Time for a Political Revolution in New York, Wisconsin, and Everywhere

Lessons from the Bronx and Queens for Wisconsin Dems.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is new face of Democratic Party.
(Scott Heins/Getty Images), (In These Times)

Madison, Wisconsin — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just knocked off a leading corporatist House Democrat who did nothing for mass incarceration, social justice and human dignity during his tenure in Congress.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not come out of nowhere.

But much of corporate media and the Democratic Party can't figure out what to make of the New York congressional primary results this week.

And if you think about it for even a minute, you'll see how incredibly condescending & dismissive is this now-widespread attempt to reduce @Ocasio2018 to nothing more than demographics and an aberrational district. She ran a highly ideological campaign vehemently critical of Dems

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 29, 2018

The Democratic Socialist, which is to say the FDR-Eisenhower-LBJ Socialist, Ocasio-Cortez came from the community.

One hopes Wisconsin Democrats electing a candidate to face Gov. Scott Walker (R) listen to the community as well. Not to the Molochian call for sacrifice to the police state, and character assassination of reformists, not to a small group of people in Madison oozing slime into the political terrain because they know what's best for voters who get to ratify their typically ill-considered decision.

Listen to the community.

Miles Kampf-Lassin reports on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' win for the community, dumping the Democratic Party machine:

"Economic, social and racial dignity for working-class Americans, especially those in Queens and the Bronx. We were very clear about our message, we were very clear about our priorities and very clear about the fact that, even if you’ve never voted before, we are talking to you," (In These Times, quoting from MSNBC, Morning Joe).
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If Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were an unknown to most of the nation, she was well-known to readers of In These Times, a good and decent woman who wants to help.
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In Wisconsin, Caleb Frostman (D-Sturgeon Bay) won a special state Senate election earlier this month after Scott Walker and Republicans went to absurd lengths to block the election in the northeastern Wisconsin peninsula.

Frostman was sworn in yesterday in Sturgeon Bay. Here's what Frostman had to say.

From WLUK-TV (Green Bay):

I am ready to serve and represent the people of the 1st State Senate District and look forward to meeting with constituents across the six counties I now represent. Our shared values will guide me in my work as a State Senator, and I will fight every day to expand opportunities and help everyone in our area succeed. I look forward to hearing from community members and encourage everyone to reach out to me for assistance or to talk about how we can improve our local schools and roads, protect access to clean drinking water and our natural resources, and strengthen our local communities.

At the end of a bad two weeks for America leading into the mid-week holiday, Frostman and Ocasio-Cortez offer hope for old-fashioned democracy and decency.

Progressives Win Nationally, Wisconsin Dem Establishment Targets Reformist Gov Candidate

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — In Wisconsin the Democratic Party establishment has turned losing into an art form — knocking down progressive candidates, shooing away advice from voters and grassroots activists, pushing aside popular legislative initiatives, enacting with Republicans a prison state, and becoming a stagnant vehicle doling out patronage jobs for political parrots.

Last night, progressives proved again the folly of this approach to democratic elections and governance, (Slate), but it happened in New York and Maryland.

In New York, In These Times reports, a Bernie Sanders organizer, "28-year-old democratic socialist woman of color—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—just unseated one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress, Joe Crowley, an incumbent who hadn’t faced a primary challenger since 2004 and was angling to become Speaker of the House, (Aronoff, In These Times).

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party establishment in Wisconsin is trying to rid the field of the strongest voice against the municipal police states in Madison and Milwaukee that in part keep young and minority voters from getting too excited about state politics.

In the Maryland primary, former NAACP president Ben Jealous won after running a campaign targeting mass incarceration and abusive police.

In Wisconsin, police can kill and beat people and the reaction from liberal mayors of Milwaukee and Madison is to publicly scold the victims, but not the cops. So, the police continue operations knowing there are no consequences to assaulting and killing people. If the reader thinks this is hyperbole, you do not know Wisconsin or are likely white.

Readers looking for a report on how Wisconsin's gubernatorial primary race, (voting has begun for Aug. 14 Primary election), is shaping up as a means of getting rid of the odious incumbent Evangelical Gov. Scott Walker (R) should be alarmed.

The leading liberal newspaper is dedicating its news columns to hit pieces fed by campaign opponents to suppress early Primary voters for the leading voice against the Wisconsin police-prison state, (warning: Better not to be black or brown in Wisconsin). Flynn will walk away with the nomination if the Democratic Party establishment does not stop him. And the Party is committed to police states.

Tony Evers, the State Schools Superintendent, is leading the field, garnering the support of neo-liberal corporatists that so repelled voters in 2016, we have the current lunatic in the White House.

Evers' campaign is an anodyne array of pablum, about what one might expect from a white school bureaucrat from east-central Wisconsin, (white, white and white), with no apparent appreciation for social justice and police misconduct.

Young and minority votes have to come out to defeat Scott Walker in the general election, and the conduct of Wisconsin's liberal establishment is shaping up to be a disaster in this respect.

Capital Times Hands over News Columns, Takes Sides in Gov Democratic Primary

Matt Flynn is a candidate for the Democratic Party
nomination for Wisconsin governor. His work to reform
the criminal justice system has earned him the
opposition of the Madison Capital Times daily.

Capital Times goes bush-league

Madison, Wisconsin — Anyone wondering when the Wisconsin Democratic Party gubernatorial primary is going to get down-and-dirty can stop wondering. It's now.

Today, the Capital Times, a Madison, Wisconsin daily, delivered its news columns to oppose the most outspoken reformist of police-state Wisconsin, Matt Flynn.

The Capital Times fronted for unknown candidates, as its reporters, Katelyn Ferral and Jessie Opoien, penned a 2,500-word hit piece against Flynn, one day after absentee voting began.

The piece features political slurs by Madison State Reps. Chris Taylor and Melissa Sargent.

Who are Taylor and Sargent supporting for governor? Writers Ferral and Opoien don't say, and they don't ask.

They do note Taylor's former legislative aide is working for Tony Evers campaign, a Flynn opponent with an axe to grind, but not enough to kill a hit piece.

But Ferral and Opoien volunteer that "Flynn was adamant Monday that he would not exit the race," though Flynn is in second place in the latest Marquette Law School poll, and counts among his campaign supporters arguably the widest support across the state.

Writing a piece in a news column reporting a candidate will not exit the race is to invent a hypothetical campaign issue that does not exist except in the minds of campaign opponents.

Giving news columns in favor, or in opposition to a political campaign is considered, or used to be considered, pure taboo in a daily newspaper.

The credibility of the Capital Times news columns should proceed accordingly.