Hey, guys. This is my first diary posting since joining the site about a year ago. I always intended to post an entry, but could never come up with something original that hadn't already been covered by somebody else.
That being said, I wanted to post my thoughts on the ongoing labor battles in Wisconsin and throughout the Rust Belt. I have to be honest, as somebody who's only been interested in politics beginning with the 2004 presidential election back when I was 12, I can genuinely say I have never been this fired up about a political cause with the possible exception of the latter stages of the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. Even though I am a resident of New York State, I have felt an uncanny sense of efficacy in the past month and a half. With every status update on Facebook or every Tweet, I feel that I am making a crack in the corporate power structure which has dominated this country's political system for more than 30 years. I even found myself phone-banking for JoAnne Kloppenburg earlier today.
Maybe this is me just being an idealistic 19-year-old, but I truly feel that since the Battle for Wisconsin began in mid-February, that we have begun to actually turn the tide and swing public opinion back in favor of unions, and that this movement has staying power. It's been years since I felt this confident that the people would not fall for the same tricks of the Right.
That's not to say we should rest on our laurels. I, for one, feel we as a movement should not expend our capital too quickly, and that we should take care to ensure, at least for the next two years, that we continuously campaign in the states up for grabs, and not allow for a period when the Right can freely spread its lies again. This is one of the reasons I feel that the recall petitions for the 8 Republican Senators in Wisconsin should not be submitted in one large chunk, even though most of the petitions are collecting signatures well ahead of schedule. This is also why I think we have actually been lucky that Kasich signed Ohio's anti-labor bill Thursday as opposed to next week, because if it had been next week, any potential referendum on the law would have had to wait until November 2012 as opposed to the current target of November 2011.
Also, once the recall campaigns against Rick Snyder and Scott Walker begin (in July and January, respectively), we can't afford to keep our eyes off the big prize: the state legislatures. The Wisconsin Assembly can be very easily flipped in the next general election. And, we have to remember that once that happens, we have to make sure such an anti-labor crusade can never happen again. With the entirely possible prospect of a Democratic Governor (Russ Feingold, anybody???) and a Democratic legislature in Wisconsin come January 2013, that needs to be the time we begin a new phase in this battle, and that comes in the form of state constitutional amendments protecting workers' collective bargaining rights. Once again, Wisconsin would have to lead this effort, as such an amendment would come up for a vote as early as 2016.
So, in closing, I guess all I have to say is that we need to keep up the fight and not only come out strong, we need to dominate the discussion for the foreseeable future.
Comments on what you thought of my first post would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.