February 26, 2012

A year ago today at the Wisconsin protests — 100,000 people marched around the Capitol in the snow.

Meade and I walked against the flow of the crowd so we could photograph a lot of faces, and I edited his video down to 10 minutes, that included a huge union presence, a man dressed as a rich man declaiming "In the old days, we knew how to deal with peasants!... Burn you like marshmallows!," ladies who harass me for blocking their view of some people in "Star Wars" outfits, the voice of Peter Yarrow, a protester complaining that Obama's not there, and a view into the soul of a puppet. [More of Yarrow here.]

Inside the Capitol, I made use of my fisheye lens.

We checked back at the Veterans Memorial, where, the day before, the protesters had promised us they were going to clear their signs and things away from the memorial.

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"The signs were off the memorial, but, as you can see, the junk was still piled against it, and Meade had a long talk with them — and the Capitol Police — about it. The protesters were very polite and circumspect, even as they fell back on the argument that they thought it was enough to take down the signs — and that they'd thought, yesterday, that it was enough to tape the signs only on the back of the monument. The assertion was made, as it was yesterday, that people can't tell from the back that it's a war monument."

ADDED: Here's the edited video of our return to the Veterans Monument.

Also, I traced the timeline of the protests to date and believed that there was "this slowly tightening cordon will effectively accomplish the end of the occupation at 4 p.m. this afternoon."

And, on this short video, Meade questions a man with a sign that reads "Egypt, Libya/Madison, Wisconsin/Civil Unrest Is Best." The conversation ends when the man leans over to Meade and says "Get your head fucked." There's also a cute (but cold) doggie at the end."

12 comments:

Rick said...

There must be some reason to be interested in what happened there a year ago.

edutcher said...

You made your point very well.

It was, however, more than a little scary to see how the capitol police gave the union slugs a much freer hand than Meade.

Ann Althouse said...

"There must be some reason to be interested in what happened there a year ago."'

I don't want to be condemned to repeat it.

Also, there's a recall in the works.

It matters.

But, as ever, skip the posts you're not interested in. Or are you interested... in my shutting up about last year?

Palladian said...

At first glance this photograph looks like backstage at a community theater production of Hair.

MadisonMan said...

Meade and I walked against the flow of the crowd

I do that at the Farmer's Market just so I can see who's there.

Rick said...

I followed the events last night daily, mostly from your reports, and supported the governor and his supporters financially. I guess I am missing how the reruns will impact the recall. As I wrote, there must be a reason for all of this.

Rick said...

Should be "last year".

Anonymous said...

At first glance this photograph looks like backstage at a community theater production of Hairspray.

SenatorMark4 said...

I shipped you the Althouse Lilly the other day and it was signed for but since it was probably opened by a union person I'm wondering if you actually received it with the description still taped to it or not.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

100,000

Is that the same shop that counted the million men march ;)

Fen said...

More like the Lancet methodology: go into the most liberal enclaves of Wisconsin, ask 10 people if they attended the protests, extrapolate that number to 100,000.

Issob Morocco said...

Ah the Veteran's Memorial where our fearless protest coordinator Harriet first showed up and piqued my curious mind.