Gov. Scott Walker Puts Out Fire With Gasoline [View All]

Gov. Scott Walker Puts Out Fire With Gasoline
Dave Zirin
Posted: March 10, 2011 12:09 AM

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I can only imagine that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is feeling very proud tonight. He's proud that his state republican senators voted 18-1 to strip public sector workers of their most basic collective bargaining rights. He's proud that teachers, child care workers, ambulance drivers, and many more will be pauperized to pay for the tax cuts he handed out to his corporate masters. He's proud that the thousands upon thousands of people who have demonstrated peacefully at the Madison, Capitol for three solid weeks will taste bitter defeat. He's proud that the confederate confines of right wing radio will be singing his praises tomorrow for taking down the "union thugs" that teach our children, care for our elderly, and treat our indigent. He's proud because Gov. Scott Walker is an ignorant man, in the truest, most literal sense of the word.

How else to describe someone who "applauds" his own party's state senators for destroying fifty years of civil and labor rights in a 30 minute closed-door session with nary an advance word to the public? How else to describe someone who sent his state into deficit by passing massive corporate tax cuts while preaching "fiscal responsibility"? How else to describe someone who expects people to applaud his desire to sell the state's power supply using private, no-bid contracts? How else to describe someone who wants to defund planned parenthood, eliminate protections for same-sex couples, and then has the gall to preach "family values"?

How else to describe someone who carries the blank faced, cruelty most common to Czars and second-generation Presidents?

This is a man, who I would venture has never read a history book in his life that didn't have the word "Reagan" somewhere in the title. Even the most modest reading of history would tell you that people can really only take so much damage and disrespect before they fiercely fight back. As Naomi Klein wrote, "Scott Walker may think this is his PATCO moment. But it's actually his Waterloo."

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