Sen. Ron Johnson launches 'Victims of Government' series

[a kennedy]

Will post this here so more ppl see it.....

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson thinks small-government conservatives like himself need to do a better job marketing their ideas to the public.

Part of his solution can be found in a planned series of web videos he launched March 26 under the stark and attention-getting title: Victims of Government.

"I was really looking for a different way to communicate the harm of a very large, growing and abusive government," says Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican.

What he came up with is a documentary project featuring tales of woe about people he says have been harmed by regulation, red tape or some other act of the state.

The first YouTube video, about an Iowa landowner's dispute with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has been viewed roughly 50,000 times. It was put together by Senate staff and is narrated by Johnson.

"When you actually put a face, a real family, behind some of the harm government actually causes, I think that really resonates," he says. "I think this will end up probably being a pretty long series."

Conservative cable host Larry Kudlow invited Johnson on his CNBC show recently to tout the project, while critics on the left deride it and question the use of taxpayer resources to produce it.

"It seems like the point is simply to trash the government," says Scot Ross, executive director of the progressive group One Wisconsin Now. "You expect that from a sort of anti-regulation, pro-laissez faire, pro-corporate organization, but you don't really expect that from somebody who's representing an entire state. . . . It seems utterly unproductive."

The guiding principle is Johnson's oft-stated belief that the "root cause of our problems is the size and scope of the federal government."

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/sen-ron-johnson-launches-victims-of-government-series-cc9ejfv-201869991.html

[Scuba]

1. Ron Johnson's "Victim of Government" Nothing More Than a Really Stupid Real Estate Developer

http://uppitywis.org/blogarticle/ron-johnsons-victim-government-nothing-more-really-stupid-real-e

In 1990, Lathrop bought a tract of swamp land, in a floodplain, on the cheap, with visions of turning it into a real estate development. The area he bought was called the Dobrey Slough and, as the name of this parcel implies, it was a low lying marshy land on the outskirts of one of the Mississippi River's favorite flooding areas: Granite City, Illinois. Did I mention it was in a floodplain?

...

Lathrop, however, then claimed that he didn't have the money for the project because, he says, financial backers that had been on board had backed out because of a conspiracy against him from the Granite City mayor and other city officials. A few years later, Lathrop (serving as his own attorney) sued the Granite City officials. The judge threw out Lathrop's suit and called the conspiracy theory claim "absurd" in the decision. The city engineer counter sued Lathrop, saying he “did not have the business sense and/or resources to properly run his own business".

Flash forward to 2013: U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, desperately searching beyond the borders of his own state for a posterchild for his "Victims of Government" project, claims that he-- not the National Association of Home Builders-- had discovered the Stephen Lathrop story and jumps into it head first. Johnson named Lathrop as his first "victim" and described the situation as, "an unbelievable example of the type of bureaucratic insanity that goes on day after day and effects millions of Americans."

"Victim of Government"? Seriously? This is the same Lathrop that asked for $750,000 in TIF money, a low interest goverment loan for $400,000 and got the city to annex his proposed developement area so that it would have city (government) services. And, ironically, Johnson wasted a gazillion taxpayer dollars producing a ridiculously distorted video that martyrized the Lathrop's "victim of government" story.

[catbyte]

2. Idiot

[Newest Reality]

3. I wish our

government was ours and not just a virtual straw man for Fortune 500 antics.

We could question the reason that people in government give us an Orwellian, Newthink argument against it's size and power. Especially when corporate lobbying literally rules policy across-the-board and there is a very loud and automatic revolving door between commerce and State from the White House to the town boards.

The veil of rhetoric does not seem to hold as much sway these days when you look for accuracy and what is behind it. The face value of government is becoming a means to belittle any potential or implied majority rule. The government exists to take the heat and give an illusion of choice while huge corporations work behind the scenes to manipulate a growing profit scheme that exerts exponentially growing covert, and more overt, control over ever factor and sector of our culture.

So, Ron Johnson is just a spokesman for a syndicate that vilifies its enabling, government partner as if the benefits it will give us are somehow superior and on the assumption that the rights of Capitalists are, or ever will, be extended to the consumers they consume. That's like the assumption that wealth trickles down rather than being sucked up via a tornado-like, economic funnel of unbridled greed and offshore accounts. I mean, its good for a laugh but it has no basis in fact or reality at all.

[dragonlady]

4. We have a name for Ron Johnson in Wisconsin ...

Senator Dumbass.

[LTR]

5. Has he done anything that wasn't political grandstanding?

All he's done is nonstop campaigning and attention whoring.

Senator Useless.

[politicat]

6. And when will he focus on women denied access to health care because of TRAP laws, or kids

who go to schools that are falling apart because of cuts to education funding, or the meat packing workers who are permanently disabled or killed because OSHA and the Department of Ag have failed to inspect their workplaces because they have been captured by the corps? When will he interview the thousands of people whose houses are in limbo or gone into zombie foreclosure because the government failed to regulate the banks?

Oh, right. Never.

Cry me a river, Johnson. You wouldn't know a victim of small government if one bit off your nose.