PRESS RELEASE
Cairo Comes to the United States
Feb. 18, 2011 (EIRNS)—The mass strike ferment which broke out in Tunisia and Egypt approximately one month ago, was never a local process, but was a reaction to the miserable conditions and breakdown crisis which the process of globalization over the past decades has created. Thus it is totally lawful that mass strike ferment has now broken out in the state of Wisconsin—where Gov. Scott Walker could appropriately be dubbed the Sheikh of West Bahrain.
As of this writing, the capital of Wisconsin is still chock full of tens of thousands of citizens attempting to prevent Governor Walker from ramming through legislation which would virtually eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employee unions in that state. Walker's determination to carry out this measure is partially motivated by his desire to carry out his crushing austerity drive, but, actually, it's worse than that. Walker's arrogance rivals that of the Bahraini Sheikh. He considers the state's workforce as just another form of cattle.
The working population of Wisconsin, and many other unionists and others around the country, disagree. The public service workers in Wisconsin are responding forcefully to defend their standard of living, which they see under total attack, and other unions in the state, and students, have flocked to their defense. It is for this reason that we see tens of thousands of citizens flocking to the state capital, to defy the Governor's will.
No one should be confused about President Obama's so-called support for the union protestors. First, Obama himself is responsible for the crisis, in the sense that he has refused to take the elementary economic steps, starting with Glass-Steagall, that would solve the economic disaster. Second, as Obama himself made clear, he may support the existence of unions, but he thinks they should be negotiating wage cuts, and wage freezes, and give-backs, not advancing their living standards. Thus, he endorses the underlying objective of Sheikh Walker.
In EIR's view, Wisconsin is just the beginning of a new wave of mass strike ferment in the United States, one already evident in Ohio, and bound to spread through the nation. The solution will be national, and global—just as in Egypt and Tunisia. And the sooner people realize that that's where their firepower needs to be aimed, the better the chances of avoiding a disaster otherwise in the making.
