The thing about an epiphany is that it shouldn't come as a surprise. It happens when we finally feel . . . a deep-in-our-marrow feel . . . what we know to be true. It is a collision of heart and mind.
Both my wife and I are teachers who live next door to Madison, WI. I'm a two-time "Nader Spoiler." I spent last Wednesday night sleeping in the state capital. That information should provide most of the backstory needed to understand my recent "collision."
Being compelled to break my week-long boycott of Wisconsin businesses to feed two hungry cats, I stopped by the local Piggly Wiggly. I was the only customer since it was just moments after they'd opened. Walking up the pet food aisle toward the checkout, I overheard two middle aged female clerks talking to one another across the distance of their respective work stations. It was obvious they supported Walker's attempt to "balance" the state budget on the backs of public-sector workers.
Referring to the prank phone call of the day before, when Governor Walker was caught "fellatio in flagranti" [metaphorically] with a man who he thought was his boss . . . billionaire David Koch, one of the clerks said, "Governor Walker only said what's he's said all along. If they [meaning folks like me] didn't believe him, that's their fault." MOMENT OF IMPACT!
I've long known that our "democratic" system is little more than the Oz-like curtain behind which plutarchic wizards manipulate the levers of real power . . . the power of the purse. My epiphany was the marrow-shaking concussion of the opening salvo in the second American civil war . . . a smoke-and-mirrors "rebellion" generaled by the obscenely rich and soldiered by nonunion workers who've been convinced the enemy is union workers who "enjoy" marginally more economic security. It is a war meant to devastate the middle class and turn the American worker into the American serf.
In our country's first civil war the obscenely rich southern land barons, whose wealth was tethered to the lash-scared backs of their slaves, convinced poor southern dirt farmers who owned a few acres and a mule to fight to save a slave-based aristocracy with little "trickle down" . . . over 258,000 Confederate men died, give or take. Then as now, the obscenely rich had no intention of sharing the wealth had their side won.
It was obvious who was the boss and who was the lackey in Scott Walker's recent phone conversation with "David Koch." The Koch brothers and the wealth they wield are responsible for the propaganda that convinced the Piggly Wiggly clerks and scores of union . . . dare I say teachers . . . and nonunion middle class workers to vote Walker into office. Keep in mind, he lied and prevaricated and promised "change" as politicians are wont to do. Predictably, the casual voter had no clue as to Walker's stealth agenda.
In 2008, Forbes magazine identified the Koch brothers as the captains of the second largest privately held company in the United States, with an annual income of $98 billion. They were number one in 2006. Their empire was built on oil and gas futures by their father, Fred G. Koch.
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