Leading (and Listening) by Example: A lesson for Scott Walker

11 December 2011

Dear Scott Walker,

You know what's sad? People asking me to share their stories because they know you won't read them, and they know you don't care. Nancy Colford of Green Bay shared this touching story (below) and I was asked to post it.  I'm happy to oblige, as I think it's absolutely crucial that stories like this are told.  The story of Nancy and her neighbor is the story of so many families in Wisconsin who are forced to live with less and less and less, despite their best and most beautiful efforts.

What bothers me is the circuitous way the story has to be told, and how it came to be that an angry, bloggy mom from Sun Prairie has to share this sort of information because you have proven, over the course of this year, that you refuse to listen, and have nothing to say, to the citizens of Wisconsin (unless of course, they're all ready on file as your supporters). And so people just stopped trying to talk to you. You are officially nothing more than an eavesdropper on the Wisconsin experience. We are talking around you, not to you. And that's what you get for not listening. Oh, and you're also getting recalled.  Which is a positive consequence, I guess, if a tragic one.

The lives you are destroying are the lives of people who matter, people who make a difference, people with integrity and humility and pride. People who can't be ignored. People who are not disposable. People who didn't ask for any of this. I don't know how you can live with that.

Heather DuBois Bourenane
Wisconsin taxpayer, dissident, courier, etc

Here is Nancy's heartbreaking letter. I hope it keeps you up at night:

My single parent neighbor lives like we all should. I have lived across the street from her for 21 years, and in the past year I have discovered many things about her that I never knew. She and her 13 year old son go to several area nursing homes several times a year to play piano and sing to the residents. They don't go with a group. They go because since they are able to, they feel they should. They work monthly at a soup kitchen or a food pantry ... not because someone organized it and asked them. They go around asking who needs help because they feel they should. She has taken her son with her to canvass politically years before I knew such a thing existed. They only do it in nice weather as they both have inherited bronchial disease preventing them from being out in the cold, but she wants her son to be politically aware and know how to canvass.

What did her 13 year old son learn from this example? Last fall I fell down the stairs and dislocated my knee. I was outside trying to cut my grass with my reel lawn mower. Her son saw me and came across the street and told me he was going to finish it for me. He helped me get my yard settled for winter. He didn't do this because his mother asked him to; she didn't. He did it because he felt like he should. He refused to accept any payment because I was hurt.

This is just great, but what does it have to do with the current trickle-down? They live a very simple life in a tiny box of a house. Most of their entertainment is helping others. She has made a career for over 20 years of being a substitute (usually music) teacher, which pays very poorly and has no benefits, but she has her own health issues that make a regular teaching job unrealistic for her. They receive no government benefits even though they are eligible for some. They were happy with their simple life of mostly helping others. She will soon be out of work because of the current politics in Wisconsin and how they are affecting the schools. She is now retraining to do 2 minimum wage jobs, hoping she will find employment in one of them.

I am very worried about her. She has severe scoliosis, causing what is commonly known to some as "hunchback." She will probably be in a wheelchair before she is 60, as her mother was before her. She is now 53. She will probably not even be able to do one of the new jobs she is training for, but she is desperate. I held her when she cried. I wish Scott Walker could read what I just posted. I wish he would live his life as she does.

How to Survive Without Money Using Scott Walker's "Tools"

25 July 2011

Dear friends of dissent,

cc: Scott Walker

If you've been paying attention, you've probably noticed Wisconsin governor Scott Walker often mentions the "tools" he's given us to "tighten our belts" and wondered what this meant, on account of he hasn't actually done anything that benefits anyone in this state except the very richest.  Turns out, interestingly, that these "tools" are "helpful cuts to your pay and benefits" and the "tighten your belt" part really does mean "get skinnier," because you're starving now. Good thing for us, though, a little starving never hurt anyone, unless you get to the part where you "starve to death," which you should try to avoid at all costs. So here are some handy tips on how to get the most out of the tools Scott Walker was generous enough to provide you, but without actually dying:


Buying food

1. Pack a brown bag, plebe! Who do you think you are, eating in restaurants? Paul Ryan? Know your place.
2. Save money on food by not getting hungry.
3. If you must eat (since you leftists think you're entitled to everything!), save money by only eating food that is offered to you free of charge at parties, potlucks, and homeless shelters.
4. Consider going on a grocery strike (since you leftists love striking so much!) and just don't buy a single item of food until your cupboards are completely bare (or did you also think you were "entitled" to a stocked pantry?)
5.  Clean out your fridge and pantry to surprise yourself with things you forgot you had and make a feast. What? After throwing out all the things that expired on or before 2005 you're left with only a box of baking soda, vinegar and some almost-stale tortillas? Wasteful ingrates like you don't deserve to eat.  Make a volcano burrito. It might be good.
6. Raid the neighbor's vegetable garden in the dark of night (since you leftists love organic produce so much). The next day, be sure to go on and on about "all those damned raccoons" you've been seeing in her yard.
7. Swallow your pride. It's more filling than you'd think. 

Buying other stuff

1. Only buy anything if it's on clearance AND you have a coupon. Start referring to your coupon folder as your "tool box."  
2. Reduce! Measure shampoo into a thimble before washing your hair. Limit showers to 2 minutes or less. Only flush the toilet when company is coming over.
3. Reuse!  Use old bills you can't pay as scratch paper for writing lists of all the things your kids aren't going to be able to do this summer because you're so broke.
4. Recycle! Sew last year's too-small winter coats together to make trendy ponchos for the kids to wear this year!
5. Who needs new clothes when you already have so much right here? Kids growing too fast? Just tell them capris and half-shirts are back in style. Shoes have too many holes in them? There's a name for that - sandals! Wardrobe needs a facelift? Give everything a whole new look by embroidering "Recall Walker" on it.
6. Redefine "essentials." Do you really "need" things like deodorant, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
7.  Take "window shopping" to the next level by just leaving your full cart of stuff at the store. Pretend you bought it, but later, when you go to wash the dishes and there's still no detergent, say "Boy, that went fast!" (repeat)
8. Buy a really fancy copier and just make your own money. The fancy copier just paid for itself! And now you're rich! You can buy anything! [Note: If it doesn't work out, this tip has the bonus advantage of providing potential free room and board in the form of jail time!]

Paying Bills
Unfortunately, even if you follow all of the advice above, your tools don't work on bills, which continue to go up, even though your pay has gone way down.  Luckily, though, there are a couple of options for you:

1. Cancel everything and move into a cardboard box. Problem solved!
2. Move to a state with more jobs and fewer tools.
3. Recall Walker, or persuade him to resign, and elect politicians who are invested in Wisconsin families rather than their corporate funders.

I hope you find this invaluable advice useful and wish you the best surviving Scott Walker.  Let me know how it goes.

Yours in poverty and dissent,

Heather DuBois Bourenane