Wisconsin battles stir students to ‘fight back’

Of course labor unions are well represented, although the state budget is largely an attack on public sector unions, many private sector unions are out in full force as well. Police officers and firefighters have been exempted from the Budget Repair Bill (SB11) and the budget bill but their catchy bagpipe tunes ring free in the Capitol Rotunda nonetheless.

It’s a sharp slap in the face that the Republicans argue the bill can’t be modified while most employees are willing to concede on the benefit cuts, if it weren’t for collective bargaining. It’s an affront to participatory democracy that a vote was rushed in the assembly without all of the Democrats present. These two issues are just the tip of the iceburg that illustrate Governor Walker’s power grab, contrary to claims that this is about the money.

The movement has included those trusted legislators: the now heroic “Wisconsin 14.” The Assembly Democrats stood in solidarity with their formerly “out of state” colleagues.
Those everyday citizens protesting, and doing recall work in Wisconsin, operate under the mantra of “Defend Wisconsin,” for we are literally facing funding cuts that would affect 99 percent of the state, and directly target the most needy. It is unfortunate that such a wondrous movement has to come from such an attack.

A facet of the movement, the dirty work, is the recall work. The Budget Repair Bill has sparked recall elections for no less than 16 state senators, both Republicans and Democrats. Upon arriving in my traditionally conservative home town of Hudson, Wisconsin after a month of protesting in Madison, I was greeted by a man running a recall petition station for our Republican State Senator, Sheila Harsdorf. The next day I attended a rally of more than 200 concerned citizens.

Perhaps we will understand what Governor Scott Walker has unleashed in the future, twenty years down the road, when young people today become those taking back the halls of our state government, and Congress nationally. They will win landslide elections because there is a fire being kindled deep in their civic conscious today. When the democracy that those defending Wisconsin truly becomes realized, then will citizens of this state realize that government can be a proactive, positive force in the lives of the people.

Maxwell Love is the secretary of the United Council of Wisconsin Students and a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.