Sandy Hook

Sandy Hook

Friday, June 15, 2012

Wisconsin: After the Dust Has Settled -- Part II

Background: Melissa is a grandmother who lives in a small rural community somewhere in Wisconsin. The recall effort was her maiden voyage into the world of political activity -- the results of which had to have been a real kick in the gut. As mentioned in Part I, "She offers up an entirely different perspective, and probably a far more accurate and insightful one, than anything we have read in the mainstream media or heard from political pundits and armchair critics -- like me." It is because of her dedication and her insightfulness that she has become a favored friend on Facebook. When it was all over, in a private exchange, I asked for her interpretation of events in relation to what was being written  in some of the links I provided. Her response -- edited only where necessary because of Facebook being what it is -- are quite compelling.

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This really, to me, was not a battle to be won by the unions, as they, indeed have already been weakened. It was totally about the way the Democratic Party, and I am a member, went about it. We went for a grassroots effort because we all knew Walker was making a big deal out of it. It was about ALEC and it's effects on our state. I believe the unions, although extremely important to me and others, was a red herring to detract from the huge amount of damage forthcoming in Act 10. Stealthily, that act has been dealing one blow after another this past year as folks yelp about Unions. The unions were used only to begin the Divide and Conquer. If you read Act 10, as I did, you will see much more to the story than unions. I saw people, not involved in unions doing the majority of the fight. More than the school teachers, nurses and corrections officers. There are family farmers who fought with us. . . . I think it is far too easy for the media and folks outside this state to pass judgement if they did not know about Act 10. National implications from that one thing alone and nobody paid attention to it in the media. This was The Shock Doctrine played out in WI.

. . . it was made to look SOOOOOOOOO much about a union thing, but, when you compare the numbers of contributions to campaigns, there really is not much from the unions that I see. I truly believe that the DNC did not do their part either. My view is that "the loophole" that allowed Walker to collect tens of thousands of dollars from the time the recall began to the end of the election was something that made the whole thing seem like a joke to me even as I stood collecting signatures in 30 degrees below and heavy snow at times. I felt we were sunk already because I saw Gov. Walker on his "Rock Star" tour and on Fox News pleading with puppy-dog eyes for folks to please send money to his website for months. I couldn't share this with my husband, though, because, he would only think positive and believe in the power of the people. I knew the power of corruption.

When I saw Walker on TV, I even felt sorry for him and I despise him. He owned the air and I soon heard a rumor that Americans for Prosperity had paid volunteers on the ground. All this went on as I daily checked the activities of the legislature and saw what would normally be HUGE headlines being basically swept under the rug. That provided the fire for me. Each day, a new detrimental law was being implemented and I witnessed the impact of it. Child Care was attacked in Milwaukee, especially, causing problems for day care centers to function and some have closed. Where do those kids go? School vouchers are presenting issues. Public lands were being sold, a Deer Czar was hired from TX at a huge price, when WI had no problem with deer herd management before. This administration has continued to introduce the concept to our state that all these things were in deep crisis. The voter suppression started, the redistricting. I saw this across the country and I could not for the life of me understand why the unions, the DNC, and yes, even my beloved President Obama seemed to be mute. Closer to the election they made such weak attempts, in my opinion, to pacify some of us, but, as my grandmother used to say, "They tooted. Farted. And Fell."

What I thought had begun as a major war on the worker and unions by the GOP became clear to me that it was actually something else. If it was about the unions, if it was about the Democratic Party I saw little participation by those folks to prove it. I feel President Obama should have been here when Act 10 was introduced to bring awareness of the background of this piece of legislature because it was playing out all across our country and folks needed to be educated about it. His presence would have at least started the process of that education.

In my rural area, there was only me and Tom at the park, me and Tom at the truck stop. The hostility was blatant and [it was] very apparent that we were fighting an uphill battle in rural Wisconsin. Nobody paid attention to that. Now they are talking about it. It's not like folks who were out in the field working in these little towns were not well aware of it. People did not see the bigger picture, though. They focused on the unions. We focused on defending the little people. If it truly is about the people, and not big corporations, then I believe our voices would have been heard. We were not in a big union area, though, so even though Tom and I collected hundreds of signitures in a town of 400, it really feels like big money is what won in the long run.

Wisconsin is not open for people. It is open for Business. Our friends and family have less to spend because hundreds of dollars are missing from our paychecks and we are paying more for healthcare and medicine. That was because of the union battle that never had to happen. Walker did not balance the budget with his union attacks, he kicked the can down the road and most folks in my neck of the woods have NO IDEA why, in the next few years, taxes will rise for us locally. I predict they'll blame Obama. They hate him. The racial divide is key in this neck of the woods even though there are are only white folks living here. They don't want a "N*gger" in the White House.

I don't know what the answer is, I am not sure if I know what the question is at this point. All I know is what I have seen for myself in my rural area. The Democratic Party in my county, bless their hearts were ill-equipped to handle this. We made our own signs, picketed when Walker came to town, marched in parades, held meetings with the largest amount of participation I'd ever seen before, marched at the Capitol - if that was not the Power of the People, then, I don't know jack. Power of the People clearly was no match for Big Corporations and Millionaires. I don't have the strength left at my age to keep fighting. I wonder how many of us are out here wondering the same thing. I can tell you right now, even though the exit polls in larger cities said Obama is doing well here - - - where I sit, he is not going to win. Folks around here are still mad. As a man told me, they're "pissed off we have a 'n*gger' in the White House." And if the rural areas are what kept Walker in office, Obama is sunk in WI. I hope I'm wrong. I don't know a great deal about politics, I'm just learning.

The money that poured into the farmers from the Scott Walker campaign was apparent. None of us Dems had money to even buy yard signs - we made our own. There were huge professional billboards to support Walker in cow pastures and fields along the interstate in Central and Northern WI. The remarkable thing was that many, many comments were made that folks were not seeing any Barrett signs or signs that supported the Recall. We grew fearful because of this fact alone. I understood from someone that the farmers may have been paid to let those signs go on their property. Big farm corporations are plentiful here in WI these days - they had a huge impact on the election. We did not receive one phone call or piece of mail from my husband's union. I think that says alot, too.

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When it was all over but the shouting, Melissa expressed her anger and frustration as she described the toll the loss of the election has had on her and her family.

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The saddest thing I am seeing right now is the toll that this has taken on my husband, Tom, an engineer with the WI DNR. The morale has been so low the past 16 months at his office and now he is just crushed. He held out hopes that we could make a change. I had a realistic fear from doing all the research I'd done. Cautiously optimistic. While I fight back the tears, he is very, very silent. He could not even enjoy our grandkids yesterday and he always is able to perk up for them. I am actually fearful for him more than me. I spent 8 years working for the WI Dept. of Corrections. My son works there. My father retired from the DOC. Our family is just crestfallen. We feel we will never see Wisconsin overcome this. Divide the state, friends, family and neighbors - yeah, Scott Walker is proud of this. He is a Christian and thanked God for his success. {Nausea} Our family waits for the other shoe to drop... they want more money from us for benefits on top of what we have lost this year. Already payed heavily for in leiu of wages... what of our pensions now? Yeah, Walker's a Rock Star.

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As stated in Part I (see below), "the loss was a bitter pill, especially for those who literally gave up their lives to work in the trenches day in and day out." The media failed, the unions failed, and the Democratic Party failed -- but in the end, it was money that won. The little people -- those who probably worked the hardest with little or no support -- lost. As Melissa makes quite clear, the impact will be felt for years to come.


19 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing Melissa's commentary.

    I couldn't agree more with everything Melissa said. As a person who grew up through the Civil rights era, albeit sheltered in suburbia, it really galls me that racism is still so prevalent in this allegedly "Christian" nation.

    As a result, I am truly frightened at the big money being thrown into this campaign. I don't want to live in a country run by corporate puppets which is what Republican party has become.

    The biggest problem ahead for people like us is: How do we fight back effectively?

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    1. I don't know what we can do other than educating, being better organized and working our asses off for the Democrats and the President.

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    2. Don't know about educating because the country is heavily polarized with actual free-thinking independents as rare as an albino Bigfoot. About the only thing we have on our side is grassroots organizing. With the new Jim Crow laws cutting into Democratic voting blocks we will simply have to out do the other side in getting people back on the rolls.

      Elections will boil down to which side is more motivated.

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    3. And we libs tend to be somewhat lazy, I'm afraid. Grassroots organizing is absolutely vital. TN and other southern states are involved in a huge phone call effort to folks in NC. I just received an email from our OFA/Nashville team leader reminding us that for every $1 million we spend in NC, they are spending $3 million - thanks to the PACS. I don't know what the hell SCOTUS was thinking in their United Citizens decision but we can't be deterred by it. We just have to work a hell of a lot harder.

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    4. About five members of SCOTUS are simply whores for corporations and bankers and if allowed would setup a nice oligarchical dictatorship with plenty of bread and circuses to keep the riff-raff occupied.

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  2. I'm working for Obama because I can't risk Mittens.

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  3. Thanks for posting this, Leslie. I feel Melissa's heartbreak.

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    1. I had been following her FB posts all during the campaign and already knew how hard she had worked. When she posted her reaction, my heart just broke for her.

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  4. Leslie, (first of all, congrats on the Crooks and Liars link... you and I were both listed on the same day, how odd is that?)

    Your friend's take on the Wisconsin mess is perfect to a T. The right wingers will try to make it appear as if unions have just been read their last rites, and the rest of America will dutifully nod along in agreement, whether it's true or not.
    But the corrupting influence of unlimited, undocumented outside cash, combined with the non-stop propaganda machine it finances won the day in the Badger State. The politics of divide and conquer were successful, and are at play in every state legislature in the country.
    Thanks for this post, and again, congrats on the link!

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    1. Hey! Thanks for the head's up. I don't really pay much attention to my StatCounter, so had no idea. Maybe between the two of us, and a small minority of others, we can demonstrate to the world that not everyone in TN is an uneducated Neanderthal.

      There's no doubt that money was a huge corrupting influence, but as I tried to explain in Part I, I think we make a mistake when we sit back and blame it all on the money. To me, there were obviously some other problems and some very serious ones. I think we need to address these in future campaigns. Above all, we have to get off our lazy butts, get active and get organized. Obviously we don't have the money the opposition has but we have the brains and now we need the workers.

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  5. It scares me when I hear stories such as the one my brother recently related to me. He has a liberal friend at work who is so pissed off at Obama and the watered down health care bill that he is considering voting Republican. Jesus! These are the people we have to work on...remind them of the Bush years and the results of the same. If Mitt the pit wins, and the Democrats don't get control of congress, the middle class of the United States will be forever gone. And those at the poverty line, or below...well, we all know what that means. We simply can't let this happen. End of story.

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    1. I have little patience for "liberals" like your brother's coworker. Politically naive and just as tunnel visioned as the Teabaggers with their idiotic "all or nothing" attitude - and that's just what they'll end up with, if they stay home or vote Republican or for a third party - a whole bunch of nothing. When first introduced, SS and Medicare were nothing like they are today. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

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    2. While I can understand the frustration and the urge to say "F..K it!" when looking at some of Obama's decisions and the sorry state of politics in general today, at some point everyone needs a serious reality check. We can't abandon the field to the merchants of evil. Their entire success depends on fostering that frustration, and this past two years has seen an exponential rise in their efforts to foment an internal war among progressives. And it's working.
      A win in Wisconsin would have motivated the left like nothing has since Obama's nomination and election. The loss is just as motivational for the right, and just as crippling to liberals.
      What happens next will involve foreign financial crises, dull monetary policies that impact our own economy, and I have doubts the average troll watching Faux will sort it out and know whom to blame for the coming shitstorm.
      We have to do more than make shrill noises like the guy on the corner with the sign reading, "The End is Near". We have to be FOR something and make it appealing enough to motivate our people again. Simply pointing at the Bush years or warning people of the dangers of returning to trickle down policies won't bring people out of their caves to vote for Obama, much less actually work for his reelection.
      We have work to do.

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    3. Squatlo: I will echo S.W. and say you're right on target. Very profound, especially this. "A win in Wisconsin would have motivated the left like nothing has since Obama's nomination and election. The loss is just as motivational for the right, and just as crippling to liberals." I would add that we need to get pro-active messages out rather than just reactive messages all the time. The GOP bullshit machine is in high gear and we need to counteract it by coming up with something fresh and more positive. How we do this -- well, I don't really know.

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  6. I have great empathy for Melissa and the many Wisconsin people who tried so hard and in the end failed. It has to be maddening and discouraging.

    Yes, money was decisive. Yes, Obama could've and should've shown up, at least for a few hours on one day toward the end, to show solidarity. I suspect the outcome would've been better had Russ Feingold run against Walker.

    The FDR's New Deal coalition started coming apart in the 1960's. By the time Reagan ran for president in 1980 it was no more. Many farmers then and now are quite affluent, having benefited so long from Democratic programs and policies. Many of them accept the money with one hand and vote Republican with the other, all the while disparaging big government and the very programs that make them well off.

    Farmers and rural people, except in the most desperate times like the depths of the Great Depression, tend to be conservative and reactionary. They can afford to be because as long as they can keep their land, they can weather bad times on food they can grow, hunt, trap and fish for. They can burn wood they get off the land for heat in winter, and so on.

    City and suburban paycheck workers, including blue-collar workers, union members or not, have a completely different situation. They are utterly dependent on a job, on a paycheck, to survive. Without a paycheck, government help is their salvation. You don't go deer hunting in the wilds of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. You don't chop down trees for winter heat in Philadelphia's parks. You don't raise chickens and keep a cow in inner-city Detroit or the south side of Chicago.

    So, there's a dichotomy of interest that undermines Democratic solidarity. It's easily intensified and exploited politically with wedge issues and the politics of division and resentment. That includes pandering to racists.

    Take those ingredients, stir in millions of dollars and plenty of high-energy lying, and you get what happened in Wisconsin a couple of weeks back. There's nothing too surprising or the least bit admirable about it. And no, I don't believe for a minute that a whole lot of Wisconsin people decided that while Walker might be a lying, crooked snake in the grass, he didn't actually do anything illegal, so he shouldn't be thrown out of office. Maye a few bought into that, but I'm skeptical about it being decisive.

    Melissa and others like her can take pride in having given it her best effort. Politics ain't bean bag, and it's not played out in Hollywood, where endings tend to always be happy ones. She should remember that what goes up comes down, and that what goes around comes around.

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    1. I live in an apt. complex where a lot of folks are retired or are on disability - or both. Like the farmers, they accept the money with one hand and vote Republican with the other. Of course, some are ex-felons and can't even vote, but they hate our socialist government anyway.

      I know you, along with most others, feel strongly that Obama should have made an appearance but I'm just not sure in my mind that it would have made any difference - not just because of the obscene amount of money that was raised for Walker (which in my mind should make people more than a little suspicious). Clearly there were other problems as referred to in Part I: a weak candidate, lack of organization, lack of financing from the Democratic Party and the unions themselves. Even Melissa talks about having to make their own signs and not receiving a single phone call from the union.

      I tend to agree with you about voting for a man who is a lying snake in the grass not having done anything illegal (his whole administration is crooked for God's sake). That alone should have been reason enough to vote against him. However, I still think a lack of organization and a lack of education, i.e., getting the message out, played a huge role in this. Maybe too many people, including the organizers, let the money thing intimidate them to such an extent that they felt from the get-go that they didn't have a chance. This, of course, is pure speculation on my part, but obviously the money had a psychological impact as well as making it possible for the Walker forces to buy those huge signs and inundate the airwaves with advertisements.

      Frankly, I wish I hadn't even bothered with Part I but I was almost finished with it when I received Melissa's moving account, so I decided to go ahead with it. In my mind, though, I think Melissa's observations are much more powerful than anything some pundits have to say.

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