The recent defeat of loophole-closing background check legislation in the Senate, despite roughly 90% of the public supporting it, is another blunt reminder that our government is not “for the people” anymore.  Regrettably, “government of the people, by the people and for the people” is perishing from the earth. We now elect representatives in gerrymandered  [ Read More ]

There have been a variety of responses to the Citizens United decision, including advocating the near impossible task of obtaining a Constitutional Amendment from the very people who benefit from PAC, corporate and other organizational money. There is an alternative that is more realistically feasible. That alternative is wholly within our control, and not dependent upon legislation.  [ Read More ]

We Americans are sleepwalking through the theft of our way of life, our future and our democracy. Aided and abetted by profit-conflicted and inept major media, we are misinformed and misled. We have become numb to what should be alarming numbers; 40 million human beings at or below the poverty level in the richest nation on earth; 37th  [ Read More ]

To achieve change Socrates said that we need to focus, not on fighting the old but on building the new. That is an admonition that all of America should heed. Instead, we are locked in bitter antagonisms between competing ideologies while problems go unsolved. Angry action begets reaction in a continuing diversion of our energies.  [ Read More ]

GOP victories in state house after state house and the resultant focus on austerity and social issues should be a wake-up call to progressives. Despite minor victories here and there, the progressive message is simply not resonating with enough Americans. Recent polls indicate that a majority of them do not support more regulation of the  [ Read More ]

The Grand Old Party, once stood staunchly for fiscal conservatism and the preservation of our liberties. But in the words of some of my Republican friends, they didn’t leave the Party, it left them. In order to advance their agenda wealthy individuals and large corporations realized that they had to engage a wider army in  [ Read More ]

America is angry. We are angry at government, angry at wealth and angry at politicians in general. We are also bitterly divided about the causes of our difficulties, the solutions and how to implement them. For some there is too much government interference in our lives, too much regulation and profligate government spending. For others, social issues are  [ Read More ]

The sad fact is that our once “can do” country has become a country of “can’t.” We can’t have world class schools, good roads and bridges or adequate police and fire protection because we are told we can’t afford them. We can’t take care of seniors or provide universal health-care because we can’t even agree on these  [ Read More ]

The current fashionable answer to what ails our country is to assign blame to Wall Street and wealth. After all, lobbying and money are polluting the political process as never before.  And we cannot overlook the carnage to our economy that greed, hubris and malfeasance in the financial community have wrought. It is also human nature that when things are not  [ Read More ]

The recent blocking of the nomination of a second emminently qualified nominee, Richard Cordray, to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau by Senate Republicans, using the threat of fillibuster, has been referred to as the act of nullification by several observers. See the article by James Fallows, for example: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/a-process-that-is-running-out-of-control-the-new-nullification-crisis/249754/ This isn’t a Republican or Democrat  [ Read More ]