Wisconsin State Assembly Representative Mark Pocan said it in one word: "FitzWalkerStan." It feels as if Wisconsin isn't the state we know and love anymore, but rather a newly-formed totalitarian country, daily creating new outrages and doing things in our Capitol that we don't recognize, according to rules that we've never played by before.
Well, if FitzWalkerStan is entering new territory, there are lots of individuals here breaking new ground as well.
I read just yesterday in Madison's Capital Times about ordinary citizens learning how to register their own political action committees to help support JoAnne Kloppenburg's vital campaign for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Vote Kloppenburg April 5!)
Just today there was another article outlining how WI Rep. Peter Barca, not known as a firebrand in the legislature, has risen as a passionate leader.
I just saw Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse's extraordinary explanation of the Dane County District Attorney's latest brief in the legal struggle over the bill that passed in such (illegal) mind-blowing haste the other week. Nowhere else can you get this analysis, certainly not in the press!
I've watched Giles Goat Boy, always a worthy diarist, write ever-more-focused and passionate reporting and reflection on Wisconsin events, running up the Rec List repeatedly.
And then there's Kodiak54, whose photo diaries have made us all feel like we'd been there at the Capitol through these events (as I commented on the most recent diary, I've been hungry for the photos even though I live here, since I haven't been able to attend the big Saturday rallies!) And even more importantly on the personal level, these events are causing Kodiak54 to seek a career change -- a fundamental shift in life-course.
I'd like to share a few of the "never done before" things from my own life in the past weeks here in Madison too. And then I want to hear your stories in the comments.
I'd never before had a letter to the editor get published in the local paper, though I'd written a few. This time my letter about the immediate financial effect of "budget repair" on our family was published promptly by the Wisconsin State Journal. And then we canceled our paper subscription of 12 years standing -- we're tightening our belts and can't afford to funnel money to an organization that endorsed Scott Walker for governor. Elections have consequences, and all!
I'd never written partisan politics on my personal blog (which focuses on my family and autism). My Obama-themed jack-o-lantern was as partisan as it got, and I was very careful not to campaign openly with it on the blog. Now I'm making the connection VERY clear between the effects of the Walker administration's proposals on those near and dear to me, and what we have to do in the ballot box to change the situation.
I had never used a bullhorn at a rally, though I'd attended plenty. Suddenly, on the night of February 17, I found myself in the middle of the Capital Rotunda in Madison, on a barrel, shouting through a bullhorn to a huge crowd about the attacks on Medicaid in the "budget repair" bill that nobody knew about yet. (Now people know -- bought for us by 14 courageous Democratic state-senators who worked from Illinois for a couple of weeks.)
I only really knew about the little slices of Medicaid that affected my family. But this was so much larger. So I educated myself on the broad outlines of Medicaid in Wisconsin -- and then I got my congregation to give me the next Sunday's adult-education hour to tell them all about it too. We ended up joining the Save BadgerCare Coalition as a congregation the following week.
I had never cold-call pitched a story to a reporter. But I was desperate to get the word out about Medicaid in Wisconsin, to whatever platform I could command. So I called up my denominational newsweekly and asked them to cover the Wisconsin budget story. We ended up with an above-the-fold front-page story about the situation and our congregation in the March 14 issue of Mennonite Weekly Review.
I had never written for the Mennonite denominational press before, though my late mother (who died of cancer in 2005) occasionally used to gently nudge me to do so. In conjunction with the above article, though, the Mennonite Weekly Review gave me the opportunity to write as a guest blogger on the Wisconsin budget and political situation, not just once but twice.
Though I had written letters and made visits to my state legislators' offices before, I had never gone so far as to get a face-to-face meeting. Now my state representative knows me on sight, and his staffer has been returning my e-mails within hours. I can't say the same about my state senator yet because he was in Illinois... but I'm sure I'll be meeting with him too.
I'm now on a Board of Directors of a local non-profit. I'm chairing an advocacy committee. I'm networking like crazy. And like Kodiak54, there are career-change thoughts percolating for me.
And maybe most important of all -- before all this, I did not have an adequate grasp of the nationally-coordinated Republican methods and plan. Even after years of keeping up with DailyKos, I didn't get it. Now I do. There's an excellent study guide by prominent UW-Madison historian William Cronon up at his new Scholar as Citizen blog if you'd like an awesome connect-the-dots reference.
For all this, I almost have to give Scott Walker and the cabal a nod of thanks. He has made deeply-committed activists of many of us who were previously much further out on the edges.
What has Scott Walker inspired you to do that you've never done before? Tell all in the comments, or link your diary!
Updated by AnnieJo at Thu Mar 24, 2011 at 03:13 PM CDT
UPDATE: Another recent connecting-the-dots blog, this one from Forbes online (of all places!), follows the money.