As a Wisconsinite, I have paid particular attention to the many diaries regarding the current fight for rights and dignity going on between Governor Scott "Imperial" Walker and people who still own their own souls. I have yet to "diary", largely to avoid repetition, but I have been to the capitol, spoken out when given the opportunity, and supported the state workers in every way I can think of.
One thing I have noticed is that many of the aforementioned diaries and related diaries have at least one thing in common: the acknowledgment that this is part of a larger, Republican plan for permanent majority and/or power. And my first thought upon reading these acknowledgments is: It's bigger than that. Maybe I'm missing it when it's brought up, but just to be sure it gets said, I'll elucidate.
To begin with, I am in no way saying that this anti-union movement around the country is not part of a grab for power by Republicans. I'm sure they would love to have it. But I think there is more to this than politics.
Unions have been under attack since the moment of their existence. In fact, unions are really a response to the attack on workers that began the moment of the founding of the United States of America. Most modern American unions have their roots in the 1800's, as workers began to chafe under the increasingly harsh and thankless conditions under which they worked, and they began to organize in order to win, well, nearly every right and benefit we enjoy today.
This did not sit well with their employers or what might be considered the "ownership class", and these "betters" fought back quite literally, using violence to beat back the workers. In 1935, labor won a major victory with the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (or Wagner Act), which provided protections under the law for the right to organize and bargain collectively. The response? Well, for one, in two years, from 1935 to 1937, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) increased their public relations budget by a factor of twenty, and the newer, more technologically savvy war on labor began.
The ownership class (corporations, old money, landowners, ad nauseum) have never ceased their war on everyone else, and they have made great strides. For example, their propaganda machine is mind-boggling (in both senses), as they write and print our textbooks, finance movies and television, pay for slanted research, own the news, back religious and political figures who do their bidding - all aimed at maintaining and expanding elite private power while simultaneously wiping out opposition and even the thought of opposition. (This last part is especially important, because if you can frame the debate, you've won before it has begun. In the current example of Wisconsin, the frame is already being attempted with great success. The debate largely seems to be one of how much the state employees are willing to sacrifice, which to me begs the question: Why is it assumed that the state workers have to give up anything at all?)
The ownership class have spent over a century winning their power through the courts, the one branch of government least accountable to and influenced by the people - and that's not a coincidence. Which brings me to my point:
This isn't just about political power, or money, or even religion. Each of those things has a place in this, to be sure, but to me, it's about stripping from the people one of the last remaining tools of change. Such tools have been systematically eroded, destroyed, or co-opted by the ownership class. For instance:
- As I've already said, the "news" is owned and run by the ownership class, and thus of little or no value to the people.
- Corporations are a shining example of victory for the ownership class, as they are absolute internal tyrannies. Any non-unionized job is utterly insecure and done on command, with no recourse for the employee, a condition described by 19th century women in Lowell, Massachusetts as "wage slavery". The description is not wholly inaccurate. For most of the workforce in the Untied States, a job is a surrender to unaccountable private power, a source of degradation, humiliation, and total powerlessness. Score one for the bad guys. (And now, their tyrannies are not only legally people, but superpeople, with rights and privileges we mere humans to not possess.)
- Politics has largely become the wall between the people and their government, a result of a very conscious effort on the part of the ownership class to infect Americans with "anti-politics". To the average American, the government is the problem, not the solution. This sentiment works perfectly for the ownership class (or they wouldn't have manufactured it and indoctrinated Americans with it), as it cuts the people off from the only institution over which they have any influence that is big enough to stand against private power. (Now, of course, they've lawyered their way into being able to directly own elected officials, so the need for anti-politics is waning).
You get the idea, I hope. Against these efforts, Americans have a few remaining tools at their disposal. The ballot box is extremely inefficient, but it is still very important. Demonstration, protest, and direct action are always an option, but they require a response from elected officials who are increasingly insulated from the fallout of doing their masters' bidding. There are a few other means, but for the sake of brevity, I'll skip to unions.
Contrary to one of the current memes, unions are protected by law, and thus organizing and collective bargaining are (in the looser, casual sense ) "rights". However, the particular effectiveness of unions is owed less to legal protections (which since the Reagan Administration have gone largely unenforced by every Administration) and more to the fact that they confront the ownership class itself, directly. No confusing wrangling through middlemen like Governor Scott Walker. Naturally, this is an anathema to private power, and it must be eliminated in order to continue what the chair of the National Association of Manufacturers' PR Advisory Committee long ago called, "The Everlasting Battle for the Minds of Men".
To me, this is what the fight is about. Beyond the state employees' rights and benefits (which must be preserved), beyond the handover of Wisconsin (and America's) public resources to private power (which must be prevented), and beyond the permanent majority of the Republicans (which, while it, too, must be prevented, is a little beside the point), we must not allow the agents of the ownership class to continue to strip the people of their access to the levers of power and the means to change. This is Net Neutrality times a thousand. This fight isn't just about taking away rights, it is also about taking away any means of ever getting those rights (or any others) back.
Updated by lotusmaglite at Mon Mar 7, 2011, 09:14:54 PM
UPDATE: Thank you once again, Rescue Rangers! I seem to keep getting lost in the woods, and you fine folks keep saving my bacon. ;)