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The Republican Urge To Provoke Violence And Bloodshed

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The Republican Party, instead of promoting harmony and a sense of common purpose among the population of the United States, instead, for some odd reason, hard to fathom, does just the opposite! Everything it advocates instead provokes violence and bloodshed, without any rhyme or reason!

Examples of this abound!

1. Wisconsin, Ohio and other states take away labor’s right to collective bargaining, provoking massive demonstrations and outrage.

2. Florida cuts unemployment compensation to the lowest number of weeks of any state, 20 weeks, in the midst of an all time high unemployment rate of 12 percent, one of the highest in the nation, bringing desperate people to the brink of violence.

3. Florida also decides to make it more difficult for former felons to regain their voting rights, making it five years after completion of sentence and probation before one can even request restoration of voting rights, angering many who will feel discrimination.

4. New Hampshire and other states are working to make it more difficult for college students to vote in their college towns, as well as states which want to require state mandated IDs which intimidate poor people and minorities from registering to vote.

5. Arizona and other states are promoting profiling, giving police the right to stop anyone who they believe to be an illegal immigrant, and in the process advocating nativism.

6. Arizona and other states are cutting benefits for poor people who need transplant surgery, angering family members of those patients.

7. States are laying off teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public servants, and by increasing the unemployment rate, are fueling resentment among many of the newly unemployed. Also, the crime rate is bound to go up as we have fewer police officers.

8. States moving to criminalize abortion are provoking pro life extremists to the potential for bloodshed and violence.

9. States promoting guns on campus and in bars and other public places tends toward violence and bloodshed potential in the future.

10. The promotion of opposition to gay rights helps incite threats and violence against those by religious extremists who see homosexuality as a threat to American society.

11. The promotion of the “Birther” conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama by Republican leaders and conservatives fuels threats against our President by those who think he is a Muslim.

12. Congressman Peter King, by holding hearings on Islamic terrorism, promotes the image that we cannot trust the Muslim population within our midst.

This is a dangerous set of circumstances which makes one wonder what the future of the nation is, with the tendency of the Republican Party to be oblivious to what is occurring, or is it oblivious, or in fact purposely promoting these circumstances? One has to wonder!

Focus On Bullying: Schools, State Governors, Tea Party Congressional Republicans, And A Supreme Court Justice!

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It is very sad that this nation is witnessing so many examples of bullying as a method of taking advantage of others.

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama held a White House Conference on Bullying Prevention today to draw attention and concern to the growing bullying problem faced by young children, teenagers and early 20s youths in schools and colleges, either because of social pressures, or their sexuality, physical characteristics, or ethnic or religious heritage, often leading tragically to suicides. President Obama even said he had been bullied as a child because of his big ears. A lot of this bullying also occurs on the internet.

But it is not just an issue of young people being bullied. It manifests itself in so many other ways in our political system today, with bad manners and rudeness becoming endemic!

We have Governors such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida, Chris Christie of New Jersey, and John Kasich of Ohio, among others, who are bullying public servants who have dedicated their lives to working for their communities as teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, prison guards, social workers, librarians and other fields of public service, and now are facing the loss of basic labor rights to collective bargaining that have been long held.

Workers having basic rights of organizing is a human rights issue for anyone in a democracy, and for Wisconsin to bypass the Democrats in their State Senate and strip workers of their basic rights in an unethical and slimy way is despicable beyond belief! Scott Walker is clearly a bully and a political thug, and the other Governors are no better, as they all proclaim, as do Republicans nationally, that we all have to “share the pain”, with the wealthy and corporations however not part of that equation, just the middle class and the poor. There is no sense of morality or decency in these men and their party as they take us back to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, when labor was first trying to organize to protect the rights of workers.

One hundred fifty years of progress is being wiped out by these right wing fanatics who will stop at nothing to give tax breaks to the rich and the corporations and harm the masses of the nation, who are facing attacks both on their homes and their employment, and being expected to pay more and get less, squeezing the middle class down into poverty!

But the same tactics of confrontation, arrogance and belligerence are also demonstrating themselves in Congress, as the Tea Party freshmen in the House and a small band of Tea Party supporters in the Senate are showing their disdain for civility and rational thought!

And even the Supreme Court is witnessing bullying, primarily by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, becoming more contemptuous of his fellow Justices when they go against his views. As he nears the 25th anniversary of his elevation to the Court, he is becoming more obnoxious and insufferable than ever!

When will civility and decency return to America in its schools, its government leaders, and even the Supreme Court? Unfortunately, it seems not anytime soon!

Florida Governor Rick Scott: The “King” Vs. The Legislature And The People!

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Today marks the beginning of the Florida legislative session, with more than a two thirds majority of Republicans in both houses, but a new Republican Governor who fought the establishment and won the Governorship, and has acted as if he is a monarch, since he became Governor nine weeks ago!

Despite his involvement in Medicare scams in the 1990s, for which he should have gone to federal prison instead of paying heavy fines, Scott utilized $73 million of his own fortune to win the Governorship by the smallest margin in Florida history, about 50,000 votes. He was the only Governor candidate nationally, and actually the only wealthy person to win public office mostly based on his personal fortune, other than Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson. Like Ron Johnson, he ran as the anti establishment candidate of the Tea Party Movement, and he has already shown evidence that he does not wish to cooperate with his own party leadership, and to act stubborn and inflexible, and ignore the news media as much as he can.

Scott has enraged many, including his own Republican Party, by canceling the bullet train project from Orlando to Tampa, turning down $2.4 billion, which now will go elsewhere, while Florida lags on planning future transportation needs in central Florida.

Scott has refused to allow a prescription data base to keep track of pill mills, which have become endemic in South Florida, and with Florida leading the nation with drug addicts based on illegal pill prescriptions, on the basis of privacy rights, even though 42 other states have such databases. This is insane, with the reality that there are more pill mills in Broward County, Florida, alone than there are McDonalds or Starbucks in that county, with its main center being Fort Lauderdale.

Scott sold two state jet airplanes without legislative permission, and that will lead to increased costs for future Governors when they need to purchase a plane, as Scott is using his own private plane, and not thinking of future costs.

Scott unveiled his two year budget plan before a Tea Party crowd, rather than before Republican colleagues or the mainstream news media. He is calling for more than $3 billion in cuts in education and health care, while drastically decreasing corporate income taxes and property taxes by $1.7 billion, and cutting state regulation of utilities and insurance companies. College tuitions would skyrocket, and Scott has rejected taking federal funds to start implementation of the Obama Health Care Plan, and is fighting in court to repeal it.

Scott also wants to end teacher tenure, force major pension contributions by state workers, cut unemployment benefits and Medicaid, privatize state prisons, and end collective bargaining as is being attempted in Wisconsin and Ohio, and already exists in Indiana.

Scott is a nightmare even to his own party, and although they are very conservative, many of them are upset at his haughty, arrogant, dictatorial approach, as if there is no legislature or courts, and that somehow he expects that everything he wants to do will be done because KING RICK wants it so!

There is, as reported earlier, a move to pass a recall law, and some even wonder if Scott could someday face impeachment if he refuses to recognize the role of compromise, even within his own party in the legislature, let alone considering the opposition.

Florida seems to be on the road to total disaster, with the state, already in the bottom ten in education and other social services, about to face a political, social and economic crisis that will put it front and center, even ahead of Wisconsin and Ohio and other states with “bully” Governors!

Support In Poll For Public Sector Workers As Republican Governors Work To Destroy Unions

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As Scott Walker, John Kasich, Chris Christie and Rick Scott, among other Republican Governors, make clear their campaign to undermine labor unions and strip public service workers of their benefits, a New York Times-CBS News Poll shows the American people oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions, and are against the cutting of pay and benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits.

By 60-33, Americans oppose taking away the bargaining rights of workers, and by 56-37 they are against cutting of pay or benefits to reduce deficits, with larger majorities of Democrats and Independents, and slight plurality favoritism among Republicans of what these governors are attempting to do.
By a slight margin, the poll also supports ability to retire early for police officers and firefighters, and even teachers.

A plurality of 40 percent supported raising taxes to deal with the deficit, and 71 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Independents opposed weakening collective bargaining rights of public employees.

The only group that had a substantial support for cutting pay and benefits, but even then not a majority (45 percent), were those earning more than $100,000 per year.

A Wisconsin poll also shows nearly 60 percent oppose what Governor Scott Walker is trying to do to destroy collective bargaining, and a recall movement is developing against him and many leaders of the GOP in the legislature. And a poll shows if Walker was running now for Governor, four months after he was elected, he would easily lose!

So with strong Independent support for labor rights, and polls showing great anger against GOP Governors, the Democrats may be able to utilize the anti labor fight in a productive way in 2012!

Organized Labor: The Promoter And Protector Of The Middle Class!

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In the midst of the attack on organized labor going on in Republican governed state governments, many fail to understand how significant a role labor unions have played historically in promoting and protecting the middle class.

When unions flourished in the years after 1945 to 1980, the middle class grew dramatically in size and in prosperity. Labor supported civil rights, social security, medicare, and promotion of organizing rights for workers. They became the counterweight to corporations and Wall Street in the political battles that made America a nation in which gaps in income and wealth narrowed.

Since Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, union membership has declined from one third to about 7 percent, and with it, the working conditions of non union workers has worsened dramatically. What many people did not and do not understand is that when unions prosper, non union workers benefit as well, and when unions decline, all middle class workers lose out.

So we are seeing the middle class slipping in poverty, and with the decline of organized labor, the American Dream of a middle class life is fast disappearing!

This is why the labor battles in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey and elsewhere are not just over state public service workers in those states. It is also the future of American workers who never have and never will be members of labor unions, but do not appreciate how much labor power did for them as they moved up the economic ladder, and now do not fully realize yet the growing power of the elite rich and corporations which care not a whit about their workers’ long term future decline, in their mad dash for maximum profits, minimal regulation, and insane passion for never ending concentration of wealth in their own hands!

The Die Is Cast: The Midwest And The Presidential Election Of 2012

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With the struggle going on over public service workers in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other states, it is clear that the future of organized labor is at stake, but also the future of the Democratic Party and President Barack Obama.

With the reality that organized labor is a large part of the base of the Democratic Party, it is clear that the battleground for victory for the party and its President will be the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa–the heartland of the country.

Also realize that the Republican Party had its birth in the Midwest, and that Barack Obama won all seven states, and nearly won next door Missouri.

To win in 2012, Obama MUST win most, if not all, of these Midwestern states, hit hard by the Great Recession and now led by Republican Governors determined to strike vengeance against the base of the opposition party, organized labor.

And with growing interest in former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, as the one GOP candidate for President who has few negatives, other than not being well known, it could be that President Obama will face a strong conservative opponent in Pawlenty.

John Glenn, A True Hero After 49 Years: A Lost Concept

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On February 20, 1962, the author was a senior in high school, and the nation witnessed a true hero, a role model for young people, display great courage as he accomplished what was regarded as the greatest moment in the history of flight since Charles Lindbergh flew The Spirit Of St. Louis from New York to Paris in May 1927.

John Glenn was the first American to orbit in space on the Friendship 7 space craft on that day, and he also went into space at the age of 77 in 1998, as he was retiring from four terms in the US Senate from Ohio, a record for the state.

Glenn was a good will ambassador for the space program, and his private life mirrored his public life, and he is now nearing 90 years of age.

We need more true heroes today, but sadly, they are lacking, and young people cannot easily find anyone to use as a role model in the public sphere.

But this date is worthy of recognition, and a salute to John Glenn is well deserved!

Public Employees And Collective Bargaining Rights: Going Into Reverse! :(

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With the Wisconsin controversy fresh in our thoughts, it is very revealing to see a map of the United States and see the state of collective bargaining rights for public employees in the 50 states of the Union.

34 states guarantee collective bargaining, including all of the Northeast, New England, the Midwest, the Paciific Coast, some of the Mountain West, plus Tennessee and Florida, and also Alaska and Hawaii.

11 states have collective bargaining as “permissable” including West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.

5 states have collective bargaining as explicitly illegal, all in the South, including Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Texas.

What a state of affairs that in 2011, after a century of labor struggles to be able to negotiate their working conditions, we are seeing movement in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Maine, New Jersey, and Florida against such labor rights!

We are progressing backwards into the 19th century! 🙁

The Long Range Significance Of Wisconsin! Survival Of The Middle Class, Public Education, And Democracy!

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The Wisconsin labor struggle is a battle against corporate interests who wish to destroy the working middle class’s right to collective bargaining and labor representation. It is a calculated attempt of conservatives, Tea Party Movement, and Republicans (who have always hated and opposed labor rights) to diminish the middle class and destroy public education, the only way for upward social mobility in this society!

The labor movement helped to create the middle class, but it had to face entrenched business and conservative interests in the 19th century and in the 20th century. Now, in the 21st century, it faces new attempts to take away the hard earned rights and benefits that generations of workers struggled for, earned by the sweat of their brow, and deserve respect and dignity for their commitment to their work.

Every social movement in this country has required marches, demonstrations, lawsuits, and civil disobedience to win support–including the anti slavery movement, the women suffrage struggle, the recognition of labor rights, the civil rights movement, the women’s rights movement, and the gay rights battle!

It is appropriate that Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party in 1854 at Ripon, and which had a platform of opposition to the expansion of slavery and included abolitionists in its midst; and also the birthplace of the progressive movement in Madison with the election of Governor Robert LaFollette, Sr in 1900–is the “ground zero” location of the new fight for labor rights and the survival of the middle class and public education!

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin might be intransigent, but those opposed to his use of fear and hysteria–just as the GOP has always been good at utilizing, as in the Red Scare led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the manipulation of September 11 to promote the Iraq War–must not give in, and must continue the struggle, and it must be fought in Florida, Ohio, New Jersey and elsewhere with no surrender, as it will determine the future of the American middle class and the survival of a society that can still be termed a democracy!

The Move Is On: RECALL RICK SCOTT As Governor Of Florida!

Ronald 40 Comments

Florida Governor Rick Scott has managed to alienate just about everyone in seven weeks in office, with his outrageous budget proposals that would destroy the Florida Retirement System and demonstrate total disrespect for the hard work and sacrifices of Florida’s public servants; his arrogance toward the news media and refusal to communicate with the public; and now his rejection of $2.4 billion for a high speed rail project from Orlando to Tampa, as part of the federal commitment to the future of transportation in the United States.

He has succeeded in alienating not just labor, progressives and Democrats, but his own party in the state legislature, which although more than two thirds Republican in both houses, has witnessed shock, dismay and anger at this man who ran against the Republican establishment, basically “bought” the governorship with a $73 million personal fortune investment in the campaign, and now seems not interested in working in a cooperative manner with state Republican leaders.

It is now clear that the legislature, when it meets in March and April, will NOT go along with much of what Governor Scott wishes to impose on the state. With his scandalous and corrupt involvement in Medicare scams in the 1990s, and now his hard line stubbornness and insistence on things being done his way, there will be major battles within his own party as to the direction of the state and its finances!

And now there is the beginning of whispers and more about the idea of passing a state law allowing recall of state officials, something not allowed in the Florida Constitution, but permitted in 18 other states.

If the legislation, proposed by a Democratic state legislator were to be adopted, there would be a four month period to circulate petitions, with signatures required in all 67 counties. At least 15 percent of the total number of votes in the last election would have to be gained. All state officials, including the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and state cabinet officials could be recalled.

Since Scott won the Governorship by only about 50,000 votes statewide, it would seem likely that if a recall campaign was mounted, that it would be likely to succeed, because one must remember, many Republicans in the legislature and statewide are clearly uncomfortable with the arrogance and abusive manner of Rick Scott!

Recall is a progressive reform first adopted in Wisconsin under the great progressive governor, Robert LaFollette, Sr. in the early 20th century, and the voice of the people should be heard, not only in Florida, but also in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, Texas, and other states where the Republican governors are acting in an arrogant, abusive way which harms the states and the citizens they are supposed to serve!