Happy February, Milwaukee. As the slush slurries its way down the Deep Tunnel and the unsettlingly temperate El Niño weather warms whatever organs haven’t yet been pickled in the aftermath of a failed attempt at Dry January, the minds of Midwestern radicals turn to thoughts of love. Unfortunately, just like the cute guy at Puddler’s who excused himself to “take this work call real quick” half an hour ago, socialism isn’t coming back anytime soon. But hope springs eternal, renewing itself with brutal relentlessness, like the media cycle in an election year. Thanks, as always, for reading The Leader.
Private Ambulance Company Fails To Assist Woman Dying of Hypothermia
A tragedy unfolded on Congress and 76th on January 15th, where a Milwaukeean suffering a medical emergency died of hypothermia while employees of Curtis Ambulance, a private for-profit ambulance company, did not even get out of their vehicle to try to locate her after being dispatched. This awful event is another example of how city services, slashed to the bone and then some by decades of austerity imposed by a reactionary state legislature, have real and deadly costs for Milwaukee’s citizens. Across the nation, for-profit ambulance companies have juiced their shareholders’ portfolios through chronic understaffing, poor pay, high turnover, and shoddy equipment. As usual, the capitalists who run these firms prefer to blame “worker shortages” and “skills mismatches” rather than spending down any of their balance sheets to actually pay and train their workforce adequately. When cities are forced to rely on these kinds of services, innocent people suffer and die. This horrible incident should be a wake-up call–privatized healthcare costs lives, and privatized emergency care is a recipe for disaster.
Wisconsin GOP Informs State That Line Item Veto Is Bad When Anyone Else Uses It
Nobody has ever accused the Wisconsin Republican Party of possessing a surfeit of morality or intelligence. The modal GOP state representative is a sort of car dealership fungus, sloughing its way into the state capitol to burble about wokeness before returning home to a Kia lot in Walworth County to eject its spores onto any interns unfortunate enough to be in harassment range. But even by that standard, a bill introduced that would amend the state constitution to cripple the governor’s line item veto is an impressive blend of hypocrisy and stupidity. Wisconsin’s governor possesses a famously powerful veto pen, with the ability to strike individual words and phrases to remake legislation. Former governor Scott Walker (R-The Most Unpleasant Holiday Inn Suites Ballroom You’ve Ever Seen In Your Life) enjoyed these vast powers, as does current governor Tony Evers (D-The Fort McCoy PX aka Tomah). This sweaty effort carries with it a prominent smell of desperation, coming from a party that has been walloped in most statewide races since 2016 and which is staring down a map redrawing that will reduce their unconscionable gerrymander.
City Celebrates Centennial of Vel Phillips’ Birth
2024 marks 100 years since the birth of Milwaukee civil rights leader and trailblazer Vel R. Phillips, who fought for an end to housing discrimination for years as Milwaukee’s first female and first Black member of the Common Council. Most famously, Phillips participated in months of fair housing marches across the 16th street viaduct in the company of the NAACP Commandos (and their radical white Catholic priest advisor and supporter, Father James Groppi) in the 1960s, braving racist abuse, death threats, firebombing, and the presence of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party to demand an end to segregation in Milwaukee. These actions gave Milwaukee the nickname ‘The Selma of the North’, both for the bravery and stridency of its civil rights leaders and the viciousness of the white backlash they faced. Phillips went on to become the state’s first Black statewide office holder when she was elected secretary of state.
Expansion of Voucher Schools Comes at Expense of Public Schools
February is open enrollment month for K-12 schools in Wisconsin, and with a massive expansion of funding for voucher schools approved last year, more and more students are being enrolled in private, often religious schools with public dollars. As it is, such a practice raises troubling questions about the separation of church and state, as many of these voucher schools are explicitly religious. But the problems go even deeper than that. These schools are not subject to the kinds of democratic oversight that keep parents, students, and communities involved in their students’ education. Open meeting laws, antidiscrimination measures, and open records regulations often don’t apply to voucher schools, making them ripe for abuse and misconduct. Many of these schools have discriminated against LGBTQ+ students, and others have suffered embarrassing and concerning scandals. The challenges facing Milwaukee’s public schools are very real, but it is difficult to see how siphoning tax dollars and students away and leaving MPS with the most challenging (and, therefore, expensive) students to care for is going to improve matters.
