"Ask what you can do for your country!"
Jack Kennedy famously challenged Americans to ask what they can do for their country. One thing we can do is read the columns in our daily on-line newspaper(s) and the comments made and respond with reasoned factual (as we know them) comments and counter the ranters. We can also write letters to the editor.
We can either use facts or spiritual responses. I occasionally will use a biblical quote, and then other times use a bit of humor. I sometimes congratulate the on-line ranter and their angry comments for helping create more Democrats.
Whatever you do, just do it. We all can make significant personal contributions to making our democracy work.
- anElder's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Comments
Newspapers.
This is the great thing about online newspapers. With traditional print people do not have the option to leave comments. They can only write letter to the editor. I agree that that we all need to take a greater interest. online casino
A global moral crisis
Jim,
Your comments are spot on. Reaganomics is based on Irving Kristol's idea that markets are self regulating and self correcting. The problem is that self regulating is really self perpetuating and that the self correcting aspect results in millions of people losing their hard gained success. We are midst one of those "self correcting" actions right now, a global recession.
Paul accurately forecast this almost 2,000 years ago in his first letter to Timothy, which is set forth in 1 Timothy 6:9&10. A read of verse 9 reads like recent economic and political events of the past 2 decades. Verse 10 clearly esposes the cause, the love of money, (i.e. the lust for money) and all the greed and power associated with the use of this neutral medium of exchange as a commodity, using money simply to create more.
This misuse was identified 4 millenia ago when the Hindi and later the Jain, Jewish, Christians and Muslims religions, banned the practice of usury, charging exorbitant rates of interest on monies lent. Thus Paul may not have been so much prophesing as reflecting common knowledge.
What we are facing is a centuries old moral crisis re: a proper mature attitude regarding the use and misuse of money. If Mr. Obama wants to make real change then he must put proper boundaries around those economic forces that use money as a commodity, restraining the exploiters from gaining undo profits at the expense of others.
On September 9th, Steven Pearlman's column in the Washington Post spoke of Wall Street's short-termism mania and how it hurst our economy; the use of investment strategies that focus on short term gains at the expense of long term stablity. He referenced a new report by the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program entitled "Overcoming Short-termism: A Call for a More Responsible Approach to Investment and Business Management".
It was unfortunately issued on September 9th, and was over shadowed by Mr. Obama's speech to Congress about heath-care reform. It deserves much wider media attention as a meaure of educating the public about cures to a chronic disease infesting our global monetary systems.
Such luminaries as Warren Buffet, (the Oracle of Omaha) CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, James Wolfensohn, 9th President of the World Bank and Richard Trumka, Secretary-Tresurer of the AFL-CIO, and the heads of well known companies like Xerox, Medtronic, IBM, Duke Energy and Goldman Sachs, plus Barbara Hackman Franklin, a former US Secretary of Commerce, as well as educators from Yale, Harvard and UCLA participated in creating the report and endorsed its findings.
I encourage you and others in our community to read the article and follow the link to open, download the report and carefully read it. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/10?AR2009091004224_p
It outlines common sense solutions to the errors of the recent past. I have been championing the report as I comment on related articles in the Post and the NY Times. I urge you and others to do the same.
This is one thing we can do for our country.
Rich
Thanks for the reminder
I think most of us know, or have known, the importance of answering Letters to the Editor, just like they were addressed to us. They ARE addressed to us once the newspaper chooses to publish them. And, not to make the newspaper the bad guy, these letters get picked because they are the only letters addressing the issue du jour. If a progressive has also written a letter on the subject, the paper would run both. This I know from my years of work in print journalism. And, think of this, if the only letter on the issue is one of ours? We get to be the sole voice! The bully pulpit is ours just for the cost of a stamp... or nowadays, the cost of an email. Uh huh. There goes the "can't afford" excuse.
Seriously, thank you for the reminder, I'm taking it to heart. I haven't written nearly as many letters as my newspaper deserves, or as my causes deserve. If I wanted to be honest (and in this case, I'd rather not be) I'd admit to writing more letters to elected officials, newspapers, and others who needed them, when I WAS paying for that stamp. A handful went out of here most days. Now that it's so much easier, I've fallen down on the job. And in my county, if I don't speak or write, it's going to look like everybody agrees with the conservative point of view. I can't let that happen any more!!
Are progressives becoming complacent or just turned off?
Janet,
OK, let's take 'em on. Let us inspire by example. Frank's blogging on TalkToAction and Street Prophet, plus here. You and I blog here, and by what I hear you say, you write letters to the Editor. I have become quite active on the comments pages of the Washington Post and NY Times, preferring to provide instant feedback on more mainstream media.
Not being a techie type person, I don't do FaceBook or Tweet. I'll respond to stuff put on my FaceBook wall but don't initiate discussions. Progressive Christians have a great site, one I have just begun to use. I'm spending my time on developing a paper on ethical financial reform. I believe, and see much evidence for, the existence of a global moral crisis re: money and it's use and abuse.
My question to you, and others here, is are we progressives, having helped elect Mr. Obama and Democratic majorities in the Congress, now becoming complacent, or disillusioned with what looks like a centrist Presidency?
What do you think?
Rich
Complacent
Rich I know you are asking the question to Janet but I am going to jump in there anyway. I am not becoming complacent but disillusioned. I recently wrote a letter to my congressman and senators and told them it is beginning to look like there is no such thing as electing enough Democrats to get real progressive reform. Even as I remain a Democratic party county co-chair, I am secretly hoping the two party system break wide open.
From Reagan to Bush to Obama
Its been a long de-evolution from Kennedy challenging us to "ask not what your country can do for you, rather, ask what you can to do for your country", to Bush II telling us to "go shopping" after 9-11. The de-evolution began with Reagan and the "me generation" and the attempt to totally thwart the common good, for which the constitution was written, and establish the corportocracy.The Reagan revolution has succeeded and come to it's logical conclusion. The conservative economic point of view has won. America is in trouble. And I am sorry to say, Obama is basically trying to fix the existing paradigm and not bringing real change. Obama is trying to fix the house that Reagan built. It has a very shaky foundation though. Two Bushes and a Clinton have really trashed the place after Reagan laid the shaky foundation.. We are being told the economic emergency is over. The gamblers on Wall Street are making money again, all is well.Nothing has changed to check their unrestrained greed that has no regard for anyone ,their profiteering being the only goal. Meantime out here on Main Street the unemployment lines are long and poverty is growing. My sate, Michigan, is in a depression, not a recession. We are ground zero for the economic collapse.What is going on that passes for rectifying the situation is basically more Reaganomics, more trickle down economics. The idea is if the gamblers and hustlers on Wall Street are doing well, it will all work out. It is not working out. The rich and the super rich were having fun with no rules, no regulations capitalism but we peasants seeing our real income go down and down. As far as putting main street back to work, the most effective thing done so far by Obama is the cash for clunkers programs.Real people got a cash incentive and when they bought cars other real people went back to work.
We need a complete overhaul.Obama needs to go right to the foundation that Reagan laid for this decaying house and start rebuilding. He could start with fair trade and helping get Americans jobs that pay enough to pay the bills.
Democrats are experiencing a drop in contributions
Yesterday the media repoted that the Democrats are experiencing a serious drop in contributions; due in part to complacency on the part of their base, Obama and the Dems are now in leadership positions. Now their base says, Let' em now do their job. Yeah right! I am reminded of the comment made by the famed cowboy comedian, Will Rogers, who in 1932 was asked about his political pursuasion. He replied, "Well I don't belong to an organized political party. --- I'm a Democrat." My how the more things change the more they seem to stay the same.
Moreover I think Mr. Obama is silently losing support from his base, as he reveals, by his actions, that he is a centrist, and thus is becoming a real disappointment for those who really worked, and work, for change, only to find their great hoped for change artist isn't what they hoped he'd be.
The other, and IMO, more ominious reason for the drop is a reported silent boycott of the Democrats by the high rollers who do not like what Mr. Obama and the top Dems are saying about financial reform. That reminds me of the comment made by former Alabama Gov. George Wallace who said, back in 1972, "There isn't a dimes worth of difference between the Democrats and Republicans.", which I take to mean when it comes to the role of money on politics it's the high rollers who often back both parties and usually call the shots.
Fortunately we now have the internet w/ groups like MoveOn, (which has come under direct attack recently by conservatives), ColorOfChange, ProgressiveDemocrats, True Majority, Creedo and the like. But no matter how much these groups raise the Republicans have their own similiar groups, and overall the progressive groups can not hope to match the millions from the high rollers. With labor numbers declining and the anti-union activities of companies like Wal-mart traditional Democratic bases are not growing as fast as progressive causes need.
What we face is a growing moral crisis; would Jesus be a progressive? Even a radical? I think so, and would not, as I have said elsewhere, be recognized by the vast majority of those who call themselves Christian and would (once again) be rejected by the masses, inspired by modern day Pharisees and the modern day Romans on Wall Street.