Iowa Should Take A  Lesson From Wisconsin

[Editor's Note: Don't forget:  Public Hearing on Bill to End Collective Bargaining  iowahouse.org/  A public hearing has been scheduled for HSB 117
that will end collective bargaining and take away rights from police
officers, fire fighters, state troopers, teachers, and prison guards. Monday,
March 7, 6:00 p.m. – 8:15 p.m., Iowa House of Representatives Chamber -
Persons wishing to speak may sign up at the Legislative Information
Office (LIO), Room G16, located in the Iowa State Capitol, or call the
LIO at 515-281-5129. If unable to attend, you may e-mail written
testimony to the LIO: lioinfo@legis.state.ia.us Put the word TESTIMONY in the Subject line of your e-mail.]

To me, if there is one thing that the mess in Wisconsin and Ohio highlight it is that money needs to be taken out of our political arena and the sooner the better.
  
Would Walker be doing what he is doing were he not in the back pocket of the high rolling Koch brothers? Possibly, but I don’t believe so. Were he not bought and paid for with a specific job to do, I believe he would be more concerned about his political future and would have probably backed off nearly immediately.

What he and Kasich in Ohio have done has to be a disaster for themselves and their party. While the Republican party has spent the last 30 years slowly whittling away at worker rights and paychecks they have never displayed such a stunning and blatant attack. Using the old analogy of boiling the frog in water, over the last 30 years Republicans have turned the heat up slowly enough that workers still voted for them despite things like running up massive public debts, much lower purchasing power and taking away their kids futures.
 
But in this one act Governor Walker revealed to the frogs (us – the middle class) that we are being boiled alive. And now we are awakening to the fact that we are in pain and they are about to take out the only chance of escape left.
 
And they may have gotten away with it had they not been so greedy. Unions have made plenty of concessions in recent years. Most of these were done in a spirit of “we are all in this together” while huge tax cuts and other giveaways were being handed out to businesses.
 
But those who ‘invest’ in politicians wanted more return for their money and they wanted it now. As I have said before there have been two big scores that the rich have been wanting to settle for a long, long time – busting unions and ending Social Security. The end is getting so close they can smell it and they wanted blood now.
 
So the Kochs invested heavily in buying Republican governors through the Republican Governor’s Association. And the payback was clear – Bust public unions at the state level throughout the country. Not one governor ran on this issue – even their own families probably would not have voted for them – but once in power they created fiscal crises by giving more tax breaks to the rich and then declared that busting the union was the only way the state could survive. The same pattern inWisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and even in Iowa.
 
As people realized how they had been snookered they came in droves to protest. The Koch’s became concerned that Walker may fold so they even sent baby sitters to watch over their investment. So now the Kochs have a lot of money and time tied up in making sure Walker does their bidding. Once Walker was bought, they need to make sure he stays bought.
 
The lesson here is that the big money unleashed in Citizen’s United v. FEC is doing just what everyone who opposed this decision thought it would do. The very, very wealthy could now blatantly buy politicians and have those politicians do their bidding. With a captive media, with purchased politicians, with a suspect voting system the very rich are now well set to accomplish legally the coup that was aborted early in the Franklin Roosevelt presidency (video).  You can read about it here

The BBC story of the plot is here:
youtube.com/watch?v=UXGUgFXoRu4
youtube.com/watch?v=UGPb6ulVEK0&feature=related
youtube.com/watch?v=Mav69K2zkgw&feature=related

E-mail Dave here

~Dave Bradley is a self-described
retired observer of American politics “trying to figure out how we got
so screwed up.”  An
Iowa City native currently living in West Liberty,  Dave and his wife
Carol have two grown children who “sadly had to leave the state to find
decent paying jobs.“