Odd & Ends on Thursday

My niece has encouraged me to blog these missives I have been writing. She's correct and perhaps this will save many of you from having to read long emails. I hope you decide to stay tuned.

Continued prayers for The People of Japan, for the Earth and for strength, courage, calm and love.

On the way home yesterday I heard democratic Senator Tim Carpenter and Senator Fitzgerald interviewed on the Neal Conan show - The Political Junkie - on NPR. Sen. Carpenter talked about the experience of being in Illinois as all the protests occurred in Madison. He spoke about the exhilaration of seeing the massive outpouring of people in to the streets to raise their voices. He also spoke about the recall efforts for eight republican senators and for Gov. Walker. Senator Fitzgerald was speaking from Washington, D.C. ( remember why Fitzgerald is there - to dine and dance with corporate money) He spoke about the recall efforts as well though he was speaking about that effort as it regards democratic senators, some of whom belonged to the fourteen who left the state. The two men were on totally opposite sides of the issues, not a surprise, but once again I hear the republicans reaching for the language that has defined the protests as well as the movement now solidifying in Wisconsin. Perhaps I am just being picky about definitions but when I hear Fitzgerald refer to the progressive ideas of Gov. Walker I want to rant and rave. These repubs are not progressive. It just ain't so. The tea party that overwhelmingly supported Walker, etc., is not made up of progressive people. They are, at the very least, conservative and more realistically, ultra conservative. And let's not forget the Koch Bros. and their money. Robert La Follette would not welcome these guys in to the progressive fold because their ideology doesn't match in content or spirit. It is that simple.

Words are powerful. Andy reminded me the other day of something he had learned in Squadron Officers School in the Air Force. The class was Effective Communication and the specific lesson was Errors in Logic. He picked out three errors he could identify in Walker's speeches and in his interviews during his campaign. The first: Glittering Generalities. These devices are intentionally deceptive and in Walker's case a big glittering generality was that he would cut the costs of government without raising taxes. (It's always helpful to ask "What does that mean?" or "How are you going to do that?") The second: Faulty Dilemma. "Wisconsin is in a budget crisis!" Walker repeated over and over on the stump and when the protesters appeared on the streets and when the senators left the state. Again, it's helpful to ask questions: Why the 140 million in corporate giveaways which created a deficit? The third: Errors in Deductive Reasoning. Or 2 + 2 = 3. This begins with an error in one of the entering arguments. In Walker's case it went like this: Cutting collective bargaining for public employees while excluding police and firefighters will result in support from police and firefighters. We the People needed to have asked then-candidate Walker what it meant to promise answers to questions raised without giving specifics. Obviously Walker had a detailed plan and was not willing to share. In the case of many items that have now come to light in the budget beyond stripping collective bargaining, to share would have been to have lost the election.

The Bloomberg reports more of the litigation against Walker. The Care2 article gives another perspective on the overreach by conservative forces at play in Wisconsin and across the country.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-15/wisconsin-collective-bargaining-statute-challenge-gets-march-18-hearing.html

From the Care2 social networking and news site:
http://www.care2.com/causes/politics/blog/massive-protest-in-wisconsin-shows-walker-s-overreach/

I feel now the time begs for us to put our shoulders to the political wheel which turns sometimes so slowly we cannot calm ourselves in the face of it, and sometimes so quickly it amazes us. Everything matters. Protests, letters, emails, calls - always calls! - coffee with friends, prayers, solidarity, dancing in the streets, singing.

What did Emma Goldman say? The quote attributed to her is: "If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution." (If you'd like to read the back story on that, follow this link.) http://ucblibrary3.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Features/dances_shulman.html

The discourse between ourselves and others must spark the flames that sheds light in to the dark places. That is where errors in logic occur and gather energy. That is where deductive reasoning has fled. All that glitters is seldom what we wished for it to be, the gold that will make us all insane with wealth. This time asks us to lay aside the societal myth that all of us can reach the top and be given the blessing of all the lands we see to the horizon. It asks us, without promises of reward, to speak truth to power.

And, who knows, maybe we won't be fooled again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIHJ9RMAVGI&feature=related


Power To All The People!

Jeanie

p.s. Please consider a call to Sen. Tim Cullen - 1-608-266-2253 - to protest his weak olive branch to Walker. He wants to have the state constitution amended to never again allow senators to leave the state during a vote. I appreciate that Sen. Cullen is looking for some way to reconnect with the Governor and the repub legislators, however I believe he must look for something else. It was not a "stunt" to leave for Illinois, it was a constitutionally sound move to prevent a vote that did not have full support and to amend the constitution to cut off that possibility would hobble future avenues of political response. These senators called on us for our solidarity. We gave it to them and we accepted our wide awake duty as participants in our democracy. We supported them. We spoke the word - Solidarity. We need their respect for that action. And we need Senator Cullen to be creative and think of some other olive branch to lay before the governor.

p.p.s. Big Rally in Madison this weekend! 10 am on Saturday the 19th, veterans across the state will gather at Library Mall on State St. to march up State St. to the Capitol.