This is written by David Williams, a long time socialist who resides in Madison. David can be found supporting the many causes that benefit the people and our Earth. This is not an official statement of the SPWI or the SPUSA.
Tomorrow (Saturday) [2/26] as we know there will be yet another huge demonstration at the Capitol against the Walker anti-union bill.
We will hear again about how Walker, the Koch Brothers, and the Republican right-wing are so terrible.
We will hear about the brave 14 Wisconsin Senate Democrats who have fled the state and the knavish 8 Republican State Senators who could be recalled within a few months.
We may also hear a lot about the need to recall Walker when the waiting-period is up and to elect a Democrat as our next Governor in 2012 (as the characteristically eloquent John Nichols called-for in his otherwise excellent speech at the Orpheum last night).
What we are not likely to hear from these Democratic politicians, pundits, and AFL-CIO officials is about how the Walker legislation and draconian budget cuts are part of a corporate austerity offensive on the national level and state-by-state, an austerity offensive with catastrophic consequences being pushed by both the Republicans and Democrats from Obama on-down.
Which is why we have heard very little about our titanic Wisconsin struggle from the Great Gas-Bag in Washington.
We won’t hear anything about how in the years during which Doyle and the Wisconsin Democrats controlled the Governor’s office and BOTH houses of the legislature they enforced austerity-by-attrition against state, county, and municipal employees.
We won’t hear about how they refused to press for genuine tax reform–i.e. making the big corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share in Wisconsin–how they even abolished the state inheritance tax, how these corporate-loving Democratic leaders did nothing to make a progressive fix to the growing budget crisis and were ready to disappoint their own progressive base along with independents, and thus how they paved-the-way for Walker and the Koch Brothers.
The ONLY reason our local state and local labor officials have mobilized against Walker is because his legislation would literally destroy the organizational and financial base and livelihoods of these labor officials as a intermediaries between their working class base and the corporate overlords.
Otherwise they have already offered additional state worker economic concessions and will no doubt be ready to concede even more so long as their dues check-off and organizational base remains intact.
If we are lucky we might hear someone up on that podium refer to the possibility of a general strike or of some unions striking as a fall-back (“unfortunately”), but we can be sure most of these labor officials and Democratic politicos fear that possibility above all else and can hardly be counted-on to lead the kind of militant and possibly even illegal struggle which a serious general strike would require.
While Democratic politicos and the AFL-CIO officials are once again regaling the crowd against Walker et al tomorrow, I urge people to attend and speak-up at the forum to be held by the Labor & Working Class Studies Project at the First Methodist Church on Wisconsin Avenue (see below). We need to have a serious debate about how to fight-back against the Capitalist Robbers.
Afterwards we can go out to leaflet and speak to the crowds which will no doubt be milling-around inside and outside the Capitol for the entire afternoon.
The Labor & Working Class Studies Project
Presents a Public Teach-in on
“THE POLITICS OF THE WISCONSIN LABOR STRUGGLE”
With:
* Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director, Voces de la Frontera
* Will Jones, Associate Professor, UW-Madison Department of History
* David Newby, Past President of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO
* Don Taylor, Assistant Professor, School for Workers
Saturday, February 26, 12 NOON
First United Methodist Church, 203 Wisconsin Ave. (2 blocks from the Capitol square, across from MATC)
The Labor & Working Class Studies Project is a collaborative campus-labor-community initiative to connect the campus and the community in dialogue and action on issues related to labor and working class people. For more information, contact Patrick Barrett at barrettpatricks@gmail.com
Date: Feb 26th, 2011 ·
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Tags: Socialism
