For the last few weeks, my son and I have spent Wednesday nights up at the Capitol. My daughter has tap class, so we drop he
r off and head down to join the protesters for a bit.Tonight, we decided not to go. Tap class was canc
eled due to a scheduling conflict, so we all changed into our PJs early, and curled up with our books in front of the fire for a relaxing night.As I was making dinner, my Twitter account was going nuts. "Come to the Capitol IMMEDIATELY" messages at every turn. I ignored them - how urgent could it be? The news yesterday led me to believe that a compromise was coming. The Fab 14 had been communicating with the Governor's office. Although the media made it sound divisive - certainly that means that some progress was being made. Right?
But then Facebook started taking off, so I turned on the WisconsinEye cable channel to watch the Senate proceedings. It wasn't like anything interesting could possibly happen, but I figured I should have it on while I made dinner.
All of a sudden - holy shit - I was brought back to the evening of the Assembly Vote, when I watched the Assembly Republicans railroad the budget repair bill through at 1:30 a.m. on a ambush vote. (Yes, I stayed up to watch it.) The Republican Senators did the same thing tonight - they separated the Collective Bargaining provisions from the financial part of the bill and rammed it through.
Basically, they took the part that NO ONE likes (union busting) and approved it. The part that most people will accept (financial concessions from public sector workers) is still out there. It really makes no sense.
By now, dinner was burnt to a crisp, but I managed to scoop it out and tell my children that "this is what democracy tastes like" and we wolfed down the food and piled in the car to head downtown.
It was really amazing down there. The inner ring of the Capitol was full of a slow parade of cars, honking their horns in a chanting rhythm. People were in the building and circling around the outside.
We know that the atmosphere was a bit more angry tonight than in days past when we saw a few people walking clockwise. Anyone who has spent any time in Madison knows the drill: whether it is the farmer's market or an art fair or a 100K person protest: We walk counter-clockwise around the Capitol. We just do.
Things could start to get very interesting...
3 comments:
Yes, wasn't it amazing? The whole thing is startling to me. We ended up eating at Graze, which made us feel absurd, especially when the 4 year old, clutching a knife, fell out of the booth onto his head. I feel disgusting now -- too many (quite good) french fries with aoli (whatever that is).
The way this is playing out is incomprehensible to me. Unless Walker sees this as just another notch in his belt on his way to DC. Unless the Republicans understood all along it wasn't really a cost-saving measure but a way to eviscerate the last staunchly Democrat base.
I can only hope people with stamina and guts will steadfastly go after the legality of these types of maneuvers, as Mayor Dave of Madison discusses in his blog.
I'm so mad. Not just about the deviousness, but the arrogance behind it that presumes that the public's anger will just blow over.
Harry, it was amazing. I couldn't get back up there today, but we'll be back on Saturday. The energy was so inspiring and incredible.
Tammy, the one glimmer of hope in this is that I really feel we have completely rejuvenated the Democratic party, at least in Wisconsin. I can't count the number of previous-politically-neutral people I've seen out protesting.
Post a Comment