BartBlog

Author’s note: I’m not putting a spin on this…it really is like this at the Capitol square in Wisconsin.

Excerpt:
The call reportedly arrived from Susan Sarandon. Pizza for the protesters, the voice said. It was Tuesday, March 1, and by then Ian’s Pizza on State Street in Madison, Wisconsin, was barely managing to keep up with the orders, while reopening for normal business operations.

Since Feb. 15th, Ian’s has been flooded with orders in the form of donations from all over the world. In they came, from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, from Cairo, Egypt, Morocco, Haiti, Turkey, Belgium, Uganda, China, New Zealand, and even a research station in Antarctica – more than 50 countries around the globe. Ian’s couldn’t make pizza fast enough.

While there is no way to verify where all of the orders came from, it is clear that the generosity of distant strangers with credit cards paid for it. Nick Martin and Staci Fritz, assistant managers at Ian’s agreed, “February was our best month ever. We are doing two to three times more business daily, and sales are up more than two times for February.”

Nick mentioned that Feb. 26th was the busiest day in the history of Ian’s, and that “we went through 3 tons of flour! It is difficult to understand the sheer volume.”

Staci added that, “While we do get occasional calls from celebrities or from overseas, most of the people that donate pizza to the people around the Capitol are just ordinary Americans that want to contribute to the same cause that the demonstrators are here for.” Ian’s takes donations by phone for accounting purposes, according to Staci, “in order to ensure that whatever we take in terms of dollars directly corresponds to what we deliver to the Capitol.”

The number to place pizza orders at Ian’s is 608-257-9248.

Lt. Dave McCaw of the Madison police department said, “there has been very little litter, other than protesters abandoning signs for whatever reason, and usually someone will pick them up.”

Regarding crime and vandalism, Lt. McCaw stated that “there have been no arrests that I know of. As a matter of fact, ordinary crimes such as car break-ins are way down since the protests began. My fellow officers have been assisting a lot of people who are lost, such as children who get separated from their parents in the crowds. If this were a football game celebration with the same amount of people, detox and the jail would be full, but we have had none of that with this demonstration. It has been very peaceful.”

As expected, right-wing and corporate media is beginning to paint a false picture of the demonstrators in Madison as being unruly, unemployed, homeless, dirty and disrespectful of the Capitol. A simple visit there clearly shows otherwise.

Dave Ornstein and Dave O’Connell, both firefighters from Milwaukee, were on their third day of attending the rally as of Tuesday, March 1st. Both agreed that they are standing in “solidarity” with fellow public workers. Ornstein said, “as firefighters we have a sense of community, and even though we are exempt from the collective bargaining restrictions in the bill, our fellow public workers are not and if we let this happen, I know we’ll be next.”

O’Connell added, “this bill will affect not only public workers, but also all surrounding people. It affects the standard of living of all people as a whole. We are here on our own volition, against our own union, because even our local union supported Gov. Walker in the election. I think it means something to be able to stand up for what I believe as an individual as well as a member of our community. You can call me an anarchist for that. Besides, I’m kinda diggin’ the free pizza…” (He was kidding, I think).

As night fell on March 1st, some demonstrators remained. On an amplified microphone, Matt Curry was asking CNN why they don’t interview the police and firefighters instead of celebrities. Matt, a political science and economics major at UW-Madison has been at the Capitol every day since February 16th. Matt slept in the Capitol building for 7 nights and is well aware of the negative reports in the media regarding the activists that remain in the building.

According to Matt, “it is absolutely not true that we have trashed the Capitol building. In fact, we have assisted the clean up crew every night and thanked them every night. We have picked up after ourselves and cleaned up the restrooms. We have mopped the floors. We had hand sanitizer dispensers everywhere. Everyone who wanted to speak on the public mic was asked to use hand sanitizer before doing so. All of the signs on the walls were hung with painters tape so as to not leave residue. There was a medic station, child day care, a food court, sleeping quarters…kind of like a little city, until the police stopped allowing those things in.”

In other words, Matt may have described a sense of camaraderie and purpose that you may struggle to find in most American cities, possibly anywhere else in this country. Of course, a lot of people may fall for the “divide and conquer” rhetoric that politicians and the corporate media use to try to pit working class Americans against one another. But the truth is that the protests in Wisconsin are bringing out something not seen in a long time – solidarity and a sense of community.

Thank you for that, Scott Walker, and thank you for reenergizing the progressive base here in Wisconsin.

Read more, get links, video and a slideshow here: Madison Independent Examiner – Madison protests bring out solidarity and sense of community.