Why I'm Tired Of Hearing About the Wisconsin Protests

I know this is actually a few days belated, as Japan and the Federal budget have largely pushed the Wisconsin issue out of everyone's sight in the media, but that only serves to underscore another "I told you so" message. Simply put, I'm tired of those protests being represented as some sort of civil rights march that is comparable to the 1960s, Tahrir Square, or even the union marches of the Gilded Age. Such comparisons are silly and inaccurate, and it has nothing to do with my stance on the issue itself, this post is about the media coverage and people's ignorant responses to it.


Grassroots As A Sequoia, and Almost As New

Like it or not, government employee unions are a gargantuan network of national political lobbies. Yes the various corporate lobbies put together are bigger and contribute more money to political campaigns, although it is just plain stupid to assume all corporate campaign money goes to the Republicans. The media doesn't even have the balls to make such a ridiculous assertion, it just says "the corporations contribute way more!" and lets the ignorant reader add "to the Republicans, of course!" for himself. Now, I'm not making the claim that the unions are good or bad, just that they are an established political force; not some oppressed, newly formed grassroots movement. They are also not fighting FOR a legislation that will level the playing field, assist the interests they represent, or change the way politics is done in this country; they are protesting in an attempt to STOP legislation that weakens them and threatens their financial base. This is not comparable to the unions of the 1890s or the 1960s civil rights marches or Tahrir Square for the simple reason that those forces fought for the introduction of new, novel, unprecedented reform that had not been seen before them.

With that in mind, supporters of the protests should recognize just how unsuccessful the track record is of protests AGAINST a change in this country's history. The most prominent example are the protests in the South AGAINST the implementation of public school integration after the Brown vs Board of Education ruling in 1964. It is tempting but also silly to compare those protests to extremist minorities like the Westboro Baptist Church. Anti-integration was a massive movement, with 10,000s of protesters representing 100s of interlocked organizations in various cities and states that were well-established and funded. They organized demonstrations, picketed in front of schools and even blocked the entrances in some cases, and so forth. Yet the Federal Government insisted that a Supreme Court ruling had more political weight than 10,000s of people with placards and loudspeakers, and eventually dispatched both the military and the FBI to enforce the ruling in specifically resistant locations and break up vigilante organizations trying to sabotage it. The grand majority of the arguments I've seen in favor of the protests and the state legislators fleeing the legislature has been along the lines of them being "righteous" and "powerful" by virtue of involving 10,000s of people, and the politicians who ignored them "defying the will of the people" for the same reason. Quite simply, folks, I call bullshit. By that logic, the anti-integration protests were "righteous" and "should have succeeded".

In my personal opinion, the Wisconsin protests are comparable to neither civil rights marches nor the anti-integration protests, as both of those were clashes between broad coalitions seeking to implement or obstruct widespread socio-political reform. The Wisconsin protests, no matter how much the union bosses attempt to appeal to a broader base by claiming to "stand for the middle class" and be "fighting a corporatist agenda", are a laughable attempt to block a rather narrowly aimed economic reform against themselves.


Regardless Of Your Cause, Don't Point 50,000 Guns If You're Only Willing To Pull 50 Triggers

We've hopefully established that the unions are more counter-revolutionary than revolutionary, and regardless of which side the reader agrees with, the government being on the side of those demanding change tends to deliver that change, whereas the reverse is not necessarily true. Now let's examine why "righteousness," perceived or real, makes very little difference, and the impact of numbers is overstated and confounded in other factors. There are a number of lesser known protests in recent history representing causes far less despicable than opposition to integration that are actually far more comparable to the Wisconsin protests in terms of number and inclination, and they share very poor prognoses. Two that come to my mind in recent years in CA are the gay rights protests in front of the Mormon Church in Los Angeles the day after Prop 8 passed, and the wave of protests that takes place each time the state government announces a new series of budget cuts to public education, whether it is higher education or K-12. Not one such funding cut has yet failed to be signed into law, and Prop 8 is still in effect. The gay rights lobbies are still in the process of challenging Prop 8 in the Federal judicial system, but both sides of the issue said they would do so if the initiative didn't go their way long before the vote; it is kind of silly to attribute this to a half-materialized one-day protest. As for numbers, 50,000 protesters may seem intimidating, but for a State like Wisconsin it is actually quite negligible as a voting bloc, and the politicians they oppose simply don't care to appease them as the grand majority of them are the opposition's base, and would never vote for who they are protesting anyway. More importantly than even that, it is well known that these protests are professionally organized, with a variety of incentives, free transportation, and other rewards doled out by the massive organizing lobbies to boost their numbers and look like they have broad support. Not that people turning out in response to organization and incentives isn't still meaningful protest, but it is quite different from people taking to the streets in random discontent, and such protesters are far less likely to take their activism to the level of being hurt or arrested for the cause, as was clearly demonstrated in Wisconsin. Eugene Debs, Martin Luther King, and the January 25th Youth did not win by loading buses of people and parading them in front of the government buildings with a police escort provided by the same government they are calling oppressive. All 3 of these movements, and to some extent the anti-integration movement mentioned above, were really not "protests" but forms of civil disobedience. These were activists who intentionally engaged in acts forbidden by laws that they found to be unfair and repressive, in a concerted effort to provoke the government to forcefully stop such peaceful rebellion as a woman refusing to leave her bus seat. The violent repression then aggravated an otherwise complacent general population that agreed with the activists, leading to a public outpouring of non-compliance in proportions the government did not have resources to stand up to. The anti-integration protests attempted some of these tactics, but they simply could not muster the popular support required to succeed as the general public was fed up with the racist hypocrisy of segregation and saw them as deserving of being gassed, clubbed, and arrested.

The lesson to learn here is that in a country like the US where protests are common, considered a reasonable means of expression, and not fired upon, they very rarely accomplish anything; especially when they are opposition protests to a proposed change. Whether or not the Wisconsin union protesters would have been viewed as deserving or as activist victims if the protests had escalated to violent clashes with police is a difficult call to make, but it is a moot point as despite claiming 50,000 protesters, they simply lacked the will to go from protest to active non-compliance. Yes, a few people did get arrested and roughed up by police for refusing to leave the Capitol, but not remotely enough for anyone to care to praise either side and raise the ante to escalation and widespread non-compliance. Quite simply, the unions proved themselves to be nothing more than a band of toddlers throwing a fit because their father Scott Walker refused to give them ice cream before dinner, and when he said "OK, then go to bed hungry", they sat down at the table and put on their bibs, demonstrating their grudge with only an upset facial expression that makes adults laugh. Rebellion of the well-fed fails specifically because it is unwarranted by virtue of the rebels not having a NEED to succeed. Eugene Debs would NOT be proud.