September 5, 2010
Our week
Nine years ago, several veterans of the successful battle to keep Nestle-Perrier out of Wisconsin gathered in the Dells for a Saturday breakfast. The agenda was simple. Could we organize a statewide meeting every fall to make plans to help one another take on the powers that be? There was, in one sense, no urgency. But in a broader view, immediate action was required. We felt that we were running out of time and that democracy was fast disappearing.
We agreed to find a fair ground to hold the event and off we went in search of the perfect fairgrounds. We invited speakers, gave notice to our friends, and give it a try. One said, "Make no small plans," and we followed that advice. We ultimately called it "Fighting Bob Fest" after the famous Wisconsin progressive.
Jim Hightower was really the instigator by calling for a national "rolling thunder" Chautauqua that would awaken the progressives among us throught the land.
We went beyond Perrier of course. We opposed war, urged a renewed war on poverty, called for publicly financed elections. More than 50,000 have attended Bob Fest. (And those are not Michele Bachmann numbers!)
In less than a week we will again meet at the Sauk County fairgrounds to lay out our blueprint for the future.
We need your input and, for Glenn Beck's sake, don't tell the Wisconsin State Journal or the Milwaukee-Journal Sentinel! Let this be our little secret!
Thom Hartmann, Hightower, Greg Palast, Matt Rothschild, John Nichols, Stan Gruszynski, Dave Obey, Tammy Baldwin, Dave Couper, John Bonofaz, Gwen Moore and the Reverend Jesse Jackson will be on stage next Saturday and at the Kickoff at the Barrymore Theater on Friday night. Check the Fest web page for details: FightingBobFest.org.
One hell of a program at a time when we need inspiration. Too many progressives have concluded that because Obama is not the total answer to solving our problems they will stay home. I say nuts to that!
For inspiration, all I have to do is visualize a room full of 10-year-olds sitting in their chairs. We step forward and explain that there is no way to save the planet, eliminate tuition, take back our elections, pump ethics into a corrupt system. We say "sorry" and walk out. I don't think so!
So join with fellow progressives to write the next chapter. See you at the Barrymore Friday night at 7:30 and in Baraboo on Saturday morning at 8:45! Those 10-year-olds want some answers.
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With all due respect Ed, is anybody really paying attention?
Seems that the people who go to your little love fest are the same guitar twanging liberals who have been around since the first Earth Day. And the same stupid tactics are in play and they are just as ineffective.
Liberals never learned that in politics it is the perception and not the facts that matter. How is it that Beck can stage a stooges show and get press but nobody is marching in Washington on Labor Day?
The Dems have essentially abandoned the working preson and don't even want to take credit for any program successes as being Democratic successes, but the people who are truly hurting in this economy have no voice or any kind of organizational leadership.
People don't give up on the Dems or the left because they think they are wrong, but because they are weak and ineffectual.
Skip the mutual admiration society love (bitch) fests and get your feet on the street. My grandfather took shotgun pellets and tear gas for the right to have a union. Given the issues of repealing or dismantling Social Security, the income disparities, job losses, etc. etc. it just seems to me that it is time for people to hit the polticians upside the head and quit singing Kumbaya to each other. You ain't gonna overcome anything if nobody knows you are out there and united.
-Griebnotz Doerkpfester | Egg Harbor, WI. | September 5, 2010
Grieby,
Let me get this straight.
Your grandfather took shotgun pellets and tear gas for the right to join a union, but you don't have the stones to sign your real name to your letters on FightingBob.
I'm sure your grandpa would be very proud.
-Steve Carlson | Trego, WI. | September 5, 2010
Nice snarky comment there square head but it still doesn't refute any of what I said.
I can see why lefties and liberals have chapped butts right now but they have nobody to blame but themselves.
By the way. I am not against the liberal cause, just the dumbass way it is never carried out in any real way. HE may have been "Fighting Bob" but there is no fight in today's left and the Dems are too busy sucking up to their disparate factions and Wall Street to do the guy on Main Street any damned good.
I prefer to use my pen name for my own reasons having to do with political past. I will let it go at that.
If you want to argue make a point. If you can't do that then relax and eat some lefsa. The carbs are calming. Something the modern left likes, comfort food.
-Griebnotz Doerkpfester | Egg Harbor, WI. | September 6, 2010
Square head? Must have touched a nerve.
I like lefsa, Grieby. Buttered and sugared.
See you at BobFest.
-Steve Carlson | Trego, WI. | September 8, 2010
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