Wisconsin state capitol
“You’ll never make it through boot camp,” my dad said as we stood there at the intersection of the old Milwaukee Road freight tracks and East Washington Avenue. It was just two months after I graduated from Madison East High School and I was waiting at the bus stop across six lanes of concrete and steel from the U.S. Army recruiting station. It was 1985 and I was leaving my hometown for the first time. Heading off on my own with the plan to never come back. It was my time to escape the bullies, escape my parents and leave my past behind (what little past I had at the tender age of 18).
After four years in the United States Army and having lived in places as varied as Wildflecken, West Germany, Fort Leonard Wood, MO, Fort Benning, GA and Fort Campbell, KY, all the while pining to come back home to Wisconsin, I came home on leave from Fort Campbell and had a mix tape in the car that had nothing but songs about home on it. I still remember my cousin Jacqui laughing about it when she found the tape in my car. She thought it was funny that her big tough soldier cousin was still homesick after three years. I told her I was not homesick. Just that there was no place like Wisconsin.
When it came time for me to re-enlist I knew that I would go home—back to Wisconsin. Wisconsin is like no place else in the world. Germany may have had beautiful forests and great beer while Fort Campbell had some of the best fishing I had ever experienced (no comment on Fort Benning and Fort Leonard Wood). But, neither of them had what my home state had. Wisconsin Nice.
Wisconsin Nice was the basis of all relationships in my home state. There was a time when Governor Tommy Thompson, a Republican, would meet with Marty Biel of AFSCME at Feiler’s supper club on the corner of Verona Rd and the Beltline to hammer out a state employee contract over a couple beers.
Now there have been times in Wisconsin’s history when we have forgotten who we were. The election of Joseph McCarthy comes to mind as do the recent elections of Ron Johnson and Scott Walker. However, up until now Wisconsin Nice always saw us through. Yes, we had riots on the University of Wisconsin campus during the Vietnam War and those protests ended with a bang when a young man was killed during the Sterling Hall bombing. Through it all we always came back to Wisconsin Nice.
I hate what Scott Walker has done to my Wisconsin. I cannot blame him for all of the discord though. I blame President Reagan for repealing the fairness doctrine. I blame Charlie Sykes, Vicki McKenna, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Fox News. Without a fairness doctrine they were free to spread their lies, distortions and hate. They have split Wisconsin in two, divide and conquer.
School teachers, municipal workers, state employees and other public servants are not the enemy, they are not the reason that our economy collapsed during the great recession. If you were to listen to conservative talk radio over the last couple of years public employee unions are the reason our economy collapsed. Not banks running amuck and pissing away billions of dollars that we the American public had to pick up the tab for. No, that guy who has been teaching U.S. History for 40 years and was looking forward to retiring on a well-earned pension was to blame. Divide and conquer.
Today, Wisconsin has a choice. We can elect Tom Barrett and start healing our state and bring back Wisconsin Nice or we can tear this state even further apart by electing Scott Walker. I have lost friends and am no longer on speaking terms with members of my family. I am tired of wondering what someone’s political stance is before I talk to them. I am tired of the right pitting the have-a-littles against the have-nots while the haves laugh all the way to the bank. Divide and conquer or Wisconsin Nice. That is the choice today. I choose to stand with Tom Barrett and Wisconsin Nice. Where do you stand?
6:08 AM PT: I arrived at my polling place at 6:50 am. I am normally one of the first five voters. This morning I was voter #111 in the A-L line. There was an equal number of voters in the M-Z line...so I was one of about 200 voters prior to 7:30 am. There were still about 200 folks in line when I left and more coming in.