A Welcome to Wisconsin sign with another sign saying “A Division of Koch Industries” is going around Twitter.
Comments
This photo of a Welcome to Wisconsin sign with another sign saying “A Division of Koch Industries” is going around Twitter:
I haven’t been able to ascertain whether it’s a real sign or clever PhotoShopping but it’s mildly amusing. The notion that Koch money was a significant factor in the recent labor fight strikes me as silly, but it’s widely held in certain circles.
via Joshua Foust and Steve Hynd
Categories
Tags
It’s a humorous bumper-sticker slogan symbolic of a bigger struggle, of course. Can you really argue that the Kochs and other wealthy rightwing partisans haven’t had a big effect on the political landscape? And that they didn’t play a big part in getting Walker (and lots of others, particularly tea party types) elected?
Of course, that overlooks that the unions paid a HELL of a lot more for Wisconsin. That’s why they’re so upset — they thought they bought the state, fair and square, but it was just a lease — and the true owners decided to not renew the lease last November.
In the foreclosure biz, banks have begun paying people to NOT trash the home before they are evicted — it’s called “cash for keys.” Apparently in Wisconsin, they haven’t figured out that one, and the unions are wrecking the place.
J.
The median annual salary for high school teachers in the US is $43,000. The median annual starting salary for a teacher in the small (but prosperous) town in Wisconsin where I went to public school is $32,000. For somebody with a BS degree plus the additional training required for certification (see http://dpi.wi.gov/tepdl/licguide.html), this is not a hell of a lot of money. Jay Tea, would you work this kind of money?
“Well, considering that the ED major is for those who can’t even hack it in PE, $43K is probably overpaying.”
There are certain, let’s say reversals that astound me. Not so much that they happen but that they happen with such audacity and speed and yet the people take no notice. A prime example would be torture where we went int he course of a decade from a country that openly declared torture to be immoral and unacceptable to one where one major party *championed* torture to one where both parties champion torture and are unashamed to say so. In fact it’d be viewed as “soft on terrorism” at this point for a politician to say simply “no I wouldn’t order the torture of known Al-Qaeda much less the random goat herds we grab in afghanistan.”
That kind of cognitive dissonance just astounds me. I mention it because here we have another case. Republicans, despite all the “american exceptionalism, mom, apple pie, and lockheed martin” talk have managed to turn themselves into people who *hate* teachers. It’s startling and sad really to see such an under-appreciated and vital group become vilified by a major party. I know the modern GOP thrives on vilifying the “other” and that’s nauseating and frankly just evil, but the fact that they managed to so logically contort themselves that teachers are one of their many “others” is really amazing.
It does not speak well of either their character or their rationality.
