Walker's War (Isthmus, vol. 36 no. 8, 25Feb2011)

[alterfurz]

Best account to date of what's happened and what's ahead here in Wisconsin.

Like the author, "as a life-long resident of Wisconsin, I am saddened--truly and deeply saddened--by what Walker has set in motion. It will change the state forever, causing profound and lasting damage, no matter how the budget stalemate plays out."

http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=32445

Walker's War: What began as a trumped-up crisis has become a real one, as the Governor pits Wisconsin residents against each other
by Bill Lueders

"...Scott Walker's declaration of war against Wisconsin's teachers, nurses, social workers, 911 operators, prison guards, park rangers, sanitation workers, snowplow operators, engineers, police officers and firefighters — and their inevitable decision to join the battle — could be for Wisconsin what the attacks of 9/11 were for the nation. It will create a deep before-and-after divide, between a time of relative innocence and a time of perpetual conflict and insecurity.

The difference is that the attacks of 9/11 were external, and stirred a sense of national unity. What has been fomented in Wisconsin is a rupture among ourselves, one that will ensure acrimony and contention for many years, perhaps decades. The dispute will be not just between Walker and his tens of thousands of newly impassioned enemies, but between the state's citizens — worker against worker, neighbor against neighbor, family member against family member. (Personally, I think a colonoscopy without anesthesia might be less painful than the next get-together of my extended family.)

"Our state is ripped apart right now," fugitive Democratic state Sen. Jon Erpenbach told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow from his "undisclosed location" last week. Get used to it. The animosity that has been unleashed here will not go away when some uneasy stasis is reached; it will become part of the fabric of life in Wisconsin.

None of this was necessary, none of it is justified, and none of it can ever be forgiven or forgotten... "

[sybylla]

1. Wow. Great article.

I agree with Lueders that this won't end with a vote on the bill. And I admit that's kind of scary. But which of us is going to sit it out now. Who will give up and let Walker and the goppies have their way?

That's why our motto is Forward.

[ejbrush]

2. I read it last night - twice.

I cannot express the sadness that I feel about this, thank you Lueders for doing it for me. It is so far beyond the union issue at this point.