My former Milwaukee Journal colleague Paul G. Hayes - - the paper's enviroment, science and energy reporter - - was the best writer there for many of its best years, and he showed his mettle again with a Facebook posting yesterday which I am reposting below, with his permission.
Scott Walker not only is the most boring man in public life -- what books does he read? what poems does he commit to memory? what music moves him to tears? where is his sense of beauty, of justice? of mystery? -- but he is the most dangerous of the 19 Republican candidates, more dangerous than even Ted Cruz, because Cruz is aware of the fraud he has invented of himself.
But Walker has been committed to a vision of Ronald Reagan that he adopted as an adolescent and purified from the real man -- the one who peddled Chesterfield cigarettes on the back of magazines in the 1930s -- to a present Christian saint, unimpeachable and without error. He has been driven by this from adolescence.
And now he has formed a shining vision of himself, imparted from afar, from God himself, that blurs the boundaries between God, Reagan and Walker.
This so drives the man that nothing will stand in the way of his divine right to the presidency. No real evidence that he is fallible or even incompetent will deter him. Only a massive awakening of the public to the peril he poses not only to democracy and progressive liberalism, but to responsible conservatism rooted in reality and governed by law will do it.
He is a menace, not self-constructed for petty politics as most of the other scoundrels, but because he has heard the voice of God. He is no longer in charge of his will. He is focused on a divine mission. He is marching toward the light. Watch out.
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| Hayes, and Martha Bergland, reading in 2014 at the Downtown Milwaukee Public Library from their biography of Wisconsin naturalist and scientist Increase Lapham. |
Great description of Walker. Spot on. Walker is indeed so convinced that he is on a mission from God that he indeed is dangerous because his God is one of his self- making............not the God that most of us have a relationship with.
ReplyDeleteHorseshit. He's just another grifter asshole.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mr. Rowen. I also appreciate the link provided to Mr. Hayes' very nice February 13th piece. I encourage your readers to view and share it.
ReplyDeletePaul Hayes is correct that Walker is dangerous. Apparently just meeting the guy leaves an indelible impression on people. He just sucks people in and they somehow can't help themselves. It's the way Walker says things and makes them so believable in the moment. But, after you really think about what he says (which not enough people do), you realize it makes no sense or it wouldn't really work in the real world.
ReplyDeleteGlad to post Paul's words.
ReplyDeleteAlways a pleasure to read material that is eloquently written and fact based. My ancestors were from Prairie du Chien (Crawford Co.), and the few times I have had the opportunity to visit Wisconsin I fall in love with her every time. What a beautiful countryside, especially in the winter when virtually every bend in the road is postcard perfect.
ReplyDeleteIt is truly one of the biggest disappointments in my life to see Wisconsin take the road she has taken. Scott Walker. Man o man has WI lost its way. Our Wisconsin ancestors were generous people for the most part, very community based. I hope someday WI finds its way back to the greatness that it once was.
Jake and Elwood Blues were on a "mission from God" as well, and look where it got them.
ReplyDeleteI would rather have Elwood make decisions of state rather than walker.
At least when Jake and Elwood did their crimes, it was to help the poor and the people who helped to raise them.
DeleteThat all may be, but he's no Greg Stilson....
ReplyDeletethanks, Mr Hayes, and Mr Rowen---
ReplyDeletehere's my considered opinion of Scott Walker, in the form of a brief video
titled 'Governor Wanker Fights The Terrorists'--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPK9DxBkhpo
You believe Walker in the way you believe a pathological liar: They believe their own lie. For both, there is no physical manifestation of deception like blinking or turning away or fidgeting because neither believes they are deceiving. I wish I could state my name. I'm afraid to do so, because I believe Walker is also vindictive as he carries out the will of God. Isn't that scary?
ReplyDeleteYes. Thank you, Messrs. Hayes and Rowen. As a fifth-generation Wisconsinite now nearing his 60s, I never dreamed of the day that I would be ashamed of my state, but under Scott Walker and his rich, right-wing cronies, I now am. And I fear for the future of my state and nation, as well as of democracy itself in both.
ReplyDeleteLest any thinking, progressive person be tempted to ridicule and laugh off Walker, we should all remember how many of us did so regarding Ronald Reagan, Phyllis Schlafly, and George W. Bush. Mr. Hayes justly notes how while Walker is indeed out of touch with reality and logic, he is a True Believer dangerously skilled at peddling his poisonous, simplistic solutions to complex problems and at getting "ordinary" people bewildered at how things have gone so far downhill in America since 1981 or so to target the very people with whom they should be standing in solidarity and uniting to depose oligarchs like Walker.
As Mr. Hayes concludes: "[Scott Walker] is a menace, not self-constructed for petty politics as most of the other scoundrels, but because he has heard the voice of God. He is no longer in charge of his will. He is focused on a divine mission. He is marching toward the light. Watch out."
Yes. Let's stop him -- *now* -- before he, like someone else who used tactics like his in 1930s Germany, forces all of the rest of us irreparably into terrifying darkness.
Scott Enk
Hales Corners, Wisconsin
senk8105@sbcglobal.net
Twitter: @senkwrites