Celebrate Earth Day
Earth Day is April 18, 2018. This year’s focus is Ending Plastic Pollution. Single-use plastics are a growing menace to the health of our planet.
The goal is to get rid of single-use plastics. Educate people about the health risks connected with the use and disposal of plastics, including pollution of our oceans, water and wildlife.
Plastics poison and injure marine life. Plastics in our food disrupt human hormones. Earth Day 2018 promotes 100% recycling of plastics as well as alternatives to fossil-fuel based materials. Educate people worldwide to reject, reduce, ...
KEEP WISCONSIN ELECTIONS SECURE
(Karen McKim is Co-ordinator of www.WisconsinElectionIntegrity, org)
Democracy will appreciate it if you contact the WI Elections Commission in the next few days to tell them to seek newly available federal funds to bring routine election auditing to Wisconsin.
Election security is finally getting some of the official attention it has long needed. Mark Pocan has sponsored legislation, HR1562, the Secure America's Future Election Act, which would make unaudited elections illegal. However, we can get improvement in Wisconsin before Pocan’s bill passes (it won't, at ...
Fixing the National Debt with Better Alternatives
Government, like individuals, borrows money and has debt. Debt can be a problem if you have too much and can't make the payments. It can be a problem if you are using debt for the wrong reasons. Partying on the credit card is not good. Using debt to invest in your future (buying a house, starting a business, going to college) can be a wise choice. Unfortunately much of our federal spending is not spent wisely to build the public good or invest in our people's future.
There are three major causes of federal debt: excessive military spending, excessive health care costs, ...
THE UNIVERSAL ECONOMY UNIT III: SUMMER CAMP AND FIAT MONEY
Imagine boy scouts at summer camp. They are living in the “Buffalo” cabin and “Sam” is their adult troop leader. Camp is fun, but there is much to be done to ensure the cabin functions smoothly. Floors swept, beds made, trash carried out, bathroom cleaned, food prepared, dishes washed, fire wood split and so on. Sam spends lots of time cajoling the scouts to do their chores.
Tired of the “battle,” Sam decides to create a “money” system that allows his scouts to earn payment for doing their chores which can then be exchanged for things each boy ...
UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME… ARE WE READY FOR IT?
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an idea that has been around for a while. With automation replacing blue-collar and white-collar jobs, UBI is needed. Forty-eight percent of Americans favor UBI.
Universal Basic Income is a simple system where the government gives people a set amount of money each month. Would UBI replace the safety net? Many details would need to be worked out. The system gives an equalizing floor from which all people start.
How much per month? Some say $1000 a month, some say more and some say less. Child allowance could be $250 or $300 each month. ...
SPOTLIGHT ON HOMELESSNESS, Part 2
Pam Anderson, co-chair of the Marathon County Housing and Homelessness Coalition, spoke about a husband and wife who became homeless after a car accident. The husband lost his job due to his injuries and had to be retrained for a different job. They slept on the floor in the attic of the wife’s father’s home. It was four years before they got back on their feet.
In Marathon County, 41% of families are living from paycheck to paycheck. Ten percent of ALICE families are below the poverty level. (2017 United Way Quality of LIFE report for Wausau and Marathon County)...
People Are More Important Than Guns
Children at “March For Our Lives” events carried signs saying, “I am more important than your gun.” This message should be applied to our nation and its spending priorities. People are more important than guns. People are more important than war. People are more important than our obsession with national “security.” The same politicians who don't understand that guns don't make our schools, or our communities, safe also don't understand that guns do not make the world safe.
Our huge, excessive spending on war, and preparation for war, does not keep us safe. ...
NINE MORE COMMUNITIES VOTE TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION
On Tuesday, April 3rd, Wisconsin residents in nine communities voted to amend the U.S. Constitution to clarify that only human beings should have inalienable human rights and money is not the same thing as free speech.
All referenda passed with overwhelming majorities: Green County (78%), St. Croix County (77%), the cities of La Crosse (88%), Marshfield (81%), Sun Prairie (83%), Rice Lake (81%), the villages of McFarland (79%) and Wittenberg (83%), and the town of Sand Creek (77%) in Dunn County.
That brings the total to 129 Wisconsin communities that have called for ...
#Me Too
Survivors of sexual assault and harassment saying “me too” is not new. They have been saying it for a long time, but something has now changed. More people are listening.
You can think back to 2002 and the hundreds of young boys saying “me too” as the silence around priests abusing children finally broke. Hundreds of boys said “me too” in 2011, as Jerry Sandusky was brought to justice.
In 2014 we heard “me too” from dozens of women that said they were drugged and assaulted by Bill Cosby. While #metoo was trending, we learned of the hundreds of young ...
FARMERS UNION: AGITATE, ORGANIZE, EDUCATE AND COOPERATE
By Tom Giessel, NFU Historian
Owen Franklin Dornblazer was the 11th person to join The Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America in 1902. He lived to the age of 94 and was active in organizational and membership work until the final few months of his life. At age 85, addressing the 1926 NFU convention, he said, “There was nothing for those who began it, only the future.” I believe that statement still rings true today.
So, what about our future? Over the years, farmers and ranchers have struggled with tough times, but today’s free-fall of the rural ...
