The slippery slope

Downward social mobility is always a possibility in any social or economic system. For those of us in America who are baby boomers, however, there is a strange reluctance to admit how many folks are falling down today. We were raised in a time when middle-class kids who did well in school, and went on to college, felt reasonably confident they could find an opportunity to make a decent living. My friend Peter W. is a great example of someone who was totally shocked by this recession’s impact on him and his family. After graduating college, Peter began working at a large bank in Boston. Over the years he was steadily promoted, and he earned his M.B.A. by the late ‘80s. Transferred to Rhode Island, he bought a home and started a family with his wife, Meg. The family enjoyed vacations in places like Europe and Hawaii. They had two comfortable cars, and paid landscapers to keep their yard beautiful. When the girls needed braces, Peter simply wrote out checks to the orthodontist. Financial worries seemed far away. Then, in February of 2008, Peter was laid off from the bank. Since then the only work he’s found has been a very short-term stint working for the Census. Thanks to Meg’s job as a bookkeeper there is still some income coming in. Yet they have been forced to deplete their savings. They are behind on the mortgage. They sold one of the cars, and no longer take fancy vacations. They dropped their gym membership and their subscription to the New York Times. Peter borrows a neighbor’s lawnmower to cut the yard. Peter fears they will eventually face foreclosure. Moving into an apartment in a far less attractive neighborhood is a real possibility.

Peter’s family hasn’t fallen anywhere near real poverty. They are, in fact, still living a much easier life than many. Nonetheless, their confident assumptions about the world, and their place in it, have been shattered. Peter’s former employer has recently posted record profits. Wall Street observers have heaped praise on this large bank for its “intelligent restructuring of human resources.” Corporate interests are not the same as our interests. For the very wealthy, high unemployment is mostly a good thing. It depresses wages which allows the owner class to bring goods and services to market at lower cost. This time, however, the persistence of high unemployment has begun to seriously affect consumer demand. This low demand will eventually erode profits enough that at least some rich folks may feel a pinch.

The easiest way to think of our current situation is like a huge game of chicken. On one side the corporate interests are saying: “Hey, America! Want some of your jobs back? Act more like our workers in Bangladesh who toil away for 14 hours a day at 10 cents an hour!” And the American middle and working classes are saying: “A new plasma T.V.? Are you joking? We’re not buying more stuff until we know we have a steady job at good pay!” Who’s going to win? Sadly, we all need to eat so we tend to work for less. This is why companies are so often able to find scabs to replace striking workers. The very wealthy don’t need to worry about their next meal. They can ride out even long periods of depression, investing in anything that provides any kind of return.

There is one piece of good news. The vote of a poor person counts as much on Election Day as that of a rich person. There are relatively few rich people. What’s more, some rich people have a conscience! Our votes combined with those of decent rich folks should prevail in any contest. We should be able to elect folks who will pursue policies aimed at producing full employment. If we can’t, it’s because politicians have found ways to distract and divide us. A politician who was truly willing to take up the cause of improving conditions for working people, even at the risk of losing support from the very wealthy, would have great appeal. The huge challenge for such a politician would be to speak to voters without massive funding or media exposure.

A long awaited statement of principle

WASHINGTON (AP)

- After skirting the controversy for weeks, President Barack Obama is weighing in forcefully on the mosque near ground zero, saying a nation built on religious freedom must allow it.

"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country," Obama told an intently listening crowd gathered at the White House Friday evening to observe the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances," he said. "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable."

It was quite a relief to hear the President reaffirm our basic rights to religious freedom in the U.S. It was too bad he left Mayor Bloomberg and others twisting in the wind for so long. The other day I was reflecting on just how remarkable it is to enjoy true religious freedom. This freedom is inherently controversial. We need to protect people's right to build synagogues, churches, mosques, and Buddhist temples. Equally important, we need to prevent Christians, Buddhists, or anyone else from forcing public school teachers or nurses to promote their doctrines. The U.S. will lose very much if popular sentiment against any religious group (or against atheists for that matter) is allowed to sway public officials to abandon their duty to uphold the separation of church and state. Here in Rhode Island this principle has been upheld from the days of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. Rhode Islanders are rightly proud of their diverse and tolerant heritage. Of course, even Rhode Island has bigots, but I'm grateful to live in a place that celebrates its ethnic and religious diversity.

Redirecting resentment

Union membership in this country has steadily declined over the last decades, falling most sharply in the private sector. This has had a negative effect on all working Americans, reducing wages, benefits and job security. It has also hurt the bargaining power of surviving unions, leading some to allow employers almost free reign, in exchange for the dubious distinction of recognition as parties to contracts that offer less and less to workers. With less people in unions, and unions losing clout, many Americans today have no real direct experience of enjoying the benefits of union membership. This makes it possible for Republicans to call unions "special interests," on a par with those who own mineral rights on public lands, or importers of Russian mink. The teachers, police, and firefighters who were spared the ax, with the bill house Democrats just passed, are mostly union members. They do not enjoy anything like the wealth or power that an investment banker or corporate lobbyist does. Yet compared to many other working Americans, these folks have it pretty good. When you're working for a low wage with no benefits, the deal given to a cop or a school teacher seems sweet indeed. Moreover, the wages and benefits paid to these public sector union members come out of taxes. All of this might help to explain how a group of Republicans, who has vigorously fought for the interests of the very wealthiest among us, has managed to redirect some of the natural anger and resentment of the less affluent against "union special interests." This is discouraging, yet perhaps it is also what we might call a "teachable moment." Union members can point proudly to their relative strength. The recession has hurt us, the cops and teachers can say, but at least we have some protection. Wouldn't our country be better off if more workers were able to get a better deal than they're giving at WalMart? Instead of whining about fat union contracts, try to form a union and get yourself a fatter contract too!

Zagat's guide to militias by Bill Maher

Bill Maher shows how making fun of those who are truly scary can be a healthy thing. The concept is clever, and the bit doesn't drag on too long. Enjoy!

A despicable industry

One of the more heartbreaking aspects of the current jobs crisis is how so many folks, who are unemployed, fall victim to various sorts of predators. Newspaper want ads and internet job postings invite applicants to apply for jobs. The jobs don't exist. The predator may be "phishing" for personal information to use in a scam. Or, the predator is looking to net a few customers for some sort of for-profit training school. Very often the desperate job seeker is encouraged to jump through a number of hoops, before finally being told how they can send $39.95 for a DVD that explains some sure-fire method to gain wealth. While con artists of earlier generations needed to present an honest looking face to individuals or small groups, no such personal touch is required today. Mass posting of phony jobs on hundreds of sites, a slickly produced website, a couple of phone lines, and thousands of new suckers will be drawn into the net. We can all try to make these bloodsuckers work a little harder for their money, by posting scam alerts that might warn off some potential victims.

Republicans capitalizing on bad news

It is very disturbing to see the high glee that high unemployment numbers are producing among Republicans. They are steadfastly opposed to helping the Democrats improve the situation, because they hope to convince U.S. voters to blame all of their economic woes on the Democrats. To keep the public diverted from their own agenda, so clearly devoted only to the interests of the very wealthy, they create a false Social Security scare-- proposing to "rescue" the program through slashing benefits and raising the retirement age. They continually misrepresent the Democrats' position on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. They point out, truthfully, that all taxpayers paid less taxes after the Bush cuts. But then they lie about the Democrats' plan for expiration. The expiration of these cuts would only apply to those making over $200,000/year. The vast majority of Americans, including all of those truly suffering the effects of the recession, would not see their taxes go up. Instead of blaming Obama and congressional Democrats, Americans need to look at wealthy corporate decision-makers (a few of whom might be Democrats!) who are outsourcing jobs to low-wage countries, slashing wages and benefits, and busting unions. While this may be impossible to prove, it may well be the case that some are deliberately putting off hiring in order to help their Republican friends in the election.

Sen. Franken: Stop the Corporate Takeover of the Media

Playing the race card

A new paranoid fantasy has begun to emerge among American racists. This new fear is a natural outgrowth of earlier fears, but it represents an interesting leap into a new paradigm.

After the abolition of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan was formed as a group prepared to use violence against blacks who presumed to challenge the supremacy of whites in any way. While the popularity of the Klan has gone up and down since that time, the group still represents the most extreme end of white racist thought. Most white racists publicly profess distaste for the crude violence of lynchings and beatings. Instead they call on the power of the state and the courts to maintain the supremacy of whites. In this they were pretty successful, until official segregation and disenfranchisement began to be challenged through legislation and the courts in the 1960s.

And so racists moved into a defensive posture, resisting all of the many changes that came in the following decades. Affirmative action was an extremely bitter pill to swallow. How can universities and other institutions be forced to try and undo the natural order of things? In point of fact, despite the fears of the racists, the situation of blacks in this country showed only modest improvements. Blacks today still endure disproportionately high levels of unsafe housing, substandard medical care, poverty, and unemployment.

The election of Barack Obama (with millions of white votes) came as a shock to American racists. They had become used to seeing blacks in prominent roles in T.V. and real life, yet they knew that whites were still basically in charge. Racists might grumble about seeing so few white faces on a professional football or basketball team, but at least most of the owners and coaches were white.

Now the most powerful person in the U.S., the president, is not white. While racists, of course, had never worried that all of our earlier presidents might have favored whites, now they fear Obama might favor blacks. The shift in thinking is that racists no longer fear only that they’ll be forced to make more room at their table. Now they suspect that their table has been sold out from under them. Will whites now have to conform to black expectations to get ahead? Is everything topsy-turvy?

Reality won’t get in the way of telling the story of this supposed “reverse racism.” A decision by the Bush administration’s Justice Department, in their final days, to not pursue criminal charges against the New Black Panthers is blamed on Obama. A maliciously edited, phony videotape is uncritically accepted by Fox News and used to destroy a black official in the Agriculture Department. Even efforts to encourage high voter turnout in urban districts is portrayed as some kind of reverse racist trick. The attempts of white Republicans to suppress turnout in these same districts is, of course, applauded as “fighting voter fraud.”

The sad truth is that nothing Obama or his supporters actually do will make a difference. I don’t live inside the Beltway, but from what I can see the power establishment in D.C., hasn’t changed all that much. White males still dominate, with women and minorities slowly making small inroads into the entrenched power structure. The racists fear a revolution, the reality is painfully slow evolution.

Appeals to racist sentiment, both crude and subtle, will be a part of U.S. electoral politics this cycle. Getting into an endless pattern of accusation from the left and denials from the right won’t be very constructive. Merely calling someone a racist in sweeping terms invites a misleading response full of irrelevancies. Carefully exposing the specific lies, distortions, or stereotypes, on which a particular racist claim or appeal is based, leaves the perpetrator nowhere to run.

Contrariness above consistency

Rachel Maddow does a nice job here in pointing out the remarkable lengths many Republicans will go to in, order to hinder the Administration and Congress from making any progress:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I recommend this piece, it will make you laugh and cry.

California Dreamin'

The reaction of right-wingers to the recent judicial decision overturning proposition 8 in California was predictably harsh. Here's what our old pal Newt Gingrich (who likes marriage so much he got married three times) had to say:

"Judge Walker's ruling overturning Prop 8 is an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution and for the majority of people of the United States who believe marriage is the union of husband and wife. In every state of the union from California to Maine to Georgia, where the people have had a chance to vote they've affirmed that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Congress now has the responsibility to act immediately to reaffirm marriage as a union of one man and one woman as our national policy."

What's notable about Newt's statement is that he conflates two very different things. One, our Constitution, was the relevant document on which Judge Walker's ruling was rightly based. The other, popular opinion, has no bearing on the question of whether gays have constitutionally protected marriage rights.

I wish that Newt Gingrich was wrong about the popular opinion of gay marriage in this country. Indeed I hope that someday gay marriage will seem ordinary and non-controversial. However, today a lot of people in the U.S. do feel threatened by gay marriage. But does the fact that doing something makes some people uneasy mean that it is unconstitutional? Of course not.

The whole thrust of our Constitution and Bill of Rights is to defend the rights of people to do whatever they choose, provided they do not infringe on the rights of others to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. The burden of proof is on those who would prohibit gay marriage to show how gay marriage substantially infringes the rights of others. We don't actually have the right to live in a world where we can never be offended. We can choose not to read offensive magazines, watch offensive commercials, or listen to offensive song lyrics. Likewise, we can choose not to attend a gay wedding.

Religious groups will not be asked to approve, still less to perform, gay marriage ceremonies. Politicians, Rabbis, Priests, Ministers and private persons will still be allowed their free-speech rights to condemn gay marriage as wrong. What is new is that gay people, for the first time in U.S. history, have gained enough social acceptance that they are now asserting their full rights as citizens. Just like everybody else, gays deserve the right to live alone, to live with an unmarried partner, or to get married. The redemption of this right may violate religious teachings, it in no way violates our secular constitution.

Kuttner argues that exaggerated fear of deficits blocks economic recovery

Robert Kuttner has an interesting piece in which he criticizes the timidity of President Obama and Erskine Bowles on the issue of government spending.

This fall, Congress will either follow the conventional wisdom and prematurely cut government outlay before an economic recovery arrives, or it will increase public spending, put jobless Americans back to work, and reduce the deficit in a less painful fashion thanks to increasing economic tailwinds. The road that Congress takes depends on presidential leadership.

Kuttner goes on to quote approvingly from Yale economist Robert Shiller who asks the Obama administration to consider direct government job creation, W.P.A. style. While most of what Kuttner says makes a lot of sense, I don't feel Democrats need to do what Republicans under Reagan and the Bushes did for so long, and ignore the deficit. Kuttner is right that recovery will require some government spending. Yet there is a better alternative than deficit spending.

Bite the bullet, and end huge subsidies to the oil industry and other corporate interests that contribute so much to Congressional campaign coffers. Admit the fact that the wealthiest Americans caught a huge break with the Bush tax cuts, and that these cuts for them should expire as scheduled in 2011. Make it less financially attractive to ship jobs overseas. Begin enforcing our nation's labor laws, so that working and middle class people might have a little money to spend and thus stimulate the economy.

President Clinton was also criticized for being too concerned with the deficit. Yet the economy was quite healthy after his tax increases were adopted, and the deficit reduced. We may not be able to match Clinton's feat of actually producing a surplus, yet we shouldn't abandon the goal of striving towards a balanced budget.

Pelosi does the right thing

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi deserves a lot of credit today for calling the House back from vacation, to vote on a bill that would restore some Federal aid to the states. Much of the money would go towards medical assistance and schools. Will this federal aid allow states to help more uninsured folks receive medical care? Will school districts be able to repair facilities, buy new equipment, or rehire laid-off teachers? Sadly, the answer is no. In most states this federal aid will only partly cover the gaps created by drastic cuts in state budgets. Wages and benefits have already been cut. Teachers and firefighters have already lost their jobs. People who need medical assistance have already been turned away. All that this aid would accomplish would be to give states a chance to pause in this latest round of cuts, before further erosion in their revenues forces still more cuts in the near future.

Within hours of Pelosi’s call to action, Republicans started to whine. How dare she demand that Congress make an effort to prevent even worse devastation in an already ravaged country? The measure that will go the House is fully paid for, it will not add to the deficit. Indeed the Senate Republican filibuster was only broken after Democrats were forced to make cuts in the SNAP (Food Stamps) program. Yet Republicans still complained that the increased taxes in the law would be bad for business and hurt job creation. But what are these job killing tax hikes? Nothing that would remotely influence a business to refrain from creating U.S. jobs. Rather, the measure calls for closing a loophole that allowed companies to evade U.S. taxes through manipulating foreign tax credits. Companies that behave in such an unpatriotic fashion have already busted unions, cut wages and benefits, and outsourced as many jobs as possible to low-wage countries. They had no plans to create any good new jobs in the U.S. Losing this tax dodge will only spur them to dream up more shady ways to jack up their profits.

Let's hope this little step in the right direction signals a more active Congress in the future!

Carving up the pie

A new report based on data recently released by the Congressional Budget Office shows in stark terms the increasing concentration of our nation's wealth in fewer hands. Over the last three decades we have moved from a situation of massive inequality to one of mind-boggling inequality. Even in 1979 the top fifth (or 20%) took a very large portion of the national income. By 2007 this had become an obscenely huge portion of the national income. This is easily visualized with the help of these pie charts to the left. In 1979 80% of Americans were still able to control slightly more spending power than the wealthiest 20%. By 2007 the top 20% actually took more than half of the national after-tax income. The steady erosion of the relative position of the middle class and the poor is striking. But even more remarkable is the explosive growth in income of the very wealthiest among us. The top 1% have increased their share of national income much more dramatically than other wealthy folks in the top fifth.

We must remember something about this data. The numbers here reflect only income wealth that is actually reported to the IRS. Is it possible that some folks in the top 1% might have some money stashed in accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands that they forget to mention to Uncle Sam? As Sarah Palin might say-- "you betcha!" How much wealth do school teachers or short-order cooks have tucked away out of sight? They don't have fancy lawyers or money to fly to Zurich.

So, what's the point? It's not "class warfare" to remark on how much better the wealthy have fared than the rest of us. It's a simple statement of fact. When a modest increase in taxes on the wealthiest is proposed, the howls of protest are deafening. Yet such an increase would not really change the situation. When one considers that more than half of the national income belongs to the wealthy, all of a sudden advertising makes more sense. Sure, businesses and politicians would like everyone's support. Yet the spending power of the wealthy simply dwarfs that of everyone else. Their interests are never ignored. Instead of crying over the supposed unfairness of asking multi-millionaires to fork over a bit more cash on April 15th, politicians in Washington might consider the real unfairness of asking the vast majority of American taxpayers to live in fear of sickness or injury. Instead of insisting that we can't afford health care for all, maybe we should start asking how a great nation could allow so many middle-class families to go bankrupt and lose their homes because of medical bills.

Any capitalist economy is going to produce significant disparities in wealth. This in itself is not a reason to advocate the destruction of capitalism. Yet capitalism does not have to be heartless to flourish. A billionaire can afford to pay the workers at his company a living wage without having to sell his vacation home in Aspen or the south of France. Rich people enjoy so much of our bounty that asking them to help out a little more seems only right.

Remaking History

Jerry Adler of Newsweek reports on a fascinating story from Iowa. It seems the Republicans in that fair state have called in their newly adopted platform for something pretty radical. As some of us may remember, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1865 to complete the work begun by President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The language of the amendment is simple:

"Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

What is far less well known is that there was a much earlier amendment proposed by Senator Philip Reed of Maryland, one that appeared on its way to eventual adoption by the end of 1812. For whatever reason it was never finally adopted and accepted as constitutional law. This amendment, had it been adopted, would have become the 13th. It had nothing to do with slavery, but was rather concerned with the acceptance of titles of nobility and pensions from foreign monarchs. Reed wanted to strengthen the existing constitutional ban, that prohibited U.S. officeholders from receiving such goods, by extending it to all U.S. citizens and imposing the loss of citizenship as the penalty for violating the ban. The precise language of Reed's amendment follows:

If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.

What does all this have to do with Iowa Republicans in 2010? Well, they have adopted as part of their platform a call for “the reintroduction and ratification of the original 13th Amendment, not the 13th amendment in today’s Constitution.” Let's give these folks the benefit of the doubt and not interpret this this as calling for the reversal of slavery's abolition. We might be over generous in so doing, but this blog is all about giving everyone a fair shake. But why call for bringing back this early 19th century amendment? Iowa Republicans are happy to explain that they could use it to strip President Barack Obama of his office and citizenship since he received the Nobel Prize. They don't seem to mind that it would also damage Jimmy Carter. Or that Ronald Reagan, who received honors from Elizabeth II of England, would be a posthumous violator of "the original 13th."

Of course, this is all absurd. Categorizing the Nobel Prize Committee as a foreign power is only one aspect of the craziness. Yet it actually makes sense from the distorted perspective of the radical right. Obama-haters have already made up their minds that Obama seeks to destroy all that they value. They are not content to accept the results of a national election. If they can't easily find something in Obama's conduct to warrant throwing him out of office, then they will search for anything else they can use to make him illegitimate. The brouhaha over alleged irregularities in his birth certificate was another manifestation of the same desperate desire to destroy credibility.

We can't convert these rabid Republicans to a more reasonable point of view. Yet we need to take seriously their fanatical opposition. Only by motivating Democrats and progressives to work with heightened zeal can we construct a better vision for America that appeals to voters. We should never seek to appease those who will stop at nothing to destroy us. Instead we need to patiently counter outrage with good sense and positive deeds.

Hunger in the land of plenty

Ezra Klein had a nice little piece on the significance of the recent decision to cut spending on SNAP (or what used to be called food stamps). During the debate, the point was raised that the recession has brought grocery prices down a little. SNAP benefits stretch further than they used to. This kind of talk makes my blood boil! Only people with no assets and very little income benefit from this program. The amount of help given can often be less than $125/month. So what is the reality? The shelter/soup kitchen where I help out has to turn away folks seeking shelter every night. But the demand for meals changes dramatically about halfway through the month. The same folks return to the soup kitchen for the latter half of every month because their food stamps run out. The kitchen knows this will happen, and therefore puts out more tables and lays in more food to meet the increased demand. The inevitable consequence of this cut will be to strain even further the overwhelmed charities that struggle to meet basic human needs for those left behind in this land of plenty.

Youtube post

The story covered in the youtube video I just posted is both frightening and sad. For people who call themselves Christians to seek credit, because their "prayers" supposedly brought on someone's death, should bring swift condemnation from all Christians everywhere. Unfortunately, this type of lunacy is so commonplace that it no longer gets much media attention. How can we reason with such people? The truth is we can't. We can only hope that in practicing tolerance, compassion, and inclusiveness in our own words and deeds that decent people will be moved to do the same.

Yet, too often, we fail to confront hatred and intolerance with sufficient vigor. In particular, politicians and opinion-makers who pander to base instincts get away with this dangerous demonizing with too little public or political outcry. As the elections loom, it behooves us to look out for hate-mongering, and fight it tooth and nail

Right Wing Christians Praying That People Die

Trickle down tax policy

Karoli has a nice post on Crooks and Liars today that rightly mocks Joe Lieberman and Kent Conrad for their opposition to allowing the Bush tax cuts for people making over $250,000 a year to expire in 2011.

One particular argument for the high income tax break apologists has always been that raising taxes for these people on top will hurt "small business" in the U.S. This argument of course presupposes that capitalists will immediately reduce their economically beneficial activities if they are asked to pay slightly higher taxes. That must be why you can't find any capitalists in London, Stuttgart or any of the countless other places in the developed world where taxes are far higher than in the United States. But since most Americans are quite unaware of how much lower top tax rates are here compared to much of the world, we should consider a purely American example. A master plumber has a choice between remaining a one person operation clearing $65,000 a year in profits, or hiring on some other plumbers and apprentices and taking in profits of $350,000 a year. Will this plumber choose not to expand because of a minor increase in taxes? Not for any reasons of rational self-interest!

Karoli's post also makes another point. It refers to a study of tax data that shows very clearly that most small business income in this country is not taxed at the highest rates. This is true for two reasons: most small business owners make less than $250,000, and those wealthy folks who do report small business income very often derive only a fraction of their income from small business.

Progressives who want to argue in favor of letting the Bush tax cuts for wealthy folks expire should actually look to small business as a natural ally. A seamstress or landscaper with a fairly low income obviously has an interest in seeing the very wealthy pay more of their fair share. But I would also look to wealthy small business owners for support. If paying thousands more in taxes will help to make it easier to provide healthcare to employees, why not do it? The Republican assumption that most people don't like paying taxes is correct. But the Republican assumption that a minor increase in taxes, for those making over $250,000, can be successfully misrepresented as an attack on "small business," must be fought against with great vigor.

Rebuilding

You all will notice I no longer have any "Impeach Cheney" or other outdated petition drive/political action buttons on my site. In a little while we should have some replacements that will provide folks with opportunities to take action on issues of interest. Thanks for your patience!

Back in the saddle

The last time we appeared, here in this little corner of the blogosphere, Barack Obama had just been acknowledged as the Democratic choice for President by the other leading candidates. While the country is justifiably relieved to be rid of Bush, Cheney et al., the current administration faces huge challenges and will struggle to find its footing as long as the economy continues to languish. Locally, Rep. Patrick Kennedy has decided to retire from the U.S. Congress. While Patrick never achieved the titanic stature of his father Ted, he served Rhode Island well and we will miss his good efforts in Washington. His tireless advocacy for the mentally ill will be one of his most cherished legacies.

The Democrats have endorsed Mayor David Cicilline (pictured above) to serve as the new congressman from Rhode Island. One of his primary opponents, State Rep. David Segal, is also well-liked by local progressives and seems like a good person. Yet I've chosen to work on behalf of Mayor David Cicilline's congressional campaign. Why? He simply has more substantial experience and political maturity. He seems ready to work hard for results without losing sight of his core liberal principles.