12 Things You Need To Know About The Uprising in Wisconsin

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/479560/12_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_uprising_in_wisconsin

12 Things You Need to Know About the Uprising in Wisconsin

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Walker then used the deficit he'd created as the justification for assaulting his state's public employees. He used a law cooked up by a right-wing advocacy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC likes to fly beneath the radar, but I described the organization in a 2005 article as "the connective tissue that links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax activists and corporate money." Similar laws are on the table in Ohio and Indiana.

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5. Public employees' pensions account for just 6 percent of state budgets.

This has nothing to do with the state's fiscal picture. Aside from potentially undermining Wisconsin's public health-care system, it's really about destroying the last bastion of unionism in the American economy: public employees. As Addie Stan wrote on AlterNet's front page:

Walker is carrying out the wishes of his corporate master, David Koch, who calls the tune these days for Wisconsin Republicans. Walker is just one among many Wisconsin Republicans supported by Koch Industries -- run by David Koch and his brother, Charles - and Americans For Prosperity, the astroturf group founded and funded by David Koch. The Koch brothers are hell-bent on destroying the labor movement once and for all.

Consider these facts:

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7. Whether in the public or private sector, union workers earn, on average, 20 percent more than their non-unionized counterparts. They also have richer retirement and health benefits -- the “union compensation premium” rises to almost 30 percent when you include those bennies.

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[Cirque du So-What]

1. I would hope we haven't become a nation of crabs in a bucket

When one crab tries to escape the bucket, the others reach up with their claws and latch onto those who would make good their escape and make a better life for themselves. Instead of trying to lift the standard of living for everyone, are we as a society so pathetic that we try to drag down those who have joined together in an attempt to improve their condition? Rhetorical question, really; FAUX & others in the corporate media have done a superb job in laying the foundations of Sociopath Nation.

[AllyCat]

2. I wish more understood the budget was in the black until Walker

offered tax cuts to the rich. But that durn librul media just won't report it.

[PeaceNikki]

3. This needs to be shouted from the rooftops. All day. Every day.