Near Buffalo, NY, en route home from Madison, Wisconsin

Yesterday, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011, I took part in the latest of the large demonstrations at the Madison, Wisconsin State Capitol building against the attempt by Republican Governor Walker to strip collective bargaining rights for many of the public sector unions in the state and to launch sharp cutbacks. The late afternoon demonstration surrounded the Capitol with large contingents of union members, Wisconsin families, and progressive activists -- maybe 50,000 to 75,000 demonstrators in all, with more still arriving when I left, as dusk and a new dusting of snow began to fall across the city.

It’s quite possible that organizers hit their 100,000 target by day’s end. Certainly tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets, curb to curb, completely surrounding the Capitol on the four long city blocks that surround the state house square. Several thousand more demonstrators circled on the sidewalk at the base of the Capitol building, or stood on its wide steps or on the snow-covered slope of the Capitol lawn. Hundreds more continued the occupation inside the Capitol building.

In decades of participating in demonstrations and the occasional sit-in and occupation,