Fox Con Falling Flat in Wisconsin

Foxconn installed suicide nets at work camps
to prevent Chinese workers from killing
themselves, thereby not fulfilling their
corporate function. Wage slavery, pollution
and resource depletion are good for the
labor force, assure Wisconsin Republicans.
Wisconsinites are saying, whaaat?

Madison, Wisconsin — Every day there appears a new story on the malfeasance and hype of Foxconn, (Foxconn or Fox Con, Say No to the Fox Con).

Last month Foxconn and Republicans announced an unprecedented tax payer money-water-sand give-away scheme to induce the controversial electronics company to site a plant in Wisconsin, (Washington Post).

But paying $ billions in tax payer funds to this Chinese corporate bad guy is now drawing attention, consideration and even due diligence. Foul, cry Republicans.

From Emily Mills in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

What seems like a dream at first glance, however, becomes far more of a nightmare when you dig just below the surface.

First, Walker wants us to pay for Foxconn to be here: an incentive package could total $3 billion, not including goodies the company could require of local governments, and an exemption on sales taxes that means zero tax revenue at a time when the state desperately needs new sources of just that. Instead, Walker’s bill includes $252 million in additional borrowing just to rebuild I-94 south of Milwaukee, which would become a key corridor for a plant currently planned for Racine or Kenosha counties.

If passed, the bill would require Wisconsin to pay Foxconn out of the state treasury for up to 15 years. It will cost us $519 per citizen, if the total number of jobs promised actually comes to fruition (don’t hold your breath). 

Falling for the Fox Con is an act madness.

For more info, see Foxconn or Fox Con, Say No to the Fox Con, (Facebook).

Foxconn Technology Co Ltd, looks to cash in on American taxpayers and
workers, (New York Times)

Russ Feingold's Corner of Madness

Update: Please note response of the office of Sen. Feingold in the comments section.

George Wagner's MJS column last month reporting Sen. Russ Feingold defended the filibuster at a listening session in Milwaukee reveals a problem of Feingold's that progressives know about but rarely speak: What Bertrand Russell would describe as Feingold's "corner of madness."

That would be Feingold's tendency to take utterly insupportable positions in the name of polishing his brand as a political maverick. Certainly, it's not Feingold's intellect that leads him to the absurd.

Examples:

- Defending the filibuster in the name of deliberation
- Voting for the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts because Roberts assured the Judiciary Committee that he was committed to the jurisprudence of an "umpire" and not that a rightwing activist, Roberts' past ideology apparently notwithstanding in Feingold's mind

Feingold has accomplished much in his tenure in the Senate, but he will never be a great Senator like Robert M. LaFollette because of his tendency to veer into the political idiosyncratic and irrational.

One can go on: Feingold's fighting against retraining funds for out-of-work Janesville autoworkers, raving against stimulus spending in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, supporting the Republican crazies in the impeachment of Bill Clinton and other nonsense.

Liberals [Emily Mills, for example] won't call Feingold out on these preposterous positions because of Feingold's lonely voice of opposition to the worst of the Bush-Cheney nightmare.

But if Feingold's views had prevailed, we would have Senate obstruction, an ultra-activist Roberts Court, out-of-work Americans in need of training, and an insufficiently large fiscal stimulus ... . Ohhh, yeah. This is the type of maverick whom Sarah Palin supports, and Feingold knows this to be true so, really: Knock it off, man.