I got this message via FaceBook from from DustBunny Stacey N who lives in Wisconsin. It's a few days old (I don't check FB very often) - but her words still ring true. Here is what she wrote in its entirety (emphasis mine):
David,
Thank you for posting on your site about the situation in WI. Sometimes, watching the national news, I get so frustrated and I don't think anyone outside the borders cares about our inept governor here and how he's flushing the state and almost 50 years of good labor relations down the toilet all so that he can get a cushy corporate executive posting after he's through.
One favor I would like to ask of you is this: please tell your readers that of all the union workers I've talked to, we ARE willing to make concessions because of the budget. One union basically said to the Governor that they would take all the benefit cuts and increase in pension payments if he would not change bargaining rights. He has not responded. He absolutely refuses to negotiate anything.
This is NOT about benefit cuts and contributing more to our pensions. This IS about maintaining the right of unions to come to the table with management to negotiate things like class sizes in schools, how many hours a nurse can work in one shift, and what sort of conditions steelworkers have to work in.
I don't see any of the above in the media, and I didn't see it in the Sunday political programs. All some want to do is make this about teachers (more than teachers are at the rally protesting, that's for sure), and insinuating that we're all just lazy, greedy bastards that won't take a cut in benefits and pay more in the kitty for health care and pensions.
Let me say this. For a governor who complains that health care costs are too damn high, he is doing NOTHING to decrease them. In fact, after his election he had WI join the group of states fighting the Health Care Reform Act in the courts. He'd rather have us at status quo ante, when you could kick people off for anything considered 'pre-existing'.
I also have another favor to ask. Looking at your site and others, I stopped buying things at Target after what happened in Minnesota, and other places that contribute to anti-gay activists. Because it was a gubernatorial race, a lot of local businesses are on the line for being boycotted, but there are some national ones that contributed to Gov. Walker's campaign. If you could spread the word not to buy products from the following businesses because of the idiot they and their employees helped put in power in WI, I'd appreciate it. Here's the list:
Walmart, Sargento Cheese, GE, 3M, and Kohler
I was at the rally yesterday, and the so-called Tea Partiers just turned out to be a bunch of pissed off white people whose message was no more than 'you have to suffer like the rest of us'. Funnily enough, by the way they were dressed, it didn't look like they were suffering too badly. There were a few misspelled signs, and a few people whose only reason for being there was to pick a fight like a group of drunken frat boys on a Saturday night. It failed. There were no arrests, and everything was pretty peaceful. That's how we do it here in WI.
Thanks for supporting us, David. We need all the help we can get. I haven't read the blog in a long time because life got really busy in the last few months, but pet Oscar and Dusty for me.
Thanks,
Dustbunny #1,
Stacey
Keep fighting the good fight, Stacey!
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