Wisconsin Solidarity Schooled Scott Walker's Cops and Dave Cieslewicz

Solidarity Sing Along

Now that Scott Walker's cops have been put in their place by the Wisconsin community; viz: Walking, talking and observing is not grounds for arrest no matter what David Erwin, Walker's cop-in-chief believes, it's worth noting who in Madison besides Walker and Erwin blew this one.

Madison's ex-Mayor, Dave Cieslewicz screwed up again.

Cieslewicz has been hostile to the Solidarity Sing Along since 2011.

Faced with Walker and Erwin's escalating assault against free speech, Cieslewicz wrote in late July: "So, the singers had a couple of options. They could have kept their numbers below twenty or they could have gotten a permit. They chose to do neither I guess out of a sense of some sort of principle."

In a constitutional democracy, there are many more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in Cieslewicz' politics.

Three points:

The singers are an organic group; no one knows who is going to show up. Often, it's just families with children watching and listening to the singing for a few minutes, applauding, laughing and passing through. Erwin of course wanted to arrest them too.

The second point is that Cieslewicz knows perfectly well the organic nature of this ever-changing group, in a word. Folks believe they have the right to walk to the capitol, express their thoughts and leave. This is what Cieslewicz derides as "some sort of principle."

Finally, Cieslewicz also knows perfectly well that if some other group has an event the singers will move outside and sing songs, a fact ignored by GOP media such as the Wisconsin State Journal ... and Cieslewicz.

As Republicans, with some rhetorical help from Cieslewicz, continue their appalling effort to cleanse Wisconsin history of the capitol as an open space, the people's cultural and political gathering area, one wonders what Cieslewicz has in mind for his next run at public office. 
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Just how around-the-bend were Erwin and Walker's cops?

See Officer Michael J. Syphard grab videographer Arthur Kohl-Riggs and throw him to the ground and inexplicably scream at him. Cieslewicz finds Kohl-Riggs "annoying," just as Syphard apparently does.