“When the madness is directed towards the likes of you and me,
Then our blindness may be lifted and we might begin to see.
For when others are afflicted, with the scourge that has no end,
Then we practice our denial — and the purging, we defend.So the powers and the peoples of the nations of this Earth
Could be fully in connivance — or denial of the hurt…
And even, in our hubris, in our information age,
We are blinded by our bias — and at petty issues rage.So the workers were divided and they voted Nazis in,
And so many were the workers, who paid dearly for this sin!
And we see now in Wisconsin, there’s a Walker riding high,
And there’s cash enough from coffers to propagate the lie.”
(excerpted)
Arjun Jalah
Sometimes you would give anything not to be right! When I started writing this diary three weeks ago, I predicted that Scott Walker would win the recall election for governor in Wisconsin. Walker, with unlimited corporate money, was challenged by a massive people’s movement when he outlawed most collective bargaining rights in what was usually considered a progressive state. I knew, with the certainty of a cynic that that much money would out-weigh people power. It was the fight between John Henry and the steel driving machine all over again. Yet, there I was, Tuesday night, praying that the people power would, in the end, win. Not. Walker beat Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate 53%-46%, winning by a whopping 6% points. As Ed of the Ed Show so colorfully pointed out, there was no way to put lipstick on that pig. Or as Chris Hedges had said a couple of weeks earlier: “We lost. They won.”
These happenings on Madison’s Capitol Square are exhilarating — and exhausting.