Health & Fitness
VIDEO: Diary of A Mad Recall Petitioner Part II (Mission One Accomplished)
A multimedia diary about the dog days of recalling Walker and the everyday people who made it happen.
“If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar. If any man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
Scott Walker has proven himself a liar and a fool and that is precisely why 1,000,000+ Wisconsin residents felt the need to speak up with the power of their signature.
There were tens of thousands of us volunteers who spent countless hours of our own free time standing on street corners, on public sidewalks, in front of libraries, in mall parking lots, in front yards and on our own back bumpers holding signs, waving at cars and giving people the opportunity to express their discontent with Gov. Walker.
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It does not take a political science degree to understand the difference between right and wrong, or to recognize corruption and a greedy power grab, even when it is disguised behind the ugly mask of conservatism, faux patriotism and cheap tea party decor. That is why old ladies and grandpas, mothers and high school seniors, college students and professors, off-duty firemen and their spouses, union tradesmen and regular unassuming people from all walks of life came to us, complete strangers, to sign their names and thank us for doing what we were doing. I would like to thank every single person who waited in line in the cold and the wind to sign their name to a petition forcing a recall election of the most divisive governor in US history.
But I would also like to thank the unsung heroes of the recall effort - the ground troops, the people who did the grunt work and took all sorts of abuse while doing it. In the dead of winter, against all odds, with people screaming profanities at us, throwing objects at us, stealing petitions, defacing petitions, calling the police, harassing us, trying to run us off the road - WE DID IT!. And this is how . . .
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. . . Tom, a retired engineer, and his wife Paula, a recently retired art teacher were looking forward to spending time with their grand-kids and enjoying some quiet time together after a life of raising a family and working stressful jobs - but then Scott Walker happened.
Tom told me how his father used to hop in the family car on election day and drive around Milwaukee with his bullhorn telling people to go vote (Democrat, of course), and how one of his heroes is "fighting" Bob Lafollette of Wisconsin (who helped write the recall law). Politics ran deep in Tom's blood, he just didn't know how blue his blood was until he started to get involved.
Tom and Paula dove head first into the effort to recall Republican senator Mary Lazich and helped form the Progressive 28th PAC with other Greendale progressives such as myself. They stayed involved and when it came time to recall Walker they opened up their Greendale home to run a satellite office from their den. Every day Tom would talk on the phone to volunteers and coordinate where they should go to collect signatures, then he would meet with them, give them the proper supplies, wish them luck and send them off to the wolves. At the end of each day he would drive each returned petition over to the West Allis United Wisconsin office where they were looked over carefully by Toby, Mike and other volunteers.
Not only did Tom and Paula open up their private home to volunteers and people wishing to sign the petitions, they opened up their private lives and always made everyone feel welcome in their home, unless they were packing a firearm.
We also had county coordinators and leaders like Jim and Trish, a married couple also from Greendale who gave up almost every weekend (working around the Packer schedule, of course) to lead "Sign and Drives" in the parks and "Walker Pub Recrawls". Jim started by manning Konkel Park on 52nd & Layton in Greenfield, then moved on to organizing volunteer contact lists, holding meetings and training sessions and sending out emails and updates to everyone involved in the suburban area. Trish and her friends collected signatures in Waterford and other more rural areas that they felt were not getting covered. Now it is time to take a break guys - go see a movie together . . . hit a bar or two, sit down and have dinner on a Saturday night without talking about who is covering what area tomorrow. You did more than your fair share.
And then there were the ground troops . . .
Kay, a retired special education teacher from Milwaukee who had the great idea to collect signatures with me outside liquor stores on New Year's Eve, and then to hit busy, but entertaining corners in the heart of the city was a spunky spitfire always willing to mix it up with the more vocal Walker supporters.
Then there was "Ed" a semi-retired man from Greendale who worked Broad Street, the empty Bowling Congress lot and the Greendale Community Center parking lot on 76th. He worked alone, moved often and popped up out-of-nowhere to collect recall signatures.
A huge factor in our success in the area was Sonja and Pat, also of Greendale. They are a quiet, reserved couple who were looking to enjoy a peaceful retirement together, but felt compelled to help serve some justice. It took them until now to put up a "Recall Walker" sign in their yard because they did not want to "cause trouble with the neighbors" which makes it even more surprising that they collected more than 2,400 signatures, most of them right in the Greendale area on the corner of 76th & Layton. Sonja's favorite spot though was at Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee where permission was granted to set up on the sidewalk that leads from the parking structure to the casino. There were clean bathrooms near by, heat blew out at you from the open garage doors, there was a bridge above for shelter from the weather and a security camera was aimed right where she stood.
It was like a job for them - spending 7 or 8 hours a day, often 6 days a week, collecting signatures to recall Walker. Sonja missed almost no days and her husband only missed when he was taking care of his elderly mother. When Sonja found out that we had collected more than 1 million signatures to recall Walker she said, "He should just step down and save taxpayers the expense."
And last but not least there was Linda and Sarah, a mother/daughter team of Franklin who were the MVPs of the recall effort here in the suburbs. Neither Linda or Sarah were particularly interested in politics until about a year ago when they heard about the $1.2 billion that would be cut from public education in the state. That issue alone got Linda involved, and the attack on unions really hit a nerve with Sarah. Both her and her husband are union members and know first hand the importance of being able to collectively bargain for living wages and decent benefits.
Linda and Sarah hit the streets all but three or four days (Thanksgiving, Christmas and a family emergency). They were relentless. They said goodbye to their normal lives for two months as their spouses watched the children and grand-kids so they could emerge themselves in the recall effort. Sarah could not drive anywhere in the city without wondering if that corner, or that parking lot would make a good spot to set up and collect signatures. Her truck was filled to the brim with yard signs and petitions.
Linda would get to their spot and set up early. Her van was a mobile "Recall Walker" sign. Her trunk was stuffed with tables, pens, petitions, banners and of course signs. Sometimes the cops would stop and tell them to hold onto their signs and not stick them in the ground. Sometimes the police were polite and cooperative, but sometimes, like the police in West Milwaukee, they were complete jerks and harassed the two women until they were forced to move spots because the cops made them feel more uncomfortable than the Walker supporters in the pickup trucks who flipped them off and called them "b*itches", c*nts", "thugs", "losers", "baby-killers", and to "get a f*cking job".
Linda was usually too busy instructing people on how to correctly sign the petitions, but Sarah was the attention getter, the sign-holder nearest the road and she heard it all. And since Sarah is none of the negative words people screamed at her she usually just smiled and took it all in stride, knowing that she was doing something important, something historic, something that was bigger than all of us.
But there is only so much a person can take, and occasionally a man would get out of his truck (or Lexus) and scream in her face and try and intimidate her to the point where she was physically shaken by the experience. If Sarah wasn't too distressed by the experience she would take out her phone or video camera and try and record the tantrums. Sarah likes to tell the story of the lady who pulled over in her minivan, pushed aside the crucifix hanging from the rear view mirror, leaned over her daughter and gave her the middle finger. Ah, the burbs sure are classy.
When all was said and done, Linda and Sarah collected over 4,800 signatures from places like the Pick N Save on 27th & College, Bed, Bath & Beyond in Greendale, Jackson Park on 43rd & Cleveland, the Greendale Community Center Park on 76th Street, El Rey Groceries on 51st & Oklahoma and Potawatomi Casino with Sonja and her husband Pat. They are warriors and they are heroes. I am proud to have worked with them and even more proud to have gotten to know them for the beautiful, brave people that they are.
And of course I would like to mention the countless husbands, wives, grandparents and neighbors who watched the kids, walked the dogs, cooked the meals, and took care of our homes and kept our families together while we went to work, un-paid for two months. Their jobs were not easy either, and without the cooperation and support of our spouses, family and friends, this recall would not have been possible. Maybe now we can all catch our breath, take a break, and start to get to know our families again . . . until we start working to "get out the vote".
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The first step toward justice has been taken in Wisconsin, but the long walk back has just begun. We must win the recall election and restore a voice to the working class people of the very state where collective bargaining had its roots.
