A green look at the Wisconsin spring: saving the middle class from itself.

• Author: Morris, Jane Anne
• Position: Thinking Politically

September 2011, Madison, Wisconsin. The legislative recall elections generated by the Wisconsin Spring demonstrations are over. (1) Democrats failed to retake the state Senate, gaining only two seats over the fall 2010 total. Republicans now hold the Senate by a 17-16 margin, and retain control of the Assembly and governor's mansion. In June, both the anti-collective bargaining bill and the Republican budget, little altered, became law. In other words, no revolution. It is a still point in Wisconsin history: time to take stock.

Media coverage of the "Wisconsin Revolution" has been shot through with an array of superlatives, many of them deserved. Wisconsin's great "Outpouring" that began in February 2011 was a watershed event. The largest crowds at a political demonstration in state history (up to 150,000 in a city of about 200,000). Weeks of continuous occupation of the Capitol building, with 24/7 marchers outside: also unprecedented.

Even more than size or duration, it was the character of this Outpouring--which took place two blocks from my apartment--that most astonishes. I have never seen anything like it in the US in four decades of demonstrating. After weeks of attending demonstrations and talking to people, I realized that much of the unspoken ideological underpinning of the Wisconsin "revolution" was antithetical to most of what a green agenda would be. But disturbing as that was, I see promise as well.

Thanks, officer

The Outpouring featured a massive presence of law enforcement--both on duty "protecting" the Capitol, and as demonstrators. I'd never been to a month-long demonstration before. I'd certainly never been to a demonstration where law enforcement was so overwhelmingly on the protesters' side.

Case in point: By March 6, just before the nightly "sleepover" occupation of the Capitol ended, officers had been instructed to admit demonstrators only in a trickle (3 out, 3 in). As hundreds waited outside in the late-winter cold, I stood in line with five others, including two kids.

We had already marched around the Capitol Square among tens of thousands of others. The 8-year-old, maracas in hand, had just led the crowd for 20 minutes of a popular chant. "What's disgusting?" she would yell. "Union busting!" the crowd shouted back. Law enforcement officers, from across the state and spanning local and state departments, walked among us with their signs. Others were out of uniform but wore "Cops for Labor" shirts over their jackets. (Law enforcement officers of all stripes were brought in to defend against union "thugs." Sometimes, DNR wardens guarded the governor's office. When their shifts ended, they joined the demonstrators.)

The line to get into the Capitol was so long, we could hardly see the doors. Eyeing the kids, an officer walking toward us asked, "How many in your group?" Generally speaking, when questioned by law enforcement at a demonstration, I exercise extreme caution, go limp, or look for the nearest lawyer or legal observer. This time, I didn't hesitate. "Five--no, six." Without another word, he summoned us. Smiling, he escorted us past the front of the line and into the Rotunda.

Nobody in line complained; they smiled, too. If this is the new "normal," it's a grand thing.

A few days earlier, the local county sheriff had offered remarks that attest to the attitude of law enforcement. After weeks of no violence in a place crawling with uniformed law officers bumping into each other with no enforcing to do, the sheriff called his deputies off Capitol duty guarding the doors to a then-closed Capitol He noted that he saw no threat to protect people, not marble, and that his deputies were not a "palace guard" for the governor. (2)

The courtesy and consideration shown by law enforcement toward demonstrators was reciprocated. During the Outpouring, there were daily rallies where tens of thousands of demonstrators saluted firefighters and law enforcement, hugged and high-fived them, and very nearly rocked the Capitol Rotunda off its foundations with chants of "Thank you! Thank you!" that didn't flag until the marchers had worked their way through three floors of demonstrators.

At one time or another, I saw almost everybody I know in Madison at the demonstrations, across the spectrum of green or greenish persuasions. But these constituted only...