Michigan Shock Doctrine

Here are Rachel Maddow and Naomi Klein on the Michigan situation as Shock Doctrine (11 minutes):





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FORBES? ET TU, BRUTE?

And here are two articles -- in Forbes, of all places -- speculating on Republican overreach.

Is Wisconsin the Real Republican Waterloo?
Mar. 10 2011 - 9:15 am | 2,314 views | 2 recommendations | 17 comments
By E.D. KAIN

After the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, conservative writer David Frum called the passage of the bill the GOP’s “Waterloo” in reference to Napoleon Bonaparte’s crushing defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington. This earned him the ire of his fellow conservatives and pushed him further outside the conservative movement.

But David was wrong. If anything, the healthcare reform victory was the GOP’s Siege of Acre. Wisconsin is shaping up to be the real Waterloo.

[Napoleon laid seige to Acre but was unsuccessful; his army limped home to France and on to Waterloo and decisive defeat.]

And not just Wisconsin, but also Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, Florida, and the rest of the over-reaching state Republicans. Governors like Scott Walker, Rick Scott, and Jan Brewer are riding on the coattails of the Tea Party, but they’ve become blind to the dangers of their radical policies.

In Wisconsin, Democrats are already promising to step-up recall efforts. But the recalls are only a small part of what is likely going to be a huge anti-Republican backlash across the nation, as working Americans finally realize what that party actually stands for: an playing field heavily tilted toward the rich and powerful, toward corporate power, and against worker rights.

Back in 2010, Frum wrote:

"We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat. There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped.Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible."

And now conservatives have chosen public-sector workers and teachers as their hill to die on. They have followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and elected Scott Walker, Rick Scott, and various other Tea Party candidates. Heavily funded by big campaign donors like the Koch brothers and other corporate interests, the Republican party has made a concerted effort across the country to take on unions, public pensions, and social services for the poor.

Enabled by a strong school-reform movement within the Democratic party, emboldened Republicans have waged an all-out assault on teachers, public education, and public unions and masked it all in the language of school choice and accountability. And now, in Wisconsin, they have side-stepped the Democratic process and * ended collective bargaining rights for public sector employees, even amidst huge protests and popular condemnation.

Republicans have a long history of union-busting and anti-labor rhetoric, but taking on teachers and cops is a big mistake. This blatant effort to weaken the Democratic party will have precisely the opposite effect.

The healthcare debate gave Republicans a chance to capture the narrative, spin the entire debate into one about fiscal ruin and deficits. Now Scott Walker has given progressives their chance. This is the Democrats chance to recapture that narrative, to turn the discussion back to the dignity of the middle class, to the importance of policies that do not simply push power and capital ever upward. This is the Republican’s Waterloo.

UPDATE

* Ramesh Ponnuru is right**. That line was hyperbolic and reactionary, and more importantly inaccurate. This “writer who did not like the Wisconsin vote” overreacted. Republicans did not side-step the Democratic process even if I think their tactics leave much to be desired and are – in the long-term – extremely foolish.

I should also add that I realize this was a Republican victory. The GOP just won in Wisconsin. But it’s a hollow, pyrrhic victory. What I mean by their Waterloo is just that this is the opening salvo of that battle. This is the moment that Waterloo has begun, and the Republican party has sealed their own fate. Nothing they could have done could have roused the Democratic base the way this vote in Wisconsin has. I think they’ve bitten off much more than they can chew. This is the beginning of the end. Nor did Republicans need to take such drastic steps. They had the momentum and could have run on their budget concerns into 2012. They didn’t need to take on labor, but they did, and whatever minor victory Scott Walker has made now will be overshadowed by later defeats.

Also – perhaps Pearl Harbor is a better analogy.

UPDATE II
** Ezra Klein questions the legality of the Wisconsin Republican’s procedural maneuvering:

"As for the legality, this part is a bit murky to me, but there appear to be at least two question: First, did the rewritten bill really count as non-fiscal, and second, did the effort at passage violate Wisconsin’s “open meetings” law? You can read Barry Pump struggle through some of these questions here. Then there’s the issue of the legislation itself: Milwaukee City Attorney Grant Lagley holds that it violates the state constitution. I simply don’t know enough to evaluate any of these claims, but this effort is worth keeping an eye on. And here again, there’s a striking similarity to the immediate aftermath of the health-care reform law."

If it does turn out that this whole shenanigan was illegal then I’ll reassert my earlier claim that the Republicans were operating outside of the Democratic process. Time will tell.
Also – here’s the statement put out by the AFT:

WASHINGTON—Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and state Senate Republicans last night trampled the democratic process and blatantly disregarded the public will.

In an apparent violation of the state’s open meeting laws, the Republican state senators have revealed themselves as people who will say or do anything, and use any tactic necessary, to pass their extreme agenda that attacks working families who are already struggling. Their actions are both reprehensible and cowardly.

In stripping teachers, nurses and other hard-working public employees of their right to bargain collectively and their voice in the workplace, Walker has shredded 50 years of labor peace, bipartisanship and democratic process.

Walker and the Republicans rammed through a bill that is nothing more than a political payback to their deep-pocketed friends. None of the provisions that attacked workers’ rights had anything to do with balancing the budget. In fact, public employees had already agreed to sharp cuts in wages and benefits.

The principled stand by the state’s Democratic senators gave Wisconsinites the time and opportunity to see Walker’s true intentions. This fight is only beginning. Walker is losing badly in the court of public opinion. We will work with Wisconsinites to pursue legal channels to fight this unconscionable attack on working families, and to continue the recall effort against those who rammed it through.


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After the jump, the second article:  Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers


Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers
Mar. 11 2011 - 8:57 am | 10,677 views | 0 recommendations | 17 comments
By E.D. KAIN

Protesters demonstrate outside the Capitol in Lansing, Mich. (via Daylife)

“This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen.”

~ Mark Gaffney, Michigan State President of the AFL-CIO.

Perhaps lost in the Wisconsin shuffle is the story of what exactly is happening in Michigan. Newly elected Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is set to pass one of the most sweeping, anti-democratic pieces of legislation in the country – and almost no one is talking about it.

Snyder’s law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed “Emergency Managers” in their stead. But that’s not all – whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn’t get much more anti-Democratic than that.

Except it does. The governor simply has to declare a financial emergency to invoke these powers – or he can hire a private company to declare financial emergency and take over oversight of the city. That’s right, a private corporation can declare your city in a state of financial emergency and send in its Emergency Manager, fire your elected officials, and reap the benefits of the ensuing state contracts.

These Republican governors have risen to power in what will eventually be seen as one of the great political farces of our time. The Tea Party movement talks a good game about democracy and limited government, but in practice its elected leaders are crony-capitalists and union-busters. There is nothing limited about a state government that can erase entire cities or take control of school districts and local governments with the swipe of a pen. Manufactured crisis and a litany of politicians and power-brokers talking about how broke we are is all it takes to rob us of our democracy.

Public services are on the auction block, and unions, teachers, and anyone else standing in the way are all going to have to fight for their continued existence – or at least their continued membership in the ranks of the middle class.

If “Emergency Manager” is not dystopian enough a term for you, perhaps the fact that such radical legislation could go almost unnoticed in the national press is.