Leaving a stench behind.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Political Eye

Five months after the rightwing assault on Wisconsin began, protesters in red Madison Teachers Inc. shirts marched around the state capitol, as Republicans rammed through a radically stripped down state budget in an "extraordinary session" inside.

Members of the Joint Committee on Retirement were sitting in a stuffy hearing room jammed with reporters, as demonstrators in the hallway outside chanted: "What's outrageous? Corporate raises! What's disgusting? Union-busting!"

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The hearing, on a proposal to add Governor Scott Walker's union-busting bill to the state budget, was repeatedly postponed. Finally, after the last postponement, the news spread that, across the hall, the state supreme court had rendered a hasty, split decision upholding the original union-busting measure.

The hearing remained in indefinite adjournment. There was no need to push the bill through the budget process anymore.

Debate continued on other issues on the state senate floor, as a smattering of protesters milled about the capitol building, telling each other the news.

Outside about 3,000 people gathered for a rally and concert that had a relaxed, Summerfest feel. Most of the crowd didn't know yet what we'd lost.

After historic protests in February, when hundreds of thousands of people turned out to march on the capitol, collective bargaining ended with a whisper, and a few tweets, on a pleasant June afternoon.

The budget itself--the target of the day's protest--was a massive assault on Wisconsin's education system, health care, environment, and public works.

But the collective bargaining piece is what kicked off the whole rebellion in Wisconsin.

Firefighters played "God Bless America" on the bagpipes on the capitol steps, and the crowd cheered.

Mahlon Mitchell of the firefighters' union announced the bad news to boos from the crowd. "It doesn't feel like America," he said. "Where the hell are we?"

Speakers vowed to fight on. But you couldn't help feeling that the forces of greed and destruction were winning--getting on with their business, oblivious to the citizens outside whose rights they were stripping away.

For the Republicans, citizens expressing their views are just a nuisance. "I am so tired of the union protesters singing at the capitol rotunda! Every day at noon!" Assemblywoman Michelle Litjens of Oshkosh complained on her Facebook page. "Where else is this kind of behavior acceptable at a business?

Why are we subjected to listening to...