Scott Walker To Declare Financial Martial Law In Wisconsin! Repeat Of Michigan!

Scott Walker, GOP governor of Wisconsin, overreaches again! First, the destruction of collective bargaining and now, he will introduce legislation that most likely plagiarizes the financial martial law that Michigan's governor enacted. Walker is poised to take over any city or town in Wisconsin that, in his opinion, is in financial distress. Faced with thousands of protesters in front of the Capitol every day, Walker does not retreat. Instead, he continues the dictatorial actions that earned him infamy earlier this year. Which towns will disappear? Which school boards will be dissolved? How many city governments will be dismissed? What assets will he sell to private corporations? It will be up to King Scott!

Education is clearly the only sector of the government that has not yet fallen prey to Privatizers. It is ultimately the goal of the Republican party to privatize every area of the public sector, up to and including education. Once corporations, empowered by their corrupt partnership with the men at the top levels of government assume control of education, watch out America! Under fiscal martial law, school boards can be dissolved, locally elected board members dismissed, curriculum changed, suspect teachers fired and replaced. The agenda, if realized, will change the course of education of Wisconsin and set dangerous precedent for the rest of the country. While basic education may not change, ideology taught can become indoctrination. Critical thinking may be disallowed. Think of Stepford Wives on Steroids! Free thinking discouraged, opposing ideologies ignored equals less well-rounded students and graduates. Already, in the US, the small portion of education that is corporatized is big business, earning $500 Billion dollars a year for the corporations involved.

Prior to the passage of the Emergency Managers Bill in Michigan, I wrote a detailed article outlining the legislation. In case you missed it, part of it is reprinted here.

"If Governor Rick Snyder determines that a city, town or even school district is in financial jeopardy, proposed Michigan legislation would allow the state to dismantle entire cities, dissolving locally elected government. The Michigan GOP legislature is intent on passing and implementing this legislation that will make what has just happened in Wisconsin seem like child's play! In addition, the state would have the same powers with regards to schools, dismissing school board members, and taking over any and all schools in a district. Heard enough? Of course not! Under the terms of the bill, corporations can be appointed and paid to take control and assume management of these disbanded cities, towns and school districts, selling assets, closing schools and eliminating all employee agreements. All collective bargaining can be dissolved, but even more than that, the mayors, city councils and local school boards that have been elected by the people will lose all control. They will be fired! Michigan's locally elected governments will serve at the pleasure of the governor, not the people who elected them.

Governor Snyder and his state treasurer, Andy Dillon, already have a training manual and program set up to instruct corporations and potential managers on such topics such as: How To Dissolve A City, Privatization of Assets, Sale of Assets, Merger of Services with Other Governmental Entities. Latest estimates suggest that additional training will take place in April or May. They are wasting no time!"

The law was passed by the Republican majority and the first city to have its locally elected government fired is Benton Harbor, Michigan. On April 14, 2011, the following was issued to take over and remove any and all powers of local government:

"EMERGENCY MANAGER, CITY OF BENTON HARBOR, BERRIEN COUNTY ,MICHIGAN

ORDER NO.: 11-C5

ORDER PROHIBITING ALL ACTION BY ALL CITY BOARDS,COMMISSIONS AND AUTHORITIES, EXCEPT AS AUTHORIZED BYTHE EMERGENCY MANAGER

I, Joseph L. Harris, the duly appointed Emergency Manager for the City of BentonHarbor, Michigan (the "City"), pursuant to the power and authority granted by Act 4 of thePublic Acts of Michigan of 2011, being MCL 141.1501 et seq (the "Act"), do hereby resolve and order as follows:

WHEREAS,

Section 19(ee) provides that the Emergency Manager may exercise any power or authority of any office, employee, department, board, commission or similar entity of the City, whether elected or appointed;

WHEREAS,

the power of the Emergency Manager as set forth in Section 19(ee) of the Act is superior to and supersedes any such officer or entity; and

WHEREAS,

now, no City Board, Commission or Authority has authority or power to act on behalf of the City as provided in the Act. NOW,

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED AS FOLLOWS:

1. Absent prior express written authorization and approval by the EmergencyManager, no City Board, Commission or Authority shall take any action for or on behalf of the City whatsoever other than:

i) Call a meeting to order.

ii) Approve of meeting minutes.

iii) Adjourn a meeting.

2. That all prior resolutions, or acts of any kind of the City in conflict herewith are and the same shall be, to the extent of such conflict, rescinded.

3. This order shall be effective immediately.

City of Benton Harbor signed and dated April 14, 2011."

The city of Benton Harbor has been taken over by the state and its elected government has been fired.

There is no reason to believe that Walker's bill will have too many differences than the one that became law in Michigan. It is believed that it will give him not only the power to take over cities, but to cut back on programs for the needy. They, the GOP governors, are all working from the same Koch-provided play book that they were given at the Governor's Association Conference held in November in San Diego or at the Koch Brothers Conference held in January in Palm Springs. This is a concerted effort to do away with unions, sell city assets to friends for pennies on the dollar; privatize everything, all under the guise of 'budget crisis'. Walker already admitted to Congress that he did not campaign on destruction of collective bargaining rights AND that collective bargaining has no effect on the budget, so he lied. He is scheduled to lie again in May when he rolls out his newest way to solve the 'fiscal crisis' in Wisconsin.

Say the words 'fiscal crisis' and everyone panics. It is 'word art'. Every day, hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent by Political Action Committees, candidates, almost everyone who has a message. They employ word specialists that determine which words or phrases will move their intended audience to agree with them. This is done on both sides of the political spectrum, from the Tea Party all the way to the most liberal of our political arena. Google even participates in 'word art' by running a key word site. What words or phrases do people search for most on the internet? Check google.

I am waiting to hear what 'word art' Walker employs to move this bill forward. When you listen to him and when you read the bill, you owe it to yourself to pay special attention to the wording. What will Walker say this time to convince his supporters in the legislature that he is 'saving' Wisconsin?

Even though Scott Walker is now the target of a criminal investigation, he continues his unrelenting agenda to transform the state of Wisconsin from one of the most progressive to one of those known for limiting the rights and freedoms of its citizens. Smaller government?

From PoliticsUSA, in an article on April 11, written by Sarah Jones:

"This morning, a criminal complaint filed in circuit court alleges that William Gardner, the president and CEO of Wisconsin & Southern Railroad Co., skirted campaign donation laws by soliciting employees to give to Scott Walker’s campaign and then reimbursing them, in what amounts to two felony counts. It has also come out that Walker’s campaign then reimbursed Gardner and seven additional railroad employees to the tune of $43,800, which indicates a criminal probe is imminent of Walker’s campaign."

There have been numerous political action groups seeking indictment of Walker on several charges. In May, after Walker introduces his copy-cat legislation, there will be more. Guaranteed!

The negative publicity that has been swirling around Walker's intention to impose financial martial law in the last week has apparently reached the governor's office. On Monday, April 18, 2011, Governor Walker flatly denied that these are his intentions. Maybe, just maybe, the publicity has been a successful preemptive strike, forcing the governor to abandon his plans. We will know sometime in May. Wait for the governor to introduce this legislation in stages, with the first bill introduced calling for a "financial stress test" for cities. If and when Walker proposes that, we will know that he has every intention of moving forward with his plan to dissolve cities and towns in Wisconsin. We will know, once again, that Walker has lied.