Showing posts with label Wisconsin protests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wisconsin protests. Show all posts
What are the top 3 emotions you're feeling in this protest?
Meade shot this on March 1st. I edited.
What emotions propel people into protest? Do they get them stoked or satisfied? I wonder. I like this clip for 2 reasons: 1. the student is so nice, and 2. the respondents (Walker supporters) aren't too ready to speak in terms of emotion. The first answer given is "respect" and the second is "pride." Only the third — "sadness" — is really an emotion. I've observed over the years that a lot of people don't like to think about their political ideas as emotionally motivated.
"Hell, these leftist protesters, leave Kotex! Used Kotex, everything is littering the sidewalks and the streets. It doesn't matter. It's the height of pigsty-ism."
Rush Limbaugh went over the top yesterday imagining what's going on here in Madison, Wisconsin.
[U]nion thugs join together in creating a pigsty -- and we know that they create pigsties, especially compared to Tea Party rallies. You look at any public grounds where these people have been: The trash is littered everywhere, trash cans are overturned, beer cans, bong pipes. Hell, it's all over there. The Tea Party people, you don't find anything. Not even a discarded tissue....
The Democrats and the media want you to think it's just a bunch of average, hardworking out of working, valiant teachers, firefighters and so forth, and it's a bunch of slobs. Maggot-infested, dope-smoking, damn it, hell, longhaired, the whole nine yards. You got longhaired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking FM rock 'n' roller types, exactly who they are. Bong pipes, you name it.Now, that's just ridiculous. I've lived in Madison, Wisconsin for 25 years — and I've gone over to the protests nearly every day — and I've never seen a used Kotex anywhere. I put up a post showing trash on one of the first days of protest, but ever since then, I've been impressed that they are picking up trash. They care about the impression they leave and are making a big effort about that. They are putting up signs, taping them up and sticking them in little snowmen outdoors. And there are piles of belongings, such as bedding that are piled up in a way that isn't aesthetically pleasing. But that's not trash. And I haven't seen any beer drinking or beer cans or pot smoking or pot paraphernalia anywhere. The last time I was in the building, I didn't think it smelled, but Meade was there more recently (for the Governor's Budget Address), and he says it smelled. People are living in there, the human body is what it is.
"Chicago is up in the house!"/"He's never nipped at anybody but he barks and growls"/"I wanna be your dog"...
... "Everyone left is from Chicago"/"It's the love-in of a lifetime"/"People are going to be really embarrassed some day to look back and realize that they had joined in on something that was really a mistake and they chose the wrong side and that they joined it with such fervor"/"Did you ever do that when you were young?"
All this video was recorded yesterday... except the flashback. (That was originally blogged on February 17th.)
And here's the NYT article on "self-compassion" that I talk about in the car.
All this video was recorded yesterday... except the flashback. (That was originally blogged on February 17th.)
And here's the NYT article on "self-compassion" that I talk about in the car.
"At this point, I'm not sure why I'd reach out to them again."
Says Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald — after driving to Kenosha to meet with 2 of the self-exiled Democratic senators.
"It was clear about halfway through the conversation that the items that they brought up were items that could never make it into the state budget...."
Meade takes protest signs down from the Civil War monument at the Wisconsin Capitol.
New Media Meade, the protector of war monuments, takes signs down from the statue of Hans Christian Heg, who died at Chickamauga. Do you think it's cool to have a sign that reads "I fought for the Union/You should too" tied to his foot? We didn't.
2 protesters emerge from the Capitol — in high spirits — and talk about the conditions inside.
When people leave, others from a line go in to replace them, so the number inside remains the same. One of the young men says he hadn't seen the light of day in 72 hours. They seem to be okay about sleeping on the stone floor, and they report that it's been kind of fun — that they even had a sack race last night (using sleeping bags).
"There's six, seven, eight, nine of them that are starting to say, ‘Listen, we're starting to look like we're out of touch with what's going on in Madison, and it's time to get back.'"
"I think some of them feel like they're boxed in and they can't come back to the Capitol right now."
Said Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald about the "Wisconsin 14."
Did the absconding senators themselves adopt the label "Wisconsin 14"? To my ear, it suggests yippies or lawless revolutionaries. Is that the image they want?
Said Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald about the "Wisconsin 14."
Did the absconding senators themselves adopt the label "Wisconsin 14"? To my ear, it suggests yippies or lawless revolutionaries. Is that the image they want?
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.
"I have professors that received doctorates from Berkeley. They can't afford to lose their collective bargaining."
Statement from a hardcore protester who's been sleeping on the marble floor of the Wisconsin Capitol for 10 days.
When you're drafted into the "Army of Davids" — and the conflict has become a quagmire.
Thanks to Instapundit for all the links to my — and Meade's — coverage of the Wisconsin protests. Like this one this morning:
And now we're into the third week of it. It's become a quagmire. I believe myself that... this protest is lost and it is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme aggression in Madison yesterday....
WISCONSIN: “After a short interchange, a bunch of anti-Walkerites converge on Meade. One man grabs his camera. Another blows a whistle close to his face.” The New Civility in action: Shut the f*ck up if you don’t support the unions!I know Meade and I exemplify Glenn's concept of "An Army of Davids," but we kind of got drafted. Here we are in Madison, Wisconsin and something big happens. We have to cover it. Or we'd have to justify dodging the draft into the army of Davids. And now that we're in, people are looking to us to be the rough men who stand ready to do journalism on their behalf so they can read peaceably on their laptops at night.
Plus, from the comments: “I don’t want to hear one more word about Tea Parties that create an atmosphere of violence.”
And now we're into the third week of it. It's become a quagmire. I believe myself that... this protest is lost and it is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme aggression in Madison yesterday....
"You are a person against all of us. The whole nation is looking at you." — says an old woman with a "Solidarity" sign who gets right up in Meade's face...
... when Meade asks her why he should "be ashamed" of himself. That's at the end of this uncut 7 1/2-minute video, shot outside the Capitol this afternoon.
In the beginning, a man demands that a woman explain her sign, which reads "Public workers don't need collective bargaining." She's double-teamed by the man's wife, who finds it "odd" and "socially irresponsible" that a person would have a sign yet choose not to lay out her argument for discussion and dialogue. When the man says that she has a choice but other people don't, Meade begins questioning him. After a short interchange, a bunch of anti-Walkerites converge on Meade. One man grabs his camera. Another blows a whistle close to his face.
It's pretty gooba gabba.
AND: Wisconsin senator mobbed.
In the beginning, a man demands that a woman explain her sign, which reads "Public workers don't need collective bargaining." She's double-teamed by the man's wife, who finds it "odd" and "socially irresponsible" that a person would have a sign yet choose not to lay out her argument for discussion and dialogue. When the man says that she has a choice but other people don't, Meade begins questioning him. After a short interchange, a bunch of anti-Walkerites converge on Meade. One man grabs his camera. Another blows a whistle close to his face.
It's pretty gooba gabba.
AND: Wisconsin senator mobbed.
Meade takes the fisheye to the protest today...
"Who will want to risk their life for no pay?"
"Officers, you have a choice/Disobey illegal orders":
Teachers Assistants Association:
Confrontation of pro- and anti-Walker folk:
An "I support Scott" guy with an antagonist coming up behind him:
Solidarity:
"Officers, you have a choice/Disobey illegal orders":
Teachers Assistants Association:
Confrontation of pro- and anti-Walker folk:
An "I support Scott" guy with an antagonist coming up behind him:
Solidarity:
Meade got into the Capitol for the Governor's speech and, afterward, shot this video...
... which I edited:
0:00 — in the Assembly chamber
0:37 — in the rotunda, a Democratic legislator slips on a pile of peace signs
1:14 — a woman has a dog in the Capitol, and the vibration is freaking her out
2:12 — our Assemblyman Brett Hulsey calls it the "Budget Despair Bill"
2:35 — "Oh, oh, freedom..."
3:16 — "Which door do I go out if I don't want to be replaced?"
4:06 — "Is there a door I can go out where someone else won't come in because I went out?"
4:35 — boombox duct taped to a stand made of cross-country skis
5:06 — Meade inquires about a child labeled "planted troublemaker"
5:21 — folkie guy plays "When the Ship Comes In"
6:26 — the folkie switches to rap
7:50 — "I'll be growin' food with all my friends and we'll be livin' on a big farm somewhere."
0:00 — in the Assembly chamber
0:37 — in the rotunda, a Democratic legislator slips on a pile of peace signs
1:14 — a woman has a dog in the Capitol, and the vibration is freaking her out
2:12 — our Assemblyman Brett Hulsey calls it the "Budget Despair Bill"
2:35 — "Oh, oh, freedom..."
3:16 — "Which door do I go out if I don't want to be replaced?"
4:06 — "Is there a door I can go out where someone else won't come in because I went out?"
4:35 — boombox duct taped to a stand made of cross-country skis
5:06 — Meade inquires about a child labeled "planted troublemaker"
5:21 — folkie guy plays "When the Ship Comes In"
6:26 — the folkie switches to rap
7:50 — "I'll be growin' food with all my friends and we'll be livin' on a big farm somewhere."
There are young people in the Wisconsin Capitol who have been there, sleep deprived, for 15 days and are truly suffering.
I just watched video Meade brought home, and I am not going to put it on line. But I can tell you, there is at least one person there who has lost his mind from (apparently) sleep deprivation.
Someone needs to go around to everyone who is still there and check them for mental stability. Somebody needs to find the people who need to leave and don't know how to leave. If you are encouraging people to stay, to hang on and remain tough, you need to know that there are some truly sad people there who need to be told that they've done enough and must leave now.
Please, for the love of God, go around to the human beings who are there and talk to them individually. I know you believe in your cause, but there is at least one person among you who needs love and needs to be saved!
Someone needs to go around to everyone who is still there and check them for mental stability. Somebody needs to find the people who need to leave and don't know how to leave. If you are encouraging people to stay, to hang on and remain tough, you need to know that there are some truly sad people there who need to be told that they've done enough and must leave now.
Please, for the love of God, go around to the human beings who are there and talk to them individually. I know you believe in your cause, but there is at least one person among you who needs love and needs to be saved!
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