Green-Rainbow Party members were among those attending a rally in support of Wisconsin union workers on Tuesday (February 22), where Beacon Street had to be closed off to accommodate a boisterous crowd. Greens in attendance offered these reflections:
Eli Beckerman:
The energy of Tuesday’s rally was invigorating. At a time when workers — unionized and non-unionized, employed, underemployed and unemployed — are all afraid, there was a rare sense of genuine solidarity. Sure, we gathered out of a sense of self-preservation, just like the people of Egypt did. But we were also feeling inspiration from their courage. Facing the threat of severe repression, people from Tunisia and Egypt to Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen are standing up for what they believe in. So why can’t we? Well, facing an unprecedented onslaught against workers’ rights, the people of Wisconsin caught the bug and organized rallies that are finally breaking through the media fog of fear and distraction. Vision and courage are contagious, and the people that packed Beacon Street in front of the State House were thirsting for a taste of it.
It was inspiring to see typical protectors of the status quo like Congressmen Capuano and Lynch and Governor Patrick forced to deliver stirring speeches in defense of basic workers’ rights. But it was more inspiring to see a sleeping beast awakened, to see throngs of working class people standing up for the same basic dignity that our brothers and sisters in the Middle East are now fighting for. From Cairo to Columbus, and Madison to Massachusetts, something’s stirring, and you could feel it in the cold air. And whether your name is Mubarak, Gaddafi, Walker, Patrick, or Obama, you better realize that fluffy rhetoric won’t save your posterity from the perseverance of organized masses.
Claribel Santiago:
I felt like I had to be really alert and focused for anything. With this many people congregating you never know what will happen. I tried my best to be civil, but I had to remind myself not to make assumptions about being rejected when I wanted to include the party to the powers at that moment. I kept the conversations to questions in order to share the land. I kept saying and thinking that this is an experience, a learning experience. You have to be careful and safe, that is what I kept thinking, but I also wanted to interact in a friendly manner.
And I felt a connection of humility and family. I felt inspired to continue the good work of helping and being kind to fellow humans and help past this message along. But, at the same time I didn’t want to come as off weird or strange. I felt it was important to be there, but at the same time get the message of unity out. When it comes down to it we all have the same destiny, so let’s all get along while we are here to work toward a common good.
Michael Horan:
Funny thing, but as the sun went down and the temperatures dropped into the single digits, it only got warmer out there. Truly impressive to see so many workers in so many fields from so many parts of the state standing arm-in-arm. These weren’t professional activists or run-of-the-mill protesters: this crowd was as middle-of-the-road as it gets, and when Main Street turns out in these numbers in this kind of weather, you know that a slumbering giant’s been roused.
Handing out the GRP flyers we created for the event, I was thinking about the need to make clear how anti-worker legislation pending in statehouses across the country isn’t an isolated phenomenon, but is inextricably tied into a military budget that’s bleeding our municipalities dry, the President’s inexplicable capitulation on extending the Bush tax cuts, and the global race to the bottom that occurs as capital moves across oceans and continents in search of heavy subsidies and no regulation. A couple of weeks ago, I might have despaired at the task, but the governor of Wisconsin has done us all favor by making crystal clear the direction in which the powers-that-be are leading us. I hope our show our support on Beacon Street, in unison with uprisings of this nature across the country, help inflame the spirits of those in Wisconsin who are bearing the brunt of a burden we’re all ultimately going to face.
The text of the Green-Rainbow Party flyer:
Stand Up For Workers in WI & MA!
Stop the attacks by BOTH corporate parties!
Don’t let the Republican assault be used to justify the Democratic rollback of workers’ rights!
Governor Patrick is leading the charge against working people in MA.
His “education reform” bill devastates collective bargaining by allowing wholesale firing of teachers, tearing up of contracts, and the turning over of public schools to private charters. He called the passage of this bill his proudest moment.
Patrick’s proposed ‘planned design’ takes away collective bargaining for health care for municipalworkers, while cutting benefits and increasing costs. He’s also trying to push municipal retirees into degraded Medicare coverage.
President Obama is also leading the charge against working people by:
Cutting taxes for the rich, bringing Wall Street to the White House, while freezing federal workers wages, cutting critical life-supports;
Sabotaging affordable public option health insurance;
Expanding the costly Afghanistan War;
Abandoning the Employee Free Choice Act., etc.