Tim Cullen to run against Walker? Is that dog blue?

I read yesterday on Uppity Wisconsin that Tommy Thompson is endorsing Democrat Tim Cullen to run against Scott Walker in the upcoming recall election. Couple comments:

• Walker spoke highly of Cullen in the phone call with blogger Ian Murphy posing as David Koch;
  
• Cullen served in the Thompson administration as head of Health and Human Services;
  
• In the background: Thompson did the advance work that allowed the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to attack and quash democracy in Wisconsin.
  

I figure the junta is either trying to hinder Cullen's bid for the Governorship by tainting him with the stink of their own corruption, or Cullen is more one of them than one of us. Either way, any endorsement from Walker's cabal of fascist thieves, particularly of a candidate preparing to run against them, brings both the candidate and the endorsement under suspicion.

The Walker administration is corrupt, anti-democratic and un-American. Accepting endorsements from them, or the likes of Thompson, is questionable strategy at best.

Just sayin'.

It's Labor Day 2011

Lucrum fidelitas nullus

In the past year, the unbridled greed and service of self that characterize U.S. society in the 21st century have become breathtaking in their scope, and nauseating in their depth.

A partial list: 

• Between the 2nd quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2011, S&P 500 corporations saw a 45.8% increase in profits; during the same period, hourly wages in the private sector were off by 0.2%. Average weekly earnings saw an increase of 0.6%, simply because civilian employment figures showed a drop of 0.5% and there was more overtime.
• Congressman Paul Ryan's attack "budget" aimed to turn Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security into a sieve instead of a safety net. The fact that his fellow Republicans in the House forced passage of this piece of garbage with no hope of it ever becoming law speaks volumes about who they really work for: There are no corporate tax increases in Ryan's asinine proposal, only cuts to programs that serve the poor and vulnerable. And some jackass in what passes for the press in the U.S. these days called Ryan courageous for it.
• Oil companies are reporting record profits, but House Republicans refused to entertain the idea of eliminating $53 billion in zero-royalty drilling over the next 25 years and $36.5 billion in direct taxpayer subsidies over the next decade. In 2011, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Shell posted a combined $18.2 billion in profits for the first quarter. That's a 40% increase over 2010.
• S&P downgraded the U.S. debt from AAA to AA+, specifically citing the tantrum thrown by Republicans in the House over raising the debt ceiling as a major factor in the move. S&P called the behavior unpredictable. It was treasonous. It was also effectively ignored by the corporate media, conveniently.
• Corporations paying no federal income tax on record-breaking profits received tax refunds totaling billions of dollars.
• In states across the country, the full ramifications of Citizens United were felt as elected officials were bought by corporate "persons" and ALEC-written corporatist legislation was introduced and passed by the ream. Jobs? We don't need no stinking jobs. We need voter suppression/ID measures. We need corporate takeover of essential public services. We need to eliminate public education in all but name in favor of voucher schools so that money can be made, and the Word of the Profit can be spread among the young. We need to sell off the commons to our handlers without bids. We need to bust all unions, starting with the public employees and teachers because we can, followed by the rest as soon as we can draft the right-to-work laws.

It's stunning that private sector workers believe, because their employers treat them like pieces of furniture, that public employees, by God, deserve to be treated the same. How does it make anybody's lot better when government sets an example that lowers standards for everyone? People actually seem perversely proud of getting screwed by their employers, at least when they're talking about the evil of public sector unionism. The justification for union busting in the public sector is that profit sector workers are getting sodomized by profit sector corporations. Puh-leeze. The idea that "every dollar that comes out of a public worker's pocket is one that doesn't come out of a private worker's pocket" is horseshit. The taxes that generate that dollar will still be paid by common people, not corporations, and it will go to corporate welfare, not back to the people.

It really boils down to the incontrovertible fact that corporations are not people. The only moral imperative a corporation has is to profit, regardless who gets hurt or impoverished in the process. Left entirely to their own devices, corporations attempt to eliminate things that constrain their ability to profit in any way they see fit. Corporations are not people. They are reptilian, and their unrestrained appetites are perhaps the truest and most widespread evil in the world today.

The desire for "freedom of will" in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing less than to be precisely this causa sui, and, with more than Munchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence by the hair, out of the slough of nothingness.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil, 21

The Fox in the Statehouse

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was formed in 1973 to promote conservative social policy and influence legislators on issues like abortion and the equal rights amendment. Its founder, Paul Weyrich, also co-founded the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, and is responsible for the catch-phrase "Moral Majority."

Weyrich has pretty much disappeared from ALEC's public face. The organization, with the help of none other than former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson ("I always found new ideas and then I’d take them back to Wisconsin, disguise them a little bit, and declare that it’s mine."), morphed through the years into the "ultimate smoke-filled room" that it is today, providing access for corporate members to state legislators and writing bills that benefit big business, big pharma, and big oil, which are then taken back to state legislatures and in part passed into law. In 2009, according to their own Legislative Scorecard, there were 826 ALEC bills introduced in statehouses across the U.S., of which 115 were enacted into law.

ALEC holds a number of functions each year, basically opportunities for corporate reps and legislators to meet, and from which each legislator may return with a package of pre-researched and pre-written legislation that makes the lawmaker look diligent, and favors whichever of ALEC's corporate members has an agenda in their home state.

You can see this fascinating process at work right here in Wisconsin. Taking three current or former (as of 2010) corporate members of ALEC (listed in a report by the American Association for Justice, formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA)), let's take a guess and match up the Wisconsin legislation that has been written for them and passed by our legislature:

National Association of Bail Insurance Companies: language in the budget bill that strikes down a ban on their activities in Wisconsin. Jerry Watson, American Bail Coalition, is also immediate past chair of the ALEC Private Sector Board. Update: This was vetoed by Walker before he signed the bill.

National Beer Wholesalers Association: language in the budget bill that forces local craft breweries to distribute their products through wholesalers and barring smaller breweries from distributing directly to retail outlets.

National Rifle Association: the concealed-carry law recently passed.

Some other interesting facts from the Association for Justice report:

• On the ALEC Private Sector Board: Mike Morgan, representing Koch Industries.
  
• The Public Sector Board is comprised of 23 members, of whom only three are Democrats.
  
• ALEC's Wisconsin State Chairmen in 2010:
  Scott L. Fitzgerald and Michael D. Huebsch.
  

So . . . You thought the Wisconsin Legislature represented your interests? They are way, way too busy for that nonsense.

Dice

---

Comfort is the enemy of growth