Author’s note:
As horrible and newsworthy as the events in Japan are, I hope that does not distract people from what has been accomplished in Madison, Wisconsin yesterday. Be sure to check out the slideshow at the link below.
Excerpt:
Madison, Wisconsin, a city legendary for its political activism, has raised the bar again yesterday with what may have been the largest political rally at the state Capitol in its history. While some estimates put the number of people that gathered for a pro-labor demonstration as high as 150,000, even the official estimate by the Madison police of 85,000 to 100,000 surpasses the numbers of the rallies at the peak of the anti-war movement in the 60’s. There were no arrests.
The people came to the Capitol from every corner of the Badger state – in cars, on buses and even on tractors. A few from Michigan, Minnesota and Chicago came to join the fight. Even the 14 democrats of the state senate, who had left the state in an attempt to slow down Governor Walker’s agenda, decided it was time to return.
And the message remains clear: “We, the people, have had enough!”
Despite a setback on Thursday with the passage of a bill that strips public employees of most collective bargaining rights, makes it illegal for unions to deduct fees from member’s paychecks and empowers the state to fire employees for going on strike, the number of demonstrators continues to grow.
With collective bargaining rights lost and the budget bill certain to pass, protesters are now chanting “Recall Walker!” instead of “Kill the bill!” In fact, the message has become clearer than ever. It is no longer just a legislative battle in a state with a progressive tradition. It is now, in a broader sense, a movement for democratic renewal.
The movement in Madison is seen by many as a resistance to a nation-wide assault on worker’s rights that began with the Reagan administration. The long term goal is to win the war on the middle class being waged by corporations, banks, mainstream media, Wall Street and the politicians that corporate money has bought.
The short term goal of the movement is to recall at least three, and up to eight, Republican state senators who backed the bill, shifting control of the chamber to the Democrats and restoring a system of checks and balances to what is now one-party government in Wisconsin. Ultimately, the movement seeks to remove Walker from office and set the tone for the elections in 2012.
Getting an early start, farmers from around the state arrived first, on tractors (see slideshow). The tractorcade was organized by the Wisconsin Farmers Union and Family Farm Defenders. John Peck, the group’s director, according to the Cap Times, says many of those coming to Madison are upset by the realization that Walker’s agenda is “sacrificing Wisconsin’s quality of life for everyone, not just unions.”
Next “Art Workers March Together” (a.k.a., “The Blue Tape Brigade.”) marched from the Overture Center to the gathering, decorated in painter’s tape, which was used to affix posters to the Capitol’s wall. The actors, painters, musicians and others, beating drums, carried possibly the largest and most elaborately constructed palm tree yet to the Capitol square. They were greeted with chants of “Fox Lies!”
Madison Firefighters Local 311 members then marched through the crowd, with bagpipes and drums blaring (see slideshow). The Rev. Jesse Jackson, actress Susan Sarandon and actor Tony Shalhoub (a Wisconsin native) joined the firefighters as they wove their way through a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd that filled the Capitol Square and several blocks of State Street.
Outside a hotel opposite the Capitol, the 14 state Senators appeared. The rally climaxed with speeches from a few of them. “Wow! You go away for a couple of weeks and look at what happened!” shouted state Senator Jon Erpenbach.
“We are going to take our state back. We are going to take our rights back,” declared state Senator Julie Lassa, a central Wisconsin Democrat who told the crowd, “I have never been prouder to be a Wisconsinite.”
Bob Jauch, a Democrat from northern Wisconsin told the crowd: “We did not weaken democracy when we went to the land of Lincoln. We strengthened it.”
Many Wisconsinites seemed to share that sentiment, as the overflow crowd greeted the returning senators like celebrities, chanting: “Thank you! Thank you!” and “Welcome home!”
The unity and solidarity, the signs and the numbers tell the story. Wisconsinites, most of whom are working class people, have been awakened, like “a sleeping giant” with a common cause reflected in a common chant: “This is what democracy looks like!”
Read more, get links, a slideshow and video here: Madison Independent Examiner – Largest political rally in Madison’s history yesterday
Thanks again for your great coverage, Greg. I was outraged Friday watching MSNBC in the afternoon where the ‘news anchor’ (not supposedly an opinion guy) failed to mention the Saturday rally and basically said that now that Walker’s anti-union bill passed, the whole thing is over and implied the protestors just all went home. He then displayed a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel cover headline that read: “Walker Wins,” and quickly moved on to another story. If this is what’s on the allegedly ‘liberal’ MSNBC, I can only imagine how it played on Fox. That said, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz have both been doing splendid work covering the demonstrations in Madison but, apparently, the morning and afternoon people at MSNBC don’t watch their own network at night.
Comment by RS Janes — March 14, 2011 @ 5:24 am
Thanks for your comment, RS. The events in Madison are being purposely ignored by all corporate media, at least as much as possible. Fox has outright lied in several instances about events in Madison. The palm trees are a reference to O’Lielly’s show, where he showed clips of pushing and shoving at a demonstration in California to try to show that the Madison protesters are a bunch of union thugs. (Palm trees could be seen in the background). It is not in corporate America’s interest to show the nation a very large crowd of working people, gathered in a common cause, after they were supposedly defeated by Walker. It must be frightening to the powers that be to think that this movement may grow and spread, and they will do anything they can to stop that. “If it isn’t in the news, it didn’t happen.” Fortunately the labor leaders and various progressive groups are cooperating with each other to centralize the movement and, like in Egypt, have done a great job of using the tools available on the internet to spread the word.
Comment by Greg in cheeseland — March 14, 2011 @ 10:57 am
That’s good to hear, Greg, as the Big Media blackout apparently extends to Michigan. On Thom Hartmann the other day, I heard that there has been virtually no coverage of the protests in Michigan by state and local media, and MI Gov. Rick Snyder is seeking even broader powers than Walker — he wants to nullify local elections. Fortunately, the moment Snyder signs that fascist bill there will be a flurry of lawsuits since it blatantly usurps the US Constitution, but when was the last time that stopped the regressives? Crackpot Nixonite Pat “Southern Strategy” Buchanan was on the TV machine the other day, babbling that none of the union protests or the oppressive GOP legislation will matter by the time of the next election if the economy improves — he smugly believes the public memory will be short on this issue. I hope he’s wrong, and he usually is.
Comment by RS Janes — March 15, 2011 @ 6:05 pm