Well, I can't say I was shocked really but it was something to see. The headlines at AlterNet.org listed Koch Bros. funded and backed, collective bargaining hatchet man Scott Walker as the top of the Top Ten Worst Governors in the United States. I'm sorry - the actual article title was The 10 Scariest GOP Governors: Bringing a Radical Right-Wing Agenda to a State Near You . Still, worst is about the same isn't it? And Scott W is at the top of the list. Groan. We all knew it was bad but taking top place for scariest? That is really awful. Here's some of what AlterNet had to say about Mr. Walker:
"Without Walker, public sector unions wouldn't have become a rallying cry for the left, that's for sure. But he picked the wrong fight in a state with a proud history of organized labor—a state that teaches labor history in the public schools."
Damn skippy!
"Still, the bill passed, Walker's still in charge, and he's been taking aim at those who could defeat him. He got his way with a vicious voter ID bill and his budget cuts hit everything from the state university to the public schools to the state's health care program, one of the best in the country. He targeted rural broadband, people with disabilities and reproductive health care, and he's even messing with craft beer. (He really should know better on that one, but it seems there isn't a fight Walker's unwilling to pick.)"
Does the term "thug" come to mind?
AlterNet went on to say in regards to all ten of the scary governors:
"These governors all have some things in common. Most of them were elected in 2010 while progressive turnout was depressed and conservative anger, particularly the virulent anti-government type springing from the Tea Party movement, spilled over at the polls. Many of them took over swing states from Democratic administrations. Most of them did not run on promises to take away collective bargaining from workers, slash pensions and health care and outlaw abortion. Instead, they focused on jobs—and, admittedly, their own solution to creating jobs, which is, of course, cutting taxes.
A year or more into their terms, taxes have been cut, the wealthy are doing fine, and working people, particularly immigrants and women, are struggling. The promises of jobs have given way to Shock Doctrine-style cuts, attacks on unions, public services, and voting rights. Since it can be hard to keep up with the moves by different governors around the country, we've compiled a list of the 10 scariest GOP governors and their proposals."
The article asks what's next? Yeah, a good question. I guess the term scary is right on when it comes to these power-backed, big money-supported, guillotine-wielding people. My suggestion is to get some good sunscreen, a nice broad-brimmed hat and a stainless steel water bottle just in case we need to pour out in to the streets again (or continually) and make our loud common voices heard. No guarantees just solidarity. And that is what makes community resilient. When We The Common People join together and speak truth to power we find our common courage and our strength to confront the powers and principalities.
Power To All The Common People!
Wisconsin Needs A Moral Compass
Showing posts with label corporate money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label corporate money. Show all posts
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Were You A Hippie?
I don't know, it just happened. Today has been this heart-breakingly beautiful, nicely warm, sunny, blue-sky day. What was I doing? I spent the entire afternoon in my galley kitchen baking and cooking. It's a puzzle isn't it? I can't explain that but I did trip over some interesting things while I was bumping in to myself in that tiny space making oatmeal cookies and miso soup.
I'm not a big cookbook fan anymore. I used to be but somewhere along the road I gave away all my old cookbooks with the exception of an old chestnut from the 70's titled The Vegetarian Family. The cover has a drawing of this impossibly happy couple with their two boys. The Dad has longish hair with a great handlebar mustache and Mom has long blonde hair parted right down the middle. Flared jeans make sure we wouldn't mistake them for some other decade. The recipes are wonderful and wholesome. Few ingredients but prepared with an elegant simplicity that begs trial. I hadn't cracked open this cookbook for years. For some reason today it practically fell off the shelf. As of tonight we are stocked with plenty of miso soup, a miso spread for the cornbread/rye muffins, the cornbread and the oatmeal/flax cookies. Wow.
Hippie life was never mine. Andy opted for the Air Force before the Army got him in 1969 so military life was the choice we made or it was made for us. We did spend eleven years in Sacramento, California, an experience I will not ever forget and which shaped both of us in the most subtle of ways. After all the years back in Wisconsin, I would call California my second home. While Andy was off flying or shuttling back and forth to South East Asia, I was mostly stateside and got to drop in on the beach parties with my cousins in Santa Cruz and sometimes dress like I was one of the group. It was a great time, much better when Andy came home for good. We roamed up and down the Coast camping on the beaches and wandering in to little communities for wine and cheese and late nights. For all that he was in the military, on weekends we took off and couldn't be found.
Were you a hippie? This past winter as the protests and street chants ramped up in Madison, one of the first things I heard was the supposedly derogatory comment that in all reality the protestors were just a bunch of old hippies. It's a reference of course to the street protests back in the 60's and 70's over the Vietnam War. To be fair and historical, that protest movement was indeed responsible for ending that war. But the two Scotts - Walker and Fitzgerald - meant that as a slam, a put down, an ageist sneer. I suppose they have never tried miso soup and whole grain muffins.
Perhaps the best of whatever the hippie thing was ended up being the back-to-the-land effort (some of which is still alive and active and something we are needing to do in earnest again), the anti-war protests which called the country to accountability, and the intentional knowledge that government could be done differently in order to support The Common People. Those among us at that time who were not sucked in to the war wanted government to be responsive not reactive. Sure, we were young, wanted some fun, wanted less restrictions, wanted not to die in a war far from home for something we couldn't understand and our parents couldn't explain. But we also wanted to regain some lost ground, we wanted to energize the process, make it resilient, for The People, be hopeful that big money wasn't poised to take over the majority position in politics. We had graduated high school and college having learned the lessons of democracy from books and professors and we, like all youth, had a hopeful understanding of it. We wanted it to work.
So what if some of us were hippies? Maybe we were more realistically idealists whose fervor for politics that challenged the status quo was a healthy thing. Perhaps our energy for pushing the boundaries just got dumped into the same bin as our music - that also challenged the parents generation. I'm not whining. I'm too old to whine about that but age has given me some perspective. Revolution by the young is often the only way the revolution will happen. I personally believe we are in need of one again. Our government is overflowing with corporate money, greed and sneaky politicos who have an alarming agenda. It's not one that will benefit The Common People. On February 11th it wasn't the old hippies who first poured out in to the streets of Madison, it was the youth. The Scotts were wrong about that. I wish it had been us, you and me, the retired and still working hippies and hippie wanna bes. But it was the young people who quickly said it would not stand to have their teachers stripped of their bargaining rights. Very good for them. Life is a circle - all of us are needed.
If you were a hippie, I admire you and sometime would love to hear your story. We ought to tell those. I'm pretty sure they'd make great campfire tales. In the meantime, see you in the streets. I'll bring the whole grain muffins, the miso soup in a thermos and a sign to carry. Like the old days!
Power To All The People!
I'm not a big cookbook fan anymore. I used to be but somewhere along the road I gave away all my old cookbooks with the exception of an old chestnut from the 70's titled The Vegetarian Family. The cover has a drawing of this impossibly happy couple with their two boys. The Dad has longish hair with a great handlebar mustache and Mom has long blonde hair parted right down the middle. Flared jeans make sure we wouldn't mistake them for some other decade. The recipes are wonderful and wholesome. Few ingredients but prepared with an elegant simplicity that begs trial. I hadn't cracked open this cookbook for years. For some reason today it practically fell off the shelf. As of tonight we are stocked with plenty of miso soup, a miso spread for the cornbread/rye muffins, the cornbread and the oatmeal/flax cookies. Wow.
Hippie life was never mine. Andy opted for the Air Force before the Army got him in 1969 so military life was the choice we made or it was made for us. We did spend eleven years in Sacramento, California, an experience I will not ever forget and which shaped both of us in the most subtle of ways. After all the years back in Wisconsin, I would call California my second home. While Andy was off flying or shuttling back and forth to South East Asia, I was mostly stateside and got to drop in on the beach parties with my cousins in Santa Cruz and sometimes dress like I was one of the group. It was a great time, much better when Andy came home for good. We roamed up and down the Coast camping on the beaches and wandering in to little communities for wine and cheese and late nights. For all that he was in the military, on weekends we took off and couldn't be found.
Were you a hippie? This past winter as the protests and street chants ramped up in Madison, one of the first things I heard was the supposedly derogatory comment that in all reality the protestors were just a bunch of old hippies. It's a reference of course to the street protests back in the 60's and 70's over the Vietnam War. To be fair and historical, that protest movement was indeed responsible for ending that war. But the two Scotts - Walker and Fitzgerald - meant that as a slam, a put down, an ageist sneer. I suppose they have never tried miso soup and whole grain muffins.
Perhaps the best of whatever the hippie thing was ended up being the back-to-the-land effort (some of which is still alive and active and something we are needing to do in earnest again), the anti-war protests which called the country to accountability, and the intentional knowledge that government could be done differently in order to support The Common People. Those among us at that time who were not sucked in to the war wanted government to be responsive not reactive. Sure, we were young, wanted some fun, wanted less restrictions, wanted not to die in a war far from home for something we couldn't understand and our parents couldn't explain. But we also wanted to regain some lost ground, we wanted to energize the process, make it resilient, for The People, be hopeful that big money wasn't poised to take over the majority position in politics. We had graduated high school and college having learned the lessons of democracy from books and professors and we, like all youth, had a hopeful understanding of it. We wanted it to work.
So what if some of us were hippies? Maybe we were more realistically idealists whose fervor for politics that challenged the status quo was a healthy thing. Perhaps our energy for pushing the boundaries just got dumped into the same bin as our music - that also challenged the parents generation. I'm not whining. I'm too old to whine about that but age has given me some perspective. Revolution by the young is often the only way the revolution will happen. I personally believe we are in need of one again. Our government is overflowing with corporate money, greed and sneaky politicos who have an alarming agenda. It's not one that will benefit The Common People. On February 11th it wasn't the old hippies who first poured out in to the streets of Madison, it was the youth. The Scotts were wrong about that. I wish it had been us, you and me, the retired and still working hippies and hippie wanna bes. But it was the young people who quickly said it would not stand to have their teachers stripped of their bargaining rights. Very good for them. Life is a circle - all of us are needed.
If you were a hippie, I admire you and sometime would love to hear your story. We ought to tell those. I'm pretty sure they'd make great campfire tales. In the meantime, see you in the streets. I'll bring the whole grain muffins, the miso soup in a thermos and a sign to carry. Like the old days!
Power To All The People!
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