Strobusguy earlier found and posted this rec list diary on a fiery speech yesterday from Tony Schultz, a Wisconsin family farmer.
I wanted to quote that speech, so I transcribed it and posted what I heard in a comment.
Fortunately, dKos user garyn found a YouTube link to the full version of the video, which added the missing first four minutes, and has better sound.
After watching the full version, I heard new context for a phrase I got wrong throughout my first transcription.
Schultz repeatedly says that "this is a FARMER'S issue because... ", not ..."Walker's issue..." as I thought from the first video.
In the new video we can also make out a little better what he says at the end, the most powerful part. Those lines are also updated and corrected.
So, below, picking up a few seconds earlier, a corrected transcript. (I haven't transcribed the first four minutes or so of the speech, my transcription picks up at 3:50 in on the full You Tube video).
... and we are gonna take this state back!
And yet there are those who tell us that "This isn't a farmer's issue." And these people have petty resentment that is amplified by right wing radio until they think that a fireman's pension is the problem.
And then there are groups that represent this evil. The Dairy Business Association was here on Wednesday for Ag Day in the Capitol saying "Hooray for Walker's budget." Well I want you to know, that those aren't farmers. They're agribusiness corporations with a few factory farmers in front. And I want Wisconsin and the world to know that this is the real Ag Day at the Capitol.
This issue, it's a farmer's issue because our rural schools are getting decimated by this budget and they are the centers of our small towns and rural communities. In my hometown of Athens, 14 of 44 teachers got pink slips, will be laid off, because of this budget. It's bad for our children's education; it's bad for the stability of our town; it's bad for the very future of our school district; and we say NO.
This issue is a farmer's issue because Scott Walker wants to hack Badger Care. Eleven thousand family farm members depend on Badger Care because of the exclusivity of for-profit health insurance companies and because of the pathetic and volatile price we receive for milk and other commodities that don't meet the cost of our production. We depend on this and we support Badger Care.
This is a farmer's issue because we have been battling…corporate power for more than a century. This budget could not be a clearer manifestation of corporate power. And we say NO.
This is a farmer's issue because public workers are our friends, and our neighbors and our family members, and we stand in solidarity with them.
We're all in this together. We go up together or we go down together.
And the way I see it is we got two choices: I can have my unions busted and stand alone and be pitted against my neighbor in a desperate and unequal economy.
Or WE can come together to say "This is what our families need. This is what our communities need. This is what a just wage is. This is what democracy looks like."
It's a farmer's issue because we understand, that an injury to one is an injury to all. Solidarity!