UPDATE! Koch bus at **5:30 p.m.**

Please plan to be at the Radisson before 5:30 p.m. tonight - the NEW eta for the Koch bus. Bring your signs and noisemakers!!!

ACTION ALERT - Now or Never!

[UPDATE ON RECALL PROCESS - see below]

Americans for Prosperity [sic], the Koch funded right wing group for rich people, is stopping in La Crosse on SATURDAY, MARCH 5 at 6:15 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel (previously, we reported they are coming Thursday).

Please plan to attend!! Bring your signs (this Mother Jones article, "It's the inequality, stupid!" might give you some ideas or this article by Richard Wolff, "How the rich soaked the rest of us").

A little background from SourceWatch:

"AFP is a group fronting special interests started by oil billionaire David Koch and Richard Fink (a member of the board of directors of Koch Industries). ... AFP opposes labor unions, health care reform, stimulus spending, and cap-and-trade legislation, which is aimed at making industries pay for the air pollution that they create. AFP was also involved in the attacks on Obama’s "green jobs" czar, Van Jones, and has crusaded against international climate talks." (read more at link)

From the "we wish they wouldn't have done it now" department: the state Dems have filed recall papers against Dan Kapanke. Ready or not, here it comes.

GET YOUR RECALL ON! Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. pick up packets to gather signatures to recall Dan Kapanke at 1307 Market Street. We will need approximately 18,000 signatures from ALL AROUND the 32nd senate district. Please check the district map (32nd) and contact anyone you know who can help.

You need not be registered in the district, but every person who signs MUST be registered to vote in the district. To circulate a petition, you must be a "qualified elector" and to sign a petition, you must be a "qualified elector". A qualified elector is a United States citizen, 18 years of age or older, who has resided in the district or jurisdiction for at least 10 days.

More details will be given when you get your packets.

I have committed to gathering at least 100 signatures. How about you?

Also on Saturday, there IS a bus going to Madison (see previous post below). While the Republicans have locked the people out of their house, protests continue. Don't stop now!

Saturday bus

There are a few spaces available on a bus leaving La Crosse at 8:00 a.m. and returning from Madison at about 3 p.m. If interested contact Curtis at 608-487-3552

ACTION ALERT: Walker in VIROQUA Thursday

**VIROQUA RALLEY AT C.A.F.E. SUMMIT - MARCH 3RD - THIS THURSDAY**

*CITIZENS RALLY FOR LOCAL CONTROL AND WORKER'S RIGHTS*

Concerned Citizens and member groups of the Sustain Rural Wisconsin
Network will join a rally protesting state executive branch takeover of
local control and collective bargaining rights is scheduled for 8:30
A.M. this Thursday, March 3rd at the CAFE sponsored "Food, Fuel and
Future Summit" in Viroqua WI.

Representative Lee Nerison, Senator Dan Kapanke and Governor Scott
Walker are scheduled speakers at this event.

Anyone interested in participating should meet at the driveway to the
Firehouse Restaurant, 804 S. Main Street (along Hwy. 14/61 and S.R.
Drive) Viroqua, WI. at 8:15 A.M.

Cow suits and signs will be available-or feel free to craft your own
message centering around the loss of local control for farmers and rural
communities presented by the governor's recent takeover of state
regulatory agencies rulemaking-including veto power on Livestock Siting
Law rules, cuts to aid to local government, badger care and local
collective bargaining.

[CAFÉ = is a pro industrial-confinement agriculture ("factory farm") group]

###

*/Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network/*/ is a statewide coalition of
individuals and organizations dedicated to preserving the environment
while maintaining the health and economic vitality of rural communities./

**Contact: Jennifer Nelson**

**Phone: 608-****476-2301**

**Email: ****call.srwn@gmail.com **

The Wisconsin VERY BAD Idea

About 100 years ago, our ancestors, specifically UW President Charles Van Hise, proposed The Wisconsin Idea - namely, "education should influence and improve people’s lives beyond the university classroom."

In 1912, Charles McCarthy wrote a book about it, expanding the original idea into a new plan for the public good. The plan would help educate the mostly rural population to better their lives in the new industrial world and use the power of the government to help even the playing field.

The Wisconsin State Historical Society has a great website describing the battles, challenges, and victories won for the people of Wisconsin and the rest of the country during the first few decades of the last century.

Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether those ideas can long endure.

The new budget unveiled by Scott Walker tonight, marks the battle line between the old and successful Wisconsin Idea and the new Wisconsin BAD Idea (or maybe it should be called the Wisconsin Evil Scheme).

It's not about Wisconsin or ideas. It's about a few wealthy people who want to own the world. It's a plan schemed up by the Kochs, Club for Growth, Grover ("shrink government and drown it in the bathtub") Norquist and the others to dump every good thing we've grown and developed - that has grown and developed us - over the past 100 years.

Why else would the governor choose as his secretary of our Department of Health Services a Heritage Foundation advisor who has argued that "States could save $1 trillion by dropping Medicaid," or a Department of Natural Resources chair whose main goal is to "help businesses"? Idealogues on a mission, not public servants vowing to make our state better. Stepford department heads working to crank back history, not knowledgeable, experienced leaders solving real problems.

Personally, I believe Progressive era reforms - everything from child labor laws to work-time and workplace safety rules to public education (and watch out, voting women!) - have been the target all along. These reforms were part of a move not just to raise up the common people but to combat the power of corporations, monopolies and the super rich. Sound familiar?

I believe the plan is to disappear anything with the word public in it - from public schools to public utilities. Anything worth doing can be done by a private business (but using public funds to pay for it). They've done it in the military, for gosh sake, using private (crony) contractors, from Halliburton and KBR to Logistics Health, to do the work, often at higher cost, that used to be done by public employees (in this case, soldiers, sailors, airmen/women and Marines).

Privatizing everything will ensure more cash for crony campaign contributors who polish their reps by donating to worthy causes like football stadiums (when students can't afford to pay tuition).

This is crazy world, to be sure. (Firefighters are "slobs" and Walker supporters smuggled into the Capitol through steam tunnels! Yikes!!) If we can survive eleven more months, we may come out in one piece but we'll be much the worse for it.