The Protest Scott Walker/Forward Janesville Facebook page lied. They had 356 signed up to attend but I would swear 1,000 showed up by 5:30 PM. A count from one of the organizers put the attendance at 1,532. But that kind of miscalculation, if I may call it that, is perfectly okay with me because it was a beautiful day in Janesville to go for a walk and exercise the vocal cords. There were lots of handmade signs on display all around as protesters lined both sides of the entrance street to the Holiday Inn forcing Walker's dinner guests in their Denalis and Benz through a middle class "gauntlet." It must have made their skin crawl to see hard workin' dirty finger nails and teacher's clip boards up so close. I was constantly moving around on both sides and caught glimpses of John Nichols from The Nation/CapTimes and John "Sly" Sylvester in attendance.
I was somewhat surprised to see so many of Forward Janesville dinner guests pointing antagonistically towards protesters and laughing from inside their cars as they drove through the gauntlet. A few turned around as they approached the Inn entrance doors and flipped the bird our way in a final salute before entering. Not many noticed it as most of the attention was kept focused on the protesters in the street.
Whatever the Janesville Gazette tried to conjure up against the protesters over the past two weeks failed to materialize. No counter protesters were noticed and no employees from the Gazette were arrested.
In the video below, I was stationed near the middle of the street facing the other way when everyone reclaimed the street and marched up through the middle to the Holiday Inn cul-de-sac entrance. Because of that I was unable to pan the scene or capture a wider view.
Slideshow here.
1 comment:
Official JPD estimate was 1,000 to 1,200.
Post a Comment