Who would have ever thought that Wisconsin, the Midwestern bastion of liberal thought, could have become the site for a successful assault on organized labor?\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
There have probably been millions of words written about the recent folly in Madison. The events of the past few weeks once again verify the old adage, that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.<\/p>\r\n
If you ever told me that at some point the\u00a0chambers of state government would be packed with protesters, or that more than a dozen Democratic state senators would flee the state to avoid a vote on an abominable bill, or that lawmakers would have to climb through windows to get back into government buildings, I would have labeled you\u00a0crazy, in the vernacular of the street.<\/p>\r\n
Yet it is all true.<\/p>\r\n
I’m not the first to say this and I won’t be the last: Republican Gov.\u00a0Scott Walker’s\u00a0emasculation of collective bargaining laws for state workers is not just a bid for\u00a0fiscal\u00a0soundness.\u00a0It is a blow directly aimed at one of the\u00a0strongest allies of the Democratic Party in this nation: organized labor.<\/p>\r\n
Politics rather conveniently meshed with the supposed good of the public in the Badger State.<\/p>\r\n
But as, according to legend,\u00a0Yogi Berri once said, “It ain’t over til it’s over.”<\/p>\r\n
Gov.\u00a0Walker and his fellow Republicans may have overplayed their hand.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
The New York Times had a Page One story Friday with the headline, “Wisconsin Curbs Public Unions, But Democrats Predict Backlash.” In it Mike Tate, head of the state’s Democratic Party, postulates that politically, Walker and his GOP cronies have handed\u00a0Democrats\u00a0a “gift.”<\/p>\r\n
http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/11\/us\/11wisconsin.html?pagewanted=1&sq=wisconsin%20unions&st=cse&scp=1<\/a><\/p>\r\n Needless to say, Tate is hardly a neutral observer. But he is not the only one to think that the shenanigans in Madison\u00a0will prompt\u00a0liberals and labor to rally, leading to recalls and other actions. For example, in a 24-hour period alone the state Democratic party had received $360,000 in donations.<\/p>\r\n The Milwaukee\u00a0Journal Sentinel did a story Saturday about the 14\u00a0Democratic Wisconsin senators who just came back to the state\u00a0after leaving in a\u00a0bid to prevent a vote on the Gov. Walker’s collective-bargaining bill.\u00a0The article, which\u00a0got more than 2,600 comments online, told how the “unbowed” and “unrepentant” senators were cheered by a huge crowd in the Capitol.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n