Mike McCabe on Vertical Thinking, Wisconsin Progress, and Socialism

We have as our guests this morning as we always do on Wednesday and it's Mike McCabe. Sorry,

we're not at short stack and the wonderful ambiance of being at that cafe. I miss the crowd. Yeah,

I just love it there. It's fantastic. And the clanking of silverware gets placed. Yeah.

Yeah, stuff moving around in the kitchen. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, you know, the cities alive and well,

right? We're going to talk about some very interesting parts of your first book, right?

Blue G Nation, where you mentioned something about vertical thinking. And by the way,

this is a suggestion from rocker. Now you know rocker really well. And he said, you know,

he has this great thing about vertical thinking. You really have to ask him about it the next time

he's in. And so, you know, I paged through it and I looked through it and it's it is interesting.

And I think we can kind of relate it to what you were talking about recently in your short stack

blog. Substack blog. Substack rather. I know. I'm mixing it all up now. Yeah, but in your

substack blog, you were bringing up something about the progress that Wisconsin is well known for.

And a lot of it is, or at least being attempted to be taken down a little bit or, you know,

repealed. Let's get into that a little bit because I know the vertical thinking thing,

we can relate that in regards to this. So let's look at what you were discussing on substack.

All right. Well, I just wanted to give the progress that Wisconsin has made. Yeah, I just wanted to

give people a reminder that Wisconsin had a long standing tradition of of leading the nation on

public policy making on all kinds of different issues. First state in the nation to create

kindergarten's first state in the nation to create a vocational technical and adult education

system first state in the nation to create a unemployment insurance program first state in the

nation to create a system for compensating workers injured in the workplace. Over and over and

over again, Wisconsin led the way. Social security was invented here at the at the University of

Wisconsin and then it was taken national. So social security has its roots in Wisconsin. First state

to pass a statewide gay rights law. Over and over and over again, Wisconsin pioneered on issues

of concern to people in this country and other states copied us. It's really been about 40 years

since Wisconsin innovated in that way. We kind of lost our way. I gotta tell you, I'm a little

breathless from what you just said. That is amazing that we led the way in all those really important

parts of our lives. It almost makes you think that the Republicans aren't aware of any of that.

Our history, how we came about putting this in place and we should be proud of what we did.

We should be proud of what we did, but I would say that the Republicans are acutely aware

of that history because they've got a 900 page blueprint to dismantle it all.

Yeah, that's brand new. And you know, one of the things that bothers me at this particular moment,

John, is that the Democrats for quite a while now, maybe 40 years, have been playing defense.

The Republicans have a very detailed agenda of all the things they want to do. And a lot of it

is just dismantling things that that served people well. Where's the 900 page agenda for the

Democrats? Where's the 90 page agenda for the Democrats? If they can't come up with 900,

where's 90? And we've sort of lost that pioneering spirit in Wisconsin. And here,

the Republicans are holding their national convention in Milwaukee. Milwaukee had its glory days

under a string of socialist measures. And they were known as sewer socialists because they

brought sewers to the city. They brought sanitation. They brought clean water to the cities,

but they didn't just build sewers. They built a system of local parks, public parks,

that were the envy of the nation. They built a system of public libraries.

So they met the needs at the time that people had. And people didn't care that they called

themselves socialists. They wanted progress. And that does bring me to that whole idea of

vertical rather than horizontal thinking. We've been trained. We've been programmed to think about

politics horizontally from left to right. And we put people on that spectrum. You're on the left.

You're on the right. You're in the middle. And we've been programmed to think horizontally

about politics. And what that does is it makes people on one end of the spectrum see the people

on the other end of the spectrum as the enemy. A really magical thing happens if you flip that

spectrum up on its head and think vertically instead. Don't think about who's on the left and

who's on the right. But think about who's on the top and who's on the bottom. And what happens

then is people who might think of themselves as liberal and another person who might see

himself as conservative actually are exactly on the same spot of a vertical spectrum. They are.

You've got people and I'm not just talking about people on top having the most money.

I am talking economically, but I'm also talking about political power. Who's got the most power?

Who has the least? Who's got the loudest voice? Who's voice is muffled or can't be heard at all?

Who does end up with being the best off and who's the worst off and who's really struggling?

And there you've got people, some of whom might identify as Republicans, some of whom might

identify as Democrats. They're right there at the same spot. They've got so much more in common

than we've been programmed to believe they do because we keep thinking horizontally. We keep

thinking about who's on the left and who's on the right instead of thinking from top to bottom.

That's just the way we've been conditioned to think. Well, if we break free of that and think

a little bit more creatively, I think a lot of what we face in this country right now, we're facing

multiple national emergencies on so many different fronts. And people are afraid because

emergencies are scary. And they want something done. And if the only

agenda for action is to basically dismantle the federal government and completely reshape it,

that is preferable to an awful lot of people to doing nothing, to just staying the same.

Yes. We can't have a status quo party at a moment where the status quo is crumbling and

breaking apart. And being dismantled. Yep. And that's what we're seeing, especially when it comes

to healthcare. I always bring up healthcare as a great example of the problem that we have.

And that is healthcare changing it is what people fear. They hate the system they have now. They're

just putting up with it, but they're familiar with it. If we changed it and we had a universal

healthcare coverage system in this country, they're worried that something might be there that they

didn't know what happened. They're worried and they don't want to change it. They're afraid of

that kind of change. And if you just add to it some fear factors that the cult is doing right now,

the magas are doing right now in regards to perhaps withdrawing some kind of care or rationing.

They're always worried about that. And the magas and the right wing does bring that up often in order

to put that fear in people if we change, they're going to ration healthcare. Even though we

self ration constantly, we all self ration. We do not see the doctor when we should. We try not to see

the doctor because we can't afford it. And we don't have the money to pay for that visit. So it's

constantly at odds with the better way of doing things and getting healthcare. So it's one of the

great fears. Oh, yeah. And you know, it's unfortunate that the Democratic Party being so afraid of

being labeled socialist, not realizing that Milwaukee grew dramatically under under socialist leadership,

the city was at its best in its glory days under socialist mayors. But now the Democratic Party

is afraid of being labeled socialist. So they are afraid of an ambitious approach to healthcare

like a national and health insurance program. But hell, not only do people struggle to have health

insurance coverage, but in small towns and small cities in our state. Yes. They're even losing

their hospitals. They are. They have no place to go if they do have coverage to get healthcare.

And there's money to fund them or at least help them survive. And that money has not been released.

Republicans refused. But the bigger solution, of course, would be raising Medicaid and

Medicare reimbursement rates so that hospitals that take those patients can actually do so without

going broke. And there's this concern about spending money on healthcare and so people go without

medical care. Well, can you blame somebody who doesn't have a hospital to go to when they're

facing a medical emergency thinking, I just want to blow the system up. I just want I want

something dramatic to change because I can't housing is another huge problem. I can't make rent.

I'm a low wage worker and I have a hard time paying rent. I'd like to be a homeowner. How will I ever

be able to afford a house at the prices today? And then where do I go when I'm sick if there's

no hospital in my local community? That's what a disturbing percentage of the population is

facing. When those conditions exist, my goodness, that's where you need leaders like Milwaukee

used to have who say, you know, we're not going to have contaminated water. We're going to build

sewer systems and we're going to we're going to build water treatment plans and we're going to

make sure that people don't get sick when they drink the water that that that comes out of the

faucet. And and that today we face similar crises and the only party with an ambitious agenda

seems to be the party that wants to dismantle. That's right. Well, you know, you bring up an

interesting point about the socialist in Milwaukee. Let's say the Democrats decided to play up that

history. Be proud of it. Be proud of what they were able to accomplish in Milwaukee or even in

the state for that matter as socialists. So is it such a bad thing to have? I mean, we all have

become used to having that kind of system in place. Now there's talk about dismantling that system

because we don't really need it. And it's always tax cuts that are promoted and less spending

for the public. And it's it's weird because we spend our money. We are taxed that that money.

And all they do is they hold it someplace and then they give a tax cut in the wealthy people get

the money back. Right. And we don't get the benefits of paying our taxes. We're paying taxes.

We should get the benefits. It should be spent on us. Right. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

And we should I really think we should play up the socialist angle. What happened when we were

socialists in Milwaukee and in this state and how we progressed and all of the benefits that we

have and now they're being threatened. And and that word has has been demonized and the

socialist has been turned into a boogeyman. But the socialist mayors that Milwaukee had were

practical leaders. Yes. They they just wanted to solve problems and they wanted to make life better

for people. And they did. You know, people were drinking contaminated water. That there there

was the drinking water was blended with the sewage and they and people were sick. Yeah. And

and so they said, let's build sewer systems and let's build water treatment plans so that the

water that people drink is actually clean and will make them sick and let's build public parks.

So people have a place to recreate and let's build public libraries. So people can people who

you know can can find books that maybe they can't afford one in a bookstore but they can go find

one at a public library and and expand their horizons that way. They were very practical leaders

and they grew Milwaukee. Milwaukee grew explosively and has really been in decline since the socialist

the era of socialist mayors went away. Man, you just summed it up. I mean you should just write

write the platform the frame. The frame is very important and you just came up with the frame.

That that's that's how it should be framed. That's the offensive that we should be on at this

point. We've got Mike McCabe in the studio. Abianne House is his sub stack blog and we'll be right

back with more on the Gorda John and Gordy Family Show.

Matt Radio WMDX the John and Gordy show. Gordy is out sick today and we're taking your calls as

well. Mike McCabe is our guest right now and we have some callers who might have a few comments

about what we've been discussing here and that is to take the more progressive approach to things

or the more socialist approach where a lot of things got done in the state that we should be

very proud of nationwide. We should be proud of it and if we just played it up a little bit maybe

people would be more convinced about keeping some of the stuff we've already put in place. Let's

go to the phone lines here. Mark first on the John and Gordy Family Show. Mark, what do you got?

Yeah, some of the kids camping. The pop time I had from Paul Weirich back in the 70s was

complaining about too many people voting and he was complaining about too many people believing

in actually believing in good government and the whole purpose of government is supposed to be

a good government to provide for the people. I mean even going back to the declaration which

some of these Republicans they like to mow some of the words up but they don't seem to understand

one of our beefs against the British government at that point in time as it was not providing services

for the American people who were paying the taxes and but that's not getting laws passed to

for the good of the people and the laws for pollution prevention and for clean water and for

providing health care are all good for the people and Republicans want to completely strip that

all the way and live in a Hobbesian world of just in claw and just everybody gets to each other

rather than together as a society where we actually live up to what Matthew 25 were actually

supposed to take care of one another. Right exactly and again I mentioned this before I think

tax cuts take money out of the general fund spending on the public also takes money out of the

general fund pick which one do you think you can benefit from. All right Mark I appreciate your

call let's go to Kurt now on the other line thanks for calling in the family show what do you got Kurt?

Good morning um I think you're missing a key component to the breakdown if you look back how

I was boarding the sixties the Kennedy and I'm not as good as Mark quoting things but

the Kennedy basically messages what can you do for the government not the other way around then

Reagan came along and said the government is the problem and we need to reverse that and then

things are kept in checks and bounces because back then we actually had a news force that was

accurate and fair and now uh the Rob Sullivan's were the longest time in dismantling classes and

high schools and grade schools uh civics as an example and you have a growing mass of people

that are no longer have critical thinking skills and it doesn't take much to get enough people

in the fear more odor hate mode or I don't care mode to want to jump into something that's

utterly ridiculous that will do harm to the massage and in the news it was Scott's in 50 year old

people in the bug think that uh fighting is going to take away their social security and Medicare

I mean if you don't have a voting based that's capable of critical thinking and rational thinking

you can try to do everything you possibly can it's not going to change it so the root cause

as far as I'm concerned are the people pulling the levers the voters how are you going to change

that mechanism that's a very good question Kurt uh what do you think Mike well as I mentioned

before Wisconsin created the first kindergarten in the country and the first system of vocational

technical and adult education in the entire country civic education was an invention of

people with foresight who realized that if we're going to govern ourselves in a democracy we have to

be educated and we have to understand the workings of government well civic education has been more

or less dismantled it's it's not well they were quite seriously tested in order to get out of school

yeah but there's there is virtually no civic education compared to what we used to have yes

there's been so much emphasis on on math and science and and you know civic instruction has

just been sort of pushed to the side well there were people with great foresight many years ago

generations ago who said we've got to have a robust system of civic education and we have to have

a free press a diverse free press so that there's information for the people to make good decisions

when they go to the ballot box if we're going to govern ourselves in a democracy we have to have

that and there's been uh uh decades now of attacks on those systems well now we have to reinvent

these things and we have to we have to talk ambitiously about what we need to build uh as people

did generations ago and they convinced the American people that these were vitally important things

and they and they were put in place in places like Wisconsin and and then other states looked at

Wisconsin it said let's do that because that state has it together that state that states going places

let's do that and Wisconsin's lost that pioneering spirit so the colors right you know there are many

dimensions to the problem many emergencies that need attention but we currently have political

leadership that sort of saying well let's just keep things let's keep things constant let's just

keep things the way they are and then you've got another political force in this country that's

saying now let's just dismantle it all yeah let's just tear it all down yeah and that resonates with

a lot of people who are frustrated who can't make enough money to make rent they can't they don't

even have a hospital to go to when they get sick they're they're living in in unacceptable conditions

as far as they're concerned and if the option is staying put or or blowing stuff up and dismantling

things they'll take the dismantling right try something different yeah and that's what it's always

all about yeah I think at the same time we have so many media sources now and no one I think

maybe everybody is being inundated to the point where they're just checking out and then there's

a party that's saying they're all fake news so so you have too much information people check

out because too much information is out there and then another source is saying it's all fake news

anyway why pay attention so they're just listening to what people say to them they're not looking into

the facts or what's behind it and and no one ever expected to have a party that just slide just

purely lies and makes it sound like the truth no I don't think the founding fathers even imagined

something like that happening yeah well you know propagandists are on the march and you know and

when when facts are shared they say those are fake and and then they they lie through their teeth

and and claim that it's the solemn truth that calls for robust education so that people can see

through that well I hope we can help people out a little bit here on the program like McCabe

thanks for joining us a beyond house on sub stack not short stack and I appreciate you being here

this morning thanks for joining us the Johnny Gordy family show we'll be back again tomorrow