Spirit in Action

With the passing last week of Joe Elder, a bright light for peace and justice and a dear friend and neighbor to so many has left us. We feel led to bring you again the interview we did with Joe 15 years ago, so that we can all hear Joe's voice once more. Back then, we told you that Joe Elder was the recipient on October 3rd, 2009, of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the  Wisconsin Network fo...

More than a decade ago I interviewed Daniel Hunter about a book he had written, and when I saw the article he had written just before the November election called 10 Things To Do If Trump Wins , I knew it was something I needed to check out. After all, Daniel has done organizing and training in a number of settings, in the United States and abroad, preparing folks to effectively make this a better...

Ximena Yáñez Soto is the author of  Healthy Planet, Healthy You: Simple Habits to Create a Brighter Future  which is an exploration of the health connections between what we eat, why we eat it, how it affects us, & how these are linked to the well-being of other inhabitants of our globe & of the planet as a whole.

Jori Lewis  is the author of  Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History .

We've visited with  Mike McCabe  several times in the past 15 years, about his work with the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, about the need for real people in government, and relative to his run for Wisconsin governor. Today we have Mike here for something different, a book of fiction called  Miracles Along County Q .

Are there alternatives to the expensive, complicated, healthcare system in the US?

This heart-opening episode is guest-hosted by  Peterson Toscano , Nicole Diroff & Ben Yosua-Davis of the  BTS Center  and is from their  Climate Changed Podcast , This program is possible because of the sound and journalism mastery of 

Alice Rothchild  is many things: a woman, a Jew, a doctor, a feminist, a poet, and the author of 6 books, the latest being  Inspired and Outraged: The Making of a Feminist Physician .

We welcome back  Chuck Fager , a writer & activist with some 60 years of work, and we also welcome  Emma Lapsansky-Werner , the co-author of  Tell It Slant: Chuck Fager, A Prophetic Life of Adventure &am

Many of us have been in pain about events in the Middle East for years, a pain that was horribly amplified by the massacre of Jews on October 7 th , 2023, and the horrific and disproportional retribution that followed in Gaza by Israelis. Today's guest is Sandy Green, a Jewish Quaker, formerly a Zionist, who found she could not un-see the evils perpetrated by Israel on Palestinians, not just recen...

Jan Spencer  is back today to guest-host today Spirit In Action with the 4th installment of his series Primer for Paradigm Shift, and this one is fun for the positive and practical examples of this kind of work actually taking place. While keeping his eye on the needed ways of seeing and thinking about the world in order to become sustainable and to leave our world-wrecking ways behind us, Ja...

Guest-host  Peterson Toscano  of  Citizens' Climate Radio  is sitting in today for Spirit In Action, sharing climate info through a True Crime lens, in a series he's calling  Hot Mess .

Three speeches from the October 19 th  meeting of the Fall Assembly of the  Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice . In our broadcast version we'll have only two of the three speakers, but the podcast version will have all three of them, sharing on a range of peace and justice topics.

Usually for Spirit in Action we are talking to a person or group who are engaged in some specific world-healing work, while today We'll be talking to John Bachman and Christina Yocca, former residents of Eau Claire, currently back for a short visit, who have been living in Italy for 2 years now, which is their permanent home. Our hope is that by talking with John and Christina, we'll form a cleare...

We visit with the recent executive director of  FNVW/Friends for a Nonviolent World , Leah Robshaw Robinson.

An essential part of the road to full equality for women has been the opening of careers in the broad range of disciplines, many that were previously forbidden to women. Perhaps no person had as much effect as the woman known to the world as Madame Curie.

Membership in the Middle Class has plummeted over the past 40 years, making the American Dream out-of-reach for a great many Americans. Thom Hartmann addresses the history, present, & possible future of this saga in his book,  The Hidden History of The American Dream: The Demise of the Middle Class – And How to Rescue Our Future .

As we travel over 3 continents in search of international understanding, connection, and peace, our guest is Daniel Mamah, and he is the author of  As The Rivers Merge: A Story of Love, War, and Perseverance Across Continents . Daniel & his siblings were raised between their mother's Hungary, their father's Nigeria, and in a couple other countries, with all the intricacies of attitudes, c...

Emma Condori Mamani does the work of connection and compassion from her home base in La Paz, Bolivia. Emma has witnessed dramatic changes to the roles of indigenous Bolivians in that society, changes that have led her to higher education and work with the  Friends International Bilingual Center .

In this eye-opening episode, guest-hosted by  Keisha McKenzie , Nicole Diroff, Allen Ewing-Merrill, and Ben Yosua Davis of the  BTS Center  and their  Climate Changed Podcast , they bring you an enlightening conversation with 

George Lakey  is many things to many people, including activist, organizer, author, professor, father, and friend. And now he's a movie star, of sorts, due to a feature-length documentary film, called Citizen George , directed by Glenn Holsten .

Jan Spencer  is back today to guest-host today Spirit In Action with the 3rd installment of his series Primer for Paradigm Shift – the needed ways of seeing and thinking about the world in order to become sustainable and to leave our world-wrecking ways behind us.

Rob Hopkins , co-founder of the  Transition Network  and Transition Town Totnes, and author of several influential books, including  “The Transition Handbook”  and 

Bianca van Heydoorn  spoke at this year's  FGC Gathering , held this year at  Haverford College , just outside of Philadelphia, which made it much easier to have Bianca here for Spirit In Action.

Jonathan Kuttab  was born & raised in Jerusalem, and he helped found  Nonviolence International  and the  Palestinian rights group Al-Haq , and is the author of