Two Cops, Two Communities

Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? If you want to sing in the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, at noon…well, just get a permit. That’s been the rule for 33 years, and it’s still the rule. So the new state capitol police chief is just trying to enforce the rules.

And the number four—as in four people together in the capitol rotunda constitute an unlawful assembly, and are subject to ticketing or arrest? Well, that’s just a convenient number to assure adequate police staffing, since for every four people he’ll need twelve cops.

And this isn’t about free speech or the First Amendment—it’s simply about following the rules and the procedures. He—David Erwin—doesn’t make the law; his job is to enforce it. And there are people complaining—they can’t work, they can’t hear the phones, they can’t do business.

But they wouldn’t listen to reason, would they? They had to keep gathering illegally, singing during lunch hour, refusing to vacate—so what choice did the police chief have? He put handcuffs on ‘em, and dragged them away.

And yes, he’s sorry that he called the protestors terrorists, though he didn’t, really. He actually said that some of them were terrorizing people, like the protestor who sang a song making reference to a policeman whose father had recently passed away. That’s pretty hard to take.

My dad was a journalist, which is why I include the clip below of David Erwin speaking to a Milwaukee TV anchor. And sitting quietly in his chair, far from the action, it all seemed reasonable. But then I remembered how it played out. Here is what happened to Damon Terrell, who wasn’t even participating but was simply observing:

The story for Terrell worked out well: in early September of this year, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said he wasn’t going to press charges against Terrell. But what about the thugs in uniform? Are they getting off free?

Yes and no. In the interview, Erwin states that if people don’t like the rules, go and change ‘em, or try to. And people did. A young assistant professor of medical physics, Michael Kissick, who had been protesting in the capitol, no longer felt it was safe to do so. But it bugged him to be silenced, and so he went to the ACLU. And in April of this year, the ACLU slapped a lawsuit in federal court against the Department of Administration, in charge of the state capitol, stating that requiring citizens to obtain a permit was limiting free speech under the First Amendment.

Here’s part of what Kissick said:

I stopped protesting inside the Capitol at that time because of police behavior. Officers whom I once trusted to explain how I could exercise my First Amendment rights without being cited or arrested suddenly turned on everyone who was protesting. Suddenly, the police wouldn’t answer my questions – they looked right through me, in fact, after a year and a half of very good relations. They were randomly citing peaceful protesters, claiming that they were violating rules and regulations that were constantly changing. They provided a phone number to call if we had questions, but nobody I know who called the number ever received a response. I lost trust in the police completely. Protesting inside the Capitol became unsafe for me.

Time for the backstory. One of the interesting facets of the Wisconsin protests of 2011 was the extraordinary relationship that the capitol police had with the protestors. Why? It came down to—as it curiously often does—one man, the leader and the chief of the Capitol Police. Also curiously, I wrote “leader” without thinking in the sentence above, briefly pondered whether to delete, and decided no. Because the chief of police at that time was a guy named Charles Tubbs; here’s the Wisconsin State Journal’s backstory on him.

The danger of getting in trouble with the law is something Tubbs, 57, saw firsthand growing up in a tough neighborhood in Beloit. Several of the children he grew up with are either incarcerated or dead from drugs or violence. His two older brothers ended up in jail, he said. Both were eventually freed but died as a result of violence more than a decade ago.

So Tubbs turned to religion and sports, went on to become a cop in the Beloit Police Department for 30 years. He made his way up to Deputy Chief of the department and resigned after 30 years; in 2008 Governor Jim Doyle named him chief of the Capitol Police.

And Tubbs had been influenced by a remarkable cop, David Couper, who had been the Chief of Police in Madison during the tumultuous protests in Madison during the Vietnam War. And what had Couper done?

Couper was all about dialogue, protecting free speech, getting close to people and creating relationships. All of a sudden, cops were going into crowds, talking to people, explaining the rules, asking for cooperation, and pledging to protect.

Tubbs, in turn, talked to union officials on February 12, 2011, the day after Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said he was gutting the state unions. And he kept up that level of communication all throughout the protests in the state capitol, in which tens of thousands of people were protesting. His goal? Zero arrests, and remarkably, he achieved it.

Not, according to Sue Riseling, the Chief of Police for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, without considerable difficulty. Riseling, in her book A View from the Interior, praises Tubbs for “incredible grace under pressure;” she also felt that he was too close to the unions. And there were other frictions as well among the top cops (Madison Police were also involved) involved in what was an explosive situation. How can it not have been? Riseling says it all when she writes: "What can the police do with such a divided community?" Riseling said, asking the question she's still considering.

Time for the passive voice: mistakes were made, tempers were lost, briefcases were slammed on desks….

My view? It was a triumph of policing. Other view? Tubbs didn’t understand his job, which was to keep order in the building.

And Tubbs, understandably, didn’t want to go through round two, which he knew was coming with the recall election. So he quit. Can you blame him?

Walker, of course, was less than heartbroken, though his spokeswoman murmured words of praise and gratitude for his efforts during a distinctly difficult time. And Walker lost no time in putting his guy, David Erwin. Here’s how he did it, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Gov. Scott Walker's administration rewarded the new hardline Capitol Police chief and his top deputy with double-digit pay raises earlier this year after moving the pair on paper to phantom jobs for two weeks and then back to their real posts.

Chief Dave Erwin — who has overseen a crackdown on Walker protesters at the statehouse — received an overall salary hike of 11.7%, to $111,067 a year, the same rate as his predecessor. That amounts to an $11,680 annual raise.

It is, according to Peter Fox, who was the employee relations secretary under Republican governor Tommy Thompson, legal; he also says he doesn’t like it.

Neither do I.

Well, as you saw in the video above, the Capitol Police did become “hardline.” But what happened to the federal lawsuit against them, filed by the ACLU on behalf of Michael Kissick? Read on:

The Department of Administration and the ACLU of Wisconsin Foundation have signed a settlement on a federal lawsuit involving permitting requirements for state Capitol protests. Under the settlement, announced Tuesday, groups like the Solidarity Sing Along will need to give notice, rather than obtain a permit, to gather at the Capitol. Nevertheless, the parties are still clashing over the interpretation, if not the terms, of the agreement.

The Department of Administration, the defendant in the suit, says the settlement recognizes that the state's permitting process is "constitutional."

"The permit process has been repeatedly upheld as constitutional by the courts, and today's settlement demonstrates ACLU's agreement with the process as well," said Mike Huebsch, secretary of the DOA, in a news release.

But Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, calls that claim "bizarre."

"It's pretty astonishing, because it's nowhere in the agreement," says Dupuis. "They tried to get it in the agreement and we said absolutely not."

At last we come to the point. Here’s what the Madison paper Isthmus had to say two days ago:

Capitol protesters are no longer just contesting the tickets they've received for participating in the Solidarity Sing Along. They're filing their own complaints against the Capitol Police officers who wrote the tickets.

On Tuesday, Bob Syring and Jerry McDonough filed some 15,000 complaints with the Capitol Police, alleging officers engaged in harassment and other misconduct in issuing about 250 citations to protesters between July 24, 2013, and Sept. 6.

"I hope this gives them pause to think what they did was wrong," says McDonough.

Syring says they are filing many complaints from third parties -- that is, complainants who did not necessarily witness the arrest but are "aware of what has gone on." 

 Yeah? Third party complaints from people who did not witness the arrest but are “aware of what has gone on?”

Let’s make it 15,001!

Six Thugs in Uniform

The problem?

There’s nothing new about it, no new angle or twist that I can spin. And I’ve written about it before—about the absurdity of the Wisconsin State Capitol police telling tourists who are watching the lunch sing-along in the capitol rotunda that they are subject to arrest. Or how about the 80-year old lady who gets handcuffed and led away, still singing away? Or the Vietnam vet who falls on the marble staircase onto his back and his handcuffed wrists? That’s an ouch.

And I questioned before—why are they using metal cuff, or even cuffs at all? When we were all protesting in Vieques, the cops used plastic “cuffs”—really just high-quality plastic bands. Why? They didn’t want any martyrs.

The protests have been going on for a couple of years, ever since Walker and his fellow Republicans stripped government workers of their right to bargain collectively and turned back the clock a couple of centuries on social issues. So every weekday the protesters gather and sing in the capitol rotunda. Here’s a photo taken a couple of days ago.

And you will remember that Walker—via the Department of Administration—changed the permit process from a two-page form to a 25-page document, and declared that any group of four or more people needed to have a permit to meet in the state capitol.

Warning to any family of mom, dad, and two kids—you could be arrested for walking through the state capitol.

OK—a judge, in a preliminary injunction—upped the number to 20, and will rule on the constitutionality of the whole business later. Remember, please, that both the First Amendment of the US Constitution and a similar section in the state’s Constitution allows for the right of people “peaceably to assemble and to petition their Government for a redress of grievances.” So in addition to the regular singers, tourists and interested others can see the group below—wonderfully called “Raging Grannies.”

The Raging Grannies of Madison, Wisconsin, by the way, have a wonderful little website about their group, which is ten years old. Here’s a quote from the site:

We are a "dis-organization" without formal leadership. Each Granny does what she can and we make decisions by consensus. As it says on the Raging Grannies International website at http://raginggrannies.org/, "We are totally non-violent, believe in only peaceful protest (with lots of laughter), work for the 'many not the few' … and see our work as the spreading green branches of a great tree, rising up to provide shelter and nourishment for those who will come after us." That's true -- but we Grannies also want to have fun, refuse to be silenced, and will sing out against those things that harm the planet we will leave to our grandkids.

One wonders—might the Grannies be talked into starting a gentlemen’s auxiliary? Rather the way the Rotarians have Rotary Anns?

There is, I say, nothing new, nothing I haven’t written about; I’m wasting your time here, Dear Reader. Well, wait—the Huffington Post came out with a story, entitled “Wisconsin Capitol Arrest Turn Violent as Police Take Down Protester.”

I suppose this attempt at journalist restraint and “objectivity” should be lauded. Watch the video below, and then tell me—how would you write that headline?

Damon Terrell was not only attacked by the cops, but spent three days in the jug while the capitol police fiddled with the paperwork. And now, he’s been released; here’s the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the subject:

Charges are still possible against Damon Terrell, who was jailed Monday after a violent arrest interrupted a streak of normally peaceful anti-Scott Walker singalong protests in the Capitol rotunda.

The charges recommended by the Department of Administration were felony battery and resisting arrest in an incident widely caught on camera. Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said more time was needed at an initial court appearance to decide on charges. 

Don’t know Ozanne, though his grandmother drank coffee with my mother every Friday morning for about thirty years. And reports are that he’s not gonna be too interested in spending his limited resource in prosecuting a guy who was retreating with his hands up before he was tackled.

Though there was a felony committed in the rotunda that day.

Ozanne—you wanna go after 6 thugs in uniform?

Terrell arrest from multiple angles.

A Writer and His Deadline

Let’s face it—every writer needs a deadline. And so I tell you—it’s 11AM, I have spent an hour or two surfing for something interesting to write about. News flash—the world is in terrible shape.

Ooops—sorry. According to my friend Rafael, “terrible” along with words like “awful” and “horrible” are words to be avoided. Why? Because they carry a disproportionate emotional weight. You had a terrible day at the office? What happened—a coworker went postal, pulled out the semiautomatic, and shot up the office, leaving another coworker to die in your arms?

I considered briefly telling you about Wisconsin, in case you’ve missed my rants. And in fact, I even read up on something called a long range acoustic device (LRAD). I know about such a thing because I was on Facebook, looking at the following photo:

Beneath the photo was a reference to the LRAD, with the news that one had been used in the capitol yesterday. Right, so I trotted over to Wikipedia, and here’s what they say:

In 2004, Carl Gruenler, a former vice president of military and government operations for American Technology Corporation said that being within 100 metres (330 ft) of the LRAD is extremely painful, and that it was designed for use in short bursts at 300 metres (980 ft), to give targeted people a headache. He said that "you definitely don't want to be" within 100 m; and, that the device will cause permanent auditory damage.[3] LRAD officials deny such common uses, claiming that the device is not a weapon, rather it is a "directed-sound communications system", and that it can damage hearing at 15 metres (49 ft).

To be fair, there are many varieties of LRADs. And apparently, yesterday in the Wisconsin State Capitol it was a smaller version of the device that was used. But that begs the point—why use it at all? The rotunda, the location of the protest, is round and very echo-y. (Or maybe echophonous, as in cacophonous?) Actually, even a megaphone is overkill.

Well, as you can see in the video below, it’s a controversial device.

It’s become progressively more repressive, the police response to the protesters. First they couldn’t assemble—they had to get a permit. Then bystanders were threatened with arrest. Then people were informed—taking photos or video was not allowed. And now this—the use of a very nice tool to communicate with someone two miles away, but torture to anyone nearby.

As it happens, I am particularly sensitive to sound, and especially at this time. As I write, the street outside is being pounded with jackhammers, a portable generator is roaring away, and a large scooper is tossing chunks of asphalt into a truck. And this evening, a few short hours after the workers have left, the partier will have arrived, to start a street fair.

I wrote about it before; here’s what I said:

The United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights have banned the use of loud music in interrogations, but it is still being widely used. The term torture is sometimes used to describe the practice. While it is acknowledged by US interrogation experts that it causes discomfort, it has also been characterized by them as causing no "long term effects."[1]

Ya—enough! Would you like to see some totally wonderful art? Check out the Danish artist Peter Callesen….

Definitely what I feel like before coffee….

Right, that’s fun…. Now, how about…

    

Damn—it’s 12:08. Missed the deadline!

All the Governor Money Can Buy

Well, a woman named Diane Ayers, whom I don’t know, stepped right up to the plate and diagnosed the situation. Here she is:

Re Bill Dunn post, your question: "Why did this never happen in Wisconsin's 165 years of history until Scott Walker became governor?"

Because, Bill, this is the first time in Wisconsin history that the core of state government has been illegitimately seized by corporate-owned political fascists, who do not hesitate to suspend civil liberties and distort or defy the constitutional rights guaranteed to this state's citizens.

Their prime directive is to discredit, divide and destroy all those agencies, civic organizations, labor unions, even community groups of individual citizens seeking to communicate their views and concerns.

Their goal? The permanent destruction of democracy in Wisconsin - and eventually throughout the U.S. - replacing it with an institutionalized oligarchy that maintains its control by doing away with public education, worker rights, voting rights, etc., -- creating a powerless underclass that will work to serve and fear to challenge their corporate masters -now and for generations to come.

Right—got that taken care of. Now—can I go to the beach?

Just a minute, you say—what’s going on in Wisconsin?

Scott Kevin Walker, born 2 November 1967, in Colorado Springs moved to Delavan, Wisconsin when he was ten. An eagle scout, he also attended a two week program called Badger Boys State and Boys Nation in Washington DC. This, he said, inspired him to become a politician.

He entered Marquette University; he dropped out. He worked for IBM and then The Red Cross. At age 22, he ran for the Wisconsin State Assembly and lost. He then moved to a Republican district—Wauwatosa—and won three years later. He served nine years in the Assembly, and then became Milwaukee County executive in 2002. He was elected governor in 2010, and promptly instituted a….

Stop!

I’ve been trying, I’ve really been trying, to be neutral, objective, fair-minded; I’m the son of a newspaperman, after all. But after all, this is not a newspaper; it’s my blog.

So I will tell you that yes, dear Readers plus Diane, this is something not seen before. This is a guy deeply in bed with corporate America, especially the mining and oil interests; guys like the infamous Koch brothers, who contributed big, big money into the recall campaign. How much? Well, I just googled “Koch brothers Scott Walker” and the first citation is from Forbes of 2012: “Scott Walker didn’t get a dime from us,” it reads. The second citation? Politifact.com, saying…well, copy and paste time:

1.              Billionaire Koch brothers gave $8 million to Wisconsin Gov. Scott ...
www.politifact.com/.../billionaire-koch-brothers-gave-8-million-wisconsi...‎

◦                Cached




Jun 20, 2012 - "In fact, the Koch brothers alone gave twice as much money to Scott Walker as the total amount of money raised by Tom Barrett." Roughly ...


I’ll come clean—I didn’t click on either of the links. Why? Because there is ample evidence that there’s a link between the Koch brothers and Walker. Remember the famous prank call, from a radio host pretending to be David Koch?

Well, revealingly, all I had to do was type “Scott” into the search bar of YouTube and up it came….

And what had Scott Walker done, to get himself into a recall election? He had proposed curing an expected 3.6 billion dollar state deficit by eliminating the right of the public service unions to bargain collectively. And that spurred crowds of up to 100,000 people to camp out in protest in the capitol.

Nor was this all. Here’s Wikipedia on Scott Walker’s social issues:

Social issues played a part in the campaign. Walker has stated that he is "100% pro-life" and that he believes life should be protected from conception to natural death.[43] He opposes abortion, including in cases of rape and incest.[23][44] He supports abstinence-only sex education in the public schools, and opposes state supported clinical services that provide birth control and testing and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases to teens under the age of 18 without parental consent.[23] He supports the right of pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives on religious or moral grounds.[23][45] He supports adult stem cell research, but opposes human embryonic stem cell research.[20][44][46][47]

Right—short version: a reactionary.

Who has subverted the rules, rammed down repressive abortion laws, stripped public service positions in favor of his corporate friends. Oh, and had seven or so of his political staff convicted of various crimes. The most recent revelation, by the way, is that as Milwaukee County executive, his campaign staff was actively involved in handling the tragic death of a fifteen-year old kid who was killed by a falling slab of concrete from a county parking garage.

The protests never really went away, and people began singing protest songs at noon in the capitol rotunda. So Walker decided that people would need a permit to protest in the capitol. That of course, led to howls—the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, as well as the state constitution, guaranteeing the right of assembly.

And now comes the slightly thicker edge of the wedge. It turns out that people cannot even watch, and tourists to the Dairy State are being told: spectating is illegal. In fact, a lawmaker, Sondy Pope, was threatened with arrest for just that.

“He stole the election,” said my friend Gary, referring to the 2012 recall, and went on to give specifics. I’ve forgotten, now, and anyway, it seemed irrelevant.

If he didn’t steal it, he bought it….. 

Brian, the Blogging Pigeon

Well, I’m happy to report that on November 28, 2005, while I was celebrating my 49^th birthday, across the world Brian Pigeon was starting his blogging career. Here’s a picture of him:

And here’s his introduction:

My name is Brian Pigeon, and I am London’s premier blogging pigeon.

Pigeon Blog is my online diary.

A bona fide urban pigeon telling it how it is for the pigeons of London.

You can also follow me on Twitter – @brianpigeon

And, if you’re interested, I got me a Facebook page too – Brian Pigeon.

Make sure you get the right one tho coz the other one’s an impostor.

I’m the one who looks like this:

And here he posts the picture above. Well, I can tell you all about this because while munching a tuna sandwich, yesterday, I was watching a documentary about the wildlife in London. I can now tell you that there is a seal in the lower Thames, and that the normally gruff fishermen are improbably throwing their inventory to the seal in the river, as opposed to putting it on ice and selling it. There’s a lady who throws chicken sausages to five foxes—and she’s trained them to sit, too! Hedgehogs are having a hard time of it—they’re sticking the heads into thrown-away coffee cups, lured presumably by that sugar—and then dying. Londoners! Please tear your coffee cups in two!

Then there are the bird people. Oh, and did you know that the British government ordered the peregrine falcons to be killed in World War II? Apparently, the War Office was still using carrier pigeons, and the falcons were eating them….

Now where was I?

Ah, yes—the blogging pigeon. It seems that there’s a London woman—was her name Lisa? Think so—who goes about photographing pigeons; she reports that she been in virtually every neighborhood in the city. And she knows about as much about pigeons as I do about iguanas. And if I may say so, I was considerably more reticent about the sex life of iguanas than is Lisa about the pigeon equivalent. Really, Lisa, I was eating at the time!

Well, I obviously had to check in on Brian Pigeon’s blog—and well worth it. I happened on the page entitled “Press” and discovered that The Guardian, Time Out, and The Times have all reviewed it favorably—wow, and now comes Iguanas! The capping on the cake, or whatever the expression is….

Wow—and Brian has a good head for business, as well as a fine design sense. Look, who could resist the tote bag below?

Or what about the Brian Pigeon Classic Thong?

A bargain at just under twelve buck. Not only made in the USA—thanks, Brian!—but absolutely guaranteed to drive your lover, or even your husband, into the extremes of lascivious lust at the very sight of it. Be prepared—you won’t have a minute’s peace while wearing it.

But enough rank materialism. Brian tells a remarkable story of a common bird: here’s his very first blog post, on that late November day in 2005:

Welcome to the first ever online diary of a London pigeon. Well, in all fairness I come from Hayes which is not strictly speaking London. It’s close enough and, let’s face it, it’s as good as you’re gonna get coz not many of us pigeons have mastered the art of blogging! Mores the pity. You never know though, if enough of them can be arsed to read this – it might just catch on! Pigeon-friendly Cyber Caffs are, as a result, hard to come by so posting may be a little irregular (although I heard there’s quite a good one in Slough? Anyone know it? Let me know in the comments…).

This is a picture of mum. I think she sent it to me so I won’t forget her birthday.

And guess what! Brian has 2859 followers! Wow—wonder how many followers Iguanas will have after eight years!

I bring you the story of Brian as recompense for the video below. And please, call Wisconsin Capitol Police Chief David Erwin at (608) 266-8797, and give him a piece of your mind.

Oh, and Brian? You got any friends on the Capitol Square? Friends who could do what you guys do so well?

Call me….

May I Please, Please Protest Today?

For many Saturdays this year, a group of us have sat on a plaza and read names. People drift by, look puzzled, clutch their small children’s hands more tightly. Some gaze, some avert their eyes. Anyone who establishes eye contact gets a little flyer explaining what we are doing. The point is to engage in debate.

Among the people strolling through the plaza are a policeman or two, who stand by and look on. What don’t they do?

Put me in handcuffs and fine me 701 bucks.

That, unbelievably, is what happened yesterday in the capitol rotunda of Madison, Wisconsin.

Full disclosure—I got the figure of $701 from a friend; I’ve looked but been unable to verify it. However, I did come across the video of Will Williams, below. And Williams is a 70-year old veteran who got handcuffed and escorted down the stairs. Whereupon he tripped—or was he tripped?—on the first steps, and fell onto his handcuffed hands. Ouch. 

Nor was Williams the oldest person to be thrown into cuffs and led off. Check out Wednesday’s post—there’s a clip of an 80-year old woman being handcuffed. She’s singing away, the cops cuff her, and she trots off with them. At no point is she resisting—she’s just singing.

Let’s be clear. This is assault. And under what circumstances can a cop stick cuffs on a person? When I worked on inpatient psychiatry wards, the use of restraints was very clear. A patient had to have shown behavior that was a danger to himself or to others. And that behavior had to be documented. OK—so are cops operating on a different set of criteria? Here’s what one guy said:

Actually, there are several reasons a law enforcement officer can detain you without notifying you of the reason. They need not produce an arrest warrant if they have probable cause that you have committed a felony. Placing handcuffs on a person is not always the result of being arrested; an officer need not arrest you to detain you. If the officer feels you are a flight risk and that flight would compromise an ongoing investigation, or if he feels you are threat to him or another, he may take you into temporary custody. If there are other pressing matters to which he must attend to maintain public or personal safety, he need not speak to you at all.

Nor am I the only one to think so. Check this out….

Dane County Sheriff David Mahoney Thursday refused to retract remarks made Monday during a radio interview on his apparent condoning of the protest singing in great numbers, despite a federal judge's ruling only assemblies of twenty people or less could be staged without a permit.
"I'm here to join alongside the Solidarity Singers. This is an example of freedom of speech," Mahoney told Workers Independent News (WIN) Monday.


This is a monstrous attack on human dignity and on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. And despite the temporary order upholding the government’s “right” to require permits for demonstrations with over 20 people—no. If people want to get together and sing songs in the capitol, dammit, they have every right to do it.

Oh, and the legislator who had a meeting with the chief of capitol police and the secretary of administration? Here’s what she wrote after the aborted event.

"I was very shocked and disappointed today when you and Department of Administrative Assistant Gwendolyn Coomer walked out of a meeting scheduled in my office," she wrote in a sharply worded letter (PDF) that was hand-delivered to Erwin's office in the state Capitol. Taylor also took the police chief to task for being unable to identify the "specific conduct you believe to be unlawful."

Yes, it’s very clear that there are some people breaking the laws at noon in the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Very, very clear…..

For those who can help with the legal costs incurred by protesters, please donate via PayPal to the following fund: 
http://solidaritysingalong.org/

On Beleaguered Wisconsin

It started two years ago, when Republican governor Scott Walker decided to go after the unions in state government in Wisconsin.

And it’s still going on.

I followed it only remotely at the time, being in active anticipatory dread about the lay off I knew awaited me. But I remember seeing the protests on television, as I walked through the lunchroom before 7AM at the home office of Wal-Mart Puerto Rico in Caguas. There were, at its height, 100,000 people jammed into the Wisconsin state capitol, all protesting a bill aimed at lessening a 3.6 billion dollar state deficit. How was Walker proposing to do that? By eliminating the right of the state unions to bargain collectively.

Facts: Wisconsin became the first state to allow for unions in the public sector in 1959. While union membership was in the past higher in the private sector than in the public, that situation has now changed. Currently, about 36% of government workers are in unions, as compared to six or seven percent in the private sector.

When Walker announced his bill—called the Budget Repair Bill by those favoring Walker or the Union Busting Bill by those not—protesters took over the capitol. There were sleeping areas, a medic station, and food distribution areas. Signs were everywhere. And the capitol police, in general, acted professionally.

In the midst of the fracas, 14 state senators—all of the Democrats in the Senate—left the state and went to Chicago in order to prevent Republicans from having a quorum. That drew everybody’s attention, as well as did the massive crowds in and around the state capitol. And who were all those people? Fans of Walker said they were union organizers from out of state.

Government workers began calling in sick, and doctors were handing out notes excusing them; later, Walker would try and go after those doctors. And so the world watched as the drama in Wisconsin continued. Eventually, the Democrat senators came back. Here’s Wikipedia’s account of how the budget bill was passed:

On February 22, 2011 Assembly Republicans began procedures to move the bill to a vote on February 22 while Democrats submitted dozens of amendments and conducted speeches.[60] At 1:00 am on February 25, following sixty hours of debate,[61] the final amendments had been defeated and the Republican leadership of the Wisconsin State Assembly cut off debate as well as the public hearing and moved quickly to pass the budget repair bill in a sudden vote. The vote was 51 in favor and 17 opposed, with 28 representatives not voting.[61] The final vote took place without warning, and the time allowed for voting was so short (lasting only 5–15 s)[62] that fewer than half of the Democratic representatives were able to vote; many reportedly pushed the voting button as hard as possible but it did not register.[63] Four Republican representatives voted against the bill.[64]

In essence, Walker carried the day—though not without a fight. The budget bill was challenged in court, and upheld. Walker faced a recall election and won. But guess what?

The protests never entirely went away. People began gathering at noon to sing—songs like, “hit the road, Scott, and don’t you come back no more.” Or how about, “we’ll keep singing ‘til justice is done; we’re not going away, oh Scotty?”

OK—so what did Scott do?

He required groups of more than four people to have a permit to protest in the capitol.

Four people??!!

C’mon, Gov, if five secretaries leave for lunch together, is that a protest?

Apparently so. Here’s what Senate Majority Leader sent around to the legislative offices: 

“If you are in the vicinity of the illegal demonstrations that have been taking place over the noon hour in the rotunda, you will be considered part of the protests and are subject to being ticketed.”

Well, there was a problem. Here’s what the state constitution says about free speech and the right of assembly:

The right of the people peaceably to assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged.”

Not unreasonably—in fact, completely reasonably—protesters felt that requiring a permit was an abridgment of their right to peaceably assemble. And of course it is—what happens if the government says no? Are citizens just supposed to go home? It’s the old slippery slope—the next thing would be for groups to be forced to pay a bond for security, or insurance, or “interruption” to the workplace.

Wisconsin has a proud tradition of progressive, clean, transparent government. Scott Walker has severely tarnished that reputation with low-down, dirty tactics. This attack on the right to assemble is just another example of the politics of attack and polarization.

Well, the protesters went to court, and the court issued a temporary ruling stating that the state can require a permit for protesters of twenty or more people.

No deal, said the protesters. So in the last week or so, over 100 citations were issued. Yesterday, 30 were issued, as a group of 100 people sang and 50 watched.

And the police?

You be the judge—watch the videos below.