Greetings from the Land that Gave You Joseph McCarthy

Madison, WI (YourNews) – Those who fail to learn the lessons that history teaches are doomed to repeat it. In Wisconsin this week it’s starting to feel like deja vu all over again.

Wisconsin, every once in a while, seems to execute the equivalent of a political fart that reverberates through the nation. Back in the 50s we gave the nation Republican Senator Joe McCarthy. He was the guy that thought there were communists hiding under every rock. He ruined lives and was a bully who was eventually exposed. He died a sad, discredited drunk at the age of 48.

Our latest gift to the nation in the Joe McCarthy tradition is Governor Scott Walker. He appears to believe that unions are the root of all evil. If we can destroy communists, oops, I mean unions, then all will be well with the world and the state’s budget problems will go away.

When will we ever learn? The state and nation’s budget problems weren’t caused by unions. They were caused by a downturn in the global economy precipitated by greedy banks and corporations that bent the rules and stole the equity from virtually every homeowner in the nation. They stole from me and from you, but these are the people that Scott Walker wants to give money to in the form of tax breaks to create more non-union jobs here.

I’m not a member of a labor union and never have been. But I realize that without them I probably would be a lot worse off. They won the 40 hour week for many workers, paid vacation, sick leave and retirement. I guess Walker and clan believes those same people that just got done robbing us blind would have given us all those things out of the goodness of their hearts.

I sure do hope they learn how to govern, which is very different than winning an election. One must keep in mind, the majority of people in this state didn’t vote for Scott Walker. He won by less than 10 percentage points and a slew of people didn’t vote at all. After you win an election you have to govern. That means doing things like talking to people to try to build consensus before you act.

President Obama could have done what Scott Walker did. He had the power on day one to get health care reform passed without one discussion with any opposition. He decided to govern. He talked with the opposition and built consensus. He knew somewhere down the road he would need the opposition. It should come as no surprise to anyone that he was able to broker a deal on taxes and START.

Scott Walker has lit a fuse that will come back to haunt him. He probably will succeed in jamming through his union-busting bill. But in the process he is creating the seeds of his own undoing. In this Facebook and Twitter era he has ignited a machine that is capable of turning out 70,000 people on a cold Saturday afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin. He has birthed a powerful opposition that is connected in the ether and will only grow stronger no matter what happens.

After the death of Joseph McCarthy, Democrat William Proxmire filled the seat. Proxmire called McCarthy "a disgrace to Wisconsin, to the Senate and to America." I wonder what the guy who takes over after Walker will say? History has a funny way of repeating itself.