Incurious media aid Walker, corporate right's WI takeover
The far-right's relentless push by coordinated, gerrymandered GOP legislators, compliant Attorneys General and corporate servant Gov. Scott Walker for unneeded voter ID and other ballot-box restrictions in Wisconsin makes clear that their number one priority is and always has been turning the state permanently red with reliable Republican electoral college votes.
Wisconsin is a swing state and Republicans need its electoral votes to have any chance of winning the Presidency in 2016, or anytime.
Of course, deregulating big agriculture, siphoning off the groundwater, getting primo public land into private hands, freezing the minimum wage at the rock-bottom $7.25/hr. level, instituting Act 10 collective-bargaining wipeouts, right-work union devaluation, killing construction site prevailing-wages, transferring public tax credits and grants to campaign donors through the farcically-named and managed Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation while business bolts to other states are all welcome desserts for the already-fattened cats to the main course: GOP political control.
Which brings me back to a media fail which hurts the political environment and public discourse which I have posted about several times - - an example here:
The open admission that Reince Priebus had bragged that Koch interests and other insiders met with then-Milwaukee County Executive Walker 'on the shores of Lake Michigan' - - presumably in Milwaukee - - to coordinate a plan to capture and wield power.
Salon.com broke the story, and I reposted and tried to amplify it, but as far as I can tell, no other outlet, nationally or in Wisconsin, picked up the ball and ran with it.
As Salon.com framed it:
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I think we would all have known a lot more about the forces directing Wisconsin politics, and the key role the right has in mind for the Badger state and beyond, had state and national media done a better job with a reporting and public service journalism opportunity gifted to them in 2014.
Wisconsin is a swing state and Republicans need its electoral votes to have any chance of winning the Presidency in 2016, or anytime.
Of course, deregulating big agriculture, siphoning off the groundwater, getting primo public land into private hands, freezing the minimum wage at the rock-bottom $7.25/hr. level, instituting Act 10 collective-bargaining wipeouts, right-work union devaluation, killing construction site prevailing-wages, transferring public tax credits and grants to campaign donors through the farcically-named and managed Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation while business bolts to other states are all welcome desserts for the already-fattened cats to the main course: GOP political control.
Which brings me back to a media fail which hurts the political environment and public discourse which I have posted about several times - - an example here:
The open admission that Reince Priebus had bragged that Koch interests and other insiders met with then-Milwaukee County Executive Walker 'on the shores of Lake Michigan' - - presumably in Milwaukee - - to coordinate a plan to capture and wield power.
Salon.com broke the story, and I reposted and tried to amplify it, but as far as I can tell, no other outlet, nationally or in Wisconsin, picked up the ball and ran with it.
As Salon.com framed it:
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SATURDAY, MAR 8, 2014 10:32 AM MST“Wisconsin is the model”: Grover Norquist’s Tea Party scheme to crush his union enemies
At CPAC panel, RNC Chair Priebus touts "total and complete unity" between GOP, Tea Party, and Glenn Beck acolytes------------------------------------------------
I think we would all have known a lot more about the forces directing Wisconsin politics, and the key role the right has in mind for the Badger state and beyond, had state and national media done a better job with a reporting and public service journalism opportunity gifted to them in 2014.
3 comments:
This isn't about whether the media did a "good" or "bad" job. This is about a corporate media structure that marches to the same tune and is complicit with the scheme. They did not have to be co-conspirators, because they were already cheerleaders.
That is what people don't understand -- this isn't about a grand conspiracy. This is about a number of key players all with the same goal of a permanently repug/red Wisconsin. They don't have to work together, each component merely needs to act and react as opportunity arises.
So Scott Walker was shamelessly promoted by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for his entire career on the public teat -- all on the taxpayer's dime while pretending to be against government. If fact, they are big government advocates that want to use their power to enrich multinational corporate interests while imposing austerity on the masses.
Once Scott Walker was adequately pumped up by MJS/WTMJ-AM, with the rest of the state media amplifying the propaganda, Koch interests had an opportunity to jump in. This created the foundation for republican rule, likely for the rest of my life as the gerrymandering is so severe it will take impossible margins of victory to defeat them at the ballot box -- and that is if we can count on votes being accurately counted and we cannot.
So what we have is a sick perpetual feedback loop -- propaganda, right-wing "rock stars", essentially unlimited out-of-state corporate cash, pay-for-play, rigged elections, more right-wing "rock stars", rinse and repeat ad nauseam.
Folks, it wasn't incompetence nor was it enabled by a network of lazy media stooges. The error of saying otherwise is in the fact that what we are seeing is not a glitch and it will not be corrected by the media.
It is a feature of highly concentrated corporate media and the lie we were all taught in grade-school that journalism is objective.
Republicans as part of their growing aspirations have also taken over the polling place where named Republican poll workers are free to come from out-of-district and make mischief. The aggressive nature and antagonistic posture cannot be overstated.
The media had a financial interest in promoting Walker, so they could get kickbacks in ads and more media attention from Walker's national ambitions.
It's also why Walker failed so spectacularly, because once he was out of the Bubble, he was exposed as a lightweight with a ton of hypocrisy and failed policies, and who didn't give a damn for the people he allegedly "governed." The average dope in Wisconsin noticed, which is why his approval has stayed in the 30s pretty much since then. And will stay there
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