“font-family: Verdana;”>For most of us, we leave 2011 with mixed emotions. And while our individual situations and progress varied, it is important that we look at the bigger picture as the struggle over who government serves and how the social needs of a nation get met.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>It is painfully clear that most of elected officials are either incapable or incompetent of having both the vision and a strategy for addressing the big economic, social and military problems that face the country.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>With a 9 percent approval rating, Congress has been in crisis management mode. Government operations were threatened to shut down three times, and the Congress barely avoided a default on the national debt. Both the House and the Senate have passed the lowest numbers of bills in over a decade. Congress had not dealt with a substantive jobs bill and instead has passed hundreds of meaningless resolutions like upholding “In God We Trust” as the national motto or designating “Drive Safer Sunday.” It has truly earned the descriptive adjective that frequently precedes its name—Do-Nothing Congress, a term coined by President Harry Truman during his reelection bid in 1948.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>The slow burn of the 99 percent into an Occupy boil has actually seen some positive results. An empowered and energized class is tired of the carrying the economic burden of this country while the 1 percent continued to make unprecedented profits. Efforts to beat back unnecessary fees for bank and phone service charges, along with moving hundreds of thousands of bank accounts from banks to credit unions, were at least temporarily successful. The Occupy momentum must be maintained.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>In Missouri, we will have our hands full. There will be ballot initiatives and fight-backs against the criminal justice system. There will be key elections including the presidential race. We need to be familiar with candidates and their track records in our community.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Currently, Jobs with Justice and its allies are collecting signatures for a living wage law and payday loan law that gives relief to poor and working class people victimized by predatory institutions.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>Wrongful-conviction cases, such as Reginald Clemons, Frederico Lowe-Bey, Reginald Griffin, Dale Helmig and others, will hopefully see the light of day this year as they push through the walls set up by the criminal justice system to prevent the truth from being revealed. We must take the inhumane and unfair death penalty off life support system, and let it die a righteous death.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>This is the year for the masses of people to look at alternative sources of energy, alternative economic solutions and new social relationships that make for a peaceful and sustainable world. Innovation and imagination are key concepts.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>This is the year for challenging hypocrisy and injustices on all levels and for demanding fairness and accountability on all levels. Attempts by billionaire financer Rex Sinquefield to hi-jack the police local control campaign must be stopped. The continued destruction of the public schools must be stopped. Anything that affects the majority’s standard of living or their constitutional and human rights must be stopped.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana; mso-fareast-font-family:”>It’s time to occupy! Not just occupy parks and the streets but to occupy the legislative halls, school buildings, airwaves, social media and any other spaced that needs working class leadership. As Bob Marley sang those “who feels it knows it” so it will be up those of us under the boot of corporate greed, to get ourselves from under it. Let’s put mediocrity in the trash can of history and start charting the kind of neighborhood and country we want to live in. There is plenty to be hopeful for.
