A letter to the editor from my friend, "Ashamed to be a Badger Now" [View all]

[Botany]

Ashamed to be a Badger Now

I have called Wisconsin home since 1974. I moved here because of the beautiful natural environment, and the nicest people in the world who lived here. I completed college, went into business, and now employ 35 people in rural Wisconsin. I thought I would live happily ever after as a loyal Badger and Cheeshead.

Then the Republican Party, led by “Divide and Conquer” Scott Walker, took over the state, and split the people apart with their bare knuckles political agenda. Walker and his corrupt cronies took millions of dollars from extremist special interests, starved our educational institutions, and allowed the roads to go to pot. They gerrymandered the state to serve their selfish interests at the expense of the voters, intentionally undermining democracy. But the people rose up in November to end this travesty by voting in new statewide leadership.

The Republican Traitors to Democracy would have none of it. In a child-like pique of entitlement, they rushed laws through the legislature in a lame duck session, with practically no opportunity for public comment, limiting the powers of the incoming governor and attorney general. Their shenanigans have earned them well-deserved opprobrium from across the political spectrum here in America, and even from abroad where American Democracy supposedly shines as a beacon of hope to other nations.

I used to be so proud to tell people I was from Wisconsin. Now I am ashamed of my state. People regularly ask me, “What’s wrong with your government in Wisconsin?” How do you explain to them that a gang of power-hungry, career politicians have hijacked your democracy?

Wisconsin has become the poster child for what is wrong with politics in America today. The only way to stop this perversion of the people’s will is to vote the perpetrators out of office, and to adopt the Iowa model of non-partisan re-districting. Only then can Wisconsin return to its roots of clean government, and the conduct of the people’s business, not that of the monied special interests that run the show now. Throw da bums out!


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