Comrade Carl was an incredible human being who spent his entire adult life trying to make the world a better place. He moved to the Northwoods in the Fall of 2001. That September, while a student at Northland College, he joined Youth for Socialist Action. He remained an active part of this region’s socialist movement for the next 23 years. During that time he proved himself to be a seemly tireless activist, who brought a variety of skills and talents to the movement. He did everything from public speaking, writing articles, protest photography, security marshalling, hawking newspapers, strategizing, tabling, leafletting, map making, hauling people to and fro, walking picket lines, leading marches – you name it – if the movement needed it, Carl did it.
A particular passion of Carl’s was environmentalism. He was an avid outdoorsman, and a committed eco-socialist. He could often be seen biking around the region with his cargo boxes – which he had proudly made with repurposed cat litter buckets – strapped to the back of his bike emblazoned with environmental messages. In recent years, he was particularly involved in the fights to stop the Line 3 and the Line 5 pipelines. In August of 2021 he was arrested at the headwaters of the Mississippi river while protesting the construction of the Line 3 pipeline.
But Carl was not someone who limited himself to just one or two causes. He threw himself into countless struggles – such as the Iraq and Afghanistan anti-war movements, the Canal Park hotel workers organizing drive, the campaign to shut down Project ELF, the fight against the Arrowhead-Weston transmission line, the AMFA airline mechanics strike, the anti-death penalty movement and the movements to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier, the efforts to stop factory farming, the Duluth nurses strike, abortion rights, BDS the and the movements in solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela, Western Sahara and Palestine. And his participation in these causes was anything but minor.
Carl brought a deeply felt passion for social justice. There was nothing fake or performative about Carl’s activism. Nor was he timid in when he found himself on the front lines. Just to give you an example, after Roe vs Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, we held a protest in front of the right wing anti-abortion clinic in town. When a security guard tried to bully a group of young people who had stepped onto the street, Carl immediately marched forward and confronted the wanna be cop, exposing how he had no authority to control who did what on public property. And later when at that same protest a car drove into our march, Carl literally jumped on the hood in an attempt to get the driver to stop and to prevent them from injuring protesters. That kind of thing – putting others first - just seemed to be instinctual for Carl.
In the 23 years that Carl was part of the socialist movement, we won some battles, but more often than not we lost. During that time a lot of people came and went. It’s difficult to be a revolutionary while living in the heart of the beast, year after year, in the face of such overwhelming odds. At times it can feel like jousting at windmills. Carl’s lifeline commitment to the cause is a source of inspiration
The Northwoods Socialist Collective was founded in 2020 at Carl’s suggestion. We would not exist if it were not for him, and it will be hard to go on without him. We are proud to have been his comrade and
to have stood besides him in the struggle to make the world a better place. When somebody once asked Che Guevara what was the best way to help the people of Vietnam in their struggle against imperialism, he replied that what was needed was “two, three many Vietnams”. We think it is fitting to update that quote. What we need today is “two, three many Carls”. Let us all re-commit ourselves, as best we can, try to pick up and carry on the torch that Carl carried. Good bye comrade ~ the struggle continues!
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