Cheese, Brats, Beer, Polka, Unions! The Homegrown Revolution in Wisconsin
This article orginially appeared in The Nation on September 1, 2011.
“My family comes from Oconomowoc and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my dad from the tradition ofJoseph McCarthy and my mom from that of Robert La Follette, so I have been well educated in the tensions between reactionary and progressive populism, the poles of our politics down to thepresent. The Tea Party is the rising counter movement against the rights gained in the sixties and thirties, including the rights of teachers, cops, firefighters and all public sector workers to form unions and bargain collectively. In response to the attacks on these rights by GovernorScott Walker, a great social movement has arisen this year in Wisconsin on which the future of America, and the next presidential election may depend.”
—Tom Hayden, from a speech to the Democracy
Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, August 24
Madison—Thousands marched to the Capitol steps and through the massive rotunda on August 25, “black