O.K. I'm at LEAST as liberal as the next guy. More so, mostly. This week Scott Walker narrowly escaped recall as Governor of Wisconsin. The pundits left and right are declaring the working class of Wisconsin was split in half. Half voted for Tea party Walker, half voted for the Union Champion, Barrett.
A couple things that are important, especially for those of us on the left who may want , moving forward to take lessons from this loss...
1. You don't run the guy the People didn't like so much last time that they elected a Tea Party Whackadoodle , this time in the recall. Hey, the People said "No thanks" to this guy once already.Get a new face. Americans LOVE new, that's why the same old products always have a NEW AND IMPROVED label on them every six months.
2. Working class unionized and non unionized private sector workers don't see any public sector workers as their brothers and sisters. They see them as what they generally are: the enforcement arm of the Corporatist State. Private sector workers and voters see these public sector employees as the ENEMY. Until the left comes to terms with this, understands it, admits it to themselves, they won't be able to capture the working class like the Tea Party has. It's not that there is something wrong with Kansas, its that Kansas has experiences we on the left have refused to recognize.
"Steve, Steve , Steve", you say in a condescending, humoring mockingly gentle voice, "How can you say
T H A T ?" Well, in my many years as a Activist and Town Councilman no one ever came to my office or called my phone asking for solidarity with some Union.
Little old widow ladies called in panic because they had signed a petition against some development and two weeks later the County Zoning Department with Sheriffs carrying pistols and shot guns swept down on her property and demanded costly and extensive repairs and alterations be made. Those were Unionized Public Sector Employees devastating her meager retirement funds, attempting to drive her out of her home, and being used to retaliate against her free speech rights. That happened a few times and each incident took years of the little old ladies life and all of her energy to resolve.
A Little old woman whose family had lived in her house since it was built in 1919 owns three homes in a row on a small street next to a commercial district. A developer wanted her land. She spent six years with endless inspections, demands, shotguns pointed at her, her family members, her friends. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, the Public Sector employees gave up, after they had gone through every single home on the block subjecting them to Zoning hell. Those folks were all working class, some unionized, some not, but none of them see Public Sector employees union or not, as friends.
A carpenter has a trailer on his commercial property at his shop. There is mixed zoning on his land and he rented the trailer to the local Parking Enforcement Officer. She filed a complaint against the department for discrimination. Zoning, Building and Safety, Edison Inspectors, and the Sheriff's Department, guns brandished forced their way warrent-less into the friends property. He had to remove the trailer,so the complaining unionized County employee became homeless at the hands of complying unionized County employees, Solidarity? There was no permit on the storage building that had been there for at least seventy years, that had to go. They made him install fire systems in his studio. Cal Osha showed up to inspect all of his vintage saws and equipment, and wanted thousands of dollars of safety equipment on them and tens of thousands of dollars in dust collection and spray booth equipment. All this in spite of the fact that my carpenter friend has no employees. You see he MAY have them someday. That went through rounds and rounds of administrative hearings. Cost my buddy a FORTUNE, all because he had committed the crime of renting to a County employee who thought she had rights.
A friend works at a Automotive repair shop. Its been in business here in town since 1916. It is the oldest continuing operating automotive repair shop in Los Angeles County. My friend buys the shop from his boss. I go with him to the County when he transfers the business licenses. We are told everything is in order. Six months later, my friend who has put his life savings into purchasing his shop, gets a letter from the County saying his licenses have been revoked. His business that has continuously operated in the same fashion since 1916 at the same location was rezoned at some point. He has to apply for a Conditional Use Permit and he has to stop operations until he does. This normally takes a year and a half, costs about $30,000 by the time all the permits, fees, drawings, and fixers are paid. In the meantime the mortgage on the shop must be paid. I make an appointment with my friend and the County Zoning guy. Eight County thugs show up who proceed to mock and humiliate my friend for starting his own business and not getting a good paying safe secure County job. I would not have believed it had I not heard it. We ran out of the meeting before we each killed some County Bastard. We organized. we got the County to lay off, yet every eight months some new person would take over the County Zoning desk, start again, and we would have to start everyone calling to save this guys shop. Some brilliant County employee figured out the way to ruin my friend was to call in the State. My friend got inspections and fees and fines and work orders on a monthly basis until the oldest continuous business in town and my friends bottom line and life savings were completely destroyed. Do we imagine my mechanic friend sees government employees as people he has some kind of solidarity with? Uh NO.
These are not unusual stories. I can go on for pages upon pages of people just going about their lives in a way we would all consider "normal" who upset someone in government and were then persecuted by government employees.
Working class people see government employees as the enemy, because they behave that way, and with complete total contempt for members of the public. Until we on the left UNDERSTAND this, we will continue to lose to the Tea Party, to the Koch brothers, and the Oligarchs. We have to understand, government employees are not the same as private sector workers and small employers. There is and as long as they function as arms of enforcement for the international corporations and government who are attempting to destroy the workers and the middle class, never will be any solidarity with the Working and middle classes and government employees.
We on the left need to figure out a message that is for the Working Class, By the Working Class and Of the Working Class, or we will continue to lose and be irrelevant noise.
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