Monday, February 28, 2011

Walker's Wall Street War on Wisconsin I cannot think of a more mean-spirited, dishonest, and egregiously transparent power grab than that which is being waged by Wisconsin's Governor Walker against state workers. It is shameful. I wonder if the election were to be held today if the majority of the people of Wisconsin would even vote for him. I suspect now he would lose by a crushing margin especially after the fake call from the Republican Santa the Koch Brothers. It is clear from that the kind of sickening political back-room cloak and dagger war that the governor and his cronies are trying to wage against the powerless Wisconsin state worker. He is simply a bully. This is NOT about the Wisconsin budget. The workers already agreed to his monetary demands. This is nothing less than an attempt to gain Republican power by violating the very tenet of the First Amendment, guarantee of freedom of assembly for Unions which usually support Democratic causes. Unions have used this important First Amendment right to pursue their collective bargaining interests and justifiably so. Who can go up against the power of the corporation grease machine of the Republican Party unless they organize?

The states' economic fragility should NOT be laid at the doorstep of state workers many of whom you and I depend upon every single day we live for our infrastructure maintenance, the education of our children and the protection of all of us from physical harm. Are these the people that the extremist radical right is saying get too much money and should be denied the ability to bargain for their rights? Are they kidding me? Try laying the blame where it belongs. Our economic cesspool was created by the Wall Street banksters and the fraud they committed ultimately to line their pockets with taxpayer money as they and their rating lackeys rigged the Wall Street game AND they got away with it. Until this day NO CEO who has been guilty of the most egregious fraud has spent one day in the place so many belong – JAIL. The states are suffering because much of the pension and other investments were lost to this utter fraud!

When one looks at the salaries of our state workers one can see the truth of the 1950's First Amendment besieged comedian Lenny Bruce when he said it was an American irony that a movie star made millions and a teacher AT THAT TIME made $3,000. When one adjusts for the inflation of fifty plus years then the salary of most state teachers maybe edges up to $55,000 IF he/she is lucky.

Charlie Sheen, alleged inebriate actor thinks he does not make enough at $2,000,000 PER SHOW. He wants $3,000,000 per show. Maybe Charlie should join a union. After all we just KNOW unions would ask that much for teachers if they could.

If you were not forced to work as a 12 year old, if you enjoy the 5 day work week, if you like the fact that your workplace must be safe than thank the unions. It would be nice if that sad excuse for a governor of the people of Wisconsin reversed his position and did the same!
My Oscar Take: I rather enjoyed the sometimes tedious, sometimes never ending thank yous of people I do not know, jokes which fall flat and unnecessary inane blather which extend the night well beyond timely sanity. Nevertheless, there was some brilliant acting and some utterly excellent films that were worthy of great recognition. We have so many talented people who can jet propel us out of our doldrums into an emotional escape.

I saw most of the important films up for awards. Natalie Portman's performance in the "Black Swan" was eminently worthy although, in my opinion, the substance of the film was difficult. Perhaps, her performance was admittedly superior to Annette Benning's, the favorite and my favorite, for the "Kids Are All Right." In addition, Christian Bale was just beyond superb as Dicky Ekland in "The Fighter." He will, I think, go down with the acting greats. "Social Network" was incredible. It made me feel so intelligently small compared to a Mark Zuckerberg and friends in their development of Facebook which now has over 200,000,000 subscribers and can be said to have literally changed an entire Middle East region and maybe the world.

Most importantly, "The King's Speech" won for all the categories I thought it would. The awards were well deserved for best picture, best actor, screenplay and director. This is truly a great film, serious in content and poignant, as the king and the British nation too must face serious times, overcome huge odds and then triumph!

NOT ANYMORE

  I wrote this last week and for the most part sat on it because I did not want my writing to imply anything against Israel. As stated agai...