Jane McAlevey laments the senescence of the labor union movement and urges progressives to fight on to preserve big Government and Big Labor, i.e. to keep us bound to the twentieth century.
Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest sees in this upheaval, which he argues is absolutely necessary and which will be soon sweeping well beyond Madison, an opportunity to create something entirely new.
Both articles are lengthy but make for very informative reading.
It's noteworthy that one of the left-most writers at Time magazine, Joe Klein, seems to recognize the absurdity of the Democratic "strategy" in Wisconsin. Klein writes:
Isn't it, well, a bit ironic that the protesters in Madison, blocking the state senate chamber, are chanting "Freedom, Democracy, Union" while trying to prevent a vote? Isn't it ironic that the Democratic Senators have fled the democratic process? Isn't it interesting that some of those who--rightly--protest the assorted Republican efforts to stymie majority rule in the U.S. Senate are celebrating the Democratic efforts to stymie the same in the Wisconsin Senate?It is indeed ironic. Progressives in Wisconsin are holding back the progress that conservatives are trying to unleash.
An election was held in Wisconsin last November. The Republicans won. In a democracy, there are consequences to elections and no one, not even the public employees unions, are exempt from that. There are no guarantees that labor contracts, including contracts governing the most basic rights of unions, can't be renegotiated, or terminated for that matter.
We hold elections to decide those basic parameters. And it seems to me that Governor Scott Walker's basic requests are modest ones--asking public employees to contribute more to their pension and health care plans, though still far less than most private sector employees do. He is also trying to limit the unions' abilities to negotiate work rules--and this is crucial when it comes to the more efficient operation of government in a difficult time.