Your State

Last summer I heard through the grapevine that a small group was meeting weekly in Tompkins Square Park to plan a protest against Wall Street.  A few friends invited me to attend, but I never made the time. I had been to a couple of demonstrations in the financial district and none had made me feel particularly empowered or inspired. I wasn't very optimistic that this time would be different.

Last week, Wisconsin Judge Juan Colas struck down sections of Governor Scott Walker’s signature legislation, known as Act 10, which restricts the power of workers and unions in the state. Passage of Act 10 lead to the Wisconsin uprising of 2011.

The decision reopens the topic for debate just weeks before the election and will serve to further deepen the divide that has been driven into Wisconsin’s polity. Since Gov. Walker’s victory in the Recall Election, many have viewed the issue as dead, but with Colas’ decision it rises like a phoenix, complete with new predictions and correlations.

This is an adapted version of an earlier, longer article by the same title, which was part of series on evolutionary logics of collective action.