Scott Walker is no Herbert Hoover

History is a series of interlocking stories with numerous actors driving even more numerous causes. The agency of actors then creates effects which in turn give us the facts of history. Those events lead to new stories, driving new actions from the changing situation; and hopefully, sometimes, maybe, new motivations in the causation of events. When it comes to the governor of Wisconsin though, we see history repeating as farce in exactly the way Marx meant it.

Much has been written comparing the financial meltdown of 2008 to the Great Depression and stock market crash of 1929, but the comparison here will make you weep for humanity. Wisconsin has always had a populist mentality, our first constitution considered a ban on commercial banking in the state. The Republican Party was founded here with the radical idea that free labor was preferable to that of the slave. The Progressive movement was very strong in Wisconsin, first in the GOP then it's own party, pioneering railroad and other business regulation among many other positive changes. The Wisconsin Idea was something of a revolution in bringing the knowledge, wisdom, and expertise of the state university to government. Wisconsin was a leader in the burgeoning environmental movement, passing protective statutes before the federal government, and while Gaylord Nelson (founder of Earth Day) was a Democrat he was joined in the environmental protection and cleanup effort by many Republicans in state government.

So it is no surprise that many Wisconsinites have a strong affiliation with the Republican Party and the good it has done in the past. However, then is not now and today's GOP has no interest in good governance or responsibility to anything other than how much cash they can pile into private hands from the public purse. Cheeseheads got a sneak preview of modern Republican graft and incompetence when Scott McCallum made a mockery of the governor's office during his brief tenure after Tommy Thompson left to join the Bush Administration. But that did not seem to alert anyone to the dangerous nature of the modern "conservative" wrecking crew nor taint the name of Scott with servile irresponsibility.

Swept into office on the coattails of tea party fervor and possibly voter fraud, college dropout Scott Walker has been the biggest embarrassment to Wisconsin since McCarthy. While there is an entire blog devoted to cataloging his every crime and many bloggers keeping track of his every move both in Wisconsin and nationally, so far no one has noticed the historical parallel between the "troubled" Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and Herbert Hoover's vehicle of fighting the depression, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." However simplistic this opening line of The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley may seem, it is one of the first ideas a budding historian must internalize because it is true. Remembering this maxim is also the first rule in comparing one historical event to another. So the creation of the RFC is different from the creation of WEDC, the circumstances around them are different, the actors involved are obviously different, and importantly the ideologies driving their creation are radically different. In the first place, Herbert Hoover started his administration by predicting the end of poverty in America. Scott Walker began his by declaring teachers and their unions to be public enemy number one. Hoover was a brilliant mining engineer whose talent and accomplishments made him a very wealthy man on his own merits before entering politics. Walker's only talent seems to be swindling people and parasitically living off of public largesse. Hoover's failure to stem the depression flowed from his inherent optimism that people could work together to solve problems without coercion, whatever else can be said. Walker thrives on confrontation and destroying his enemies. Finally, Hoover would have been remembered as an outstanding President in non-crisis period of American life while Walker would be equally divisive and destructive of anything he touched no matter the larger circumstances.

It is actually ironic that the so-called tea party movement began as a populist reaction to government bailing out powerful and well-connected financial firms. WEDC was not designed to bail out irresponsible businessmen the way TARP was, but loan taxpayer money to private businesses in order to "create jobs" in Wisconsin. Therefore it was an intervention in the "free market" to "pick winners," something that is supposed to be anathema to conservatives. Not only does this expansion of government (pattern?) into the economy ignore the basic tenets of economics but it just happens to be a giant pile of "pay to play" corruption that so-called conservatives are also supposed to abhor. So, as Scott Walker toured the state (on TV ads at least) during his campaign in 2010 with his little brown paper bag he promised that he had big, bold ideas to bring 250,000 jobs to Wisconsin and WEDC was part and parcel that idea. And as usual, Capper at Cognitive Dissidence put it best:

Not only did Walker and WEDC fail miserably to perform as promised, but the agency has been plagued with corruption and ineptitude. Audit after audit showed that the agency lost track of tens of millions of dollars, didn't follow its own rules regarding giving loans and spent money on things like iTunes and Badger football tickets.

In the most recent audit, it was learned that Walker's top aides were leaning heavily on WEDC to give a construction company a $4.3 million loan. The loan ended up being $500,000 but the company created no jobs, went under and never repaid the loan.

It was further revealed that Walker was aware of the progress on securing the loan. You see, Walker had a personal interest in this loan going through since the company owner had given Walker's campaign a $10,000 campaign donation.

Walker went into damage control mode and called for his agency to stop all loans, basically admitting to the failure and corruption of WEDC, which he oversaw.

Days later, it was revealed that Walker had tried to slip into his budget a rule that WEDC would be exempt from FOIA requests.

Which brings us to the last point. Capper also linked to a Capitol Times article that in turn cited a study by a good government watchdog group that showed how these quasi-public entities charged with handing out taxpayer loans to private business both do not work and are rife with corruption. Other states have finally "learned their lesson" and are getting rid of these things but Wisconsin is 20 years behind the rest of the country it seems so they are doing it now. When Herbert Hoover and the Republicans of 86 years ago confronted the depression they had very little information to work with on how to fight the horrific cycle of a collapsing economy. FDR did not have all the answers either but he was unafraid to try things that went against the orthodoxy of the day. Hoover was trapped in that orthodoxy and the things that had worked in the past did not work on the Great Depression. Today we do know what causes horrific bubble-bursting crises, and we know how to fight them. Scott Walker may not be a brilliant engineer but he had to know that simply shoveling money out the door and hoping jobs would some how be created without any of that money going to stimulate demand would not work. Meaning that it was a completely cynical way of hacking open the state to reward the people he really works for.

So it is easy to state that Scott Walker is a worse leader than Herbert Hoover. Let's not make that mistake again.

Crass Recuperation

Once a song is recorded and published, it belongs to the public right?

As most people know, politicians like to have some popular song playing in the background as they approach the podium for a speech. For much the same reason that professional wrestlers have an identifying song blasting from the venue's PA system when they enter the arena and head to the ring, politicians need to build excitement for the canned stump speech they deliver to throngs of supporters. But what happens when the song used is utterly antithetical to the politician co-opting it?

The dumb-ass governor of Wisconsin recently found out. It seems he's been lately wading into battle, with unions and working people of course, to the sounds of Dropkick Murphys' I'm Shipping Up To Boston. Even while AWOL from the actual job and office he is supposed to be occupying he uses the song to convince the big money boys and fascist rubes he is fit to be president in Iowa and California. This college dropout likes to tout his being "unintimidated" but what do you call his strategy of warming up to a band that his supporters were protesting just a few short years ago?

I was able to find a post by the renegade union SEIU reporting the song DKM released in support of the teachers and other civilized Wisconsinites protesting walker's scheme to wreck public education and destroy unions. But it seems most of the backlash by republican cretins calling for a ban or boycott of those union-loving lads from Boston seems to have disappeared down the memory hole. I suppose they needed to alter the past in order to use I'm Shipping Up To Boston as scott walker's fight song. Or is he really so dumb that he just thought this was a cool song from a gangster movie (The Departed) and did not realize this band is one of the most pro-union, pro-working class forces in America?



I mean they put out a tweet explicitly stating "stop using our music in any way...we literally hate you !!! Love, Dropkick Murphys" because, yes Scott Walker deserves hatred for all the hardship he has caused to so many Wisconsinites. But as you can see from the tweeting trolls, blind loyalty to a sycophantic ideologue is a default for angry morons. Right wing authoritarian followers are easy to wind up and vicious when pointed at their out-groups. What exactly do these mouth-breathing supporters of Scotty find appealing in him? I would find it very satisfying if the tweeters who are adamant in telling DKM how much they suck and how they need to keep their politics to themselves and should be "tolerant" showed up at one of their shows and tell DKM fans how they feel.

It is a special kind of arrogance to recuperate one of the few symbols of resistance to free market fundamentalism and use it as a theme song. So no, once a piece of music is recorded and becomes a freely existing packet of 1s and 0s, it is not public property. Hat's off to DKM. Hopefully I will have time in the future to write about how much the Murphys have meant to me since I was introduced to them in 1998, long before the full-court press against unions in Wisconsin kicked off. But I will leave you with my favorite DKM song. I hope my sharing it is in keeping with the spirit it was recorded in. For these are dark days indeed.

y

Trying to make sense of it all

From crooksandliars:

"This was a big loss for the left: How is something that was entirely expected to happen a big loss? Pretty much all the polling said Scott Walker was going to stay in office, he had a massive money advantage, the Democratic candidate was uninspiring and was fought against in the primary by left-wing groups, voters don't like recalls, recalls almost never work and Walker had already beaten this candidate not even two years ago. So how is this a surprise outcome and how is it "big" in any way? If a professional basketball team plays a college team and beats them, how would that be big for the pro team? The upset would've been big, but the status quo, while painful, isn't big. From the beginning, this was a movement that was something that people were hopeful about, but there was never any real evidence that Walker was going to lose. There was lots of evidence that he should lose, but one of the first things you study in public opinion polling classes is how little voters make their choice based on issues. On the issues, Wisconsin voters aren't that much in line with Walker, but since most voters aren't making their decision based on the issues of the day, that doesn't matter much.
The only victory in Wisconsin was a moral victory: When the broad recall campaign started last year, it had two goals: recall Scott Walker and recall enough state senators to flip control of that chamber to the Democrats. One of these worked and the other didn't. And, at least until next year, it seems as if Walker's agenda will be nearly completely stalled. The ultimate goal of both of these recall efforts seems to be to stop Walker from further harming the state. It looks like -- barring a recount -- that such a goal has been achieved, at least, potentially, until the next election. How is that not a victory?
Unions are big losers in Wisconsin: The only way you could make such an argument is if you lay the entire campaign at the feet of the labor movement and/or you convincingly make the case that the voters chose Walker's anti-union agenda on purpose. I don't think either of those arguments is consistent with the facts. Unions were part of a broad coalition that was fighting against Walker for, what, six months? And how much of that time was spent on winning the election, as opposed to the Democratic Primary or the petition gathering process? Unions, as with other groups, fully focused on defeating Walker for about a month. To claim the labor movement is dead because it couldn't pull off the unprecedented feat of taking out a sitting governor who was elected by the people in a month fails even a basic logic test. And, again, decades of political science research shows that less than 20 percent of the electorate makes its candidate choice based on current policies. Exit polls showed that 10 percent of yesterday's voters who rejected Walker's assault on unions voted for him. 38 percent of union members voted for him. 52 percent of voters who think things have gotten worse under Walker voted for him. If voters were voting based on issues, even issues that directly affect them, in any significant numbers, how could these exit poll results exist?
The left lost because it had a bad message: Exit polling makes it very obvious this isn't the case:

First, 60 percent of voters thought that recall elections were only appropriate for official misconduct, while 27 percent said "any reason." Another 10 percent said "never"—and those voted for Walker 94-5. It's hard going into any election with 10 percent immediately off the board, and for those who said "only official misconduct," Walker won 68-31. Turns out people just didn't like the idea of a recall—something worth filing away as an important lesson learned.
Second of all, young people didn't turn out. Only 16 percent of the electorate was 18-29, compared to 22 percent in 2008. That's the difference between 646,212 and 400,599 young voters, or about 246,000. Walker won by 172,739 votes. Turns out having the recall in the summer, when the universities were out, was among the biggest strategic miscalculations.

How can you win an election when 70 percent of the electorate doesn't think the election itself is valid? Now it is probably the case that Walker has engaged in official misconduct, but he hasn't been charged with anything, which is kind of what the word "official" implies. Until he's charged, most Wisconsin voters don't think that any recall is valid. Despite that, the vote against Walker significantly outpaced the belief that the recall election was valid. Similarly, the decline in youth turnout outpaced the Walker margin of victory. What I can't understand is saying something like "this means liberalism lost," when it's clear that people didn't reject liberalism, they rejected the recall election itself. If Walker loses re-election in 2014, that will pretty much cement my take on this and I'll predict that Walker will not be elected governor of Wisconsin in 2014.
Young people don't matter: See above. Young people could've decided the election, but they didn't because they weren't taken enough into account in determining the strategy for the recall. This is a complaint that a number of people on the left have been making for years. And when young people are taken into account, it has a significant impact. One of the reasons Barack Obama won in 2008 was that he expanded the playing field of the electorate, including youth outreach. Why hasn't the left continued this approach much since then? If we don't turn this around -- and not just with youth, but with all groups that underperform in voter turnout -- we'll continue to lose.
The Wisconsin results show that GOTV money is wasted: It's pretty clear that some more GOTV money spent on young people could've changed the outcome of the election. And since Walker won by 172,739, it's certain that some more spending on GOTV, particularly if it were spent earlier, could've had a significant impact on the margin of victory.
Electoral politics are a dead end for the left: The left had some electoral victories in 2006 and 2008, then immediately proceeded to abandon some of the significant changes they had made in order to achieve those victories. It's also quite clear that things like Citizens United changed the rules of the game and not in our favor. Add to that, in the 1960s, conservatives started methodically building a movement that now has them in major positions of power and has them with the infrastructure and financing they need to dominate elections despite being out of touch with the people on most issues. Part of the problem is that the left, while they have recognized the need to build a similar movement, still hasn't built anything like what the right built and it doesn't seem like they are really even trying to. Sure, a lot of good people are doing a lot of good work, but too much of that work is still siloed off and there isn't much of an overall movement being built, certainly nothing like what the right has done. Elections are part of that movement, but too many on left have focused solely on elections -- which gets you some victories -- and haven't focused enough on building the infrastructure that wins you elections even when you don't have good candidates, campaigns or messages. The right has that infrastructure, how else can you reconcile the fact that, from Florida alone, terrible candidates like Allen West, Sandy Adams, Daniel Webster, David Rivera and Steve Southerland are in Congress? It's because you can plug any idiot into the Republican system and they can find a way to win in a competitive district. Democrats only win competitive districts with stellar candidates and/or campaigns. We can talk about that infrastructure at a later date...
Democrats need more moderate or centrist candidates to win: This one is simply a matter of looking at the numbers. How many wishy-washy centrist Democrats win election in competitive districts? How many extreme Republicans win election? How many centrist Republicans win election? It looks to me like of these three groups, extreme Republicans are most likely to win in a competitive district. Why is that? Money is obviously a factor. So is infrastructure and candidate training, recruitment and staffing. But it seems pretty clear that how "extreme" the candidate is doesn't seem to hurt them a whole lot if they make it clear what their values are and stand by their convictions. Voters seem to like that more than candidates who are more moderate. This is an argument that people smarter than me have been making for years. And it seems just as true today as it was when people made it years ago. Every time Democrats lose an election, the establishment left calls for more centrist candidates. Then Democrats lose again. Go back to the polling from 2008 and remember that the electorate overwhelmingly thought that Barack Obama was more liberal than the average American (forget that he never was for the moment), and yet they voted for him anyway. Because of the success of the right-wing message machine, my guess is current polls would also say that Obama is more liberal than the average American (forget again that it still isn't true) and compare that to the swing state polling and it seems likely that he will be elected again, despite being thought of as more extreme than the rest of the population.
Money either "doesn't matter" or "is the only thing that matters": It's obvious that money can matter in elections. 2010 is a prime example of that, particularly if you look at places like Florida where Gov. Rick Scott bought the job using his own personal fortune. It doesn't always matter, it isn't the only factor and it can be overcome, but it's clear that outspending a candidate 7-1 (or more) has to have an effect on the outcome of the election. Walker might've lost if he had less money. But it's also clear that spending more money doesn't always win elections, particularly if the other side has adequate funding and uses it more wisely and runs a better campaign with a better candidate. It's clear none of that happened with Walker's opponent. Victory depends on sufficient money coupled with a good candidate and a good campaign. In Wisconsin, we lost on all three of these, so it's no wonder Walker stayed in office."