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Repubs are pushing false equivalence of 2011 Madison protest with 1 [1]

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Date: 2022-06-30

These images and false equivalence are being pushed by Repubs.

I WAS CURIOUS about a Repub who is running in the primary for a county office in my locality, and I went to the campaign FB page and found the above posted there.

SO I searched around a bit, and found this from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel dated Jan. 8, 2021:

Some Wisconsin Republicans have compared Wednesday's rampage in Washington, D.C. — when a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, driving lawmakers from the House and Senate floor as they smashed windows, ransacked offices and clashed with officers — to the 2011 Act 10 protests in Madison over then-Gov. Scott Walker's measure to all but end collective bargaining for most of Wisconsin's public workers. Both involved large crowds of people. Both were loud. And both occurred in and around a historic building. Walker himself compared the two on the size of the crowd and occupation of the statehouse. But there were stark differences between this week's riot at the U.S. Capitol aimed at overturning a presidential election and the protests at the state Capitol almost a decade ago. Here are some key differences. www.jsonline.com/...

Now I certainly recollect the Madison protest, and I remembered nothing about that which resembled the violent, destructive and deadly attack by the MAGA mob on the US Capitol. But if a Repub in my locality is pushing this disingenuous image, I expect it will crop up elsewhere.

AND I FOUND some more good links to put on that campaign FB page, and I’ll share them here.

Wisconsin state law allowed for the capitol to remain open as long as public debate continued about a pending bill. The teaching assistants noticed that the senate had failed to set a limit on the number of speakers on a floor debate about Walker’s bill, and so signed up thousands of people to offer testimony. This kept debate open indefinitely, as well as the capitol itself, and eventually turned the occupation into a twenty-four-hour speak-out, with a microphone set up in the middle of the rotunda. beautifultrouble.org/...

So no one broke into the Wisconsin State Capitol. The protestors cleverly used Wisconsin’s laws to occupy the capitol for a couple of weeks, i.e., no one broke in.

And then this:

Protesters had, by all accounts, policed themselves, including creating cleanup details and other organizational efforts. They used blue painters’ tape to hang their signs -- at the request of state officials. Some protesters said the state had actually provided the tape to avoid lasting damage. One day before the eye-popping damage estimate came out, a Madison historic preservation expert posted a blog item praising the conduct of the protesters. The protesters "have adopted an ownership ethic in the building, treating it with the utmost care and respect," wrote Jason Tish, executive director of the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation and a local field representative for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He called the demonstrators "evangelistic about their respect for the building." www.politifact.com/...

And then there is the lengthy wikipedia article:

On February 25, following rumors that the Capitol building would be closed and the protesters moved out, the head of the state's largest police union issued a statement urging Governor Walker to keep the Capitol open. Jim Palmer, the executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, went on to state that his organization stood with the protesters, despite the fact that law enforcement officers were exempt from the budget repair bill's collective bargaining changes. Palmer then called on off-duty officers to sleep in the Capitol that evening. Later that day, the Department of Administration announced that the Capitol building would remain open. en.wikipedia.org/...

SO IF YOU run into this false equivalence meme or other such nonsense on FB or wherever you roam, there’s some ammo for yer ammo box.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/30/2107659/-Repubs-are-pushing-false-equivalence-of-2011-Madison-protest-with-1-6

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