We recognize the rising Wisconsin wave of resistance to corporatization and austerity and call on our fellow Wisconsinites to join it. For more than a century Wisconsin was America?s laboratory of democracy. Big Wisconsin ideas, like barring corporate electioneering, workers? rights protections, and the conservation ethic, have inspired Americans everywhere to push their state governments in a more progressive direction. But Wisconsin is not immune to the forces that often threaten social progress. For every elected official who channels grass-roots energy and calls us to the higher ground, there?s a politician who wants to steer us off the cliff.
For every ?Fighting Bob? La Follette, there?s a ?Tailgunner Joe? McCarthy. Today, Wisconsin?s democratic tradition faces the greatest threat it has ever known.
(Column submitted by Wisconsin Wave, a project of the Center for Media and Democracy and the Liberty Tree Foundation.)