Crowds of up to 70,000 people have swarmed the capitol grounds. Inside the building, thousands stand shoulder-to-shoulder, singing, dancing, sharing, shouting for their rights.
No, this is not Cairo, or Sanaa, or Amman, or Manama.
This is Madison, Wisconsin.
You’re not seeing much about it on the news, except perhaps for MSNBC (which is almost impossible to find streaming online). Corporate media is making it out to be a simple battle over the state’s budget, but it’s much more than that.
This is an all-out attack on labor in America, and a calculated assault on people’s hard-earned rights. For the past 30 years, we have been so concerned about “spreading democracy” to other countries, we haven’t noticed it being chipped away, slowly but surely, here in our own.
But now, the people of Wisconsin are fighting back. Peacefully. And it’s beautiful to see.
What those FOX-watching Tea Partiers who support Walker don’t understand is that unions are the reason they have 40-hour work weeks. Workers compensation. Overtime pay. Holidays off. Vacations to be with their families. Union workers have fought and died for these rights for more than 100 years. And they are not going back—no matter how many billionaires there are busing in brown-shirted union busters from out of state.
My father was a sheet metal worker, and if there is one life lesson I learned from him, it’s this: You always stand with labor. Always. Labor built this country. Labor are the people, our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, friends and neighbors. Labor is the American middle class. Labor is us.
As a proud Golden Gopher and die-hard Minnesota Vikings fan, I never in my life thought I’d be repeating this, but today I sing it proudly:
On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin
Fight on for her fame
Fight, Fellows, fight, fight, fight
We’ll win this game!
Go, Badgers! On Wisconsin!!
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