Heart of Darkness

“He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable.” Joseph Conrad

It’s the day after the election and the last thing I want to do is write about politics, but I feel I should, even though doing so is like being trapped in a port-a-potty on a sweltering August day.

An outhouse is the perfect description for the debased American political environment: foul smelling and dirty, an affront to the senses, watch where you step and try not to touch anything. 

The big news is that Scott Walker escaped recall in Wisconsin, in a campaign dominated by money. Organized labor (unfortunately, that’s labor with a small “l”) drove the recall effort, but labor was outspent on TV, print and social media advertising by a 7-to-1 margin -- with three quarters of that money reportedly coming from outside the state.

Walker’s claim to infamy lies in his successful push to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees, and to reduce the benefits of these workers so they become as financially insecure as most private sector workers. In other words, Walker, backed by the financial muscle of the Koch brothers and other virulently conservative think tanks and political action committees, is a player in the Republican game of Race-to-the-Bottom. I don’t know what it is about American conservatives that leads them to believe that the best path to a strong economy is to make a tiny slice of the population ridiculously wealthy, and the majority of people dirt poor, working poor, or financially insecure, but this is what their policies have wrought, and all they will continue to produce until enough Americans wake from their stupor and demand an end to coddling the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

As it stands, the US ranks number one among the world’s industrialized nations in income inequality, and we’re making great strides in child poverty, too. Thank you Ronnie Reagan, Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Bill Clinton.

The Wisconsin recall pitted people power versus money power and, no surprise, money won. No wonder then that Mitt “$Robot$” Romney and Barrack “No Conviction” Obama spend hours groveling for campaign contributions from corporate chieftains, hedge fund managers and sundry billionaires. Investments made by big donors will eventually be repaid with unlimited access to powerful legislators and regulators, for this is how American democracy is played post Citizens United: every political office -- local, state, national -- carries a price tag.

This morning the mainstream media were quick to point out that since Governor Walker extracted many pounds of flesh from public employees in Wisconsin, the state has staged a remarkable budget turnaround, moving from deficit to surplus. Other factors surely contributed to Wisconsin’s move from red to black, but those are cumbersome details, unsuitable for a 30 second sound bite. For now, Walker is a conservative hero, the man who challenged evil unions and greedy public employees, the champion of small business owners, those mythic people who carry the American economy on their hardy shoulders.

Out here on the Platinum Coast, a political hack by the name of Abel Maldonado is running for Congress on the GOP ticket; Maldonado’s TV ads during the primary touted small businesses too, along with individual integrity (“backbone” is what Washington needs!) and like all politicians in a time of high unemployment, an alleged gift for creating jobs. “My father owned a farm so I know how to create jobs!” Or some such nonsense. You can bet Abel and every other Republican will employ the Wisconsin template in the general election, hammering away at public employee unions and pensions, stoking envy, dissatisfaction, and anger among likely voters.

It will be a long summer full of empty promises, grotesque pandering, false claims, and outrageous mendacity. Mitt Romney will claim that he deserves to be elected president because he made a pile of money for himself. Barrack Obama will remind voters that it was he who sent assassins to kill Osama bin Laden. “I know how to make money!” “I know how to kill terrorists!”

No doubt about it: we’re headed up the river toward the heart of darkness. Best to keep your head down and your eyes shut.