All Politics Are Local

All Politics Are Local

Change Starts Here

Election season is upon us once again.

Wisconsin Democrats are putting up more quality candidates than we have seen for many years. Women, veterans, business leaders and union workers are running strong campaigns across the state, including traditionally GOP voting districts like ours.

Dennis Degenhardt, the recently retired CEO of West Bend’s Glacier Hills Credit Union, has been knocking on doors and meeting voters across the 58^th Assembly District all Summer. Building on his special election run for the same seat last winter when he won the City of West Bend over Rep. Rick Gundrum, Dennis is making his case directly to the voters on the issues that matter. 

Degenhardt’s campaign is focused on support for affordable universal healthcare, stronger support for public education, creation of family sustaining jobs, fiscal responsibility for state spending, protection of Wisconsin’s natural resources and ensuring fair elections. His website is found at https://www.degenhardtforassembly.com

Chris Ralf, a Navy veteran and businesswoman, is running strong against Rep. Rob Brooks in the 60^th Assembly district. She was recently the beneficiary of a gift from Gov. Scott Walker when Walker called on Brooks should resign from the Assembly after making offensive racial and sexual comments about several GOP women assembly members while intoxicated. Brooks stepped down as Assistant Assembly Majority Leader, but refused to resign. 

Rahlf’s campaign is focused on sustainable economic growth, increased protection for the environment, stronger support for public education, fair elections and affordable universal healthcare. Her website is found at http://chrisrahlfforassembly.com

Emily Siegrist, an Army veteran and nurse, is running in the 24^th Assembly District against Rep. Dan Knodl. She promotes universal healthcare, increased support for public education, renewing Wisconsin’s infrastructure, support for veterans and protection of the environment. Emily’s website is found at https://www.emilysiegristforwi.com

All of these candidates for Washington County assembly seats share something else in common. All of their Republican opponents have refused every opportunity to debate or share public events with them. The non-partisan Ozaukee County Chapter of the League of Women Voters proposed debates in each of the districts where the incumbents and challengers could describe their visions and take questions form their constituents. All the GOP incumbents refused this time-honored format, but suggested one forum for all of the candidates. When that demand was agreed to, they demanded more conditions such as choice of moderators and influence over the questions to be asked. The League wisely backed away.  Rep. Gundrum refused to debate Degenhardt during the special election campaign and has, so far, failed to respond to an invitation from groups at UWM-WC to a candidate forum on their campus next week. Brooks has already declined to attend. All the invited Democrats agreed to attend.

These GOP representatives seem to be acting in concert with other GOP Assembly members who have also refused to meet face to face with Democratic challengers in front of their constituents. One has to wonder what they are afraid might happen should they meet with voters in something other than a friendly forum with scripted questions followed by buzz word answers. 

Perhaps they might be asked to explain how they might respond to Gov. Walker’s about face on issues like education, healthcare and transportation. Once hallowed GOP ground, Walker has sullied the party line by recently adopting very democratic sounding ideas like full 2/3 state support for cost of public education, required coverage for pre-existing conditions and increased funding for Wisconsin’s crumbling roadways. Walker’s new promises ring hollow when we recognize that he does not have the support from his colleagues in the Legislature for any of these measures. He knows he can promise the moon in order to gain another term when he also knows that his cronies will never allow him to deliver. 

The pre-existing condition coverage promise is all the more hypocritical after Walker unleased Attorney General Brad Schimel to join other Republican governors in suing the federal government to overturn the Affordable Care Act which provides the very coverage he now claims to support.

Walker even tried to outdo State Superintendent of Schools Tony Evers by claiming the mantle of “Education Governor.” While it is true that Walker proposes to significantly increase “education” funding in the next budget, he forgets to mention that most of the increase would  go into the failed voucher/school choice pot, not the “public education” pot he and the Legislature have slashed to the marrow of the bone. GOP restrictions on local control and funding through referenda remain untouched.

Voters indeed have a choice next month. We can restore Wisconsin to its great traditions of strong. Locally controlled public education, a pristine protected environment, fair taxes spread equitably and elections free from gerrymandered chicanery or re-elect those afraid to meet their challengers to debate the issues of the day in front of their constituents and a governor who is willing to say and do anything to get re-elected. 

Fear Not

The Only Thing We Have to Fear

Is Fear Itself

During some of its darkest hours President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the country that, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Those words ring with even more truth today than they did during the depths of the Great Depression in 1932.

Today’s politics of division and supremacy are primarily based on nothing but fear. Our leaders and some of their followers would have us fear each other, fear those whose skin is a different color, fear those who come to our shores escaping violence, fear those who believe in a different supreme being, fear those who love differently, fear those who seek to control their own reproductive systems, fear those who believe in science as a basis for sound policy, and fear those who follow different economic or political systems.

We need to own firearms in even greater numbers because we fear the “bad guy” who might come to take what is ours. Second Amendment purists and those who profit from it, base their beliefs and business model on the myth that there is some “other” out there who is looking to bring us harm. Virtually every email I see from the NRA and its local offspring, Delta Defense, promotes their platform based on fear. 

Recent fervor supporting immigration bans prohibiting people entering our country from neighboring countries to the South is mostly based on fear of the Mexican criminal who will deal drugs, rape our women and steal our children. Many cling to this myth even in the face of clear proof that most immigrants come here to work and make a better life for themselves and their families.

The rise of newly emboldened white supremacy groups is based upon the irrational fear that somehow Anglo European immigrants will soon be forced from power and become an under class as America becomes more multi-ethnically diverse. Genetically, human beings are much more alike than different. Skin color differences do not translate into a better or worse human being. It makes no difference, yet too many of us are taught to fear based just on this element of the human condition. 

Fear of those who love those with similar gender characteristics is another one of those irrational emotions used to divide. Folks attracted to those like themselves are not trying to kidnap children or lure them into a heretical lifestyle. Same sex couples can be just as good or just as bad at parenting as opposite sex couples. Gender fluidity will never upset the social order. 

The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding President Trump’s travel ban unfortunately gives it an aura of legitimacy it does not deserve. The travel ban prohibiting Muslims from certain countries from entering our country is based on another irrational fear, that all who share that faith from those countries are bent upon committing terrorist acts on our soil. Most people who practice Islam are just as anti-terror as anyone else who disavows its use. To ban entire populations based upon a few dangerous individuals does nothing to advance world peace and a belief in a common humanity.

Fear of women becoming hyper-sexualized and running amok was one of the original motivations for limiting access to birth control and opposing reproductive choice.  Fear of feminism is based on outmoded notions of women’s’ inequality and inability to think and act for themselves without male guidance. 

Fearing the erosion of Christian belief systems led to challenges to science-based policy decisions in education. If you teach evolution as a fact proven by the scientific method, the underpinnings of beliefs in divine creation will evaporate. If you challenge the way we live because we know humans have created climate change and must wean ourselves from the use of fossil fuels in order to survive, I will lose my livelihood. Therefore, acting on climate change is an evil to be feared.

Fear of communism, socialism, tribalism, cooperatives and the other economic and political systems that compete with capitalism drives current political thought away from our being able to choose aspects of those competing systems that might be beneficial to our continued prosperity. Universal healthcare and food security come to mind as rational ways to maintain the species. We seem to fear them just because they have worked in different political systems than our own and threaten certain capitalistic institutions. 

As we approach the annual celebration of America’s founding on July the Fourth, let us resolve to banish fear as a reason to act or fail to act. Let us boldly embrace the other, the different, the new and the experimental so we truly can make America greater than she was before.

Effective Government

Survival depends on effective government

Less government is not always better

We often hear “big government” vs. “small government” comparisons between candidates for public office. Unfortunately, this has created a false dichotomy used to label and demonize “liberal,” “lefty,” “socialist,” “tax and spend” Democrats and curry support for “taxpayer friendly,” “we’ll all get rich” Republicans. It is a fool’s choice.

The issue is more properly framed by asking is the government “effectively” doing what government is supposed to do?

Ever since humans developed language and survival skills, they have banded together to provide for common defense, provision of food and supplies, nurturing the sick and infirm and raising their offspring. Clans and tribes gave way to feudal monarchies that, in turn, morphed into democratic governments. All of these forms of human governments have, to greater or lesser degrees, provided these basic necessities for survival.

With increased economic wealth and power and much larger populations, governments have grown into massive organizations, but they are still charged with carrying out these same basic functions.

In every era throughout human history, cabals of the rich and those who would be rich have stood up and proclaimed, “We need more wealth.” This is usually coupled with claims that the current organization that ensures the collective survival is “too big” and “too expensive.” If only government were smaller, everyone would get to keep more of the wealth they all coveted. Many get sucked in by the slick snake oil sales pitch, believing in trickle down economic myths and tax scams that benefit only the very few at the top of the food chain. Every era of excesses brought on by these headlong cash chasing folks has ended in flames of recession or depression.

It is time to break the cycle before it goes bust once more.

Governments that ensure survival and growth of their large populations will always be large. They will only be truly effective if they satisfy the basic needs of the clan. With the passage of time and increases in knowledge about the interconnectedness of the human endeavor with the natural world these basic needs have become much more complex to ensure. Now we add in concerns about the environment, patterns of disease and increased violence, income inequality and fairness, the need for wild spaces and wild animals, food security, universal healthcare, quality public education, religious freedom, racial and ethnic diversity and a whole host of other concerns.

Those that see these concerns as nothing more than a drain on their personal pocketbooks, fight back by adding claims that the new concerns are not the business of government at all because they impinge on personal liberty. “Why should we have to pay for what we don’t like and don’t use,” but others need and cannot afford, becomes justification for opposition until the flood or fire comes and help does not. They trot out claims that all these concerns will be addressed when we all have an additional $2,000 in tax savings and can contribute to a local charity.

In our world, populated in the billions with dwindling food and water supplies, an increasingly angry climate and nuclear warheads on missiles that can reach everywhere on the planet, we cannot ever go back to those simpler times when the sailboat and steam engine were the main drivers of economic growth and political power. Personal freedom and individual responsibility are not enough to carry us all through. “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable,” is no longer a workable strategy for resolving conflicts. Larger government only works if it effectively addresses these concerns.

It is time for a return to an approach to our collective problems based upon basic assumptions that everyone can contribute to the solutions and should have a voice in the decision-making. None of the concerns that we demand our government address are solely Democratic or Republican concerns. They are valid human concerns that will have an impact on the collective survival of the human tribe and need a collective response.

In our time of turmoil, we each have a voice in choosing how our collective government will ensure the survival of the clan. Will we contribute more and choose people who will manage those resources effectively for the common good? Or will we contribute less, keep more for ourselves and choose those who will lookout for the wealthy and themselves?

Your vote is your voice.

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney who serves as a court appointed guardian for the elderly and disabled with a Sheboygan county non-profit agency.

The Crossroads

Is America Great Again?

Not even close.

We are one year into Making America Great Again and seven years into the Wisconsin Taxpayer Revolt. We know what this looks like and have reached the crossroads. Is this what we want to become?

Do we want to be a society where everybody is out for himself or herself, looking to amass as much wealth as they can at the expense of those less able or fortunate?

Do we want to live on planet with less clean air and water with a dwindling food supply and a climate that grows ever harsher to human existence?

Do we want to live in a society where the elderly, disabled and different are deemed disposable and expendable?

Do we want to live in communities where women are second or third class citizens whose job it is to pleasure men and have their babies?

Do we want to live in a society where those at the top of the chain are automatically deemed more valuable than those in subordinate positions?

Do we want to end our commitment to universal quality public education?

Do we want to return to a system that only allows white male property owners to decide who gets to govern the country?

Do we want a country that is not respected or supported by the international community?

Do we really want one-party rule in the halls of government?

2018 must be the year we turn away from these goals of Republican governance and return our society back to one based upon mutual respect and taking care of each other.

We need a tax code which requires everyone to pay their fair share to support basic human needs for food security, adequate universal healthcare, a secure infrastructure that supports business ventures and safe commerce, a stable defense for a peaceful world.

We need to protect Social Security and Medicare to make sure that seniors and the disabled do not go back to impoverished lives and dying in back bedrooms. We need to protect retirements for those who can no longer work.

We need to protect the world we live on by doing what science demands to clean our air and water and minimize the disruption of climate change. We need to maximize the use of renewable energy sources to stop the use of fossil fuels.

We need to value those who work by providing safe working environments, family supporting wages and benefits, collective bargaining rights and reasonable working conditions. Family and medical leave policies must recognize the importance strong families play in productive work.

We need strong public schools that support and educate every child to the best of their individual abilities so they can become productive and intelligent members of our communities. We need to recognize that professional and well-supported teachers are critical to the success of their students and compensate our educators accordingly.

We need to finally recognize and promote the equality of women in the workplace and the rest of society by guaranteeing equal pay for equal work and equal access to opportunity. We need an end to sexual harassment and assault everywhere.

We need to end income inequality and value each member of the community for the contribution they can make. The value of one’s opinions should not depend upon the amount they have in the bank. Everyone should be eligible to and encouraged to vote in fair elections. Election districts must be drawn to encourage competitive elections, not to favor incumbent politicians.

We need to expand protections for America’s natural wild areas and make them accessible for all to see and enjoy. Our National and State Parks are the envy of the world and need to be expanded.

We need a return to respectable diplomacy that respects other countries and their cultures and does not seek to impose American values by might.

2018 is the year we can restore the democracy to end the one party rule that favors the few over the many, but only if you vote. Those who stay home elect tyrants and dictators.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired attorney who serves as a guardian for the elderly and disabled.

End One Party Rule

The Alabama Miracle

If they can do it, we can too

We witnessed a political miracle this week when traditionally Republican Alabama voters elected a Democrat to the United States Senate. The demographics of the Alabama areas that shifted political allegiances are fascinating. Many who voted for Donald Trump in the last presidential election switched parties to vote for Doug Jones.

African-American Alabama voters, who apparently stayed home in the last cycle, came out in droves to vote for Doug Jones. They saw through Moore’s racially charged speeches and resisted at the polls. They joined the many disaffected white moderates and independents that voted for Trump and soon saw how he and the GOP sold them out. They were not going to be duped again.

Many will claim that Roy Moore lost because he was a deeply and personally flawed candidate. That he was, but a lot of white, Evangelical Alabama Christians voted for him anyway. They were willing to look past Moore’s accusers who credibly claimed his sexual predilections for young girls, believing instead his professed belief in a Christian God and claims to biblically based racial superiority. For these supporters, his condemnation of abortion and same sex marriage and orientation coupled with his belief that slavery was a hallmark of a great society showed that he shared their moral values.

That President Trump came to embrace Roy Moore in order to salvage his failing efforts to get the GOP tax reform scam through the United State Senate was not enough to swing the election to Moore. Trump’s public support and robo call for Moore appears to have turned the election into a referendum on Trump’s presidency, a presidency has the lowest approval rating of any president in modern American history. Those who might have been willing to close their eyes and vote for Moore were probably pushed to vote for Jones or write in someone else when they realized they would also be supporting a very unpopular and unpleasant president and his failing agenda.

Steve Bannon, the outcast braggart of the alt-right, could not rescue Moore’s candidacy either. Try as he might to rally the white supremacist Alabama Klu Klux Klan believers to support to Moore’s campaign, it was not enough. Bannon’s resort to scare tactics showed he has lost whatever teeth he had when Moore lost. Bannon’s endorsements have now rightly become the kiss of death for anyone seeking political office.

In the end, the Alabama Senate election exposed just how far down into the sewer the alt-right majority in the GOP was willing to go to advance their corrupt agenda. It also showed there is great hope for good Democratic candidates with a message of working together to solve common problems.

Doug Jones has solid government service credentials and a proven record of standing up for justice and equality. He celebrates Alabama’s diversity and brought together a winning coalition of African-Americans, Latinos, middle and working class whites, all of who were undeterred by GOP voter suppression tactics. Without a strong state Democratic Party, he put together a great grass roots campaign that reached into every corner of Alabama with his positive message of inclusion and improving the lives of working families.

The baffling part of the Alabama election is why so many white women and men who call themselves Evangelical Christians supported Moore so fervently. Given the credible accusations of sexual misconduct in his past, I do not understand Moore’s support by so many women. Given Trump’s failures to deliver on his many promises to help white middle and working class men, I find it difficult to understand why they continue to vote against their economic interests. Perhaps his messages of racial superiority and religious purity were enough to blind these voters to the loss of their healthcare insurance, destruction of public education and steep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security looming on the horizon.

The Alabama election outcome has reinforced resistance to the GOP agenda. Solid Democratic candidates are stepping up to offer meaningful alternatives to that agenda in traditionally republican strongholds, including our own. Just in Washington County, there are two Democrats running for seats in the Assembly.

Dennis Degenhardt, the newly retired CEO of Glacier Hills Credit Union, is running in the special election for the 58^th Assembly seat in January. His campaign stresses fiscal responsibility to fix crumbling infrastructure, healthcare as a right not a privilege, support for increased funding for public education, a re-examination of the Foxconn fiasco and working hard for everyday people and their concerns. Learn more at degenhardtforassembly.com

Chris Rahlf is running a strong campaign for the 60^th Assembly seat, stressing healthcare, public education and infrastructure repair with a return to leadership that listens. Chris is already pounding the pavement in anticipation of her 2018 election in the eastern parts of Washington County. Learn more at chrisrahlfforassembly.com

If you are tired of one-party control of our government, there is an alternative and that is bringing back two-party cooperation to address mutual concerns. Alabama has shown the way, it is now up to us.

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney and serves as a guardian for the elderly and disabled.

Blue Tides Rising

Voters Speaking Up.

Cooperation and Compromise are Key

With each GOP governing blunder that comes to light, we see Democrats stepping forward to run and win in special elections across the land. The political pendulum often rebounds in off year elections as voters see first hand that one-party rule does not work so well. Between now and next November, we will see a much more pronounced pushback primarily due to the continuously outrageous conduct of our president and his cohorts.

Congressional republicans were unable to pass any significant healthcare reforms because they refused to work with Democrats to earn enough votes to secure passage of even modest changes. Tax reform, now being used as a stealth weapon to repeal Obamacare, appears headed down that same road. Republicans in the Senate can only lose two votes on their tax reform proposal and the inclusion of Obamacare repeal will most certainly cost them the support of more than two of their moderate members. Rebellion from the right and left flanks will further stall any meaningful legislative activity before the mid-term elections next fall.

Elections across the country for state legislative seats and local municipal positions are already showing clear signs of voter discontent about GOP inabilities to get anything done on the important issues like infrastructure repair, clean elections, tax inequality and government giveaways to the wealthy who need them the least.

Here in Wisconsin we are beginning to see voter push back against the backroom secret deals like Foxconn that will punish middle class taxpayers for most of the rest of their working lives. Couple the bad Foxconn deal with the bumbling leaders in the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation who cannot enforce any of their own lax rules and we will have an economic disaster that will take decades to fix. Wisconsin still lags far behind in job growth and business development even with massive corporate tax reductions and the lifting of regulatory burdens.

Wisconsin voters are also standing up for their local public schools. Over 70% of the public school referenda passed in the last cycle. These communities have had enough of GOP control from Madison telling them they cannot raise local taxes to support their schools. They are demanding return of local control to their elected school boards so they can provide the resources their educators need to prepare the next generation.

People are rejecting those who would impose outmoded religious beliefs upon their constituents through unconstitutional bathroom bills and gay discrimination laws by electing openly transgendered citizens who care more about fixing roads than which bathroom people use.  They are turning against those who would use their positions of power to sexually harass and assault those less powerful. Respect for women and protection of children are gaining political currency once more. Misogyny is on the way out.

As President Trump and his family continue to loot the treasury, his campaign staffers face federal indictments and industry insiders take control of the regulatory agencies that once kept them in check, voters are telling elected officials who support the Washington rulers that they made the wrong choice.

It is not about one’s political party; it is about the country and what America stands for around the world. With Trump supporting Putin and dictators in the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, American voters are demanding a return to measured diplomacy with our enemies and unwavering support for our friends. We cannot have a president who threatens nuclear war with North Korea in early morning tweets and cuddles up to Chinese leaders in hopes they will reign in North Korean nuclear ambitions. An America floundering about on the world stage with little apparent purpose does little to calm a jittery world already reeling from our withdrawal from climate change accords and trade pacts that stabilize international markets.

Average Americans who cannot reach out to their elected officials in any meaningful way to express their displeasure can only turn to the ballot box. In almost every one of those opportunities, we see rejection of the current status quo. Red seats are turning blue across the land. As the GOP digs in its heels and clings to it’s “my way or the highway, take no prisoners” approach to governing, the blue tide will continue to rise.

Look for leaders who will listen and ask, “what do you think?” These are the ones who can and will work across the ideas that appear to divide us to find solutions to the common problems we all face. These are the leaders and elected officials of our future, if we are to have one.

Waring R. Fincke is a retired attorney and serves as a guardian for the elderly and disabled.