My Dad Was No Scott Walker

A little about my Dad.

Every week I sit to write some thoughts about what has been happening in Iowa and the world. Usually I have some idea where I will be going with what I write, but invariably as I formulate ideas my focus changes.
 
This week we near the one month mark for demonstrations in Madison. The demonstrations were touched off by unprecedented action by newly elected governor Scott Walker. The more I think about this, the more memories of my father coming home from negotiating contracts with the teamsters union.
 
Now some may jump to the conclusion that my dad was a teamster. Nope, he was on the other side of the table. He was a negotiator for his company. This was during the 50s and early 60s. My memory is fuzzy, but my recollection is that he went through these negotiations 3 times. I can barely remember him going through the first two, but the last one sticks in my mind.

Negotiations meant he would be gone from early morning until late night for weeks at a time. When he finally came home he would not be in a very good mood. I am sure the long hours had much to do with that, but no doubt the stalemate on issues were wearing also.

The third time around I was in my young teens, my father was a little over 50. When he was coming home from negotiations this round he seemed more tired and weary. Finally one night he came home a little earlier, looking even more weary than he ever had. Out of nowhere and speaking to no one in particular while he sat at the dining room table he said “you know these people (the union) deserve to make enough money to feed their families.  (The owners) have more than enough money than they could ever spend.“ 

A few weeks later he quit his job. Financially we were not in great shape. I heard him mention only once that he was being lied to and he was tired of lying for them. So I guess his sense of integrity caused him to take some drastic action.

Much the same is going on in Wisconsin. There is a company man trying to break the union for his bosses. His bosses are the Koch Brothers. They and their company man, Scott Walker, have created a crisis through lies and manipulation. Unlike my father Walker appears to have little integrity or conscience. What is more amazing is that management and owners in this case have no respect for contracts or contract law.

Michael Moore gave a great speech in Madison Saturday – Watch it here

Not only should you watch this, but it needs to go viral with your help. Here is a very small excerpt to give you an idea:

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 uber-rich.

Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined.

If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.”

[Editor's Note:  The fight is happening here in Iowa where Democrats still have some say in what happens.  Help Democrats stand up to the GOP robber barons.  Contact your legislators and come to a rally to show our state legislators and the media that you know a scam when you see one.]

~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.“  E-mail Dave here