I think all this constant dwelling on big money being responsible for this loss is a cop-out. We are living in a society dominated by tremendous wealth.
Wealth is going to dominate politics until people understand that they are more powerful than all this wealth combined— if they get organized.
This wealth in politics is being used as an excuse to evade discussing what kind of people’s movement is required to overcome Wall Street’s dominance.
Working people need their own political party.
If wealth is the reason politicians like Scott Walker (and Obama and Romney and on and on…) win we might as well give up right now.
If wealth is the reason for these people to keep winning how do we explain the success of the old Wisconsin Progressive Party of “fighting Bob La Follette” or the tremendous success of the socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party of Floyd Olson, Elmer Benson and John Bernard?
No one in politics has ever raised more money from the Wall Street interests than Barack Obama who promised “hope” and “change.”
Money does not assure “change.”
The fact of the matter is labor “leaders” serving as Democratic Party hacks helped to undermine the struggles of the people in Wisconsin by pushing people out of the streets and into the arms of the Democratic Party whose goals and objectives were the exact same thing— albeit derived from using different methods— to drive down the standard of living of working people as a way to force workers to shoulder the cost of Wisconsin’s budget problems which result from the perverted priorities established by both Democrats and Republicans who are squandering our tax-dollars on these senseless, immoral, illegal, unconstitutional dirty imperialist wars for occupation instead of using the wealth of our Nation to fund human needs now with a collapsing capitalist economy requiring massive government universal social programs.
The Republicans set out to smash the working class in Wisconsin. The Democrats set out to cripple the working class movement… how could a crippled working class movement beat Scott Walker and the Republicans by voting for the very Democratic Party that crippled them?
We can’t win against Wall Street by complaining that they have too much money and wealth unless we confront the fact that we need a political party that isn’t afraid to wage campaigns in which the platform calls for re-ordering priorities away from war and military spending and directing the resulting peace dividends towards meeting the pressing needs of the people combined with a call for redistributing this wealth which working people created in the first place, not only through various schemes of progressive taxation— tax the hell out of the rich; but by placing the mines, mills and factories under public ownership and control. Instead of allowing Wall Street to close and demolish mines, mills and factories we need to be taking over these mines, mills and factories producing based on human needs not maximum profits for Wall Street coupon clippers.
The Democrats, including Kucinich are crying about how they were beat by wealth— and it is very sad to see Jill Stein follow Kucinich’s lead in focusing on wealth as being the determining factor in this Wisconsin election while evading the facts.
The FACT is that unless working people organize their own political party along the lines of the old Wisconsin Progressive Party and the old socialist Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party which will reflect the goals, objectives AND priorities of people demonstrating in the streets, working people are going to suffer defeat after defeat.
Even if Tom Barrett and the Democrats would have won the day in Wisconsin, working people would have lost had they agreed to negotiate a lower standard of living.
Wall Street measures its victories by counting its money; working people measure their victories with how much their standard of living improves.
Tom Barrett wasn’t defeated by Scott Walker’s Wall Street wealth. Tom Barrett was defeated because he and the Democrats with help from corrupt and conniving labor leaders who often back the same candidates as ALEC crippled the only movement that could have— and eventually will— defeat Scott Walker: the working class movement.
Had Tom Barrett had the courage— and in Barrett’s case I think the issue is having the guts and the courage because he is in fact liberal minded— to speak truth to power by explaining how financing these dirty wars is robbing the states of needed funds and calling for a new set of priorities in this country he would have united the people of Wisconsin around a real progressive agenda for real change and he would have won… instead Tom Barrett caved to Obama and insisted that he would restore bargaining rights for workers so they could bargain away their lives and livelihoods… only the most muddle-headed, bungling booby-head would ever think that this is the way to win an election against Scott Walker and his Wall Street backers.
In fact, the Democrats never intended to win this fight in Wisconsin.
Keep in mind… it is the same worthless labor “leaders” who led working people into this set-back in Wisconsin who are counseling a vote for Obama which will lead to the exact same thing working people are getting in Wisconsin whether Obama wins or loses: a reduction in living standards for the working class as the wealth of this country keeps getting pissed away on wars. Wars that the Wall Street merchants of death and destruction profit from. When Wall Street profits working people suffer.
Some people want us to stay focused on big money in politics while evading the fact that when it comes to elections there are more of US then of THEM. All the money in the world can’t defeat a working class united for peace, social and economic justice.
Money did not get Scott Walker re-elected; the Democrats did.