Whose Interests is Scott Walker Representing?

This Wisconsin thing is really irritating me. I'm still not entirely sure why, but I'm closing in on it. I certainly dislike the basic dishonesty. What Scott Walker (the Governor of Wisconsin) is doing is dishonest. He has hidden a union busting bill inside a budget bill. It would be nice if he just put all the union busting stuff in a bill and tried to pass that, and then we could have all the stuff about selling off state assets to private companies be it's own bill too. It would be nice to be able to deal honsetly with issues one at a time. It would be nice if our elected representatives could solve problems through compromise rather than simply trading back and forth every few years pushing through their own agendas. It would be nice, and it would be new. This kind of dishonesty isn't new.

The claim that teachers pensions are somehow to blame for our current financial crisis just pissess me off. We seem to have forgotten about the financial crisis. Plus, teachers and other public sector employees aren't living opulent lives in secret. In fact, their rather modest benefits were part of a pretty clear bargain that has long been honored. They work a lot for less pay than they could make elsehwere doing important work, and are rewarded with nice pensions and other good benefits.

The attempt to destroy the Unions also upsets me. I'm no cheerleader for the unions, but I recognize the important role they play in securing rights for all of us and in keeping the whole system running smoothly. To weaken their bargaining rights, is to leave worker's without adequate representation and protection. It also removes an important balance to the power of business and industry.

I'm also quite upset about the fact that shortly before having to take all these measures to fight a budget gap, the Republicans in charge in Wisconsin lowered taxes. This obsession with lowering taxes and cutting spending, regardless of what the taxes were/are/could be supporting and what the spending was facilitating. All that matters is lowering taxes and ctting spending.

All of the above pisses me off, but there is something bigger that I am just now starting to allow myself to see. This thing that pisses me off most of all, at least for now, is the fact that Scott Walker, among many others, is not looking after the best interests of most of his constituents. He is looking after the interests of his biggest benefactors: private corporations. Our elected representaives aren't our representatives. Our interests aren't primary. The interests of their political party and of the big corporations that fund their campaigns are primary. It isn't too much of an exaggeration to say that many of us are without representation in a way every bit as real as the people in Libya, Egypt, or Tunisia. Something has gone wrong. Maybe it's always been wrong, but I don't think it has been this wrong. Decades of work meant to work to the benefit of many of us is being decimated practically overnight, and I have no idea what we can do about it. Over the long term we probably need to try to spread critical thinking around a little, and try to empower people to be able to be able to understand what the issues are and how they can help get them addressed in the right way. We need to challenge the use of fear, anger, and ignorance in politics. In the short term I don't know what we do, other than get pissed off at Scott Walker.