Spirit In Action

While the nation & the state have veered into conservative and even regressive social directions, there has been refuge & hope locally in the Eau Claire City Council, which included a strong progressive majority as of spring, 2018. Even while others were dragging their feet, work was proceding locally on sustainability, reducing the incarceration system, and increasing responsiveness to citizen concerns. We speak today with 3 members of the city council, Jill Christopherson (in her 1st year), Kate Beaton (in her 3rd year), & acting council president, Andrew Werthmann (in his 10th year).

Too many people ignore the power of local govt to transform the most crucial aspects of our world, focusing only on our national govt. A groundswell of local activism tilted the county board of Eau Claire, WI, in the progressive direction, and the lessons & possibilities are promising around the country. We speak with 3 recent members of the board of supervisors about their experience & motivations: Martha Nieman, Sandy McKinney, & Don Mowry.

Ecologist Huda Alkaff is a founding member and director of Wisconsin Green Muslims, a volunteer environmental justice group based in Milwaukee. She uses her advanced education and her Muslim faith to educate others and forge interfaith collaborations in the service of sustainability. She also has connections with other environmental justice organizations, including Wisconsin Interfaith Earth Network, Wisconsin Interfaith Power and Light, Wisconsin Water Thinkers Network, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice and Greening Ramadan.

Throughout his career, Dwight L. Wilson has held many jobs: educator, administrator, chaplain. In each role, he worked to advance equality, opportunity and understanding. He continues this work in his carefully researched historical fiction series Esi Was My Mother, which follows the lives of an enslaved black family from 18th century Africa to the American Civil War. He strives to portray triumphant examples of black stories that will make history come alive for readers. He is also author of The Kidnapped: A Collection of Short Stories and Modern Psalms: In Search of Peace and Justice. Dwight writes about "characters who existed, those who could have existed, and those who should have existed". For further resources by and about Dwight L. Wilson, see the Friends Journal review about Modern Psalms in Search of Peace and Justice, Dwight's Friends Journal article entitled The Social Justice Testimony, Dwight's Reflections on being a member of the ESR Board of Advisors, and his 2018 Bible Half-hour videos

Host Peterson Toscano visits with 3 Evangelicals fighting climate change, Kyle Meyaard-Shaap, Corina Newsome, & Rev. Josh Gibson. Comic creation, Tony Buffusio from the Bronx, talks climate change in the Bible. Scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, host of the Global Weirding Podcast shares climate communication tips, and author Dr. Jeffrey Bennett and illustrator Roberta Collier-Morales inspire by their book, The Wizard Who Saved the World.

Selika Ducksworth-Lawton, is Professor of History at UW-Eau Claire, is an educator & activist, raising awareness and working for our civil rights. Of a rural black Louisianan upbringing, Selika has an incisive perspective on race & cultural dynamics in the USA. She serves on the executive board of Wisconsin's ACLU, is co-author of The Pipeline, and wrote a chapter, Have Gun Will Travel in the newly released, Black Veterans, Politics, and Civil Right in 20th Century America. Check out CVPost.org articles about Selika and Juneteenth events.

Robert Friedman, founder of Prosperity Now, & author of A Few Thousand Dollars: Sparking Prosperity for Everyone, says, "Given a chance, low-income people do amazing things and can be, not just beneficiaries, trainees, employees, but entrepreneurs, home-owners, college material, skilled workers, creators of wealth". He shares the proof and the means to reversing income inequality and increasing prosperity for our nation.

Henna Hundal of Harvard Radio hosts Spirit In Action this week. Her first guest is Paul Hoffman, an American coxswain who competed in the 1968 & 1972 Summer Olympics, and a supporter of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR). Her second guest is Dr. Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), concerning initiatives to expand the digital reach of JAMA and the publishing in JAMA of President Obama's piece on US Health Care Reform.

Jerry Edwards acts as an educational conduit between the medical system and Plain Communities (Amish, Mennonnite & other people who cautiously engage with mainstream technology & practices). In particular, he has been sharing in medical circles an inexpensive & effective technique for burn & wound treatment, innovated among the Amish about 30 years ago, A significant issue is trust & mutual respect for the different priorities & decisions of Plain folks accessing medical services. He has helped organize a February 12, 2019, Plain Medical/Burn & Wounds Conference at the La Crosse, WI, Gunderson Campus, in the ICE House (Integrated Center for Education - 1827 Sims Place), 8:30 am - 5 pm. Contact: Jerry & Vicky Edwards, c/o Sammy Yoder, S4141 Cty Hwy C, Hillsboro, WI 54634 Additional resource: Plain Talk about Providing Health Care to Plain Communities

George Lakey's new book, How We Win: A Guide to Nonviolent Direct Action Campaigning brings it all together and changes the prospects for a better world. Drawing on some 60 years experience in all kinds of social change movements & having trained activists from dozens of nations, George is a true expert and a great communicator. Among other resources, he led the creation of the Global Nonviolent Action Database and the organization Training For Change.

Alaine Duncan of Integrative Healing Works started her education in the area of western science, but after contracting hepatitis C, found much-needed help through acupuncture & Asian medicine. Her new book is The Tao of Trauma: A Practitioner's Guide For Integrating Five Element Theory and Trauma Treatment. In it Alaine & co-author Kathy Kain significantly add resources for a hard-to-treat condition. Featured Music: Northwest Passage Revisited - by Evalyn Parry, listen to Song of the Soul interview

Scott Wittkopf helps organizations & people learn to do effective progressive messaging through his firm, Frame for the Future. It's a bit ironic that the scientific research proves that people do not make their decisions based on scientific research, but on frames, and progressives have been doing an inferior job of harnessing this knowledge to support their goals. Based on the work of George Lakoff and others, there is great untapped potential for progressive causes. Scott presented on the topic at the Eau Claire Grassroots Festival, sponsored by Wisconsin Grassroots Network.

In the course of working for charitable foundations and passing on 100's of millions of dollars, Edgar Villanueva came to some realizations about how the charity system works, and how it needs to change to really do good for the world. In Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance, Edgar combines analysis, story-telling, & personal vulnerability to enlighten the way forward. Edgar has served with several foundations, in a nationally-recognized expert on social justice philanthropy, and serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Native Americans in Philanthropy. He is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.

Talking about climate change effectively is quite a challange, in particular finding a way to move people to become curious about it. Today we hear from a singer/songwriter who goes by the name Hayride Casualties, whose album, Fossil Fuel Kid, beautifully conveys the feelings of growing up in a time of climate change. Citizens Climate Radio host, Peterson Toscano shares his own bizarre climate change coming out for climate change saga. Plus, Elizabeth Rush, author of a the critically acclaimed book, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore will tell us about climate fiction, or cli-fi. And with Thanksgiving coming up, we will hear about a new play in progress set in Thanksgiving. Playwright, Dante Flores, tells us about the inspiration behind his play.

A peek at portions of the Wisconsin Grassroots Network festival held in Eau Claire on 9/22/18, with a brief intro by Art & Dawn Shegonee of Call For Peace Drum & Dance Company, and featuring excerpts from keynote presentations by the Madison gaggle of the national singing activist group The Raging Grannies, and progressive journalist, author and orator, John Nichols. The following songs were shared by Madison's gaggle of Raging Grannies. You can find many of the lyrics here, while this is the national repository of Raging Grannies songs. Oh, Dear! Where Does Our Money Go? More Women Immigrant Rights The Wheels on the Bus Climate Change Down At the Polling Place

Howard Switzer speaks powerfully on the need for monetary reform stemming from learning & connection with the American Monetary Institute and the Alliance for Just Money. Howard's passion for dealing with the shortcomings of our money system stems significantly from his decades of work as an eco-architect with Earth & Straw Design, his work with The Farm Ecovillage Training Center, and his work for peace & justice. Other resources include Mari Werner's Workable Economics, Dr. Joseph Huber's Sovereign Money, and InternationalMoneyReform.org. Featured Music: Banks of Marble - by Pete Seeger

Malinda Maynor Lowery's new book is The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle. Malinda is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and is also a member of the Lumbee Tribe, the largest Native American tribe east of the Mississippi River. Malinda gives a glimpse of the rich Lumbee history and their on-going struggle for federal recognition of their nation.,

John Peck is Executive Director of Family Farm Defenders, which supports sustainable agriculture, farm worker rights, animal welfare, consumer safety, fair trade, & food sovereignty. In addition, John teaches Economics "against the text" and also Environmental Studies at Madison College, runs a farm, does poetry, and thinks deeply.

Essential parts of our history have been willfully suppressed & ignored, but we can only be the best nation we can be by facing the facts - alternative facts wont do. That has been the work of sociologist, historian, writer and teacher James Loewen. His work has included ground-breaking research about racism where & when we haven't acknowledged it, in the Sundown Towns, outside of the traditional South, and his analysis of the failings of our history curriculum, Lies My Teacher Told Me.

Tara Button is the founder of BuyMeOnce.com which helps connect people to durable, dependable, well-designed & built products, to live sustainably. Her new book is A Life Less Throwaway: The Lost Art of Buying for Life, and it provides a wealth of info & exercises to help people find the optimal material life for themselves.