Call me crazy, but I’m not exactly cowering in fear.

Debt deal: Time for diplomacy is over — People’s World

. . . Last November, working people suffered a major setback. The right wing was able to play on mass anger and frustration over the slow recovery and blame the Democrats for the crisis caused and sustained by Republican policies. In Ohio, Wisconsin and other states the Democratic base, pounded by right-wing media, did not turn out in sufficient numbers to overcome the frenzied, corporate-funded Republican campaign of bigotry and Big Lies.

The result was a Republican takeover in these states as well as in the U.S. House of Representatives, and an immediate, unprecedented, far-flung attack on civil, democratic and trade union rights.

In Ohio, in just six months Gov. John Kasich outlawed collective bargaining for public employees, slashed funds for education, health care and local government services, enacted a voter suppression law, put key state assets up for sale, restricted reproductive freedom, expanded gun rights and opened state parks to reckless plunder by gas companies.

If the Republicans take over the White House in 2012, it will be Kasich on steroids for the entire country. As Vice President Joe Biden warned the AFL-CIO in March, every effort must be made to “keep the barbarians from the gate.”

It is urgent for President Obama, the Democrats, the labor movement and all progressive allies to rally the troops, expose the danger and prepare for war.