“Time keeps on slippin, slippin, into the future” (Steve Miller Band 1976).
Time is having its way with me in a fashion that I do not understand. I seem like the same person I was three, four decades ago when I was a rock-and-roll lunatic with long hair. Today, my knees hurt; my back aches; my hair is thin and “platinum”.
Today signifies another successful trip around the sun.
Kavananope Protest 4 Oct 2018
All that said this is no time for complaints, pessimism, nor inaction. The health of democracy in PA, and America, is not good measured by the amount of dark money and foreign influence in our political campaigns, gerrymandered congressional and state districts, voter suppression legislation, income inequality, climate change denial, and general lack of confidence in our elected politicians.
Yet, alongside these troubling indicators of erosion of our democracy, there have come signs that “we the people“ of PA want to reclaim our politics. Across the state since the last presidential election, grass roots citizens groups, sometimes called indivisible and resistance, have sprouted up seeking to hold federal and state lawmakers accountable.
Tue with Toomey Gun Violence Protest 4 Mar 2019
Personally, I stand in solidarity with thousands of courageous teenagers who spoke out and organized to stop gun violence following the school shooting in Parkland, FL. I stand in solidarity with the activists fighting for immigrant rights and DACA. I applaud the rank-in-file movement of teachers in WV, OK, KY, and AZ, which is reviving the far too long dormant tradition of labor activism. I proudly support the women in the funky pink hats. They give me hope for the change of direction needed in PA, and America, and the world.
Drawing on the energy and experiences of the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets in DC for the Women’s Marches and the Marches for Life and the Marches for Science, I proudly stand with them for the values of truth, social and economic justice and equality, health care for all, and human rights.
PA was the birthplace of American democracy. Our founders crafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in Philadelphia. The Battle of Gettysburg helped turn the tide of the Civil War and preserved the union so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this earth.” The time has come for “we the people” of PA to embrace our shared heritage by restoring our state’s democracy. That is the only way we can achieve a democracy and an economy that works for all. It is “fitting and proper” that that work of the nation starts here.
Speaking for the nation, Franklin D Roosevelt said “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”
The measure of our personal progress is not just what we have, but how we live.
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