What Will be Outcome of Wisconsin?

It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.
-- Joan Didion

In the February weeks I spent in snowy Madison, Wisconsin, that line of Didion's, the opening of her 1967 essay "Goodbye to All That," ricocheted through my mind as I tried to make sense of the massive protests unfolding around me. What was I witnessing? The beginning of a new movement in this country -- or the end of an existing one, the last stand of organized labor? Or could it have been both?

None of us on the ground could really say. We were too close to the action, too absorbed by what was directly in front of us.

Of course, the battle between unions, progressive groups, and Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker is not over. Not by a long shot. A county judge recently blocked "publication" of Walker's anti-union legislation, saying it was possible Senate Republicans violated Wisconsin's rigorous open records law when they rammed through a vote on his bill to do away with the collective bargaining rights of state workers. The case could end upbefore the state Supreme Court. But that didn't stop the state's Legislative Reference Bureau from publishing Walker's bill anyway, touching off another round of arguing about the tactics used to make the bill into law. As of this writing, its actual status remains unclear. If a judge does force a new vote, it's unlikely the outcome will change, though even that's not certain.

Either way, the meaning of Madison, and also of what similar governors are doing amid similar turmoil in Columbus, Indianapolis, and other Midwestern cities, remains to be seen. Without the ability to bargain collectively, unions may indeed be fatally weakened. So, you could argue that the wave of attacks by conservative governors will gut public-sector unions in those states, if not wipe them out entirely.

On the other hand, those same efforts have mobilized startling numbers of ordinary citizens, young and old, educated and not, in a way none of us have seen since perhaps the 1930s. I know this for a fact. I was there in Madison and watched hundreds of thousands of protesters brave the numbing cold while jamming the streets to demand that Governor Walker back down. The events in Madison radicalized many young people who kept the flame of protest burning with their live-ins inside the Wisconsin State Capitol.

What remains to be seen is whether the new spark lit by the Republican Party's latest crusade against unions can in some way fill the space left by those unions which, nationwide, stare down their own demise.
Andy Kroll, Tom Dispatch

Will We Be the United States of Sharia?

Bamabuck
Dismantling America is such hard work that ObaZero is out playing golf today at Joint Base Andrews to take a rest.

After all not much happening in the world that needs his attention! Right?

Everything seems to be trying to tell him how inadequate he is. So he keeps a low profile and plays golf to avoid having to deal with them.

While he and his criminal enterprise Administration and corrupt Senate and Congress (before the latest election, which removed so many Democrats but not enough Senators) used EVERY dirty trick to prefund ObamaCare, to by-pass any future Congress, and "deem" non-existent Federal budgets to exist, he now states that the Wisconsin process is "contrary to his principles" because it weakened his Union buddies!

It was fine for his principles for Pelosi to pass countless bills by voice vote where a tiny Democrat squeek was deemed to be more than a roar of opposing Republicans and thus was passed into law.

Obazero feels "we the people" are patient, honorable fools and so far he has been right. Time to disillusion him .

Labor Union Resuirgence

This time around, we don't have to take it. In Wisconsin and beyond, we're witnessing a progressive groundswell unlike any in decades, as working people speak their minds, organize recall campaigns and take to the streets in protest.

As this movement gains steam, many mainstream media outlets are doing their best to marginalize and dampen it, protecting their advertisers, corporate sponsors and political allegiances.
Truthout