Go Red, Beat State

The Marxist revolutionary's dream come true: students, workers, intellectuals join forces in Madison, Wisconsin to protest the new governor's assault on the union movement. Newly elected Republican governor Scott Walker proposes vastly scaling back, in some cases eliminating, the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin state employees including faculty and students at public universities. The pretense is the state's budget crisis. But if that was the only issue, the direct solution would be to negotiate cuts in salary and/or benefits with the public employee unions. Instead, the governor wants to eliminate some workers' (for example faculty's) collective bargaining rights entirely, while reducing the rights of others. Under the proposed law teaching assistants, for example, would no longer be able to bargain over health benefits or "just cause" protections against arbitrary discipline. How does preventing teaching assistants from demanding protection against arbitrary discipline solve the state's budget problems?

Meanwhile, Professors Joined Coal Protest in Kentucky Governor's Office. My brother claims he's in this picture, but I don't see him.

Sing with me everybody: There's somethin' happenin' here, what it is ain't exactly clear...