Government
A Special Primer on Peace Initiatives Between Israel and Palestine
Please Join Our Peace Dialogue Group
For
A Special Primer on Peace Initiatives
Between Israel and Palestine
Tuesday, July 25
6 to 7 pm
Marathon County Library Meeting Room
Featured Speakers: Karen and Tom Getman, Lifelong Activists and Humanitarians from Washington, DC
We are honored to have Karen and Tom Getman visiting Wausau this July. Tom was the Director of World Vision for 25 years. Tom and Karen have lived and worked in South Africa, Palestine, Israel and Geneva, Switzerland supporting social justice and humanitarian ...
The Jefferson Project: Thomas Jefferson’s Death Day and a Fourth of July Remembrance
Back in the mid-1980s, an outfit called Anvil Press published a book of mine. Its title was—still is—Nature’s Unruly Mob: Farming and the Crisis in Rural Culture. The topic (or its urgency) hasn’t gone away.
Anvil Press printed the book as a special issue of its occasional quarterly magazine, North Country Anvil. The magazine was full of larger-issue farm news and analysis, and it made the Anvil shop a hub and gathering spot for farm activists—all this in southeastern Minnesota, in a village called Millville, nestled below limestone bluffs, through which the ...
Profiles in Patriotism
In my writing I have frequently questioned the false narratives and harmful beliefs fostered by politicians and the media on our patriotic holidays. Why is patriotism considered the highest virtue? Why is military service always portrayed as the ultimate in patriotism? Why are other public servants who sacrifice for others not honored as patriots? Why is constructive criticism of our country branded as unpatriotic? Why isn't patriotic fervor used to mobilize people for good change instead of wars?
Historian Howard Zinn taught us that “dissent is the highest form of ...
JUST MONEY FOUR
Money and wealth are not the same thing.
Money is simply a medium of exchange – a legally accepted claim to wealth. Money doesn’t exist in nature and is generally created out of thin air by the central governments of nations. In our modern world 97% of money doesn’t physically exist. It’s just record keeping on computer screens. The distribution of money – who possesses it – determines the allocation and distribution of the wealth of a nation.
Wealth is the physical ability to provide for the wellbeing of the people of a society. Wealth is food, clothing, ...
Anaem Omot
Congratulations to the Menominee Tribe! Anaem Omot is a sacred and historically important area that deserves national recognition and protection from threats like the Back Forty Mine. In the photograph within a ceremonial dance ring L-R are Dr David Overstreet, David "Nahwahquaw" Grignon, Tony Brown, Kahkamahut Waupekenay, Glen Miller, Lupi Corn, Lois Turney, Aaliyah Webster, and Dawn Wilber.
The Anaem Omot or Sixty Islands area of the Menominee River is located about 16 miles east of Stephenson, Michigan. The settlement remains date back roughly 10,000 ...
JUST MONEY THREE
One of the most pernicious myths regarding US Federal Government monetary operations, is that our Federal government budget is like a household budget – it must get money before it can spend money. This leads to another deeply ingrained, and equally false belief – that our taxes pay for Federal Government spending.
Let these two myths, these two falsehoods, sink in - - - our Federal government has no money of its own and, like our households, it must get money before it can spend money - - - and the way our Federal government gets money is to collect taxes from us, ...
Democracy Can Quell Fake Conspiracy Theories
We live in an uncertain era. Uncertainty breeds a quest for security, a sense of control and meaning in life. That makes all of us marks for people on the make looking for someone to con. The media and internet are filled with all sorts of messages that play to specific vulnerabilities of certain groups of people. There is money to be made and power to be garnered. One of the main techniques is to spawn fake conspiracy theories. How can we tell when we are being subjected to a conspiracy theory? Is it possible to tell what is a real conspiracy and what is a fake ...
Abandonment and the Gerrymandering of Resentment
Anyone who’s paid attention knows that Wisconsin is a tightly gerrymandered state. The geopolitical scrabble of electoral districts enables the Republican Party to hold large majorities in both the Assembly and the Senate. Those majorities come from districts far more rural than urban. They’re also rather working class in cultural disposition.
There is a racial element in these gerrymandered districts—black and urban versus white and rural—but the racial thing is less endemic racist than it is a polarized absence of cultural interaction. The race thing is real, ...
JUST MONEY TWO
We are currently witnessing the final (now annual) arguments between members of congress and whoever is President, over the “debt ceiling.” As always, there is wringing of hands and the endless alarms about “mortgaging our grandchildren” regarding the “unsustainable” national debt. “Government spending needs to be cut” (except, of course, the military/industrial/congressional complex – unanimous bi-partisan support there). So, as always, the items on the chopping block are, unlike endless military spending, the things that actually defend average, working ...
Science
What is science? Science has become a segregated branch of knowledge practiced by those who apply its methods in a systematic way. In reality, we all practice science. It is our method of learning through trial and error. We see a problem, devise a way to solve it, and try various techniques to come to a successful solution. The universe was created by bringing order to the chaos that proceeded it. That order is understandable by humans who have developed critical faculties to pose questions, propose answers and test results. People who are specialized in this ...