Reply #20: Coops were practically born here

[sybylla]

I guess technically the first coop was elsewhere, but the Progressive Movement back at the turn of the last century really embraced the coop movement in Wisconsin and made them what they are today. They saw coops as a way to provide services to rural communities that for-profits wouldn't tackle.

Problem is, most people don't understand what a coop is anymore. They don't realize they actually can have a say in how it's run and can pressure it to serve them better.

I currently get my electricity from one of a dozen or more electric coops founded back in the 30's. Now that sounds like a good idea but it's run by industry insiders who are all pukes and are pushing for the state to relax the moratorium on new nuke facilities. Unfortunately, these rural communities could take them back by voting in new directors at the annual meetings, but there are so many people who just don't care and who just don't know.

This isn't new for coops either. The world has gotten so technical and the regulatory landscape so complex that running most coops, from feed coops to electric coops to credit unions can't be done by the average Joe or Jane who would likely get elected to the board of directors. So the board of directors relies on industry goons to advise them and they end up too often an organization that, rather than serving the membership, serves the "administrators" who rake in giant salaries (and who are able to snow the directors and membership much like pukes snow their followers). My monthly electric coop newsletter is one giant propaganda piece full of BS and scare tactics. It's truly incredible. Twenty years ago they had some of the lowest kwh rates in the state. Now, since the goons took over, they are one of the highest.

They weren't even a "Touchstone Energy Partner" until a couple of years ago when a liberal acquaintance complained in the newspaper about the responses she got to questions on carbon credits, alternative energies and the like. For profit electric companies were members and their customers could get discounts on compact fluorescents at the hardware store but most coop members were out of luck.

Keep that in mind as you work to put your coop plans into practice. A coop's board of directors can be as easy to gerrymander as a congressional district.


BTW, Madison is a great liberal city, but it's truly an oasis. The pukes in the state call it "Fifty Square Miles Surrounded by Reality." It's not that Dems can't win elsewhere. Both our state houses and the governorship are in Dem hands at the moment. But in Madison, they win most elections with huge percentages. Where I live, I daily drive past anti-choice and religious billboards. It's like I'm living in the Bible belt.