I've spent this evening glued to the Uptake livestream of the scene inside the Wisconsin Capital, and all I can think is "I should be back there." I've spent two weekends now in Madison, on the Front Lines of the Class War, and were it not for living in Chicago and being unable to stay away as long as I would like, I would have gladly stayed the whole go, there with my sisters and brothers documenting this fantastic and savage moment in history for the Permanent Record.
But as much as I'm cursing being left out of the fun, being away from the action, what I'm seeing makes the desires and passions of one person, no matter how sincere or noble, seem small and insignificant. What started in the first week as a rumor, a whisper has now become a roar as thousands of people chant the mantra: GENERAL STRIKE, GENERAL STRIKE
During the first week of the Protests, it was just the Wobblies and socialists, the real hard-line revolutionary change types, who were talking General Strike. And with good cause. General Strikes are technically illegal under the pernicious Taft-Hartley act, a piece of soft-boiled fascism passed following World War II to restrain the growth of radical labor in the Post War Era. It's not coincidental, or even unanticipated, that following Taft-Hartley, the large moderate unions became more corrupt and unresponsive, and within two decades entered decline. While it wasn't apparent at the time, Taft-Hartley was the moment the rising tide of Organized Labor, which had lifted the boats of all Americans began to roll back. Of course the Wobblies and the Pinkos are still nursing a grudge a half century later, but this was outlaw talk. While the more moderate Union workers might privately nod their heads in agreement, they would never openly support this radicalism.
But then in the second week of the Protests something happened. More and more Union Workers, and soon their locals and then their Unions began to whisper those outlaw words, and soon the whispering got louder. Eventually support was lined up and the media began to take notice. If Walker's Union-Busting Bill passed, a General Strike was on the table.
Now the Union Busting measure has passed the Senate, leaving mere legislative formalities between it and Walker's pen. And with that, the whisper has become a rumble that will shake the State of Wisconsin and the nation.
I'm not going to lie to you, what comes next is going to get very ugly.
The Union Busting Bill contains language allowing Walker to unilaterally fire anyone who engages in a strike. While probably unconstitutional, and just daring a court challenge, the threat is clear: "If you use the one power to have short of open rebellion to resist this rape of your basic human rights, I will use my dictatorial power to crush you and your family; I will starve, force you out of your home and on to the streets and into hopeless poverty. If you dare resist, I will crush you".
What Walker is practicing here is open Economic Terrorism directed against those who can least defend against it. And make no mistake, Terrorism is exactly what this is: Economic violence to infect a population with so much fear they become incapable of resistance. We can not allow this terrorism to succeed. We can not let Fear deter us from the one course of action that we have immediately available to us, and we can not afford to wait for elections or recalls to defend our most fundamental rights. As a Great Man who knew a thing or two about confronting Fascism once said, the era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.
I have a friend who's a grad student at UW and a member of the TAA. She's never been particularly political, and until now has not been active in her Union. This strike has made her, as it's made many young people of my generation in Madison, aware for the first time of the possibilities, the power, they have by joining together and organizing; that Democracy does not end at the ballot box, but is an ongoing duty of all Citizens. Now she's mulling over the possibility of a General Strike, and the risks behind the rewards of organized direct political action are beginning to become clear to her for the first time. Can she ask people who are risking their careers, their family's income, even their homes to follow her? But in that question lies the power, for the secret of the General Strike is that it is to wide and to deep to break through economic executions. Fire a hundred workers or a thousand is possible, but a hundred thousand? A half a million? Walker is counting on The Fear of his economic terrorism to blunt the numbers who will participate in a General Strike, so that the brave and bold few who end up following through can be hunted down and terminated one by one. We can't let him do that, we can not let Fear keep us from hanging together, for as ever if we don't hang together, we will hang separately.
A General Strike is a radical action in response to a radical threat. Even in a "peaceful" confrontation, there will be casualties. That grim reality is something I think a lot of people, particularly those here who have not been to The Front or those there who's political experiences are limited, are only now beginning to realize, and The Fear is starting to get to them. But we've come too far to stop now. If we pause, if we falter, if we retreat, if we give any ground, this Movement will die after only a few weeks of life.
Fight the Fear, Fight Walker, Support a GENERAL STRIKE