recall petitions

Wisconsin progressives have watched with disgust as Republicans and their minions have turned last year's million-plus signatures on various recall petitions into a set of McCarthyesque black lists. Or maybe it's more like a set of Nixonian "enemies lists." In either case, any Wisconsin resident who signed a petition to recall any Republican from Scott Walker on down last year has since been put at risk of being singled out -- and called out -- by these scurrilous political opportunists.

Sometimes you can follow the bread crumbs through the dark forest of politics and find clues to what's really going on. Today's example is the word "disenfranchisement."

If you're disenfranchised, you have in the political context been deprived of voting, either legally or illegally (although "legal" disenfranchisement may be the result of cynical political manipulation, at least until courts rule on the matter). Historically, disenfranchisement in this country has been a condition afflicting categories of voters including racial, ethnic and economic class. Felons, too, have been disenfranchised, either in whole or part, because once a bad guy you're always a bad guy, according to some.

But now, the word has been hijacked by conservatives who are applying it not just to a narrow category or set of categories of citizens, but to Republicans in general.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' -- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

Good day, class. Today we're discussing the Republican penchant for rearranging the English language to suit its rhetorical needs. Lately that practice has been getting out of hand, what with "death panels" and "food stamp presidents" and worse. But the eye-opening Republicanese of the moment is the intentional misuse of the word "disenfranchisement."

This is as when bloggers and numerous letter writers to newspapers -- echoing blast-fax GOP talking points and wingnut talk radio -- claim their vote is being taken away illegally because of the recall process. For instance, Mr. Chris Bryan of Wauwatosa recently wrote the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and complained: "I helped vote Walker into office, and now my vote is being canceled and made meaningless outside of the normal election process."

You can try to cross the police, governor, but the police are going to hold the line.

Aside from the great news that the petition drive to recall Scott Walker and Rebecca Kleisfisch has within two days achieved a significant proportion of the necessary number of signatures, with nearly two months to go, the other great news is that petition drives are happening everywhere. And we mean everywhere.

For example, police officers in one of the state's largest cities started right out holding a petition drive, sharing food around and collecting a batch of signatures from their ranks seeking the ouster of the Republican governor and his lieutenant. [I'll refrain from naming the particular city, so that the police union can make its own announcement, in due course.]

Police, of course, are among the short list of public workers whose unions were exempted by Walker from his union-busting bill. Why? Because, as he said in his own words, he was afraid trying to bust police and firefighter unions along with the rest would lead to serious public disruption.