
A sullen resentment weighs down the American Psyche. The USA has been going downhill for so long, that people don’t know who to lash out at. So often the gnashing of teeth and growls of resentment will feature the striking out at the wrong target.
Such is the case in Wisconsin. Erstwhile right-wingers & Tea Baggers are lining up behind Governor Scott Walker and his union-busting campaign, part of his campaign to turn Wisconsin into a plantation. Otherwise sensible folks are lining up in this game of zapping labor, lining up with the dregs of the reactionary Right.
Teachers are not the enemy. If their unions have afforded them at least temporary protection against the ravages of the New World Order, one should emulate them rather than cast stones.
But increasing numbers are resentful of the teachers. But teachers and the Unions are not the cause of the steady decline in US living standards since 1972. It’s the Free Trade Regime which kicked in under Nixon in 1973. A slippery slope ever since.
It wasn’t feminist ideology that caused the massive entry of women into the workforce; it was sheer economic necessity.
It wasn’t the Unions who caused the dismantling of America’s manufacturing base, it was Ronald Reagan.
Illegal immigration has gone a long way into lowering the wage level. Most illegal immigration over the past 40 years has occurred under Republican auspices.
Democrats were no help on trade or immigration. Liberal champion Ted Kennedy was one of the biggest free traders of all. And he grooved on busing for forced integration as long as his his kids weren’t involved. And need I mention that old Plutocratic Whore Bill Clinton?
In fact, it was the Labor movement which put up a fight. But it was feeble and muscled aside by the ‘Washington consensus.’
So those following the lead of Zombie Right in the Wisconsin crisis are picking on the wrong enemy.
But something more is at play here. Among American ‘conservatives’ there is a certain ritual of Primitive Magic. They think by lining up on the side of the Plutocracy and Finance-Capital that maybe some of that wealth will rub off on them.
Still, there’s even something more at play here. Why do ‘conservatives’ crave authoritarian leadership? Why their affinity for thugs like Wisconsin Governor Walker? Why this taking the side of the rich & powerful. Indeed, why do ‘conservatives’ seem to get sexually aroused by all this? Why do so many old Republicans turn gay?
I would urge ‘conservatives’ and Tea Baggers to stay out of my home state of Wisconsin. Hire a woman to beat you up instead. You’ll still get off in the same way!


In 1960, the USA was 90% white, only 5% of the population was foreign-born, the South and adjacent border states were racially segregated, and 29 states prohibited inter-racial marriage. The country was still enjoying the fruits of the postwar boom which had created the first mass prosperity the world had ever seen. A stalemate with the Soviet Union in the Cold War kept the peace. Within a decade, that world was turned upside down.












