Wisconsin: game over?
I wish sometime that I’d be proven wrong in my pessimism. But it looks like the great upsurge in Wisconsin has petered out. Listen to my interview with Abe Sauer in the June 25 radio show I just posted. Or read Progressive editor Matt Rothschild’s gloomy assessment from a week ago: Wisconsin Demoralized, Demobilized.
It’s the same damn story over and over. The state AFL-CIO chooses litigation and electoral politics over popular action, which dissolves everything into mush. Meanwhile, the right is vicious, crafty, and uncompromising. Guess who wins that sort of confrontation?
Please prove me wrong someday, you sad American “left.”
LBO News from Doug Henwood 
What are the specifics and details of “popular action” ?
doug i wouldn’t gauge what will happen on what the afl-cio does or doesn’t do.
most union members abd their families and communities respond out if their own sense of fairness and justice– they’ll vote walker out.
How about protests and mobilizations, buttressed by organizations that represent worker’s interests and demand sweeping change in this country?
I imagine that the AFL-CIO and company thought the “stakes were too high” in Wisconsin and decided to retreat rather than risk defeat.. nothing new there. Hopefully things will start anew with the recall battle, but with “leadership” like this …
Has the AFL CIO ever been progressive or useful?:
http://the-spark.net/csart352.html
If you don’t hurt their pocketbook then the ruling class won’t listen nor should anyone expect them to.
in CT, state workers rejected a concession package negotiated and pushed by their ‘leadership.’ it’s a sullen and passive rejection, though.
Same in NJ: the dems already made the deal with Christie, so demo-ing last week seemed pretty pointless. Singapore citizen, Jim Rodgers rails about the need to balance the US budget and be prepared for social unrest, but Democratic voters are being pushed going back to the 1890s without much resistance. I think Rove and the Koch brothers know this and are going full bore with their “Back to the Past” program. Next up on their doable agenda: end of employer-provided medical insurance, end of employer-matching retirement contributions, and, my guess, “renewable tenure” for all new teachers.
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