THE KOCH BROS. WHOLLY OWNED GOVERNOR WALKER IS ONLY TELLING HALF OF THE STORY
Gary Ater
February 24, 2011
...The Koch Bros. own Governor of the state of Wisconsin, Mr. Scott Walker
Author´s Comment:
Please note: This article was written prior to the release of the recent telephone conversation between the governor of Wisconsin and Ian Murphy, Editor of the on-line newspaper, Buffalo Beast, while he was posing as the governor´s main political supporter, David Koch.
The 20 minute illuminating conversation obviously speaks for itself. However, the following article is still relevant and accurate. Governor Walker has now made his lack of honesty a crystal clear example of the impropriety of his current position as a "supposed Wisconsin public servant". He is obviously not an elected servant of the citizens of Wisconsin, but is instead owned, "lock, stock and barrel" by the Koch Brothers.
It´s really disgusting that Wisconsin´s Governor Walker, right-wing talk-radio and FAUX NEWS are going after the state workers in Wisconsin with all their bogus "half truths".
Even the ultra-conservative Washington Post and Newsweek columnist, George F. Will, wrote a bizarre article that he probably now wishes he could retract stating, "This capital [Madison, WI] has been convulsed by government employees sowing disorder in order to repeal an election. A minority of the minority of Wisconsin residents who work for government (300,000 of them) are resisting changes to benefits that most of Wisconsin's 5.6 million residents resent financing."
Mr. Will further embarrasses himself with, "Serene at the center of this storm sits Republican Scott Walker, 43, in the governor's mansion library, beneath a portrait of Ronald Reagan."
On the surface, solely based on Mr. Will´s comments, it kind of makes you want to jump up and say, "You go governor!", doesn´t it?"
Well, we now know it was all a bunch of "Bull", and it´s only half of the story!
The big deal that the governor and the people of Wisconsin are complaining about is that the teachers and state workers are only paying 1% of the contributions for their pensions and only 6% towards their health care coverage.
Now, upon first glance, most people should be gasping and saying that is way too little in contributions and that the public employees need to pay more. (And just for the record, the workers have agreed to changes that would increase their pension and health care contributions to 5.8% and 12.6% respectively.)
Where the half-truths come in is that you are not hearing how all this happened in the first place. And that it was not the fault of their union´s "collective bargaining", that the GOP governors in five states are now trying to get rid of. (The GOP is very aware that without "collective bargaining", why should anyone want to join a union?)
Now, here´s what actually happened.
Going back to the 1970´s, when the state´s union contracts came up for negotiations, the state representatives were continually telling the unions that they could not afford the cost-of-living increases that the unions were requesting. This is even though in most cases, that´s all the unions were asking for.
But what the state did offer in place of increased wages was a smaller increase in pay, and an increase in the money that the state would pay into their pension funds and health care accounts. This negotiation approach occurred with many of the public union / state contract decisions every 3-5 years. (Of course, this was all occurring well before health care costs had gone through the roof.) It was also before the large group of the public union employee´s "Baby-Boomers" were all retiring and were beginning to draw upon their pensions, as they are doing today.
In addition, it was before the different states had begun raiding the state employee retirement funds for covering other state costs that had been increasing year after year. (And these cost increases were due to the conservatives in Congress not allowing local taxes to keep up with their own citizen´s demands for additional state social services.)
The second half truth is the false accusation that the public employees are making more than their counterparts in private industry.
The reality is that when comparing similar educations and expertise between the public and private employees, particularly in Wisconsin, the pay for the private workers is much higher than that of the public employees. The big difference between public and private employees for years has been the public union employee´s pensions and their health care coverage versus that of private industry. As we are now aware, over the last 30 years, corporations and the American conservatives have pretty much devastated all the private industry unions and private pensions in general.
The final half-truth is the real reason that the Koch Bros. had become Governor Walker´s largest campaign donors. The reason for their millions of dollars of support is that they are "biting-at-the-bit" for purchasing the rights to Wisconsin´s public power and heating facilities. This is all part of the governor´s plan and his sponsored bill for privatizing these state public operations. (The highly visible union "collective bargaining" brouhaha has been taking the focus away from this important and profitable issue for these politically generous "brothers". And it´s just another example of the result of the disgusting Citizens-United, US Supreme Court decision.)
In today´s environment, and because young people today have not been taught the history of unions in America, the average working American today is not aware of what they owe to the labor unions of the past. They are not aware that without the unions, there would not be 8 hours work-days, a 5 day work–week, child labor laws and a host of many other privileges that today, we all take for granted.
In addition, a number of American men and women died for those rights and privileges.
Since President Ronald Reagan declared war on all unions in the 1980´s, today´s public unions are pretty much all that´s left of the most democratic groups in the country. Unions elect their leaders to represent them and while big business and the wealthy have all their money, all the average working American has is their many numbers. And unions have always been a place where these workers could talk with one voice. The First Amendment of the US Constitution supports American citizens to "peaceably assemble" and to "petition the government for a redress of grievances". That´s exactly what the governors are trying to take away from the public unions by trying to get rid of "collective bargaining".
The Republicans are aware that because the unions are totally democratic, they are also well organized and are the strongest supporters of the Democratic Party. The unions have the "feet-on-the-street" for getting out the real word, for getting people registered to vote and for speaking the truth. Historically, the more people that actually vote, the better the results are for the Democrats. As it was in 2010, the low voter turn-out was best for the Republicans.
In fact, the Republicans keep saying that in the last election they were given a "mandate for more federal spending cuts", which the latest Pew Research Poll has totally refuted. But even if the election message had been a message for spending cuts, their so called "mandate from the American people" was a miniscule "mandate of only 18% of the voting American public".
Low turn-out at mid-term elections usually does favor the GOP and mid-terms always have low voter turn-outs. So based on all the noise from the Republicans, they are saying that "18 out of 100 American voters" was their giant mandate for cutting spending. But the Pew Survey of over 10,000 US voters has confirmed that the election message was not for spending cuts, but was instead for putting more focus on US job creation.
Finally, Mr. Will stated that the, "[Democratic] party's base is government employees." I agree that the government union workers are very important to the Democratic Party, and their organizations for the average middle-class American worker always will be. But what is also very important is that when young American voters, with honest information on the issues, get together with the union voters as they did in 2008, they are an unstoppable group in support of democracy.
As I´ve always said, conservatives have no use for the actual governing of the American public as they just want a small group of wealthy Americans to run the nation like a corporate dictator. Corporations are not democracies, they are fiefdoms with a few kings and millions of poor serfs, similar to middle eastern monarchies.
Personally, I think I prefer democracies.
Copyright G.Ater 2011
Follow me on Twitter: gater01
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