The Unity of Progressives and Government

March 3, 2009

by Larry Sakin

The main social responsibility of government is to enhance our collective and individual quality of life. The government does this by protecting our social security, our intellectual security and our health security.

Over the last twenty-five years, we have seen our government diminish its social responsibility to her citizens and instead act as lead salesperson for corporate interests that donate the largest part of campaign funds to local, state, and national leaders.

Government has forgotten that we have the RIGHT to be happy. In order to be happy we need a higher quality of life. We need to also keep a high quality of life to keep Americans in America and to keep the unity and strength of this country. When we have a lower quality of life than many other countries then what are we working for?

Since the government has decimated its accountability to the citizenry, it is now up to us to protect intellectual security by having the best schools in the world. We also can protect our health security by providing healthcare for everyone who lives among us because if they get the flu, we get the flu. Providing for and protecting communities which may mean providing funds to rebuild communities. I don’t believe that right now in the United States anyone should have to live in a ghetto no matter how poor. The poor want to be able to work one job like everyone else, they want childcare for their kids, a decent education, and the ability to live just like everyone else. Healthcare, retirement, everything a rich person has a poor person should gain access to. Education, culture, information itself should not be owned by the rich. We have to protect the commons and promote a free and open culture for all classes not simply the ones who can afford it.

All communities must be protected to protect the strength of America. The strength of America is protected by unity.

The way to unite a group of soldiers is by giving them a common goal. As progressives we have the ability to enhance “quality” of life and ensure that government enhances the quality of life for all Americans. We can live in harmony and must fight to protect that harmony. Equality and harmony are linked. We need equality on all levels, racial, gender, sexual, so that we can have a stronger united America.

People must consider that this must work for hundreds of years, we must consider the kinds of technologies we might have, and we must find principles which apply to any level of technology. We must create these principles to essentially save the world from its own destruction. If we all live by them then we can protect our futures. It’s in our own best interest to protect our future and it’s in everyone’s best interest to care about the future. How can we take our future back? That’s the question we must internally ask when finding the words to frame the future.

Government should go out of its way to make our lives easier, not harder. Personal responsibility should be required in areas which the government cannot help much, but when it comes to economics, healthcare, education, childcare, social security and many other area the government can help.

The final purpose of government is to give people a reason to work hard. People need an overall goal, something to work for, and this goal perhaps is the future. We work hard in the present to create a better future so that our children won’t have to work as hard as we did.

As progressives, we need to win the future and secure it while surviving the present. Surviving the present will require hard work, but we can sacrifice a portion of our lives through labor to make the world better than it was before we came into it.

So the real goal for all of us is to make the world better, to make life easier, and to protect the earth, people, and ourselves. The only way to protect the future is to learn to live in harmony; else I don’t think we will have a future in 100 years. In fact we may not even have a future in 20 years.

Until we become a nation of thinkers instead of warriors, internal and external political wars will not end. Nothing’s at stake except our species and our planet. I believe both are worth fighting for.

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Written by Larry Sakin · Filed Under A Moment of Clarity

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Letter to the Editor: Good Cars need Good Teams - by R. A. Letcher, PhD

Good cars need good teams -- designers, engineers, line workers… and learning-oriented managers by Robert A. Letcher, PhD [Author’s note: I submitted the following as a letter to the editor of The New York Times, after that paper carried an article under the headline, "To Fix Detroit, Obama Is Said to Drop Plan for ‘Car Czar’", 02/15/2009.] It is widely accepted that you can't win a horse race without a good horse. Of course, it helps to have a lot of money and a good plan for spending it. But, you still need a good horse. The authors reminded me of this when they wrote: “The companies’ plans are required to show progress in cutting long-term costs as a condition for keeping their loans.” I doubt GM and Chrysler can win this most important "automobile race" merely by having better accountants and more muscular negotiators: they still need a good "horse". That means the companies will have to show that their teams can still design and build cars that people are drawn to buy and willing to pay for: winners. I doubt they can. The problem isn't that they didn't know how to; it's that they don't know how to break out of the group-think that ensnarled them, their managers, their whole organizations, decades ago. I would be more optimistic, had the government also required the companies to include plans for transforming themselves into learning organizations. Aye, there’s the rub: learning entails risk-taking, not “yes people”.
Bob's Bail Out Plan by bobl-tlm
Fiscal Therapy - Getting the economy back on its feet, giving taxpayers a break, saving your retirement fund and your kid's college tuition? Done. And it won't cost you a penny.

For years now, whenever I've been invited to lecture students on how our tax system works, I have asked a simple question: What is the purpose of the United States of America? The most common answer, be it at prestigious universities, elite prep schools, rural community colleges, or crowded urban high schools, is this: To make people rich. This should come as no great surprise. For anyone born after, say, 1970, the world has been shaped by Ronald Reagan's remaking of government's relationship with private interests—a vision of lower taxes, less regulation, and maximum economic leeway for those at the top. In this view, the pursuit of wealth is the warp and weft of America; everything else will follow. By contrast, the preamble to the Constitution tells us the nation's reason for being in 52 words that can be reduced to six principles: society, justice, peace, security, commonwealth, and freedom. Individual riches don't make the list. They are a product of American society, not its guiding purpose. Progress, then, must begin with a return to the best of the values that created this Second American Republic—one born, it's worth remembering, from the failure of the Articles of Confederation, whose principles (weak government, unfettered capitalism) found their resurrection in the economic policies of the past three decades.
read more at Mother Jones
How Do You Like Deregulation Now? graphic politics by Dicky Neely
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