momentum has inspired working people from all walks of
life to stand together in solidarity in unprecedented
ways.
We have marched together in the snow and the sleet. We
have knocked doors and made phone calls in the rain and
the sunshine. We are proud that we have created a new,
energetic, broad-based movement for working people that
is defying the odds.
A movement that will continue to change, grow and adapt
to best represent all working people of Wisconsin.
Today we come together in solidarity and strength. So
many of us poured our hearts and souls into this
election and while we did not recall Scott Walker, we
reclaimed the State Senate and proved that working
people will stand up and fight for our rights.
Thank you immensely for all your efforts. I know
thousands of you knocked doors, made phone calls,
leafleted work sites, stamped postcards and talked with
your family, friends and neighbors on the issues
important to working people. Your efforts were not in
vain. They provide the organization and grassroots
infrastructure necessary to fight back against Citizens
United and corporate power in politics.
We take great pride in the unprecedented grassroots
effort that mobilized hundreds of thousands of people
across the state in defense of economic justice. We
look with hope toward a future in which the movement
that we have created continues to resist the "divide
and conquer" agenda that Scott Walker and his
billionaire ideologue backers want to force on
Wisconsin and America.
Though dark clouds may temporarily obscure the horizon,
we stand together, united in solidarity.
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
