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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Sadly, disturbingly true: As freedom blooms in the East, it's withering in the West - The Globe and Mail

One of the great ironies of watching the uprisings across the Arab world and Africa is witnessing them struggle and bloody themselves to achieve basic human rights, while across the U.S. and Britain hard-won liberties are shrinking like a bar of soap left in a shower.

I can't remember the last time anyone mentioned Wisconsin outside the confines of football or various cheese-producing activities – before this month, that is. Now it's a battleground, where the Republican governor, Scott Walker, is attempting to severely restrict the collective-bargaining rights of public-sector unions. He says the measure is necessary to patch over the state's deficit; the thousands of people protesting in the streets of Madison say that he has created the deficit himself through unnecessary tax cuts to corporations and that the whole thing is camouflage anyway, the thin edge of a (cheddar-shaped) wedge: Republicans want to disembowel unions because unions traditionally support the Democratic Party.

Read Elizabeth Renzetti's full article on theglobeandmail.com

Posted via email from Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales

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