On Mar 12, 7:10*pm, Joe from Kokomo wrote:
On 3/12/2011 7:14 PM, Nickname unavailable wrote:
* they sure will. and the polls are solidly behind them. gee, it must
suck to be in the same league as hitler/musolinni, stalin, and mao
You sure got the part about "same league as hitler/musolinni, stalin,
and mao" right!
I monitor the Michigan MW news stations from here in Kokomo and I was
shocked (shocked, I say) at what Michigan's new Repug governor Snyder is
proposing: the EFM bill, Emergency Fund Manager. Unbelievable as it
seems, one of the powers this bill gives the EFM is "The power to
dissolve a municipal government". As Cuhulin would say, "Look it up".
The EFM can just "dissolve" a freely and duly elected municipal
government. This is not just chipping away at the foundation of our
country, it is -blasting- it away.
The dictators you listed above would be proud.
Another Snyder proposal:
1) Take 1.7 billion away from the elderly and school kids to give as a
gift to Business.
2) Have the bare-faced nerve to call this "shared" sacrifice.
Be afraid of the Repugs, be very afraid. They are a bigger threat to
this country than the so-called terrorists.
i have also heard that. its called the shock doctrine. hitler called
it bliztkreig. the conservatives/libertarians/fascists had to change
the name to fool the low information/low functioning types.
conservatives/libertarians/fascists are americas biggest welfare
recipients and cheaters.
new polling shows that 74% of Wisconsin families support collective
bargaining rights for public workers:scott "Moammar Gadhafi" walkers
feces splattered welfare cheat bankers took 2 billion from bush/have
not payed it back yet
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-b..._b_834879.html
Mary Bottari
Center for Media and Democracy
Posted: March 12, 2011 10:24 AM
WI Firefighters Spark "Move Your Money" Moment
On the day that the bill passed the Wisconsin Assembly effectively
ending 50 years of collective bargaining in Wisconsin and eviscerating
the ability of public unions to raise money through dues, a new front
opened in the battle for the future of Wisconsin families.
Bagpipes blaring, hundreds of firefighters walked across the street
from the Wisconsin Capitol building, stood outside the Marshall and
Ilsley Bank (M&I Bank) and played a few tunes -- loudly. Later, a
group of firefighter and consumers stopped back in at the bank to make
a few transactions. One by one they closed their accounts and withdrew
their life savings, totaling approximately $190,000. After the last
customer left, the bank quickly closed its doors, just in case the
spontaneous "Move Your Money" moment caught fire.
The sedate, old fashioned M&I Bank on the Capitol Square has gained
some notoriety in recent weeks. Oddly, a tunnel in the M&I parking
garage links to the capitol basement. Dubbed the "rat hole to the
Walker palace", the tunnel was used by Governor Scott Walker to ferry
lobbyists into the capitol building to hear his budget address during
a time when the capitol was in a virtual lock down in defiance of a
court order and after Sheriffs has quit the building refusing to be a
"palace guard."
Now the bank is getting caught up in the controversy again. Word is
beginning to spread that M&I is one of Walker's biggest backers. Top
executives at M&I Bank have long been boosters of Walker. M&I Chief
Executive Dennis Kuester and his wife gave $20,000 to Walker in recent
years. When you package individual and PAC contributions by employers,
M&I is number one -- at $57,000 dollars. The firm apparently uses a
conduit to bundle much of its money to Walker. Flyers, webpages, and
Facebook sites have popped up encouraging WI consumers to boycott
Walker campaign contributors and "Pull the Plug on M&I Bank." Other
banks whose employees have donated large sums to Walker, such as
Associated Bank and North Shore Bank may also be seeing their
customers soon.
Economic Transparency
Joe Conway, President Madison Fire Fighters Local 311, explained to
CMD that the action was totally spontaneous, but that "economic
transparency" was going to be a big theme in the fight ahead. "Groups
will be sending letters to Walker's major donors giving them the
opportunity to support the teachers, firefighters and police in their
community." Conway is well aware that new polling shows that 74% of
Wisconsin families support collective bargaining rights for public
workers.
Two of these letters are already in the mail to M&I Bank and Kwik
Trip. "The undersigned groups would like your company to publicly
oppose Governor Walker's efforts to virtually eliminate collective
bargaining for public employees in Wisconsin. In the event that you
cannot support this effort to save collective bargaining, please be
advised that the undersigned will publicly and formally boycott the
goods and services provided by your company," the letter says.
"However, if you join us, we will do everything in our power to
publicly celebrate your partnership in the fight to preserve the right
of public employees to be heard at the bargaining table."
The letters are signed by the heads of the Wisconsin Professional
Police Association, the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin, the
International Association of Fire Fighters Local 311, Madison Teachers
Inc., Dane County Deputy Sheriffs Association and the Madison
Professional Police Officers Association.
Just the Beginning
Walker's list of campaign contributors is already in wide circulation
on websites like "Scott Walker Watch" and fast-growing Facebook pages
like "Boycott Scott Walkers Contributors". These grassroots efforts
are backed up by solid names and numbers extracted from the Wisconsin
Democracy Campaign (WDC) database, a nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization that tracks money in politics.
The WDC data shows that Walker's major contributors include a
diversity of national and state-based firms including Koch Brother
Industries, AT&T, Walmart, John Deere Tractor, Johnsonville Brats,
Miller/Coors, Kwik Trip, Sargento Cheese, and SC Johnson & Sons
(producers of Windex, Glade, Pledge etc). The letter writing effort is
being undertaken not to put people out of work, but to encourage
workers to let their bosses know it is time to reconsider their
support for Walker's newly revealed radical agenda.
Sam Hokin, a Wisconsinite and small businessman who started the
Facebook page in the early days of the protest, put the strategy
bluntly: "The only thing the Republicans care about is money. The only
way you can touch them is through their revenue. They don't care about
signs and protesters. They don't care about the opinion of the
majority of the people in the state, their bottom line is money."
Unions, pension funds, cities and counties and average consumers bank
at these banks and support these firms by buying their products and
services. They have tremendous clout in Wisconsin's small economy.
Greatest Heist in History
Wisconsin workers are keenly aware that they are part of a historic
push back that is spreading from state to state. After $14 trillion
dollars of housing wealth, wages and retirement savings were taken
from the middle class during the 2008 financial collapse, workers are
being asked to take it on the chin again. Michael Moore put it best:
"We aren't broke. Wisconsin is not broke. The country is awash in
wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been
transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and
consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the über-rich."
M&I Bank is in the process of being bought by a Canadian bank. It took
$2 billion in TARP bailout money from the taxpayers and have yet to
pay it back. "They [state Republicans] came in like the Grim Reaper to
drive a knife into the heart of labor," yelled Jim Garity at a recent
rally. Garity is a unionized Jefferson County Highway Department
worker and leader. "But we are going to stand and we are not going to
bleed. Governor Walker's plan is to give more money to Wall Street,
but we are going to take back our money from Wall Street and put Main
Street to work!" Walker's recent moves include over $200 billion in
tax cuts for corporations while stripping $1 trillion from Wisconsin
schools and local governments.
The "take it back" movement is gaining steam. At the federal level,
AFL-CIO, SEIU are joined by consumer groups in a fight to apply a
small financial transaction tax to damaging Wall Street speculation in
order to recoup over $100 billion dollars a year for job creation and
other essential needs.
It's About Power
Walker's collective bargaining bill not only seeks to gut a 50 year
tradition in the state where public unions started, but by doing away
with automatic check off for union dues he seeks to cripple the the
ability of public sector unions to hire employees to organize, grow
and be a force in Wisconsin politics. State Senate Majority Leader
Scott Fitzgerald, one of Walker's closest allies in the legislature,
admitted as much to FOX News. "If we win this battle, and the money is
not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you're
going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult,
much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of
Wisconsin," said Fitzgerald.
While some hold out hope for a general strike and vigorous recall
efforts are underway, others remain focused on leveraging the power of
the "sleeping giant" to force Walker to back down and to prevent
devastating cuts to schools and municipalities. Stay tuned. This fire
might be hard to contain.
The Madison-based Center for Media and Democracy has been reporting
live from the Wisconsin Capitol for four weeks. Learn more at our
website PRWatch.org.