Solidarity

I think the unions should be demanding the rescinding of the tax cuts. We’re in this together baby…

Tim, valuable advice: Take your time, read carefully, be charitable towards people trying to express themselves in candid settings, and don’t be patronizing towards uniformed civil servants.

When that firefighter said “…and get rid of all the collective bargaining stuff that has nothing to do with the budget,” anyone who actually follows the news and isn’t merely looking to poke fun at people who do high-stakes jobs with their hands would’ve known he is calling on the legislature to “get rid of all the collective bargaining stuff” from the law they are trying to pass and the measures they are taking to balance their budget. He is talking about the text of the proposed budget and law.

In other words: it’s easier to decipher this man’s thoughts in their obvious context than try to make a grain of sense of anything presented under the auspices of the MLA.

Very well then.

Walker was pranked by a blogger (“Buffalo Beast”) who called him pretending to be David Koch. The tape of the call is truly extraordinary – ten minutes, and worth every second:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/walker_office_confirms_governor_fell_for_koch_pran.php?ref=fpb

Mother Jones has the full 20 minutes

Yet another proof that I don’t understand American politics.

I flatter myself that I’m not a completely stupid or uneducated person. I’ve lived here 55 years, tried to pay attention. But it hasn’t done any good. I consistently overthink things, and that when I have before me the contrary advice of that foundational scholar of the American mind, PT Barnum, who tells us that, “No one ever went broke underestimating the American public.”

On earlier postings on this subject, I offered what I still think is the obvious best strategy for the Dems in this situation in WI — recall elections. It’s not as if Walker and the Rs in WI are engaged in anything we think is unconstitutional, or beyond the discretionary use of the powers of their offices. We simply think that the union-busting plan is an abuse of that discretion. Fortunately, WI has a provision to deal with exactly that circumstance, the situatioon where you believe, and are willing to stake that the majority of the electorate agrees with you, that the officials in question have abused their discretion. If they’ve done something illegal or unconstitutional, you go after them in the courts. If they own the courts, as in, say, Selma under Jim Crow, or Egypt under Mubarak, you go after them in the streets.

But if the system gives you a free shot at throwing the bums out of office and replacing them with our people, if the practical situation makes it likely that recall will succeed (look at the polling), that response is so much stronger a measure than going after them in the streets, that I could not understand why the folks in WI weren’t going for it.

Shows you what I know.

Now we have the definitive proof that going after them in the streets was the right choice. Walker is such a drooling half-wit as to: 1)talk like that even if he had David Koch on the line, 2)talk like that without being sure it was David Koch on the line.

Why can’t we have better adversaries?

You see, my approach theated the democratic process with the profoundest respect. My approach would have been correct had Walker been a serious, if wrong, and even wrong-headed, politician. But he’s not. He’s a chucklehead.

He’s also done. Lord knows you can survive stupidity in our politics, even thrive as stupid. Ditto on criminality. But you can’t be ridiculous.

Unfortunately, his fall will not take his “ideas” with him, because he will fall as a chucklehead, not as a serious politician whose ideas were challenged and found wanting by the people.

I’m not going to offer any advice about what to do next. I’m trying to preserve some dignity after offering such poor avice based on taking Walker for anything but a chucklehead.

It is hugely important that Walker’s attempt at divide and rule, at separating off law enforcement and fire fighters from other public workers has failed. It failed because he blew it by forgetting about state police. It failed because he didn’t think of correctional officers as in the same category. But above all it has failed because the fire fighters and police union have understood that an injury to one is an injury to all and that they would just be next on the list once the other public workers were threatened.

Poll data shows declining support for Walker, who never said a word about unions or collective bargaining on the campaign trail — only about putting Wisconsin back to work. Ha.

The movement is immensely inspiring, Harry. Keep filing the reports. But give us some more detail. Is it true that the number of cops on the street has gone way up? What are people thinking about the apparent Friday deadline by which cuts to state employment may become drastic according to Walker? Is there any sign of wavering by the moderate Republicans? What have the unions said about the supposed compromise that would suspend collective bargaining for two years only?

I stand corrected. Transcript: http://www.buffalobeast.com/?p=5045

Brett,

The Senators would not have to return to the state to campaign, should they be recalled as threatened. They should stay out until the Senate is again Dem majority, which won’t be until we beat at least 3 of their 8 without losing any of our 8. But that’s the strongest reason for the recall, because winning the majority of the Senate is the only way to allow the Dem Senators to return without the union-busting scheme passing, and return they must before the budget bills have to be passed, or our side shuts down WI govt. That might cause our side to lose elections.

The great thing about such recall elections, is that they will inherently be one-issue, and actually focused on an issue, for a change, as opposed to all the distractions that benefit incumbents in particular, but the other party in general. If you think that the WI voters are on our side of this one issue, you should believe that our side will win more than 8 of 16 of these races, if we are to have all 16 contested. The polls suggest it’s 61:33 in our favor, and that poll was taken before Walker’s telephone talk with the pseudo-Koch. We ought to be able to get 11 out of 16, and the absence of our candidates will only serve to rally for them the support of people who support their side of this issue.

But all that assumes that it will come to that, that the politicians on both sides will not return to being the cautious do-nothings we are more used to them being, but that they will push this to an actual ideological election, like accountants suddenly signing up in the Marine Corps or something. They have been behaving in just such an unusual manner for the past two weeks, but my prediction (for what that’s worth, and that’s been proven to be not that much) is that this Koch Whore phone call will make Walker too tainted to carry on the fight. It just seems to too clearly validate our side’s take on the matter, that Walker is doing this whole scheme to carry water for Koch, plus, worst of all for the other side, it reveals Walker as a laughably stupid, and way too eager, dupe for anyone who even claims to be a Koch. It’s not so much that he says anything to indicate that he is on Koch’s payroll, as that he would be so inordinately pleased to be on Koch’s payroll.

If Walker has to resign to spend more time with his children, I don’t see the other side persisting. If he refuses to fall on his sword in order to take one for the team, I don’t see the team persisting in supporting him in this scheme. This is just the sort of episode that validates cautious do-nothingism in our politicians.

On the other hand, if I am wrong, and Walker doesn’t resign, and the Rs stay monolithic in their support for his scheme, then we really have no alternative but fight recall elections. If they nail their colors to the mast, and just keep going, damn the bad PR, they will be able to force our Senators back to Madison before July, and then they will surely, having toughed it out and already paid the PR price, definitely pass their union-busting scheme, and whatever else they think to ram through. We will have no alternative, if we don’t want that to happen, but to fight recall elections, and win them, win enough of them to retake the Senate, and all that before July.

Then, next January, we retake the Assembly and the governor’s mansion. Time to start welcoming their hatred, while using the time to get more than even, and not mad at all. Keep going until they have nothing left in their power but the expression of that welcome hatred.

This years pool was only enough to cover ~153 years of the WI137 million. Perspective, Dick Fuld style.

I guess Brooks forgot to mention that in his “shared sacrifice” column.

Glen, I meant that, in the event of a recall election, they’d probably find returning to the state necessary to *win*. I’m well aware they could phone in their campaigns if they were content to be recalled. But being present and doing your job is probably helpful when somebody is trying to convince the voters to remove you from office.

The procedural mechanics of the Law are a mystery to me. How does impeachment work in WI, assuming the process exists? And practically speaking, how many Republicans would have to sign on to get the ball rolling?

@27: I don’t follow. I thought that the chief thing people objected to about Sinn Fein, if they objected to them at all, was their association with a violent, arguably terrorist organization. Nobody has yet been killed or seriously injured in Wisconsin, AFAIK (I can’t categorically state that nobody has had their foot stepped on, been bumped into with enough force to knock them down, etc., but that seems to be a possibility in any large crowd, regardless of who makes it up or why they are there). So where’s the comparison?

Hold on; they don’t need to take their seats. They already have them.

Scott Walker has, even for me, gone stark raving mad.

No no, as far as my limited experience goes, Scott Walker was always stark raving mad. I’ve been in nonstop WTF? mode since I heard he was running for governor, but sadly there are [a] plenty of Wisconsinites who have long loved the hell out of him for his particular brand of callous viciousness, and [b] plenty of Wisconsinites who wanted Anyone But Doyle (whose name had become a thing you spit, over the past couple years) and who were kinda vaguely hoping Walker would be like Tommy Thompson (with Walker successfully convincing enough of ’em, including, to my chagrin, my own parents, that Barrett = Doyle II and Walker = Thompson II).

Myles is just looking after the interest of his trust fund.

Myles is just looking after the interest of his trust fund.

Would that it were so.

He’s become a national figure, and would become a natural cabinet member/VP candidate (but not, I think, a presidential candidate, even for 2016—he has the wrong kind of track record for that).

I don’t see how he could get on any presidential ticket, top or bottom. He’s too combative. Presumably he would be a prominent senator.

I’m inclined to agree, except that I’m not even sure that is needed to change their minds (some of which I am sure are opposed to the bill), just to change their actions so they align with what they really support.

I think the difficulty for them is to give ground without strengthening the opposition, and especially without emboldening the bourgeoning protest movement. Few should like their politics dealt a great defeat just because a loon on their side has seized the radio station.

He seems, certainly, somewhat bizarre (his affectless public persona is somewhat creepy to me) but I think he is really a pretty committed ideologue.

A sort of gormless Savonarola of the provinces, then.

there are a bunch of very good videos being made. i thought i’d share this one.

PLus the longer they leave it the less sincere they look.

I would say that the ideal time to capitulate is either at the very beginning, before a protest movement had built up mass, or after it has begun losing momentum. At some point the public will start tuning the protests out, and that’s the time to jump.

The difficulty with capitulating at the height of protests is that they take on a life of their own, and could quickly snowball into a general recall. After all, as Lord Salisbury once noted, the use of conservatism is “to delay changes until they became harmless.”