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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Wisconsin Solidarity: Open Thread

Wisconsin Solidarity: Open Thread

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I stand with them.

The class war has taken an ugly turn. Breitbart and his band of fuckwits are descending on Madison, Wisconsin tomorrow with their Don’t Tread on Me Flags and their armored scooters. This, however, is heartening:

(H/T Payter!)

UPDATE: Allan has some helpful tips for those planning to attend the protest in Madison:

If you’re in Madison tomorrow, expect Breitbart and his minions to shove a video camera in your face and try to provoke you into saying things that make “progressives” look bad.

Don’t give them any footage they can use.

Instead, ask them any or all of these questions, over and over, until they go away.

1. Did James O’Keefe have dildos and handcuffs onboard the yacht because he planned to rape CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau?

2. Do you have any comment on Shirley Sherrod’s libel suit against Andrew Breitbart?

3. When will you release all the raw video and audio captured surreptitiously in ACORN offices to independent investigators?

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  2. 2.

    JenJen

    First Amendment remedies are pretty awe-inspiring. This story is absolutely riveting, and one thing about it that has really taken me by surprise is that just about everybody I know at work or in social situations is talking about it.

    I don’t give teabaggers much of a chance against union folk, but we’ll see. Not really sure what they’re after or aiming for, but I always picture agent provocateurs to be quite a bit younger than the Koch Krowd.

  4. 4.

    Mark S.

    Bring it on. Teabaggers screaming at firefighters, cops, and teachers will show how idiotic these cretins really are.

  5. 5.

    FLRealist

    Great video. I hope the TPers are outmanned and outclassed tomorrow. People fighting for their livelihood have a lot more to lose than a bunch of digruntled taxpayers, which should give them the edge.

  6. 6.

    asiangrrlMN

    It’s on. It’s motherfucking on. If I can make it to Madison, I will. Damn it. The upper-crust keep bleating about class warfare. Well, they started it, so we have to finish it.

  8. 8.

    Mark S.

    Well, I finally decided to venture over to the land of Althouse. The Boxed One has been spending her vacation taking pictures of the protests. The closest I could get to any analysis from her was this post, where I guess she’s skeptical that Walker engineered this crisis to destroy collective bargaining rights of public employees. It’s odd, because my cat was able to figure that one out, but then again he does read Ezra Klein.

    Ann mentions about twenty times the fact that Walker’s proposal will cost her $10,000 a year, but I think she’s in favor of it(?). Oh fuck it, you guys aren’t paying me enough to be your Althouse correspondent.

  13. 13.

    JWL

    President Obama saw fit to award G.W. Bush a Congressional Medal of Freedom.

    Lest We Forget..

    Fuck them both.

  14. 14.

    Benz

    I’m lurking on Free Republic, Glenn Beck, FOX, Big Government, Instapundit, etc. They’re all giving advice to the Tea Party side. Most common theme: Whatever we do, the liberals will make us look like violent thugs or racists.

  15. 15.

    Mark S.

    @Benz:

    She takes a lot of pictures of people holding “Scott Walker is Hitler” signs, so that’s the gist of it. She’s ambivalent, though. She hates liberals, but she also hates losing $10,000 a year. But she does assures us “I’m trying to be fair, and it’s possible that I’m in as good a position as anybody,” as if she lived in Hawaii and this didn’t affect her at all.

    @asiangrrlMN:

    You betcha. Pony up.

  16. 16.

    Benz

    @Mark S.: She’s trying to be fair. heh.

    Jeffrey Goldberg has an entire post purely dedicated to showing “Scott Walker/Hitler/Mubarak” signs, other than that, he has nothing intelligent to say on the matter of public sector unions.

    But then again, some idiot had a sign that had a target on Walker’s head, which Sully noted.

  17. 17.

    CaliCat

    The Egypt analogy is turning out to be quite accurate…

    Egyptian protesters = Wisconsin protesters
    Mubarak = Gov. Walker
    Mubarak thugs brought in to agitate = Teabagger thugs brought in to agitate.

    And just like Mubarak, the CONservatives are on the wrong side of history…again.

  18. 18.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Benz: If the shoe fits….don’t want to look like a thug or a racist? DON’T FUCKING ACT LIKE ONE! I’m not yelling at you, I hope you know. This shit just frustrates the hell out of me.

    @Mark S.: Hey! I didn’t sign a contract. You can’t make me.

  19. 19.

    Shadow's Mom

    @Joseph Nobles: Yea, he was pretty clear about that in his speech this afternoon. All I could think when these guys started talking about the ‘taxpayer’ was, these are taxpayers?

    Oh, geez, CNN talking head on Parker/Spitzer basically told the WI Dem senator on the phone, “You lost,why don’t you suck it up?” The Dem, Chris Larson (?),was great. “Democracy does not end on election day. We may be in the minority but our democracy is constructed so that the minority is heard.”

    I’m in California so won’t make it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if my brother traveled to Ohio from PA to support public workers there. He’s a postal worker and very active in his union; my grandpa was union and so was my dad. Just this afternoon, I tweeted the following:

    #LABOR #WIUNION enjoy weekends, pd vacation, 40hr workweek? Thank unions for those benefits. Watching #GOP roll back 120 yrs labor reforms

    Just because they won an election through distortion and misinformation doesn’t give them license to destroy our lives.

  20. 20.

    Moses2317

    I’d like to recommend that we all take action to support public employees and their unions by contacting state legislators and Governors, and writing letters to the editor of our local newspapers. Victory in this fight is critical to the future of the middle class and the progressive cause in America.

    http://www.winningprogressive.org/support-wisconsins-public-sector-employees

    Also, let’s keep in mind that the attack is not just in Wisconsin. Here are seven other states where we need to push back against the right wing’s assault on public employees and their unions:

    http://www.winningprogressive.org/it-is-not-just-wisconsin-we-need-to-fight-for-public-sector-employees-in-ohio-indiana-tennessee-and-elsewhere

  21. 21.

    lakefxdan

    JWL, the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom was George H.W. Bush, not George W. Bush.

  22. 22.

    Angry Black Lady

    Walker is bought and paid for by the Kochs and he is doing their bidding. I’ve been lurking on some of the prog blogs and it seems they have their trollers going through and dumping the same similar comments about how unfair it is that public sector workers have this or that and private sector workers don’t.

    they are screaming about taxes, so the teabaggers will be screaming about taxes. what they aren’t telling people is that the union agreed to cuts, but does not agree to being stripped of their collective bargaining rights.

    fucking idiots.

  23. 23.

    morzer

    Just in case you wondered how psychotic these people are, this is Glenn Beck explaining how the Muslim Brotherhood, unions and Google are all part of a global conspiracy:

    http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/glenn-beck-wisconsin-unions-muslim-brotherhood-all-just-want-new-world-order-video.php?ref=fpblg

    “Unions claim the cuts will affect teachers but it’s not the everyday teacher that this story is really all about,” Beck said.
    “There are three groups of people,” Beck explained. “They want a new world order. This is your choice. One world government. This is open society. This is United Nations, whatever you want to call it. One world government. They have lots of money and lots of power and they have NGOs, non-governmental organizations.”
    “This is the United Islamics Nations, this is the one the Muslim Brotherhood is going for now. But it all looked like this, a new world order. They are organized, too. They have the religion and mosques and apparently help from Google as well… at least in Egypt.”

  24. 24.

    morzer

    Much to my amazement, the Communists at Forbes came up with this:

    http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/18/koch-brothers-behind-wisconsin-effort-to-kill-public-unions/

    As the nation focuses on the efforts of Governor Scott Walker to take away collective bargaining rights from public employees in Wisconsin, new information is coming to light that reveals what is truly going on here.

    Mother Jones is reporting that much of the funding behind the Walker for Governor campaign came from none other than uber-conservatives, the infamous Koch Brothers.

    What’s more, the plan to kill the unions is right out of the Koch Brothers play book.

    Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010 confab in Aspen, Colorado;

    Via Mother Jones

    If you are reluctant to believe that this is a coordinated attack, consider this-

    This afternoon, Marty Beil, executive director of the Wisconsin Public Workers Union, sent a message to the Governor’s office agreeing to the cuts to pension & welfare benefits sought by Walker in his bill. The governor’s response was “nothing doing.” He wants the whole kit and kaboodle – the end of the collective bargaining rights of the public unions.

    As noted in my earlier post, this is, indeed, the first shot in the final battle to end unionism in America.

    UPDATE: The Americans for Prosperity group, a Tea Party group that is a Koch Brothers front, has put up a website and petition called http://www.standwithwalker.com. The website attacks all collective bargaining – not just for public employees’ unions. Americans for Prosperity is also organizing a rally tomorrow in Wisconsin to support Gov. Walker.

    Why are the Koch Brothers so interested in Wisconsin? They are a major business player in the state.

    This from Think Progress:

    Koch owns a coal company subsidiary with facilities in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan; six timber plants throughout the state; and a large network of pipelines in Wisconsin. While Koch controls much of the infrastructure in the state, they have laid off workers to boost profits. At a time when Koch Industries owners David and Charles Koch awarded themselves an extra $11 billion of income from the company, Koch slashed jobs at their Green Bay plant:

    Officials at Georgia-Pacific said the company is laying off 158 workers at its Day Street plant because out-of-date equipment at the facility is being replaced with newer, more-efficient equipment. The company said much of the new, papermaking equipment will be automated. […] Malach tells FOX 11 that the layoffs are not because of a drop in demand. In fact, Malach said demand is high for the bath tissue and napkins manufactured at the plant.

    You really have to wonder how long it will take for Tea Party devotees to realize just how badly they are being used.

  25. 25.

    Will

    @morzer:

    You really have to wonder how long it will take for Tea Party devotees to realize just how badly they are being used.

    It would be interesting to print up a few thousand simple flyers pointing out some of these connections between the Koch bros. and their front groups and the teabaggers, and distribute them through their group. On the other side of the flier could be a short history of unions and the things they accomplished….things like weekends, vacations, and a safe work environment (etc. etc.).

    A lot of the teabaggers seem to honestly (and still!) think they are some kind of grassroots uprising and seem genuinely ignorant of the money people behind them.

  26. 26.

    stuckinred

    The Chicago Seven were convicted, among other things, of crossing state lines to incite a riot. If I lived in Wisconsin and saw these fuckers a riot just might break out.

  27. 27.

    losingtehplot

    Robert Reich today: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/18-9

    Last year, America’s top thirteen hedge-fund managers earned an average of $1 billion each. One of them took home $5 billion. Much of their income is taxed as capital gains – at 15 percent – due to a tax loophole that Republican members of Congress have steadfastly guarded.

    If the earnings of those thirteen hedge-fund managers were taxed as ordinary income, the revenues generated would pay the salaries and benefits of over 5 million teachers. Who is more valuable to our society – thirteen hedge-fund managers or 5 million teachers? Let’s make the question even simpler. Who is more valuable: One hedge fund manager or one teacher?

  28. 28.

    buckyblue

    I was there to see the fire fighters in the rotunda. Going back today. Didn’t know Breitfart was going to be there. Walker is a tool, but luckily for us, not a terribly bright one. If nothing else he has galvanized a side in strong opposition to him. Can’t tell you how many people I have talked to that have said, “I voted for Walker but I didn’t vote for this”. I didn’t malign them for their idiocy, but take them as new Democrats in the fold. One makes ten bucks an hour with an unemployed husband. WTF??? I’m sure there are plenty of national Republicans shaking their heads wondering how Scooter fucked this one up. There will be tens of thousands good guys there, the teabaggers thought they could get a couple of hundred; mostly from out of state.

  30. 30.

    morzer

    Something that is important, because the right wing scum are claiming that public employees are over-paid, relative to the private sector:

    http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/6759/

    This paper investigates whether Wisconsin public employees are overpaid at the expense of Wisconsin taxpayers. The research is timely. Newly sworn-in Gov. Scott Walker believes that public employee compensation must be cut to make it comparable to private sector pay at the state, local, and school levels. Walker is promoting public employee pay cuts, changes in collective bargaining laws, major benefits reductions, and a possible decertification of public employee unions as the antidote to the alleged overpayment of public employees in Wisconsin and the key to reducing the state’s budget deficit (Bergquist and Stein 2010).
    However, the data indicates that state and local government employees in Wisconsin are not overpaid. Comparisons controlling for education, experience, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, and disability reveal that employees of both state and local governments in Wisconsin earn less than comparable private sector employees. On an annual basis, full-time state and local government employees in Wisconsin are undercompensated by 8.2% compared with otherwise similar private sector workers. This compensation disadvantage is smaller but still significant when hours worked are factored in. Full-time public employees work fewer annual hours, particularly employees with bachelor’s, master’s, and professional degrees (because many are teachers or university professors).
    When comparisons are made controlling for the difference in annual hours worked, full-time state and local government employees are undercompensated by 4.8%, compared with otherwise similar private sector workers. To summarize, our study shows that Wisconsin public employees earn 4.8% less in total compensation per hour than comparable full-time employees in Wisconsin’s private sector.

  33. 33.

    Wil

    @buckyblue:

    Can’t tell you how many people I have talked to that have said, “I voted for Walker but I didn’t vote for this”. I didn’t malign them for their idiocy, but take them as new Democrats in the fold.

    Not malign them personally, but you could just toss out there something like, “Well, that’s what Republicans are, anti-worker…and that’s why you should never vote for them, EVER.”

    Or something similar to help them understand that Republicans are not—and never have been—their friends. There are so many, many, many people who vote Republican that somehow just don’t seem to understand what they are all about. It’s like we’ve got the most ignorant electorate in the world.

  34. 34.

    lllphd

    ya gotta wonder if the koch brothers will be able to provide breitbart’s thugs enough camels for the occasion. lord knows they’ll bring their own guns.

  35. 35.

    Calouste

    @losingtehplot:

    Those numbers don’t add up. Even if you had 13 hedge fund managers making $5 billion per year, and even if you taxed them at 100%, you would still only give those 5 million teachers $13,000 a year. And are there even 5 million teachers in the US? Is one in every 60 people a teacher?

  36. 36.

    morzer

    @lllphd:

    I just want to see how they make out on five loaves, two fishes and the blood of real Americans. Jeebus would be so fucking proud.

  39. 39.

    Pancake

    Madison is great news for the Republicans according to virtually every poll out there, with support for the fucking mob at around 25% while support for the Governor approaches 75%! Way to gin up even more national support, angry and batshit crazy black lady.

  40. 40.

    Triassic Sands

    @morzer:

    4.8% is nothing. Walker won’t be satisfied until Wisconsin’s public employees are poor. Then, he’ll know he’s making real progress. Poor and intimidated — a recipe for people who don’t vote.

    Unions helped create the middle class in this country and were critical in making it as large as it became. Republicans are engaged in a major assault to destroy unions. Now, what does that say about the future of the middle class in this country?

  42. 42.

    HRA

    Last night G and I watched Rachel Maddow and we both learned how important WI has been to the American worker. G who is a moderate R usually stays laid back watching her. She really sparked his interest yesterday.
    I am a D and a public employee in NYS. Do not believe it is only the R governors after their state employees. Cuomo (D) is using Christie (R) of NJ as his leader. We have been threatened by Cuomo with layoffs in NYS.
    We pay for our own disability insurance. Our portion of the health insurance benefit has doubled in the last few years. The dental and eyecare benefit we had under the union is now under our health policies which does not pay for all procedures.
    It could noy be said enough that we pay for our livelihood like everyone else in the private sector.
    Onward WI! I am with you all the way.

  43. 43.

    Donut

    Something for Althouse to keep in mind: the heart and center of University of Wisconsin is Bascom Hall, which sits atop Bascom Hill, which is a straight shot down State Street from the Capitol building, which also sits on a hill.

    So in other words, the Capitol and Bascom Hall sit on basically an even plane with one another. The City and University planners did this deliberately so that if you stand in either location, you can see and understand the symbolism – that the University and its mission are intertwined and linked with the governing of the state, with the progress of its people.

    There is a plaque outside of Bascom Hall’s front door that explains what I’m getting at a little better. Some of you might find this corny, but I don’t. The plaque reads:

    Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state university of Wisconsin should ever encourage that fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone truth may be found.

    This is a statement of true Progressivism, no doubt about it. This is what Wisconsin is about, no matter who occupies the statehouse currently, and why I am so unsurprised that this is happening where it is happening. The idea expressed in those words is one which has always informed Wisconsin’s intellectual heart and character and soul, and it should always flow up State Street to the Capitol. Scott Walker has no respect for this, the very character of his state. Needless to say, nor does Althouse; she is a stain on my University.

    Disclaimer: I am a proud graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and even prouder of that this week.

  45. 45.

    Ash Can

    You know, John Cole posted last night that he was in a hotel in an undisclosed location this weekend. And some months ago he spent some time in Madison and raved about how nice a town it was. Do you suppose…?

  47. 47.

    SBJules

    I wish I were in Madison too. Did the governor propose that his pension & the pensions of the legislators be cut along with the union pensions? I missed that news somehow.

  48. 48.

    Gravenstone

    A friend of who’s been in the Capitol building the last couple of days passed this along via FB.

    Madison Update: Word on the street is that Lord Sarah is going to come down from upon high in Alaska to grace us with her presence.

    I haven’t seen corroboration elsewhere, but that would be all kinds of awesome, to watch Little Miss Iquitarod get shouted down by throngs of pissed off labor and their supporters.

  52. 52.

    kideni

    I’m in Madison, and I’ll be going to the Capitol in about an hour. It’s been so inspiring this week. What drives me crazy is how much the media focuses on just the increase in public worker pension and healthcare contributions — the unions are and have been willing to negotiate on that, but Walker won’t talk to them. Aside from the collective bargaining issue, this bill also guts education funding and healthcare and services for children, the disabled, and seniors. My friend’s son, a high school senior, stayed at the Capitol all night the other day so that he could testify to the Assembly at 6am, and he talked about how the bill would mean that his grandmother would lose funding that keeps her in assisted living, and his mother (my friend), who’s on disability because of MS, would lose funds that she desperately needs to stay strong and support the family. He’s an amazing kid, and I just hope that the state doesn’t let him down.

  54. 54.

    Judas Escargot

    @morzer:

    Is there any legal way to hurt the Kochs? Given their choice of industry (petro/coal/chem/energy), there’s no practical way to boycott them, short of moving to a shack in Idaho or something. If they just owned Target or Best Buy (for example), it’d be easier.

    That’s part of what infuriates me about them: They are above the law and above most ‘free market’ mechanisms. And shame certainly isn’t going to work on them, either.

  55. 55.

    Uloborus

    @Judas Escargot:
    Yes, there is. Vote Democrat. Make them pour tons and tons of money into a failed stalling tactic. They’ve devoted their lives to the wingnuttiest wingnuttery. Let them watch their life’s work amount to nothing as liberalism patiently grinds forward like it has through all of America’s history.

  57. 57.

    Church Lady

    @buckyblue: Isn’t what Walker is proposing for the Unions exactly what he campaigned on? Yes, this is what they voted for, because he said exactly what he wanted to do during his campaign. And he was the winner. It seems your friends didn’t pay attention before they cast their votes.

  58. 58.

    Chet

    @Benz: The implied corollary, I suppose, being: “So there’s no reason not to indulge your inner brownshirt on Sunday.”

  59. 59.

    Rozlyn

    Just returned home from Madison–it was another beautiful day at the capitol with great turnout. Police and fire were there in force, which really fired up the crowds (the governor has exempted them from this union battle in an attempt to divide and conquer)!

    The counter protest was weak tea, folks. Turnout was low and their rally, which was scheduled from 12-3, wrapped up at 1:20!!!!! No sign of Breitbart or Palin!

  60. 60.

    Cronin

    I took a bus up there from Chicago for two days, was fortunate enough to be in the rotunda for this.

    Wish I could still be there. Amazing amazing people.

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