You'd been reading about revolutions in the Middle East. The people there want freedom and democracy. Now the revolution has spread to Wisconsin. It's a complicated situation that seems totally bizarre to those of us living outside America. Apparently the Democratic legislators have left the state and remain in hiding in order to prevent the Republicans from crushing unions. The teachers are on strike and the schools are closed. Strange.
Here's a 30 minute explanation for those of you who want to know. The situation reminds me a great deal of Alice in Wonderland.
It's a farce on all levels anywhere you look.
ReplyDeleteIn related news, it is now almost certain that UW-Madison will be split from the rest of UW system, effectively privatizing it. Madison professors are overjoyed at the prospect as this will allow to raise tuition and salaries.
Not that the other UW campuses are not total jokes but there used to be an idea of education is a public good.
Watching the video would waste 30 minutes of my life. When you refer to "those of us living outside America," I assume you are including Canadians. Canadians are not strangers to strikes and the rhetoric of freedom and democracy. What interests me is your use of the word America to refer to the United States. It implies a greater geographical distance between us (Canadians) and them (Americans).
ReplyDeleteWhether you are a Republican,a Democrat,a Tea Partier, or any political party therein, you have to love it when Americans from all walks of life and all political "bents" come together en masse to decry their particular governmental discontents...
ReplyDelete(This is what our country was founded upon.)
@anonymous,
ReplyDeleteMy ancestors were from Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. Most of them fought on the side of the existing government during the first American Civil War (also known as the Revolutionary War and the War of Independence).
You gotta love it when British citizens from all walks of life started killing each other because they disagreed on the future of the colonies. That's what led to the founding of the United States of America. And that's when tens of thousands of loyalists left for Britain or other colonies.
This may be a slightly different perspective than the one you learned in school. I don't think they teach the historical "controversies" in American schools. :-)
What interests me is your use of the word America to refer to the United States.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, I too get tired of being robbed of my hemispheric and continental birthright solely due to the fact that the founding fathers of the republic to the south were spectacularly unimaginative when it came to naming their new country. Imagine the heat the Germans, say, or the French would take for referring to themselves alone as "Europeans" and France or Germany as "Europe". The rest of us are every bit as much Americans as anyone in the United States.