In my last post, I wrote about the new powers that
Governor Walker gave to himself, changing the entire process for handling
proposed administrative bills. Just like
I said last time, you really need to read the article from yesterday’s Journal Sentinel.
This time I am just going to say it, I believe that under
Governor Walker it is crystal clear that public education that isn’t the only
thing under attack. There is growing
evidence to support the theory that Governor Walker and the GOP are
specifically targeting the educators as a critical piece to busting the unions
and eliminating collective bargaining. Let’s
face it; targeting educators of public schools is a dirty yet effective means
to an end for Governor Walker’s plan because the plan needs to have the support
of the people. Sorry educators, but under
Governor Walker you are extremely expendable. In the military we would consider
you to be a “High Value Target” (HVT) because getting you has second and third order
affects that are of great importance to achieving an overall goal of busting
the unions and ending collective bargaining in Wisconsin .
Why are educators an HVT for the Governor Walker plan? First,
there is a lot of talk about Governor Walker’s actions in Wisconsin being part
of a national movement to impact future presidential elections that favor the
Republican Party. Whether you prescribe
to that philosophy or not, it is obvious that Governor Walker has no love towards
unions, organized labor, or the ability to collectively bargain. But dismantling the unions takes more than
big money from special interests groups, it requires winning the support of the
voters and Governor Walker knows that. But
winning over the voters to support the process of making such changes is not a
simple task, as we are seeing played out in our state.
Personally I don’t believe that this governor is
intelligent or skilled enough to be game planning this all by himself without
some serious help from out of state professionals who require large sums of
cash for their services. If I am wrong,
then ask yourself what return on investment (in other words “what promises”) is
Governor Walker offering to the out of state interest groups who are literally
donating millions of dollars to his election campaign?
Because the execution of this type of plan requires
winning over the voters, I believe that Governor Walker is needs that money and
support purposely spin the truth and pit voters against one another in order to
expedite the need to draw a majority of the voters to his side. In which case openly and relentlessly
vilifying state public works is of tremendous value in dividing the voters, but
that is a very large elephant to wrestle to the ground. Therefore Governor Walker is strategically singling
out public educators as the specific group of state public workers who are fiscal
enemy number one to the tax payers.
What I am saying may seem like a radical conspiracy
theory concocted by some liberal agenda, but that is what makes it the perfect
approach to busting the unions and ending collective bargaining in the state.
On any given day under any given governor I am willing to bet that you could
easily find a large volume of Americans who truly believe that teachers are overpaid,
under worked, and recipients of lavish benefits at the expense of the taxpayers.
How many times have you heard people say
that teachers only work until early afternoon, have off all holidays, they have
off every summer, and no matter how bad they are at their jobs, you cannot fire
them? Come on, we have all heard those comments
being tossed around, even by people whose children are being greatly impacted
by awesome educators that work their butts off for those children.
Targeting educators and pitting them against the public
is not a difficult challenge and Governor Walker knows it. He is showing that vilifying educators and turning
the public against them helps him to more effectively turn the public against all
state workers, which enables the governor to get at the unions and organized
labor. Just look at how well Governor Walker
has the public believing that all state publics workers were part of a
union. That seemingly subtle piece is
actually one more way for him to achieve even greater public divisiveness. In conservative circles he is branding
himself as the fiscal hero for the supposedly victimized taxpayers. Note how Governor Walker is effectively
convincing the public that they are unfairly paying for state public workers to
have high salaries and premium benefits that are above and beyond those of the
private sector. He is also convincing them that educators are draining our budget
and not producing quality results. He is convincing them that he is the night
in shining armor of long overdue fiscal responsibility.
Do not get me wrong, it costs a lot to provide
educational services (much less quality educational services), and that money
does come from us the taxpayers (which educators and other state public workers
are part of). I support public education,
and I too want greater fiscal responsibility, but not by the means that Governor
Walker is pushing through.
We could discuss and even argue back and forth all day
about the results of education in Wisconsin public schools, or the degree of
difficulty versus cushiness of being a public educator. But in the end, we still need to consider the
fact that Governor Walker seems to be intentionally, strategically, and caustically
achieving his plan of busting the unions and ending collective bargaining by selling
an extremely negative stereotype about educators and the impact of public
education on the taxpayers’ wallets.
Governor Walker’s use of his new power to oversee the administrative
rules as described in the Journal Sentinel article may not seem like much on the
surface, but it truly does have deep implications towards his master plan to
bust the unions and ending collective bargaining in the state. Unfortunately educators appear to be a key
means to justifying his end and that unfortunately makes the educators
incredibly expendable.
Feel free to tell me if you believe otherwise, because I
would love to be wrong about educators being in Governor Walker’s political
crosshairs so that he can achieve his larger ambitions against the unions. Because the process of such pitting is tearing
our state apart and that is not acceptable to me.
Sincerely,
Gary
New state rule would limit cost-of-living increases
for teachers
Walker aims to increase governor's power,
limit agency rule-making ability
Bill to give governor new power on rules advances
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