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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Madison's democratic Uprising Impresses Amy Goodman

by Bert
People are fired up. You could see it plain as day when Amy Goodman spoke to an overflow crowd of several hundred at UWM last night.

She was preceded by a raspy-voiced Michael Rosen, union leader and economics instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Rosen said how his union -- despite what he said was a mangled reporting job by the Milwaukee paper -- recently worked through collective bargaining with MATC's administrators to do a contract that saved more and protected the education of students better than a state plan would have.

Rosen declared loudly that "it is simply shameful" that Gov. Walker is using a crisis to deliver "the long held dream of right-wing Republicans" of destroying unions.

Amy Goodman was fresh from a stay in Madison, broadcasting her Democracy Now cable and radio show from the Capitol Rotunda. Even as a grizzled veteran and close student of social movements from Chiapas to Tahir Square, Goodman was clearly impressed by what she saw and the people with whom she spoke in Wisconsin.

Most of the hundreds at the union ballroom rose their hands when asked who was going to Madison today.

"I don't know how this is going to end," Goodman said. But it was at least obvious already that Gov. Walker "has awakened a sleeping giant and a new workers movement in the United States. And that is something he can never take away from us."

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