Bob Fest: Power rests with the people (photo gallery)
Even though Barack Obama's voting record was the most liberal in the Senate last year by one ranking, the dyed-in-the-wool progressives who got the crowd fired up at the seventh annual Fighting Bob Fest Saturday in Baraboo are not giving the Democratic presidential nominee a free pass.
Change and lasting peace need to come from the people after six years of war, said one.
"Nobody likes us. This puts our kids at risk, and our grandchildren. They are going to have to pick up the pieces of this radical grab for power," former TV talk show host Phil Donahue told the largest Fighting Bob Fest crowd ever.
"It's our job. We are the nominees to get this done. Who else is going to get it done?" Donahue asked.
Festival founder and organizer Ed Garvey put the crowd throughout the daylong event at more than 10,000. The festival, held at the Sauk County Fairgrounds, is co-sponsored by The Capital Times and fightingbob.com.
Five-time Bob Fest speaker Jim Hightower said he compares the festival to a hardware store in his hometown of Austin, Texas, called Harold's Hardware.
"They will sell you one nail. You don't have to buy the whole package. They will help you design your bookshelf, draw it out for you, and lend you a tool."
Harold's slogan is "together, we can do it yourself," he said. "That's got to be our slogan, doesn't it?" he asked the crowd.
Hightower, a radio personality, writer and public speaker, said that every state needs a Bob Fest.
"You are what democracy is," he said. "We can't wait on others. Not even Obama, as promising, as hopeful as he is. And I am excited by his candidacy. But let's be honest: He's only going to be as good as you and I make him be."
When Hightower endorsed Obama in Texas, he said the significant thing about the Obama phenomena is not Obama but the phenomena -- the fact that millions of people, particularly young people, are believing that progress may be possible.
"Not guaranteed, not assured. But that through him as we might achieve something big for America," he said.
Headliner Scott Ritter, the former chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, said Obama needs to speak out more fervently against the war in Iraq and the potential conflict with Iran.
Ritter, who before becoming a weapons inspector served eight years as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, said he listened to Obama give his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in which he defended his credentials as the potential commander in chief.
"He said, 'If I am commander in chief, I will ensure that before I send our troops to war, that they have the equipment they need to fight the war, and when our troops come home, they have the care they need to recover from the ravages of war."
But Ritter said something was missing. "How about, 'when I am commander in chief, I will ensure that before I send your sons and daughters off to fight and die in a war, that it is a cause worthy of the sacrifice we're asking them to make?' " he said.
A president should exhaust every measure short of war possible, Ritter said.
"War must be the last option available. I didn't hear that from Barack Obama," said Ritter, author of "Target Iran," "Waging Peace" and "Iraq Confidential."
Diplomacy is a lost art, Ritter said.
"I would rather have old people exhaust themselves in the back room of any office before I have young men bleed to death on the field of battle," he said.
The local chapter of the Raging Grannies entertained the crowd with musical selections, including "Recruiters Lie," sung to the tune of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall."
"We're the Raging Grannies!/We're mad as mad can be!/Recruiters lie, our children die/That's not how it should be!
Our kids are told that they'll get jobs/And money for college, too,/But you can bet that what they'll get/ Is just the royal screw.
We're here to say we want our kids/To grow up safe and sound./Not blown up by a roadside bomb/Half the world around."
The day was not without criticism of Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Matt Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, said there are two POWs on the Republican ticket: John McCain and Palin, a "Piece of Work."
Arvonne Fraser, a senior fellow emerita of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, reminded the crowd that the right to organize and to speak out is very precious.
"Keep organizing, keep speaking out. Know that you have to vote and get every possible person to vote this fall. Don't let friends who just want a woman in office make a huge mistake," said the co-founder and director of the Institute's Center on Women and Public Policy.
John Nichols of The Capital Times, fresh from the Republican National Convention, said he learned a few things there: "War is good, peace is scary; the economy is booming, and if we just ship a few more jobs overseas, we will all be rich; global warming cannot be real because the earth is flat; pit bulls wear lipstick; and the mayor of a city smaller than Monroe, or Marathon, or Middleton, or Monona, or Mount Horeb is more qualified than the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be vice president of the United States."
Nichols also pointed out how Obama was condemned by Republicans for being a community organizer.
"And I got my Bible out, and as I read through it, it struck me: Pontius Pilate was governor and Jesus was a community organizer," he said.
Samara Kalk Derby
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Former TV talk show host Phil Donahue addresses the audience on Saturday at Fighting Bob Fest in Baraboo.
