Joan Walsh: Labor wins the day in Wisconsin

[ProSense]

Labor wins the day in Wisconsin

Police change course and say demonstrators can stay another night, and a GOP senator opposes Walker's union-busting

By Joan Walsh

I'm not going to pretend to be dispassionate about the Wisconsin protests. The first civil disobedience I ever witnessed personally was in Madison in 1978, when I was covering a protest at the Board of Regents meeting, where students demanded the regents divest the university's holdings in South Africa. I got maced by police in a stairwell just doing my job, but I was thrilled we were among the first universities to divest. I've been a proud Badger ever since.

All these years later, I've been thrilled by the growing protest movement against Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting in Wisconsin. This weekend, though, it was hard to indulge my obsession. Although an estimated 100,000 people gathered at the capitol in Madison, including West Wing star and Wisconsin native Bradley Whitford, Rep. Tammy Baldwin, and a contingent of off-duty and retired Wisconsin cops (who aren't directly hit by Walker's plan), the mainstream media barely paid attention. And on Sunday, when state police warned they'd clear the capitol of protesters at 4 pm local time, and at least 1,000 pledged to commit civil disobedience to stay put – including off-duty cops and firefighters and former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin – well, you had to tune into Twitter and a couple of Ustream live feeds to find out what was happening.

I really don't get it. CNN embedded reporters with Tea Party protests last year, but the struggling network couldn't be bothered with live coverage of the weekend's events. Even before Oscar red carpet coverage took over on Sunday, CNN was rerunning the same canned piece on the model Iman it had run Saturday. MSNBC was hopeless, running its canned crime documentaries all day long as usual. Fox News was more reliable; of course it covered the protests, since it does actual news on the weekends, but the network found anger and even violence where no one else did. (A Fox reporter claimed he was slugged off camera, but there was no other confirmation of the assault.) Things got really crazy when the AFL-CIO live stream failed, and organizers couldn't get back their internet connection. For a while the only way to follow the goings on in the capitol was via activist Ben Brandzel's phone-cam and bloggers on site. It was great to hear the crowd sing "The Star Spangled Banner" and "We Shall Overcome," widening the appeal beyond the beloved labor hymn "Solidarity Forever." Andrew Kroll of Mother Jones kept up a live stream of photos from the Sunday rally, including this great one of a friendly cop chatting up a wildly dressed protester.

In the end Sunday night, state police officials told reporters that no one peacefully protesting would be removed from the capitol by force. About an hour later, the crowd cheered the news that Republican State Sen. Dale Schultz announced he would not back Walker's bill. Democrats still need two more Republicans to block Walker's move, but the momentum seems to be on the side of the unions right now. The mainstream media missed a great story Sunday. It reminds Paul Krugman of the way the media also ignored the massive protests before the 2003 Iraq war. It's really depressing.

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[lonestarnot]

1. two more pugs, depressing alright. Hang in there depressed or not!

[malaise]

2. Super read but Joan must know that the Iman piece

was a repeat from weeks ago - it's that old.

[Frustratedlady]

3. I love Joan Walsh. She is one of the most sensible on the news.

I'd put more stock in what she has to say than most. Great piece.