8 O'Clock Buzz

Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Damita Brown (in exile)…

More on packing the polls, this week we’re talking voting in Native lands and Native issues with Maria Haskins from Menīkānaehkem in the Menominee Nation and Justice Peche from Wisconsin Native Vote in the Oneida Nation.

In the second half, Damita and Chali discuss details of how to vote in Madison and the start of early voting!

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Photo by Jonathan J Miner

Ever since its founding in the aftermath of the Occupy movement a decade ago, Occupy Madison Village has provided simple, basic housing to those in need.  The Village at East Johnson street contains eight 99-square foot homes, with a shared kitchen and bathroom facilities.  It has been hailed as a model for the tiny home movement.  With limited space and Madison’s growing homeless population, however, the Village hasn’t been able to meet the demand for its particular style of affordable, safe housing.  Earlier this month, Occupy Madison closed on the purchase of the property that formerly housed Wiggie’s bar on Aberg Street on Madison’s north side.  The nonprofit plans to convert the space into first, a campground for the homeless, using Canestoga-style shelters built out of modern materials and designed for warmth during Wisconsin’s cold winters.  Eventually, Occupy Madison plans to open a second village of permanent structures at the Aberg Avenue site.  Two residents of the Occupy Madison Village,  Gene Cox and Larry Orr, joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on October 19, 2020.

 

On October 9th, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize to the United Nations World Food Program (or WFP), marking the 28th time the Nobel committee has awarded an organization, rather than an individual.  The Committee cited the World Food Program’s “efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”  Joining us now to talk about the links between warfare and hunger is Jessica Eise, a post-doctoral researcher at Purdue University and author of the book, How to Feed the World.

With Amy Coney Barrett’s Senate confirmation all but a done deal, progressives will soon find themselves staring down the barrel of a 6-3 conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.  Not only might a solidly hostile court strike down new progressive legislation, but many fear the court could undo what has become settled law, including abortion rights and same-sex marriage.  That prospect has renewed calls to exploit a quirk in the U.S. Constitution and expand the court beyond the current nine.  Elie Mystal of the Nation Magazine recently argued for expanding the court, a tactic known as “court-packing,” in an interview with WORT reporter Johan Chester.  Our next guest takes a dimmer, more cautious view of court expansion.  Joshua Braver is professor of law at the University of Wisconsin, and is the author of the 2019 paper “Court Packing: An American Tradition?,” published in the Boston College Law Review.

Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz in exile…

Damita Brown talks packing the polls, how to vote and voting issues with Dane County Voter ID Coalition co-chair Earnestine Moss, Treasurer of Dane County NAACP, and Tim Cordon, Social Justice Coordinator for First Unitarian Society.

In the second half, Damita talks with Justin Novotny about Dane County Time Bank’s 100 Strong project to fight violence against Black people!

Photo by Jon Miner

Acclaimed artist Shephard Fairey, the artist behind the iconic Hope campaign print and poster for Barack Obama, has just completed a voting-themed mural titled Voting Rights are Human Rights in downtown Milwaukee, on the side of the Colby Abbot Building.

Fairey and his Obey Giant team partnered on the large mural with four Wisconsin artists. Jonathan speaks with one, Tom Jones, assistant professor of photography at UW–Madison, who collaborated with  Sheperd Fairey on the mural.

(Photo: Khara Woods on Unsplash)

 

A coalition of 200 bi-partisan groups make up the Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), formed in 2009 as a result of risky investing by Wall Street and resultant market crash of 2008, and passage of the Dodd-Frank bill and formation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Their recent poll showed that 73% of Americans still favor tougher regulations of Wall Street and 83% support the goals of the CFPB, despite Trump appointees gutting that bureau.

Janet Jakobsen, Chair and Claire Tow Professor of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University, talks about her recent book, “The Sex Obsession, Perversity and Politics in American Politics”. In the book, she looks at how the last 50 years has infused politics and economics with sex, from originalism & religion to power control, and how this may be affecting the latest supreme court nominee.

Welcome to the third and final installment of WORT’s Innovations in Democracy series. We’ve been exploring new ways of using digital technology to expand participatory democracy to a larger population of diverse citizens.  Innovations in Democracy is produced by Roslyn Fuller, with assistance from Ahmed Teleb.  In this episode, we focus on the ideas of online deliberation and voting.  Our panelists include:

* John Richardson is the founder and CEO of Ethelo, a Canadian online platform that is used by governments and organizations to engage large groups in participatory decision processes. In 2001, he founded Pivot Legal Society, which conducts strategic litigation for marginalized communities, and in 2005, was awarded an Ashoka Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs.  John Richardson joins us from Vancouver, British Columbia.

* Nick Mastronardi is the founder of Polco, an online survey platform for local governments.  He has served in the Air Force, the Pentagon and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.  He also led data science projects for Amazon as a Senior Economist. Nick joins us from Madison, Wisconsin.  Welcome, Nick.

 

* Davide Casaleggio is CEO and partner of Casaleggio Associati, an online consultancy company, and president and founder of the Rousseau Association, the direct democracy platform of the 5 Star Movement. He lectures on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and issues related to the fourth industrial revolution in relation to the effects on the economy. Davide Casaleggio joins us from Ivrea, Italy.

 

* Nir Kshetri is Professor at University of North Carolina-Greensboro and a research fellow at Kobe University. He is a two-time winner of the Pacific Telecommunication Council’s Meheroo Jussawalla Research Paper Prize. He has provided consulting services to Asian Development Bank, various UN agencies and a number of private companies.  He joins us from Greensboro, North Carolina.

Welcome to the second installment of WORT’s Innovations in Democracy series. In this three-part series, we’ll be talking to global experts to explore new ways of using digital technology to expand participatory democracy to a larger population of diverse citizens. Innovations in Democracy is produced by Roslyn Fuller, with assistance from Ahmed Teleb.  In this episode, we focus on the idea of citizen referendum.  Our panelists include:

* Bruno Kaufmann is the Global Democracy Correspondent at the Swiss Broadcasting Company, is the co-founder of the Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy and chairs the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe. He is also a representative in the River Council of the Arboga River.  Bruno Kaufmann joins us from Arboga, Sweden.

* Claire Fox is the director of the Academy of Ideas, where she convenes the annual Battle of Ideas Festival.  In May 2019, she was elected as an MEP for the North West England constituency of the UK in the European Parliament elections until her seat was abolished with the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.  She currently works as  a visiting professor in professional practice at the University of Buckingham. Claire Fox joins us from Buckley, Wales.

* Donal O’Brolcháin is an Irish activist who has worked on citizen-initiated referendum issues for over thirty years.  He participated in the Irish Citizen Assembly and experienced both the original 1983 Irish abortion referendum and the subsequent 2018 referendum that liberalized abortion access in the Irish Constitution. Donal O’Brolcháin joins us from Dublin, Ireland.