Who Is This Budget Fight Really About?
What does a public employee look like? To those of you who have been convinced that they are the reason our state’s economy is bankrupt, I would ask you to look around your communities. Who is waiting in line in front of you at the checkout counter, eating ground turkey instead of steak and using generic toilet paper? Whose not-so-late model car is in the parking lot at the local school well after hours tutoring students or grading papers? Who’s putting the donation in the collection plate in church on Sunday, or staffing the volunteer bike rodeo at the local park? It’s the guy on the next block who works at the fire station, the lady next door who staffs the city clerk’s office. These are your neighbors, the people who live where you live, shop where you shop, worship where you worship. Their bank accounts have the same lean look that yours do. Their wallets hold store coupons and pared down shopping lists. Their mailboxes contain the same credit card bills, solicitations for charity, and bad economic news that yours do. The difference is that they can look you in the eye and tell you that they support fairness and “shared sacrifice” in state budgeting.
I have spent several days trying to put names and faces to the large political action groups that fund many of the Republican campaigns that brought us this budget bill protest. It is almost impossible to do. Lobbying groups will not release the names of their members. Supporters of the budget bill don’t want to own up to their leanings
Standing together: a message from a “Cop for labor”
I am a “cop for labor” and I stand with you, and with all my co-working humans of middle and low class. We will not repeat the mistakes of the past of our human race, this time, when they came for my neighbor, I stood next to her/him and we both fought, and our neighbors next to us saw what was happening, and joined in to protect us, and their neighbors and their neighbors, until we saw & those that came for us saw they were outnumbered- and in a democracy, that means freedom from tyranny. I stand with you, my neighbors. We fight this battle, and call upon all our neighbors to do the same.
Lauri
Madison, WI
