Stalemate

By the time you read this, the situation may have changed – again. But I think we’re at “endgame” here with the demonstrators in Madison, the 14 absent Democrat senators, and Governor Walker.

I don’t see any moves left for the 14 senate Democrats who decamped to Illinois to forestall a vote on the Budget Repair Bill. Despite the constant presence of protesters at the Capitol, the guv has made it quite clear that he’s not willing to talk, not willing to negotiate.

The simple fact is, he has the votes; and eventually, if not already, he’ll get his way.

And then the lawsuits will begin. There’ll be lawsuits about the vote in the Assembly to pass the Budget Repair Bill; there’ll be lawsuits about keeping people out of the Capitol; there’ll be lawsuits about busting the public employee unions. Lawsuits enough to provide plenty of billable hours for plenty of lawyers on both sides, even with pro-bono contributions by the legal eagles on both sides.

I think my friend Bill Lueders’ brilliant analysis in last Thursday’s “Isthmus” is dead-bang on: there is a lot of harm being done here, and it may be irreparable harm. On both sides. There are very strong feelings on both sides of this union-busting issue, and nobody is changing anybody’s mind. Both sides have been digging in deeper for the past two weeks.

Regardless of where you fall on the issues, our state politicians have been kicking the budget problem down the road for far too many years, and now it truly is coming home to haunt us. This is not a time for one-time-only quick fixes. Too many of those slick tricks have gotten us where we are now – broke, with bills coming due.

And the City of Madison called into question its willingness to “give a little” when last week the City Council, in special session, approved extensions of the contracts with several of the public employee unions to avoid, temporarily, the increases in contributions toward health insurance and retirement that are sure to come. Like it or not, that sort of thing does not sit well with the “other side.”

Last week I was energized; this week, I’m saddened.

Biddy Needs a Wartime Consigliore

Biddy Martin, Chancellor of the great economic engine that drives this city and this state, needs a wartime consigliore. A counselor with vision, backbone, courage, and above all, to remind the Chancellor that she has one hell of a strong hand to play in the political games going on now.

Biddy is about to cut ties with the other UW System schools to leave them twisting in the wind; to undo four decades of progress with Madison as the crown jewel in a stunning array of pearls of great price.

Excuse me for not seeing her plan to cut Madison loose from the other schools as a good thing. I’ve seen how the UW System has flourished since the “merger” back in the 70’s. I have friends whose kids started their higher education at schools like UW-Whitewater and UW-Eau Claire, and then have seamlessly transitioned to UW-Madison after a year or two. I don’t want that to change back to the bad old days.

This May, I’ll be proud to say both my kids are graduates of the University of Wisconsin, but I would be just as proud if they were graduates of UW-Oshkosh, where their old man learned his profession and made lifelong friends.

I don’t want my kids or anyone else’s to have to go through what I did, years ago, sitting in the office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at what was then called Wisconsin State University – Oshkosh, as I sought an appointment to the adjunct faculty (to teach a course in Broadcast Law), and having that bloated bureaucrat tell me he couldn’t “vouch for the quality or content of my course work” at the University of Wisconsin (which is now called UW-Madison). I pointed out that his PhD was granted by the University of Wisconsin, and since he was calling the UW’s credentials into question, that I would henceforth refer to him as “Mister” rather than “Doctor.” (I made the point, and got the appointment.)

All that crap is years gone by, but just as there are a hard core of old Marquette alums who will always call that University’s sports teams “Warriors”, there is a hard core of old-timers who are of the mindset that there’s Madison, and then a bunch of other pissant schools scattered around the state. They felt it somehow cheapened the UW to have it “on the same level” as LaCrosse and River Falls and Milwaukee.

I think Biddy’s wartime consigliore should advise her to stand up straight, fold her arms, and tell the losers in the state legislature like Steve Nass to take a flying leap. I think much of what she’s trying to do now is because of the constant sniping and crap she has to take from Nass and his ilk. I think Biddy’s wartime consigliore should remind her why the merger happened back in the 70’s; the reasoning behind it; the obvious success of the merger; and that if she has trouble with her own Regents or the dweebs in the legislature, and wants to do things a bit differently than they’d like, JUST DO IT.

It’s the Wisconsin way. When we see a way to make things better and more efficient, like we did with our system of higher education back in the 70’s, we do it. When some politician threatens something many of us consider a core Wisconsin value, we push back, and we push back hard. There’s a lot of that going on right now.

Some of my best days were as a student in the University of Wisconsin system, and as an adjunct faculty member. There’s a lot of folks like me out there, Biddy, who’ve benefitted from both the “state” schools and the “mother ship” here in Madison. I am a Lifetime Member of the Wisconsin Union, the Wisconsin Alumni Association, and I would have a wartime consigliore tell you to stand up to those pricks like Nass rather than kowtow to them.

We’ve got your back, Biddy. Our state motto is “Forward”, not backward.

Ginning up Fear...FEAR!!!!

You’d think there was a summer thundershower coming, the way they were ginning up fear on WIBA-AM Wednesday afternoon. (That’s a poke at the local weather mavens, who act like Chicken Little every time the sky clouds up around here.)

I had to take a break from my “day job” as a producer for Public News Service to run a quick errand. I’d just finished writing a story about how, buried in the excesses of the Budget Repair Bill, is an item that would impact the way Medicaid is run here in Cheesetopia (as my friend Tom Teuber calls it). It’s another Walker power-grab. He wants all the programs under the Medicaid umbrella in Wisconsin to be run by a political appointee (and guess who’d do the appointing) instead of by elected representatives.

These programs impact 1.2 million cheeseheads….that’s one in every five of us. And it’s being lost in the noise appropriately being made about the stripping of collective bargaining rights.

I digress.

I jumped into my huge, foreign-made gas-guzzling SUV and headed down the driveway, then up the hill toward civilization. On the radio, Miss Vicky was braying about the horrible people and leeches soiling “the people’s house”, which she said smelled of pee and patchouli. Then she brought on her guest, that horrible Tea Party woman Leah Vukmir, who used to have Scott Walker’s seat in the Assembly before the dazed and confused people in that Milwaukee neighborhood electified Scotty to be County Exec and electified her to the state Senate.

Before she got into the politics of fear and division, Ms. Vukmir was a Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, a far higher calling than the low life of politics. Senator Vukmir opined that the scene at the Capitol was “bordering on dangerous”, but admitted that so far it had been peaceful. (Implication: at any moment, things could go sideways, and dozens of union thugs would start busting heads.)

She and Miss Vicky went on about how the people up there have put our fair Capitol under siege (Vicky’s characterization) and they’ve milked us dry and it’s about time we put an end to that, by gum. Miss Vicky wanted to know why we couldn’t kick those folks out of the Capitol at 6 PM, and Senator Vukmir offered that if she was in charge, that’s exactly what would happen.

At this point, I arrived at my destination….the grocery store….and went in and committed commerce. When I came out, they were still selling fear and driving wedges, so I pushed the button on my THOUSAND-WATT aftermarket sound system and switched over to a CD of a Toto concert in Paris from 1990.

Selling fear and driving wedges. That’s pretty much all those folks have got these days.

Why the Tea Party Should Be Nervous

The Tea Party should take a closer look at what’s been happening in Madison. Unless you’ve been watching Faux News, and seeing only close-ups of the idiotic Hitler and Mussolini signs being toted by a handful of angry and misguided people, you’re seeing a lot of teachers, firefighters, cops, nurses, plow drivers, sanitation workers, EMT’s, and other “regular folks” demonstrating against the Walker power-grab.

The Tea Party, as I understand it, proclaims itself (among other things) to be the new patriot movement, the defender of all that’s good and decent in America. The Tea Party was able to muster a few thousand followers for a brief rally Saturday, to listen to such luminaries as Joe the “Plumber”, whose 15 minutes of fame expired a couple years ago, and Miss Vicky, one of the barking gasbags of shout radio in Madison and Milwaukee.

If I were a Tea Partier, I’d take a long look at the hours and hours of footage available at the click of a mouse. Those are some pretty “regular” folks up there, carrying signs and marching. Just as “regular” as the Tea Partiers claim to be. (OK, the folks up on the square now seem to have far fewer spelling and grammar errors in their signs and placards, a la “Keep Goverment (sic) Hands Off My Medicare”.)

I assume that one of the things that’s off-putting to the Tea Partiers is that a lot of representatives of the sources of Democratic political power are up there carrying signs and marching. Of the top ten organizations that contribute to political campaigns, three are heavily Democratic contributors (SEIU, AFSCME, and NEA) and a lot of the folks demonstrating are affiliated with these organizations.

Regardless, these “union folks” who teach our kids, plow the roads, patrol our streets, treat us when we’re ill, and haul off our garbage represent a very authentic face of America, one every bit as authentic as the Tea Party claims to be.

And every one of them performs a service so vital to our society, so fundamentally necessary that their job is part of our GOVERNMENT. Yes, the cop that walks the neighborhood beat, the sanitation worker who picks up your garbage, the teacher who teaches our kids, are all part of the GOVERNMENT.

That must really piss off the Tea Partiers.

(Image at the top stolen from Isthmus Daily Page.)

The "Riot" in Madison

Last Thursday morning on MSNBC’s morning show, U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan of Janesville used the word “riot” to describe what was going on in Madison.


Riot.

The picture above, expropriated from the UW archives, was taken before all hell broke loose in Madison in October of 1967. What happened was a riot. Cracked heads; mass arrests; broken windows; tear gas; fistfights; fear. There was a lot of rioting in this nation back then. Cities burned; people died.

When questioned about his use of the word by media organizations like the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Ryan later admitted his use of the word “riot” to describe the goings-on at the Capitol was an inaccurate comparison. Ya think?


Ryan’s use of the word “riot” is as wrong as those who made signs comparing Governor Walker to Hitler or Mussolini.

There’s a lot of untruth being told and repeated by both sides regarding the Budget Repair Bill. There’s always been wide latitude associated with impassioned political speech. A talk show hostess brayed to the Tea Party crowd Saturday that the protesters were “trashing the people’s house”. Not so, literally, of course, but certainly acceptable political rhetoric, because “trashing” means one thing to you, and another to me, and it didn’t incite anyone to violence.

But “riot” doesn’t mean people carrying signs, pounding drums, marching around the state-house, occupying the Capitol Rotunda, holding impassioned discussions, and raising their voices.

As the Windbag In Chief (Rush) himself has said many times, “words mean things.” What’s going on in Madison now is not a riot, and to use that word to describe it is a big bowl of wrong.

Monday Media Rant: Kudos!

As history continues to unfold in our city, our local media are doing a knockout job of covering the story, working long hours, trying to balance the coverage (and NOT in the Fox “Fair and Balanced” sense), and delivering their stories on multiple platforms.

With a story that moves as fast as this one, those of us who are eager to follow it can’t just rely on the TV newscasts at 4,5,6,9,or 10 PM, nor can we get a true sense of how the story is developing by tuning in radio news on the hour or half-hour. You’ve got to be plugged in to the internet and social media, and local coverage there was nothing short of phenomenal.

Instead of being my usual curmudgeonly self and picking nits (some of that, later) I’d like to tip my hat to the local media corps for doing a really good job of covering this historic event. All of the local TV news outlets were more than equal to the task, even though their newsrooms have been hugely downsized in the past couple years. In addition to doing live reports during their traditional evening newscasts, many of the TV folks unleashed a torrent of quick updates via Twitter, and did quick video hits to update their stations’ websites.

Whoever is running the Twitter feed for WEAC deserves singular acknowledgement. WEAC’s Twitter feed was like a play-by-play of the events on the square, rich with links, well-written, and giving those of us in Madison a sense of immediacy about how the story was developing in Milwaukee, the Fox Valley, and all around the state. The re-tweets they selected added depth and “color” to the developing story. It’s where I first found out about all the out-of-state (and, if it’s to be believed, even out-of-nation) people calling Ian’s Pizza with their credit card in hand, saying “just deliver the pies to folks up at the Capitol.”

State Journal reporters George Hesselberg and Pat Simms (and others) provided excellent content on their company’s internet platform, and both of them regularly sent out Tweets with new information. The Isthmus Daily Page was lively with updated information, too.

Paul Soglin, who has been essentially living up at the Capitol, even opened a Twitter account Saturday afternoon! (It’s @paulsoglin if you’d like to follow.) As one of my other friends opined after re-tweeting my tweet about Soglin’s new Twitter feed, “Here’s the revolution!”

Local radio and TV reporters worked under tough conditions and delivered solid reports, day after day, and their anchors, back in the studio, did a commendable job of weaving it all together. My wife, who knows a thing or three about TV reporting, and I would watch one local newscast “live” while DVR’ing the others, so we got a full blast of the local coverage. I got a huge kick out of one of the live reports this weekend when the reporter (Zac Schultz) was in the middle of a crowd, and a young man stepped right behind him during the “live shot” with a big sign that said “Fox News will lie about this!”

Extra credit, too, to a couple of other friends, Jessica Arp of News 3, for her constant updates and photos on Twitter, and to her colleague David Douglas, for being the first reporter (along with another friend, photojournalist Brian Messmer) to track down Senator John Erpenbach in a Chicago hotel late Thursday night, driving back, and working all night to put together the compelling interview.

WIBA-AM did a great job of constantly updating their website and Facebook page with the latest information (hat tip to Chandra Lynn) and Dusty Weis did yeoman’s service as a one-man-band for WTDY-AM. I wish I could put a mention here to every one of my many friends in the local media who are putting in long days and nights and covering this story so well.

A few klinkers…(wouldn’t be me if I didn’t take a few potshots)….electronic news media now seem to just automatically write the word “exclusive” into their promo copy. No, you’re not “the only station that asks the hard questions” and the word “exclusive” means NOBODY else has it. With huge local stories like this, more people tune in, and when you make a dumb mistake it goes to your credibility….like the local TV anchor who kept calling Bahrain “bay-RON” (the same person referred to the legislature’s “Sergeant of Arms”), and the local TV reporter who continually mispronounced Jon Erpenbach’s name. That’s an “h” on the end, not a “k”. And the radio guy who kept saying “hose-NY” Mubarak.

This story is far from over, and to those of you reading this rant who aren’t connected to the media, consider yourselves lucky to be so well-served by our local news professionals. They’re doing an exemplary job of covering this story.

A Tradition of Activism

There are, to me, so many parallels with our city’s history, regarding the protests now against Emperor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill. There are so many images (like the ones above, expropriated from the UW Archives and the State Historical Society) which evoke memories of the days of the 60’s and early 70’s.

Damn, I can almost smell the teargas wafting over campus near the Humanities Building, carried on the breeze down Observatory Drive all the way to Carson Gulley Commons from the Dow Chemical protests in the fall of ’67.

I feel energized and invigorated! I’m too old and fat to trek up to the state house and give Walker’s minions a piece of my mind (not that much is left of it), but to me, it’s déjà vu all over again. The people are pissed and they’re mobilized.

The thought of Daddy Fitzgerald ordering his Troopers to track down those renegade politicians brings a smile to my face. (ring ring Hello? Daddy, this is Scott….there’s a call of the house out, so Jeff and I want you to go round up those damn dimmicrats, and whatever fool ‘publicans went on the lam with them…..OK, thanks, Daddy!!!)


And look who’s runnin’ for mayor…again!


These protests are bigger than anything I can recall from the 60’s or early 70’s. Back then, among other things, we were pissed because our government was lying to us about that damn Southeast Asian war. Now, we’re pissed because the government is lying to us about what’s really behind this assault on collective bargaining. This move has less to do with repairing the budget than Rush Limbaugh has to do with humility.

This is America. We make our own laws here. They’re not handed down to us by some religious prophet; neither are they the fiat of a crowned head nor the whim of a dictator. When we don’t like our laws, we break them. If enough people break them, we usually change them. It’s messy. It can get heated. Our founding document as a nation says we can tell the government exactly what we think about it, so long as violence is not involved, like what’s going on in my city once more.

I feel young again.