From the event’s Facebook page:
a snippet from the event's Facebook page. Note that 3,358 people indicated they are attending.
“Next week, farmers from across the dairyland will bring tractors and solidarity to the WI capitol to fight for labor rights and a just state budget. Rural communities will be disproportionately hurt by the cuts to education and badgercare, and farmers in Wisconsin stand with state workers, and all working and middle class families in the state. The event is sponsored by Family Farm Defenders and the Wisconsin Farmers Union. All farmers and eaters welcome and encouraged to come!
Photo via Boing Boing. Their caption: Note: This is not an image from next week's farmer-labor day at the Wisconsin Capitol Building. That hasn't happened yet. This is an image meant to illustrate the concept of a tractorcade for anyone who's never seen one. Apologies for any confusion.
If you have a tractor and would like to join in the tractorcade please contact Joel Greeno at 608-463-7634. You can contact John Peck at Family Farm Defenders – (608) 260-0900; familyfarmdefenders@yahoo.com”
“Hundreds of farmers have signed up to bring their tractors to the Madison, Wisconsin capitol on Saturday March 12th at 12 noon, to “fight for labor rights and a just state budget.”
Organizers are calling this protest gathering of farmers and their machines the Farmer Labor Tractorcade. As of Monday morning, 2700 people had confirmed they were attending on the Facebook page for the event.
Organizers explained their objective as expressing solidarity with “state workers, and all working and middle class families in the state.”…”
Read the rest of the examiner.com story on the protest
“Next week, farmers from across the dairyland will bring tractors and solidarity to the WI capitol to fight for labor rights and a just state budget. Rural communities will be disproportionately hurt by the cuts to education and BadgerCare, as well as Gov. Walker’s decision to eliminate funding for other sustainable agriculture initiatives such as the Buy Local Buy Wisconsin program.
Family farmers in Wisconsin stand with state workers, and all working and middle class families in the state. An injury to one is an injury to all! The event is sponsored by Family Farm Defenders, Wisconsin Farmers Union and Land Stewardship Project, among many others. All farmers and eaters welcome and encouraged to come!…”
From “Walking Turcot Yards” blog:
“As of this writing at least 2000 farmers are going to be driving their tractors into the Wisconsin state capitol this coming Saturday. The mainstream media has been avoiding this story like the plague but it’s going to be hard to ignore this. Also on Facebook, people are urging Willie Nelson and Neil Young, both Farm Aid veterans, to go and play Madison on Saturday. The revolution is on, folks, going to be interesting to watch how this event grows!…”
From Maggie Koerth-Baker on Boing Boing (source for the mid-story photo):
“Tens of thousands of people were in Madison, Wisconsin, again this weekend, continuing to protest Governor Scott Walkers attempt to do away with collective bargaining for some state employees. We’re at Day 18 now, if you’re keeping track.
This has been a very weird event, by U.S. standards. We don’t often have protest movements that sustain their momentum, at this level, over this long a period of time. Hell, one day is usually the maximum. So it’s been interesting to me to see the Madison protests evolve. Up next, apparently, are theme protests. Next Saturday, March 12, starting at noon, it’s farmer-labor day at the Wisconsin Capitol Building—with farmers from across the state set to bring a tractorcade of support to the protesters in Madison. Yes. A tractorcade. This just got 10x more awesome…..”
The Bovine 
im so sorry you farmers have to go through this is an attack on the middle class we wont stand for this!!!!!
I am a farmer’s daughter and a teacher of 32 years. I watched my father toil. He taught me the value of hard work and the value of a dollar. He encouraged me to go to college and be somebody – a teacher. I did – without a penny of his – because he had none to spare. I spent 10 years paying back loans while starting with a salary of $8,000 and no insurance or retirement benefits. I love teaching with a passion and thank my father, the farmer, for instilling these values in me. He is gone now, but would be the first to be on his tractor in Madison this weekend standing up for the hard working people of Wisconsin and democrocy if he were here.
Odd, I would think small, sustainable farming interests would be antithetical to big government?
Thomas Walkom in today’s Toronto Star:
“Canadian labour has its eyes firmly fixed on Wisconsin, where right-wing Republican governor Scott Walker hopes to destroy the state’s public sector unions.
Unions here — both private and public — worry that Canadian governments might follow suit. Some have sent members to monitor the Wisconsin struggle. On Friday night, worker advocates attending a meeting sponsored by the Toronto Labour Council heard a first-hand report by an American unionist just up from the mid-western state.
But the real model for Canadian governments interested in gutting trade unions may not be Wisconsin. It could be Ohio. The state senate there has just passed a bill that, in effect, hands over all labour arbitration decisions involving public workers directly to the governments that employ them.
Or, to put it another way, the Ohio bill would give public sector bosses the right to unilaterally determine how much their workers are paid, what kind of benefits they receive and how many hours a day they work.
There hasn’t been as much attention paid to Ohio’s attack on labour. Its Republican governor, John Kasich, is not as bumptious as Wisconsin’s Walker.
Unlike their Wisconsin counterparts, Ohio’s Democratic senators did not hide out to stall the legislation (there aren’t enough of them to make a difference).
But the Ohio remedy has the virtue of being sneakier. And that may appeal to Canadian politicians, particularly in Ontario….”
Read it all here: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/950648–walkom-a-lesson-for-ontario-in-sneaky-union-busting
NOTE tractors are NOT on the new prohibited list for capitol visitors in Madison: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_44b6ca48-498a-11e0-8a55-001cc4c03286.html
via Boing Boing blog, posted Wednesday night (March 9th, 2011):
“Breaking news: Wisconsin GOP passed controversial legislation using backdoor maneuver
Maggie Koerth-Baker at 5:21 PM Wednesday, Mar 9, 2011
Tonight, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker passed a controversial law that will make it illegal for certain classes of public workers to bargain collectively on important issues like working conditions and benefits. Up until now, he and the state’s GOP senators had been prevented from passing the law because they didn’t have quorum—all 14 Democratic senators left the state so the bill couldn’t be voted on.
But it turns out that that only works if the anti-union laws were being voted on as part of a larger fiscal package. Tonight, Wisconsin Republicans split the anti-union parts out into a separate piece of legislation. And, around 6:30 Central, they passed it—18-1. The only “nay” vote being GOP Senator Dale Schultz. (Who certainly deserves some nice notes in thanks for his bravery on this. I can’t imagine that vote is going to be a career boost for him.) The new bill now goes to the legislature, where it’s expected to be very quickly passed the Republican majority.
Dave Weigel at Slate says:…”
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/09/breaking-news-wiscon.html
Relics of the Wisconsin protest “to the Smithsonian”:
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/10/wisconsin-protests-t.html
This means that someone somewhere thinks this protest is going to be of historical significance in the future. They may be right.
Maybe in future times, people will look back on it, the way they now look back on Monterey and Woodstock as turning points in Sixties consciousness.
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HuffPo followup:
“On her Wednesday show, Rachel Maddow and filmmaker Michael Moore both agreed that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and the state’s Republicans will lose what Moore called a “class war” being waged against the working class.
The two were reacting to Wednesday’s sudden passage of a measure in the Wisconsin Senate to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights–something only accomplished through an unheard-of parliamentary maneuver.
Before bringing Moore on, Maddow said that the Wisconsin Republicans had awoken a “dragon.” And she sent a message to the Democrats as well. “When people who have to work for a living are directly attacked…they fight back,” she said. “And they are expecting the Democratic Party to stand with them.”
Moore then came on the show. He told people to go to Madison right away. “This is war,” he said. “This is a class war.”
He also expressed optimism about the outcome of the Wisconsin fight. “Everything has turned in favor of the working people,” he said.
Maddow said that the “political brittleness” of what Walker and other Republicans were attempting was working against them.”All it takes is some political pushback against that and it collapses,” she said.
Moore then echoed the speech he gave in Madison last weekend, which drew widespread attention.
“Wisconsin’s not broke,” he said. “America isn’t broke. The money’s just not in the people’s hands. It’s in the hands of the rich, the people who committed these crimes and got away with it.” He held up a pair of handcuffs and looked at the camera.
“I’d like anybody who works on Wall Street, anybody who works for the banks, just take a look at this,” he said. “This is what’s coming. This is what’s coming for you. Because the people are going to demand justice, they’re going to demand that your ass is in jail.”
Go to Huff Po to watch the video and follow the embedded links: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/10/michael-moore-maddow-wisconsin_n_833922.html
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More on how Scott Walker got what he wanted: http://www.salon.com/news/wisconsin/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/03/11/scott_walker_signs_union_bill
More stories on the Wisconsin front: http://tikkunista.com/2011/03/11/1-wisconsin-class-warfare/
Worse than Wisconsin?
http://www.politicususa.com/en/martial-law-michigan
hey
Hey D’ern,
The 4th word in your post is think. Didn’t you mother teach to think
before you write? It can prevent you from making a fool of yourself.
Too late for that. Try doing at least 3 hours of studying before you
make fun of farmers next time. Your ignorance speaks volumes about
your stupidity.
tio
t
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Recall campaign making great progress: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/15/wisconsin-republican-1.html