Time for a FRESH START? Tell us what you think.
During the next week, North Country Public Radio is airing a series of interviews with prominent regional thinkers -- physician John Rugge, environmentalist Bill McKibben, farm policy guru Wes Jackson, and others.
The theme: A "fresh start" for America.
According to the New York Times, Team Obama is thinking along the same lines.
Over the next week, I'll also focus most of my blog entries on this topic, searching for interesting thinking that's percolating up out there in the web-o-sphere.Aides said the question was whether they could tackle health care, climate change and energy independence at once or needed to stagger these initiatives over time.
So here's your invitation to be a part of the conversation. What do you think the big new ideas should be? What can we do nationally, regionally, and locally to move our community forward?
And what other areas need attention: the arts? immigration?Enter your comments below and be sure to listen all week to the Eight O'clock Hour and All Before Five.
posted by Brian Mann @ 11/09/2008 08:23:00 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I am wondering what impact the "fresh start" in the State Senate, and resulting Democratic Party dominance of state government, will have on the North Country. You have discussed speculation on this before, but now that the Dems are in control, how likely are resources we once received to diverted downstate, and with what results? This especially worrying in view of the current economic crisis in NYS government.
Sorry to be a bummer, but regionally, that is the big issue with me.
Thanks to Father Nagel for pointing out what no polititian ever would; consumerism as a major cause of national decay. Big business has sold us literally "a bill of goods" and we have bought it. A return to the values of our depression-era parents and grandparents (actual conservatism) will go a long way towards solving our problems. Too bad it may take a depression to get there.
Obama should promote the consolidation of the states. The Constitution specifically provides for the merging of states, and such a move would not only reduce administrative costs (less governors and US senators, etc.), give the states a regional quality and reduce population differences, but it would make each state more powerful relative to the federal government. That was the way the framers of the constitution meant it to be, and we've lost that after more than 100 years of global conflict and world trade. The people were meant to have an affection for, and protection by, their own states equal to that for and by the nation; who can have an affection for something that's relatively powerless to another entity? If we consolidate the states, then the states, collectively and individually, will be returned to their places of equity with the federal government. Plus, if we consolidate into thirteen, we could use that cool Betsy Ross flag again.
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