Progressive Democrat Issue 174

It is difficult to feel good this 4th of July given the mess the Bush/McCain Republicans have led this nation into. This year alone 438,000 people who lost their jobs. We are well into the Bush's SECOND recession (first president ever to preside over two recessions) with almost no recovery between them. We are officially in a bear market. Food prices are rising worldwide. Oil is at record highs suggesting Americans will have a very, very tough winter. The deficit is WAY above where it has ever been before and no end in sight. And I am not even going into the inept, idiotic and completely useless Bush/McCain Iraq war.

It is hard to look at Bush/McCain America, with its broken levees, broken bridges, broken economy and broken hopes and feel good today. But July 4th is about America's great potential, the dream behind America, not about the disasterous Bush administration. The Bush/McCain agenda of torture and violations of the Constitution is about as far away from America's dream and America's potential as you can get. Today we celebrate America. America as it should be. America as it was envisioned when we broke from England.

Here is the critical text of the Declaration of Independence, now 232 years old. And boy does it resonate today:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security...

THAT is what we celebrate today. Not the ruin and corruption the Republicans have caused since 2000.

Here is this week's newsletter:

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID

FOX NEWS: Stooping to Anti-Semitism

50 STATE STRATEGY: Diane Benson for Alaska

50 STATE STRATEGY: Mark Begich for Alaska

MINNESOTA FOCUS: Progressive Candidates, The Minnesota Project, Drinking Liberally

WASHINGTON FOCUS: Progressive Candidates

GEORGIA FOCUS: Obama, Veterans for Peace, NAACP, Groups and Events

NEW YORK STATE FOCUS: Blogs, Progressive Candidates, Peace Vigils, Groups and Events

VIRGINIA FOCUS: Blogs, Obama, Impeachment, Groups and Events

CALIFORINIA FOCUS: Blogs, Progressive Candidates, Alternative Energy, Peace Vigils, Groups and Events

TEXAS FOCUS: Blogs, Rick Noriega, Alternative Energy, Groups and Events

NEW JERSEY FOCUS: Blogs, Congressional Candidates, Blue Jersey Radio, Impeachment, Groups and Events

WISCONSIN FOCUS: Blogs, Progressive Candidates, Alternative Energy, Sustainable Agriculture, Groups and Events

MICHIGAN FOCUS: Blogs, Obama, Mark Shauer, Gary Peters, Groups and Events

PENNSYLVANIA: Blogs, Progressive Candidates, Groups and Events

IOWA FOCUS: Blogs, Progressive Candidates, Peace Vigils, Groups and Events

OHIO FOCUS: Blogs, Progressive Candidates, Groups and Events

FLORIDA FOCUS: Blogs, Obama, Christine Jennings, Joe Garcia, Voter Registration, Groups and Events

OREGON FOCUS: Blogs, Jeff Merkley, Neighborhood Leaders, Groups and Events

ALASKA FOCUS: Diane Benson, Mark Begich, Veterans for Peace, Groups and Events

ILLINOIS FOCUS: Peace Vigils, Alternative Energy, Groups and Events

ARIZONA FOCUS: Progressive Candidates, Groups and Events

NORTH CAROLINA: Blogs, Obama, Kay Hagan, Larry Kissell, Veterans for Peace, Peace Vigils, Groups and Events