What Now, Wisconsin?By Ruth Conniff - TheProgressive
April 12, 2011
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But for the Wisconsin revolution to realize its promise we have to get more than a slight lessening of the massive blows Walker has planned for the state. Somehow we have to harness this spontaneous energy and channel it into a renewed labor movement, a renewed progressive politics.
This was a leaderless struggle from the beginning. As one AFSCME rank- and-file protester told me in the Capitol building "The Teamsters called to ask, 'How is the mobilization going?' This is not a mobilization. It's a popular uprising!" Union leadership was caught flat-footed. The Democrats in the legislature were blind-sided. Still, they hurried to join the rank and file.
The view from the top is discouraging. Union membership has been in precipitous decline for three decades, and nationally unions have focused on supporting a Democratic Party that doesn't support them on key issues like trade.
We have a President who generated tremendous grassroots enthusiasm, when he ran a seemingly progressive campaign, bragging about reaching an agreement with rightwing Republicans for "the largest annual spending cut in our history." Obama has negotiated a budget deal that gives hundreds of billions in tax cuts to corporations--including the Bush tax cuts he ran against-- accompanied by brutal cuts for Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps.
These are exactly the kinds of measures we are fighting in Wisconsin.
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Entire piece:
http://progressive.org/rc041211.html:kick: