By Dennis Rahkonen

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Unless you're Governor Scott Walker, who gladly granted business interests costly tax breaks, but stubbornly contends Wisconsin can't afford to collectively bargain with public employees.

"He ain't heavy, he's my brother."

Unless you're House Majority Leader John Boehner, who insensitively exclaimed "So be it!" over the prospect of thousands of Americans losing their jobs due to Republican policy.

"An injury to one is an injury to all."

Unless you're callous Tea Partyers showing disdain for unemployed and homeless folks desperately needing governmental help to survive an economic crisis caused by a monopolized financial aristocracy's destructive greed.

Conservatives always put mammon-worshipping selfishness and narrow profit above the common good.

It's the same attitude that sent ancient Greece, Rome, and other once-great societies speeding down the skids to oblivion.

Principled devotion to the first three moral outlooks -- the heart of progressive belief -- is the only brake that can keep us from winding up in history's scrap heap.

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The American Society of Civil Engineers reports that our dams, electrical grid, aviation, highways, railroads, waste treatment facilities, etc., are in badly deteriorated condition. Overall, a "D" grade is given, with a five-year expenditure of $2.2 trillion cited to bring vital infrastructure up to par.

Instead of building what America needs to become truly strong and prosperous, we're again constructing a Wall Street house of cards susceptible to complete collapse triggered by socially irresponsible avarice and unregulated malfeasance.

As potholes proliferate, as levees erode and bridge trusses rust, while crumbling schools beg for scarce dollars, what do conservatives advocate?

They want lower taxes and more extravagant breaks for the rich. Meanwhile, public sector employees, typical wage earners, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are targeted for sacrifice.

Hard-pressed citizens in a societal environment that's literally falling apart are getting the shaft while fat cats get the gravy.

We need to repair our broken backbone, develop high-speed trains, widely expand internet broadband, and create a green industrial base.

Pay for it by ending expensive, interventionist wars, and by closing massive
tax-evasion loopholes for the moneyed elite.

Let's quit dawdling and put the jobless back to work!

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Based on Forbes magazine data, the 2011 budget-deficit total for all 50 states is roughly one-tenth the net worth of the 400 richest Americans.

Rather than break public unions and impose painful austerity on ordinary citizens, shouldn't somebody go knocking on those super rich individuals' ornate doors with a simple request?

"Hey, buddy, can you spare a dime? America's in trouble and it needs your patriotic help!"

There's a building in the Cayman Islands that supposedly houses 18,000 corporations. It's actually a tax haven that keeps billions of business dollars from ever entering governmental coffers.

Let's build a popular national movement centered on shutting down that outrageous dodge, plus all others like it.

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Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies the following:

"Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests."

Article 30 goes on to assert:

"Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."

Collective bargaining is indispensable to unionism. Without it, workers have no means to jointly press for better pay and conditions. Lacking collective bargaining, unions become irrelevant.

It's that awareness that drives Governor Scott Walker and all other cat's-paws of rightwing corporate/financial interests to try to kill unions.

While the rest of the world flares in rebellion to establish basic human rights, Walker outrageously strives to abolish a key right bearing decisively on mass quality of life.

He dictatorially does so in Wisconsin, traditionally the most liberal state in the "land of the free."

We're sadly reminded that Martin Luther King's last night alive was spent fighting for the right of exploited Memphis sanitation workers to collectively bargain.

Thank you, People's Republic of Madison, for rising in unified, righteous anger to revive the working-class good fight that Wisconsin's pioneering progressivism was so instrumental in bringing to our nation in the first place.

Carry it on!

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(Dennis Rahkonen, from Superior, Wisconsin, has been writing progressive commentary with a Heartland perspective for various outlets since the Sixties)