Vol. 6    No. 5
March 10, 2011

The Capital City Hues
(608) 241-2000
gramling@capitalcityhues.com


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EDITORIAL STAFF

Jonathan Gramling
Publisher & Editor

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Contributing Writers
Rita Adair, Ike Anyanike, Paul
Barrows, Alfonso Zepeda
Capistran, Theola Carter, Fabu,
Andrew Gramling, Lang Kenneth
Haynes, Eileen Cecille Hocker,
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      Politics is such a funny game that has such devastating consequences. It seems as if our major political
parties, the Republicans and the Democrats usually do the opposite of what they profess or what they are
known for.
      Take President Richard Nixon for example. When he first established relations with the People’s Republic
of China back in 1973, people said he was the only president who could do it. Why? Because he was such an
avid anti-Communist that no one could call him soft on Communism. The same would not have been true for
President Lyndon Baines Johnson before him.
      Ot the Democrats are always touted as the old “tax and spend” crowd that is fiscally irresponsible and
wastes government money. Yet it was President Bill Clinton who was the only president in my lifetime to
balance the federal budget. And it was President George W. Bush, a self-proclaimed fiscal conservative, who
racked up some of the biggest federal deficits in history while cutting taxes primarily for the rich while we
were fighting two wars.
      And it is the Republican Party that always makes a big deal about shrinking government, right? Well
Wisconsin’s state employee workforce grew tremendously under Tommy Thompson, while it shrank under
Democrat James Doyle. And George W. Bush oversaw a large expansion of the federal workforce under his
watch.
      It is no wonder that people get jaded about politics for people say one thing and then they do the opposite.
      Now we have Governor Scott Walker in office. He is at least sympathetic to the Tea Party cause and is a
down-right draconian conservative bent on securing the state for the next millennium for Republicans. The
conservative types are always talking about getting government off our backs and they want to starve
government until it dies and want to bear arms because state and federal government are so intrusive. They
always say they want less government and that it should leave the common person alone.
Well, when they start talking like that, you had better watch out because that means the state is going to be
used to make huge intrusions into our lives. What they usually mean is that they want government o0ut of
their lives, but they want to use government to destroy and control other people’s lives. It seems to never fail.
      For instance, during the past 10 days or so, Governor Walker and the Republicans have had the State
Capitol under lockdown for the first time that I can remember. While they snuck people favorable to their
cause through heating tunnels into the State Capitol, they made it harder to enter the State Capitol then it is to
enter this country without a passport.
      During the lockdown, I tried to deliver my copies of The Capital City Hues to the basement of the State
Capitol like I have every two weeks for the past five years. They would not let me through to deliver even
though I could prove that I was a newsperson. They sent me off to an alleged press entrance, which I could
never find and eventually a Capitol Police officer promised me he would take them to the basement because I
wouldn’t be able to get into the Capitol.
      The whole situation reminded me of a gated community. I used to go down to Tampa to spend time with
my then girlfriend in the 1990s and we would drive around looking for cool beaches. Well we always ran into
gated communities where a wall went around the entire neighborhood and a guard would have to call
someone in order to verify that you had a right to be there. They were privileged and we were nobodies.
Well the Walker administration’s lockdown of the Capitol made a public building into a private gated
community and sanctuary for the Republicans. For people who profess not to like the state to exercise power
over individual lives, they sure seemed to enjoy it that week.
      And the same could be said for the use of the Department of Administration to issue an erroneous $7.5
million estimate to clean up the Capitol. They rushed to judgment and I am sure subverted processes to use a
state agency to discredit their political foes with false information. I hope every true blood Republican is
horrified by this abuse of state power because if they think it through, they will see when the political
pendulum swings the other way, the precedent will have been set to have the same thing happen to them.
      It is time for the Republicans — and other politicians — to do what they say and get off of this opposites
game.
Reflections/Jonathan Gramling   
                        The Opposites Game