There's an important lesson to be learned from the recent actions by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the resulting protests that have consumed the capital for almost a month now. The lesson is that Democratic means can be used to destroy Democracy. A stealth bomb has been planted in our governmental institutions and now we have the task of taking it back.
This is not the first time in history this has happened. It happened in Germany when Hitler created an army of brown shirts who worked to destabilize the existing Democratic system placing the blame on his enemies and using the media to get across his message to a confused and propagandized electorate. Lies and subtafuge were used to convince the voters to elect a government that would dismantle the workings of democracy and hard won citizens' rights.
We are seeing the same thing play out here in the United States. Mega billionaires like Rupert Murdock has bought up some of the major media outlets in the U.S. and turned them into pure propaganda outlets, with lies, distortions and which foment intolerance. Others like the Koch brothers use their extreme wealth to buy candidates who will willingly do their bidding. Many in this crowd including the grandfather of George W. Bush and the father of George H.W. Bush were instrumental in funding Adolph Hitler. The father of the Koch brothers was a founder of the John Birch society, a group whose playbook is what is being played out across the U.S. today. Their position is: anti-union, anti-communist, anti-social security, anti-taxation, anti-civil rights and anti-UN. Their goal was in fact to roll back all progress made by working people in the U.S. to be able to have some control over their lives and have some financial security. They would put all the power back into the hands of those who have the most capital. In the process they would put almost all the money back into the hands of those with the most money.
This process as it has progressed over the past 30 years has resulted in legislative institutions whose members are funded not by the electorate who they are elected to represent, but by the powerful moneyed interests that fund their campaigns. "K Street" is infamous in Washington where highly paid lobyists who control the purse strings that fund the politicians' political campaigns have open door access to the people who were elected to represent the citizens of this country. Not only does "K Street" have access, in too many cases, they actually write the legislation that the politicians submit as bills. The level of corruption in the government of the U.S. is extreme, and openly blatant. Our Democracy has been bought.
So the claims by many that: "Well you guys just lost the election, so you have to live with the results" is in fact just another line item in this long and protracted propaganda assault on our Democracy. "We" did not lose anything, it was wrenched out of our hands and now we have the task of taking back what is ours. Our Democracy, our freedom to assemble, to speak, to strike, to petition the government at the highest levels is our inalienable right not because it has been granted to us by the government. It is our right because we have so declared it. Our forefathers declared it, fought for it and shed their blood so that tyrants will never be able to take from us what is ours.
What we have learned from Wisconsin is this: they have played and incredibly slick game, creating an unregulated casino on Wall St. and set it up so that if there was a problem they could convince the government (who by the way consist of many former Wall St. executives) that the gun was at their heads and that if they didn't pay up financial armageddon would ensue. So they took our money, the money belonging to all the citizens of the country, gave themselves fat bonuses and congratulated themselves on a game well played. So now it's time to pay and who is it that will pay for their yachts, their corporate jets, their 5 houses in gated communities across the world? You have been given the bill, they want your houses, they want your social security, they want you to earn less, they want your pensions, they want your schools because they don't want an educated electorate and they will get them.
The final straw is that what Scott Walker and his cohorts in state governments across this nation want is for you not to complain while you are being fleeced. They think they can take away your right to complain, your right to associate and to collectively strike to stop them from their tyrany. Let me remind you that our ancestors in the early 1900's did not have the right to associate, to form unions, to strike, but they did it anyway. They had no choice. They did it because there was no alternative. We stand in the same position, we have no alternative but to see our country turned into fascist dictatorship of the super rich. It has already happened while we slept, dreaming our American dream, but in the last 4 years the American dream has turned into the American nightmare. Now it's time to wake up.
