XDA

With favorable polls, and all the signs of winning in how the liberals are treating the Governor Scott Walker recall election today, it appears that he will survive the recall. Still, most eyes will be on the recall election itself and few will notice what has happened to the public workers unions as a result of Republican reforms.

Here's the real story on how important and powerful these unions are. Money quote:

According to the Journal, when Walker first proposed his fiscal reforms in early 2011, AFSCME’s Wisconsin membership stood at a healthy 62,818. By February 2012, the labor behemoth had shrunk to 28,745. “It’s a profound shift,” says George Lightbourn, the president of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute and the state’s former secretary of administration. “It’s similar to what Indiana experienced after Governor Mitch Daniels changed the collective-bargaining laws. If these numbers are borne out, it will significantly change the whole nature of Wisconsin’s state workforce and the relationship between management and employees.”

Despite the already profound change, the true believers are taking a never say die position. Like Katrina vanden Awful. She thinks the loss of union membership and the pending loss, again, at the ballot box is actually a hopeful sign. Check it out:

And in the last 15 months, Wisconsin’s progressives have shown us that the battle against bankrolled austerity can be bravely waged by an army of dedicated people committed to protecting working families. They’ve reminded us that good organizing is our only chance to withstand the blitzkrieg of corporate funded advertising — and better yet, leave a lasting mark. Their movement, with thousands of new Wisconsin activists mobilized, energized and educated, can be permanent — and it can keep growing.

Or not.

UPDATE: I noticed this in the vanden Heuvel at-least-we-went-down-fighting piece I linked to above. It's a little weird for what it doesn't contain:

Elections are over in a matter of hours, but movements are made of weeks, months and years. The Declaration of Sentiments was issued at Seneca Falls in 1848, yet women did not gain the right to vote until seven decades later. The Civil War ended with a Union victory in 1865, yet the Voting Rights Act was not passed until a century later.

Regarding the last example of the delay in fruition, the civil war, slavery and voting rights, let me add some relevant historical details between 1865 and 1965.

1) Republicans pass the 15th Amendment (The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude) and it becomes part of the Constitution on Feb 3, 1970, less than 5 years after the Union victory.

2) Rutherford B. Hayes commits a rare mistake for him and withdraws Union troops from the South way too soon.

 3) By 1890, nearly all the Southern States, under exclusively Democratic leadership, erect as many roadblocks to black voting rights as possible, including the infamous poll taxes and literacy tests.

 4) Meanwhile, In the absence of Union troops, the KKK begins a murderous black vote suppression campaign. All of the KKK members are Democrats.

 Just thought I'd make it clear why the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was necessary in light of the Republican 15th Amendment.

Is it possible Ms. vanden Heuvel doesn't know this history?

Labels: Wisconsin Recall Vote; Wisconsin Public Sector Union Member Loss; Katrina vanden Heuvel; 15th Amendment