William Schuth, an Iraq war veteran, was insulted when Governor Scott Walker compared fighting the unions in Wisconsin to fighting terrorists in the Middle East.
He is now a teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin and a member of AFT Local 3220, the Teaching Assistants’ Association.
He created a petition on Moveon.org. He asks if you will sign it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
signed it this morning
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Talking about veterans and using no names—I belong to a VA writing group and one of the members is a former U.S. Marine who, after being a Marine for four years, then joined the army to become a Green Beret where he served in the special forces. He is now out of the military after having served in combat in the middle east as a Green Beret over a period of several years, and he volunteers his time for free to tutor children who are having trouble with math at public schools near where he lives.
We ended up talking last Thursday after the writing group met about his experiences with what I call the Common Core Crap, and he has a very low opinion of Common Core math. He said when he shows children how to reach a correct answer using tried-and-true traditional methods, they tell him he did it wrong because he didn’t follow the elaborate and confusing step-by-step script that comes with Common Core. He also said that the teachers at the schools where he volunteers his time to tutor children in math all are very unhappy with the damage that Common Core is causing.
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Put a clown suit and a red nose on Scott Walker and send him over to Baraboo, WI to the Ringling Bros. circus museum. He makes George W. look like a Rhodes Scholar!
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If Scott Walker makes G. W. Bush look like a Rhodes Scholar, then we know who are next president might be.
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Since Ringling Brothers will be retiring the elephant acts, I suggest that they replace the elephants with political clowns, and I nominate Scott Walker to be one of the first. He’s already proven that that might be a job he could actually handle.
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Anne,
If Ringling Brothers replaces its retiring elephants with governors who are clowns, that would be a very large act.
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Ah, but clowns are respected members of the circus. I’d put Walker more in the area of cotton candy hawker or, maybe, marionette.
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Oh no you don’t, Anne, Math Vale, and Diane. Give it up while you’re ahead.
I am Scott Walker’s agent, and I already have first dibs on putting him in the freak show as the most aberrant (oops – I almost spelled that as “abhorrent”) attraction.
I plan to sell millions of tickets . . . . .
Step right up . . . . .
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Signed!
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Has he been charged with treason, or is that still federal territory? Free speech would allow him to be characterized as a union thug. How long until flag day? What are the odds he will be before then?
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Walker should apologize for lying about anti-labor legislation.
“Walker had expressed concerns to leaders in the GOP-controlled Legislature that rushing the divisive proposal could distract from his agenda, and in September — during the heat of his re-election campaign — he said he wouldn’t support it this session. But after a series of private meetings with lawmakers, followed by an announcement that the bill would be voted on next week, Walker’s spokeswoman said he would sign it.”
Of course, one could argue that no one should have believed him, since once politicians get rid of public sector unions they go immediately after private sector unions, so that wascompletely predictable.
http://www.leadertelegram.com/news/daily_updates/article_7389717a-b995-11e4-be4c-c38485d58f63.html
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Politicians are very good at milking the government for its benefits, wages, pensions. How dare they insult teachers and unions by falsely stating how much they cost taxpayers. You’d think they would be aghast at what the charters are costing taxpayers, then running off with the booty, the assets and leaving students in limbo in the process of also destroying neighborhoods and livelihoods. NOW, they’re insulting veterans as well, when many of the politicians never saw a war in their lives because they were busy at their Ivy League school. We’re the idiots for voting these douches into power; then again, the oligarchs have funded them so well no one else has a shot.
Shame on Walker. Shame on them all.
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Except for the police and firefighters (until they are one day replaced by robotics, but that won’t be for another 150 years, I imagine), there will be hundreds of millions of dollars spent throughout the country – funded by a partnership between elected officials and their campaign donators – upon creating print and film ads that will try and persuade and trick the public into thinking that civil servants suck the life blood out of the tax payer. This will be an aggressive campaign. Andrew Cuomo is already commencing his own tactics in this area. Scott Walker has been successful in this. Not bad for a college drop-out and complete and utter moron. Honestly, I think the hormone and anti-biotic ridden milk has poisoned the brains of Wisconsin residents, which lead to their voting for him twice. Moo!
In the meantime, police and firefighters, as I’ve said, will not be touched because they will be needed once the little people wake up, and protest and demonstrate even more when they realize that the wool has been pulled over their eyes, and that the the wool was lined with tiny little spikes that gouged out their already somewhat blind eyes while being pulled over the eye sockets . . . .
Okay, so I am grim and mean in my outlook.
The truth is just as bad as me, but let’s still continue to fight this and never give up.
I still think organized boycotting is THE BEST form of protest in $aving the United $tates. Money is the one language the overcla$$ understand$ . . . . .
Oh no . . . I have joined the ranks of writers who rely on that dollar sign symbol as a cute way of getting their message across . . . . .
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Walker compared teachers to terrorists. Many teachers are veterans. Walker called veterans terrorists. That should be a campaign ad.
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Agreed. Gonna tweet that comment. Thanks, MathVale.
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I signed.
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Read this article!
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I read it. Surprise, surprise.
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Could we stop please these demands for insincere non-apology apologies? The man doesn’t regret saying it, won’t take it back, and the nonsense of the “I’m sorry if anyone took offense” apology is as offensive as the original remark.
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Walker won and continues to win in Wisconsin against labor. His model is being watched and emulated around the country, even by many democrats (see Gov. Cuomo in my state of NY). As it stands now, organized labor will have to fight for generations to get back to where they were even 2 weeks ago.
Unions, especially teachers unions, are at the absolute precipice of ceasing to exist. In New York, once the firmest ground for organized teachers, the cornerstones of our existence are on the table and are in serious doubt. Let us be clearheaded here: just to stop the onslaught against unions in Wisconsin, in New York, and nationally, is going to take an historically heavy lift….perhaps some of the boldest, most sustained action taken by labor since the first half of the 20th century. To reverse the onslaught and recapture what has been lost would take a resurgence of labor militancy unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. Let that be very clear. While petitions are good and necessary, let us not think, even for a moment, that someone like Scott Walker would even know it existed. What is in front of us will require more than petitions or anything in our commonplace daily arsenal of political communication.
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The unions are dead, long live the unions. Republicans control most states, Congress, SCOTUS, finance, business, media, and now schools. The traditional unions are probably gone for good. But while Republicans exert control primarily through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and monetary influence, it is not authority vested by the People. The GOP grip on America is artificial and tenuous. So far, Republicans have demonstrated an inability to govern whether Brownback at the state level or Congress at the federal level. The New Unions need to broaden appeal to all working Americans as a national labor party and highlight the stale, failed Republican policies of the past 30 years – something Democrats have forgotten how to do.
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I signed, with feeling!
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Signed!
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