By Kristine Mattis
And as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end
That bullshit is bullshit, it just goes by different names …Paul Weller (The Jam)

Scott Walker's triumph reflects not only the enduring power of money in US politics, but the confusion among voters in all parts of the nation, and a general disgust with Democratic party politics due to numerous betrayals.
We all know the old Albert Einstein adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. What does that say about Wisconsin? June 5th 2012 saw an exact rematch of the 2010 gubernatorial election between Republican Scott Walker and Democrat Tom Barrett – and the exact same result, the only difference being that Walker won by an even wider margin than before.
While pundits have been pontificating about the causes of such a seemingly absurd victory by Scott Walker after the enormous groundswell of citizens fighting for sixteen months against the governor and his Tea Party Republican administration, most of the discussion has been shallow and fraught with inaccuracies. Furthermore, mere speculation on the causes of the Walker win only point to the ease with which our society retreats back to often unfounded conventional wisdom. Walker outspending Barrett 7 to 1, an ignorant electorate hell bent on voting against their own interests, and poor “messaging” by the Democratic party/candidate may all have played a part in the crushing Walker win, but these observations only scratch the surface of the problems facing Wisconsin, the country, and the world and serve to fuel the media’s incessant focus on the horse race. This insistence on focusing on the superficial always serves, by design, to impede the discourse on substantive issues. Continue reading »


