By 10pm the night of June 5th, many people were left wondering where things went wrong. Some were left feeling hopeless as the numbers showed that Scott Walker would be able to finish his term as Governor of Wisconsin. Seen my many as the not only a recall of a politician, but as a referendum of the far-right platform of the WI GOP, the June 5th recall election had taken on a great importance as being a climax of a movement against Walker and the far right in this state. By 10pm, with thousands still in line in Milwaukee, mainstream media breaking all ideas of journalistic ethics by telling them to return home, and the election having been called by the TV stations based on exit polls, Tom Barrett conceded before even 75% of the polls had been counted. He promptly waded into his crowd of supporters where cameras then showed a furious supporter giving his face an angered slap. Yet again the democratic party had done what it seems that the party leadership seems to be best at. Conceding. For the rest of us though, a question needs to be thoroughly looked at: What do we do now?
To look at this question, I think it’s worth looking back at the origins of the WI “uprising” and how it played out between February 2011 and where we are currently, almost midway through June of 2012. Also important is the impact of the WI movement on the greater nation, both the similar protests in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio (also important is the lack of protests against similar austerity in New York and California), and the Occupy Movement.
When Walker dropped his bomb, people began protesting at the capitol quickly, with thousands circling the capitol on Feb 15th. By the end of the week, many public employees had struck using sickouts, and Madison area schools were forced to shut down due to mass sickouts which constituted a wildcat strike. Doctors were signing fake medical notes so that workers would not get fired for such action, in blatant and beautiful disregard for the law. The capitol was occupied by protesters and repurposed for the event, with the organization and resource distribution of the occupied space resembling a small scale anarchistic community. At its heart was a consistent beating of drums, serving a dual purpose of being the heartbeat of the protests and as the protesters drums of war – making it difficult to perform the duties of the state in such a time of crisis. Because of the hell being raised by the protests, the 14 democratic senators were able to leave the state and prevent a quorum on the vote, a move that would stall the votes for a couple of weeks while the protests continued to rage. A couple weeks later, through the treachery of the Walker Administration, Police Chief Tubbs, and traitorous Democrats such as Brett Hulsey, the occupation was broken. Eventually, through legal technicalities, the bill was still passed despite the lack of quorum. The capitol was stormed, through bathroom windows and in some cases by forcing their way through police lines. Chants for a general strike roared in the dome. The following Saturday the largest protests occurred, some estimates stating over 200,000 people took the streets in Madison. During the course of this street movement, buildings at UW-Milwaukee and Beloit College were occupied, and people took to the streets in localities throughout the state. One such town, Washburn, saw an estimated number almost equal to it’s population of just over 2,000 protest the governor at a steak dinner with local supporters.
The protests began dying down as they turned into a GOTV campaign to elect Joanne Kloppenburg to the supreme court. The election was lost through old school ballot stuffing and fixed election machines. Further protests were dissuaded in many cases by Democrat officials and union bureaucrats, both favoring electoral methods even where they had failed. The protests dwindled, and those that would not stop became a series of “regulars”, who face increasing harassment from Capitol Police, including jailing for crimes such as photography in the assembly gallery and assault by the Capitol police. They were left high and dry by the Democratic Party officials except when the occasional zinger was to be made on the floor. In one case an immigrant rights group made use of civil disobedience tactics to stall a Joint Finance Committee hearing, forcing arrests. They were criticized by both parties, with the democrats complaining about them “making their job more difficult”, as if the DPW had not already proven that they were completely powerless in stopping the Walker agenda. One such democrat later personally stated to me that he didn’t really care about the Voces de la Frontera protest because “immigrant rights groups don’t really care about anybody else”. To me this comment showed quite clearly that ignorance and racism are clearly not limited to the GOP in this state. The Summer 2011 recalls were marginally successful, flipping 2 of the 6 seats, amid some allegations of election fraud which looked very familiar after the April 5th Supreme Court election.
Protests continued but dwindled throughout the summer and fall, with a couple notable events. A March lead by Russ Feingold resulted in skirmishes with the Madison PD in the entrance of the MI bank, and full scale brutality at the hands of Capitol Police and State Patrol in the South Entrance to the Capitol when the Madison Fire Department forced open an illegally locked door. An attempt to retake the capitol in mid August resulted in arrests as the attempted occupiers were dragged out.
After this attempt, protests and direct actions were very low in Madison, while the tactics of the Wisconsin movement were utilized heavily around the rest of the country. Under the banner of Occupy!, occupations sprang up throughout the country. Similar to the Madison movement, Occupy was peaceful, it was loud, and it was based as a street movement. Unlike Madison, Occupy faced major repression from the police by the second week, where a march faced police beatings and pepper spray. People (correction: white people) were horrified as peaceful protesters were beaten and sprayed on the second week of the occupation. A mass arrest of 700 the following week made major news. The occupations spread throughout the country, and the story continued repeating itself. Occupation started, occupation holds march, protesters beaten or arrested (or both) by the police. Yet similar to the WI movement, people continued to state that the police “were on our side”, or were also “part of the 99%”. Within most of Occupy, that was put to rest after Oakland Police Department behaved exactly as they had been known to behave for a better part of their existence; brutally evicting the encampment, and then launching an onslaught against protests the following day which resulted in an Iraq War veteran and WI native marching with Vets for Peace being hospitalized in critical condition.
A massive recall effort was initiated in November, with over 1 million signatures turned in by the due date in January. A primary battle between Tom Barrett – the Party bosses choice running on a platform of NOT being Scott Walker and being the only candidate who could beat Walker (but was also the only candidate who had lost to Walker), Kathleen Falk – Big Labor’s choice who ran on a platform of repealing Act 10, Doug Lafollete – the environmentalist choice, and Gladys Huber. On the republican side it was Walker versus a protester running as a “Lincoln-Lafollete Republican” and running on a platform of equal rights and opportunities and was far to the left of any of the Democrats. After a contentious primary which did not help bring the movement together in any way, a rematch was set between Barrett and Walker.
The point where I realized the game was over for the DPW was the second debate. Barrett had a phenomenal number of points where he said what he would do things differently than Walker, but couldn’t seem to name a single actual policy of his own he would implement. Tally that with the level of election fraud that has gone on in this state and I didn’t see how he had a chance.
Come election day, reports of massive turnout circulated throughout the state. Then at 8pm, the election was called for Scott Walker based off of exit polls. Milwaukee voters were still standing in line as reporters told them that the election had been called and that they should go home. Barrett conceded while voters in his own city were still voting, not even waiting for the results of official ballet counts. He waded into his crowd of supporters, where an angry supporter can be seen giving his face proper treatment. That was it. The Democratic party just gave up. They had succeeded in turning a street movement based on direct action into an electoral campaign which cost well over 50 million dollars for the liberal left alone. 15 months later, The Party’s choice for office gave up, as if he didn’t care. Actually, it looked remarkably similar to Barrett’s interest in the seat the previous gubernatorial election, where he didn’t seem to have any real interest in campaigning to win.
The following day was hard for many liberals. In Madison people were extremely upset, but little action seemed likely to be taken, and generally people seemed resigned to disappointed acceptance of the failure. Milwaukee activists took a different route, with a “Keep it in the Streets” march called for by the Milwaukee Occupy! Network. About 200 people took to the streets in an unpermitted march towards downtown. They were attacked by the Milwaukee Police. Yes, the same department that Democrats had been busy defending and praising just a week earlier despite it’s well established reputation for racism. However, in a break with the pacifism of the Wisconsin Movement and early Occupy, the Milwaukee protesters fought back valiantly. Protesters snatched by MPD goon squads were dearrested repeatedly, an officer beating people with his baton had it snatched from by a protester, who used it in retaliation before whipping it back into the crowd of stormtroopers. Of the multiple attempts at arrests, only five were successful.
This march was not in the style of the “Wisconsin Uprising”, but seemed to be more like the militant occupy marches seen in West Coast, with defensive black blocs protecting the less militant protesters from those with badges who were out to repress anybody utilizing their first amendment rights. While the Wisconsin movement and the Occupy movement started out with similar tactics, they took a drastically different turn. This difference is significant, but where did it come from?
It is my belief that this difference is fundamentally about the ability of the Democratic Party machine to channel populist energy of such street movements into political campaigns that fuels this difference. With the Wisconsin movement, the Party machine (in this case DPW, Moveon, AFL-CIO, and Change to Win) was able to swiftly and adeptly move people away from direct action and back into the election system. With Occupy!, this was initially impossible because of how far off any election was. Occupy also was fundamentally against politics as usual, while the WI movement was against the actions of a Republican administration. Because of this, a co-option was far more difficult to attempt. As a result, the Democratic Party machine failed in most places, succeeding only in Washington DC, where on the first day there was major contention between Occupiers and “protest marshals” in the pay of MoveOn and the SEIU who went so far as to hand off people participating in civil disobedience to the police. Everywhere else, the movement grew at the distaste of both sides of the bipolar dictatorship that we live under. Thus, the authority figures of the state were called in to clean things up. With help from Department of Homeland Security, police departments across the country geared up in armor resembling something more fearful than Imperial Stormtroopers and willingly and adeptly participated in the brutalization of the Occupy! movement. By the end of January the movement seemed mostly over, with few holdouts. Come spring, many occupiers were calling for an “American Spring” of mass resistance to austerity, the police state, and the status quo. On the other hand, the Democratic Party machine began pumping money into a “99% Spring”, which didn’t really manifest itself into anything tangible, while the actual Occupy! Movement began to reassert itself and maintained it’s independence from party politics. Marches under the Occupy! banner were more militant, and the police have been less effective in their brutality because of the rise of defensive black bloc tactics and an increasing will to physically fight back against police brutality. Occupy! refuses to be steered in the direction of the ballot box, and as a result has had to toughen up to deal with the realities of the American police state.
It is my opinion that the Wisconsin movement needs to return to it’s roots. Not necessarily meaning that it needs to go back into an occupation, a tactic that might be spent for the time being due to it’s recent popularity, but it needs to go back to the streets. Back to a real grassroots movement independent, and even at times in opposition too, the Democratic party and the political left. The Wisconsin movement needs to look beyond party politics, beyond the surface policies, and develop a critique of the state capitalist system which is running wild on us and we are barely starting to adequately resist. We need to start resisting on our own terms with our own strengths. No longer can we allow political parties and police to demobilize us. We must resist their policies, we must resist their implementation. We must resist the dismantling of workers rights, we must resist the destruction of our environment. We must take action against austerity, we need to break the narrative of “no other alternative”, we need to work to destroy the racism that is systematic throughout America. WE MUST TAKE ACTION AGAINST INJUSTICE AND INEQUALITY WHEREVER IT IS FOUND THE STATE IN WHICH WE LIVE.
If we do so, we will be attacked by the police – and we must be willing to defend ourselves and fight back when necessary. Our leaders will be hounded by the FBI – and we must support them and build a culture of resistance to their techniques. Some of our militants will be considered traitors or terrorists – we must not let such charges tear us apart and must support our sisters and brothers in this fight. Important networks were formed in the months between February 2011 and June 2012. These networks should be utilized to go back to it’s roots – the streets. It is there that the power of the working class lies. The ballot box is a failed tactic which we need to abandon. It’s time to for this movement to stop relying on politicians, the Democratic Party, and Big Labor. We must unite on our own terms, with our own tactics, on our streets! If the Wisconsin movement does not, than another movement, perhaps Occupy!, will have to step up and take it’s place. If neither happens, our strength will fade and the movement will die. Then 15 months will truly have gone to waste.