Commentary

Go Wisconsin!



By Reginald Johnson
February 22, 2011



Just over a week ago, in my last blog, I lamented the fact that the American people seemed so unwilling to protest the many ills of our society --- the lack of jobs, a deplorable health care system, crumbling schools and government service cuts.

This was in sharp contrast, I said, to what we’ve seen in Egypt and across the Middle East, where thousands have taken to the streets to demand the removal of corrupt dictators and the establishment of fairer economic systems.

Well, maybe I spoke too soon. Maybe the sleeping giant in America is waking up.

In Wisconsin and now in Ohio and Indiana, throngs of workers are out every day demonstrating against the outrageous moves by new Republican governors to reduce the benefits of public employees and strip their unions of bargaining rights.

In Wisconsin, tens of thousands of workers --- teachers, nurses, firefighters, sanitation empoyees and others, together with school students --- have rallied at the state capital in Madison against the plan by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated legislature. The governor says the public employees must pay substantially more for their pensions and health care, in order to erase a claimed $3.6 billion budget deficit and avoid layoffs.

But Walker and the Republicans are lying about the reason for the draconian measures: the deficit came about only after GOP lawmakers in January rammed through a series of costly tax giveaways for the rich and big corporations. Before that, according to the Wisconsin Fiscal Bureau, the budget was balanced.

What’s happening in Wisconsin is part of a broad, national effort by the right-wing to smash public employee unions --- a major source of strength for both the Democratic Party and progressives in general. Anti-union forces must also figure that if public worker unions are badly hurt, it would be a mortal blow for the labor movement in general, since private sector unions have been steadily declining in recent years.

The union workers and their allies don’t buy the blather about the budget and see what’s really going on. It’s been inspiring to see the size of the crowds and the spirit of the protesters, day after day, in Madison.

Maybe this is the start of something. As Noam Chomsky commented on “Democracy Now” recently, the Wisconsin protests may be heralding the beginning of a “democracy uprising” in America.

Let’s hope so.

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MSNBC Commentator Ed Shultz has done a terrific job covering the protests. He devoted his show every night last week to the rallies, offering strong progressive commentary and getting good interviews with people like John Nichols of The Nation. I just hope his passionate pro-worker stance doesn’t ruffle too many feathers at management (the channel’s new owners are Comcast) and he’s shown the door the way Keith Olbermann and Phil Donahue were.

Commentary

RIGHT-WARD DRIVE AT MSNBC?

By Reginald Johnson

Nov. 7, 2010

A strong grassroots effort has sprung up to fight the suspension of liberal commentator Keith Olbermann from MSNBC, as many worry that the cable news network may be heading in a more conservative direction.

The group Progressive Change Campaign Committee said Sunday it has gathered over 300,000 signatures on a petition demanding that MSNBC reinstate Olbermann to his show “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.” MSNBC President Phil Griffin announced Friday that he was suspending the commentator “indefinitely” due to three campaign contributions Olbermann had made to Democratic candidates prior to the Nov. 2 election.

Griffin said NBC rules bar company employees from making political contributions.

But there may be a double standard at work here ---- since in the past MSNBC did nothing to penalize conservative commentators Pat Buchanan and Joe Scarborough from making donations to Republicans. The media advocacy group FAIR has also pointed out that the head of NBC, Robert Wright, has made political donations in the past as well.

There’s reports that NBC officials have been growing uneasy with the liberal face MSNBC is adopting, with the views of many of its hosts such as Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Ed Shultz. Is there a push going on now to create more “balance” by permanently removing Olbermann, and replacing him with someone more middle of the road?

The loss of Olbermann from one of the three major cable news operations (the others are FOX and CNN) would be a setback to progressives, who already struggle to get heard on the airwaves. FOX has long been a lost cause for liberals. Progressives rarely appear on FOX and if they do, they sit on panels of three or four speakers with all the others being conservative. The liberal gets shouted down. Evening hosts as well as some morning hosts on FOX are hopelessly right-wing and are running a blatant propaganda operation on behalf of the Republicans.

CNN, which tries to maintain an image of being centrist and non-partisan, has actually added a couple of right-wing commentators to its line-up in recent years – Erick Erickson and William Bennett.

So that leaves MSNBC, and why it’s important to bring Olbermann back. While far from being perfect (sometimes he can be too uncritical in analyzing different issues) Olbermann in general has been a big plus on the cable TV news scene. He frequently brings on progressive voices, and his commentaries over the years have been strong.

His “Special Comments” ripping the Bush administration for the lies concerning Iraq and the dismantling of civil liberties were particularly good.

To join the petition to reinstate Olbermann, go to http://boldprogressives.org/home.