[George Dreckmann, Madison's recycling coordinator,] said it costs nearly $6 million to run the city's recycling programs and Madison receives about $1.1 million from a state recycling grant. He sees few other ways to replace the money other than cutting back the recycling program. One possibility, he said, might be to no longer recycle glass, which is expensive to process.Exactly. Do that. Why should the state waste money incentivizing something that shouldn't be done? Why should Madison folk get to stoke their feeling of self-goodness with money from non-Madison Wisconsin?
Showing posts with label Scott Walker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scott Walker. Show all posts
"Walker proposed ending state-mandated community recycling, which was signed into law by Gov. Tommy Thompson in 1990, as well as elimination of the grants that help local governments pay for recycling."
Good! Right? If recycling is worth doing, it should be paying for itself without a state government subsidy, or, if not, let local communities decide if they want to cough up the money to do it anyway. It's time for decentralization, efficiency, realism... not fluffy-headed idealism. Saving money is the morality we need, not posing as good people by doing something if it actually makes no sense. I'm for pragmatism, not narcissism.
The Wisconsin protesters are losing their grip on reality.
The point of that last post — "I have professors that received doctorates..." — is that as the protest drags on and protesters are sleep-deprived and frustrated and tired of nothing happening but standing around chanting and listening to drum-beating for hours on end, logic and proportion is flopping away. There was some serious aggression yesterday.
You saw Meade's video where 2 over-aggressive protesters interrogated a couple of nice ladies who drove into Madison just to stand quietly, in the sea of Walker-haters, and hold their pro-Walker signs. In the video, you can hear that the 2 protesters are not making that much sense, and when Meade tries to mediate — meadeate — for them, other protesters in the area close in on Meade.
There's very tense confrontation, and it flips into paranoia and incoherence. At 4:35, you hear a woman say, "Are you a plant?" At 4:57: "I think we know you're a Walker plant?" At 5:00: "You [are a Walker plant] on this gathering and we can tell." At 5:17, a large man barges into Meade and grabs the Flip camera, and actually gets it out of Meade's hand. No one in the crowd does anything to help Meade in this assault, and Meade grabs the man's arm and wrests the camera out of his hand. This man says "Get your hands off me," as if he's a victim. After he assaulted Meade, he acts like he's the peacemaker and says — referring to Meade and the 2 pro-Walker women — "They are fools and idiots and just ignore them." He continues to bump his large body into Meade as he's saying that. A woman says, "These are Walker plants."
I see some people descending into irrationality — beginning to form a cultish mentality that demonizes outsiders. Meade was at a demonstration, photographing it. A demonstration is — to a clear-thinking person — a collection of people asking to be seen, wanting to be photographed. Yet when they perceive that Meade isn't one of them they flip — it's a Flip camera — into fear. Meade had been trying to talk to them rationally about why the pro-Walker woman might not want to debate her ideas in that setting, and instead of seeing Meade as a citizen who's finding out what's going on and helping 2 women who are surrounded and outnumbered, they spread their "plant" theory. And it's not just a theory. They know he's a plant.
But he's not a plant. He's a human being. An individual human being. And so are all the protesters, but I fear they are losing their grip on that reality.
You saw Meade's video where 2 over-aggressive protesters interrogated a couple of nice ladies who drove into Madison just to stand quietly, in the sea of Walker-haters, and hold their pro-Walker signs. In the video, you can hear that the 2 protesters are not making that much sense, and when Meade tries to mediate — meadeate — for them, other protesters in the area close in on Meade.
There's very tense confrontation, and it flips into paranoia and incoherence. At 4:35, you hear a woman say, "Are you a plant?" At 4:57: "I think we know you're a Walker plant?" At 5:00: "You [are a Walker plant] on this gathering and we can tell." At 5:17, a large man barges into Meade and grabs the Flip camera, and actually gets it out of Meade's hand. No one in the crowd does anything to help Meade in this assault, and Meade grabs the man's arm and wrests the camera out of his hand. This man says "Get your hands off me," as if he's a victim. After he assaulted Meade, he acts like he's the peacemaker and says — referring to Meade and the 2 pro-Walker women — "They are fools and idiots and just ignore them." He continues to bump his large body into Meade as he's saying that. A woman says, "These are Walker plants."
I see some people descending into irrationality — beginning to form a cultish mentality that demonizes outsiders. Meade was at a demonstration, photographing it. A demonstration is — to a clear-thinking person — a collection of people asking to be seen, wanting to be photographed. Yet when they perceive that Meade isn't one of them they flip — it's a Flip camera — into fear. Meade had been trying to talk to them rationally about why the pro-Walker woman might not want to debate her ideas in that setting, and instead of seeing Meade as a citizen who's finding out what's going on and helping 2 women who are surrounded and outnumbered, they spread their "plant" theory. And it's not just a theory. They know he's a plant.
But he's not a plant. He's a human being. An individual human being. And so are all the protesters, but I fear they are losing their grip on that reality.
"This afternoon, at the Wisconsin State Capitol, I witnessed what at times appeared to be the greatest governor in the history of this or any other state..."
"... showered with affection as he announced a bold new plan to rescue Wisconsin from the brink of otherwise certain economic ruin."
Writes Bill Lueders — who is not a Walker fan — in the Isthmus:
Here's the transcript of the speech. Meade describes the big standing ovation when the Governor said:
Writes Bill Lueders — who is not a Walker fan — in the Isthmus:
He was feted with more than a full minute of thunderous ovation, with whistles and hooting and cheers, as he entered, and again at the end of his 30-minute address. He received long rounds of applause and a few standing Os while he spoke. The balconies seemed to be filled almost entirely with people who love him, and who applauded him at every turn.Meade was there, and he confirms that. (And, by the way, we have some hot video that I'm working on processing right now.)
Here's the transcript of the speech. Meade describes the big standing ovation when the Governor said:
We must work together to bring our spending in line with reality. We were elected — not to make the easy decisions to benefit ourselves — but to make the difficult ones that will benefit our children and grandchildren.Meade says he joined the standing ovation at this point, and that Scott Walker looked at him and gave him: 1. a smile, 2. a nod, and 3. a wink. Meade was quite pleased about that!
We need a commitment to the future so our children don't face even more dire consequences than what we face today.
Protesters at the Wisconsin Capitol — midday today — dealing with the fact that, at long last, they've been locked out.
Video by Meade, edited by me:
0:01 — an incomprehensible sign — "Ethics trumps 'values' — taped to the "Forward" statue.
0:40 — police food
0:49 — a 91-year-old woman in a wheelchair wants to kick Scott Walker's butt
1:13 — a woman asks to get in to talk to her representative
2:21 — a cop who was sent down from "north of Eau Claire" on his day off
3:25 — a "legal observer" who flew in from D.C. explains his function
5:02 — the protest has an "honor guard" — firefighters — and the crowd chants "let them in
6:17 — listen closely for "I lost a nut"
6:35 — Meade and I got a kick out of the reactions of that one firefighter
6:55 — one speaker edges toward incitement and back again
7:35 — "It's the chanting that shows how powerful we are in our voices."
8:23 — "Does anybody have a great idea?"
8:50 — I think he's told to tone it down
9:50 — a new chant
0:01 — an incomprehensible sign — "Ethics trumps 'values' — taped to the "Forward" statue.
0:40 — police food
0:49 — a 91-year-old woman in a wheelchair wants to kick Scott Walker's butt
1:13 — a woman asks to get in to talk to her representative
2:21 — a cop who was sent down from "north of Eau Claire" on his day off
3:25 — a "legal observer" who flew in from D.C. explains his function
5:02 — the protest has an "honor guard" — firefighters — and the crowd chants "let them in
6:17 — listen closely for "I lost a nut"
6:35 — Meade and I got a kick out of the reactions of that one firefighter
6:55 — one speaker edges toward incitement and back again
7:35 — "It's the chanting that shows how powerful we are in our voices."
8:23 — "Does anybody have a great idea?"
8:50 — I think he's told to tone it down
9:50 — a new chant
"U. of Wisconsin-Madison's Chancellor Defends Proposed Separation From System."
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
In what many had predicted would be a contentious meeting of the system's Board of Regents, Carolyn A. (Biddy) Martin defended her support for a plan that would break the Madison campus away from the rest of the Wisconsin system, creating a new governing board and granting the flagship unique flexibility. The plan is expected to be part of a budget proposal Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, is set to unveil next week.Gov. Scott Walker... a Republican!
As currently understood, the proposal "would mean an extraordinary opportunity to combine self-reliance and oversight in a way that permits us to survive, even in the face of deep cuts," Ms. Martin told the regents, who called a special four-hour meeting to discuss the implications of Madison's potential separation.
The NYT strains to find a "victory" for the Wisconsin demonstrators.
Its story today begins:
In a victory — at least a symbolic one — for Wisconsin’s public employee unions, the Capitol authorities announced on Sunday that demonstrators could continue their all-night sleepovers in the building and would not be forcibly ejected or arrested.Well, yes. A decision was made that it wasn't worth the drama to oust these people who've been clean and orderly enough. Plus, the police are — it seems to me — sympathetic to the protest. As for the GOP politicians who dominate the state government: Why would they want to make martyrs out of the folks who've worked so long and hard to demonstrate how strongly they care? They've been hanging out in the Capitol, enduring the cacophony of their own drumming and chanting and sleeping on the hard stone floor for 10+ days. They're punishing themselves. Why not let them suffer, unmolested, and continue to generate images that disturb the Wisconsinites who voted the Republicans into office 3 months ago?
"Even allies backpedal from Walker's extremism" says a headline in the Madison newspaper The Capital Times.
This is a political analysis piece written by the newspaper's editor Paul Fanlund, and I just can't figure out how the headline is justified. The piece begins with a cite to the NYT Magazine's profile of Chris Christie, which got me running over there to find out what Christie said about Walker. The author of that piece — Matt Bai — discusses Walker:
(And as for Matt Bai's "drawing President Obama into the debate" — I think Obama is keeping his distance!)
Now a new class of governors from both parties is promising to revisit union contracts in order to put their states on firmer fiscal ground. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker, an aggressive new Republican governor, just proposed legislation that would limit the rights of public workers to collectively bargain. “You can’t have one group who are the haves,” Walker told me recently, meaning government workers, “and one group, the private-sector workers, who are the have-nots.” Walker’s move led to protests in Madison, drawing President Obama into the debate and raising the prospect of French-style labor uprisings among public workers across America.
In part, the viral movement against public-sector unions is a result of political necessity. In states all over the country, balancing the budget has become an annual exercise in Copperfield-like illusion...I don't see Christie backing away from Walker.
(And as for Matt Bai's "drawing President Obama into the debate" — I think Obama is keeping his distance!)
Doesn't this mean the Republicans accepted or even encouraged the prolongation of the protests?
Because the previous post is so long, I'm breaking out this paragraph so you won't miss it:
Thursday morning, the Senate's Democrats absconded, which kept the bill from passing and the protest going. And here's a State Journal scoop: Republican Mike Ellis, the state senate president, helped the last of the 14 Democrats get out of state, at least according to that Democrat, Tim Cullen. Cullen was assisting the family of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Bill Bablitch, who had just died. Cullen says he called Ellis "to ask if he could enter the Capitol without being detained," and Ellis "said fine, come in. There's no problem." Keep in mind that the Republicans only needed one vote to meet their quorum. They had Cullen, and they let him get away! According to Cullen. Ellis even called Cullen as Cullen was driving to Illinois to "double check" if he got out okay. According to Cullen. Doesn't that mean the Republicans accepted or even encouraged the prolongation of the protests?
How did the Wisconsin protests happen? Who did what when? How did we get here? A timeline.
"On Feb. 7, with Wisconsin united in the afterglow of a Green Bay Packers victory in the Super Bowl" — so begins the Wisconsin State Journal begins today's article about the protests with a reminder about how great everyone felt in Wisconsin so recently. We were deprived of our enjoyment of the afterglow!
On February 11th, when Gov. Walker "dropped the bomb" — his words — union chiefs and organizers had "a freakout of a long weekend" — as one of them put it.
Back to the State Journal:
Back to the State Journal. (These are excerpts from the article. For a more complete timeline, go to the link at the beginning of this post.)
Thursday morning, the Senate's Democrats absconded, which kept the bill from passing and the protest going. And here's a State Journal scoop: Republican Mike Ellis, the state senate president, helped the last of the 14 Democrats get out of state, at least according to that Democrat, Tim Cullen. Cullen was assisting the family of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Bill Bablitch, who had just died. Cullen says he called Ellis "to ask if he could enter the Capitol without being detained," and Ellis "said fine, come in. There's no problem." Keep in mind that the Republicans only needed one vote to meet their quorum. They had Cullen, and they let him get away! According to Cullen. Ellis even called Cullen as Cullen was driving to Illinois to "double check" if he got out okay. According to Cullen. Doesn't that mean the Republicans accepted or even encouraged the prolongation of the protests?
The flight of the 14 Democrats enthused the protesters, and Madison public schools were closed for a second day and then a third, February 17th and 18th. Saturday, the 19th, was the day the pro-Scott Walker people showed up too. They came, had a rally outside the building, and then left.
That was a week ago. The occupation of the Capitol continued, and you've seen the pictures and descriptions on this blog. Yesterday, we had "about 70,000 people" at the Capitol, but they were mainly outside. I went inside. I walked right up to the nearest door, and a "volunteer" in an orange vest told me to go wait in a line to go in some other door. This door was for... I didn't quite catch who the special people were who got to go right in the door I'd walked up to, but I said, "This is a public building. You're saying there are 2 kinds of people — ones that get right in and ones that go wait in line? Who are you?" He was obviously not a uniformed city official. I was all "Who are you?" and "How dare you!" and, after a few seconds, I (and Meade) got right through that door.
Once in, I said "How dare they!" about 10 times. Sorry, Meade didn't video that. You've never seen video as emotional as I was right then. I got outraged for myself and for all the people that were out there waiting in that line. I was outraged about them for 2 reasons: 1. Because they were treated as second-class citizens who had to enter through the subordinate door, and 2. Because they meekly accepted their subordination.* On the other hand, whether the restricted entry plan came from the Capitol Police or not, it assisted them in what appeared to me to be a well-coordinated procedure of closing down portions of the building and moving a smaller and smaller group into the central area. I assume this slowly tightening cordon will effectively accomplish the end of the occupation at 4 p.m. this afternoon.
_______________________
* My stature as a "line pioneer" was verified by David Foster Wallace. I have that in writing from the now-dead genius writer, who had a problem with lines too.
On February 11th, when Gov. Walker "dropped the bomb" — his words — union chiefs and organizers had "a freakout of a long weekend" — as one of them put it.
As unions organized protests to be launched in the coming days - the largest in Wisconsin's capital city since the Vietnam War - about 250 people in two separate groups picketed Sunday at the Capitol and in front of the Maple Bluff mansion Walker now calls home.Here's my post commenting on the thin, mellow crowd that day:
It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm Sunday, and our new governor has just dropped a shocking union-busting proposal that our newly Republican legislature is likely to step up and pass. This is the push-back from the unions?Ha ha. And the Isthmus didn't seem at all enthused:
Protests are exactly what Walker wants, because they can only lead to two outcomes: Either they are peaceful and accomplish nothing; or they turn violent and create a massive backlash against the unions and their members. Either way, Walker wins.Look back over the last 2 weeks. We now know the protests were huge and peaceful, so did they accomplish anything? Did Walker win? He chose not to confront people, and, interestingly enough, the people of Wisconsin who opposed the protests didn't make trouble either. There was one pleasant Tea Party event on the first Saturday, with a good turnout, but everyone was nice. I mean, the anti-Scott Walker folks had their Hitler signs and so forth. But that's all. Over-the-top analogies.
Back to the State Journal:
Before Walker unveiled his budget-repair bill on Feb. 11, the Teaching Assistants' Association at UW-Madison, along with campus student groups Student Labor Action Coalition and Multicultural Student Coalition, had planned a noon march from the Memorial Union to the Capitol to deliver "I Heart UW" valentines to Walker and urge him not to cut education funding....They delivered the valentines.
That night, TAA leaders went back to campus and sent their 2,800 UW-Madison members an e-mail urging them to return to the Capitol on Tuesday and testify at the Legislature's powerful Joint Finance Committee, which had scheduled a hearing on the bill at 10 a.m.So the occupation of the Capitol began as a UW TAA operation.
Unions across the state were doing the same, as a dozen leaders convened Monday.
State law prevents Capitol Police from locking the building while there are ongoing hearings. So some TAA members made plans to stay as long as necessary, not realizing they wouldn't sleep at home again for weeks and that their union would set up a nerve center in a Capitol office, with members coordinating volunteers and helping manage what became the Capitol's 24-hour ecosystem.
[Tuesday, February 15th], AFSCME, a 68,000-member union that represents state and municipal workers... started running buses from at least seven cities throughout Wisconsin.So the TAs gained the support of AFSCME (and its buses). Why did the Capitol Police let them stay? They're clearing everyone out today, supposedly, but why did they let them stay so long? I talked to the Capitol Police yesterday, and I asked them the questions I raised in this post about free speech and viewpoint discrimination. I got a sense of what the answer is and will write about that later today.
About 10,000 people gathered at the Capitol for noon and 5 p.m. rallies, holding protest signs and chanting "Kill the Bill!" and "This is What Democracy Looks Like!"
Inside, 3,000 more turned the ground-floor rotunda into a raucous drum circle and plastered the walls with anti-Walker, pro-union posters. It was the start of a protest village that would occupy the Capitol at least through Sunday, Feb. 27, when Capitol Police say they'll no longer allow protesters to stay overnight.
Back to the State Journal. (These are excerpts from the article. For a more complete timeline, go to the link at the beginning of this post.)
At the [Madison Teachers Inc.] meeting, executive director John Matthews discussed the far-reaching consequences of the bill and the group decided Madison teachers should spend the next three days at the Capitol - and not in the classroom.So the reason the protesters could stay in the building overnight was that the Democrats kept hearings going, which kept the building open. With the Madison schools closed, the crowd in the Capitol swelled on Wednesday, and many slept in the building overnight.
"We were in lockstep," said Matthews. "There was no dissention."...
About the same time, finance committee co-chairs Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, directed staff to stop registering people wanting to testify, angering opponents....
The committee adjourned about 3 a.m. Wednesday. At that point, Democrats continued hearing testimony in another room, giving justification to protesters to stay overnight in the Capitol.
Thursday morning, the Senate's Democrats absconded, which kept the bill from passing and the protest going. And here's a State Journal scoop: Republican Mike Ellis, the state senate president, helped the last of the 14 Democrats get out of state, at least according to that Democrat, Tim Cullen. Cullen was assisting the family of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Bill Bablitch, who had just died. Cullen says he called Ellis "to ask if he could enter the Capitol without being detained," and Ellis "said fine, come in. There's no problem." Keep in mind that the Republicans only needed one vote to meet their quorum. They had Cullen, and they let him get away! According to Cullen. Ellis even called Cullen as Cullen was driving to Illinois to "double check" if he got out okay. According to Cullen. Doesn't that mean the Republicans accepted or even encouraged the prolongation of the protests?
The flight of the 14 Democrats enthused the protesters, and Madison public schools were closed for a second day and then a third, February 17th and 18th. Saturday, the 19th, was the day the pro-Scott Walker people showed up too. They came, had a rally outside the building, and then left.
That was a week ago. The occupation of the Capitol continued, and you've seen the pictures and descriptions on this blog. Yesterday, we had "about 70,000 people" at the Capitol, but they were mainly outside. I went inside. I walked right up to the nearest door, and a "volunteer" in an orange vest told me to go wait in a line to go in some other door. This door was for... I didn't quite catch who the special people were who got to go right in the door I'd walked up to, but I said, "This is a public building. You're saying there are 2 kinds of people — ones that get right in and ones that go wait in line? Who are you?" He was obviously not a uniformed city official. I was all "Who are you?" and "How dare you!" and, after a few seconds, I (and Meade) got right through that door.
Once in, I said "How dare they!" about 10 times. Sorry, Meade didn't video that. You've never seen video as emotional as I was right then. I got outraged for myself and for all the people that were out there waiting in that line. I was outraged about them for 2 reasons: 1. Because they were treated as second-class citizens who had to enter through the subordinate door, and 2. Because they meekly accepted their subordination.* On the other hand, whether the restricted entry plan came from the Capitol Police or not, it assisted them in what appeared to me to be a well-coordinated procedure of closing down portions of the building and moving a smaller and smaller group into the central area. I assume this slowly tightening cordon will effectively accomplish the end of the occupation at 4 p.m. this afternoon.
_______________________
* My stature as a "line pioneer" was verified by David Foster Wallace. I have that in writing from the now-dead genius writer, who had a problem with lines too.
Is it viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment for Wisconsin to permit the protesters to use the Capitol building as it has over the past 10+ days?
Here is part of a presentation made at the University of Wisconsin Law School on February 22, 2011 by Donald Downs, a UW political science professor:
Downs is very briefly raising the issue of whether it should be considered viewpoint discrimination for the protesters at the state capitol to be permitted to post signs and sleep overnight when other groups are not going to be given the same treatment.
The case he mentions is Clark v. Community for Creative Nonviolence, in which the Supreme Court upheld a neutral rule that prohibited everyone from sleeping in the park. In that case, protesters argued that they had a right to special treatment, because they were sleeping as a form of expression, to say something about the plight of the homeless.
In the current Wisconsin situation, the protesters are being allowed to do many, many things that ordinarily no one does. It's hard to imagine how the state could operate in the future if other groups were given equal treatment and permitted to stay overnight for days on end, to post thousands of signs all over the historic marble walls and pillars, to prop and post signs on the monuments, to bang drums and use a bullhorn in the rotunda to give speeches and lead chants all day long for days on end. Tell me then, what will happen when the next protester comes along and the next and the next? Hasn't the state opened the Capitol as a free speech forum in which viewpoint discrimination will be forbidden under the First Amendment?
But, you might say, the Republicans hold the political majority and the special treatment is going to their opponents. To that I say: So what? If you discriminate in favor of your political opponents, it's still viewpoint discrimination. It's interesting to speculate about why the Republicans are permitting such a giant extra helping of free speech to their opponents. Perhaps it is so they can say, when their friends show up on some later occasion — some Tea Party group? — that they must give them the same access.
But I don't believe they want that. The Capitol has for years and years been a solemn place. For 25 years, I have brought visitors there and walked slowly through the beautiful spaces looking at the different colored and patterned marble on the walls and gazing with awe up into the dome. This is the Capitol Wisconsinites know and treasure. It can't become an all-purpose free-speech forum.
At Christmastime, there is a big tree in the rotunda. The Freedom from Religion Foundation doesn't like that. This week's anti-Scott Walker people are banging on drywall buckets and chanting "This is what democracy looks like." How about a hundred atheists in the rotunda for a week in December banging on buckets and chanting "This is what stupidity looks like"? (Okay, there's a conlaw exam for you. Submit your answers and I'll grade.)
I think the Republicans are simply refraining from confrontation and waiting for the protesters to get tired and leave or — on their own — to upset the ordinary people around the state. Any attempt to sweep them out or pull down their signs might make them look sympathetic or generate an air of martyrdom, and so, I assume, it has seemed to be the wiser path to leave them alone.
UPDATE: At the Capitol today (2/26/11) I talked to the police enough to get some insight into what the legal theory is. I've got a lot of video and photographs to process this evening, so I will put off writing more about this until tomorrow.
UPDATE 2: Prof. Downs emails:
Downs is very briefly raising the issue of whether it should be considered viewpoint discrimination for the protesters at the state capitol to be permitted to post signs and sleep overnight when other groups are not going to be given the same treatment.
The case he mentions is Clark v. Community for Creative Nonviolence, in which the Supreme Court upheld a neutral rule that prohibited everyone from sleeping in the park. In that case, protesters argued that they had a right to special treatment, because they were sleeping as a form of expression, to say something about the plight of the homeless.
In the current Wisconsin situation, the protesters are being allowed to do many, many things that ordinarily no one does. It's hard to imagine how the state could operate in the future if other groups were given equal treatment and permitted to stay overnight for days on end, to post thousands of signs all over the historic marble walls and pillars, to prop and post signs on the monuments, to bang drums and use a bullhorn in the rotunda to give speeches and lead chants all day long for days on end. Tell me then, what will happen when the next protester comes along and the next and the next? Hasn't the state opened the Capitol as a free speech forum in which viewpoint discrimination will be forbidden under the First Amendment?
But, you might say, the Republicans hold the political majority and the special treatment is going to their opponents. To that I say: So what? If you discriminate in favor of your political opponents, it's still viewpoint discrimination. It's interesting to speculate about why the Republicans are permitting such a giant extra helping of free speech to their opponents. Perhaps it is so they can say, when their friends show up on some later occasion — some Tea Party group? — that they must give them the same access.
But I don't believe they want that. The Capitol has for years and years been a solemn place. For 25 years, I have brought visitors there and walked slowly through the beautiful spaces looking at the different colored and patterned marble on the walls and gazing with awe up into the dome. This is the Capitol Wisconsinites know and treasure. It can't become an all-purpose free-speech forum.
At Christmastime, there is a big tree in the rotunda. The Freedom from Religion Foundation doesn't like that. This week's anti-Scott Walker people are banging on drywall buckets and chanting "This is what democracy looks like." How about a hundred atheists in the rotunda for a week in December banging on buckets and chanting "This is what stupidity looks like"? (Okay, there's a conlaw exam for you. Submit your answers and I'll grade.)
I think the Republicans are simply refraining from confrontation and waiting for the protesters to get tired and leave or — on their own — to upset the ordinary people around the state. Any attempt to sweep them out or pull down their signs might make them look sympathetic or generate an air of martyrdom, and so, I assume, it has seemed to be the wiser path to leave them alone.
UPDATE: At the Capitol today (2/26/11) I talked to the police enough to get some insight into what the legal theory is. I've got a lot of video and photographs to process this evening, so I will put off writing more about this until tomorrow.
UPDATE 2: Prof. Downs emails:
Ann raises points that merit serious First Amendment attention. In my talk last Wednesday, I raised the concern about viewpoint discrimination, but said it was outweighed at that point by public necessity. But the necessity position loses force as time passes, and police are able to adjust to the situation. Regardless of where one stands on this particular issue, it is never a valid or good thing if government grants special First Amendment rights to one group or set of protesters that it would not extend to all other groups. This is bedrock First Amendment principle based on a long history of experience. And police need to maintain a position of absolute neutrality in such matters. And it doesn't matter how peaceful or respectful a group might be behaving, for such otherwise laudatory behavior does not entitle anyone to special treatement under the law. The First Amendment either applies equally to everyone, or it is subject to political barter.
Lefty blogger loves the idea of restaurants refusing to serve people that their other customers express open hatred toward.
"Sounds like a good idea to me. I don’t generally consider myself a snob, but in this case I’ll make an exception — I’ll be happy to dine at an establishment that knows exactly which kind of undesirables should be kept out."
Swopa loves that a Madison restaurant asked Governor Scott Walker to leave when customers booed him. He/she links to a Madison blogger who deleted the name of the restaurant after the restaurant received threats. (Threats? Were they reported to the police?) Swopa notes that he edited his post to delete the name of the restaurant, but he leaves in his "via Howie Klein on Twitter" link, and the name of the restaurant is right there.
Idiot. Don't rely on Firedoglake to protect you. They care. They want to protect you. But they just can't quite pull off the protectiveness they'd love to give you.
And that's the problem with liberals. They care. They're here to help. They're here to help the people they've decided are the people who deserve to be helped. But they do a half-assed job of protecting even the people they care about.
And how about believing in principles that you are willing to follow at a high level of abstraction? You love the idea of restaurants letting the passions of their customers determine who ought to be seated (at least when they sympathize with those passions). What sprang into my head was: Ollie's Barbecue!
And who thinks about tomorrow? The state capitol is occupied right now and plastered with thousands of signs this week, and isn't that just great? You haven't give a moment's thought — have you? — to what free speech rights will apply to the next group that wants to appropriate the state capitol? Are you planning on advocating viewpoint discrimination to keep the signs you find loathsome off the walls?
No. I know. You have no plan. You haven't thought about it. Swopa began his post this way:
What children!
IN THE COMMENTS: There's some evidence that the story of the booing and ejectment was a hoax. Of course, nothing in my post depends on whether the incident really happened or not. I'm writing about the reaction to the incident, not the incident itself. If it is a hoax, I would like to get to the bottom of it. Did the owners of the restaurant seek to endear themselves to Madisonians with viral P.R. about their political faith? Or were employees appropriating their employer's reputation?
Swopa loves that a Madison restaurant asked Governor Scott Walker to leave when customers booed him. He/she links to a Madison blogger who deleted the name of the restaurant after the restaurant received threats. (Threats? Were they reported to the police?) Swopa notes that he edited his post to delete the name of the restaurant, but he leaves in his "via Howie Klein on Twitter" link, and the name of the restaurant is right there.
Idiot. Don't rely on Firedoglake to protect you. They care. They want to protect you. But they just can't quite pull off the protectiveness they'd love to give you.
And that's the problem with liberals. They care. They're here to help. They're here to help the people they've decided are the people who deserve to be helped. But they do a half-assed job of protecting even the people they care about.
And how about believing in principles that you are willing to follow at a high level of abstraction? You love the idea of restaurants letting the passions of their customers determine who ought to be seated (at least when they sympathize with those passions). What sprang into my head was: Ollie's Barbecue!
Ollie's Barbecue is a family owned restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama, specializing in barbecued meats and homemade pies, with a seating capacity of 220 customers... The restaurant caters to a family and white-collar trade with a take-out service for Negroes....Ah, but who remembers anything anymore? It's today that matters. The war dead are dead, and now their memorial is a handy place to tape your signs and back your table up against so all your stuff doesn't fall on the floor.
And who thinks about tomorrow? The state capitol is occupied right now and plastered with thousands of signs this week, and isn't that just great? You haven't give a moment's thought — have you? — to what free speech rights will apply to the next group that wants to appropriate the state capitol? Are you planning on advocating viewpoint discrimination to keep the signs you find loathsome off the walls?
No. I know. You have no plan. You haven't thought about it. Swopa began his post this way:
Sometimes, it’s good to leave detached, cerebral meta-analyses of politics aside and just get a taste of public opinion being expressed the old-fashioned way.Sometimes! The whole point of principles is that you're supposed to follow them all the time — especially when you would find it most satisfying to violate them. Swopa's all: Let's not be "detached" and "cerebral" today when we're having such fun.
What children!
IN THE COMMENTS: There's some evidence that the story of the booing and ejectment was a hoax. Of course, nothing in my post depends on whether the incident really happened or not. I'm writing about the reaction to the incident, not the incident itself. If it is a hoax, I would like to get to the bottom of it. Did the owners of the restaurant seek to endear themselves to Madisonians with viral P.R. about their political faith? Or were employees appropriating their employer's reputation?
"And if Scott Walker gets in our way, we're gonna roll right over him," yells a protester in the Wisconsin Capitol on Thursday.
Meade did the video-recording on Thursday, and I edited things down to 4 1/2 minutes. The quote in the post title begins the montage. Look for the group of schoolchildren dragged through the crowd — they appear twice — and the baby with a sign. There are 2 men in ridiculous costumes, one of which speaks of violence with a sign reading "Gore Walker" on a helmet that has big bull horns sticking out of it. It took us a moment to get it, because "Gore" made us think of Al Gore, but "gore" with horns — and don't they look blood-reddened? — signifies a grisly piercing.
Professor Donald Downs says Gov. Walker "by being radical... has exposed the contradictions in the political economy."
"It's creedal!"
This is the last 2 1/2 minutes of Downs's talk at last night's teach-in, which is also discussed in the previous post, and which should soon be on-line in its entirety here.
This is the last 2 1/2 minutes of Downs's talk at last night's teach-in, which is also discussed in the previous post, and which should soon be on-line in its entirety here.
The Badger Herald writes about last night's teach-in on the Wisconsin budget bill and completely misrepresents what Prof. Donald Downs said.
Here's the Badger Herald. Here's Professor Downs's response — which was cc'd to me:
ADDED: The boldface is mine. Here's the last 2 1/2 minutes of Downs's talk.
I write in response to Grant Hermes reporting on my comments at the Law School Forum Wednesday evening. Hermes wrote that I "alluded to the idea that the governor’s proposed bill may have long-term negative effects on political areas outside of labor disputes, such as taxes and the rising cost in higher education." This is a complete misrepresentation of what I said and meant. I was talking about the crisis of debt, and how higher education is part of this crisis because we cost so much. Walker has had nothing to do [with] having caused this problem; indeed, his measures are designed to at least address the crisis of public debt in a forceful way. At no point in my discussion of this aspect of the problem did I implicate Walker's plan as a source of the problem. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed at twice the skyrocketing rate of medical care costs over the course of the last twenty years, and we are the source of this problem, not Walker.Maybe the reporter had trouble hearing a professor imply that Scott Walker might be doing something good.
Donald Downs
Meiklejohn Professor of Political Science, Law, and Journalism
ADDED: The boldface is mine. Here's the last 2 1/2 minutes of Downs's talk.
UW professor retires after only 21 years to "protect" herself from "depressing and threatening" clauses in Gov. Walker's bill.
The Daily Cardinal reports:
"Maybe I didn't need to jump, but I won't know that until much later. My concern was that there will be no window allowed for people to actually make an informed decision," [UW-Madison Anthropology Professor Sharon] Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson said the redefinition of the term "emergency" in the bill would allow for the firing of anyone who walks out, holds a strike or calls in sick.
"I find the clauses so depressing and threatening that I decided that it's impossible to determine, it's just too tense for me, and I know of no other way to protect myself for sure... The discourse that is developing that is trying to divide people against each other is truly disheartening...."
Don't forget the forum on Gov. Walker's budget repair bill at the law school tonight.
Previously blogged here. This event, from 6-8 tonight in room 2260 at the UW Law School, is open to the public. And, as you can see from the law school website, the law school will produce a video of the event that will be available here tomorrow.
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