The Remarkable Nettie McGee
Mid-August we lost Nettie McGee, one of the most dedicated and passionate activists in Wisconsin. Nettie's was a longtime OWR (Our Wisconsin Revolution) member and a dedicated volunteer that fought for environmental, social, and economic justice her entire life. When I first met Nettie she was at a rally fighting for increased wages for low wage workers at an event put on by the Poor People’s Campaign. She was someone who was willing to put herself on line to fight for the rights of others. It was that quality that made Nettie a special ...
Remembering Ted
Ted Sperduto passed away on December 3, 2021. Ted was one of the founders and leaders of NAOMI (Northcentral Congregations Organized to Make and Impact). Ted left us doing what he did best, responding to a friend in need, responding to a request for help. On Sunday, August 21, 2022, Ted's friends from NAOMI gathered on the east lawn of the First Presbyterian Church in Wausau where a tree has been planted in Ted's memory. There is also a bench where one can sit and reflect. It is there where friends gathered for an informal service and a chance to express their ...
Water Celebration Address
Welcome to the Second Annual Water Celebration. We have much to celebrate—there is no sulfide mine next to the Menominee River. If permitted, the proposed Back Forty sulfide mine would be a perpetual pollution machine discharging acid mine drainage to ground- and surface waters in perpetuity.1 So we have to continue with our opposition because the Gold Resource Corporation has taken over the permitting process after Aquila Resources was forced into bankruptcy.
The effort to protect the Menominee River has been going on for over 20 years. How did we get to this point? ...
Women for Women Postcard Campaign
Have you always wanted to help out with an election but you just were not sure where you feel comfortable? Women for Women has an awesome postcard campaign that needs your help. The AFL-CIO has provided us with 1200 postcards and we certainly need your help! Choose 25 to 50 postcards, and we won't stop you if you want more. They are already addressed and stamped and we provide you with a script of writing ideas. When you are done, toss them in the mail. Helping out has never been easier. Contact Nancy Stencil at 715.581.7983, call or text.
Are you registered to ...
Water Protectors
Water Protectors: The H.E.L.P. Campaign to Save the Penokees
You need to read this book.
The H.E.L.P. Campaign to save the Penokees is still powerful in showing what grassroots organizing can do and what community activism looks like.
Back in 2013 I arrived in Mellen with several others from the Wausau area. We were greeted by none other than the author of this book, Nick Vander Puy. Along with him were Penokee Pete and Paul DeMain, and several others. It was an educational day for me up there, one of many that would follow. That day in Mellen at the Penokee ...
Right Wing Think Tanks Are Who Is Really Behind Bias Reporting On College Campuses
Free speech on college campuses is being stifled, however the push to limit free speech was not started by some woke left wing mob. Oh no. It was started by a right wing organization that calls itself Students For Academic Freedom, which is a bit of a misnomer because their key goal is to strip academic freedom from faculty they disagree with. This stifling of free speech did not start all that recently; it can be traced back to the early aughts.
I was attending graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 2005 when I first became aware of this ...
God Isn’t a Republican and Republicans Are Not Godly
“And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah. This is what the Lord Almighty said, 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner, or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.” Zechariah 7:8-10
It is unfathomable to me that fundamentalist Christians so ardently support the Republican party. Few Republican politicians exhibit any of the “fruits of the spirit” that supposedly identify true Christians. Nor does the Republican agenda reflect any Christian teachings.
Both ...
Protect Voting by Mail
Wisconsinites, wherever we live and no matter our physical abilities or disabilities, should have the freedom to vote.
But by banning ballot drop boxes, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has made it more difficult for people in rural and urban areas from voting by absentee ballot.
And it tried to deny persons with physical disabilities from getting assistance in the delivery of their absentee ballots, but federal law still requires such assistance.
What’s more, a Republican-dominated committee of the Legislature said it didn’t want clerks to be able to fix the ...
MARATHON COUNTY COMMITTEES’ MINING MEETING
I attended the joint meeting of Marathon County’s Environmental Resources and Metallic Mining Committees’ meeting at the Marathon County Courthouse, as a landowner and taxpayer in Marathon County. I was there to witness citizen’s concerns regarding the Canadian company, GreenLight Metals, Inc. and the mining company’s presentation who has applied for a permit for a metallic mining exploration at the Easton Reef Deposit.
It was shocking to witness the lack of respect and treatment of our fellow citizens as they spoke to the committee of their concerns. Only 2 ...
His Inner Search
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, an exodus from the cities brought hundreds of new settlers to the Arkansas Ozarks. Their personal stories are testaments to an awakening shared by many of the Baby Boom generation, personal and communal. This interview is one of 32 personal stories gathered in 1999-2000, and published in Aquarian Revolution: Back to the Land.
I didn’t like the way I was treated as a kid. I was beaten regularly. I don’t think I’ve cried since I was seven years old, because if I cried, they would beat me with a leather strap until I stopped ...