And So the Police State Starts - WI Republicans Show Their Fear of Smart People

Just a few hours ago, a good friend of mine posted this quote on Facebook:

"Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation’s troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen."
~Ayn Rand

Thanks, HM.

I responded that maybe in the case of the state of Wisconsin it was the public sector workers who were the scapegoat to the Tea Party and the far right of Republican party.

Dr. William Cronon

Then I found the following articles:

Did Wisconsin GOP target Scott Walker critic with “McCarthyite” tactics? By Greg Sargent (A Washington Post article from today)

Wisconsin’s Radical Break By William Cronon (The original New York Times Article)

I won't bore you by making you re-read these articles. Let me sum up. William Cronon is a professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Wisconsin's Radical Break. Later the same week, the Republican Party of Wisconsin, under the open records laws of Wisconsin sent an email requesting that Dr. Cronon's employer go thorough his emails looking for certain names and information.

This is the list of words they want information on:

"Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union, Alberta Darling, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, Rob Cowles, Scott Fitzgerald, Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen, Glenn Grothman, Mary Lazich, Jeff Fitzgerald, Marty Beil, or Mary Bell." (1)

Dr. Cronon wrote in detail about and very openly about these events in

A Tactic I Hope Republicans Will Rethink:Using the Open Records Law to Intimidate Critics 

This is Dr.Cronon's first ever blog posting.

What happens now?

The first thing that will happen is that the Governor's office and the Republicans in the Legislature will deny any knowledge of this tactic. Not true. Not any more true than if the National Democratic Party did something similar to an enemy of Barack Obama and he said that he knew nothing.

 The next thing will be for the Republicans to defend their actions. Those actions are indefensible. There should be emails that contain all of this information: Dr. Cronon is a Professor of History and these are historical times.

What should happen? The Governor and the Legislature should renounce this act. Using these laws to violate the privacy of  a private citizen and an intellectual is disgusting. This law was designed to create transparency in the Government, not attack an individual citizen for his personal views.

Above I stated that I believe that the Republican Party is scapegoating public employees. They are also anti-intelligentsia. Conservative movements in the past and now tend to attack intellectuals first. De-fund schools, de-fund universities, and vilify educators in an effort to staunch knowledge based debate. 

For the record, not all Republicans or Conservatives or Tea Party members are not interested in intellectual debate.  However, when mob rules take over, all groups go to the lowest common denominator.

Joe the Plumber? Seriously? - Conservatives Need the Past to Survive the Future

I think that Conservatives have some valid points. There is something to be said for some ideas, like controlling the size and scope of government, protecting our borders and maintaining financial solvency. The ideas aren't bad; I part with them on execution.

Here's the problem that I see with the Neo-Con/Tea Party/Republican movement as it exists now: it has become an American Idol pageant of misfits and 15-minute media hounds.

So, who is the Tea Party getting its information from:

1. Glenn Beck - A recovering alcoholic, coke addict DJ who was pro-life until he found a new life at Fox. After converting to Mormonism, apparently Beck found out that God is running the show and he needs to be a decent person. No Osmond, he has not let that stop him from using profanity and mercilessly attacking people, including children. (Click here) He also peppers his shows with an apocalyptic prophecy ascribed to Joseph Smith. (reference)  The next time he says that the US Constitution is "hanging by a thread," look up the prophecy.
2. Sara Palin... former beauty queen, mayor of a large town in Alaska, former Governor of Alaska, reality TV star. OK, she's pretty. She was the mayor of Wasila, Alaska, the town with the Bridge to Nowhere. She declined the bridge, but not the money. As Governor of Alaska, she resigned. For all the accusations of nepotism, cronyism and other shenanigans, she resigned, despite having already being on the campaign trail with John McCain for a year or more. Her biography, Going Rogue , is named for a joke from SNL!
3. Joe the Plumber - Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher shot to fame after questioning then-candidate Obama about a small business tax for businesses making over $250,000 per year. Interestingly, he wasn't making $250,000! When asked by Diane Sawyer, he responded, "No, not even close." At the time, he was a plumber's assistant, not a business owner. Then he became a campaign issue. His political view suddenly becomes a touchstone for the New Right.
4. Mark Williams - Radio host and de facto Tea Party spokesman - Let him speak for himself. "Williams denounced those carrying blatantly racist signs against President Obama during the tea parties as "no more part of the mainstream of America than the hippies who wear nipple clips and feather boas in San Francisco streets during so-called peace demonstrations."* Really? What? Huh? 'Nuf said?
5. Rush Limbaugh- This one is harder. He is an entertainer, therefore not necessarily constrained by truth. That said, he has maintained his point of view for a very long time and his following is undeniable. A little more self-education of his listeners might help things, but at least he's not Mark Williams.

Conservatives who are needed to lend this new movement legitimacy:

1. Margaret Thatcher  - Although the PM of Britain, her philosophies had a huge influence here in the U.S.. Well thought out, articulate and applied with compromise and discretion, Maggie was a woman that no one messed with. She was respected around the world and left a lasting impression on those who grew up listening to her political views.
2. William F. Buckley, Jr. - Soft-spoken, polite and generally demure, his intellect was astounding. He was able to article Conservative philosophy while still sounding like a man off the set of Kathryn Hepburn film.
3. Ayn Rand - Not strictly a Conservative, she was a Capitalist who understood how wealthy and power could make the world a better place. Unfortunately, her ideas fall apart when humans touch them. Her novels in particular have influenced Conservatives since their publication.
4. Ronald Reagan - Father of the modern Conservative movement, the Tea Party doesn't actually listen to what he said and did. Instead, they listen to a myth of the man. Not without his foibles, he was a man of great compassion and vision. He was smart enough to hire the right people into the right places and leave them alone.
5. Barry Goldwater- Goldwater was a Constitutionalist. He wanted to the government to return to the original vision that had been laid out by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. Again, the ideals never really met up with the ideal. Kennedy's assassination destroyed any possibility of Goldwater being elected.

There are many on both lists that could be added, but if the Conservative movement expects to survive, it needs to look back to its roots. The danger of the cult of personality, on both ends of the political spectrum is that all of these people can talk, few can lead and fewer still can understand what they are doing and why.