On the Defeat in Wisconsin

The evidence is that democracy isn't safe in the media environment that we've got.   You can't allow mass media to feed the people on lies 365 days of the year and expect that they'll sift through those in order to make a rational decision that will be effectively beneficial.  I know that at this point the "more speech" dolts, who have been as useful to the corporate oligarchs as anyone, will bleat out their faith that "the good ideas will win."   At this point in our history that's just another lie because the experience of the past forty years proves that they ususally won't.  

While I acknowledge the efforts of those who worked to oust Walker and the Republican-fasicists, it was bound to fail in our media environment, especially with the time and other factors built into the recall process.  It was a losing battle from the start because of those.

Liberals will have to face the reality that the Jeffersonian slogans of free speech absolutism have been gamed by the fascists in their favor.  The oldfasioned conservatives who would deprive people of porn have been replaced by the fascists on the Supreme Court who will use "free speech" to destroy self-government of, by and for the people.   It is the courts who have handed the country over to corporate fascism, far more than the congress has.   They will let the porn merchants make tons of money with which to fund more Republican-fascist politicians and to buy seats for them.  That's just a bonus for their side in the process. The idea that the porn industry is some bulwark of liberalism is stupendously stupid, what they promote, people as objects for use, is the opposite of liberalism.   Free speech absolutism as "liberalism" is suicidal.   Democracy, liberalism, live on the the faith that objectifying people is what we struggle against and accurate information.  It dies by the cynical denial of moral values that so many confuse for liberalism.

Liberals will either wise up to the world as it is or liberals will never regain power.  I'm not optimistic on that point.