I don't suppose I need to ask how this qualifies as "moving to the center". Especially when you consider the latest poll results. It doesn't, of course, except on Wall Street and inside the Village Bubble where life is beautiful all day long and all you have to do is smile.

What seems to be happening is that the elite corporate rich have decided that the best way to keep their oligarchy viable is to keep us busy playing Fantasy Politics, which, like fantasy baseball or fantasy football, means getting invested in the game and players on the board without actually being able to affect the outcome of anything real. The Fantasy Elections declare the winners but the policies don't actually change because the plutocracy that's running things doesn't want them to.

By confusing the meaning of "center", a candidate can talk "populism" when s/he runs, then vote for the very corporate policies s/.he opposed once s/he has won while fighting off accusations of hypocrisy and opportunism. None of it matters anyway. It's just a game with politicians standing in for tight ends and centerfielders.

IOW, Fantasy Politics is the new Roman circus - a spectacle of misdirection with no meaning whose use is to keep us entertained while the Imperial Senate arranges for the monied aristocracy to loot whatever is left in the country worth looting. The media does its part by pretending shit like this is "news", and the rest of us do our part by pretending it matters.

It doesn't, any more than trading your catcher for a pitcher matters in fantasy baseball. It's all a ruse. Of course, it's not all that entertaining once the stakes are removed and you realize it doesn't matter but they're betting you'll be so fascinated by the game that you won't notice it's fixed. And given recent history, which of you would be prepared to bet they're wrong?

If that sounds to you like the response to Scott "Herbert Hoover" Walker's "Off with their heads!" moment in Wisconsin isn't raising my hopes for a Wake Up! call by much, you're right. It doesn't. It's heartening but has all the unfortunate earmarks of a blip: if Walker backs down (and he's under pressure from his own party to do so) everyone will celebrate a victory and go back to sleep patting each other on the back.

Can we use Wisconsin to spread the Word? Yes, but there's a price.

For the right's agenda to succeed, the rest of us need to keep sleepwalking down the ramps to the Potterville that awaits us.

When we snooze, we lose. It's time to wake the fuck up.