Fighting Bob Inspires, Motivates

Gerald Bracey

Tom Harkin

Robert Kennedy Jr.

Jim Hightower

Tammy Baldwin

Peg Lautenschlager

The spirit of legendary populist Wisconsin governor and U.S. Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette will be honored at the third annual Fighting Bob Fest on the Sauk County Fairgrounds in Baraboo on September 18.

La Follette founded the Progressive Party and ran for president under its banner in 1924, collecting more than 5 million votes. His years as Wisconsin’s governor and senator were marked by his passionate speeches on behalf of working people, public education, democracy, peace and corporate responsibility.

Fighting Bob Fest is a day of fun for people who are interested in progressive causes, but it also aims to motivate and activate the citizenry in anticipation of the 2004 elections.

The theme of this year’s Fighting Bob Fest is “Rights at Risk,” and education writer and researcher Gerald Bracey is the featured speaker, addressing the risks embodied in the so-called No Child Left Behind law.

Other speakers include Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Texas populist Jim Hightower, Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, and a host of others. Speakers will take the stage throughout the day. The event includes music, food, beverages and breakout sessions that focus on direct action and get-out-the-vote methods that have worked in communities throughout Wisconsin and the United States.

The best place to go for information about Fighting Bob Fest is the online opinion magazine FightingBob.com, which grew out of the first Fighting Bob Fest in 2002. FightingBob.com is a nonprofit, nonpartisan Web site that features the writing of editor and publisher Ed Garvey, NEA Great Public Schools Action Plan director John Stocks, education writer Barbara Miner, and more than a hundred authors of various political stripes and persuasions.

FightingBob.com contains substantive analyses of state and federal education policy including the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). The site also examines the political motivations of organizations such as the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, the American Legislative Exchange Council and others. On the FightingBob.com home page, you can sign up for the FightingBob.com newsletter.

Posted September 10, 2004