Exotix
03-14-2011, 12:53pm
In Madison, Nearly 100,000 Protest Gov. Walker’s Corporatist Vision.
Saturday’s rally around Capitol was largest yet, after Walker signs infamous bill into law.
Just in
In Madison, Nearly 100,000 Protest Gov. Walker’s Corporatist Vision -- In These Times (http://inthesetimes.com/article/7062/in_madison_nearly_100000_protest_gov._walkers_corporatist_vision)
MADISON ~ Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his Republican allies fittingly resorted to blatantly undemocratic means to ram through Walker’s anti-democratic proposal to deny public employees a union voice on the job and in the political arena, legislation designed to both permanently weaken both labor and the Democratic Party.
But in their desperate and almost-certainly illegal rush to pass the bill, Walker and the Republicans incinerate their own claims that the anti-union bill was an apolitical measure aimed only at bringing state and local budgets under control.
The sleazy tactics behind passage of Walker’s anti-union bill—which he signed Friday morning—took protests to a new level focused on challenging the bill via legal appeals, campaigns to recall anti-union Republican senators, intensified outreach in local communities, and discussion of various direct actions by workers, including heightened talk of a general strike.
The bill’s passage also inspired a massive protest of 85,000 to 100,000 people Saturday—the largest in four weeks of demonstrations—at the State Capitol in Madison, despite bone-chilling weather that was harsh even by Wisconsin standards.
The rally featured 50 farmers on tractors roaring around the Capitol to show their support for pubic workers and union representatives from across the nation, stressing the importance of the Wisconsin struggle.
Protesters were addressed by a lineup of fiery speakers including fillmaker Michael Moore, the Texas populist radio broadcaster Jim Hightower, TV host Laura Flanders, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, and The Progressive editor Matt Roschild, among others.
To the crowd’s delighted roar, the event was capped by the return of 14 fugitive Democratic state senators who had denied the Republicans a quorum needed to pass the anti-union provision embedded in a “budget-repair bill.
Last week, the Republicans reversed two months of fervent assertions that the anti-union bill was strictly a budgetary measure (for example, Gov. Walker’s own official website actually still has a now-embarrassing four-part statement titled “Collective Bargaining Has a Fiscal Impact.”).
Wisconsin Republicans had found themselves trapped by their own manufactured budget “crisis.”
With budget measures requiring a 20-vote quorum, the Republicans were paralyzed by the Senate Democrats’ absence.
Walker apparently saw his window of opportunity closing fast.
Having gained sudden prominence and popularity among conservatives nationally for his bold effort to crush public-sector unionism in the state where it was born (AFSMCE formed here in 1932, and Wisconsin was the first state to grant union rights to public workers in 1959), Walker was in danger of a sudden plunge in his status among conservatives.
(Read continues in Link)
YouTube - 100,000 Strong
Saturday’s rally around Capitol was largest yet, after Walker signs infamous bill into law.
Just in
In Madison, Nearly 100,000 Protest Gov. Walker’s Corporatist Vision -- In These Times (http://inthesetimes.com/article/7062/in_madison_nearly_100000_protest_gov._walkers_corporatist_vision)
MADISON ~ Last week, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his Republican allies fittingly resorted to blatantly undemocratic means to ram through Walker’s anti-democratic proposal to deny public employees a union voice on the job and in the political arena, legislation designed to both permanently weaken both labor and the Democratic Party.
But in their desperate and almost-certainly illegal rush to pass the bill, Walker and the Republicans incinerate their own claims that the anti-union bill was an apolitical measure aimed only at bringing state and local budgets under control.
The sleazy tactics behind passage of Walker’s anti-union bill—which he signed Friday morning—took protests to a new level focused on challenging the bill via legal appeals, campaigns to recall anti-union Republican senators, intensified outreach in local communities, and discussion of various direct actions by workers, including heightened talk of a general strike.
The bill’s passage also inspired a massive protest of 85,000 to 100,000 people Saturday—the largest in four weeks of demonstrations—at the State Capitol in Madison, despite bone-chilling weather that was harsh even by Wisconsin standards.
The rally featured 50 farmers on tractors roaring around the Capitol to show their support for pubic workers and union representatives from across the nation, stressing the importance of the Wisconsin struggle.
Protesters were addressed by a lineup of fiery speakers including fillmaker Michael Moore, the Texas populist radio broadcaster Jim Hightower, TV host Laura Flanders, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, and The Progressive editor Matt Roschild, among others.
To the crowd’s delighted roar, the event was capped by the return of 14 fugitive Democratic state senators who had denied the Republicans a quorum needed to pass the anti-union provision embedded in a “budget-repair bill.
Last week, the Republicans reversed two months of fervent assertions that the anti-union bill was strictly a budgetary measure (for example, Gov. Walker’s own official website actually still has a now-embarrassing four-part statement titled “Collective Bargaining Has a Fiscal Impact.”).
Wisconsin Republicans had found themselves trapped by their own manufactured budget “crisis.”
With budget measures requiring a 20-vote quorum, the Republicans were paralyzed by the Senate Democrats’ absence.
Walker apparently saw his window of opportunity closing fast.
Having gained sudden prominence and popularity among conservatives nationally for his bold effort to crush public-sector unionism in the state where it was born (AFSMCE formed here in 1932, and Wisconsin was the first state to grant union rights to public workers in 1959), Walker was in danger of a sudden plunge in his status among conservatives.
(Read continues in Link)
YouTube - 100,000 Strong