Cairo moves to Madison.

2011_2_24 Cairo moves to Madison.

Dear Stan,

First of all, I can’t tell you how sickened I am by what is happening in the State senate of my home state, Wisconsin. To see what Scott Walker and other Republican governors are trying to do—crush unions, decimate the middle class, make it so their rich friends and backers in the private sector never have to pay taxes, blame the budget crisis in the states on the workers in the public sector, and refuse to do the right thing, that is, tax the wealthy which would go a long way in solving the problem of the deficits—really burns my ass, as my dad used to say. Speaking of my father, he was president of the CIO Union at Hamilton Beach, the factory he worked at in Racine for 35 years. He was president for 12 years and after his tenure in office he resembled Bill Clinton, the elder statesman whose experience was still of value to members of the union. I’m sure he is turning in his grave over what is happening in Madison: a frontal attack on not only collective bargaining, but also a questioning if unions should even exists. They want to flush down the toilet a tradition that has been around for 75 years. The only consolation is the response to this outrageous attack, as tens of thousands of local and sympathetic people have been demonstrating for the past 2 weeks and have no plans to let up until the governor, Scott Walker, agrees to remove that section in his so-called Budget Repair Bill about outlawing collective bargaining. To see the public workers react with such alacrity and passion, and in such huge numbers, warms my heart. As Paul Ryan put it, “Cairo has moved to Wisconsin.”

I posted a piece on my blog earlier today about the situation and how I viewed it; but it did not included the phone conversation that a blogger from Buffalo managed to record when he posed as Dave Koch, a billionaire businessman—an oil man-- who is one of Walker’s backers. It proves what I thought and wrote about in my article: he admits that the budget crisis was just a vehicle to achieve his main goal, which is a long time right wing ambition, stamp out the unions once and for all. The blogger who trick him into the revealing conversation was Ian Murphy. He did some research on Koch and was able to sound like him and talk like him. Walker was so full of himself he was, as Murphy put on THE LAST WORD last night, he was “oblivious” and never questioned the authenticity of the other voice on the line. He was unguarded and spilled the beans willy-nilly. He admitted the hubbub that he created around the State’s budget woes was merely a smoke screen for his real target, the public sector unions. He said “This is our moment” and I want to do “something big.” To eviscerate the unions at this time, before the 2012 election campaign gets rolling, would just about cinch a Republican victory in the fall, and of course he would be a hero of the party, maybe even its presidential candidate. One looks at Walker and it’s clear this man’s middle name is AMBITIOUS. If he were to win this first round in this class warfare, and the other Tea Party governors follow suit, he’d automatically go to the front of the class. However, the game is far from over. Indeed, a poll conducted by USA TODAY and CNN had 61% backing the union views and collective bargaining, and about 31% backing Walker’s stand. In any event, thanks to Ian Murphy the cat is out of the bag and he ain’t going back in it.