The statue named Forward, or Lady Forward, that stood sentinel in front of our capitol building, was created by Jean Miner, a woman artist and Wisconsin native, in 1895. The people who pulled her down are proud of themselves, no doubt.
Lady Forward, gazing into the future, was a rallying point for us in 2011 as we protested then Gov. Scott Walker when he vampirically sucked the power out of our unions. She is a place of meeting for groups that are petitioning leaders for redress of grievances.
The fight for justice for women, gays, minorities was won years, even decades ago. But after the initial euphoria of victory wears off, younger generations who have no hand in the original fight, overreach. Peace is boring, conflict is fun.
I moved to Madison in 2001 because it was a cool city. I’m done with cool, I’m done with Democrats. I’m voting a straight Republican ticket this November. Not that I have enormous confidence in Republicans; they’re acting like scaredy-cats right now. Trump had my support the second he uttered the word Jerusalem. But his party doesn’t give him enough support.
Years ago I was in Chinatown in San Francisco with my buddy Red. We went into one of the little shops to look around. The shop owner started a conversation with us. She was of Chinese heritage, born in Vietnam. She looked Chinese; tall, slender, light-skinned. Her family stood out amongst the Vietnamese.
One day a group of Communists looted her parents’ store. After they took all they wanted, they burned the store to the ground. Her parents had experienced this before in China, which was why they fled to Vietnam; this movie was too familiar. They managed to get all their kids to the United States to live with relatives. Eventually the mom was able to immigrate too. But the dad never escaped. He died in Vietnam.
As I watched the rioting, and looting, and burning, and beating on online, I thought about that woman in Chinatown; it’s happening here. My fellow Americans, we’re about to lose something precious if we don’t snap out of our fear.
5 replies on “Another Statue Bites The Dust”
One comment I heard from a protester there was that he didn’t feel the current government represented the ideals of the statues and so they gave a false impression of the current state of things.
I guess if that’s what passes for reason in your head, taking them down makes sense. Actually addressing the legislature wasn’t on the menu for him I guess.
A caller to a radio station today made the very apt point (I think it was one of the Republican legislators they were interviewing) that (paraphrasing a little because I don’t remember the exact words) They’re coming after you. Being a Democrat isn’t enough.
Interestingly enough, the reality is that the unions are one of the many vampiric entities of current day.
David, without unions nepotism flourishes. I’ve seen it.
The converse is true as well — it is seen by many nationwide — just look at how employees are often forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment that are subsequently squandered on political donations that the employees oppose.
Therefore, your general correlation is false. Nepotism exists because humans exist. Racism exists because humans exist. Hate exists because humans exist. In general, evil thrives because humans exist. To blame any of these undesirable traits of our existence upon a lack of unions is extremely narrow-minded.
fighting back is hard.
But bullies only understand force.
The Alinsky tactic to “push where there is mush” is being employed by more loosely affiliated socialist groups.
So we need to defend our communities. As Bill reminds us “rust never sleeps”, and we need to consistently mow the lawn.