We might feel like we suffered a defeat but it is by no means an end. Just another beginning. We are part of a larger struggle and the world is still watching us. They need to be able to look to Wisconsin and see that an electoral defeat cannot crush an uprising, just as when we look to them we see they cannot be crushed.
We owe a debt of hope to our brothers and sisters across America and across the world. The hope they give us should be returned for we are all in this struggle together!
An electoral defeat cannot crush an uprising!
We did not start with a recall and we will not end with a recall.
Although it was met with the tremendous might and money of our foes, we will continue to organize!!! We proved that the system is broken and it is up to the people to fix it. Up to us all, standing together and working together in the face of "divide and conquer." An electoral defeat cannot crush people determined to work together for a better world.
Some people say we can't change the system.
It is up to us to show how we're already working to change system, and succeeding.
Systems DO change!
Ask Dr. King. Ask Bob LaFollette. Ask the many, many people who made Dr. King and Bob LaFollette spokespeople for and leaders of that change.
To quote a good friend; "You can't give up cus if you give up, you can't change anything."
The very worst defeat is if we believe the lie that change is not possible. Then we are truly defeated.
The truth is they tell those lies because they are terrified, terrified that we won't believe them and we will continue organizing to take back what is ours.
They just put on a good show, didn't they?
They are sitting back chuckling to themselves because they think they got us good.
They think we are convinced that we are powerless.
The forces of oppression and inequality think they have us beat but they don't know much about Badgers.
We rallied in the coldest, snowiest depths of the Wisconsin winter!
We fish through the ice here in Wisconsin.
The big bad Walker can blow all he likes but he's got nothing on a Wisconsin snowstorm.
No, he doesn't know badgers at all and neither do the Koch brothers.
We have just begun to fight.
Let our voices ring out with the voices of the uprisings all across the state and the U.S. and around the globe. Let us say to them we are not beaten, we are not broken and we are not done for. We -- not the Koch brothers and outside money -- are Wisconsin! `The road is made by walking.'
Forward Wisconsin!