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Cutting Cheese

By on May 31, 2012

Meanwhile back in Wisconsin, someone has been cutting the cheese.

‘Cutting the cheese’ was an expression popular in my days at boy scout camp when someone emitted a smelly fecal odor in the ‘mess’ room. It used to get a few snickers when the charge was leveled against the offending person, but few in Madison or Oshkosh have been snickering in recent weeks.

The reason: an obscene amount of money has poured into the recall election of Governor Scott Walker and others, $62 million total according to figures from the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and ABC news. Half of this money has come from Walker for Walker, and much of it has come from out-of-state. In turn this has stimulated Labor to turn on the outside money of its own pouring millions more into the campaigning.

The net result is that the state has become a test battleground for the November presidential election. What was supposed to be a referendum on the tactics of newly elected cost-cutting governor has now become an ideological fight-to-the death of national proportions. It’s the plutocrats versus Labor and no body is flinching.

 

As a showcase for the politics of single-mindedness, Wisconsin has no equal. Democracy and public service seem to be the big losers here. It’s all high stakes gambling. I wonder how many citizens of Wisconsin would like to be reassigned to another state. Tuesday it all comes to an end, except for the hard-feelings. Until then the atmosphere in Madison is reportedly pretty odoriferous. Gas masks out, local residents, until the mass political cheese-cutting is finally over. That said, if the money is being spent locally, it makes one of hell of a big stimulus package, doesn’t it?

 

 

 

Tom Godfrey

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