Politics
LOCAL CONTROL
Local control has been the bedrock of democracy and is responsive to the needs and health of the community. At an alarming rate, the party in control of Wisconsin since 2011 has been assaulting our rights and freedoms to determine our destiny at the local level.
Over 65 Legislative Actions have dictated policies that restrict or reduce local control impacting Farmland Preservation, Public Instruction, Regional Transit, Shoreland Zoning Standards to name just a few.
The assault on our rights and freedoms at the local level continues in 2016 with the clueless ...
NO DEMOCRACY IN NW WISCONSIN
In NW Wisconsin we have one party rule. Currently there are no candidates to run against the incumbent Republican in the 7th Congressional District. The voters have no choice. Democracy is dead.
Why is this? The primary answer is money. According to the Wausau Daily Herald, the sole democratic candidate for the 7th District dropped out because he needed $1.5 million to have a viable campaign.[1] He had raised only $144,589 to his opponent's $926,000. But the whole electoral process also discourages good candidates. The length of the campaign, the attack ads, ...
JAY KRONENWETTER TO RUN FOR MAYOR OF WAUSAU
(Editor's Note: The following is information that Jay sent me about his candidacy and himself. Biographical background details from him that were in bullet points are presented in prose.)
I was born and raised in Wausau and after law school came home to start my legal practice. Having attended school in some fine cities such as Madison, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, I can confidently express my opinion that the people of Wausau, my neighbors, make this a town with unique benefits and opportunities that no other city can claim. True, we have much we can learn from the ...
WEALTH AND MONEY PART 2: PRODUCTIVE CAPABILITY VERSUS MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE
WEALTH AND MONEY
PART 2: PRODUCTIVE CAPABILITY VERSUS MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE
One cannot eat money. It cannot be used as clothing. A house or chair cannot be built out of money. One cannot ride to work in a dollar bill or use it to mow the lawn. This is because food and clothing, a furnished house, a car, and a lawnmower are wealth. Money is the claim to wealth, a medium of exchange accepted as valid by a society. It has no value in and of itself. In fact, the overwhelming majority of “money” doesn’t exist. It is simply an entry on a computer screen or in a ledger ...
IS A PRIVATE RETIREMENT SYSTEM POSSIBLE IN WISCONSIN?
Senate Bill 45 is a bill to begin to create a private retirement system in Wisconsin. Chief sponsors are Senator Dave Hansen and Representative Eric Genrich. This bill is an important first step for employees in the private sector who do not have access to a pension.
This bill does NOT create the actual retirement system. It allows for the creation of a private Retirement Security Board which would be enabled to study the creation of such a private system. The WRS (Wisconsin Retirement System might provide a framework for a private sector system, but the two systems ...
Three Cheers for Public Services
Three Cheers for Public Services
When people woke up this morning our guess is that they paid little attention to their tax dollars hard at work. Every morning, we shower, brush our teeth and make our coffee with clean drinking water provided by our local government with public employees.
Then hard working public workers leave their families early in the morning to plow our streets and highways so that we can get to work. Our tax dollars are hard at work. Public services work for our communities at a fair and reasonable cost.
However, if our public services were ...
ACTIVISM PAYS OFF
Four years ago, I started a petition to “Save the Wisconsin Retirement System.” Your overwhelming response spurred me to join POWRS (Protect Our Wisconsin Retirement Security), a group of activists steadily gaining clout in protecting the WRS. This message is one of two. It details my personal work on the WRS issue. The second will discuss my activities with POWRS. Please share both widely.
I have two points to make in this first email. (1): we must continue to be vigilant. I am convinced there is a deeply ingrained desire in powerful political circles to slowly ...
OUR MORAL COMPASS IN WISCONSIN
Our moral compass is “an inner sense which distinguishes what is right from what is wrong, functioning as a guide for morally appropriate behavior.”
A recent comment from state Republican Representative, Bob Gannon, should raise concerns regarding our moral compass and how it guides us as citizens of Wisconsin.
In response to an altercation involving a shooting at a mall in Madison, Gannon says citizens should arm themselves to “clean our society of these scum bags.” He says armed citizens should shoot to kill aiming for vital organs in the “center mass” ...
WEALTH AND MONEY: PART I
PART I: THE DESTRUCTIVE/CONSTRUCTIVE CONTRADICTION
Born in the late 1800’s, Frederick Soddy and R. Buckminster Fuller led extraordinary lives. Soddy won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1921 and Fuller became well known for his work in architecture and the development of the geodesic dome. Soddy was a British citizen, Fuller an American. Both were deeply rooted in science and the laws of physics, and both spent the latter half of their life trying to apply their knowledge of physical reality to making the world work for everyone. Inevitably their quest led them ...
WISDOM FROM RETIRING SENATORS
Five years ago, most of us were retired teachers, enjoying our retirement with grandchildren, gardening and other pursuits. Then February 2011 changed everything. We became politically active and began to write.
At the end of 2015 we are still active and still writing. We have connected with many other progressives throughout our beloved state of Wisconsin. We will win because we must.
What keeps us going? For one thing, history does. Read the article in this issue about President John Adams and his Patriot Act. Another thing are the speeches given by Wisconsin State ...
