It sure is nice to see this:
In Wisconsin and around our country, the American Dream is under fierce attack. Instead of creating jobs, Republicans are giving tax breaks to corporations and the very rich—and then cutting funding for education, police, emergency response, and vital human services.
On Saturday, February 26, at noon local time, we are organizing rallies in front of every statehouse and in every major city to stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin. We demand an end to the attacks on worker’s rights and public services across the country. We demand investment, to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. And we demand that the rich and powerful pay their fair share.
We are all Wisconsin. We are all Americans.
This Saturday, we will stand together to Save the American Dream. Be sure to wear Wisconsin Badger colors—red and white—to show your solidarity.
This may have been the over-reach that progressives needed to rally the public.
NobodySpecial
Oh, you ARE a joker, Cole. Progressives are merely the punching bags of DLC types for those moments when people think about banging on big business.
Violet
Did you see E.D’s post last night with the 2007 quote from Obama about how he’ll walk the picket line and, of course, now he isn’t? Last night on the way home from class I heard a local left-wing talk show guy on the radio quoting the same thing and screaming about how Obama is a failure for not keeping his promising. “Obama most disappointing President ever.”
Maybe the general public is being rallied, but the progressives seem to want to eat their own.
Edit: Did you know that Koch Industries has a Twitter feed? If you want to see what image of themselves they’re trying to push in real time, it’s a good place to look: http://twitter.com/Koch_Industries. Also, if you want to see what’s currently happening and where you might be able to protest.
Punchy
Nope. Repubs already half-way there. Dems cannot stay excommunicado forever. This will end very badly.
hildebrand
@NobodySpecial: Cynicism is the cheap and easy response.
gene108
Bring your own video cameras and get it on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
The MSM will ignore these rallies like the plague, making it seem like they never happened.
Nick L
Relatedly, Beck’s latest theory is that The American Dream is a commieliberal plot to give power to unions, or something. I expect in a year we’ll hear Mitt Romney swearing up-and-down that he doesn’t support the American dream, Overton Window and whatnot.
New Yorker
I’m usually not one for rallies, but I feel very strongly about this. Remember that stupid line from Irving Kristol about how a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged? Well, a liberal is a conservative who has been unemployed. I spent 6 months unemployed and 6 months underemployed making peanuts and getting no benefits. It was hell. I’m back on my feet with a good job with great pay and benefits, but I need to be there pushing back against this country becoming a banana republic.
I should make a sign “MBAs for unions” or something. Not every business school graduate is a Galtian overlord douchebag.
geg6
I cannot personally make it all the way to Harrisburg, but there is a rally here on Saturday coordinated by Beaver County Blue that my John and I will be attending. Members and union officials from the local Laborers Union, IBEW, SEIU, NEA, and USW will also be in attendance.
This is kinda significant, that the IBEW will be there. The local ones of the region supported Bush. It was only in 2008 that they came back into the Dem fold and were, actually, the rock on which the local Obama organizing was built. I think W radicalized them.
Marc McKenzie
One hopes, John. One hopes.
However, as Violet mentioned, it seems that some would rather sit and continue yelling at Obama instead of focusing their efforts on exposing the Repub overreach. Oh well.
DP
I’m from MN, I am more than willing to head to the capitol to rally tomorrow, but wearing badger colors is too much to ask. . .
JonathanW
Just a reminder to anyone in the DC/MD/VA area that I’m organizing a group to go to the DC rally at Dupont Circle this Saturday.
Email me at whydirt at yahoo if you want to join us. I’ve already heard from two BJ folks (or maybe just a couple of Tunch’s alt accounts), so you won’t be alone!
NobodySpecial
@hildebrand: What you call cynicism, I call observation of national Democratic politicians for a couple of decades now. It is not by accident that a lot of the big committees are run by ConservaDems who refuse to say much of anything at all to support ‘leftist’ ideas in non-election years, let alone election years. They may VOTE with lefties, but they won’t defend them out loud.
JCJ
Won’t be able to get to Madison by noon, but will be there with my wife and daughter! Also, too I am one of those that will benefit from one of Walker’s tax cuts (making health savings account contributions exempt from state taxes) so I am donating that money to the 14 state senators (I think it will be about $250)
Sad Iron
I hope so, becauce the state assembly royally fucked us over today.
geg6
I see that editing is still down. Damn, wanted to get in a jab at John re: the Backyard Brawl last night.
Oh, well.
Huckster
@Violet: Maybe the general public is being rallied, but the progressives seem to want to eat their own.
It has always been thus.
jibeaux
@DP:
Why not compromise on pink? It will be like Where’s Waldo.
gene108
@New Yorker:
I’d join the club, once I finish my MBA. I don’t plan on being self employed and the overreach by Republicans, in terms of other workers has me worried.
I used to think basic work place rights unions won decades ago, like safety rules, right to sue an employer for mistreatment, 40 hour work week, minimum wage, etc. were sacrosanct. I realize, with the current crop of Republicans, I was wrong.
RSR
As I noted in Kay’s Illinois Dem thread, there was a big rally for labor midday yesterday here in Philly. I’m not a union member myself (I work in a small two person shop in a non-union field) but my wife is a teacher, and her father, brothers and cousins are firefighters.
The rally was well attended by both public and private sector unions. (And not a teatard counter protester in sight!) There’s another rally for public schools this evening, and rallies all over the region tomorrow.
It’s good to see some energy in the movement again.
Stillwater
Wisconsonistas of the World, Unite!
JCJ
@DP
Ha ha! I understand. As a Purdue grad I can justify wearing red and white since my daughter is at UW, but if it were red and white for IU? That would be tough!
jwb
@gene108: Does it matter any more what the media reports? It probably does at the margins, but if the people are there, the energy is there, and everyone believes in the reality of the movement, then the media and what it is reporting becomes increasingly irrelevant, or at least the media’s coverage of events appears ever more Pravda like. The revolution will not be televised.
jibeaux
BTW, I think it would be awesome if everyone would just chime in if they’re going to their local event. I’m in one of two states in the country with no collective bargaining for state workers at all and the state legislature just got taken over by Republicans for the first time in like 150 years so I don’t see it happening any time real soon, but I’d like to go downtown and register my support, for, I don’t know, not cutting nearly 20% of the state budget like these clowns seem to think they’re going to do. But I have a sicko kiddo so I probably can’t, and I sure would like to read that some of you are.
Violet
@geg6:
Last night someone (sorry, forget who) posted the tip that you can edit a post here if you open the edit page in a new window or tab. I just tried it above and it works. Of course I missed a spelling error, but that’s my fault, not the edit function’s fault!
jwb
@geg6: Rumor has it that you can edit by opening edit function in a new tab or window. I haven’t tried it, but it was reported on an earlier thread.
ETA: And yes it works.
ETA2: And Violet beat me to it!
Violet
@jibeaux:
I’m not going to mine. I don’t live anywhere near the state capital and would have to drive half a day just to get there and I have other responsibilities on Saturday.
gene108
@jwb:
Media reporting matters.
Fox News’s wall to wall, 24/7, coverage of the April 15, 2009 Tea Party / anti-tax protests, put a spotlight on what was a small, poorly organized, and incoherent series of national rallies, so many Americans became aware of the protests.
We folks on political blogs are the ones at the margins. We try to keep informed. Most people aren’t news junkies. If it’s not on the front page of Yahoo.com, msn.com, or whatever default website their internet browser opens to or not in the front page of their local newspaper (old fashioned types), the odds are they won’t realize anything happened.
JonathanW
@Violet: IMO, the one of the best things you can do if you can’t attend a rally would be to write a thoughtful letter to the editor for your local paper. Just remember to keep it short and weighted toward facts instead of emotional appeals.
I realize newspapers are dying, but I think LttE are still a useful tactic, especially if you get published as a local.
El Cid
I haven’t read or thought deeply about arguments on whether or not an Obama visit would help or hinder the Wisconsin worker activism.
For example, I think of an analogy with the various Middle Eastern citizen revolts, it would have been harmful to their cause for the US to have endorsed them too clearly early on.
Because then their struggle would be easily portrayed as being caused and led by US stooges. After all, that’s what the US does and has done in a lot of countries.
slag
At which point I start to ask myself whether or not I gave away my Bucky shirt. I hope not!
kdaug
@JonathanW:
Fixed, and disagree. You’ll likely get more eyes-on here than in any local dead-tree rag.
Granted, it’s more a diffuse/dispersed audience, but changing the zeitgeist requires a wide spreading of seeds.
buckyblue
@DP: I’d be willing to compromise and let you wear the Packer Green & Gold. I’ll be in Madison tomorrow, on my bday. I’d wear Viking Purple if I thought it would help. Vive le resistence.
PurpleGirl
Contingent on the weather, I’m planning on going to the NYC rally tomorrow. It would be nice if the NYC BJers could come with a way for us to recognize each other.
I could, of course, wear some thing purple.
IM
I am a supporter on facebook!
Perhaps I could turn a website into another colour as a token of support? :-)
Admittedly, I am on another continent.
bemused
I hope. It’s a huge hill to climb between the decades of rightwing propaganda conning the middle class and complicit msm but the longer protesters hang tough loudly catapulting the facts more and more people are seeing through the spin fog. They are starting to catch on to the ‘first they came for the fill-in-the-blank….and then they came for me’ agenda.
The Koch bros empire is worth something like $43 billion. I can’t comprehend why people like that are never satisfied, they want the whole pie. Even if they got everything, I don’t think it would ever be enough for them. imo, they are money and power junkies. Fervently embracing extreme rightwing ideology is just a convenient cover for acting out their psychological addiction.
JonathanW
@kdaug: To solidify public opinion you have to reach outside of the internet. The best way to do that would be to attend one of these rallies. My suggestion is only for those who can’t make it to one. I still think local papers carry weight with the “only get on AOL to look at emailed pictures of the grandkids” crowd. It’s not an either/or thing where you can only use dead tree media or the interent.
MarkJ
I’ll be down on Dupont circle in DC, although that isn’t the most visible location for a rally. I guess it takes a huge crowd to look significant on the national mall but that seems like a more visible choice.
New Yorker
Also, too, this will be only the second large rally I’ve attended in my life. The first? Against the Iraq War in February, 2003 in DC.
Serious issues where I think the country is in danger of going off a cliff motivate me. This is one of those times.
singfoom
I’ll be driving up to Madison with some other peeps tomorrow and will make it to the rally by noon. Glad to show my support.
ChristianPinko
Anyone else showing up at Baton Rouge?
gelfling545
Well, I will be getting my retired old behind to Niagara Square in Buffalo at noon tomorrow for the solidarity rally – something I have not done since the 60s – provided we are not snowed in. I guess this is what it took because while I have been appalled by much of the right-wing activity this issue is what is bringing me out into the street in a Buffalo winter.
Uloborus
@Violet:
I don’t give them the dignity of the title ‘progressives’. They’re not. They’re nihilists, and polls show their numbers are tiny. NobodySpecial and his buddies may want to convince themselves they’re the Liberal Base, but the numbers show they’re the whiny far fringe. They want the title ‘Progressives’ or ‘Liberal Base’ to give them legitimacy they don’t have. Liberals and progressives think Obama is the bee’s knees and despise the Republicans, and the polls are VERY clear about it.
EDIT – I really shouldn’t be giving them so much attention, but darn it, I’m grumpy this morning! Grr.
ChrisNYC
I’m going to the New York event. From the looks of the sponsoring orgs on the moveon page (including SEIU and AFLCIO), these demos should have lots of people.
ruemara
I’ll be there in spirit. Instead this lazy gubmint worker will be…working. Then come back home to work. I’ll try to wear some red tho.
You Don't Say
I’ll be in Carson City. I was there on Monday too.
agrippa
It is overreach. I hope that it is enough to get people energized enough to react. Clearly, very serious pushback is needed.
South of I-10
@ChristianPinko: I want to go, but I have a kid with the flu. Take pics, I want to see them!
Maude
@ruemara:
We’ll be with them in spirit together. Plus South, I’m afraid to use dashes, 10.
jman
Me and my Significant Other will be in our State Capitol on Saturday. I have to think of a sign…?
terraformer
I’ll be in St. Paul at noon!
It’d be nice if Franken stopped by…
Tonal Crow
I’ll be at the SF rally. We’ve got to give the tyrants the what for!
NobodySpecial
@Uloborus: Way not to read there, Chuck. Or do you read ‘Obama’ in everything?
Skip that, we know that answer already.
Restrung
St Paul, represent.
No badger colors.
I’m not pretending to be a gopher, neither.
I’m going as Willi Plett. wait.. too soon?
Nicole
I’m sorry to be out of town since I’d love a chance to meet some of the NYC b-jers, but I will go to the Harrisburg, PA one. Horse Expo and a rally. What more could I ask from a Saturday?
dollared
@DP: C’mon, now, we’re not asking you to root for the UW hockey team….and red seems like a logical color if you’re going to march on behalf of communism…
dollared
@Violet: This is my problem as well. Somebody explain to me why there is no rally in Seattle. I’ve got two hours I can spend on this, not five.
Ruckus
@New Yorker:
That’s one of all that I’ve met. How do we convince more to join our side?
dollared
Just so we’re very clear: This is nice, but I’ve friended every recall group, union, and pissed off person on Wisconsin, and they are still disorganized and not funded.
Reversing this nightmare in the 30 states that have Republican governors is going to take an army of at least 20 full time organizers, social media flacks, PR hounds, strategy dudes and dudettes, direct mail experts, etc. for each state. That’s 600 people at a loaded cost of $70k-$100k each, plus advertising money, etc. Who’s got $5M?
And a recall campaign will cost $3-5M in Wisconsin alone.
Rallies are nice. The Wisconsin capitol action is wonderful and a bit heroic. But there is a war on. Where are our generals? Who’s going pay for uniforms and artillery?
dollared
@dollared: That’s $50 Million. It has to happen, but who’s got that scratch?