This Week In The Laboratories Of Democracy

(Permanent Musical AccompanimentTo This Post)

Welcome back to our weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done and where god has mercy, on them that has been slandered and humiliated.

We begin this week, and will spend most of our time, with Scott Walker, the twice-elected goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, and with the very strange doings in the state capitol building in Madison, where music has been declared a public nuisance, and the old people who sing it declared dangers to the public order.

We should explain.

Ever since Walker began his campaign to turn Wisconsin into a client state for various corporations, which is to say, practically since he was elected in 2010, and certainly since he was reaffirmed in office a year later, people who don't necessarily enjoy being residents of a corporate client state have been gathering in the rotunda of the capitol building to sing various songs of opposition and resistance. They call themselves the Solidarity Singers, and they apparently have become something of an annoyance to Scott Walker, probably because none of them own a mining company, so, this week, his pals in the legislature sic'ced his capitol police on the singers, busting the lot of them, including elderly men and women, and the odd journalist who happened to be hanging about.

State Sen. Bob Jauch was equally indignant. "It's just so unnecessary," he said. "There are more important issues in the state of Wisconsin than as to whether people are singing. Since when is that threatening? You can bring in a gun in the capitol if it's concealed but you can't come into your capitol if you're singing?"

This strikes me as a very good question, since not even my singing ever killed anyone, though several comas have been induced.

Many of those arrested were elderly women, who were put in hand restraints behind their backs and taken to the police headquarters in the basement. Most returned a short time later to give interviews to the media. The Mic 92.1 FM reportsthat The Devil's Advocates Radio show hosts Mike Crute and Dominic Salvia were "swept up" in the arrests. The media line at the Department of Administration was not answered, and no one returned a request for comment. One of those ticketed, Irving Smith, said the police were respectful as they arrested people. The protesters continued to sing "We Shall Overcome" as they were processed.

This being Wisconsin, where most of the progressive notions of the 20th century were born, which is why Walker and his various sugar-daddies are trying to roll them back in the 21st, there are old rules and traditions that were put in place to make sure the state capitol was not garrisoned against the people and their right, however musically they exercise it, to petition their government for a redress of grievances. The ACLU of Wisconsin, which won an injunction against the capitol police in response to an earlier spate of arrests, considers this latest action a question of fat men with clubs squeezing through a loophole.

Under the new permitting policy, groups as small as four were forced to obtain prior permission from the government before they engaged in expression "for the purpose of actively promoting any cause." The new rules also prohibited people from gathering in the Capitol for any performance, ceremony, presentation, meeting or rally without a permit. In his 47-page decision, Judge Conley wrote that the Capitol's "design was intended to embody... the pursuit of fair and open government informed by an educated, politically involved citizenry and the 'Wisconsin idea.'"


Let us leave, singing our songs, and move along to the newly insane state of North Carolina where the state legislature has decided that the lovely city of Asheville should no longer control its own water supply. But, don't worry, because the Republicans in a state legislature that's already gone monkey-wild on the topics of voter-suppression and what ladies may do with their ladyparts, has assured us that privatization of such public assets is the furthest thing from its mind.

The city and its surrounding areas have battled for decades over water rights. "Asheville has a history of using water as a weapon against its neighbors," McGrady said. "That has precipitated several interventions by the legislature." He accused the city of "scare tactics" in its opposition to the bill, calling its accusations of unfair treatment "poppycock." "They're just not telling the whole truth. This isn't about privatization. It's about protecting a valuable resource," McGrady said. "The equities are not with the city of Asheville. The city has been a bad neighbor."

Because nothing says equity like taking power away from elected officials and handing it over to an unaccountable, appointed board. Why would anyone think that, perhaps, the pea is no longer under any of the shells here?

Henderson County, which represents 0.02 percent of the system's water accounts, would get 20 percent of board seats - "the same number as Asheville that has 56 percent of the water accounts," Fisher noted. Henderson County is represented by McGrady and Senate Rules Committee Chairman Tom Apodaca. Fisher said the city has invested more than $70 million in the system since 2005, and the resulting water quality has been high enough to attract two breweries and hundreds of jobs in recent years. "We do not need to tear down this economic engine that is working," she said. The bill doesn't just apply to Asheville. Its broadly drawn qualifications could force water system handovers in several municipal areas across the state. More than 60 cities have passed resolutions opposing the measure. "This is not about Asheville," Fisher said. "Cities will see the same legislation coming to their towns."

Oh, that's why. Never mind.

Let's swing south now to Florida, where Governor Bat Boy has joined in John Roberts' Day Of Jubilee, and where nothing at all is About Race, [link href='' target='_blank' link_updater_label='external']like, ever.

The lawsuit became moot after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June. That decision halted enforcement of a federal law that required all or parts of 15 states with a history of discrimination in voting to get federal approval before changing the way they hold elections. The groups fighting the state had argued that Florida's efforts to remove suspected non-U.S. citizens needed to be cleared by federal authorities first because five counties in the state had been subject to the federal law. Also on Wednesday, the U.S. District Court in Tampa lifted a five-month old stay that had prevented Florida from sending any new names of potential non-U.S. citizens to county election officials. Secretary of State Ken Detzner said in court filings the state plans to resume removal of voters even though the validity of previous state lists has been questioned.

Thus does the Day Of Jubilee continue. Bureaucrats are freed from the tyrannical chains of accurate paperwork.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

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