I need to say up front that my agenda is and will continue to be a moving target. We have conflicting and extremely important issues facing us as a nation. For me to say that only a few items are on my personal horizon would be short-sighted and self-defeating.
Corporate Attack on our Rights – We are under a concerted attack designed to reduce us to voiceless, powerless drones. The Republican Party is pushing to remove all rights to organize our labor, to be heard in peaceful protest, and to raise our children in OUR CHOICE of faith. Our own Governor took away the right to collectively bargain if you happen to work for a city. Democrats collude with these actions by ignoring them and following their own agenda.
It is in corporations best interests to have a cheap, fluid, powerless workforce who must accept whatever low pay is offered. De-regulation allows corporate policies that increase profits no matter what the cost to our people or our environment. SOPA and the attack on Net Neutrality are other examples of the corporate drive to control not just our government but moments of our daily lives. Illegal immigration helps drive down wages, benefits, and working conditions for all working Americans.
Financial Reforms – why was Glass-Steagall repealed? It protected us from wild financial gambles and prevented what happened in 2008. The Republicans and Democrats worked together to create the very problems we now face. They were warned at the time that banks would become “too big to fail” and result in a bailout. The greed of the corporate backers of the national parties created the problems. Period.
At minimum Dodd-Frank must be fully implemented.
Our national prosperity – and how we get more of us to actually be prosperous again is vital to all other issues. We have lost manufacturing jobs that will never return to our unemployed workers no matter how well the overall economy does. These jobs, the families and communities they supported, are all history. What we find to replace them is absolutely vital to our currently unemployed, their children and grandchildren. Poverty is a trap incredibly difficult to escape and the longer it takes for our economy to provide new, stable and sustainable employment the deeper the poverty trap becomes. 20% of of our neighbors live in poverty and solutions must include ways to help them climb out. The current Republican push to reduce support for education is an obvious attack on the helpless, many of whom are in poverty because they lost their jobs as corporations sent these jobs overseas.
