Except it was third down and four yards to go. I know sports analogies for politics and government are always problematic and only really reinforce the sports' fan mentality towards politics, but there it is. So, let the gloating by conservatives begin. You know, the ones who deplore "outside money" in races if they come from the "deep-pocketed" unions, but curiously do not see the mountains of corporate cash funding those incredibly deceitful commercials. Anyway, for all those non-Wisconsinites out there, we had an election yesterday. It was the endgame on whether the prissy little shit scott walker will have absolute power to wreck our state.
Checks and balances in government don't work very well when one ideologically radical and completely uniform faction occupies all levers of power. Recall exists because, well, candidates lie. Lying about what you want to do, and then doing pretty much the opposite after taking power tends to piss people off. And in those cases, citizens have the right in our state to challenge them. And for all the dumbasses out there who say "elections have consequences," think for a second how deeply obnoxious that is. Did you assholes sit home and pout when the dreaded "socialist" obama was spending all your grandkids money on bailing out all those "waterdrinkers" who bought too much house? No. But shameless double standards, lying, and abuse of power in service to the "job creators" is the name of the day.
Actual grassroots citizens gathered signatures to recall six republican members of the state senate. These "public servants" were too busy licking the boots of their corporate masters to see how much harm their blind loyalty to gov. walker's agenda of crushing education and meaningful work in our state was doing to the people they are supposed to represent. While two of our state's more obnoxious senators, joe leibham and glenn grothmann, escaped recall for the time being, it was a start to checking the radical right-wing sabotage these scum are inflicting on this former bastion of modernity and progress. The short version is that despite being ignored by the leader of our party and getting little outside help, Wisconsin Democrats did manage to force these recall challenges and win two of them, the same utterly corrupt county clerk who rigged the supreme court election in favor the gop came through for the forces of darkness and prevented the third victory needed to restore some checks and balances in state government.
I was suprized that the outright theft was necessary considering how much money was spent defending darling's seat by national right-wing bribery outfits. The hypocrisy is amazing, but once you shed any vestige of shame, also completely unsuprizing. A few years ago, right after obama's inauguration actually, a local fundamentalist just happened to discover a booklist on our library's website that she didn't happen to like. Her gang of merry censors then dragged us through almost a year's worth of mud, demanding all sorts of censorship and people being fired among other things. The thing that seemed to get her goat the most though, was that the American Library Association came to our library's aid to defend that silly constitutional right to read what you want. So of course she squawked about "outsiders" who don't share our "small-town values" in classic victim-speak. "The big, bad librarians are interfering with our right to force our narrow point-of-view on everyone." Anyway, the library board, composed completely of local residents, voted unanimously to deny her right to censor. So much time and energy wasted simply to keep things the way they were. The hypocrisy of this story of course, was all the while she was whining about the ALA, she was getting support from the Eagle Forum, a notorious censorship and anti-women's rights outfit. But, high priestess phillis schafley shared her "small-town values" so the double standard does not register.
Now, the story leading to these recall attempts is different but shares some outlines. I would be remiss if I did not mention the ultimate bad word "unions." Let's set aside for the moment that falling short after all this effort reveals once and for all, or should in any worldview tethered even slightly to reality, the impotence of organized labor in the face of organized money. We should also set aside what the function of industrial and trade unions in capitalist society and what they accomplished for workers, i.e. the majority of people in our society. In the political realm, unions function as advocates for working people, however imperfectly that strategy may be. It was not enough this time. Probably the last chance for democratic change after the imposition of poll taxes and all the other crap walker pushed down our throats kicks in next time. This state is owned part and parcel by the koch bros. probably forever now. I guess if you have an authoritarian personality that will appeal to you. Perhaps they will let you manage some small part as a feudal lord if you can generate enough profit on the backs of all us serfs for them.
All the protests were about last spring was the very conservative attempt to maintain the status quo. Police, firefighters, teachers, and all the others didn't think it was fair to balance millionaire tax breaks on their backs. But last night proved that organized money will go to any length to fight democracy, social justice, and civilization itself. And they will win.
Democracy is dead, the republic is finished. Welcome to the new dark ages. The last time it phased in slowly too. A steady erosion of human rights and dignity for the benefit of an elite few. When the next generation of historians look at the decline of the American Empire, probably by candlelight in a dilapidated library and hiding from death squads, they will wonder with awe how the financial elite were able to not buy off so many but really turn them into allies. I certainly wonder that now.
As usual, I would love to be proven wrong. I would happily eat my words if there was any hope.
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