Editor’s Note: The Wisconsin defeat of Scott Walker’s recall drive yesterday reminds us, once again, of the immense power of money in American elections, a poisonous antidemocratic role that is fed by the old four-headed hydra:

• corrupt politicians who will not enact campaign reform rooting out disparities in money by making elections short, open, proportional and, above all, with a legislated egalitarian block of media time accessible to all legitimate candidates;

• a corporate media system that deliberately ignores and fails to campaign for campaign election reform, demonstrating for the millionth time that entities owned by the corporate rich will never do the public’s bidding, especially when it comes to enabling popular power, or losing obscene revenues;

• a conspicuous lack of presidential leadership to correct the situation (indeed it would be miraculous under the present system, since the White House occupants emerge from the business-as-usual cesspool and are vetted by the system to endorse its rotten rules);

• the power of well-oiled political propaganda to swing elections even in contests where the issues had been vociferously laid out for the masses to understand. Apparently, the Koch & Co. money is far more powerful than the many demonstrations by unionists and people in general. Come election day—and without ruling out vote nullifications—apparently we still  find in this nation enough idiots and clueless people willing to pull the levers against their most obvious self-interest.

The above should NOT be read as an endorsement of Tom Barret, who, while a Democrat, is a corrupt machine politician who even in the heat of the campaign was sending code signals to its patrons that a program of  “responsible austerity” was the only way out of the crisis. Coming from a Democrat, the pseudo opposition to Republicans and business priorities in general, such pronouncements should not surprise us.—P. Greanville Continue reading »