Mining Bill Ends GOP "Winners And Losers' Fiction
I posted this over at Purple Wisconsin Tuesday:
Now that the iron mining bill has been signed - - a bill sponsored for and crafted by a single mining interest run by Walker donors - - the Cline Group - - let's have a moment of bi-partisan truth-telling and agree the facts demand that Republicans officially retire their talking point about Democratic Party politicians, platforms and principles being the source of indiscriminate government power that designates winners and losers.
Changing laws that govern mine permit reviews, wetlands fillings and waste dumping fees to suit the needs of Cline's possible open pit iron ore mine near Ashland is not the first time that Walker and/or his legislative allies used government power to create advantages for certain businesses or interests:
* Walker had been Governor about 20 minutes when he tried to help a donor developer - - and eventually the Legislature joined the party, too - - fill a wetlands near Lambeau Field for a sporting goods complex before the DNR had finished its review.
* He interceded in the implementation of wind turbine siting rules on behalf of real estate interests and blocked wind turbine projects in the pipeline - - and also blocked the manufacturing, installation and maintenance jobs that accompanied this growing, green industry.
*He's on record asking for a continuing waiver for the operation of the coal-fired S.S. Badger on Lake Michigan that routinely dumps its coal ash in the water - - even though the extended permissions for the continuing dumping had ended in December.
* Low-income workers had their state income taxes raised in the reconfiguration of the value of a federal tax credit in Walker's first budget that helped fund tax breaks for upper-income and business owner filers.
* His budgets grossly favor highway building over local transit operations and road maintenance - - making winners of major concrete-laying firms and losers of asphalt spreaders, their lower-paid workers and transit operators.
The corollary myth here is that Walker's policies are breaking chains of dependency, when, in fact, iron mining and highway expansion involves government favors and preferences to industries that are 100% dependent on their production or financing.
So let's bury the winners and losers rhetoric and focus on history and facts.
3 comments:
From a book I am reading about corruption in China:
"Those Party Officials...are really barn rats moving all around. The one-party system is like a specially designed barn where they can run amok without getting caught. Why? Because the barn is theirs. Nothing ....can challenge or question..." Read all about it (our very own barn) in the new rules for the DNR, DOA and all of us little people.
Winners and losers went from fiction to bad fiction.
I don't think that's how Walker would perceive this, nor would anyone who looks at the world with what we call a social Darwinist perspective. But that's a highly ironic phrase, since it hasn't a bit to do with Darwin at all. More like Darwin's Grand Opponent.
Let's say a person has a really strong need to believe we are all in a fair, well-thought-out, and benevolent world (Christians, Republicans, hard-core Capitalists, et al would have this mind-set. especially today's Christians. They are ones who listen to the late-night distortionists rather than meditate on the lessons of Job etc.) To such people Success, Influence, Wealth, and Power are all cosmic proof of superiority. Those who are most worthy rise to the top, the inferior and unworthy sink. How will you recognize the Righteous? You shall know them by their "fruits", by their works. If you were to suggest that people, perhaps many many wealthy and powerful people, rise to the top by unjust immoral means, then the whole system is thrown into question. You're questioning the natural order, God's system, and ultimately God himself.
Walker is simply reaffirming the obvious and pre-existing choices of God, by removing the blockages that reduce the flow of benefits towards the Chosen, the Elite.
Winners and Losers have already been chosen, by God, in a just manner. Democrats and Communists and the parasites that support them work against God when they try to distribute society's benefits in ways that blur the lines between Righteous and non-Righteous people. They take God's Blessings from the Chosen, and give them to the Unworthy.
If you have lived an entire life, and then in your elder years you have not been rewarded by God with financial security, then you have only yourself to blame. You have no right to take Social Security and Medicare from the ones who lived by faith, were chosen, and were rewarded by God accordingly. The difficulties you face as a poor, old, pain-racked and ill person will be NOTHING compared to the eternal damnation and suffering that awaits. You would do better to live in squalor on this mortal plane, using your remaining energies to look to the quality of your soul, and thereby perhaps escape perdition, than to whine over getting those who are worthy to tend to the needs of your body by paying for your medication.
Walker is NOT choosing Winners. He is merely Reforming (he often uses that word openly)an unnatural and corrupted system, Restoring Wisconsin so it is more in line with God's Plan.
Got it now?
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