Since I couldn't find a good transcript anywhere on the Internet, I went ahead and wrote down Tony Schultz's speech, for a clearer record and presentation. There's only a couple spots that I couldn't figure out what he was saying, and they're not really important. If anyone knows what he was saying, do tell. I chose to exclude exclamation points, since the entire speech is essentially in an exclamation-point voice, and I'm pressed for time. I really hope it's all spelled correctly, because I'm pressed for time.
My name is Tony Schultz, and I'm a member of Family (something?) National Farmers Union. I'm a third generation family farmer, born and raised on a fifty cow dairy with my family. Today, my partner Kat and I, we wanna run our farm as a hundred and fifty member
CSA with beefers and maple syrup and chickens and pigs... And I came back to the family farm after college, because of my values. And it's the values I'm reminded of every time I look at my state's license plate, and see that little red barn. And it's values that I think overlap entirely with the values of the labor movement. Family farmers, like the labor movement, value the dignity of being able to have some control over your work, and your life. To be empowered by your work, and not alienated by it. Family farmers, like the labor movement, value the means to have a beautiful and constructive setting to raise a family. Family farmers, like the labor movement, value economic democracy. What is a union anyway, but working people coming together, acting together, to improve their lives. And that is what we're here to do: to act together and speak together, in solidarity. Saying, "We reject this union busting bill, and we reject this budget."
Solidarity between farmers and workers is an old and sacred alliance of producers, that dates back beyond the populist movement. When workers and farmers came together, to struggle for a progressive income tax, for a financial system that served the people, for unions and the eight-hour day. And we stand together today. Listen to these quotes from populists over a hundred and twenty years ago:
Tom Watson, a Georgia populist said, and this couldn't be truer, "the fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up the fortunes of a few, unprecedented in human history."
Ignatius Donnelly, a Minnesota populist said in 1890, "the interests of rural and urban labor are the same, their enemies are identical." For more than a hundred years, we have been fighting together, we have been picketing together, we've been
dumping milk, we've been sitting in, we've been blocking traffic, and we are going to take this state back.
And then there are those who tell us, "this isn't a farmers' issue." If those people have petty resentment that then is amplified by right-wing radio, until they think that a fireman's pension is the problem. And then there are groups that represent this evil; the Dairy Business Association was here on Wednesday, the (eighth?) day at the capitol saying, hooray for Walker's budget. Well I want you to know that those aren't farmers. They're agribusiness corporations with a few farms up front. And I want Wisconsin and the world to know that this is the real (eighth?) day at the capitol. This is a farmers' issue; it's a farmers' issue because our rural schools are getting decimated by this budget, and they are the centers of our small towns and rural communities. In my home town of Athens, fourteen of forty four teachers got pink slips - will be laid off because of this budget. It's bad for our children's education, it's bad for the stability of our town, it's bad for the very future of our school district, and we say no. It's a farmers' issue, because Scott Walker wants to hack
Badgercare - eleven thousand family farm members depend on Badgercare, because of the exclusivity of for-profit health insurance companies, and because the pathetic and volatile price we receive for milk and other commodities that don't meet the cost of our production. We depend on this. We support Badgercare. It's a farmers' issue because we have been battling for corporate power for more than a century. This budget could not be a clearer manifestation of corporate power, and we say no. It's a farmers' issue because public workers are our friends, and our neighbors, and our family members, and we stand in solidarity with them. It's a farmer's issue because we know that we're all in this together, we go up together or we go down together.
The way I see it, we've got two choices. I can have my unions busted, and stand alone and be pitted against my neighbor, in a desperate and unequal economy. Or we can come together to say, "this is what our families need, this is what our communities need, this is what a just wage is, this is what democracy looks like." It's a farmers' issue because we are saying, that an injury to one is an injury to all. Solidarity!
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Topic: Work Tomorrow (Wisconsin Protest) (Read 36790 times)