The Recall

I’m reporting again.  On March 9, 2011 the Wisconsin State Senate voted on the budget repair bill without democratic senators present.  What has been proposed for two weeks as the only way to balance our state budget, and described as an economic plan, omitted every part of the bill that mentioned fiscal issues, thereby making the democratic representatives’ presence unnecessary.  The result, an unchecked and unbalanced vote to end labor unions and collective bargaining rights.  Senate members met illegally without due notice and voted on a bill that was not even present at this meeting, and never available to the public.  The following is the footage from the actual voting process and a spoken word I wrote in reaction to this shameful event.

The Recall

I grew in a state where houses

were sprinkled from a watering can

amidst farmland,

where budding cities sprouted like beanstalks

and the families, its leaves,

called out Forward!

Fifty years of paving progress

only to be wiped out

in one shady chamber room.

Shame! To you Governor Walker.

Shame! To you politicians

who don’t speak for your constituents

and ignore their educated,

informed,

respected, and collected VOICE!

Do you not see the eyes of 50,000 faces

staring into your windows,

which should be THEIR windows

waiting for an invitation into their own home?

Can you not hear them knocking?

They come to you as equals

and still you won’t look at them without lies.

Holy, holy, holy

HOLY PUBLIC,

who marched on the capital stairs

with their families and their signs,

sleeping on the sidewalks,

spilling out into the streets

they beg to have a word,

but still you haven’t heard!

What times are these

when human rights

are fallen on deaf ears?

For weeks

you’ve left our communities

in tears,

fearing but not quite believing

our democracy could end.

But with crafty hands

you penned a legislation

not even present at the voting table,

and yet so evil

it was voted in “aye!”

God bless you,

Representative Barca,

for standing up against

the murderers of the middle class!

We are a grieving public.

But our anger and our fear

will be mended

one signature at a time,

oh yes, we will sign!

For the voices in that room

did not represent our state

and therefore

we will change the faces

that sit in that shady chamber room

that took away our voices,

yours and mine,

we will meet again

when we send you

that sweet forgotten postcard,

our love note to our capital,

that check in a ballot box,

we’ll sign it,

“wish you weren’t here!”

For you are not Wisconsin’s governor!