If you ever had any doubt that the millionaires and billionaires pull the strings in this country’s puppet elections, get over it. As the New York Times reported, Walker Survives Wisconsin Recall Vote, “Gov. Scott Walker, whose decision to cut collective bargaining rights for most public workers set off a firestorm in a state usually known for its political civility, easily held on to his job on Tuesday, becoming the first governor in the country to survive a recall election and dealing a painful blow to Democrats and labor unions.
“Mr. Walker soundly defeated Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, the Democrats’ nominee in the recall attempt, with most precincts across the state reporting results. The victory by Mr. Walker [winning 56% vs. Barrett’s 43% of the vote], of a Republican who was forced into an election to save his job less than two years into his first term, ensures that Republicans largely retain control of this state’s capital, and his fast-rising political profile is likely to soar still higher among conservatives.”
It also proves how corrosive out-of-state as well as local tons of money can be to corrupt the democratic system of elections. These were not locals who showed up with $45.6 million to pump into Walkers coffers. Tom Barrett’s $17.9 million was a more likely figure donated by local and out-of-state individuals. The Times reports that it “was a quirk in state law that allowed him months of unlimited fund-raising, from the time the recall challenge was mounted to when the election was officially called.” The spending was tracked by data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan group (if that’s possible) that tracks spending.
Republicans also kept their jobs in at least four other recall elections, including the race for lieutenant governor, won by Rebecca Keefisch. State Senate’s majority leader Scott Fitzgerald, who had pushed much of Walker’s agenda through the Legislature, also lived on to ruin another day for working people. The one bright spot for the Democrats was regaining control of the state senate when former Sen. John Lehman defeated incumbent Van Wanggaard.
But the real loss here is to America, not just Wisconsin. This travesty of justice and fairness was allowed to happen by none other than the Supreme Court’s Citizens United, which gives corporations personage, meaning they can speak with their filthy lucre to unseat anyone they choose with their Superpacs, a fancy word for whoring lobbyists and those who take the money, from the president’s office on down through Congress, the courts, state and city governments.
Voters did their jobs, going to the polls in vast numbers, though making their choice based on advertising biased as far to the right as you can go without tipping off the continent. The even sadder news is what this outcome demonstrates. It is the twisted thinking of bigots, birthers and billionaires, haters of working people seeking collective bargaining in their jobs, not the privatization of them by cronies of Governor Walker, which has been the case, with costs far exceeding the municipal workers’ cost to do the same work. Wisconsin is not a poor state. It has for generations supported working people, unions, and collective bargaining. It has only been in this atmosphere of the war on the working and middle classes that unions and collective bargaining are dirty words, whereas tax cuts, more war for the military industrial industry, and cutting entitlements remain golden, like the teeth of Ian Fleming’s (James Bond)’s Goldfinger.
It seems, according to the Times, that more men voted for Walker, while most women voted for Mr. Barrett. Let’s hear it for the smarter gender. Surprisingly, nearly a fifth of the electorate was 65 or order, with just about one in 10 voters of college age. If those senior citizens think casting a vote for Walker or any of his ilk is going to help them keep their Social Security or Medicare intact, they better guess again. And if more than just one in ten of the young people couldn’t push their butts into a voting booth, they must have already forgotten the trillion in college debt that their contemporaries hold, an ugly record all of its own, and one that will be plaguing them for decades.
The only winner here is money, the big money that can continue to manipulate, steal and plunder public lands, natural resources and treasure, or our most precious asset, the right to honest not bought elections. The ship of America’s state is slowly but surely sinking into the deep mud of total corruption. And it is the rich, the notorious Koch Brothers and their ilk, that will be in the lifeboats, waving as our flag goes under. Remember that if nothing else.
The original 900,000 signatures on the petition to recall Governor Walker, far more than the one-quarter of voters from the last election that the state law requires, remains the testament to the state’s great people, the wise people of Wisconsin, even though the song and dance show cost local governments nearly $18 million to put on. This too has raised the ire of those who would not use a recall vote to remove corrupt officials like Walker and his bunch. This recall effort was only one of three to place the matter on a ballot in recent history. And it is to Wisconsin’s real people, not the money bag outsiders and insiders, that the credit goes.
Around the country, many tries have been made over the years to recall governors, but just three, including Walker’s, met the ballot requirement. In California Grey Davis was mistakenly blamed and removed for Enron’s sins in driving up and overcharging consumers drastically for the price of electric power. In North Dakota, Lynn Frazier was recalled in 1921 for interfering with state ownership of its bank.
An appropriate response around the nation would be ongoing protests in Wisconsin by Occupy Wisconsin Groups, and to keep the protest going wherever people of conscience remain.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
