Let me see if I can guess the contents of the article, based on just the title (“Governor Walker’s Coup D’Etat”): Robert Reich is going to use the Rubber Bands of Mendacity, Hyperbole, and Bad Polling to create a Frankenstein’s Monster of an assertion that somehow Governor Walker – with his voting majorities in the state legislature, not to mention his actual election last year – was the one illegitimately using his power, not the state Democratic Senators who hid out in Scottish Hooters-clone theme bars for the last two weeks. This, despite the fact that the last time I checked, the phrase “run like scared, petulant little bunnies” appears nowhere in the Wisconsin Constitution*.
(peruse)
Called it in one. That link goes to the Google search for the title, by the way: I see no reason to reward any of the spluttering Lefty sites out there that republished this tripe just because they got short-breathed over the idea of an actual former Cabinet secretary writing what was essentially political pornography targeted for their particular demographic. It’s actually worse than the title looks: Reich simply assumes that everybody already agrees that Walker staged a coup. This is a disappointment: I was hoping for some sleazy rationalizations along those lines, but apparently that’s too much like work for Reich**. To those inclined to argue the point, here’s the problem: Walker won an election last year. So did enough Republicans to flip both houses of the state legislature. Now Walker and the GOP intend to use those working majorities to pass legislation. If they get it wrong, there’s a mechanism for fixing that: in this business, we call it an election***.
To use the Democratic Mob’s phrase – only, correctly – this is what democracy looks like. Specifically, representative democracy. And until Reich concedes that point, there’s no reason to discuss this further: of course, since his argument (such as it is) depends on him never having to concede that p0int, there’s probably no reason to discuss this further, period.
I should say that Real Clear Politics should be ashamed of itself for linking to the aforementioned tripe, but then I guess that they like to have a laugh sometimes, too.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*No, seriously. Go look for yourself.
**Appropriate, since this is a pro-union piece.
***You want to try to do a recall? Sure, go ahead: that’s in the state constitution, so go have fun with that.
Moe, you just don’t understand that “Desertion is the Highest Form of Patriotism”, as Jefferson would have said if John Kerry had been around to write it for him.
Hey, they said that the AWOL Senators spent enough time in Illinois to establish residency.
Of course Gov Walker staged a coup, strictly speaking. The fact that he is the legally elected official isn’t of any interest to the shadow government that has taken control of the cash flow from the tax stream.
The fact that the 13th Amendment granted freedom to the slaves did not prevent a shadow government from denying minorities their rights through Jim Crow laws. When that began to unravel in the 1960’s the same groups implemented the strategy of Organizing Government employees. The night riders of a century ago would recognize both the ends and the means of today’s “organizationists”. Though many people are part of the organization simply because they have no choice, even in at the peak of the Jim Crow era the vast majority of compliant people simply wanted to stay out of trouble. When the police and government officials, are backed by courts to legally bind one group (in this case taxpayers) to fund the largess of the connected (in this case organized government employees) the effect is the same, the description of the victim is the only variable.
What we are witnessing in Wisconsin is a remake of a play I have seen before. With Richard Trumpka as Bull Conner, Barrack Obama as Governor Wallace and staring Scott Walker in the role of Martin Luther King Jr leading the march to emancipation. The play is written in the language of segregation, with a new twist, not based on race.
The plot line: An organized group in control of the government bureaucracy have stripped away the rights of the majority of voters and tax payers is suddenly faced with an emancipation movement. (note to wardrobe: hoods not required)
Trailer catch line:
You didn’t think the Democratic segregationist machinery would go away just because it went through a bad spell in the 1960’s did you?
WmCraig