Is too much patriotism bad for America?

Quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the playing of the national anthem at a  San Francisco 49ers game has caused a broad national debate.

Kaepernick performed his act before thousands of fans and millions on television to bring attention to a particular cause — the ongoing killings of black citizens by police officers throughout the nation.  It did that, of course, but it also has prompted a broader question:  Just exactly what constitutes patriotism and can there be too much patriotism?

Recently and particularly since Sept. 11, 2001, the nation has been subjected to an excess of phony patriotism; American flags are festooned all over the place.  If you’re a candidate running for office, you are constantly flanked by a phalanx of red, white and blue, regardless of your party.  Sporting events of all types are awash in patriotic symbols.

All this flag-waving is much more than an innocent show of patriotism; it reinforces the nationalistic trend that blinds us from the truth and that more often than not colors our thinking about the role of the United States in the world.

Extreme nationalism is dangerous; it leads to dictatorial rule.  Witness how Adolf Hitler stirred up support for the Third Reich and its unconscionable strategies.  He did it with constant showing of the Nazi flag, with rousing patriotic marches and with other reminders of how great that nation was, even when it was slaughtering millions of people.

In more modern times, witness how Kim Jong Un has kept his North Korean people in line with the same kind of imagery.  Just recently the New York Times reported that the Chinese government has required all school children to view a 90-minute documentary on the “Long March” of 1934-36, turning it into a victory for the then-fledgling Communist Party, when it was actually a retreat.  The Chinese government is engaged in a constant propaganda campaign to indoctrinate its citizens.  It’s a reality of all totalitarian governments.

To be sure, the United States is a truly great nation; it’s still among the most powerful in the world, both militarily and economically.  Its success comes from its democratic underpinnings and it is indeed the world’s longest surviving democracy.  But we are wrong to think that the world circulates around us, that we can continue to wall ourselves and act independently, and that our nation always acts in the wisest and most humane way.

North Korea’s extreme nationalism fuels blind allegiance to their leader.  It is an extreme form of patriotism.

After the end of World War II, a significant number of Americans believed it was important for the U.S. to shed some of its sovereignty and participate in the community of nations.  Some even proposed forming a world federal government, a United States of the World so to speak.  Obviously that never happened, but the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization did.  Although the nations retain their sovereignty in both the UN and NATO, the nations often act in a collective spirit.

Today, we live in a world that festers new and different types of terrors; we can’t afford to think the oceans protect us from direct harm in a war, as they did in all our wars up to the 21st Century.  Now the threats can end up in the streets of any community of the nation.  The only way to protect our future is to face the issues honestly and openly.  We need to more fully understand what turns people to terrorism, both at home and abroad.  And we can’t do that without looking at the problems openly and critically.  We can’t afford to be blindfolded by a patriotism that declares:  My country right or wrong!

Yes, we must honor our flag.  It is my hope, however, that as we honor the flag we recognize that we’re honoring a proud nation that has the world’s most diverse population, that it has the strongest and most continuous democracy and that it has achieved unexpected economic successes for its people.  We must also recognize that sometimes our people and our elected leaders have not always done the right thing, that they may have engaged in foreign adventures unwisely and committed cruel and inhumane acts, that we have subjugated whole peoples by removing them from their lands or by supporting slavery and then institutional racism and discrimination.

Colin Kaepernick was being patriotic when he knelt down; he’s telling all of us that we have some ills in our nation and that they must be resolved to save this great nation.

Yes, let’s honor the flag, but let’s do it without being deafened by singing too loudly or blinded by seeing too much, red, white and blue.  Kenneth Germanson, Sept. 26, 2016

Bernie’s supporters need to learn from 1968

Some supporters of Bernie Sanders walked out of the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia when the Vermont senator announced his endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Many of those said they’d sit out the November election and not even vote, cast their ballots for Donald Trump or vote for a third party candidate.  Their actions could possibly be copied by thousands of Sanders’ supporters throughout the nation.

Such actions could bear them bitter fruit and destroy what most of them were seeking in progressive public policy.

History, particularly the Presidential election of 1968, proves the point.

The Democratic Convention that year convened in Chicago with the nation facing perhaps the most bitter divisiveness of any in history.  The Vietnam War by then had been raging for four years; eventually a total of 58,220 U.S. troops would die and possibly as many as one million Vietnamese, Cambodians and others.  It had soured many Americans, many of whom blamed Democratic President Lyndon Johnson for its continuance.  Largely, because

Bitterness of 1968 Democratic convention becomes street fight, bringing heavy police action.

of the dissatisfaction about the war, Johnson had declined seeking a second term, making Vice President Hubert Humphrey the obvious choice of the party leadership.

Anti-war activists, however, came to Chicago supporting the candidacy of Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who like Sanders came out of nowhere in the primaries to mount a significant challenge.  The bitterness from the primary campaign continued, bringing chaos and disruption on the convention floor.  The battling spread onto the streets of Chicago where Mayor Richard Daley deployed 12,000 police officers and brought in another 15,000 state and federal officers to contain the protests.  The situation rapidly got out of control, with officers severely beating the protesters.  It was a horrific sight, much of it seen on network television.

In the end, Hubert Humphrey won the nomination.  For many of the protesters, the Vice President’s victory was an abomination and many sat out the general election.  Their disgust may have been justified; yet, in a way, by not supporting Humphrey they merely were biting off their noses to spite their faces.   Former Vice President Richard Nixon won in November, but by only .7 percent of the overall vote.  Had they voted, the outcome might have been different.

Nixon supported none of the goals of most protesters; once in office he stepped up the war in Vietnam.  He supported none of the civil rights policies that most of the protesters felt the country needed.  His anti-union and strongly pro-business attitudes were legendary.  Nixon also instituted the Southern Strategy, using racist policies to lure white Southerners from the Democratic Party that had controlled the southern states for a century.

Then Mayor Hubert Humphrey delivering his famous civil rights speech in 1948 at Democratic National Convention.

The circumstances surrounding Humphrey in 1968 and of Secretary Clinton in 2016 are strikingly similar.  Humphrey had shown leadership in civil rights, peace, labor and justice throughout his career; his credentials were solid.  One only had to listen to his speech from the floor of the 1948 Convention in Philadelphia that marked a turning point to putting the party at the forefront of the fight for civil and racial justice.  It was a courageous speech at the time for the young mayor of Minneapolis.

Yet, that was ignored, as was his long liberal legislative record, by the McCarthy backers.

It’s much like 2016, when Hillary Clinton’s proven record of being a lifelong champion of children, supporter of the historic children’s healthcare act of 1996, proven backer of the rights of minorities, the disabled and other progressive causes is being forgotten by those Sanders’ supporters who will not vote for her in fall.

While Senator Sanders now has fully supported Secretary Clinton, he has not given up a fight to lead a peaceful revolution to assure that real democracy rules the Democratic Party of the future and the United States as a whole.  The tumult of 1968 resulted in meaningful reforms to the Democratic Party by 1972, making that year’s Convention far more open and democratic.  Already, Senator Sanders’ strong showing has prompted the Party to change to become even more open.

There’s a lot of work to be done to assure that all of our citizens will live in a safe, secure, healthful, just and rewarding society.  It won’t be done in one election, or even in one four-year Presidential term of office; yet, work needs to continue to bring positive change.  If the year 1968 is any lesson, progressives need to vote for Hillary Clinton to assure the struggle goes on.  (Ken Germanson, July 27, 2016)

Disclaimer:  The author voted for Sen. Sanders in the Wisconsin primary.  He has been an active participant and observer of Presidential campaigns since 1948.

Memorial Day – 2016

Memorial Day – 2016

Clam Lake WI – We awoke this morning with blue, nearly cloudless skies, a warm sun working to take off the chill of the night in the forest.  Peering through the trees from our cabin, the water below is as blue as the sky it reflects.  Earlier, the lake had been calm, its reflections from the trees from the other side so precisely mirroring the view; now a slight ripple on the water distorts the reflection.

Later this morning, the small band of area veterans will gather in our small Northwoods hamlet to march to the acre-sized local cemetery where there will be a brief speech or two, a nondenominational reflection by the priest who serves our mission chapel and a 21-gun salute, followed by taps – two trumpet players with one located at the outer side of the park to echo the notes of the nearest player.

The small gathering, old, fragile men holding canes (some wearing baseball caps, noting their Navy ship or Army and Marine units), well-fed middle-aged men and woman and impatient toddlers, will stand in silence for a few moments to honor the dead of past wars.

We will think of Rich, our dear friend of nearly 50 years, who died several years ago at age 93 and is buried here.  As skilled and finicky a carpenter that ever was, Rich lived his entire life in this backwoods area, except for the time in the Army during World War II.  Only in the later years of his life did he relate to me the horrors of participating in four landings on South Pacific islands during World War II.  Of his own fear and his killing of Japanese soldiers while the chief of the machine gun crew he led.  While others would brag of their own service the bar of the resort he and his wife once owned, he would walk away, never disclosing his own true heroism.  (It was only after his death that we learned he received a top medal for bravery.)

The scene at the Clam Lake cemetery, of course, will be replicated in every town, city and hamlet throughout the land.

This day should provide us with meaning, not mere pomp and circumstance.  It’s not enough to puff up our chests and proclaim how great our nation is.  Let’s not be sunshine patriots.

Mostly, this day should remind us of how widely devastating war is.  The impact of our 20^th and 21^st century wars is shown by the fact that nearly every community has a War Memorial listing the young men and women who were killed in those conflicts.  And, we in the United States have never had to face death in any numbers as terrible as those suffered by the peoples in Europe in World War II, by the Vietnamese, Laotians and others in the Vietnam Conflict and more recently by the Iraqis and Afghans in the current continuing fighting in the Mideast.

This is not a plea for “peace at any cost;” sometimes conflict may be needed, but the lesson must be that war comes “as a last resort.”  Conflicts that begin small have a tendency to escalate into terrible long-lasting and devastating events that go on and on.  (Witness that World War I began over the assassination of a minor monarch in Sarajevo in 1914.)

Today we have a major Presidential candidate promising to “make America great again” by means not quite outlined.  He wins great huzzahs when he intones how he’d take care of our world-wide crises.  We must not blindly succumb to such bombast.  If such boastful declarations mean dropping bombs or unleashing our military might, the consequences could be too terrible to imagine.

We will celebrate Memorial Day in this peaceful forest hopeful that the memory of our dead soldiers, sailors, marines and others will provide us with the knowledge to look for peaceful means to resolve our conflicts.  Ken Germanson – May 30, 2016

Hiroshima: A memory persists for 70 years

Perhaps no date stands out more in my long life than August 6, 1945.  It was two days before my 16th birthday and it had been a warm summer day.  I had biked home, carrying my ragtag golf clubs on my back after playing 27 holes of golf.  It was six o’clock and my parents sat in the living room listening to a news report on radio. They had shocked expressions.

I heard the radio announcer state in somber words, describing “a bomb equivalent in size to 100 blockbusters.” What was that all about? I asked my parents.

My dad said that we (meaning the U.S.) had dropped something called an atomic bomb on a Japanese city called Hiroshima.  “It may mean the end of the war,” he added.

The relief I might have felt by the possible ending of World War II was blunted by my realization that our country had caused terrible devastation, even though at that time I believed, along with just about everyone else that “the Japs deserved it.”  Hadn’t we sung — and hadn’t I plunked out the song on the piano — “We’re Gonna Have to Slap the Dirty Little Jap?”   (I feel shamed today to write “Jap,” but feel it’s needed here to show the tenor of the times.)

The concept of 100 blockbusters blew my mind. That would mean 100 blocks were destroyed by one bomb; the United States had instituted the use of blockbuster bombs on German cities late in the war and it was not until many years later that I learned of the terrible devastation Allied bombers had done to cities like Dresden.

President Obama has announced that he will be visiting Hiroshima at the end of May, the first US president to make such a visit since the tragic bombing more than seventy years ago. A debate has arisen over whether the President should apologize for the devastation.  Whether such an apology is necessary or not, it’s not mine to answer.

There are lessons we should learn from Hiroshima. I remember seeing early news photos from the bombing and noting there was but one relatively tall, slender building still standing among the devastation.

One year later, one of our next-door neighbor’s sons showed snapshots he had taken while in Hiroshima as a member of an army occupational force.  Even though his black-and-white photos were of the tiny-size typical of the era, the impact couldn’t have been more striking.  There, standing like a lone sentinel was the same singular building amid the rubble, a tragic symbol of the bombing that cost some 200,000 lives.

More than anything else the killing of those Japanese citizens, including many women and children, dramatized the terrible losses that are foisted upon all of us by war.  A scene from Erich Maria Remarque’s famous book, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” has further pointed toward the terrible foolishness of war.  That book, written from a German soldier’s point of view during the First World War, has the hero seeking shelter in a bomb crater and finding a dying French soldier in the same shelter.  After a few tense moments, the French soldier dies.  Guiltily, the German soldier searches the dead man’s pockets, finding a wallet, containing a small picture of a smiling woman and a young child.  It was obviously the man’s family, a family not much unlike his own.  The German solder cries.

Some of us hoped immediately after World War II that we could take steps to end the terrible nationalism that brought about the wars of that Century; why not form a federal world government — modeled after the U.S. Constitution that in 1787 developed a process to bring together our disparate states into a central government that could ensure peace between the states?  The dream failed, though a hamstrung United Nations emerged.

Wars haven’t ended; in fact today’s world is spawning an epidemic of violence.  Now, however, added to the fear of one nation fighting another, we have tribes and terror groups that know no borders engaged in hateful killing sprees.

Those of us who preach peace and urge restraint on “revenge” and “retribution” are castigated as being “weak” and “dreamers.”  Let’s reject that: we recognize the need to sometimes bear arms to enforce peace, but we must resist the inclinations — so often stirred by ambition politicians — to act first in starting a fight, to use a pledge of “making America great again” as an excuse to start bombing again — and killing many innocents along the way.  Ken Germanson, May 15, 2016.

Historic Wisconsin Primary again in spotlight

This year, for the first time in 24 years, Wisconsin voters find themselves in the spotlight as the nation watches the presidential primaries of both parties.  Many pundits say Tuesday’s primary may be a change-making primary election.

Until the 1980s, the Wisconsin primary was always one of the first in the country, being held in April, ahead of most other states.  As early as 1912 when the Republican Party was engaged in a truly revolutionary primary campaign, the Wisconsin primary was in a key decision-making role nationally. In that 1912 election, Wisconsin’s “Fighting Bob” La Follette shook up the Republican presidential nomination by throwing hit hat in the ring for the Republican nomination, in opposition to his long-time political friend, Teddy

Fighting Bob La Follette

Roosevelt, who was running on the so-called “Bull Moose” ticket for the Republican nomination. Also of the ballot was William Howard Taft who had been Teddy’s original pick to succeed him as president in 1908. So here we had in Wisconsin a fight going on between two progressive Republicans, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bob La Follette, against a moderately progressive Republican, the incumbent President Taft.

Wisconsin at that time was one of about six states to have presidential primaries.  It was a new process having been established first in 1905 in the state of Oregon.  Wisconsin followed soon after.  Wisconsin’s role as one of the first truly consequential primary states in each election year didn’t change until the 1980s when other states started jockeying to hold elections “first.”  Thus it was that Iowa became the first caucus state and New  Hampshire the first state to hold a direct presidential primary.

I had to smile this weekend at news reports of how Ted Cruz and John Kasich showed up at Milwaukee’s American Serb Memorial Hall for its legendary Friday fish fry, where the candidates go table-to-table to greet voters, most of whom are more dedicated to their fried fish than a candidate’s handshake.  It reminded me of the time in 1972 when they were four major candidates vying for the Democratic nomination that year. At that time I was the Milwaukee county chairman for Senator Hubert Humphrey.  His campaign staff had asked me to advise them on where to have the candidate show up during the weekend before the Wisconsin election, which was also Easter weekend.  We knew it very would be hard to find venues where anybody would show up to hear their words.  As I was the so-called resident expert on local politics, I suggested that the Friday fish fry at Serb Hall would be a natural. And so it happened all of the other candidates also showed up for the Friday fish fry.  Then the question came what shall we do for Easter Sunday and I suggested that we go to the zoo. It was a popular place for families after all.

Lo and behold what do you think happened?  All four presidential candidates in the Democratic Party showed at the zoo, hoping to gain a little bit of a soundbite on the local news channels.  It was a frigid day and unfortunately it appeared the media outnumbered the families.

So much for my campaign expertise.

In the 1960 election of President Kennedy, the Wisconsin primary played a critical role.  He narrowly won here, but the win showed he could beat a man who had been called “Wisconsin’s third senator.”  Hubert Humphrey was senator from neighboring Minnesota and a frequent visitor to the state; he had many friends among the Democratic party leadership.  Kennedy’s win led him to the eventual nomination and election as President.

John Kennedy and his brother, Bobby, as his campaign manager, literally lived in the state during the 30 days before the April primary.  In Theodore White’s outstanding history, “The Making of the President – 1960,” he describes how Kennedy began his campaign on a chilly March day in the old logging town of Mellen, standing alone and hatless on a windblown street.

The Wisconsin primaries in 1968 and 1972 helped to bring reforms to the Democratic Party.  In 1968, another Minnesota Senator, Eugene McCarthy easily won here as the “so-called” peace candidate who openly opposed US involvement in Vietnam.  Since the primary was held just days after incumbent President Lyndon Johnson withdrew from his re-election campaign and before Bobby Kennedy was on the ballot, the McCarthy win was not consequential in the eventual nomination.  Vice President Humphrey entered the

Campaign flyer for Eugene McCarthy candidacy in 1968

race, but declined to participate in primaries; he was content to accept establishment delegates.  Yet, the primary was important to show the strength of the more liberal, anti-war wing of the State’s Democrats.  A Gene McCarthy supporter, Don Peterson of Chippewa Falls, took over leadership of the State Democratic Party.  Humphrey, however, went on to win the nomination, but the disaffection of many anti-war voters may have resulted in the win by Richard Nixon.

Four years later, another leading critic of the War, Sen. George McGovern won the primary, beating out Hubert Humphrey, the candidate favored by most of labor at the time, Washington Sen. Henry Jackson and New York Mayor John Lindsay.  The turmoil of the primaries and the Democratic conventions prompted the party to reform itself, but taking away much of the power of the establishment Democrats.

The eventual nominations of Jimmy Carter in 1976, who narrowly beat out labor-endorsed Arizona Sen. Morris Udall, and Bill Clinton in 1992, who narrowly won over California Gov. Jerry Brown, all were made possible by the early wins in the Wisconsin primary.

This year, after a generation of being an “also ran” among the states holding primaries, Wisconsin voters again finding themselves in a key decision-making role.  While two candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, though heavy leaders for their parties’ nominations, are still seeking to solidity their delegate totals.  Each of them, with their rivals, are said to be “make-or-break” positions.

The State’s labor movement, however, is no longer playing as strong a role in the primary process as it did in the past.  Nonetheless, in a situation where a few votes can sway a nomination, the role of working people and their unions can be critical.  – Ken Germanson, April 3, 2016

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It’s time to raise my taxes — and maybe even yours, too!

It’s doubtful anyone will be reading this column.  Who wants to be told they need to pay higher taxes, especially in mid-March, as income tax season is upon us?

Yet, buried in the news of this ludicrous Presidential election campaign is the troubling realization that our country is falling apart — literally.

The DC Metro in Washington shutdown on March 16, throwing that city into turmoil.

Electrical maintenance issues were blamed for creating safety issues that could have maimed or killed passengers.  In Congress, there was the usual pointless finger-pointing; the states of Maryland and Virginia blamed each other and the DC metro authority.  But the real issue was simply: lack of funds to keep up with needed repairs.

The DC Metro was just a symbol of maintenance issues plaguing nearly every major transit

Metro trains arrive in the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station Tuesday, March 15, 2016 in Washington. The head of the rail system that serves the nation’s capital and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs says the system will shut down for a full day Wednesday after a fire near one of the system’s tunnels. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

system in the U.S., estimated to equal $86 billions in repair backlog, according to a recent report on National Public Radio.  The Chicago Transit Authority claims it faces a $13 billion backlog in repairs, even though it recently spend $5 billion in upgrades, while much of  San Francisco’s famed BART system is in “end-of-life” status.

In Milwaukee County, it’s time to replace many of the buses in our system.  Perhaps, too, we should be increasing the number of routes and bus frequency — while keeping fares from being increased — to encourage more use of public transit.

Transit is just one of the many infrastructure burdens facing our nations.  A 2013 report from Transportation for America said that one in nine bridges in the U.S. are structurally deficient. Here in Wisconsin, we’re finally nearing the end of the long repairs to the Hoan Bridge following a partial collapse in 2000.  Repairs too were needed after the 2013 Lee Frigo Bridge sag over Green Bay Harbor.  No one was injured, fortunately, in those incidents; yet, should we ever forget the 2007 collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis that killed 13 and injured 145 others?

There’s so much work to be done!  Here in Milwaukee, our county government is facing a

Milwaukee’s iconic Mitchell Park Domes need costly repair, or face demolition.

decision as to what to be done with the now-closed Mitchell Park Domes, our iconic geodesic structures that bring us warmth and greenery in the depths of our long Wisconsin winters.  It’s been estimated that the cost of repairing the existing domes would cost between $65 and $75 million.

The Public Policy Forum, a nonpartisan research group, found that the capital needs of Milwaukee County’s arts and cultural facilities and parks totaled $246 million over the next five years. The forum noted that, since 2001, tax dollars for county-owned cultural facilities have been cut by more than 40% in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Consider, too, the constant road repairs and upgrades that are needed.  Our extreme weather changes from hot summers to frigid winters reeks havoc on our streets and now as spring approaches we’re dodging gaping potholes on our city streets.  (How well I know, having just spent good money on front end repairs to my car!)

Yes, we have lots of work to do in our country.

Meanwhile, we still need to pay for a military and intelligence network to protect us, to keep a competent police force, to maintain our fire departments, to provide for those who are unable to provide for themselves, to ensure a clean environment, to pay the interest on our national debt, and on and on.

There’s no question that many of us can and should pay more in taxes.  It’s also true that the poorest among us must not be hit with hidden taxes or forced to reach into their meager pockets for increased taxes.

Sadly, given the current political climate, there’ll be few politicians who will say taxes should go up.

The need to change the public dialogue on taxes is critical.  Those of us who can pay more, should.  It’s all part of being part of our society.  Alas, in the words of John Donne, “No man is an island.”

Please, let’s continue this dialogue.  What do you think?  — Ken Germanson, March 19, 2016.

Historical Look at How Wisconsin Lost Its Progressivism

(Following is an executive summary of a paper presented by Ken Germanson on Oct. 24 at the North American Labor History Conference in Detroit.  The full document is available here.)

It was tragically ironic: the year 2011 marked the 100th Anniversary of the passage in Wisconsin of pioneering, progressive, pro-worker legislation; it also became the year in which one of the most regressive, anti-labor laws would be passed – the infamous Act 10 that virtually ended the right of public employees to collectively bargain. Four years later, in March of 2015, the Wisconsin Legislature passed the so-called right-to-work law, followed by cutting back on the protections of the state’s David-Bacon Act covering construction trades unions.

This paper will seek to put some perspective on how that change occurred; it will seek to explain how a state that passed the nation’s first, lasting workers compensation law in 1911 and also passed the first full-fledged public employee collective bargaining law in 1959 would in 2011 and 2015 take away basic worker rights that would likely result in robbing them of much hope for a rewarding life of work.

Wisconsin had been viewed as a beacon of progressive laws, such as being one of the first to provide for election-day voter registration. National pundits have declared it a so-called Blue State that had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988.   We will look at how Wisconsin has joined the once-union-strong Rust Belt states like Michigan to become “open shop” states.

There are five basic reasons for the State’s abrupt turn against workers and unions:

1. The state has a split political personality; historically most of the counties in the state have voted Republican while the more urban, industrial areas have been Democratic. The split has always been there, even though the nature of the two parties has changed through the years.
2. The flight of industry to the South and later out of the country took away the state’s heavy concentrations of manufacturing bringing about the loss of union membership.
3. The mobilization of antiunion efforts by big business has grown more intense and effective in recent years, both in their handling of workers and in public education campaigns.
4. The stealth campaign waged by Governor Walker hid his true anti-worker agenda, making it possible to spring the damaging legislation on an unsuspecting public and labor movement.
5. Finally, the failure of the state’s labor unions throughout the years to mount an effective campaign to counter the growing antiunionism.

Wisconsin labor, however, is more determined than ever to rebound; its leaders are open to new ideas to make it happen. As one said, “We are awakened. We are like roaches: we will come back.”

(See full document here.)