Biggest Madison, WI Rally Yet -- March 12, 2011

I spent yesterday at the Madison capitol rally, joined by my husband, my oldest daughter, my little sister, and my niece and her family.

We arrived at around 11:30am and just missed the farmer's tractorcade. Hear how farmers and rural WI communities will be affected. There were already a lot of people there. We marched around, joined in some chants, and then went up onto the capitol lawn to listen to speeches.

We heard actress, Susan Sarandon, speak. She quoted someone from the Farm Labor Organization Committee who said, “It’s okay if it’s impossible. The object is not to win. The object is to do the right and the good thing.” A farmer also gave a speech equating Gov. Scott Walker and his Republicans to being pigs, who have no understanding and heed nobody else but themselves.

Afterwards, we went back on the road and marched some more. The kids got a little worn out, so we found a good resting place to sit for awhile. At 2pm, we went to eat at a Lao/Vietnamese restaurant off of State Street. 

We wanted to rejoin the protests at 3pm for the big rally. However, as we made our way back to the capitol along State Street, we found ourselves stuck. In the 45-minutes that we were inside the restaurant, it seemed that the crowd size had doubled. All around us, people were packed—literally shoulder-to-shoulder with absolutely no moving room. At one point, we could no longer inch our way closer to the capitol and had to make do with being quite a ways across the street and half a block down. The 3pm speeches had begun, but we could only vaguely make out what they were saying.

Being that I stand at five feet small, my view consisted of the backs of the protesters in front of me. However, I was able to see a tiny bit and snap a few decent photos. Here is one of them:

The mass of protesters in front of me.

As you can imagine, our kids did not fare well being closed in a cramped space, so my niece’s husband took all the kids with him and they made their way out of the crowd.

With just my husband, my niece, and myself left, we were able to slowly inch our way closer to the capitol until we were actually on the capitol grounds and not too far from the speakers (being small has some advantages after all!). We must have missed the speeches by Reverend Jesse Jackson and the 14 Democratic Senators. I’m assuming this was while we were still a ways away from the capitol. We did, however, hear actor, Tony Shalhoub of the television show Monk, speak. He emphasized our actions at the capitol and state-wide as being a movement. I hope we will prove that it is, in fact, a movement. Certainly, our numbers at this last rally indicates it won’t die out any time soon.

A couple weeks ago, I was at the Madison rally that had 100,000 protesters in attendance. That one was huge, but this one, without a doubt, was much larger. Today, I’m reading reports of the numbers being around 100,000 again, but I’m positive that with protesters coming and going, and with everybody spread out all around the capitol and in the streets nearby, the number was much greater. Last time, I know for sure I was not crammed up against other people. 

At one point, I found a ledge to stand up on. At my elevated position, I turned around to glance at all sides of me, and that's when it really hit me: how exciting and huge this was. All I could see was what looked like a mile long stretch of protesters everywhere—behind me and to the left and right of me. Nothing but a massive crowd of protesters. Simply amazing.

Look! All the way down State Street, protesters as far as the eye could see. For a panoramic view, click here.

I’ve never seen a group of people this big and this united, passionate, and energized (and peaceful too—no arrests!). Never have I seen something like this in my lifetime, and perhaps I’ll never see something of this magnitude again. If you haven't experienced something like this before, take a look at this: 360 view of the protests (view in HD).

I think, as of now, we might be done with large-scale visible protests such as this one, but it doesn’t mean it's over. It only means we are now fighting back in the form of recalls, canvassing, and soon, re-elections.