Looking Back: Madison Protests

As we looked back at the year 2011, we can’t help to look at the political climate over the year as well as the outrage that citizens had all over the country.  Three months after the protests and demonstrations began in Madison, WI, I went for a walk with my friend Alyssa to check out what was happening in the middle of everything happening.  Here is that post as well as the video we took.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to witness everything happening in Madison, WI in the months of February and March but when I arrived into Madison, I wanted to make sure I got the feeling of what was happening over those two months.  Thankfully, my friend Alyssa was in the middle of it which made her the perfect tour guide for this video.  As you watch it, keep in mind that it was the middle of winter, covered in snow with an average temperature of 26 degrees.  Over those two months, there were hundreds of thousands of people with the largest protest maxing out at close to a hundred thousand people.  That was the protest where the state farmers came to support and brought their tractors right up to the capital and drove around it the entire day.

 Also keep in mind what this means to have a hundred thousand people in this space.  Over the last five months, we have been reading and hearing about hundreds of protests in the Middle East from places like Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and so on.  The protests in Madison were as large and in some moments, larger than those.  Americans will rally too and we can’t forget what we can do when we come together.

In this video there are a couple references that are made and just in case you would like to check them out, here are a few links.

Kent State Massacre

Kloppenburg Recount

Exploring the Madison Protests

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to witness everything happening in Madison, WI in the months of February and March but when I arrived into Madison, I wanted to make sure I got the feeling of what was happening over those two months.  Thankfully, my friend Alyssa was in the middle of it which made her the perfect tour guide for this video.  As you watch it, keep in mind that it was the middle of winter, covered in snow with an average temperature of 26 degrees.  Over those two months, there were hundreds of thousands of people with the largest protest maxing out at close to a hundred thousand people.  That was the protest where the state farmers came to support and brought their tractors right up to the capital and drove around it the entire day.

Also keep in mind what this means to have a hundred thousand people in this space.  Over the last five months, we have been reading and hearing about hundreds of protests in the Middle East from places like Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and so on.  The protests in Madison were as large and in some moments, larger than those.  Americans will rally too and we can’t forget what we can do when we come together.

In this video there are a couple references that are made and just in case you would like to check them out, here are a few links.

Kent State Massacre

Kloppenburg Recount

Shared Sacrifice

The talk from the Democratic Party right now is “Shared Sacrifice”.  What they mean is shared sacrifice for both parties on Capitol Hill but how does that translate to the rest of the country?  The bigger question is while they are debating what sacrifices both parties will make, why aren’t they really taking into what the American public is willing to sacrifice? 

Of course, the lower and middle classes are constantly sacrificing.  We are the ones that continue to suffer when paying higher gas prices.  We are the ones affected every time there are tax changes and don’t even bother to question the sacrifice that everyone affected by the two hundred and forty tornadoes last week have to make while they wait for assistance.  Sacrifices that come with no notice, with no control, with no explanation constantly affect us and we make up the largest part of this country.

I feel that “shared sacrifice” should be a campaign for the entire country; not just the Democratic Party for a sales pitch.  Shared sacrifice is something we can all adapt to while living our everyday lives. We have all become greedy and in order to get to a place of productivity and balance again as a society, we are going to have to let go and compromise a little bit.  Take what has been happening in Wisconsin and many other states over the last four months for example.  The people of Wisconsin said yes, we will make compromises to what needs to be done to balance the budget.  As we then saw, that did not matter to Scott Walker and the very wealthy Koch brothers.  They went on to change the format of the bill so that it wasn’t even associated with the budget and they could vote legally, without the fourteen democrats in Illinois, to get rid of collective bargaining rights.  Who in this situation was not willing to have shared sacrifice?  Certainly not the group that continues to sacrifice. 

As we are already getting the jargon from many “wanna be” candidates for the 2012 election, I want to see someone take responsibility for what they have done wrong, and make a real plan where we will all a part in fixing our countries situation.  Everyone from the poor to the rich, all on board, then we will get some major changes in the right direction. Our government has got to start working with its constituents and all adapt a “Shared Sacrifice” way of thinking.  The democrats at least had the words correctly, now we just need to get those words into physical action, not just whispered off the lips of one party on Capitol Hill.

Last October, Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert held a ‘Rally to Restore Sanity’ on the mall in Washington D.C. During this rally, Jon Stewart mentioned how we, in our everyday lives work together and compromise.  He uses the Lincoln Tunnel to get his point across.  This is the only video I could find that had the images of the cars flowing from nine lanes of traffic into two to get through the tunnel.  Thank you mantypants on youtube for this video. Now here, I will let Jon Stewart add to my point.