In Wisconsin: Can't spell Conservative without the Con

It's no secret that Republicans hate unions, especially public employee unions but they used to at least try to be a bit subtle about it. As events are proving in Wisconsin, they apparently don't feel the need to hide their agenda anymore. As Ezra sums up nicely, Gov. Walker couldn't be more obvious in his union busting tactics:

In English: The governor called a special session of the legislature and signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it helped turn a surplus into a deficit [see update at end of post]. As Brian Beutler writes, "public workers are being asked to pick up the tab for this agenda."

But that's not what Walker is doing. He's attacking the right to bargain collectively -- which is to say, he's attacking the very foundation of labor unions, and of worker power -- and using an economic crisis unions didn't cause, and a budget reversal that Walker himself helped create, to justify it.

And of course, our "liberal" media has been dutifully repeating the GOP lies about the "expolsion" of government employees since Obama was elected, but in truth:

In 2010, the number of state and local government employees fell by an estimated 208,000 positions. In 2011, those cutbacks are expected to total an additional 150,000 positions." In other words, private jobs are coming back, but state and local jobs are still being lost. Public-employee unions are on the mat. Walker is trying to make sure they don't get back up.

The other media narrative that was being pushed for days was that those greedy government employees don't want to pay a little more for their own benefits while the rest of America is struggling. This lie is easily debunked. In fact Wisconsin public workers offered to accept those cuts. But that's not what the Koch Brothers paid for with their massive campaign donations:

This afternoon, Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin Public Workers Union, sent a message to the Governor’s office agreeing to the cuts to pension & welfare benefits sought by Walker in his bill. The governor’s response was “nothing doing.” He wants the whole kit and kaboodle – the end of the collective bargaining rights of the public unions.

And let's not forget, the other agenda here. While this is about destroying public sector unions, it's "only the unions that support Democrats" that are being targeted. But one of the most heartening aspects of the workers' protests that have been going on for days is that the exempted, normally conservative, unions of firefighters and law enforcement officers are standing with the targeted groups. They surely understand that once the GOPers succeed in destroying collective bargaining for one, then all are in danger.

Sadly, this isn't an isolated event. Karoli has a good roundup of links showing Republican governors across the country are plotting similar strategies.

I guess the good news is it appears the GOP has finally done what didn't seem possible. Thanks to their greed and hubris, Americans finally left their computer screens and are back in the streets -- protesting for their rights and for what's right, with an energy I haven't seen since the 60s. So there's that...