UNIONS ARE LIKE FAMILIES

When one mentions the word family, the first thing that comes to a person’s mind is the group of people you grew up with-father, mother, siblings and perhaps your grandmother or grandfather. Perhaps your definition of family is your immediate family-yourself, your spouse/significant other and your children. But stop and think about it. We have many more families in our daily lives than what immediately comes to mind. We also have our work family, our church family and our community family just to name a few. Human beings do not live in isolation. We are very social ...

AUDIT THE PENTAGON

In "A Golden Age for Pentagon Waste" (US News and World Report, 2-3-16), William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, cites examples of Pentagon waste: *$17 billion spent on private villas and costly facilities that were barely used in Afghanistan. *$7 billion spent on unneeded equipment by the Defense Logistics Agency. *Congress inserted 11 additional F-35 combat aircraft into the last defense bill despite dubious value to the military. Over the last decade the F-35 project has cost $1.4 trillion and has yet ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART X: DEBT – THE ULTIMATE WEAPON OF CONQUEST

“Meet the Campaign to Fix the Debt, the billionaire-funded project that uses Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles as figureheads for a fear mongering campaign to convince Americans that the deficits the United States has run throughout its history have suddenly metastasized into “a cancer that will destroy this country from within.” It is the latest incarnation of Wall Street mogul Pete Peterson’s long campaign to get Congress and the White House to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while providing tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.” ...

SAVE CIVIL SERVICE

To mark Public Service Recognition Week, the Wisconsin Coalition to Save Civil Service is calling for a repeal of Wisconsin Act 150, set to begin implementation on July 1st. Act 150 will eliminate civil service exams and dismantle other key parts of the Wisconsin Civil Service Merit System. “Wisconsin Civil Service is no less relevant today than it was in 1905 when it was begun. Wisconsin Act 150 will decimate the idea that ‘the best shall serve the state’. Instead, cronies will fill public agencies and will refocus state government to serve corporate special ...

SENATOR JOHNSON, DO YOUR JOB

People in Wisconsin work hard and expect others to do the same. Imagine having a job and telling your employer that for the next eight months, you refuse to do your job. Senator Johnson is doing exactly that! Ron Johnson was hired by us, the “employers” of Wisconsin, who pay his generous salary and benefits to work for us. He took an oath to uphold the Constitution. The Senate has a constitutional duty to hold hearings and to “advise” and “consent” after the President has nominated a qualified person to fill a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy. Fifty four ...

PROGRESSIVE FREEDOM CAMPAIGN COMING TO WAUSAU

Please mark your calendar for May 15, Sunday, from noon til 4:30 p.m. for the Progressive Freedom Campaign at the Central Wisconsin Airport Conference Room. Progressive Freedom Campaign is designed to help grassroots groups to organize and communicate effectively. Progressives throughout the state are connecting with each other. The workshop provides tools to put people and communities over power politics. Real political change starts in local communities. Local people come together around shared progressive values. Many of you are already involved in your local ...

CAFO Alternatives and Solutions

Huge factory farm operations called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are growing in number. The advocates for CAFOs claim they are a necessary, more efficient way to produce cheap food. But is this true? Are there economical alternatives to industrial agriculture? Opponents to CAFOs, backed up by a growing body of research, say there are better ways to economically raise meat. CAFOs are not the inevitable result of market forces. Alternative production methods can be economically efficient and technologically sophisticated, and can deliver abundant animal ...

How Would You Spend $1 Trillion Dollars?

How Would You Spend $1 Trillion Dollars? It is tax time again. Where do your taxes go? Would you rather see your tax dollars spent better? If you could be in charge, how would you spend $1 trillion? Budgets are about choices. It is about choosing what you can do, or not do, with limited resources. Congress sets spending priorities each year in the Federal “discretionary” budget. They decide whether to spend more on education or tax breaks, cancer research or food stamps, space exploration or housing assistance, diplomacy or bombs. The Federal budget ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART IX: FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING AND THE FREE HOUSE

“Commercial banks create money, in the form of bank deposits, by making new loans. When a bank makes a loan, for example to someone taking out a mortgage to buy a house, it does not typically do so by giving them thousands of pounds worth of banknotes. Instead, it credits their bank account with a bank deposit of the size of the mortgage. At that moment, new money is created. For this reason, some economists have referred to bank deposits as ‘fountain pen money’, created at the stroke of bankers’ pens when they approve loans.” - - Bank of England Quarterly ...