This week at work I heard from a cohort that this Saturday, today, there was to be a Solidarity march on the Wisconsin state capital. First mind was so the fuck what, but it chiseled its way into a brainspot nonetheless. I consciously made no time in my weekend schedule for it, but after I scrapped my plans to get sushi and eat lunch in-house I suddenly found myself with a window of time that coincided with the timing of the demonstration. Once conscious of this window I put some thought to the day's activities. Tanya and I are moving(surprised?)at the end of the month and so far there were four bags of stuff that needed to find their way to Savers, which is a Goodwill type haunt here in Madison. I'm guessing the Midwest too. Cool. So now I'm going to the Eastside where the "people" of Madison reside. It's supposedly different from the Westside culturally and politically. It may be true to some, but in my experience it's really just an adjustment of Uniform. Tightly wound applies universally to the fairer shade, anomalies notwithstanding.
In the car and moving, the deal I make to myself is that if I can find a free parking spot on E. Wash, I'll park and hoof it to the big show. Left turn onto E. Wash and there appears a spot. Dude don't even have to parallel the bitch, just slide it on in. Roll out the rig and roll towards the capital. I'm about five blocks out and by two blocks closer I start to hear what faintly sounds like incendiary rhetoric. Three blocks closer and two blocks out aural clarity: orator orgasm commencing towards climax. Now on the square and Teamster AFL-CIO cat speaking is fully afire. Talking things like taking rights back, not taking shit, putting a line in the sand, ack-ack-ack. Crowd is responding. A dull roar, stunted most likely by diet and lifestyle, flaccidly rumbles approval as the announcement to march to a street I don't remember the name of crumbles out of the public address system.
It's at this point that I realize that I arrived right at the finish of the final speech. No matter. I wasn't there to learn about the mission. I was there to learn about the peripheral. In scenes like these I think the details and nuances are the true harbingers of lucidity. When you pay attention to the things not emphasized I believe a truer picture of intent materializes.
As the crowd moves towards and into the street a voice redirects the crowd out of the street and onto the sidewalk. The compliance is swift and immediate. What good protesters, I thought. Get in line, suckers, you're still not in control. Too harsh? I don't think so. I stood on the snow covered lawn and took in three hundred sixty degrees of continual observance. Flags and banners. Championing unions, vilifying Scott Walker. Praising the Teachers union and declarations of non-Isis affiliation. The whole thing seemed so triumphantly scripted that I giggled. Then I laughed out loud.
The dissections continued as music blared through the p.a.. When I got on the scene they were playing some Irish rock music, Flogging Molly or some shit. True fight songs. True race specificity. Next song: John Cougar Mellencamp, Authority Song. For those of you who don't now the lyrics to this song or for lovers of grand irony permit me:
They like to get you in a compromising position
They like to get you there and smile in your face
They think, they're so cute when they got you in that condition
Well I think, it's a total disgrace
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I've come out grinnin'
I fight authority, authority always wins
So I call up my preacher
I say: "Gimme strength for Round 5"
He said: "You don't need no strength, you need to grow up, son"
I said: "Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying,
And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun"
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I've come out grinnin'
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I've come out grinnin'
I fight authority, authority always wins
Oh no
Oh no
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I've come out grinnin'
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I fight authority, authority always wins
I been doing it, since I was a young kid
I've come out grinnin'
I fight authority, authority always wins
Interpretation yours.
As this song carries on people with banners and union jackets and even dudes wearing their hard hats start dancing and singing along. Meanwhile the line-slogging continues on the sidewalk. Roles assigned. Roles played. Script running strong.
Observations continue.
Across the street is a Teamsters tractor trailer radiating American values in a patriotic haze of red, white and blue. Cops are now sparingly lining the street the demonstrators were told not to occupy just moments before. Cop cars start to appear in the intersections. I walk by one of the cops and by now I've joined the dirge-march. I look at him. He's young. He's probably got a young child at home. His life is relatively comfortable as his salary provides his family with more than they probably need. He looks uneasy though. His face seems to wear what my brain is saying; if this crowd actually wanted to do SOMETHING, there is no way this skeletal police presence will stop them. I smile as if to tell him not to worry because violence isn't in the script. The real problem is that change isn't either. Everyone read that part, right?
While we're on the subject, let's address the idea of everyone.
This central scrutinizer noticed a curious thing about the cultural composition of this crowd. Conspicuously absent: all races not white. I don't mean kinda absent either. If you were to create a frozen pizza smashing, GMO beer imbibing, squeaky cheese loving, Packer backing, co-op membered super race of Wisconsin honkies with no genetic standard deviations this is what you'd get. I'm sure they're mostly nice folks. I'm also sure that many of their children brush their teeth in the morning and before bed too, but my point pointedly is that this is a streamlined pool of homogenous origin.
That's part of the script too.
What the demonstrators are protesting is the Right To Work litigation. Complex issue to be sure. What's at stake? Rights? Civil Liberties? Freedom? Money? Hegemony? I want to believe that unions exist to protect the worker. I want to believe that the union stands firm against the political heretics and the tyranny of evil men. I want to believe that they are the bulkhead and the last bastion of resistance to the wicked and non-discriminate slashers of budgets and bureaucratic entanglements, but I'm not so sure. My personal experiences with unions is mostly sordid and bathed in ineffectiveness. For the record, though, weekends are pretty swell.
There are much deeper issues driving these ideas. The most pertinent of which is the reality that the dude behind the curtain is slowly becoming harder and harder to hide. There exists a quiet but poignant panic on all sides. The leverage is exposed and the systems are scrambling to perpetuate methodologies that need desperately to be eliminated. The abuse of sound ideas and the tendency for the decriers to become the decried is a cycle that can only be stopped by honest assessments not designed to shift the balance of power but to encourage them to find their own equilibriums. Agendas, demagoguery and directive-ness serve the master only. For those of you in the master's favor, a tit to suckle you'll be given.
What of the others? What of meritocracy? Efficacy? Take the Mexican. He will work twice as hard for twice as long for half the pay, not complain and go to another job as soon as his shift ends. How does this ethic work its way into the Right To Work debacle? Smacks of competition. Better eliminate that, right? Or provide it. Now whose side is winning? I forgot. If you're a business owner and you can get this ethic working for you for less than a union wage, would you take it? Or, would you defer to the union's stance that if you pay more you're getting more and they're ensuring that? And, are you? How about having the hardest working, most qualified person in the position and pay them FAIRLY. How do we determine fair? Should the state? Shit. You may have to consult honesty, possibly love and certainly wealth redistribution, but you're going to have to do that anyway.
Walking back to my car so I can go to Savers to drop off the donations I giggle more. And laugh out loud more. I encountered a homeless dude who matter-of-factly told me that the demonstration should have been on a weekday because governor Scott Walker doesn't work on weekends and therefore wouldn't hear it. We both agreed he wouldn't hear it anyway.
Docility is the lack that guarantees we don't progress. Solidarity banners and sing-alongs ain't gonna do shit. Well, maybe they will. I'm sure every cell phone that was present today was GPS "pinged" and databased. By now all in attendance today will be home watching TV and eating Papa John's pizza as the nightly "ping" confirms non-combative activity. Some will get drunk in the man cave or garage and reminisce fondly about their contribution to the fight. Some may even get a low interest loan and put a down payment on that Harley they've always wanted. In the final analysis we're all contributing to this social stagnation masquerading as economic stability. It must be what we all want.
That's in the script too.
