Spirit in Action

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.

The Road to Zero Wealth: How the Racial Wealth Divide is Hollowing Out America’s Middle Class, a report co-authored by ProsperityNow.org and The Institute for Policy Studies(see also Inequality.org). Dedrick Asante-Muhammad is Senior Fellow, Racial Wealth Divide at ProsperityNow.org, formerly with the NAACP & Al Sharpton's National Acti

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.

Talking about climate change effectively is quite a challange, in particular finding a way to move people to become curious about it.

A peek at portions of the Wisconsin Grassroots Networkfestival 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 The Raging Grannies, and progressive journalist, author and orator, 

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.

Stressful, challenging, daunting times call for special medicine. Al Gini, author of The Importance of Being Funny: Why We Need More Jokes in Our Lives, believes that humor is a vital ingredient in good emotional/mental health. Al is Professor of Business Ethics at the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University, and for decades was the "resident philosopher" on NPR's affiliate WBEZ in Chicago.

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.

Past/current religious/spiritual influences:
Catholic Worker, Pagan, Unitarian Universalist

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 won’t do. That has been the work of sociologist, historian, writer and teacher James Loewen.