NPR – NOT NOT NOT ABOUT COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

The PBS Nightly News summarized the 1 million signature Recall effort with words like: “Scott Walker became the target of protest last year when he curtailed the collective bargaining rights of most public workers”.

If they were covering the landing on the moon would they say, “The event began with a successful blast off”?

It is unconscionable reporting to shove this historic, grassroots, movement for democracy in the collective bargaining box. If you believe that is the real news, you do not “get it”. You have not done your homework. You are doing a disservice to the thousands of people who are working in a glorious service to their state and country!

Wisconsin Public Television Coverage D- or F

Here and Now is the Wisconsin focused, weekly news program on Wisconsin Public Television. It is hosted by Frederica Freyberg who manages to make the most interesting events that have occurred in Wisconsin politics in years, down right boring. If she ran a pasta place she would have folded long ago for serving soft, mushy, and unpalatable noodles. When news reporting attempts to be so nonpartisan that it misses the point, it is no longer reporting. It is allowing the status-quo opinions of both sides an opportunity to broadcast views that most people already know. Watching Here and Now, is like seeing a movie for the tenth time, only as a distraction from some other nagging responsibility like cleaning the toilet.

Recently, when the recall effort was first announced, Frederica interviewed UW-Milwaukee professor of Governmental Affairs, Mordecai Lee. He expressed doubt that activists could garner the signatures to reach the threshold of 540,000 votes to recall Walker. The program video and interview is no longer available on site Here

Even though his hand on the pulse of Wisconsin turned to be ice cold, this same out-of-touch “expert” was called (or recalled) back again when he stated:

If I were a betting man, I think that we’d say that he has a slightly better chance of retaining a seat than being deposed simply because he’s an incumbent, low turnout skews Republican.

The people can only take consolation in the fact that his opinion about the recalls is equal to his opinion about the election.

Missing the Real and Historic Story

Is it partisan to recognize history in the making? Is it honest journalism to ignore the difference between a heroic grass roots effort in face of a nationally organized attempt squash the people’s voice? The collective bargaining issue was the count down and lift off on the journey to open the door of a very dark cave of covert plans to push laws through the GOP controlled Wisconsin legislature; laws that were not even the product of any Wisconsin legislator or source. While the press seems stuck on “union”, the workings and influence of American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC) is ignored. ALEC is the source of much more than union busting, it is the documented source of fringe right wing efforts that threaten the environment, voting rights, health care, education and the rules of the legislature itself.

This is the REAL story – High Time It Be Told

20,600 Signatures Collected
Only 16,742 needed to trigger a Recall Election.

Lori never planned to become a one-woman political committee. A freelance photographer and writer originally from St. Louis but now a resident of Fort Atkinson became the David to take on Goliath. She is not funded by big union, out-of-state-money but only by a deep beating heart for democracy. Against all odds she orchestrated the successful recall of Senator Scott Fitzgerald!

NPR – Frederica Freyburg – Scott Walker and Scott Fitzgerald Please Watch the Video Above.

You are not facing big union organization or out-of-state money. You are facing your constituents. You are hearing the voices of the people of Wisconsin who you failed to listen to over the past long, hard, year.

The Progressive roots of Fighting Bob La Follette are sending new shoots from Ashland to Prairie Du Chein and sprouting all along the Wisconsin River and the Door County Peninsula.
The Collective Bargain is made of thousands of people joining together to keep and make their government representative. To frame this message in the script of ALEC and the GOP is reprehensible, shallow, and will be diminished by the new spirit of progressive action.

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