Cairo, Wisconsin

If there’s not a blonde reporter about to be groped in this photo, we will have none of it.

As the Middle East is convulsing in a huge swath of violent confrontation with protesters across thousands of miles standing up to their oppressive governments, America may be experiencing the first skirmish in its own building civil war. The battle lines drawn in Wisconsin, and developing in Ohio and other Republican-led states, are ostensibly over union rights. Republicans want to cripple public sector unions by ending their right to collective bargaining, while Democrats are fighting to maintain this hard-fought right, understanding it as the last bulwark of workers’ power needed to protect workers’ interests.

The national conversation on most issues echoes the two opposing political perspectives, giving equal weight to each. More often than not, however, this discussion is a distraction from the underlying truth. If one looks at the Republican side of every argument, the real beneficiaries are the large corporate interests who donate to right-wing politicians and who subsidize a blizzard of propaganda through astro-turf interest groups, through well-publicized but very controversial “scientific findings”, through special interest advertising, and, of course, through FOX news.

Let us remember that it is big oil that pays for the bogus global-warming-is-a-hoax studies. Let us remember it was the defense industry that benefited from the false weapons-of-mass- destruction excuse for the Iraq War. Let us consider how the health care and insurance industries fought the health care legislation and benefited from the false “death panel” fear-mongering and other nonsense put forth during the health care debate. Let us understand that it is Corporate America and the super wealthy that benefit from the repeatedly disproven lies about how low taxes and deregulation strengthen the economy. And finally, let us remember that it is Corporate America that benefits from crushing unions, the last hold-out of big Democratic spending, so that their Republican patsies can pass corporate-friendly legislation with less and less opposition. It is likely that most Republicans who take the corporate side in these arguments believe the arguments they spout in defense of their policies, but that is nothing more than a tribute to the success of the billions of dollars the global corporations have poured into convincing and subsidizing them.

http://starlightnews.com/wordpress/?p=195

It is interesting that groups of protesters all over the world have a bitch with their governments at the same time. Most will dismantle them successfully, we hope. In Madison, we’ve dealt with these little Hitler types before and they usually, more than not, are controlled by the Mob or in this case the Koch Bros who want to get their greedy paws on the state’s utilities. Can’t do that with a union boss watching. It’s corruption the likes you didn’t see on Wall Street until it was too late. We need to get behind the people of Wisconsin. Last thing they need is a Nazi State.