The more you look into now-Saint Serra, the more stomach-turning he becomes.
Saturday, September 19 was the 14th annual Fighting Bob Fest with the theme: “Back by Populist Demand!”
Speakers included Russ Feingold, John Nichols, and Ed Schultz. As always there was a raucous kick-off Friday night, this one at The Barrymore Theatre featuring progressive comedy by John Fugelsang, Lizz Winstead, and Jim Hightower.
The festivities on Saturday got rolling at 9:30 a.m. accompanied by outstanding local food, beer by Great Dane Brewing, and more than 60 progressive organizations and vendor tables throughout the day. Audience members joined us for break-out sessions on the environment, public schools, race, women’s health, and progressive messaging.
FIGHTING BOB FEST Schedule
9am – gates open – Solidarity Singers
9:30am – Welcome session featuring Ruth Conniff, Dave Zwiefel, Secretary of State Doug La Follette, Mayor Paul Soglin, County Executive Joe Parisi, Joel Rogers, Mike McCabe, Scot Ross, Russ Feingold, and the Raging Grannies
11:15am – 12:15pm BREAKOUTS SESSIONS!
Citizen Action & Local Control to Save our Natural Resources- Main Stage
Fighting Colonialism in Black America – Tent 1
Taking Politics Out of Women’s Health – Tent 2
The Unexpected Belle La Follette – Room 3
12:15 – 12:45pm Lunch
Music! The Kissers
12:45 – Afternoon progream featuring John Fugelsang, Chris Taylor, Jesse Hagopian,
Poetry,
Mark Pocan, Mark Dimondstein, Christine Neumann-Ortiz,
Music! Mad City Jug Band,
YGB/ Kevin Alexander Gray, Jim Hightower, Lizz Winstead
Poetry
John Nichols, Ed Schultz
Closing Remarks Ruth Conniff
Music! Sean Michael Dargan
4:30pm ORGANIZING SESSIONS!
Imagining a New Political Language, Implementing a New Political Reality – Tent 1
Saving our Public Schools – Tent 2
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He abandoned his quest to become the Republican nominee late Monday afternoon in a small, drab, windowless room in a...
By Wendell Berry
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know. So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands. Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion—put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come. Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men. Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth? Go with your love to the fields. Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.
Wendell Berry is a poet, farmer, and environmentalist in Kentucky. This poem, first published in 1973, is reprinted by permission of the author and appears in his “New Collected Poems” (Counterpoint).
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