The protests at the Statehouse in Wisconsin against Scott Walker's proposals set up the classic Right/Left conflict in our Infotainment media - The Right calls unions lazy and overpaid and everything up to and even including un-American while the Left mumbles something about how those claims are false without really creating a rival narrative. This position is stupid. The majority of Americans who pay only a passing glance at the news believe what is shouted loudest at them, whether or not it is true.
ACORN's demise was relished by the Right because of the Slam Dunk investigative video from James O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart that proved that the organization was corrupt and openly facilitated prostitution and countless other seedy offenses. The Right trumpeted that Obamacare was really, truly only about one thing - Death Panels that would allow the "Government" (Note the scare quotes) would have final say as to if you got life saving treatments or died.
There's one commonality of those two stories - they're complete bullshit. O'Keefe used highly edited filming that, after seeing the unbiased version, clearly showed that he and his 'prostitute' did not wear their outfits inside the building, and that nearly all of the employees chose not to help them and one even called the authorities on them. None other than the California Attorney General took a look at the unedited tapes and said that there were absolutely no crimes displayed. The Death Panel nonsense really was nothing more than the delusions of Sarah Palin. It was started as an amendment by a Republican representative that called for the option of individuals to have a meeting with a doctor paid for that allowed them to construct a living will if they saw fit. There was no mandatory facet of this provision or any language that prevented individuals from demanding every last bit of possible life-saving measures. After all the negative press, the provision was stripped from the bill before it ever even passed the House.
Looking at the Democratic response to these two incidences, another commonality can be seen. After withstanding the initial salvo from the Right, the Democrats calmly say that the claims are untrue and leave it at that. While this response at first seems logical and well thought out, it cannot handle the barrage that is the Right Wing Noise Machine. Fox News feeds talk radio and vice versa. Each becoming louder than before until the 'disproved' story until it reached a tipping point when the Mainstream media then must take the story seriously and thus report it as if it were fact. Then, after ACORN is defunded or the provision in 'Obamacare' is removed by the Democrats to stop the Right from making hay on the issue, the Right can claim victory and that they were right all along because 'why would they have caved in if we weren't right all along?' After this song and dance, it doesn't matter if the initial claim was disproved or not - the Right won because they were able to scream down the truth with convincing lies.
This is how the events in Wisconsin tie into the narrative. Walker came into the Governorship with a projected $121 million budget surplus at the end of the year. He promptly began his term this year by giving out $140 million in business tax cuts, creating a budget deficit. His answer for this? Breaking public unions and stripping their ability to collectively bargain.
Never mind that the three unions he gave exceptions to (Police, Firefighters and State Troopers) were the only unions who supported him in the election or that stripping the right to collectively bargain would have no effect on the deficit. Walker's fight is one of politics, trying to eliminate the major fundraisers for the Democratic Party - public unions. It's blatantly partisan and any claim to the contrary is insane. Balancing the budget isn't going to happen by taking public employees' pensions away from them. Doing that will only make the poor poorer and the rich richer.
I hope that the Democrats, and the 'supposedly' liberal media will not let the unions be hung out to dry. That false claims will be shouted down with facts. That unions can and will be strengthened and rightfully celebrated as the institutions that helped create the middle class and might again once more.
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