Madison

Thanks to Hraefna, in Canada, for alerting me to this in Comments. The other day, some of my friends from the Madison protests sent me an Ian's Pizza t-shirt. I really treasure it.

The Madison Protests (along with the brave actions of the Madison 14, who will never buy their own drinks when I'm in the room) did something that Saul Alinsky (my parents pushed me read exactly 3 books in my entire life. One, via my mom, was Kon Tikki, which I refused to read. One, via my dad, was Great Expectations, and one, also via my dad, was Rules for Radicals. So you can see, I come by it honestly) said good political action can do: it forced Walker to act precipitously, and it showed his actions for exactly what they were. Forcing a tyrant to act as a tyrant is a powerful political act. And it was effective here.

Now, a judge has stayed the implementation of Walker' act, based on the precipitous manner in which it was enacted and the likelihood that those challenging the act will succeed on the merits of the case once it comes to trial. There's a huge campaign (already halfway there) to recall the Republicans who supported Walker, and Walker, who is entitled by Wisconsin law to one year recall-free, is dead in the water come next year. Yeah, he'll go on to wingnut welfare on Fox or at the Heritage foundation, but he'll never eat lunch in this town again. As I've been chanting most of my life, sometimes on marches and sometimes at my altar, "The people, united, can never be defeated."

I am more proud than I can say of my friends who were there and of other friends who supported them. For a while, following the massive, and massively ignored, anti-war protests, there was a lot of buzz about how protests were old school and could never be effective in the modern world. Well, Egypt showed that for the lie it was, and so did Madison. Never doubt the power of people-powered political action. Never doubt that, as Margaret Meade said, "A small group of thoughtful people c[an] change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Pagans were involved in the Madison protest, both as simple people occupying the beautiful Wisconsin State Capitol, as clergy, and now, via Sharon Knight's participation in this stirring video, as performers.

On, Wisconsin!