Day: March 7, 2011

I don’t always agree with Mr. Moore, but I appreciate his willingness & ability to go after alternative sides to important issues. Today he sent out an email regarding a speech he gave in Wisconsin that I thought worth sharing. I found his descriptions, of what it was really like in Wisconsin when he went there to deliver his speech, particularly interesting because of difference in viewpoint it gave versus what the mainstream media has been telling us (when they bother to cover the events in Wisconsin at all).

The scene in Madison is nothing like what they are showing you on TV or in the newspaper. First, you notice that the whole town is behind this. Yard signs and signs in store windows are everywhere supporting public workers. There are thousands of people out just randomly lining the streets for the six blocks leading to the Capitol building carrying signs, shouting and cheering and cajoling. Then there are stages and friendly competing demos on all sides of the building (yesterday’s total estimate of people was 50,000-70,000, the smallest one yet)! A big semi truck has been sent by James Hoffa of the Teamsters and is parked like a don’t-even-think-of-effing-with-us Sherman tank on the street in front of the Capitol. There is a long line — separate from these other demonstrations — of 4,000 people, waiting their turn to get through the only open door to the Capitol so they can join the occupation inside.

And inside the Rotunda is … well, it will bring tears to your eyes if you go there. It’s like a shrine to working people — to what America is and should be about — packed with families and kids and so many senior citizens that it made me happy for science and its impact on life expectancy over the past century. There were grandmas and great-grandpas who remember FDR and Wisconsin’s La Follette and the long view of this struggle. Standing in that Rotunda was like a religious experience. There had been nothing like it, for me, in decades.

If you’re interested in his speech you can watch the video below or read the text on his website.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNuSEZ8CDw[/youtube]