Yes, I have been squeezing the Obama Stress Head. Especially as the stock market heads South and as freedom of inquiry takes yet another hit, thanks to the Democrats in power.
Let us hope that one of the first orders of business when Scott Walker is sworn in as governor next January will be to undo the mistake of exposing our campuses of higher education to the grasping clutches of the government union bosses.
Permitting Big Labor into the academy was a political payoff made by the Doyle-Pocan-Miller Democrat(ic) regime to the labor union movement, which increasingly is being drummed out of the private sector by what is left of our free choice system.
An astonished tip of the hat goes to Todd Finklemeyer of the on-line Capital Times for laying bare what happens when Big Labor, now reduced almost entirely to the public sector, moves in. Read his expose, Union backlash: UW-Madison academic staff bristle at perceived strong-arm tactics, posted Sunday.
"I was an active union member back in the day but I'm not amused at all by these shenanigans," says Bob Purvis, of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
"Shenanigans" is another term for a frontal assault on democracy, intellectual honesty, and, most important to the academy: freedom of thought. That solitary, minority opinion is what separates the intellectual enterprise from being shouted down, stomped out, and Krystallnacht'ed. Sifting and winnowing cannot occur in the intimidation of the lockstep mindset of the union hall.
The unionized mentality fears independent thinking, exalts the group, the collective, the herd. It insulates and attacks individual initiative as a foreign body in the bloodstream, it celebrates mediocrity. It wards off innovation. It penalizes risk taking.
We've seen what unionization did to our public K-12 schools: in comes confrontation, agitation, and militancy. Out goes professionalism, intellectualism, and creativity. What is the problem that unionization is supposed to fix? University professors are underpaid? Overworked? Hazardous working conditions? Or that they are free to think for themselves?
The on-line commenters nail it:
Unionizing is the best way to completely dumb down our educational system. WEAC has proved this at the K-12 level. [Great minds ...]
I agree ..., public employee unions need to be abolished. Their very nature is to corrupt the process of protecting the taxpayer's money by providing legal bribes to the politicians that determine their pay and benefits.
Babs Lawton signs up for the no-call list
The Obama White House tried to buy off Andrew Romanoff in Colorado and Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania in order to clear the way for the Chicago regime's favorite Democrats. Is it unsupportable that the same kind of jury-rigging occurred elsewhere, say, in the Badger State?
How is it that the three highest-profile races: U.S. Senate, governor, and 7th District Congressional, are uncontested on the Democrat side (except for one ex-Republican who did not get the memo in the 7th.)
Here is Barbara Lawton cashing campaign checks and racking up endorsements in her bid for the Democrat(ic) nomination for governor on one day and the next day says she's out, no explanation provided.
I have asked Lt. Gov. Lawton's office what federal job was she promised in return for doing a volte face and dropping out of the Dems' gubernatorial primary in favor of Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett. I posed this question Thursday and have not received a response.
I have instructed John Smalley, editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, to throw the city's largest news team at this intractable public official. I have also put Tony Galli at WKOW-TV on the case. Start digging!
A tea party Democrat?
Speaking of labor unions.
