Reply #290: ESSAY/HISTORY - Meaning of the Madison Movement - Which Way Wisconsin (MI and OH also) by McClintock [View All]

As the Wisconsin snows give way to spring, printed signs are sprouting in Madison’s gardens, neatly staked in lawns and blooming like strange flowers: Recall Walker. Stop Assault on Unions. Fight Back. Vote for Kloppenburg. Tax the Rich.

Do these signs herald the blossoming of a Wisconsin Spring emboldened by the far-off inspiration of the Arab Spring? Will the Madison Movement take root, ushering in a lake-effect era of new forms of progressive activism and a coordinated, national movement? Or will Wisconsin mark a rout by the Republicans and labor’s last stand?
Progressive Victory or Republican Rout?

The Republicans are playing a high-stakes game in Wisconsin; they know if they can win here, they can probably win anywhere. As Wisconsin goes, so could the nation.

The Madison protests mark an epochal moment. Not for nothing did the Republicans launch their assault on labor in a state fabled for its liberal history. In the early 20th century, Wisconsin was the vanguard of progressive social change, rolling out a startling array of labor reform firsts.

But Wisconsin was also home to a contrary cast of political characters. Republicans like Senator Joe McCarthy, Paul Weirich, (and more latterly Paul Ryan) were Wisconsin sons of a different stripe. In 1962, Senator Javitz (Rep) warned that the Republicans were trying to “repudiate the 20th century,” but the demoralized Republican Party was withered and impotent, seen by the public as tainted by the tactics of McCarthyism and the John Birch Society, and the disastrous Barry Goldwater campaign. In ten years, however, starting with the founding of the Moral Majority and the Heritage Foundation in Wisconsin in 1973, the Republicans began a revival that would become one of the greatest political comebacks of the 20th century.

In 2011, Wisconsin has again become a laboratory for democracy, the crucible for the Republicans’ final effort to repudiate labor and secure a victory in 2012. The critical question is whether the Madison Moment can become the Madison Movement, taking root across the country and energizing a national movement of progressive populism and policy changes. Or will the Republicans force through their long-planned rollback of labor and leave “Fighting Bob” La Follett spinning wildly in his grave?

Newt Gingrich, who campaigned for Walker’s gubernatorial push, is likewise unabashedly frank about what is at stake: “We are witnessing one of the most important struggles in modern America. A life and death struggle with the forces of the old order.” As Gingrich puts it: “A victory for the forces of reform in Wisconsin” has the broader aim of igniting similar union-busting efforts across the country in “Ohio, New York, New Jersey and elsewhere.”

Just days after Walker announced his bill, Ohio’s Republican Governor, John Kasich, followed suit with a union-busting bill of his own, gutting bargaining rights for Ohio’s public workers and outlawing strikes. Iowa’s Republican House rolled out a law that would have ended collective bargaining had the Democrats not snuffed the bill in the Senate.

Idaho promptly passed a bill that slashed collective bargaining for teachers, and Alaska, Tennessee and Indiana swiftly passed union-gutting measures nearly identical to Walker’s Bill. All told, more than 20 state legislatures suddenly and simultaneously rolled out bills radically attacking collective bargaining rights for public workers.
That Walker’s Bill was not Walker’s brainchild, but the opening gambit of a coordinated assault on labor was illuminated by University of Wisconsin historian William Cronon, a self-styled political centrist and independent, who set out to trace the political roots of this sudden “explosion of radical conservative legislation” and surprised himself by finding that these roots lead, not only to groups like Koch’s Americans for Prosperity, but to a shadowy group called ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council).

ALEC, it appears, is a murky legislative body that drafts right-wing “model bills” that Republicans across the 50 states can implement to gut progressive programs. ALEC was founded in 1973 by none other than Wisconsin’s Paul Weirich, also founder of The Heritage Foundation and The Moral Majority which ignited the think-tank Republican revival. In a fit of pique at Cronon’s temerity for exposing this history in the blogosphere...

The media spotlight on Wisconsin has thrown into shadow the ominous turn taken by Michigan’s Governor, Rick Snyder. In early April, Snyder passed the “Emergency Financial Management” law which gives the Governor the right to unilaterally fire the entire government of any town or school district, break contracts, seize assets and replace elected officials with an unelected CEO. On April 15th, Snyder fired the government of Benton Harbor, a community that is 92% African American and that has an annual median household income of $17,471. Joseph L. Harris, the new unelected Emergency Manager, summarily prohibited all action not authorized by himself. Corporo-fascism was thereby quietly spawned in Michigan.

Walker and Snyder seem hell bent on an unholy alliance and Madison’s Capitol Times reports that Walker is planning something similar for Wisconsin.