To Future Generations...

As we often hear claimed, when you post to the internet, it lasts forever. I hope that is true. I have something important to say and everyone, even the ones from my time need to have heard it. We often have seen the example played out that all facts go through three stages. First they are denied, later questioned and finally accepted. Think of what went on the last time you heard someone had passed away. Initially there was a reaction to the new information, "No!" it can't seem true, because we have yet to integrate that change in our reality. Then, we typically ask, "How did it happen?" Only after we have begun to make sense of the information can we then share it. The reason that I mention this is because each generation in turn tries to speak as much truth to power as we are able and to understand that those who have become the most complacent have a vested interest in not hearing, or not listening. Billions of dollars have been spent, in half my lifetime trying to convince people that climate change can't be true. Twenty years prior to that, vested interests successfully avoided reigning in production of CFC (chloroflourocarbons), even though science accurately predicted the depletion of the ozone layer.
These callous denials of truth speak volumes to the fact that money has far too much sway over our public discourse, the political landscape and the nature of the debate. I am currently fifty years old and may seem like I'm much older, but from the age of seven I knew that my entire life would be dedicated to teaching people about ecology. When the first Earthday took place, my parents refused to let me participate because as they said, The wealthy polluters will co-opt the environmental movement and green wash everything without changing their behavior one whit. My point is that the long history of activism has never let up our push toward truth telling, our urge to change things for the better. In my time there is a tendency to draw the political map as an arc. On the left, they say, are "Democrats", socialists and communists and on the right are what have been called "Republicans", conservatives and fascists. In my own pursuit of truth I have found that all of these terms can be more confounding than anything, obscuring the facts about both the political sub-cultures that exist, but the primary fact that all of us agree on far more than we disagree over. In fact, I am not the first to mention it, but when you swing the arc all the way 'round, you can come at "no government" on either side as you move around to the top of the circle. The Left approaches total freedom through Anarchy and from the other side of the political spectrum it is approached through Libertarianism.

We have been sold a bill of goods about politics. Those who, we have been told, constitute "the middle" are not. That improper designation has altered the course of history more than most of us would have liked. In fact, there are probably nearly as many libertarians and anarchists as there are folks between Democrat and Republican, socialist and fascist, communists and conservatives. this may be the first time you have been told this, so let me try describing this a different way. Some people believe that their rights to do whatever they want supersedes the public's right to stop them. Others believe that their rights end where the next person's nose begins. In an oligarchy, where capital supersedes the good of all, you could use anarchy to lend cover for exploitation, you could use democratic principles (if enough people could be convinced in the need for capital to flow unfettered). You might even be able to claim national value and find support through a fascist state. what changes is not the final state of affairs, just the route than needs to take place to allow the power and control to flow from whatever caprice strikes the powerful elites who wield the most power. Politics is the side effect, not the disease that we must eradicate from the planet if we (you) are to have a chance at survival.

In my time, I have worked in several dozen environmental "struggles", at least a dozen more social human rights and justice "struggles" and several dozen more "mobilizations" for peace. After a lifetime of standing as a continuing testament to sanity and rationality in decision-making, it seems that the powerful elites have only gotten better at their feigned disbelief. No matter what issue one chooses to take up, no matter how modest a proposal one makes, our representatives and leaders seem to blink in ignorance. sadly, far too often, our leaders are unable to even formulate a cogent question designed to help them understand the issue better. Many, who felt the time was right in the sixties to ban the bomb, Love Mother Nature and make love not war had the fight wrung out of them by encroaching responsibilities, like paying a mortgage or having insurance...heck, many had to give up a vagabond's life by just having to pay rent. But back in those days, there were far more people who considered themselves socialists or communists than there may be today, but it is not because their core beliefs changed...it is because other folks have perceptions the push them away from using those terms. Especially in farm country, but all through the nation co-pos exist. places where people who can't afford big ticket items pool resources to share an expensive thing. Truthfully, even some corporate execs "share" jets. This is socialism. If you took the time to explain to most farmers that they were indeed socialists, because they hire out planting or harvesting because of the high cost of equipment, or take their seed to a cooperatively owned grain elevator. Perhaps something as simple as volunteering for the local fire company might just seem like the "right thing to do", but in their eyes, perhaps none of those things seem socialist to them. Same with the "conservatives". They might claim that they have every right to squander whatever resources they have the wherewithal to pay for. This is a common belief amongst those who gobble up more than their share of resources. Conserving has nothing to do with the term conservative.

The USA has a peculiar way of saying that people are either "conservative" or "liberal", but in my lifetime most "liberals" were the ones driving foreign cars and conserving fuel, decades before the first "oil crisis". Conservatives will say that "they" support limited government, (quizzically many liberals agree on that point) but under their leadership, government spending has risen more under than under administrations that leaned "left". There have always been those who knew that the in fighting and debates over what terms to use for debate, or what part each of us plays in the political spectrum have all been created falsely by those who seek to divide us and conquer public opinion. The people of the planet need to help leaders from every continent see the fallacy of opposition. what we are all opposed to is Imperialism, nationalistic fascists, religious zealots and ideologues, oppression in every form, and the extractive economies that pay no heed to the suffering they create amongst the people. Now, and for future generations the people of the Earth must stand for protection of mother earth, protection of the "commons", so that the planet can support as many of us in the future as possible. Our drive needs to change from amassing large fortunes to distribution of wealth, and resources more equitably. We are creating ever-larger food deserts and forcing more and more people into spending more and more of their lives in them, just to support ultra wealthy individuals and corporations. It seems that the harder that the public fights for limits, the more violent, and well-funded, the opposition to create any meaningful change becomes. In the future you may ask, "Where were the people, when these fights needed to be fought?" I say to you that we have not lost on account of lack of trying, but rather we were often overlooked or marginalized by well-funded elites bent on having their way with the future. Public subsidies in the form of birth defects, poverty, bankruptcy, dislocation, disease, disability or creating squalor for the sake of "development", or profitability are criminal. They always have been and they will forever be unjust, but until we can teach the oppressors that they will not be tolerated, they will continue to crush our rights to lubricate the machines of capital, aka power and control.

Wisconsin's Current Crop of Hot Heads

The rethuglicans are gloating over their recent rise to power, riding the coat tails of public opinion that the government has been spending money like a drunken sailor and promising to rescue us with their crisis management style brought about by fear and hate. Ironically, the recent economic crash has been far more gentle here in our state, mainly because unemployment never spiked to the levels of other states and the excesses of the multimillionaires did not have as much traction here as they did elsewhere. Although we have one or two cities that are in dire straights, these are the result of long-term structural changes that have isolated whole communities from sources of capital, strangled the commercial sector and foisted poverty on the vast majority of the population. Nothing that the current crop of rich white males is relying on to "save our state" will help those people. In fact their gerrymandering (redrawing district lines to favor their candidates) has led to a situation in which hundreds of thousands of people will remain disenfranchised, unable to vote for a state senator for six years. As you might guess, the vast majority of these people are poor, of color and their neighborhoods are probably the most in need of enlightened vision, not the policies of old that created the ghettos in which they are forced to survive, of any in the state. The cities most reliant on heavy industry really took it on the chin and will continue to have growing pains as we shift into a new, sustainable society.

Wisconsin, after two years of rule by Governor Scott Walker (R) ranks forty-seventh(47th) out of fifty states in job creation. Up until a couple months ago, the ranking was dead last. Unemployment is terminally over ten percent in the largest city in our state, but his mega-bail outs for his corporate sponsors are directed to the smallest towns, where the locals still feel that they are under threat. Under threat of what, I cannot understand. The only explanation for this fear, that I can fathom, is that the rich white males are hoping the locals in these areas are as bigoted as the rethuglicans hope they are. These folks, "new rethuglicans" posit, for the most part, the people they represent are like them, accustomed to male-dominated lily-white view of the world that was the rule throughout the last century. This is the very world-view that they see the world from and it is like a containment vessel that thrives on prejudicial language as well as that nasty old Calvinist belief that only good people are living to god's plan, proven to them through economic prowess and refined taste. The dark side cuts with unsavory vehemence for those who are obviously morally suspect, simply because of their poverty and what it reflects about their "goodness". These beliefs have power over their perception. It is because of their "moral values" that we have the most to fear. Even though state wide, we have some of the lowest unemployment in the nation, the drum beat of lies that we get from our political "leaders" is that we need to create jobs in the private sector at all costs. "We have fallen and we can't get up.", without the help of giant corporations, seems to be their watch word. This in a state with fiercely independent voters and citizens that have seen the historical record of wealth much more drastically than many other states. We see daily, the artifacts of pollution, rape of Mother Earth, the results of socialist programs like the WPA and CCC. We can attest to the value of our education and the blessings of community support and interaction. After the first oppressors had their way with our state, lying, cheating and despoiling the reations between our government and the people, huge cash reserves were removed at great cost to Wisconsin's original residents. The toxic legacy of mining and the loss of soil that came with early "development" was the result of well-heeled interests running over the public for profit. The same relationships of exploitation and extraction has been applied to nearly everything of value in our state. It is just as well, there can be no way found of capitalizing on the rich family and community that we feel in our hearts, for if there were, that too would have been extracted by the rich fiends. We have more than enough examples of the way the power brokers exploit whatever they can for profit. Nary a tree was left after the lumber boom and after 90% of our forest had been decimated, The Peshtigo Fire, fed by tinder dry slash, ravaged the most populated part of our state. Their was a "land boom" here, that was more devastating than the recent housing market crash. It even drained more fortune than the recent financial market crash. Nearly every citizen in our state lost their entire life's work to fund the lavish lifestyles of a few souls. Again, wealthy interests sold off land with a fervor that had been unrivaled in human history. They extracted money from the burgeoning population on the promise that the newly deforested landscape was well-suited for wheat production.

Residents put their back into their living back then as they do now. One man, with an ox, could clear about an acre of stumps each year, but by the time they discovered that the wheat harvest would crash after about three years of production, they were left with nothing but land that was best suited for forest and no way to restore the ecosystem. All that could live on the destitute soil was grass. At the time, caring for livestock was "women's work". It took a massive swallowing of pride to make Wisconsin the dairy state, but our white ancestors have become adept at swallowing their pride in service to the ultra-wealthy.

Milwaukee, our largest city used to be a hotbed of socialist ideology. We raised a crop of politicians in the last century that saw first-hand the depraved greed that wealthy men use to guide "development" in our state. Hard-working men and women have subsidized the wealth of people far away, supported their lavish lifestyles, and suffered at the hands of these callous thugs who, for too long, have taken their cut for protection, for the privilege of dealing with them or for their luxuries and your burden. The socialist revolution was on. Many continue to call Wisconsin home because of the long history of social activism, environmental protection and the value we place on education, family and service. From the Co-ops of rural communities to the pride we have in our schools, we have proof positive that without commitment to our communities, the rich will bleed us all dry.
There are many among us, and we hope that we are in the majority, who can smell a fish and tell if it is bad, who can see a liar and identify them and to suss out who is acting like they care so they can cheat us in the end.