Minnesota Democrats and Governor Mark Dayton are in a pickle.  Dayton believed if he just stood up to the newly elected Republican legislature and made them appear extreme, public opinion would flood to his side.  Dayton was elected by 43% of the vote due to a RINO third party candidate and now he thinks he has a firm mandate to shutdown the state to rob the productive class.  Unfortunately for the Democrats, the state has mostly yawned and/or sided with Republican legislators.  The Minnesota press has been trying to rile the general population against the ‘no new taxes’ mandate of the state legislature and that hasn’t stuck.  So, Governor Dayton decided to go on a little tour to give his propaganda wing some visuals.

From ‘Shifting tactics, Dayton takes tax plan to the people,’ by Rachel Stassen-Berger and Mike Kaszuba, “For the first time since Minnesota’s government shutdown began, Gov. Mark Dayton hit the road on Tuesday to promote his point of view, appearing before parents and teachers at a high school in St. Cloud.”  Let’s be perfectly clear about this.  Dayton wasn’t appearing before a random group that just happened to wander into the St. Cloud Apollo High School.  He appeared before parents, who are almost all government union members, and teachers, who are ALL government union members.  This isn’t a genuine listening tour or townhall discussion.  This was a spectacle dreamed up by his Democratic Politburo bosses for the easy use and consumption by his leftwing pamphleteers at local television stations and newspapers.  There is nothing real about this.  It’s theater and theater not unlike that used by Catherine the Great two hundred and thirty years ago.

You see, Catherine had an image problem.  Her lover, Grigory Potemkin, a prince of the realm had defeated the Khanate in southern Russia and chased these Muslims from their homeland.  As a result, there was a vast land that lay open and empty.  Russia and the Ottoman Empire were fighting over control of the Black Sea and each hoped to get France, England, and the German princes and Austrian Empire to side with them.  Russia had a terrible reputation because they’d basically caused a diaspora of many of these Tatars from their lands.  Furthermore, many western leaders doubted they had real dominion over it.

Potemkin came up with a great solution.  He recruited a bunch of people to settle this area.  He ran around creating villages and towns and put these settlers in those areas.  However, he just didn’t have enough people and so when Catherine invited an entourage of Western leaders to tour the newly conquered territory, they wanted to show how Russia conquered and peopled these lands. Problem was there just weren’t enough people but ever the crafty one, Potemkin cheated.

From Jay Winik’s book, ‘The Great Upheaval,’ he explains the Potemkin village of infamy.

“But were these towns real?  Or was this all some quixotic fantasy?  To this day, the very phrase, ‘Potemkin village’ evokes the myth, not of docks, towns, and palaces, but phony constructions made of pasteboard; it is further believed that Catherine saw the same peasants and the same flocks over and over again, who were simply moved down the River Dnieper each night ahead of the empress’s entourage.”

Fast forward to King Marx Dayton and his Potemkin Village Tour.  At each spot, the busy little Potemkin prog/soc’s are gathering up their union astroturf to politely listen and applaud at the right times.  These aren’t just gatherings to get information on the shutdown or voice their concerns.  This is stagecraft.  This is government by artifice.  Why are they going to all this trouble?  Well, as it turns out, even the Party shills at the Star Tribune are getting blue.

Continuing from Stassen-Berger and Kaszuba’s article they opine:

“Dayton has weathered some criticism in DFL quarters for making several concessions in recent weeks, even offering to drop his call for higher income taxes on the wealthy. Over the weekend, in the absence of budget talks, he went silent. At the same time, the GOP put out an unwavering message — the state spends enough — cycled ceaselessly through social media, news conferences and partisan bloggers.”

Now this is just overripe bilge.  Dayton didn’t drop his call for higher taxes, he made one little proposal to tax everything else except the rich but the GOP didn’t bite.  When the people of the state told the Republicans” no new taxes,” it wasn’t just on the rich, the poor, or the dead, but for everyone.  They have more than enough money as it is.

But, their second comment is quite interesting.  They are saying that “social media, news conferences and partisan bloggers” are making a difference.  This is quite the departure from the usual DFL chanting points.  First of all, Kevin Diaz informed us last fall that the Tea Party movement didn’t have a following in Minnesota.  Since Diaz is a member of the Democratic Party propaganda elite, it must be true.  So who are all these social media types who are pressing the Republican narrative?

Second, there were certainly news conferences but the local media treated the GOP with as much disdain and distortions of their remarks as ever.  But, the writers also named partisan bloggers.  Now, that’s interesting because we are just a bunch of kooks that no one reads.  How could we have influenced anyone?  All truth flows from the pens of the Star Tribune and the camera lenses of ‘oh we Kare Eleven, so much.’   It appears we may have struck a nerve.

What’s happening is the Democrats have overplayed their weak hand.  They are burdened with a governor who sounds like he’s about ready to either burst into tears or explode with Tourette’s.  They have a bunch of union thugs running around telling people where to stand and when to clap.  They have a message of ‘eat the rich’ and then when we’re done with them, climb into the pot, you’re next.  They are trying desperately to get their government sector to browbeat the productive sector.

But, it’s just not working.  Maybe this whole Potemkin village thing will work out for them.  Or, maybe we’ll see right through their Wizard of Oz curtain.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

Day Two

This whole shutdown thing isn’t going quite as they planned.  Several problems are arising in Governor Mark Dayton and the progressive/socialist wing of the Democratic Party’s plan to starve out the Minnesota population with a government shutdown.  First, the economic pain envisioned by Dayton isn’t happening.  Second, we are finding ourselves with a ‘government by fiat’ situation instead of a democratic republic.  Finally, Minnesotans are taking the situation at hand and dealing with it which upsets all their apple carts at once.  The narratives are being dismantled and the memes are washing away.

Desperate for stories about human misery and Republican perfidy, the crack reporters of the DFL’s favorite pamphleteers at the StarTribune ran around the state looking for problems.  Since there weren’t any GOP mobs assaulting the homeless, they came up with some interesting case studies.

Stocked His Freezer with Canned Goods

Strangely enough most people weren’t terribly upset by the extra day off before a long 4^th of July weekend.  Undeterred, they reported this laid off uncritical state employee as saying, “My frustration and my anger are very, very high,” Yaeger said. “In the near future, we move to rage.”

Yaeger, who has stocked his freezer with canned goods and meat, said jokingly that he’s now accepting free dinner invitations from friends.”  ‘Feeling effects at home, in wallet,’ by Kelly Smith, Richard Meryhew, and Warren Wolfe, Startribune.com, July 2, 2011.

My goodness.  So this 53 year-old training coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Health is so upset with the extra day off he’s moved to anger that could become rage.  This doesn’t sound like a very stable person especially with him putting his canned goods in a freezer.  Perhaps he believes without state government his canned goods will spoil and so he needs to double protect them.  Either that, or he really like frozen beets on a stick in this hot weather.

Regardless, the stories get even more bizarre.  There is a couple in Coon Rapids and the husband was laid off from his uncritical state engineering job.  “The couple started the day by pulling their 2-year-old from day care. For a time, he’ll stay at Mike’s parents’ house to help save money. Meanwhile, Heidi has set aside her “dream job” as a self-employed photographer to seek a second job.”  How desperate are the StarTribune reporters for a story that they come up with this remarkable tale.  Mike Mendiola has been laid off until Dayton sees reason.  They both know the state government will go back online sometime, but in the mean time they have to cope.

How are the Mendiolas coping?  They pulled their 2 year old from day care to stay with Mike’s parents.  Why the hell isn’t Mike just taking care of his child?  What would you need day care for if you’re home and laid off from work.  So what if poor Heidi has to look for a real job.  Quite frankly, these supposed tales of woe just make me more furious that we have 23,000 able-bodied Minnesotans soaking up millions of dollars in tax revenue on uncritical jobs and whining about having to take care of their own children.

This is ridiculous.  I know that Kelly Smith, Richard Meryhew, and Warren Wolfe were supposed to find people traumatized by Dayton’s Shutdown but this borders on a mockumentary in its effect.

Government by Fiat  (Not the car company.  That might be better)

Yesterday I listed off the noncritical items that were shutdown in Minnesota’s state government.  Quite a list of nonessential services I think.  These nonessential services were selected by dictator,  er Judge Kathleen Gearin, Chief of the Ramsay County District Court.   From the StarTribune, Times News Service, June 24, 2011, ‘Judge will likely decide next week on Minnesota government operations in event of shutdown.’  They reported this:

“Although the Minnesota Constitution says, “No money shall be paid out of the treasury of the state except in pursuance of appropriation by law” — meaning passed by the Legislature — Swanson argued that the U.S. Constitution contains an overriding requirement that the state cannot “deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

So, our Attorney General argued that our state constitution requires the legislature to appropriate money unless it conflicts with her opinion on the other parts of the U.S. Constitution.  In other words, “no money” really means “unless it’s inconvenient to the Democratic Party patronage system.”  Swanson argues there are facets of state government which simply have to operate otherwise we’ll just be dying in the streets and public unions will not get their take of the public funds.

Gearin agreed and made an arbitrary laundry list of noncritical parts of the state government which could ‘safely’ be shutdown.  But, she decided to appoint a ‘special dictator, I mean, ‘master’ to review her arbitrary laundry list and allow funding to flow to vital services like rest areas for the incontinent and fireworks displays for the blind.

July 2, 2011, ‘Agencies make pitches for continued funds,’ by Star Tribune’s intrepid Mike Kaszuba reports:

“All took their seats before Kathleen Blatz, a former state Supreme Court chief justice appointed as a special master to hear the pleadings. Blatz promised to have her first recommendations as early as Sunday.

In some instances, she said she had heard enough. “I thought they made a strong argument here today that they were” a critical state service, Blatz said after Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services made its case.”

Congratulations Minnesota.  You’ve got yourself a tyranny.  Thank the heavens we have someone as distinguished and accomplished as Kathleen Blatz to decide where we need to spend money and what social programs are worthy of our tax dollars.  It’s not like we have a political branch charged by our CONSTITUTION to decide these things.  NOOOOOOO.  Now we’ve got ourselves a benevolent dictator to decide for us.  Does anyone really believe this glorified legal bureaucrat, once a state supreme court judge, is going to carefully decide funding based on public discourse?  Of course not.  That’s the new Undemocratic Party way, brought to you by the Prog/Soc wing of The Party.

Just as an amuse bouche of the kinds of testimony Minnesota’s ‘special master’ heard on Friday, we were treated with this.

“I don’t mean to scare you,” said Julie Tate of Minneapolis, who sat before Blatz in a wheelchair and lobbied for state funding for Vail Place, a community-based mental health program serving 1,700 adults in Hennepin County. “[But I] feel suicidal most of the time.”

Well, if you’re feeling suicidal, then let’s pull out the checkbook.  It’s not like it’s any skin off Kathleen Blatz’ nose.  So what if she decides to fund a mental health program without public comment.  If someone threatens suicide then we HAVE to fund their program.  I mean, if someone uses extortion, we have to fund them, right?

This is the nature of our policy making today.  We have abandoned all reason when it comes to public funding of anything.  The pain of cancer has been equated with the pain of ‘Mommmm, he looked at me funny.’  We no longer rationally evaluate public needs but simply cave to the most incessant whiner.  Everybody gets a place at the public trough.  That’s why we are all in the dilemma we face both in Minnesota and on the national level.

Robin Hood Visits Minnesota Parks

On the morning talk show on KTLK, former gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, the Republican endorsed candidate, gave a shout out to Minnesota residents.  He told them to walk around the closed gates at Minnesota parks and enjoy the scenery.  Sheriff of Nottingham Mark Dayton was hoping that closing the parks on a long 4^th of July weekend would make the people of Minnesota angry.  It did, but not at the Republican-led legislature.

In ‘’Closed’ doesn’t deter park visitors,’ Larry Oakes in July 2, 2011’s Star Tribune writes, “The gate was closed and the visitors center was locked, but hundreds of travelers still enjoyed the scenic splendor of Gooseberry Falls on Friday – even though all state parks are officially off-limits to the public as part of the government shutdown.”  It seems many people are taking Emmer’s advice.  Instead of meekly accepting the official park notices, visitors are streaming into Minnesota parks to enjoy the scenery and the beauty the state boasts about.

State officials weren’t too happy.  However, dragging eleven year old girls kicking and screaming out of a nature area doesn’t exactly present a positive picture of our state governmental officials.  Instead, the prog/soc’s issued grave warnings of peril.

“The state Department of Natural Resources, which manages state parks, is strongly advising visitors “not to enter the grounds of any state park during the shutdown.” The agency’s website offers this warning: “We are concerned about serious health, safety and security issues if visitors enter parks when there are no restroom facilities, water and staff available. For example, 911 calls might not be available due to lack of cell phone coverage.”

Oh no!!!  Can you imagine the horror of hiking through a park without a park staff member on hand to collect their entrance fee?  What are visitors going to do without having a rest room or water readily available?  It’s not like we have things like convenience stores and bottled water to rely on.  Oh no.  But my favorite little part of this warning is the cell phone coverage threat.  Are they trying to suggest that cell phones rely on state government park facilities to operate?  Are they really trying to scare people from visiting a park because Google might not be available?  Did cell phone coverage suddenly become more sketchy because we aren’t collecting the permit fees?

This kind of ‘theater of the absurd’ isn’t unique to this shutdown.  People in Minnesota are used to the nonsensical argument routinely pressed by our prog/soc officials.  That’s why people are visiting the parks even though Sheriff Dayton has warned them away.

Backfire

This entire experiment by the Left and the Democratic Party in Minnesota is instructive.  We are watching them spin and lie and fabricate and without any real effect.  They were so desperate to raise taxes on ‘the rich’, they were willing to give up all reason and sense to do so.  We are now seeing just how worthless and wasteful these social experiments really are.  We are starting to see that employing tens of thousands of state workers to push paper is stupid.  We are watching as the existential threats of a government shutdown are all air and no substance.  Antiseptic sunlight is exposing the hidden costs of liberal ideas.  It’s time to start cutting.  Not just because we can’t afford this mess, but because it goes to the very heart of our society and culture.  If we are willing to give up governing to special dictators and reason to political patronage, we are rapidly moving in a very scary direction.

It’s time to dissect the whole operation, throughout the country.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com