The Latest Lies From Wisconsin's Governor

Bear with me for a moment. I would like to apologize to readers from other parts of the country, and world. Your government agents may be less despicable than Scott Walker, but the shenanigans that he has brought to his office need to be seen clearly if we are to avoid losing the tiny grasp we have on the democratic process worldwide. I believe it was Napolean who said, "I study my enemies so that I might hate them more aptly." Those familiar with my writing probably understand that I do not advocate hatred or misunderstanding, but by learning as much as we can about the modus operandi of the people who would enslave us and benefit from our pain and suffering, we can begin to find ways to remove them from their powerful positions and take back some of the wealth and dignity that they have stolen from the general public, me and you, through their exploitation and deceit.

As we enter the fourth recall election season in Wisconsin's history, it is well to look back on the reasons for the prior recalls and what was at stake so that we can realize how important our actions are today. In the early days, the only elected officials that served four year terms were the State Senators and the Judiciary. Until 1926, when the offices of  Governor, Lieutenant Governor,  Attorneys General and other offices were increased to four years, the window of opportunity for recall was too small to make it an effective tool against most elected officials. All that is required to force a recall election is signatures from 25% of the voters who turned out for the last election for that office. The idea that this is easy is often touted by the officials who face recall, but in fact, in my experience as a community organizer, the vast majority of Wisconsin residents are typically unwilling to sign petitions that force capricious extra expenses on the government. Certainly the cost of a statewide recall campaign costs many millions of dollars, but in the recall of Governor Scott Walker, the public has deemed the damage caused by his policies to be greater than the cost of another election process.

Historically, there have been nearly a dozen attempts to garner enough signatures to force recalls, but only four have resulted in actual recall elections. The first, in 1932, against Otto Mueller for his opposition to a tax proposal made by the Governor failed in the ballot box by nearly a two to one vote. The two prior successful recalls were both in relatively recent history The 1996 removal of State Senator George Petak, over his double-cross of the voters on the issue of taxing Racine residents to help pay for the new Milwaukee Brewers Stadium. He had claimed to be against the tax during his campaign for office and supported it when he got in. Again, the recall was utilized to remove State senator Gary George, in 2003, just prior to his imprisonment on corruption charges. The people of Wisconsin have now embarked on a serious campaign against big money, the influence it has wielded over our current representatives and with the election of Governor Walker, there has been a groundswell of sentiment that wishes to have the right to know what an elected official will do before they are elected, rather than having to sit on the sidelines while the big dogs run the State House. Repeatedly, the shouts and cries have gone up around the State Capitol, here in Wisconsin, "This Is Our House!" and the people mean it!

To see and hear the heinous fallout that has come from the policies and pen of a single man is to know the ire that exists in Wisconsin right now. Just yesterday, it was revealed that with a single stroke of the Governor's pen, a loophole that had been closed, that allowed corporations to funnel their activities through shell corporations in other states that have no income tax, was reopened. This single change will take over 300 million dollars out of the state coffers in just the next two years. That is equivalent to 1/3 of the "savings" that Governor Walker has been touting. He says that he has cut the cost of state government and created jobs, but when we look around, we see a different story. Layoffs are in the news almost daily, and as the government programs are cut further, more and more citizens are being forced to live on less. Wisconsin leads (and that is a terrible word) the nation in job loss. We are dead last in job creation and as we look around the state, many of the standards that we have worked for decades to establish are being undermined and eviscerated. One of the most dramatic steps back occurred after the election of Governor Walker, but before he even took office. He pledged to cancel plans for high speed rail between Milwaukee and Madison. Thirty years of hard work had gone into the planning and enabling legislation that would lead to 21st century transportation in the most populous part of the state. Now, the congestion and danger that exist on the highways, as well as the cost in time, fuel and automobile purchase, maintenance and repair will continue to increase for those living in that corridor the foreseeable future.

We need affordable transit, not only in the urban south, but through the Fox River Valley as well. The most dangerous and deadly highway in the state runs through my neck of the woods and because of that, there have been groups trying to get a high speed rail option here for three decades. The current governor has proven to us by his actions that he not only does not care about our wishes, but that he has contempt for them. Rather than entering into any serious dialog, he has sequestered himself from the public and entertained no possibilities for listening to anyone who opposes his quest to turn Wisconsin citizens into tools for the production of increasing corporate power. We the people, must no longer stand by, while our environment is sacrificed, our children and elderly are abused and neglected, teachers vilified, and the voters of the state are spoken to in condescending ways or fed lies that are constantly "propped up" by more lies.

I offer this information as a call for everyone, worldwide, to stand for truth, demand responsibility from our elected officials and command respect from those who are supposedly leading us into the future. We cannot turn the clocks back to the age of Ozzie and Harriet anymore than we can affect the tides of history. We are embarking on a pilgrimage to one of two futures. One, appears to be more in harmony with nature, one another and able to support everyone at a higher standard of living at less cost. The other, I routinely call "business as usual" and involves more money flowing into ever-fewer hands and the power that comes with it keeping ever-greater numbers of us as wage slaves and in poverty. Stand for all that is right and good with the world, Lord and Lady know, we need to change the direction that we have been heading for the past few generations.

When Will It End?

I'm sure that nearly everyone on the planet has asked themselves this question. Today, being the 145th anniversary of the 13th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution gives us pause to consider the means and methods of slavery that are still with us today. Although many slaves were treated as well as prize animals on a farm, some with "benefits", that is not saying much if you look at the quality of life that livestock enjoy today. Anti-slavery legislation passed nearly a century and a half ago, yet we are still grappling with the inhumanity that led to buying and selling of humans. Anyone who is paying attention realizes that child labor, domestic abuse, oppression, human trafficking and wage slavery are still rampant in our culture. The combined effect of these vile and reprehensible activities scar future generations and limit the ability of millions to achieve their full potential. In the darkest hours and sometimes in broad daylight, these activities continue to crush souls, deny basic human rights and funnel dollars to overlords who ignore both the spirit and letter of the law. Although most sentient beings realize, on some level, that this is wrong, it is allowed to continue for the sake of greed, profit and ancient methods used to wreak fear and havoc on populations for centuries. I have spoken of this phenomenon before and the best way I have found to name it is power and control.

What is needed is a serious and clear-headed understanding of the fact that this sort of power is unjust, corrupts humanity and is born of fear and a sense of lack. The control side of the phenomenon is dehumanizing for the perpetrator as well as the victim, because it is futile to base one's self-worth on arbitrarily foisting your reality on another or trying to "own" another just as surely as it is to be a slave to another. There has been a push to "end child abuse" on Facebook recently. Millions have changed their profile pictures to their favorite childhood cartoon characters. It is hard to imagine how making this sort of ripple in the digital realm can make positive change occur, but if someone would explain that to me, I might follow suit. There seems to be no end to the daily abuse of children, yet we are becoming enlightened to the fact that we do not own our progeny. I often wrestle with the issue myself. As a father, my purpose seems to be to teach my children right from wrong as well as how to survive in this world and the pitfalls that await them. Often their successes and failures lead me to wonder at how they came to where they are and how it is possible for them to both make ignorant choices and simultaneously reflect such deep insight. As often as I feel ignored, I develop greater respect for their independent growth. Dictating the conditions of the lives of others is truly a double edged sword. Parents who learn to wield it skillfully with deft precision and compassion are rewarded with insightful and confident children while those who lack sensitivity and/or humanity often create another generation of hostility and rage.

The old saying that "Children learn what they live..." is an excellent parable for our challenges and a valid guide for our behavior in this day and age. Just as in the environmental arena, we need to learn to see the full scale of our impact on the world around us to make sense of our daily choices and how they impact other travelers on Starship Earth. Power and control always come from feelings of lack and always lead to oppression. Domestic abuse may be the best publicized form of it, but all human rights issues boil down to this on sad fact. Perpetrators feel that they have the right, nay the responsibility to oppress others. When you are privileged, you know it and the right to exert power and control comes with that. It sounds odd but the Calvinistic belief that the oppressed bring it on themselves or deserve their station in life is still alive in our culture today. How many times will a child hear the words, "He just snapped." or "Boys will be boys." and a dozen other platitudes that are designed to cover the ass of those who would perpetrate violence? How many jokes will be told, just today, that dehumanize women and children? These are the cultural signals that allow us to diagnose an extremely sick culture. Children really do learn what they live and we, as adults, need to create positive change that will lead to a better world for the next seven generations.

The best thing about the recent economic slump is that El Norte', the land of milk and honey that supposedly existed North of the U. S.-Mexico border has lost some of it's luster. Flight to our country for economic refugees has dwindled, not because of the border fence, not because human traffickers have left the border region, not because we have spent billions in trying to make an example of those who cross over the arbitrary line in the sand, but because if these people are to be poor and denied basic human rights, they might as well do it in their homeland. Why flee to a place that has fallen on hard times if you can have the same quality of life right where you are? Human trafficking still occurs, but in this one discreet location on the face of the Earth, the rate has dropped significantly. Instead, we find more slaves coming from Asia, for both the sex trade and for our service sector jobs.

I wish that someone could tell me the difference between slavery of a century and a half ago and the methods employed by the thousands of China Buffet outlets across our great land. Typically, the employees are told where to live, how long they must work, and at what tasks. They are allowed no days off, required to work from morning to night, are fed special food that is infinitely cheaper than what is sold to the customers, and each month they are required to send money to the person who managed to get them into this country in the first place. Imagine paying $1,000 per month for the "right to work" at a restaurant, having no time to call one's own, and none of the benefits that most other Americans supposedly enjoy.

Unions have worked hard to defend basic human rights of workers, but industry has relegated most unions to shadows of themselves. Those that survive are under constant threat through the courts, political wrangling and outright attack in the media. Most of the advances that had been made have been eroded and we are once again falling back into a two tier system of wage slavery for the average man and exponential growth of incomes amongst the elite few who dictate our every action. My own union has recently allowed all of it's members to cover a one dollar or more, per day, liability (tax) on our wages because our employer arbitrarily decided that they didn't want us parking in their parking lot. If I had the option of riding mass transit to work, I wouldn't complain, but for heaven's sake, why should I pay for the right to leave my car at the job site? This seems trite when compared to the folks who risk their lives to be smuggled into our country, but are we not risking our lives daily on the highways for our employers as well? The superslab that leads to my place of employment is the most dangerous stretch of highway in the state. Risking one's life for the "opportunity" to work makes no sense, but I feel compelled to do it because I am in a profession that I love.


Finally, I want to return to the inequity created by the recent housing crisis in The United States of America. I am one of those paying a mortgage that is based on a fictitious appraisal. I told the bank when they gave me the loan that I could never sell the house for what they said it was worth, but they explained that by the time I would want to sell, that it would be worth far more than my obligation. Several years have passed and my mortgage is more than double what I could be paying in rent. Recent repairs, which always come with home ownership make the cost of living in my 680 square foot home well over $1,000 per month. The fact that I have experienced a 1/3 drop in income because of the current economic crisis matters not to the well-heeled individuals who are depending on my monthly payments, nor am I able to scrimp and save any more on my personal budget. I have tried repeatedly to get them to consider refinancing to a more sane arrangement, but to no avail. Is it any wonder? If anyone was confronted with the choice, do the right thing and make less money, or continue to do the wrong thing and get paid, I guess we all know which side to come down on. Or would we?

Doing the right thing sometimes means that we are rewarded in ways we cannot imagine. When my children exceed my expectations for instance, there is no way to put a dollar amount on that feeling. Respecting another as we would like to be respected is it's own reward. Knowing that we all deserve the right to our humanity and to be treated humanely, has the power to change the world. Please, make this a topic of conversation. Keep these things in the public consciousness. Speak of them often, turn up your own radar to detect abuse when you see it, and do not tolerate business as usual with respect to slavery in any of it's forms. We need to stand together against this vile human failing. Abolition of it from our culture can only come from vigilance. To tolerate injustice is to be complicit. We can only be as strong as the weakest among us and our freedoms are in jeopardy each time someone is abused.

Open Mind Open Heart

Seeking friends and ideas is the basis of an excellent education. I used everything I could lay my hands on. I learned from posters, newspapers, magazines and books to college classes, research papers, videos, maps and charts building my knowledge of the Great Lakes before I rode my bicycle around these freshwater seas. The book learning and what most folks would consider study taught me less than one percent of what I learned over the eighty days that it took to pedal around their basins.

I did have things to teach along my path, but what I learned dwarfed the messages that I shared with over six million people through radio, newspapers, television and the many hundreds more that I met face to face. Spiritual questing often requires at least some travel. Changing our location almost always changes our perspective in unusual ways. Not only do we see things from the perspective of others, but if we travel far enough, we can look back on where we were and begin to perceive our own blind spots. My mission when I took out on the 4280 mile ride was to share basic principles of living in harmony with the planet, living higher qualities of life at drastically lower cost. I had already spent ten years learning to live on next to nothing and the richness with which I was rewarded funded my ride.

Back then, I drank a fair amount of beer. Zymurgy, the art and science of cultivating yeast-fermented fluids had started as a curiosity and developed into a hobby. I had inadvertently discovered that instead of paying a dollar per bottle of beer, I could do a small amount of labor, and have larger bottles for just fifteen cents! Typically, a friend and I would share a tasty treat. Sharing a single home- crafted liter was way more satisfying than drinking several bottles of commercial swill. Prior to learning this skill, I would drink twice as much and enjoy it far less. The things that I have always felt the best using have had a large dose of human effort locked up in them and usually less material in general.

The giving of one's spirit to the creation of objects is one of the most primal urges known to mankind. Loving things into existence is also one of the most rewarding things we can do as humans. I appreciate many of my possessions because they "speak" to my heart. I also get a thrill when others who enjoy them can be gifted with objects that reflect this human, giving nature. As I travel, I am always looking to what others are willing to share about themselves and how they live as a matter of course. One of the most common complaints that I hear in my travels is that people wish that they could just do the things that make them happy and not have to "go to work". This calls to mind a serious question. What do I love to do?

Love really does mean letting go of fear. If there was no need to support your local banker, car dealer, or gas station, what would you rather do? This is the open mind part. Most of us have a really difficult time even asking this question. We immediately fall under the spell of the internal voice saying "*I have to be responsible! What about my mortgage? Who will make payments to my retirement fund and how will I keep up my insurance?" Fear, fear, fear. Really using our imagination requires letting go of these and ever more invisible bonds. The things that tie us to old ideas and old ways of seeing the world need to be suspended if we are to ask the question honestly, or begin to find our way to the answer.

A wise friend has put it this way. Find what speaks to your heart and soul. Look critically at the world and find out what you feel the most strife over. The greatest injustice as it were. I cannot say what will get your juices flowing, but you will know because the awareness of whatever it is will create an unquenchable fire in your heart. Your humanity itself will be mobilized in defense of your ideals. The solution to whatever problem it might be might not be clear at first, but once you dedicate yourself to studying the "problem" you will know what needs to be done. Once you grasp the issue and take steps to make things right, your true purpose will begin to unfold.

My own drive comes from making the world a better place for everyone. I have worked through the entertainment industry, the environmental community, peace and social movements and the food industry, helping to run a natural food co-op. Each way that I tried to work for peace and justice had more rewards than I could count with money. Each job that I have taken was for the benefit of others. The benefits to myself were collateral. When you travel through the world, remember, God/ess resides in all of us. Our greatest teachers are often found in unexpected places and we only gain through selfless giving.

Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.
This phrase was nearly worn out during the hippie days. We have probably all "heard" it, however very few understand it and fewer still actually know how to share the wisdom that lives in these six words. Tuning our sensory apparatus to recognize what really matters is what the first part is about. Focusing our attention on truth has the power to change what we are able to see. Get in touch with what moves your soul is what the second part refers to. It was misrepresented by the media as a reference to taking acid, specifically to prevent the "revolution" that could not be televised. Dropping out was a call to those that were falling into the trap of wage slavery. Walk away, become your truest self. Travel. Learn what really matters from real people, not books, not the academy, not the suits who still rule our lives. I love the "suits" that I deride enough to follow the wisdom of an old IWW slogan, which uses the suits of cards to help us remember their words:
A capitalists "heart" is in their pocketbook,
He holds a "club" over you,
So he can wear "diamonds".
Give him a "spade", so he can earn an honest day's wage.