YOUR NEW BOSS, MITT?

Does Mitt Romney remind you of anyone? Maybe someone you worked for in the past? Not necessarily your immediate supervisor but his boss. You know, the "suit" from the VP's office. The guy who never did a day's labor in his life. The guy who gives you the reluctant "limp dishrag" handshake? The guy who walks through the plant and spy's you wiping the sweat off your forehead and runs to your boss and demands he dismiss you on the spot for loafing. The guy who looks at firing people as sport. We all know this guy. Clueless, aloof, has a mean streak and no sympathy for anyone working with their hands. Most of us have worked with our hands at some time in our lives and can recognize this guy. Is this the guy you want to be President of the United Sates?

ENOUGH?

Last week at the high school my son attends, they had a “lockdown and emergency evacuation drill” in the event there were ever to be a shooter in the school.
This drill, I think, was generally a good idea but what does the need to even have it say about the world we now live in?
To my knowledge, students bringing a gun to school and killing people is a rather recent phenomenon. What has brought us to need to run drills in case our children become potential murder victims while attending high school? This is total insanity! Our kids can no longer feel safe even in their classrooms. What’s next? Cops in every classroom? Arm the teachers? Arm the entire student body? Arm everybody?
We are becoming so desensitized by all the shooting and violence that surrounds us that we accept it as a fact of life. Where is the outrage? Why are we so docile? Why do we shout at each other over political smoke and snake oil while completely overlooking the horrible violence that surrounds us each day? When will we say collectively: enough?

SPECIES

As a species, we humans are a real piece of work. We have perpetrated violence on one another since Cain and Abel. We even have the audacity to think of ourselves as cultured and civilized while at the same time engaging in tribal warfare all over the world.
Some have managed to twist our bibles; you pick the religion, and interpret what was intended as a moral compass into justification to hate and kill. Throughout history our leaders have understood how to play us against one another in order to gain wealth and power. Nothing has changed but the sophistication of our weapons. We can now kill more people than ever with less effort than ever before.
It has become easy for those in power to influence millions overnight. They continue to play upon our fears. They continue to point out who we should hate. We continue to fall for it. How much longer are we going to remain so gullible? How much longer are we going to blindly follow these hate mongers?
Not only are we barbaric, we are intellectually lazy. If we do not search for and speak truth to the powerful, we are doomed to follow them right to the gates of whatever you envision as hell. By then it will be too late.

Good Things From Unions

If you are not among the top three percent of the money earners in the United States, why would you vote for a Republican? It has been borne out by their actions that this is the only segment of the population they want to help.
Around here a lot of small business people feel they should support the Republicans because, after all, they support business. They are correct. Republicans support BIG business. They view small business as a gnat buzzing around their head, a minor nuisance at best. It is no longer the Eisenhower Republican party. The Republicans left Ike as well as Reagan many years ago.
I don’t understand why unions are being so vilified. I have been involved with the building trades unions both as a journeyman tradesman and an employer for the last 40 years. It has been, overall, a good relationship.
Of all the benefits to all workers, nonunion included, that unions have brought us, there is a benefit most people are not aware of.
In 1962 the Asbestos Workers international, pipe and boiler insulators, contributed much needed funding to Dr. Irving Selikoff’s research on asbestos related disease. As a direct result of this research, asbestos in building materials was taken off the market in 1974. This union funded research saved many thousands of people from cancer and mesothelioma.
There have been many other beneficial union funded projects in the workplace. We must stop this mindless union bashing and pause for a moment to reflect upon how the unions have improved all of our lives.

For My Wisconsin Friends

I think we all learned from the last election that voting counts and that not voting counts equally. I believe a lot of liberals and independents did not show up to vote last election and that is the reason we’re in the fix we currently find ourselves.
If you want to restore some sanity in Madison, please get out and vote for Shelly Moore on July 12h. This primary is every bit as important as the recall election itself. We must show the right wingers that we will not tolerate these attempts to confuse the voters with a fake candidate, who by his own admission, will not even be in the state after the primary to run a campaign.
The right wing extremists in Madison are being fairly quiet until the recalls are over. They have to slow down their radical agenda lest we be reminded of why they need some checks on them and their national puppet masters. These people don’t care about us. They do care about the Koch brothers, Karle Rove and the Koch sponsored right wing think tanks that are setting their agenda. If they prevail in these recalls it’s going to be “Katy bar the door”. You ain’t seen nothin yet!
These people are selling our state to the highest bidder. Please vote for Shelly Moore so we can start to take Wisconsin back from the out of state special interests. I don’t want to live in Fitzwalkerstan, I want my state back!
Remember, if you are a registered voter, you do NOT need state approved voter ID for this election. Anyone who tells you otherwise is misleading you.
Your vote counts more now than ever!

Wisconsin Bile

Why do Republican politicians continuously need to set an enemy before us? Why do they always have a target for frustrated people to hate? Why do they always try to make us afraid? Why are they trying to make us so mean spirited, uncaring, and selfish?
The new enemies de juor are the union teachers. They paint them as lazy, overpaid drains on our economy. Really? The person who has the biggest positive influence on our children other than parents are their teachers! We have a wonderful education system in Wisconsin with smart, dedicated, caring professional teachers. Most of these people could have done much better financially in the private sector. No one gets into teaching for the money. It has always been a calling. These people are heroes every day, teaching our kids critical thinking. That is just a part of their job. How about teaching respect for others, nonviolent behavior, athletic and academic competition, guidance toward their individual talents? Preparing them for the next level in their education? Spending extra time outside of the classroom to help someone who didn’t understand something?
Why should teachers tolerate being vilified and publicly abused daily by politicians and those who buy into the bile and hatred they’re selling?
Why, with the internet at their fingertips, do so many Americans choose to continue their ignorance?
The Republicans are trying to privatize our schools and this hate mongering is just the first volley in the fight. Quit allowing these evil people to influence you! Use the critical thinking you were taught in school to recognize this for the scam that it is. The only ones who benefit from privatization are the wealthy. The rest of us lose.

Test Tube

The Republicans are testing us to determine whether they have dumbed us down to the point where we will believe the most outrageous lies they can think of.
Wisconsin is nothing but a petri dish for Scott Walkers rich, elitist right wing Overlords. They are playing him and his minions, the Fitzgerald brothers, for suckers. They are blindly carrying out their latest strategy for destroying our democracy and creating a one party ruling class. If they should fail, the Overlords will steam role right over them on their way to find a few more suckers to try the next ploy to take our democracy away. Scott Who?
I, for one, do not appreciate being the subject of experimentation by Scott Walker and his right wing, Overlords.
Right wing Republicans do not care one whit for the concerns, or for that matter, the wellbeing of their constituents. They look upon us with great disdain, as if we were a bothersome child tugging at their pant leg for attention. They just shake us off and go about the business of their out of state Overlords.
Whenever the Republicans are howling the loudest about what the Democrats are doing, that is what the Republicans are doing. The old diversionary tactic of pointing in one direction and when you look, they stab you in the back with their other hand.
Just a reminder. The voter ID law is NOT in effect for the recall elections. If you are a registered voter, YOU WILL NOT BE REQUIRED TO PRESENT ANY STATE APPROVED IDENTIFICATION DOCUMENTS. The poll workers may ask you but you are not required to produce any.