The goal of a general strike need not have been “regime change,” it could have been confined to forcing Walker to abandon the legislation, or it could have been simply punitive. One could just as easily wonder what the near term goal of a successful 3-recall campaign might have been; though tangible wins, you’d still have Walker and the House to contend with. Re the public support needed: (1) it might have been there at the time, and particularly (2) in the Madison / Milwaukee / maybe LaCrosse urban areas of WI. Instead the fight was moved to the conservative ‘burbs surrounding those areas. It’s as if Paul Revere had decided to fly to London to oppose the British march to Lexington instead of rallying Massachusetts residents.

You speak of potentially successful positive, tangible outcomes — but tangible outcomes for whom and for what? There’s evidence of Dem Party leadership and candidates diluting the issues of labor rights to near unrecognizability. Now that’s arguably what they needed to do to win those elections — but that’s my point. People had rallied to labor and collective bargaining rights as human rights, but that was abandoned in favor of a ‘let’s elect more Democrats’ campaign.

Or so I worry. I don’t live there, and people I respect like Mary worked for these campaigns and don’t think a general strike would have had much success there. I hope they’re right that these electoral campaigns are the best use of the considerable energy progressive Wisconsin has brought to the fight.

I honestly don’t understand what the reasonably-expected outcome of a general strike is supposed to be. In a parliamentary system (or a moderately-sized country), I could see one bringing down the government. But I don’t see Walker resigning in the face of such a strike (at least, not in the short term), and I think a lot of people on his side of the fence would see the stakes as clearly as you do and would encourage him to ‘stay the course’ precisely to deny the Left a ‘demonstrable win’.

In order for a general strike to be successful, would it not be reasonable to believe that you’d have to have the overall public support that would be sufficient to generate three recall wins out of six (even if those districts were historically tilted Republican)?

BTW, it’s good to see you back!

Best of luck going after Walker — sincerely. You and your state deserve better.

Re “very unlikely to along with a general strike… don’t think it’s in our nature,” I guess I think after the huge protests in Madison, you’re maybe selling yourself and your fellow Badgers a little short there. No one else came close to doing what Wisconsin did. Though I was hundreds of miles away, I know I joined hundreds and thousands of people in demonstrations and even an occupation of a lobbyist building in support of you all.

A general strike sounds radical and is risky, but my sense is that it can also be a time of huge solidarity. Seems to me no one does that better than Wisconsin. Keep up the great work.

I think the problem is, though, that midwesterners especially are very unlikely to go along with a general strike. Honestly, and perhaps sadly, I just don’t think it’s in our nature.

Like I say, I’m not advocating reversing course and not trying to recall Walker. The die is cast, the recall strategy is the one that was chosen — this time. I’m trying to open a discussion about when a general strike is the way to go. You’re right that it’s a very big deal, one that can cost people their jobs. I’d only advocate it when the stakes were very, very high. I thought and think this might have been such a time.