Dispatches from the Northern Front, Part 1

You can blame friend Mark for this; he suggested I post these:

March 1, 2011

Despite the picture media is painting, Madison is not in chaos. At least for now. Mei and I and Anna were down at the Capitol a week ago Saturday, and things were very mellow. I understand it's beginning to get uglier, because the guv is giving his budget speech tonight, and doesn't want the protesters in the picture. So even though the state constitution and open meeting laws say the building is to be open to the public whenever business is being conducted, it apparently ain't gonna happen, if Scotty gets his way; of course there are still a couple hundred people inside, so . . . . .I'd love to be down there today, but Mei's in Monterrey CA and I need to be available for the kids, e.g., not caught up in some massive event. It's amazing the way this guy thinks he can brush aside legal technicalities like so many cobwebs. And he may get away with it, after all, though I hope and pray not.

You know, I've been through a lot of losing elections, Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes. But I have never felt so sick to my stomach about politics -- Walker has absolutely no conception of or concern about human beings.

Picture Hal Daub without the charm, Nixon without the tact.

Scott Walker's a dangerously stubborn man who refuses to negotiate -- though that stance might get him into trouble with the labor laws, since there is currently a labor contract in place; the guv's spokesman said the guv doesn't have time to negotiate - though he did have time to take a 20-minute call he thought was from a billionaire supporter (if you haven't heard about that, check it out - an amazing window into a narrow and rigid mindset; for one thing, he said he'd "considered" putting trouble makers in the crowd to stir things up, but opted not to after careful political consideration; this in the context of 70,000 average and peaceful citizens, including many many kids of all ages, and old folks.). And the truth is so obvious -- he wants the unions gone so that no one can resist the millions and millions he's planning to cut in school aid and health and . . . . .

He's a hypocrite and maybe a meglomaniac, who's already done great damage to the state.

March 10

Just a few more lines about what's going on up here. First, I was down at the Capitol today over the lunch hour. I'm bad at crowd estimates, but I'd say maybe a thousand people circling the square, maybe more, on sidewalk and street and veranda. The building has been re-opened to the public, albeit only one door and that with metal detectors and only a few people at a time. I stood awhile at one of the closed doors, with a crowd of people chanting, "Whose house?" "OUR HOUSE" to a phalanx of unsmiling police officers (in muliple uniforms, having been assembled from all over the state; interesting, Madison's mayor has limited his police to safety issues only, and the County Sheriff has pulled most of his officers, stating that their job is to protect the public safety, not to serve as "palace guards."

This thing literally makes me sick to my stomach; not only the issue of collective bargaining but more the way it's being ramrodded through with deception and outright lies. And there are probably open meeting law issues, too, as well as the questiion of whether you can make a fiscal bill non-fiscal (and thereby avoid the quorum requirement). There's also a contempt of court issue out there because a judge has issued an order opening the Capitol "in the same manner as before" -- and before it was open almost all the time, at all doors and little if any police presence.

The crowd is mostly polite and well-behaved, chanting aside -- but there is a palpable and growing sense of frustration, because people here re feeling lied to, manipulated, and ignored. Even Mei, who had been Republican since citizenship, is appalled. I knew things had changed when she said the other day, "back when I was a Republican," and this morning she had me drive around the Capitol so we could honk in support and show fists of solidarity with the protestors. And most of these protestors are not college students looking for fun -- or refugees from the '60s (except me perhaps), they are teachers, docs, nurses, and off-duty police and firemen, and steel workers and teamsters, and kids and old folks; middle class people who you'd never expect to be circling in the cold, shouting and marching and singing -- and as of a while ago, being dragged out of the Capitol with passive resistance. Signs are posted in many of the Capitol windows expressing solidarity and maligning Walker, the Republican establishment, and outside interests. Still, the only time I have felt hostility was when Mei and I and Anna were here a couple Saturdays back, and a number of Tea Party folks were standing at the side of the street, shouting at the marchers. And there are similar demonstrations all around the state.

I worry about what will happen, though. Walker and his cronies appear to be tone deaf and obsessed, and people really feel frustrated. It's not a national issue, I know, but it feels like a fascist coup, all the legislative changes being shoved through and the laws ignored when inconvenient. Even the newly appointed Secretary of Agriculture got into the act, describing the scene at the Capitol as a "a holocaust of horrors" because, he later admitted, "some shenanigans."

Shit.

Well, the next stages are recalls of several Republican senators, and court actions (including conspiracy to endanger the public and accepting offers of gifts -- both arising from that phone call when Walker thought he was talking to a wealthy contributor but it was really a journalist).

Exciting times. It was daughter Anna who first alerted us to the sudden passage of the bill last night -- she came charging out of her room almost in tears. What an introduction to politics. It will be a valuable bit of education, all the more important because the schools will be gutted.

March 13

I went down to the Capitol Thursday (I think), anyway it was the day Walker signed the bill and scheduled a news conference. I was there around noon -- I had finished lunch at home and had been on my way to the library, and decided to go there instead. I parked several blocks away, at the nearest of the free street parking. The weather was bright and chilly. There was a good-sized crowd, though nothing like on the weekends. Until I went inside (past several cops and screeners). The rotunda area was surrounded by people with signs and buttons (the signs were all carried by hand, no sticks allowed inside). A couple people stood inside the circle with a microphone. When the speaker stopped, he or she would hand it off to someone else; it was called the "people's microphone." Cops from all jurisdictions stood back and watched, and several more from the floors above. The bulk of the crowd was on the stairways leading up from the rotunda to the governor's office, though the hall to the office itself was blocked by a wall of officers. The protestors ranged, as always, from high school students (a thousand or so kids walked out of the nearest high school) to college students to middle-aged, to the obviously old. Everyone was chanting, "Walker lies" and "Shame! Shame!" and "Come out, you coward" and the like. I got as far as the top of the staircase, but couldn't go any further. I couldn't see down the hall, but every once in awhile the crowd who could see would boo lustily.

After about an hour it was time to go, and I walked out a different door, intending to circle the building, midst lines of people carrying signs and chanting and beating drums. As I turned down one of the wide sidewalks I saw an old man sitting on one of the stone benches; he had on a black beret and a gray beard, gold wire rims,a heavy gray coat and brightly mismatched gloves. He was leaning back with a soft smile, eyes closed, obviously soaking up the sun. He opened his eyes as I walked by, and I said something about him seeming pretty mellow. "And why shouldn't I be?" he asked, "the sun's warm and I'm tired and I'm old. I have the right to be mellow." We talked a bit about what was going on and agreed it was more disgusting than anything Nixon ever did. He said he drove down from Portage almost every day and stayed until evening. "The bottom line is," he said, "we have to be more like Europeans -- in Europe the government fears the people, here the people fear the government." With that we shook hands and I left.

I saw a uniformed officer standing quietly, watching the crowd. I noticed that his badge and patch described him as a game warden. "A bit out of your jurisdiction," I said with smile. "Not this week" he said, returning the smile. I asked how the crowd was and he said very mellow indeed, "Except when a few college students come up kind of looking for trouble, and they're not so bad, either." He was down here from Kenosha County, having been "drafted" into temporary palace duty.

Saturday Mei and I took Anna up to the city of Waunakee (about 20 miles away) so she could compete in the Science Olympiad, an all-day event. At noon Mei and decided to take a quick trip into Madison for lunch and, on a whim, decided to go to the Capitol. Miraculously we found a parking spot a block away, so we got out. A bearded young guy in a bandana and hard hat stood beside our spot, behind the open camper shell of an old pickup truck. Turned out he was with a group of tree specialists who had been intending to occupy the trees around the Capitol, but opted against because of the wind. "We'll be up there tomorrow, though. Just don't want to give them a legitimate excuse to make us come down."

Mei and I went on to the Capitol, and joined the huge throng marching around it; shuffling really, it was so crowded. A woman was talking from a bullhorn, and we were joined by several farm tractors, part of a "tractorcade" from the state agriculture society. There was even a manure spreader, and the slogan, "Let the farmers spread the BS". Lots and lots of signs. We ran into several people we knew; the whole thing was like a gathering of nice people of all ages, chatting and smiling except when chanting and singing "Solidarity Forever." Somebody gave us a couple signs, so Mei and I held them up and kept walking. We had to leave after one circuit, though, to get back to Waunakee; that meant we had to leave before the "Fab 14" showed up -- the Democratic senators who had hidden out in Illinois.

As we left that massive crowd, we walked -- and then drove -- past lines of people streaming to the capitol, carrying signs -- they either lived fairly nearby, or had parked there or taken buses down. Apparently the speeches by the Fab 14 were well-received, and even the actress Susan Sarandon made an appearance.

We took the kids out to eat later that day, and the restaurant -- Hubbard Avenue Diner, next to the Mustard Museum -- was unusually crowded, with a lot of people wearing anti-Walker and pro-union buttons. So odd but inspiring to hear all these obviously middle-class, mostly suburban, people casually discussing the protest. Even today, when I took Daniel to the library, I heard one of the librarians mention to another one that she had "been down to the protest" yesterday, as casually and matter-of-factly as one would mention a trip to the grocery store, just a legitimate bit of the daily routine. I read later that the crowd was larger than any tea party rally ever, and close to the old Vietnam marches in DC.

Today is much quieter, but there are still a few thousand people down there. But the struggle continues, as does the frustration. I saw today that the guv went to a Lincoln Day celebration in a smaller city up north, but was dogged by a couple hundred protestors, some local, some having driven up. He came with a police escort and went inside -- the protestors cirled the restaurant, chanting.

Well. Again, it's like nothing I've ever experienced, and I'm glad for the privilege, though not for the cause of it all.