Every day I find myself shaking my head as I wonder, “What has become of this nation I love?”  I am part of the “baby boom” of the late 1940’s and have vivid memories back into the early 50’s with strong memories of the 60’s.  I graduated from high school in 1965 at about the same time as the ill-fated “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.”  The Viet Nam war took center stage for the first 8 – 10 years of my adult life.  I went from a high school graduate who had been brainwashed to think Viet Nam was a threat to America’s democracy – therefore I was temporarily a U.S. Marine (until I was given a medical discharge due to a bum knee) – to a protestor in the streets trying to get people’s attention that the war was not worth fighting (13 of my high school classmates – that I know of – paid the ultimate price for the Viet Nam fiasco).  I became turned off by the government that I realized was routinely lying to “we the people.”

As did many other of the “protestors” of the 60’s (and early 70’s) I found a job, got married, and raised a family.  Somewhat reluctantly, I got “pulled” into the middle class of America because I was in a generation of people who had a strong work ethic ingrained in our thinking.  And, America was “set up” for a population of people who were strong workers.  I’ve written about how the advancements of the 30’s and 40’s – the NEW DEAL – created an atmosphere which spawned the most remarkable middle class in the history of mankind.  Until I was in my early 40’s I hadn’t experienced unemployment, and thanks to the “Timber workers relocation act” signed by Bill Clinton in 1992, I’ve been teaching since my one encounter with being without work.

During my first stint in college, I remember working at the local paper mill during the summers and working with men and women who had been at the mill for 20 – 30 years (some probably longer).  The mill was unionized, the workers received a “family wage,” they had health benefits, and they were able to put their children through college if they were frugal in managing their budgets.  After I got out of college (the first time – in 1969) I still remember a friend of mine recruiting me to apply for a job at Hewlett Packard.  He had moved to the Northwest with the company and his respect for the way his employer treated him was immense.  At that point, I remember him telling me they had never laid ANYONE off without cause.  He told me they were a “family oriented” corporation.

I didn’t go to work for them and instead made an attempt to run a farm – therefore, I had no health insurance.  However, it was during this “season” of my life when my two daughters were born – both by C-section, and both with me not having health insurance.  The first one cost $3000 and the second (2 1/2 yrs. later) $5000 – all of which I was able to pay over time.  At the time, hospitals and insurance companies were all not for profit corporations.  Unions were strong, unemployment was reasonably low, and the middle class was flourishing.  There were issues, of course, that had their own significance, but generally – as I remember it – there was a general feeling of “we” in “we the people” at the time.  That all changed in 1980.

Ronald Reagan went from being a bad actor and a fringe political candidate to the presidency due to the expertise of the republican “operatives” which still, I’m sure, are alive and well in America’s political spectrum, the well planned support of the “liberal” republican third party candidacy of John Anderson by Reagan’s supporters (Anderson took votes from disenchanted democrats), and the Americans held hostage in Iran (coincidentally, the hostages were all released about the same time Reagan took the oath of office – some think there was a “deal” – I’ll let you figure that out on your own).  To me, this was when America exchanged an “I” for the “we” in “we the people.”  This is when “greed personified” hit the accelerator.  We could call the ensuing time in America since Reagan up to today as the revenge of the New Deal haters.

Now, I’ve been railing against this “war” on middle America since I started this blog.  However, my concerns hit high gear when I realized that President Obama wasn’t going to be the catalyst to lead the fight against this right wing push to negate ALL the benefits ushered in by the president most hated by the extreme right in America – Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Many, I’m sure, were like me and hoping Obama would usher in the “New” New Deal – I mean, the problems he inherited from Bush/Cheney were extreme enough to justify SERIOUS action.  Instead, it looks as if what we got was a democrat who somehow wishes to be remembered more like Reagan.  This is, and has been, alarming to me and has pretty much put out the “fire” I felt – the compassion I felt – that “we the people” were going to reverse the excesses of George W Bush, Dick Cheney, George HW Bush, and Reagan himself – when Obama was elected.  I totally misread what “The change we can blieve in” meant.

The disappointment I felt – which was exacerbated when Obama’s chief of staff called me a f___ing retard, and then later when Obama himself went after “liberals” as being too idealistic – caused me to want to just go to my pasture quietly (I’m getting up there in age).  Yet, I keep thinking, my children are all young adults and now I have grandchildren – who all deserve more than what’s going to be left if “we the people” continue to allow this corporate takeover of America.  Probably my major frustration is the complacency of the adults in my life – many of whom still don’t know what “Citizens United” is.  But, I have to admit, the recent events in Wisconsin have fired me up again.  Maybe “we the people” are finally going to speak up.  I’m cautiously optimistic that “the change we can believe in” will find it’s way from the streets of Madison Wisconsin to the progressives in the rest of the nation.  But, you might ask, what about the “tea party” movement?  Isn’t that a “we the people” movement?

Well, to a certain extent I guess you could make that argument.  However, the differences between what’s happening in Wisconsin right now (and, hopefully all around the nation) and the “tea party” are profound.  First of all, the “tea party” is funded by and backed by the very corporate elite that they are supposedly against (although, based on the signs I’ve seen at their rallies, I believe there are other factors driving their movement).  For example, Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin who’s trying to ram through this bill to essentially decertify (eventually) public employee unions, received the bulk of his funding from the corporations who are trying to kill unions.  I know these politicians always claim there’s no connection between their funding and their decisions – but, that is so absurd to me.  Evidently, they’ve come to the conclusion that “we the people” are stupid.  Walker is a “tea party” all star; compare that with the HUNDRED’S OF THOUSANDS of everyday people protesting his authoritarian POWER GRAB.  Some of those protestors were funded by protestors in EGYPT who sent them pizzas!!!  I quit giving money to politicians after I saw the “real” Obama, but I’ve given money to organizations which are supporting the protestors in Wisconsin – and, I’ll give more when I get the opportunity.  I realize the Koch brothers (funders of the “tea party”) dish it out in the millions and my last “gift” was $20, but if there’s enough of us, we can fight back.

What most people don’t realize about what’s happening in Wisconsin is that there’s something more hidden in the bill which is being protested because, outwardly, it robs working class people of the right to collectively bargain.  Evidently buried inside this bill is a section giving this deplorable republican governor, who’s been funded by the Koch brothers (who own energy companies) and other corporate thugs, the right to unilaterally “sell” at whatever price he deems appropriate the public utilities and energy resources of the State of Wisconsin to “private enterprise.”  I’m not sure of what all Wisconsin has to be plundered by the Koch brothers and other BILLIONAIRE corporatists, but one thing I’m sure of is that Scott Walker won’t overcharge them when he sells Milwaukie’s power plant to whomever he chooses, or Green Bay’s Public utility, or any other of the “plums” in the sights of his benefactors at whatever terms he chooses.  The republican dream, privatize everything and NO UNIONS!  This guy Scott Walker will probably be a candidate for president if he can pull this off.

And, if you’ve heard the tape of the conversation Walker had with the reporter who “punked” him on a recent phone call, you know that the republicans look at all of this as “us against them.”  He was considering “goon squads” to stir up violence at the protests, he’s planned deceitful ways to dishonestly lure the missing democratic senators who are courageously BLOCKING his power grab, he speaks of liberals as the enemy, and he’s unapologetic about wanting to CRUSH unions (he even speaks of state workers as the enemy).  If you’ve been in hybernation you’ve probably missed this, but the republicans have been at war with the middle class for years and their plan is finally hitting the final stages.  They’ve got governors stationed all over America who are waiting in the wings to do the same thing Walker is doing.  Just as the protestors are calling Wisconsin “ground zero” in the fight against the corporatists, so is Walker and his supporters calling it “ground zero” in the fight to finally finish the job Reagan started when he busted the Air Traffic Controllers – Walker even refers to that as a kind of “watershed” in the plan to crush unions in his “punked” phone conversation.

I could go on and on about these republicans (or my disappointment in the democratic response to them), but I’ll close by saying that they’ve now got workers vs workers in their propaganda scheme.  Those without are seemingly siding with the corporatists to attempt to get MORE workers to be without – just like them – instead of banding together in a demand that the government step in and spend the money necessary to rebuild this nation and provide work for the millions who are getting beyond desperate.  People like the Koch’s win if the unemployed attack those who still have jobs as being the “privileged elite” which I WAS CALLED, indirectly by the governor of Michigan when he railed against school teachers who still have some remnants of benefits with their jobs.  I find it ironic that people who are worth BILLIONS like the Koch’s and people worth multi-millions like Rush Limbaugh think that I (who have a couple thousand saved “for a rainy day”) am part of the privileged elite.  And, I find it even more ironic – maybe disappointing – that there’s a single working class American who’s stupid enough to fall for their ridiculous propaganda.

Most republicans I know are republicans mainly because of the abortion issue.  What they evidently don’t know is the republican approach to issues other than forcing women to carry pregnancies to full term.  The other day I read a column by Charles Blow which addressed their attitude with something like “Love the fetus, hate the child.”  And, I see evidence of this every day in my classroom.  Why would you push for all children to be born (actually, I’m in favor of that with the exceptions that are reasonable which I won’t get into here) and then, at the same time, be cutting funding for prenatal care for poor women, cutting health benefits for children ANYWHERE, cutting back on programs like Head Start, Planned Parenthood, and public television which helps to educate MILLIONS of children? (My own children are in their thirties and they grew up watching “Big Bird”)  The republican party calls themselves the party of “family values,” yet virtually everything they propose makes it more difficult for MILLIONS of American families.  Again, what I don’t get is how ANYONE who’s part of America’s working middle class could fall for this.  Honestly, the only way I can rationally bring myself to understand how even the ACTUAL privileged elite (the Wall Street Bankers, the CEO’s, the people who are wealthy) buy into this is that they have been so brainwashed into replacing the “we” in “we the people” with an “I” that they are blinded to the realities their fellow Americans are facing at this point.  Republicans do a great job of creating public debates that hide their REAL agenda and I believe what is going on in Wisconsin is no different.  The people in Wisconsin need to be careful that they not only defend collective bargaining rights, but that they don’t give away their public utilities to the Koch’s and others!  And, the rest of us need to continue to support them in anyway we can.  Remember, it’s likely there’s a POWER GRAB coming to where you live – especially if your state is “governed” by republicans!