Letter to the Editor: Protests on Saturday to Reflect Recent Wisconsin Politics

March 19 will be the 8th anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq. Groups ranging from Iraq Veterans against the War to Code Pink will participate in demonstrations in Washington D.C., Madison, Chicago and other cities across the nation.  

Madison will be a major focal point. There, middle class state government workers have had wage and benefit cuts. Some were voluntary. Some were imposed by Republican politicians. Budget deficits are the justification. “Sacrifices” are imposed on American working people at home, while billions of dollars per year are squandered on quagmire wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Chicago, a march will assemble at Michigan Avenue and Congress Parkway at 12 p.m. The march will step off about 1 p.m. and proceed north on Michigan Avenue. Marchers have a permit from the city, so it should be peaceful. Usually there are speakers at both ends of the march.

Events in Wisconsin are prototypes of plans pending in several states. All of those states have Republican governors. Most are northern states. At the forefront, after Wisconsin, are New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, rustbelt states that have suffered severely from the loss of manufacturing jobs. Wisconsin was the ideal starting point because it also has a Republican-controlled state assembly. The plans generally emasculate the middle and lower classes and leave a structure that closely resembles feudalism.

The debt crisis, like the justifications for war in Iraq, was manufactured.  The excessive deficits began in 1981, and have accumulated $13 trillion in debt so far.

In Wisconsin, unions, non-governmental organizations, students, outsiders and others recognize that what happens in Wisconsin is in store for all other states. It’s critical that the pending war on the underclasses that has flared up in Wisconsin be extinguished there.