From California, and into Wisconsin's Friendly Roar

The wave of protest cresting in Madison is amazing: students, workers, seniors, everyone is coming together in peaceful but unyielding opposition to Governor Scott Walker’s attack on democracy.

I was there last week with a California Nurses Association contingent that flew in with the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor to add our voices and bodies to the wave. When the L.A. Fed marched en masse into the Capitol rotunda waving our “L.A. Supports You” signs, the friendly roar that greeted us might have made you think we were the Allies liberating Paris in 1944. The Wisconsinites crowding the Capitol hugged and high-fived and thanked us and cried and laughed to know that workers were flying 2,000 miles to join their fight.

Solidarity crossed all the usual lines—class, age, gender, race, religion, public employee vs. private, students and workers. There are no borders in Madison, in the peaceful occupation that has now lasted for two weeks. It’s exactly this outpouring of people power, of fellow feeling, that’s so threatening to the governor that he’s attempted to shut off access to the “the People’s House.”

Along the sidewalks outside the Capitol, many local unions were grilling bratwursts and offering them free to protesters. One IBEW member told me the letters actually stand for "I Burn Every Weenie."

The occupiers have self-organized a little town within the building, establishing a first aid station, a food court, a soapboxing area in the rotunda, and childcare areas in side hallways of the upper floors, and then arranging all the sleeping bags and negotiating with state cops about where people can sleep at night.

The occupiers kept the Capitol clean; only blue painter’s tape is used to put signs up, to avoid damaging the walls. A hand-lettered sign above the long table laden with free food expressed the prevailing ethos: “Take what you need.”

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When you walk into the ground floor of the massive and imposing rotunda and look up to the dome high above, you see the historic banners of dozens of ancient unions draped over the marble balusters of the second and third floor galleries overlooking the rotunda, and mixed in with them the freshly minted signs of dozens more unions and other groups expressing support for the workers and opposition to the governor and his puppet-masters, the Koch brothers.

All day there is chanting (“This is what democracy looks like!”) and speeches by local and visiting labor leaders, rank-and-file workers, and all manner of groups and individuals who feel the need to testify. Good old-fashioned Tom Paine patriotism, the real old American stuff. Nice to know it ain’t dead yet.

Later on the vibe in the Capitol changes as the occupiers settle in for the night. My second night there a UW coed got us all to hold hands in a circle and chant "OMMMM" in an effort to levitate the Capitol dome. There were smiles and laughs all around as some of the older members of the crowd experienced a ’60s flashback, followed by five minutes of OMMMM. Now, I could be wrong…but I think the damned thing lifted an inch or two.

Can this occupying coalition (and the Democrats in the state senate) outlast Governor Walker? There is starting to be talk of a general strike in Wisconsin, something not seen in the USA since 1946. If you can spare a day or two to go to Madison, now would be a good time. On Wisconsin!

Gerry Daley is a labor rep for the California Nurses Association.