During February 26th's march, there were reports of as many as 100,000 people jammed onto the square, marching around the capitol like it was Jericho

What does it look like to have 100,000 people chanting and circling around a state capitol building? When it’s Wisconsin’s capitol, it looks a lot like a national protest against the troop surge in Washington D.C. Sure, our square is smaller than theirs, but it sure was heartening to see so many thousands of people from all different walks of life out on the square, marching with printed signs, unique hand-written signs, flags, and bullhorns as we braved the massive snowflakes that were rapidly filling up the square and causing us all to slide up and down the road. My friends and I briefly made a sliding competition out of it, skating wildly through the protesters on grayish slush that was being pummeled by new feet every few seconds.

We saw union dogs (with adorable cardboard sandwich board signs on them) and a band of roving vuvuezela marchers. We saw the Fox News truck and laughed at it. There apparently has been thousands and thousands of dollars donated to Ian’s Pizza (a Madison institution) from all 50 states and over 60 nations around the world, and so I waited in line to get a delicious slice of spicy cheesesteak pizza, gratis thanks to a donor that could live in New Hampshire, Florida, Antarctica, or even Jordan (I hope it was the latter). There was another line for coffee as well, but I was set for now.

Michaelangelo's had this great sign in front of their little table at the capitol (click to embiggen)

We stopped by the Irish bar, Brocach on the square, and everyone in there was linking arms, singing “Solidarity Forever,” the union song, and shouting “Recall Walker” and “Kill the Bill.” The only time I’ve seen this much camaraderie in Wisconsin before is before, during, or after a football game, but it brings joy to my heart that it’s social justice and politics that are doing it this time. I thought that Wisconsin as a state had signed its progressive death knell in November of 2010 when the GOP took over in droves, but seeing all of these union members, public employees, students (Midwesterners and Coasties alike!) and seniors all out to put an end to this bill is incredible. I hope that regardless of how this turns out, that Wisconsin never forgets that we are a progressive, activist state, even if that has lain dormant since the Vietnam days, and we never let Republicans take our great state away from us again as they’re attempting to now, at this very moment as I’m typing these words, behind closed, locked doors in our closed, locked capitol.

A closed and locked capitol? How can this be? Aren’t law-abiding, peaceful taxpayers allowed to access “The People’s House” at all times, whenever they want? Yes! Or at least, that’s how it’s always been in our state. Walker has some new ideas. He’s obviously not very pleased by the fact that we’ve undermined a bill that he assumed he could ramrod through in 4 business days (Debuted on February 11th, was hoping for a vote to pass by February 17th). He doesn’t like that we know all about his connection to the billionaire Koch Bros; professional corporate dictators. He doesn’t like that every day the capitol building is surrounded by usually thousands, at least hundreds of activists at all times. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like being booed out of Madison restaurants and refused service – that last one is just hearsay from a friend of a friend who works at a restaurant that Walker and his wife apparently tried to visit a few weeks ago. They told him to get out.

This statue of Liberty (or Democracy, or whomever) stands at the corner of the square facing State St. Over the past three weeks she's worn blindfolds, sad faces, and even Anonymous' Guy Fawkes masks

So what’s a frustrated failure of a new GOP governor to do? Easy! Violate Wisconsin constitutional law and prevent citizens from accessing the capitol in order to make the TV viewers think that during your speech there are no protesters around! I guess they gave up and went home, you can picture him chuckling to Bill O’RLY. Yes, as of Sunday, the governor started bringing in busloads of rural Wisconsin’s village police officers to seal off the capitol, and emptied out all but 60-100 of the protesters in the guise of “we need to clean the capitol [because you hippies smell of freedom and democracy]” (emphasis added). Protesters who left were told that they could re-enter later, but were barred when they returned. This has been going on for the past three days now.

Many of us believe that the reason behind the clear-out was for Walker’s televised budget announcement from the capitol building yesterday. He didn’t want all of the noise that angry activists tend to generate to come with him on the camera, so he illegally has barred entry to peaceful activists. Lawyer groups in Wisconsin have asked for a restraining order to be put on the executive branch to prevent the police from cutting Capitol access, but one of Walker’s mouthpieces has said, “we’re in complete compliance with the law!” and has continued to operate on a 1-out-1-in idea. The line to get into the capitol stretches around the entire square. I’ve looked up the facts; the occupant capacity of the Wisconsin capitol is 9,000 people. There’s barely 100 in now, if that. Obviously, Walker might (briefly) succeed in getting Fox News watchers to believe that the relative quiet during his speech is because we now support him, but anyone who follows real news (or reads the blogs of activists, like this one!) will know that this is far, far from the truth.

Other amusing videos include this one, From Fox News and Bill O’RLY, overtly insinuating (falsely) that protests and personal confrontations here in Madison have been violent. Yes Bill, and we’re still waiting for that shipment of palm trees in the background to arrive, too. Apparently, Fox got footage of a union rally in California, played it as Bill talked about Wisconsin, and then put the bland subtitle of “union protest” under it. And this is a network that calls itself “Fair and Balanced.” Just remembering that Obama allowed this cretin to interview him before the Super Bowl fills me with disgust. Obama and anyone with a brain should not be justifying Fox’s existence; it should be treated with the same level of dignity and respect as is given to the National Enquirer.

See if you can spot the four separate squadrons of police officers in this picture. Now multiple this by 8 to get the full number in the "outer ring" around the capitol

I walked around the capitol after work yesterday, had a slice of pizza, and watched the police watch the protesters. There’s so many of them now, compared to what there were a few weeks ago. Around the square itself there are groups of 2 or 3 every few meters, all clad in yellow jackets. Around the capitol building itself it’s even tighter. I asked some of the Dane county troopers in the outer ring “are these Madison police working with you?” They chuckled dryly and told me that Walker was bringing them in from everywhere and that the whole thing was a giant cock-up (yes, one of them actually said cock-up). “They’re all from in-state though, right?” I confirmed. “He doesn’t have the ability to request out-of-state troopers, right?” They grinned and one said, “Heck no. He barely has the authority to tell Wisconsin cops what to do.” OH SNAP GOVERNOR.

So where does this leave us? The “Fab 14,” the fourteen Democratic senators who fled the state a week ago to avoid creating a quorum in the Senate and therefore preventing the doomed vote from occurring in the Republican-controlled senate, are still “on the run” even though Walker has been sending troopers and cops to hunt for them wherever he has authority. The Democratic assembly is fighting another doomed battle by trying to weigh down the bill with amendments. Walker has cut requirements for corporations to need to recycle (what?) and also ordered that any new wind turbine generators must be over 1,800 feet tall (effectively creating massive new barriers to entry for clean-energy startup companies, since turbines are usually built at 400-500 feet for cost reasons). We’d like to point out that Walker’s corporate leash-holders do not own wind-turbine companies, and therefore are quite interested in making sure that customers will be forced to continue to use fossil fuels. Watch this space for more information when Walker rolls out inevitable tax hikes for companies that create solar power panels, as well.

Most importantly, if you are a Wisconsinite, vote in the April 5th supreme court election. We need to get progressives back in our government and therefore electing the liberal frontrunner JoAnne Kloppenburg to our highest court is imperative. The republicans currently control the Wisconsin court, 4-3. Obviously, if we can gain JoAnne to our side in April, the balance will swing 3-4 to the Democrats’ favor. This will make a judicial decision on the legality of the executive branch’s decision to close off the capitol to the public likely an important win to begin putting stops to the train wreck that is Walker’s brief term in office.

This could be the most important election in Wisconsin’s history. After failing to stand up for humanity and civil rights in the devastating election of November 2010, this could be our chance to get back on the right path again. Indeed, this might be Wisconsin’s last chance to save itself.

P.S. Please be one of the chain-letter sending thousands who support the Fab 14, too. Signing this simple letter for MoveOn will hopefully continue to galvanize their resolve to stand up to Walker on Wisconsin’s behalf even as they’re forced to be separated from their friends and families.