Newspeak: Wisconsin Style

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.[2]”

“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.[2]” ----George Orwelle, "1984"

Doublethink, and George Orwelle's other concept, Newspeak, is alive and well in Wisconsin.

In just the last few months, there are multiple examples of these concepts raising it rearing its ugly head with the aid of Scott Walker and his GOP allies in the state legislature, although in truth, it's been around much, much longer.

The longest running example of this propaganda machine, which predates Walker's administration by decades, is, of course, talk radio. You have a rogue's gallery of lying parasites like Charlie Sykes, Mark Belling and Vicki McKenna, who take big corporate dollars just to argue for and endlessly repeat the things that the GOP (Grand Oligarchy Party) want the listeners to believe.  Their offenses are so many and so frequent that even a multiple-author blogsite can't keep up with all of them.  Only the fact that they are part of the corporate media keeps them from being investigated for their blatant lies and in-kind political donations which never seem to get reported.

But in more recent history, things have gotten much worse and more egregious than ever before, making Richard Nixon look like a choir boy.

You have Steve Smith, CEO and President of Journal Communications, who has his place in all of the major business groups like MMAC, not only "reporting" the news, but trying to control it.  One of the most glaring examples were the repeated editorials and articles blasting the people's choice to have paid sick days in Milwaukee, but failing to mention his own involvement in having the people's voice and will crush under the self-serving corporate interest which Smith took part of.  Then again, it's nothing new for Smith to make huge profits even as he is taking away the livelihood of many people.

Another example may be occurring in Northern Wisconsin, where well-moneyed special interests, in this case, the Cline Group and WMC, who are pushing for a major relaxation in environmental protection laws so they can make some serious profits by raping the ground without restraint, as reported by the impeccable Emily Mills  What Ms. Mills does not report in her column is that there is an unconfirmed story that the Cline Group has bought out the local paper there, The Daily Press. After buying the paper, they removed the editor and a reporter, both of whom were openly skeptical of the deregulation being proposed, and replaced them with a new editor from a Minnesota mining town that the company already has great influence in.

Nothing like having the corporations which should be the subject of series of articles actually controlling what is published and what gets swept under the rug.

To help out the corporate media, or Newspeak, in being able to control the message and promote their own peculiar version of Doublethink, the state legislature and Walker's administration is being blatant in their attempts to control and limit the news which escapes from Madison.

There has been the ongoing legal battle between the people of Wisconsin and the Walker administration regarding access to the Capitol Building in Madison.  When the people took over "Our House," Walker's administration acted to violate state law and restrict access to the building.  Only after the majority of the damage has been done by Walker and his pals have they conceded to follow the law which they've broken for months.

However, for those months where they were in violation of the law, they tried to limit how much information the people themselves were able to get out by banning recording equipment, not allowing people to text or tweet things from inside the legislative chambers and other similar acts you would normally associate with other totalitarian governments like in North Korea, China, or the Middle Eastern nations.

Another glaring example is the proposal to put severe restrictions on accessibility to officials' economic interest statements.  The obvious reason for this is to protect Republican legislators who are facing recalls, like Senator Rob Cowles (R-Sin City), who has invested a lot of money in the adult entertainment industry, to put it politely.

And if information that the ruling regime does not think the public needs to know does see the light of day, rest assured that they will try to control that as well, by digging up what ever they can about the ones that dare to utter unapproved messages, no matter what extremes they need to take to do their smear work.

The best way to sum the current state of the state-run corporate media (or would it be more accurate to say the corporate-ran state-run corporate media?) would be from part of the introduction of the Outer Limits:

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure...

Is it any wonder that a growing number of people, including myself, are relying on each other instead of the media to stay informed on what is really going on in our once and future great state? It truly is a sad statement that we can no longer rely on the formerly proud and prestigious field of journalism.

It's All The Unions' Fault! Part II - The MJS Edition

As part of an ongoing series, let's take another look at the anti-union hypocrisy.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has been backing Scott Walker's assault on the working class since day one.  They are constantly parroting the false meme that "we all have to share in the pain" and call for public sector workers to basically pay twice for their benefits.  The other subsidiaries of Journal Communications have suffered similar fates.

Indeed, one could even say that MJS has led by example by laying off or forcing out many of its staff, including key reporters, columnists and editorial staff (but keeping the calumnist) and forcing the remaining staff to take considerable pay cuts.  (As one might expect, there has been a significant drop in quality of their product because of their choice, but that is another subject altogether.)

But not everyone at the daily paper has been sharing the pain. Not by a long shot.

Steven Smith, CEO and president of Journal Communications isn't quite sharing, either in the pain or in the ill-gotten loot he has amassed:

Steven J. Smith, the chairman, chief executive and president of Journal Communications Inc., received total compensation of more than $2 million last year, according to a regulatory document filed Thursday.

Smith received a salary of $752,000, bonus of $97,760, stock awards valued at $452,500, non-equity incentive plan compensation of $391,040, change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings of $312,211 and other compensation of $13,442 for a total of $2,018,953, the company's proxy statement shows.

That's up 39.7% from 2009, when Smith made $1,445,492. The biggest increase in overall pay for Smith came in the non-equity incentive plan compensation category, which was zero in 2009.

It should be noted that Smith is good buds with Scott Walker and was very supportive of first his campaign and now his attempts to tear the state apart and selling it off to the lowest bidder.

Just why should we listen to a hypocrite like Smith? And is it November yet?

Oh, That Liberal Media!

We've all heard it a million times. Whenever some news outlet reports something that conservatives don't like to deal with, they blame it on "the liberal media."

In the greater Milwaukee area, you can't go a day without hearing Charlie Sucks Sykes, Mark Belling, or any of the other hate-mongerers continuously belittling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (even though Sykes, Jeff Wagner and James Harris all work for the same parent company) or one of the local TV stations, especially when they show Scott Walker, Rebecca Kleefisch, Ron Johnson or any of the other misanthropes that we will have to deal with for the next four years as being the putzes they truly are.

Well, next time you hear someone carping about the liberal paper, tell them to shove it. No liberal paper would have done this:

That's right. Steve Smith, CEO of Journal Broadcasting (remember I told you about his ties to Walker), had his company donate $15,000 to Walker's campaign. And that doesn't count all the free air time that Walker was allowed on WTMJ-AM 620 or other favors that they did for old Scooter.

Steve Smith is sort of like the skinflint version of Rupert Murdoch, isn't he?

Cross posted at Whallah!

Through The Looking Glass, or Looking Deeper Into Scott Walker's Campaign Finance Report

Last week, I discovered some oddities about Scott Walker's recently released campaign financial report. I wasn't the only one, as one of the oddities, his campaign manager apparently not getting paid by the campaign, was covered by Cory Liebmann at Eye on Wisconsin.

As bad as those things seemed though, they weren't nearly all there was as far as peculiarities go.

As Rob at Walker's Point blogsite points out, (plus being kind enough to download the entire report onto Scribs), one peculiarity is the fact that the Journal Broadcast Group is listed on page 460 as giving an expense refund of nearly $15,000 to the campaign. What makes it so odd is that in the report there is no listing of having paid the Journal Broadcast Group anything. Nor is there anything listed in the previous report.

I find it extremely hard to believe that the JBG held on to $15,000 for over a year without paying it back, or the campaign had not asked for it in that long. Especially considering that Walker is a distant third in the money race.

So where did that money come from? When and for what purpose did the campaign supposedly give it to JBG? Or is it something altogether different?

But there's more, gentle reader. With Walker, there always seems to be more.

As I was looking at the JBG mystery, I came across another peculiarity.

Michael Grebe, who Walker proudly announced earlier this year as his campaign chairman, gave Walker's campaign $5,000 on June 29, 2009 (page 381 on Walker' report for those that are following). Interestingly, on the very next day, June 30, is when it was reported that Walker named Grebe his campaign chair.

This is where it gets really odd. And very, very convoluted.

Grebe is the CEO of the Bradley Foundation. He is also on the advisory committee for the Metro Milwaukee Association of Commerce and a Co-Chair of the Milwaukee 7.

Interestingly, Steven Smith is on the MMAC board as well as a member of the Milwaukee 7 board. Steven Smith is also the Chairman/CEO of Journal Communications (h/t to Tom Foley). Journal Communications is the parent company for Journal Broadcasting Group.

Also worth noting at this point is the fact that Scott Walker is also part of the MMAC and Milwaukee 7.

So, thus far, we know that Walker, Smith and Grebe already have tight relationships, and all three serve on at least two boards together. Grebe gives Walker a huge contribution, and is suddenly the campaign chair. On top of that, Smith, head of the largest paper in southeast Wisconsin, has one of his subsidiary groups give Walker's campaign an inexplicable campaign expense refund.

But there is still more.

As mentioned before, Grebe is the top banana at the Bradley Foundation. Also working at the Bradley Foundation is Janet Riordan, serving as their Director of Community Programs. Riordan is also Charlie Sykes' current wife.

It was recently reported on a different story, that Sykes, through his wife and other connections, is also pretty tight with Grebe and the Bradley foundation:

McBride, who had a talk show on WTMJ-AM (620), suggested that the chief could count on Sykes. Journal Communications owns both WTMJ and the Journal Sentinel.

"Sykes will probably never turn on you, not with his wife’s job, and not with the other ties he has to Bradley," she wrote. "If I was a betting person, I’d say that Sykes came up with the idea to bring (George) Kelling here in the first place."

Sykes’ wife, Janet Riordan, works for the conservative Bradley Foundation. That group paid Kelling and another consultant to oversee the search for a new MPD chief two years ago. Sykes did not return a message Friday.

Well, that certainly explains why Sykes has been repeatedly bemoaning the fact that Mark Neumann has entered the gubernatorial race, and has kept whining that Neumann should have ran against U.S. Senator Feingold again.

And Smith's role at Journal Communications would only emphasize Sykes' push for Walker, not to mention the excessively favorable reporting and editorials coming from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

It is also rather frightening to consider how much of the TV stations, radio stations and newspapers that Journal Communications own in this state. Will Neumann or Doyle or any of Walker's critics get any fair coverage? It seems unlikely.

Now, for all I know, all of this, including that mysterious expense refund, might be logically explained. However, the deeper one looks at what is going on behind the scenes, it seems more like a machination so devilish that Niccolo Machiavelli would be jealous. At the very best, it is a perfect example of how bad the "old boys network" can get.

Addendum: A follow up.