The Battle in Madison

The attempt to break the public employee unions in Wisconsin is less about the state’s budget problems than it is about political power.  The attempt by Gov. Walker to take away rights that workers there have held for over fifty years is part of a campaign that stretches from Wisconsin to Ohio, Florida to Indiana.  The gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and the rich are now going after what little the middle class has been able to hold on to.  And it’s not only public workers who are hurt by this war on their rights.  If you or your child attend a public primary school or university, if you have ever used a public hospital, if you need emergency services or any kind of state-administered benefits, you will also feel the pain.  If you think the lines are long at the Department of Motor Vehicles now, just wait.  The legislators that are stripping public employees of their rights, their benefits and, ultimately, their jobs, are paying back their rich contributors who send their kids to private schools, use private hospitals, and don’t care if everyone else loses out.  The rich continue to get richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class is sinking into poverty as well.  And unions, for all of their limitations (many caused by having to work within a maze of already-existing anti-union legislation), are one of the few bulwarks left to counter this trend.