PrintAwakening another sleeping giant
For all their supposed refudiation of martial metaphors, the leftist Democrats and union activists in the Wisconsin rebellion seem to have no reluctance in applying them to their hated enemy, the conservative Republicans leading the fiscal revolution. Angry union demonstrators seem to have no reluctance in referring to the current situation as a war and they hesitate not a moment to liken their opponents to the militaristic Hitler and his Nazis. In keeping with their martial zeal, I would submit that the unions and their minions, with their own fanatic militancy on such open, public display, bring to mind the words of another infamous leader of World War II.
In the closing moments of the movie, Tora! Tora! Tora! a film about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the historically accurate character of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, responds to the praise and congratulations of his staff for the success of the mission with the admonition,
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
While there is some question as to this account of the audacious admiral's exact words, there is no question as to their prophetic precision. Yamamoto had spent time in America during his naval career and knew something more of the American fighting spirit than did his celebrating subordinates, many of whom, just like the admiral, would perish as a result of that resolve.
Now here we are once again in a highly volatile situation where an organized force of great might, led by cunning strategists, ruthless tacticians and calculating politicians, has pushed the people of America to the brink of disaster and looming financial ruin while the giant has been slumbering. Until this week that is, when came the surprise attack in Madison against the duly elected governor and the Republican controlled legislature, in effect, an assault on all those Wisconsin voters who had refudiated the big-spending Democrats and their union troops but four short months ago. That vote was seen by conservatives and Republicans as a mandate to halt the incursions on the state treasury by these same union forces now laying siege to the state house.
As affirmed by the writings of others here at American Thinker, the heretofore comatose Colossus of Publicus Americanus is being awakened by this militancy in Madison and the big fellow's waking up grumpy. The decades-long raids the overreaching public service unions have been making on our local, state and national tax bunkers suddenly are being acknowledged with a late-dawning realization that something has been terribly amiss for apparently some time.
Millions of newly-wakened taxpayers are rubbing away the crust of years of soporific inattention and blinking in disbelief at the fact that their state and local governments have been torpedoed by public service unions with their unrealistically high wage demands and blue-sky benefit plans for government employees, be they first responders or bureaucratic non-responders. And it's not enough that these pillaging forays were made on local, state and federal treasuries while the people slept; we are now learning how far too many elected Democrats, supposed guardians of the public weal, sold out the general public for union votes and the campaign funds to stay in power.
And it is even more infuriating that now having been exposed, these plunderers of our nation's rightful expectations refuse to surrender any of their ill-gained wages or unbelievable benefits to help bring fiscal sanity and solvency back to the financially ruined governments that have for far too long over-compensated them.
Do you think perhaps that Admiral Obama and his armada of greedy union freebooters have committed the same terminal error of the doomed admiral of the earlier era? Did they misunderestimate the amount of steel in the spines of conservative, Republican leaders like Scott Walker and Chris Christie? Steel can be pretty tough stuff to contend with; just ask that famous lefty structural engineering expert, Rosie O'Donnell. Is it just possible that Obama and the insatiable public service unions, with their aggressive assaults on our traditional American systems, have awakened yet another sleeping giant and filled it with a terrible resolve?
