This is my first Diary entry on DailyKos.
I've been rather lazy about the protest events in Wisconsin over the last month, despite living right here in Madison. I'd heard about them - I'd gone and been there for the big saturday rallies, but I hadn't done much more than that. I work at the University here and I'm affected by the cuts in the bill (which is weird because I'm actually paid by federal and not state money so these cuts don't change the state's finances at all in my case). But that's not important. What's important are the stories of layoffs of teachers across the state, the draconian shutdown of Our House, and the giveaway of Wisconsin resources to Walker's buddies, and the rule that local cities and towns are required to cut back on school funding even when their citizenry would be okay with local tax increases to make up the shortfall.
All of this has finally made me decide to stop being lazy about this and get involved, even if only in a small way. This saturday I plan to join up with the recall roadtrip effort, starting at Brittingham Park 9 AM tomorrow (Saturday). But I don't have a car. Well, I do, but it's not legally drivable at the moment because of a dispute between me and the DMV over whether or not a parking ticket has been paid (it has been, but their records are wrong and this keeps getting in the way of me registering my plates - that's a long story for another time).
So I'll come back tomorrow and report here under the fold on how it went. My fear is that I won't be able to join up in a carpool with someone tomorrow. I'm basically going there with another car-less person, both of us getting there by city bus, and we're hoping that the two of us will find some random stranger to take us with them.
I'll try to take photos and post them afterward - assuming we can find a random stranger to carpool with.
I'm a bit nervous about this because I'm not normally politically involved. I'm 39 yrs old and I've never officially joined any political party. Not because I don't care but because I haven't found a party that I don't have massive disagreements with on some things. Sure, I voted in every election since I was old enough to do so, even the small ones, but that's not really being that involved. But now, this is insane what these Tea Partiers that swept the elections in my state are doing and now it feels like doing nothing, and saying nothing, are identical to being on the same side as the Tea Partiers. They're not just enacting policies I disagree with but they're doing it by destroying the very system of passionate yet polite debate by which our government was meant to function, and all the while claiming that they're doing it because their invisible friend in the sky told them to.
The most important lesson Scott Walker doesn't seem to understand is this: Getting 51% of the vote, in an election with 50% voter turnout, does not constitute a "mandate". Learn how math works before you go and call that a "mandate".
I view the recall effort as being, not a way of gaining new pride for Wisconsin, but of being a way to regain lost pride for Wisconsin. I don't want us to be remembered as the state that brought the Tea Partiers in. I want us to be remembered as the state that kicked the Tea Partiers out - or better yet, the first of many states that kicked the Tea Partiers out. Maybe if we show that it can be done here, it will be done elsewhere too.
Updated by Steven Mading at Sun Mar 27, 2011 at 01:41 PM PDT
Here is the link to my update on this diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/...