Corporate Colonization of Wisconsin – Part VII: Policing the Colonies
This is the seventh in a series of articles by Dr. Keith Roberts discussing the corporate colonization of the state of Wisconsin. In this segment Dr. Roberts discusses how police and National Guard forces in Wisconsin have been manipulated to support the colonization of the state. Previous articles in this series can be found archived under the author’s name.
ALL DICTATORS AND COLONIAL GOVERNORS NEED THE SUPPORT OF THE POLICE AND MILITARY TO KEEP THE LOCAL CITIZENS INTIMIDATED AND SUBMISSIVE.
The Wisconsin State Patrol
Immediately after assuming control of the Koch Brothers’ colony, Wisconsin, Colonial Governor-General Scott Walker appointed a new head of the Wisconsin State Patrol. At that time Senator Scott Fitzgerald, R-ALEC, was the Senate Majority leader, and his younger brother, Representative Jeff Fitzgerald, R-ALEC, was the Assembly Speaker. Their father, Steve Fitzgerald, who holds an Associate Degree from Moraine Park Technical College, was then named as Superintendent of the Wisconsin State Patrol. As outrageous as this was at the time, it was met with moderate concern by the corporate press in Wisconsin.
The elder Fitzgerald was 68 when he was appointed Superintendent in 2011. A former Sheriff of Dodge County and politically appointed U.S. Marshall until 2010, Fitzgerald had lost the primary election for another term as Dodge County Sheriff in 2010.
“Stephen Fitzgerald brings outstanding credentials and a broad range of experiences that make him uniquely qualified to lead the Wisconsin State Patrol,” the state’s Department of Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb said in a statement at the time in response to accusations of cronyism. It appears that among those outstanding credentials were two sons in leadership positions in the legislature and the rejection of the Dodge County voters.
The Koch brothers and Walker had placed the perfect person in charge of the Wisconsin State Patrol. The unique combination of loyalty and dependency would assure that Fitzgerald would do what he was told. Fitzgerald, now 72, with an associate degree and a salary over $105,000 is appropriately beholding to Walker and the Kochs.
Although the majority of unions did not support Walker in his campaign for Colonial Governor-General, the Wisconsin State Troopers Union did. He was also supported by the Police and Firefighters in Milwaukee. As a result, police officers and firefighters were exempt from the ACT 10 legislation in the first step of the divide and conquer strategy that Walker laid out to Dianne Hendricks in 2011. Rather than losing 10% of their take home pay and their right to meaningfully bargain, the police were allowed to keep all of their bargaining rights. So, rather than a loss of rights and a reduction in take home pay, the Wisconsin State Troopers were allowed to bargain a 17% raise in February of 2015.
The support of the police is necessary in any totalitarian state. Both colonial states and dictatorships depend upon the loyalty of police.
The Wisconsin National Guard
When Walker was in the process of enacting Act 10, in 2011, he made this statement knowing that there would be significant pressure against the legislation:
“In state government, we have had, before I’ve taken office, plans for contingencies no matter what the circumstances. We have updated those,” Walker said. “I got a full briefing from all the major, level-one state agencies as well as the National Guard yesterday (Feb. 10, 2011). We are fully prepared and equipped to handle whatever may occur. So we have every confidence we can move forward on that.”
These were typical evasive words from the Colonial Governor-General – – – specific enough to plant the seeds of fear, but vague enough to deny later.
Walker, who is an immigrant to Wisconsin from Colorado and Iowa, must not have been aware of the Bay View Massacre in 1886 when Wisconsin Governor Rusk called on the Kosciuszko Militia to fire upon predominantly Polish immigrant laborers striking at the Bay View Rolling Mills Plant. This resulted in seven deaths, including a 13 year old boy. Governor Rusk was considered a hero for standing up to the unions. On second thought, Walker may have deliberately included the threat of the National Guard anticipating that he, like the murderous Jerimiah Rusk, would also be considered a national hero.
In 2011, several liberal groups criticized Walker’s threat to use the National Guard;
“The idea that a governor can use the military to impose his personal, political will on the people he governs is a primitive relic of the past — one that resulted in a century of bloodshed in this country. The last time military force was used against workers was during the Memphis sanitation strike in 1968, just days before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. It must not be repeated again.”
As a result, Politifact at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which had endorsed Walker in his campaign for governor, used Walker’s weasel language to accuse his critics of a “pants on fire” statement. Within the first two months of his rule the Walker/Koch Colonial rulers had solidified their control over the media and the State Police.
Again, in December of 2014, Colonial Governor-General Walker said he was ready to bring in the National Guard to deal with protesters if there was unrest after prosecutors decided not to charge a white Milwaukee police officer in the shooting death of Dontre Hamilton, a 31-year-old unarmed African-American man.
“We proactively worked to make sure the National Guard was reaching out” Walker told reporters Wednesday, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “They’ve been having meetings with law enforcement here within the region just to make sure.” “The last thing I want is for them to get a call and then have to scurry about what they need to do,” he added. “We said whenever it is, whenever it might be forthcoming, the last few weeks, we made sure they reached out to both [Milwaukee Police Chief Edward] Flynn and the sheriff and others to make sure they knew who the point person was.”
Notice how often Colonial Governor-General Walker uses the “Royal We” in his statements. A more honest reading of statement from Walker would be to replace the “Royal We” with the “Corrupt We.” The “Corrupt We” is, of course “The Koch Brothers and I” or, maybe “My Donors” or, more accurately, “My Handlers”.
This is the second important phase of Colonial Control, the occupation of the areas of the colony that provide the most resistance to the colonizer.
The Occupation of Milwaukee
Milwaukee, one of the seats of resistance to the Colonial leader, has received repetitive punitive legislation on multiple fronts including the defunding of public education, the transferring of educational funds away from public and toward private, often religious schools, and the development of special rules for Milwaukee Area Technical College. Other negative legislation that is targeted at Milwaukee, including suburban legislators writing legislation specifically targeted to the City of Milwaukee, can be addressed at a later time.
The current Colonial Governor-General maintains control by creating fear among the citizens of the colony. Two of Walker’s villains are unions and minorities. In each case Walker has subtly implied that he would resort to calling up the Wisconsin National Guard to protect the citizens of Wisconsin – – – from the unions in 2011 and minorities in 2014. This reinforces the image that these groups, who oppose him, are lawless and to be feared.
Because of the complexities of a multi-racial large urban city such as Milwaukee, public employees were required to live in the city as a condition of employment. This requirement had been in place in Milwaukee since 1938. Public employees as residents of the city were then contributing back to the city’s economy. Otherwise hiring public workers from outside of the city is a kind of outsourcing. Additionally, police and fire personnel should be available on short notice and should be bonded to the community they serve.
The unions of both the Milwaukee Police and the Milwaukee Firefighters were promised the removal of the residency requirement if they supported Scott Walker. They did, and he delivered. They still have their unions but they no longer are required to live among those they serve. This is an example of the Colonial State Government interfering in the working of a municipality and is consistent with the Koch/Walker consolidation of power under the Colonial-Governor General.
This legislation has damaged the City of Milwaukee in three ways. First, it has sent a signal to the residents of the city, predominantly minority, that the police and firefighters, predominantly white, do not want to live among them. This has a significant negative impact on Milwaukee, which is already the most segregated city in the country. Second, it removes these middle class workers from the city, thrusting it further into poverty. This has a negative impact on Milwaukee which is already the second poorest large city in the country. Third, and most alarming, it creates a sense that the police are an outside occupation force rather than a community policing effort. Wisconsin already has the highest incarceration rate of African-American males in the entire country. State Department of Corrections records show incarceration rates at epidemic levels for African American males in Milwaukee County. Over half of African American men in their 30s and early 40s have been incarcerated in state correctional facilities.
The Koch brothers and Walker, in their attempt to reward the Milwaukee police and fire unions, have fanned the flames of racism and fear while treating the residents of the City of Milwaukee, especially the minorities, as the “other”.
Keith J. Roberts, PhD lives in Greendale, Wisconsin and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for International Studies in Education, University of Pittsburgh, and a Senior Ambassador for the Globalization for the Common Good Initiative, Oxford, UK. In addition to his work in the USA, Dr. Roberts has been a planning and development consultant in diverse locations around the globe including China, Mongolia, Tibet, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, the Marshall Islands and elsewhere. Upon returning to Wisconsin from China in January of 2011 he was stunned by the actions of the Walker Administration and could see that while Third World countries were implementing policies that were moving their countries to First World Status, Walker was implementing policies that were moving Wisconsin to Third World Status. Since that time he has applied his research and analytical skills to document the “Cycles of Greed” in America with a special emphasis on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its role in undoing the Progressive Traditions of Wisconsin. Since February 2011 he has made numerous presentations to unions, educators, retirees, political organizations and grass-roots organizations.