Celebrate Memorial Day

 Celebrate Memorial Day

Preserve Democracy

 

On Monday, we celebrate Memorial Day, a federal holiday, to honor those who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces to preserve our Democratic experiment.

 

The first national Memorial Day was celebrated in May 1868. Then known as Decoration Day, it was started by the commanding general of the Grand Army of the Republic to honor Union Army soldiers who died in the Civil War. The states aligned with the Union had all adopted the holiday by 1890. Congress finally made the day a national holiday, Memorial Day, in 1971 and designated the last Monday in May for the observance. Southern states, aligned with the Confederacy, marked their own versions of the day on differing days trying to preserve the memory of a defeated alternative that depended upon the exploitation of slavery for its existence.

 

Across the nation, the holiday is marked by parades, the decoration of fallen soldiers’ graves with flags and flowers, speeches and gatherings to honor those who died in service.

 

I choose to honor my maternal uncle and namesake, Lt. Waring Roberts, who died while flying weather reconnaissance in Hawaii in 1944. Lt. Roberts left a promising legal career in New York City to enlist in the Navy in 1943. He went to flight school in Florida and was assigned to a unit in Hawaii that flew PBY Catalinas used for anti-submarine and search and rescue operations. He enlisted to join the fight against fascism and imperialism rampant leading up to the United States’ entry into World War II. I was named after him by my mother when I was born a year after his death.

 

He was not my only ancestor to serve in our country’s military. The earliest was Maj. Andrew Finck, an upstate New York farmer, who fought in the Revolutionary War serving as a Quartermaster. He too volunteered to fight so that a fledgling democracy had a chance to succeed in this country. While he outlived the conflict and returned to civilian life, his service is noted as an integral part of our grand experiment in Democracy.

 

Memorial Day must be celebrated not only to honor those who fought and died in service of Democracy, but to remember that Democracy is the only political system that stands between us and the tyranny of fascism and totalitarian authoritarianism.

 

We Americans occasionally fall prey to the lure of the authoritarian who offers simplistic solutions to complex problems. We become enamored of the snake oil salesman with the pitch that solves all our problems. We are drawn to the cult of the “me firsters” with promise of a brighter future that excludes those put up as the scapegoat causes of all that ails our society.

 

America is in the throws of another one of those eras that our ancestors stood up against. We must resist the siren’s call and insist once more that we fight problems with facts, science, and the rule of law, not platitudes and snake oil. Democracy takes vigilance and hard work. It is not easy nor formulaic. Each new hurdle requires that we work together to overcome the obstacle. We cannot do it in isolation from each other.

 

We do not have to agree on every issue, or every solution proposed to solve a problem. We do have to agree that we are all in this together and must work together to resolve our differences to solve them.

 

Right now, the threat to our Democracy is not external. No one is threatening to invade our borders, including those who want the better life a democratic society offers. The biggest threat to our Democracy is internal caused by the divisive, polarizing nationalism promoted by an extreme faction following and guiding a former resident of the White House.

 

Just as our ancestors fought and died to preserve our Democracy, we need to honor their service and sacrifice by standing up for the Democratic ideals that make America great. We are a nation of many races, creeds, national origins, and religions. Unless you descend from the indigenous first residents of these shores, we all descend from immigrant stock. We need to recognize that we all have contributions to make for the greater good.

 

Lt. Waring Roberts and Maj. Andrew Finck, I honor your service and sacrifices. I pledge to continue to fight for what you stood up for, preserving our Democratic experiment by working together so we can all do better.

 

It’s the Economy

 It’s the Economy

Yes, it is!

 

It is nice when predictions come true.

 

In August of 2017, I wrote on this page about the pending Foxconn deal cooked up by then Governor Scott Walker, Assembly Leader Robin Vos, and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald to spend lots of our money to lure Foxconn to Vos’ district for the promise of 13,000 jobs and millions in construction expenditures. They approved a $3 Billion dollar subsidy and tax incentive package, ten times larger than any in state history, to cement the deal.

 

In February of 2019, I wrote here about the failure of the Foxconn “con,” including the lack of support from and the complicity of then President Trump in selling the deal. The “con” left taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars for road improvements, a sewer system and other utility costs, not to mention the forced relocation of many farmers and permanent residents who lost their homes to eminent domain actions. Very few of the promised jobs ever showed up and the new LED screens Foxconn promised got built someplace else.

 

This past Wednesday, President Biden traveled to Racine to announce not only that the original Foxconn deal was indeed a “con,” but that we are about to rectify it with help from Microsoft which purchased a bunch of the vacant Foxconn land and plans to build a huge artificial intelligence data center on that property at a cost of $3.3 Billion dollars.

 

This deal will be one of the Biden administration’s largest economic accomplishments which Biden was proud to note was also one of his predecessor’s most significant economic failures. It is part of Biden’s “Investing in America” agenda and will create 2,300 union construction jobs and 2,000 permanent Microsoft jobs.

 

In addition, Microsoft will be working with Gateway Technical College to start a “Datacenter Academy” which will train 1,000 Wisconsin workers to work with large data. It will also expand its “Girls in STEM” program in two additional local middle schools and develop new programs in science in local high schools.

 

As President Biden noted in his remarks at Gateway, this project accomplishes what the former president promised, but never materialized. It marks the continued resurgence of American manufacturing and infrastructure jobs that has been running full steam since Biden’s election.

 

Biden commented that the former president’s policies cost Racine 1,000 manufacturing jobs and more than 83,000 statewide. In contrast, Racine has added nearly 4,000 new jobs in the past three years while enjoying record low unemployment rates. Wisconsin gained 178,000 new jobs in the same period thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

 

It is not surprising that the bulk of the federal money appropriated to fund these projects is being spent in Republican districts showing that Biden is working to fulfill his promise to be president for all Americans, not just Democrat Americans. Bringing jobs to these areas, Biden hopes to address the malaise some feel having lost those opportunities in the first place.

 

It is not lost on Wisconsin Progressives that President Biden made his announcements at a local technical college. Economic and social development with educators, scientists and business leaders working together is a hallmark of the “Wisconsin Idea.” That progressive notion was championed by our own “Fighting Bob” Lafollette to develop projects and solve problems in ways fair to both working people and those who employed them. Biden echoed the idea, noting that, “We’re the United States of America, and there is nothing beyond our capacity when we work together.”

 

If the true measure of political prowess is following the mantra, “it’s the economy, stupid,” then President Biden is an accomplished master. In his first term, he has started the largest economic recovery program since the New Deal and post WWII. The signs of help from our federal government are even seen in West Bend as you drive north on Main Street.

 

For too long. we have neglected our infrastructure and sent local good paying union jobs overseas. The Biden administration is bringing those jobs home and rebuilding America and deserves the opportunity of a second term to continue the efforts.