Political Comment

Evidently, the new governor of Wisconsin is a moron. No doubt a lot of people won't see it that way, but in the midst of a gigantic upheaval with massive international implications out of Egypt-- an uprising everyone agrees is a near-spontaneous demand for greater freedom for the average citizen of that country-- Gov. Walker has decided to unilaterally strip workers in his state of their rights to bargain for better working conditions. It's an obnoxious and cynical ploy to curry favor with Tea Party types, who fail to understand that budget difficulties are not the result of wages earned (and I do mean earned) by teachers, police, fire-fighters, and other public-sector employees. I'd be curious to know how many people watching the coverage of events in Egypt (and Tunisia and Yemen and elsewhere) even recognize that political stunts like this one hint that our own country is moving in the opposite direction of the kind of progress we hope will emerge in the Middle East. Or, to put it more bluntly, if we are ever to see true democratic reform in other parts of the world (as we claim to desire) it will have to begin with recognition of workers' rights. The big irony in all of this is that the concept of forging a productive relationship between the public and private sectors to benefit all citizens was successfully initiated over a hundred years ago by Robert LaFollette... the then governor of Wisconsin. It would be truly tragic if Brown is as deaf to the lessons of the past as he apparently is to the lessons of the present.