Attorney General Gonzales's visit to our community illustrated the dominant perspective in our government that a small group of rulers are entitled to decide what is best for our communities and that we - the ordinary people who make up thousands of communities in our country - should be passive consumers of those decisions. And, when the rulers visit the communities in their realm, they feel entitled to interact with the people as passive and appreciative consumers. The notion of ordinary people as participants in the process of governing conflicts so sharply with their perspective that they react by retreating behind the walls they've built to separate us. Read More »

Alberto Gonzales is in Boise tomorrow, Tuesday, June 26 from 2:00 - 3:00 pm at the Fort Boise Community Center. He is the Bush Administration's Attorney General. He has promoted the administration's torture policy, has worked to use our government to undermine our civil rights and has taken our Republic's Department of Justice and turned it into an arm of the Republican party. I hope everyone can find the time to come and greet the AG and share with him that Idaho does NOT these policies. Read More »

Hope to ses some other Idahoans at the national Take Back America Conference this coming week in Washington, DC. They'll have a lot of big names but I hope there will be a lot of respect for the impressive work being done by thousands of unsung grassroots leaders - ordinary people making social change happen in their communities. Check out the agenda and let us know what you think. Send me questions I should ask the speakers. Read More »

Today, the leaders of Idaho's organized workers gathered in Lewiston and passed a resolution to support a federal budget that reflects America's values and to urge our congressional delegation not to pre-emptively sign on to sustain a veto. United Action for Idaho helped to pass this resolution at the AFL-CIO convention. It passed unanimously. Read more for the full text of the resolution. Many more community groups should pass a similar resolution. Will you help? Read More »

No surprise that the Senate could not agree on the final version of a comprehensive immigration bill. It had lots of flaws and dealt only with the symptoms of a much larger problem most national politicians refuse to acknowledge. As long as they keep ignoring the big beneficiaries of globalization - especially with the tax and trade policies that fuel it - they'll never deal with the symptoms of economic dislocation that force people to leave their communities to survive. Read More »

Betsy Russell wrote one of the best articles I have read to date about why the governor is killing the Parents as Teachers program. The confusion in the governor's office about who is in charge, why they haven't seen the measurements that get reported and whether they will run afoul of federal rules means they just pull the plug. They don't try to put the families first and work out a solution. Read More »

The Idaho GOP insiders have voted for closed primaries and may sue to accomplish this since the legislature their party controls could not pass it. Some Democrats support closed primaries but most don't. Many Republicans also oppose the idea too. I wonder whether all this discussion over who shoud vote in party primaries is missing the larger point that there are many factors that lead people to vote or not vote in primaries. Read More »

Deborah Leff, a national leader in the movement for social change spoke to the graduates of the University of Idaho College of Law. As an alum I was so pleased to hear that she would be speaking and sharing the message that connects the law with the larger responsibility we have to work for social change through public service. Read More »

Today we are gathering in Jerome, inspired by the vast skies of southern Idaho and the spiritual power of the setting at Ascension Monastary. A group rich in diversity, committed to long-term social change in Idaho are building on 12 years of great work and looking towards the next 12 years. What is your perspective on where we've come and where we are going? Read More »