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This is What Democracy Should Look LIke

By Michael Orange

Someone began tapping their glass in the Madison restaurant. We weren't at a wedding. My wife and I were taking a break in the middle of our second day of protesting in Wisconsin's capital city in solidarity with public sector unions whose collective bargaining rights were under attack. I was there as a member of Veterans For Peace, VVAW, and as a 30-year-veteran of the public union I helped found for the City of Minneapolis. It was also forty years since I participated in the famed VVAW march on Washington the April after the first Winter Soldier hearings. Soon the entire restaurant joined in the clinking. It was the same rhythm drivers had been beeping on their horns throughout the Capitol Square area for several weeks—the rhythm that matched the oft-heard chant, "Tell me what democracy looks like. THIS is what democracy looks like!" Then we broke into spontaneous applause.

Wisconsin State Capitol. Photo by Andie Wood.

Back on the street, we carried the Veterans For Peace sign, "How's the War Economy Working for You?" to remind people of the connections between our devastating wars in the Middle East and our devastated economy. The recent homegrown democracy movements arising throughout the Middle East prove the point that we can't drop democracy from the bomb rack of an F-15 or fire it from a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. In Tunisia as in Madison, the people themselves secure their democratic rights through tough battles and constant vigilance.

Amazing what happened when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, only two months in office, (with help from the Republican state legislators) decided to strip most of the collective bargaining rights from most of the state's public employees; rights they had gained fifty years earlier. One joke circulating when we were there—the weekend daylight savings time went into effect—was, "If you're in Wisconsin this weekend, don't forget to turn your clocks back 50 years!"

Walker did what we in the peace movement have been trying to do for decades—he united disparate groups in a social justice movement that is gaining strength throughout our country. In the forty years we've been marching, we've never before raised voices—or signs—with labor, farmers, cops, or firefighters. From babies in strollers to high school students who left classes to march, to seniors in walkers, over 100,000 of us marched together. One young dad who taught in a little town some distance away said he'd been there for three weekends straight with his two toddlers. "We've been here so often, my four-year-old-son walks around our house chanting, 'Show me what democracy looks like!' and he gets disappointed if my wife and I don't yell back, 'THIS is what democracy looks like!" And nearby, an older guy with a World War II baseball hat, a tough grizzled face, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, carried his sign, "Now you've pissed off grandpa!"

The huge and diverse crowd went wild when a tractor-cade of farmers from all over the state rode their machines into Capitol Square. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, farmers!" went the wild chant. We were especially proud to see the Vets For Peace "War Economy" sign displayed on many of the tractors, and had to look twice when we saw a VFW tractor roll by us. Yes, THIS is what democracy should always look like.

Of course, we know America is still the richest country in the world, and that there's no true lack of resources. They're just too concentrated in the wrong hands. One has to look back a hundred years, back to the Robber Baron Era, to find the current level of income inequality. Sign after sign pointed the way to the culprits that bankrupt the country—the Pentagon's wars, private war profiteers, the Wall Street banksters and moneychangers, and rich corporations and individuals that don't pay their fair share for the common good; not working class people and public employees.

The global corporations and the rich use the military strategy of divide and conquer to control the rest of us, but they over-reached. The amazing unity on display in Madison is the first beachhead of the resistance movement to take back America.

Michael Orange served as a Marine in Vietnam and wrote a book about it, Fire in the Hole: A Mortarman in Vietnam. He joined VVAW during the group's famed April 1971 march on Washington. Professionally, he's a city planner and teaches a graduate-level course, Sustainable City Planning.

IVAW Marching in Madison, Wisconsin, March 19, 2011. Photo by Andie Wood.