I Went Down to the Demonstration to Get My Fair Share of Abuse...

2011

Freezing in Madison four years later

Thanks to the wonderful invention of Timehop, which reminds you daily of your past postings on social media, I have been reminded that, at this same exact time four years ago, I was protesting the policies of Governor Scott Walker just as I am now. For the second time in five years I am marching around campus trying unsuccessfully not to make a spectacle of myself, traveling to Madison on a cherished Saturday and freezing my ovaries off and growing sore from holding a sign up in a blistering wind. Considering the success of the last round, those who stand on the sidelines (even the ones who aren’t flipping us off and calling us whiners and booing) might rationally ask, Why? Why do it?

On UWM campus 2011

Valid question, since I think that Walker sees those protests, and his administration’s response, which was to tell tens of thousands of public workers to go fuck themselves, as a badge of his fitness as a conservative republican ideal. Never has it occurred to this man that nearly half of the state trying to recall him (pretty harsh I’d say) might be a wake-up call. That maybe he should talk to these people, try to meet them halfway, reassure them that he wants to be a good governor to them too.  No, he’s patting himself on the back and gunning for the presidency, fueled by his status as a governor who takes chances and “makes hard choices.” In other words, that he looked tens of thousands of union workers and teachers in the face and told them to eat a bowl of dicks is a GOOD thing.

Madison 2011

I won’t go on about the issues, since most people reading this know exactly what I’m talking about, but the basics are this: four years ago, benefits were cut for state workers, and public unions were stripped of most of their collective bargaining rights. (They snuck some right-to-work legislation in very recently, so unions in Wisconsin as a whole are about to take a huge dump.) Now, the proposed budget looks to cut $300 million from the UW-system of universities. This is all in the name of what the Governor labels a “budget crisis,” and falls in line with the conservative rhetoric of debt, to which we all seem to bow down in abject fear of what will happen to the children… blah blah blah. (I have a whole set of issues with debt as an all-encompassing excuse to cut everything in the world, but that’s another post.)

Molly: the palm tree thing is in reaction to a Fox news report which depicted our protests as violent by using footage from a Florida protest in which palms could be seen in the background.

But for those who don’t understand why I can just cut out of my office hours and march around in the cold, why I am fighting a fight that I’m destined to lose, why I am holding up badly made signs and chanting like an asshole, annoying the people in the union who are just trying to buy a crappy overpriced poster for their dorm room, who think Jeez doncha have anything better to do? To those folks I say, yes, I have plenty better to do. I don’t enjoy this shit. Who does? This past week in Madison I managed to stand up for 45 minutes before the cold became unbearable. My eyebrows froze and my skin stung like hell. I was too freezing to even chant, much less hold up my sign in the frigid wind. I didn’t like it four years ago, even though we had the support of most public unions, which made quite an impression on everyone but the person it was supposed to. Driving on I-94 in perilous icy conditions is not my idea of fun, nor is packing into the smelly capitol and standing all night when I could be sleeping and watching Netflix.

Kerry

Danny the angry bird

I do it because I feel I have to. This isn’t political for me. For some it might be. Protests are maybe a place for some to shout out sound bites and slogans reinforcing the progressive agenda. But this isn’t about being progressive or liberal for me. I am those things, practically a commie in fact, but that’s nothing to do with it. The breaking of the public unions is the beginning of a trend that will result in lower pay and benefits for many of the kinds of jobs middle classers like me do. Because of Act 10, I pay more for my much needed health insurance, and if I don’t get enough sections, I may not get it at all. The bill took money right out of my pocket. This budget proposal will take more. Maybe eventually end my job altogether. If someone told you, “The state owes money to somebody, and of the options we have available, we’ve chosen that of paying you less and maybe laying you off” don’t tell me you wouldn’t say anything.

Milwaukee march

Yes that's Jesse Jackson

More than that, this latest legislation feels a whole lot like an attack on my work. I sense this ugly downturn in the way we value education and educators. This should scare students, but they are young and it seems like most of them have no idea what’s going on. It scares me, because in a world where college is just a job training center, where the humanities like creative writing and ethnic studies are deemed obsolete garbage, I have no place. I trained for many years to be a writer and a teacher of writing and literature. The product I offer is intangible and maybe that makes it hard to quantify its value. But it was my dream. It’s who I am. If it disappears, I will no longer belong to this world. I will have no more to offer it. That’s sad isn’t it?

And now again 2015

For those who would spit on us and call us whiners furthermore:

1) Fuck you, okay. I pay taxes too. Could contribute more if I made a little more money. That revenue disappears if my job does. As you lick Scott Walker’s vinegary nuts in thanks for saving our children from the imaginary number, remember that cutting budgets means cutting jobs, and the income tax revenue that comes with them.

2) I am not sitting in some ivory tower, smoking a pipe and philosophizing with other elites over brandy and lattes or whatever the hell you imagine. I wouldn’t compare myself to Bob Cratchit, but I do work hard, and I believe in the service I provide to my students. I’m sick of people telling me my job isn’t valuable. I fill my classes every semester. People want my product, and I should have a right to make and sell that product.

3) Protesting means that we recognize our letters are going to be ignored, and our votes aren’t really worth anything. So now we have to be a nuisance. I hear the young ones talking about riot and revolution, but I don’t want that. I don’t want violence and fire and prison – that’s what revolution means, dudes. What I want is for people to get wise. To stop this anti-worker, anti-education shit before that becomes necessary. Because if it becomes necessary that means I might go to prison, and I am pretty sure I wouldn’t enjoy that.

4) We aren’t whining. If we sat in our offices like good little slaves, just waiting to be robbed of our access to wealth, and then complained after the fact, that’s whining.

5) Man, fuck you.