Vindictive Walker message to city and county he hates
You made my life miserable when I was County Executive, you tried to defeat and recall me, and I openly tried to turn the state against you, but now let me really sock it to you:
UW-M to take biggest UW system hit
4 comments:
Sorry, I have to question your take on this. Scott Walker never had the ability nor power to turn the rest of the state against against Milwaukee. This was not done by Walker. This was done by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and WTMJ-AM.
The hometown newspaper and radio station COULD have provided balanced coverage and not just repeated Scott Walker's talking points. They COULD have provided analysis and given alternative views a platform. They COULD have even pointed out how the rhetoric being thrown around was divisive and designed to create an "us-versus-them" mentality which undermined Milwaukee County.
It is disappointing when people make Scott Walker to be some 800 lb all-powerful gorilla. Scott Walker is nothing without the amplification of Milwaukee's largest media outlets and the reverberation of the rest of Wisconsin's right wing media echo chamber.
We have a divide and conquer governor because the media has shamelessly promoted this and has largely abandoned any meaningful coverage of the economic disaster that is being perpetrated on Milwaukee. Walker may have a roll in creating the message, but he did not craft the dog-whistle racist attacks alone. He is doing the work of ALEC and the Koch brothers.
Scott Walker had/has no power to screech his divisive hatred across the state. He needed a compliant mainstream media to do this. They carried the message. They had other choices.
So who's really to blame? What really needs to change?
Answer: The media coverage that promotes Scott Walker.
Shameless Pro-Repug Propaganda:
We are now seeing the Republicans proclaim that they cannot pass an arena deal without democratic support. Given the extremism of the current budget and given that Republicans want to destroy the state's revenue base with tax cuts; no Democrat should be able to justify getting in bed with the Republicans on subsidies for the Bucks.
The usual media outlets are uncritically catapulting the propaganda that it is the Democratic Party's job to get behind an arena plan that they were not allowed to participate in drafting. The stage is being set. We may not see a deal -- fine by me -- but the Republicans and their media allies are going to blame this failure on Democrats!
I would prefer the Bucks leave Milwaukee. They have not been competitive since Lew Alcindor (Later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) was on the team. They do not creating meaningful economic development. The business the benefit when the Bucks are in town do not pay living wages to their employees. Most of these workers can only get part-time hours and only those getting tips can potentially earn decent wages.
A new arena will not make the Bucks a competitive, just like the Bradley Center did not make them a competitive team, just like Miller Park did not make the Brewers a competitive team. Sports franchises are a net-loss to taxpayers.
It is disgraceful to watch the media mindlessly repeat the Republican talking point that it is up to the Democrats to get this deal done. Divisive politics has consequences. Huge cuts to other areas of the budget make it irrational for Democrats to support hundreds of millions of subsidies to millionaire owners of sports franchises of any type.
What we are seeing is a very dishonest narrative being laid out. The Republicans have crafted a crap budget and a crap proposal for a new arena in Milwaukee, but it will be the Democrats that get blamed when the Bucks leave, because the media will tell us they should have been bipartisan and put their political differences aside. This is just another lie, but this is what is being promoted across the state as noooooze right now.
AP misidentified the campus in the initial article. UW-Madison will take the biggest hit.
UW-Madison has the largest dollar amount cut while UW-Milwaukee has the largest percentage cut. I guess that's Walker's plan for improving higher education in WI, proof is in the pudding.
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