The headline on the Reuters story was Wisconsin demonstrators party like it's 1968. Actually the writer was not wrong referring to the 'festive atmosphere' but last week in Madison was not like 1968, or 1969, or 1967, or 1965.
The anti-war protests of the 1960's were angry and limited. We were energized, but we had difficulty growing from a protest to a movement designed to build something. Eventually we did build and create - greater human rights, there were gains for economic and social justice - but we never reached our potential.
Last week in Madison was joyful but it was not a party; it was the joy of finding so many strangers with a shared common values - fairness and trust.
Last week in Madison, like the '60s, was led by the young, the teaching assistants (TAs) and the undergraduates, the first Saturday and Sunday. But in forty-eight hours it had a breadth of support that the anti-war movement could never obtain in a decade.
Last week in Madison I greeted and hugged construction trade workers, police officers, limping Vietnam veterans, teachers and social workers. For those of us in Madison, the firefighters were always there.
This is a very different scene. It has the potential to move from protest to a real political movement. It already has deep roots in the progressive movement. The future is unsettling since there is little chance that Governor Scott Walker will back down. To understand the situation, you have to understand that Governor Walker is confident. He keeps winning elections. He turned down federal aid and killed high speed rail in Wisconsin. He knows who elected him and put him in office - not the voters but Milwaukee right-wing talk radio and his hard core corporate donors. After all, many of those voters were public employees, or union members who realize we may become a right-to-work state.
To get Walker to move will require getting to his base, the campaign base.
In the meantime. we must go forward and not just in the streets. When the anti-war movement grew rapidly in 1968 and '69, we failed to keep up with education, we found ourselves limited to protesting. Times have changed for the better. The TA's are organizing workshops and educational programs on Wisconsin labor history. The labor unions are mobilizing for political action. New technologies we never had will provide new opportunities.
Most important, last week in Madison we were bound by fairness and trust. Marching were people who disagreed on choice, national health insurance, environmental regulation, and even taxation. But we shared those common values of fairness and trust. Perhaps we can fashion a new political culture in this nation that will change the dialogue.
We should also thank Sykes and Belling for showing us how desperate and apathetic people are so easily misled and thank them by wishing them an early voluntary retirement.
Posted by: Ofr | February 22, 2011 at 02:13 AM
One of the reasons that the TP'ers are so apoplexic about these demonstrations is that it undercuts their claims to being the sole representives of "The People." To preserve their self-image of being the ONLY defenders everything that is good and decent in America, they have to demonize the folks--the nurses, firefighters, cops, schoolteachers, and a lot more private-sector/non-union folks than is generally reported--who have been turning out in great numbers in Madison.
The barking heads on cable-TV and the gasbags who inhabit the nether regions of shout radio will no doubt continue to call us names, but they've seen another authentic face of America and it scares them.
Posted by: Ex-Alderman Steve | February 22, 2011 at 06:43 AM