Yesterday I went down to the protests at the Capitol, and they were easily the biggest yet. It took me an hour to get parked and I was using the city garage furthest from the square. If I had to estimate, given that previous large protests were rated at 80k+ people, this one probably involved 120k or more.

The highlight of Saturday’s protest, at least in the morning when I went, was the ‘Tractorcade’ event, where farmers from around Wisconsin drove their tractors into Madison and, in effect, occupied the Capitol with their slow moving traffic.

This is highly reminiscent of the large scale protests seen often in France, where farmers and truckers use their vehicles to shut the country down with blockades. It heartens me greatly because, in the event a general strike *is* called, and at this point we have to hope it will be, this is the sort of logistical capability that will be required. Nothing shuts down a government faster than paralyzing its roads with heavy machinery.

Anonymous was there, to the extent one can say any anonymous organization is anywhere. I find their presence heartening too, as Anonymous has proven to be a highly effective agitator and disruptor of late, and let’s face it, it’s better for society that their skills be directed at legitimate evil than random idiots on the internet.

(Great sign, btw)

At the stage they had a great lineup of speakers and musicians. Most of the speakers were farmers, heads of local cooperatives or unions themselves.

The crowds were *enormous*

(I wish I knew this man’s name. He gave a great speech which I caught most of on video, about the history of populism and the alliance of labor and farmers)

Ryan Bingham did a great set there, and I have his rendition of ‘This Land is Your Land’ up on Youtube.

Jim Hightower also gave a lengthy talk that was half standup comedy, half political speech. Interesting mix really.

(Here’s a dedicated individual)

In case you were wondering if it was officially the 60s again, SDS was at the protest.

Saturday was a lot lower key than the abuse I saw earlier in the week, and people felt comfortable bringing their kids, which is how it *should* be, and shame forever on the Capitol Police for making it otherwise earlier.

(Union Cab was also out in force helping to snarl traffic. More general strike ammunition I suppose)

That’s about it for Saturday in pictures. The full set from Saturday, with unfortunately a lot of dupes, is here. The collection of all Madison related protest pics is here, and the ZRC Youtube channel is here.

Tags: Madison Protests, Public Appearance, Social Justice

This entry was posted by John Sears on Sunday, March 13th, 2011 at 2:11 pm and is filed under ZRC News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.