Revolution, Televised Or Not

AP Photo/Wisconsin State Journal, Steve Apps

Among all things wrong with our "news" media, the rush to fit complex events into predetermined narratives—before moving on to the latest piece of trivia—means ignoring the most gripping of stories.

The usual suspects may believe the Wisconsin story is over—that the manly Republicans won, and it's old news.

But the story has just begun.

The March 9 coup happened when I was offline for a few hours, but trying to digest a stack of printed material from the previous few days.

A very big development had been Michael Moore's speech at the Saturday (March 5) rally.

Last week Thom Hartmann started running daily reports from John Nichols in Madison, and those segments have been riveting.

This Monday, Nichols told the story of how Moore was writing something for his blog on Friday, when he decided that he had to go to Madison. A middle of the night decision led him to the airport; a few hours later, fire fighters escorted him to the rally—where what had been planned as a blog post became a speech before a crowd of at least 30,000 (or 10-20,000 more).

"America is NOT broke" was Moore's theme; some good excerpts are here:

... America is awash in wealth... It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.

...

...The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn't have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury... They had to shut us up so that we could not even sit at a table with them to bargain about simple things like classroom size and bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force.

Moore may not have had media coverage, but the "uber-rich" took notice, undoubtedly finding the masses had expressed themselves quite long enough. The politicians they own soon dropped all pretense that the union-busting was about "budget repair," and staged an illegal vote in hopes of ending the scenes from the Capitol.

From Illinois, where he was with the other State Senate Democrats, Minority Leader Mark Miller issued a March 9 statement:

"In thirty minutes, 18 State Senators undid fifty years of civil rights in Wisconsin.

"Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten.

"Tonight, 18 Senate Republicans conspired to take government away from the people.

"Tomorrow we will join the people of Wisconsin in taking back their government."

Also from Moore's March 5 speech:

... Corporate America's fatal mistake. By trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement – a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country...

America ain't broke! The only thing that's broken is the moral compass of the rulers.

After thirty years of class war, the undisguised power grab is there for all to see; this has the potential to be a real turning point, as people around the country observe Wisconsin's reaction.

It seems the other team picked kind of a bad place to pull this.

Sure, it's ironic that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the legislative session that made Wisconsin a national model.

Those legislative accomplishments of 1911 later inspired parts of the New Deal.

In turn, inspiring the hatred of those in the elite who refuse to be part of society, instead believing they deserves to control everything.

But in opposing those forces, Wisconsinites have the lessons of history, which many of them seem to remember.

Not that rulers give anything up without a fight.

In this country they have all the money and media to try making it go away.

A Ghaddafi is content to order a bloodbath.

And this week in Egypt, the army violently broke up peaceful protests—to stop evidence of torture and election-rigging from coming to light.

But events in Wisconsin are tremendously inspiring.

Citizens are in motion, with recalls and other actions being undertaken.

Tomorrow: a likely-to-be huge rally.

And—the farmers' tractorcade is on the way.