Spring greetings!

OK, this isn't the spring we wanted.

The new healthcare law doesn't even have a non-robust public option.

Wall Street is soaring, but Main Street is sagging with unemployment.

Climate protection is stalled in Congress.

And war keeps escalating in Afghanistan.

But here's a positive note: This Wednesday (March 31) at 8 p.m., KQED TV Channel 9 will air a special one-hour report on Martin Luther King — "A Call to Conscience" — focusing on his profound decision to oppose the Vietnam War. As the war effort in Afghanistan intensifies, Dr. King is speaking to us.

President Obama's speech to troops in Afghanistan on Sunday kept me up all night. Yesterday, the Huffington Post and other websites published my article "A Bomber Jacket Doesn't Cover the Blood."

While we shouldn't succumb to what King called "the paralysis of analysis," the quest to understand the context of our warfare state is essential. I've tried to be helpful along that line with a couple of recent articles — "War Politics: Numb and Number" and "War in a Box."

As a national co-chair of the Healthcare Not Warfare campaign, I often think about the grim effects of distorted budget priorities. As elsewhere, the figures are devastating in Marin County and Sonoma County. 

Close to home, during the next couple of weeks, I'll be speaking on the radio and at events in Corte Madera, Berkeley and Oakland. For schedule details, please click here.

Last week, after Congress passed the healthcare bill, I stood under an archway at Union Station, near the Capitol, and did an interview with The Real News Network.

Later, I noticed some words chiseled into the marble overhead. The florid language was from a long-gone era, but the meaning could be summed up this way: The people of a nation should do unto others what they would like done unto them.

That's a pretty good summary of the progressive quest as we pursue the goals of healthcare for all, peace, gender equality, environmental protection, labor rights, humane immigration reform and so much more.

No matter how bad the news gets, we won't give up! 

Best wishes,

Norman

During the last couple of weeks, I've spoken to Democratic Party clubs and other activist groups from Santa Rosa and San Rafael to San Mateo County and the East Bay — some chartered by the state party, others affiliated with Democracy For America or Progressive Democrats of America, still others with no partisan affiliation.

In the process, I've listened to hundreds of pointed questions and deeply felt comments. And I can tell you this: Many people at the progressive base of the Democratic Party are getting very upset with the direction of the Obama administration.

While they haven't forgotten that we need to do all we can to defeat Republican candidates in November, it's painfully clear that progressives must build grassroots political power — to move the White House and Congress away from current policies.

Policies such as escalation of war in Afghanistan; tepid responses to the global warming emergency; massive bailouts to Wall Street; huge new federal subsidies for nuclear power; feeble job-creation programs, heavily reliant on GOP-style tax cuts and credits for businesses; disregard for habeas corpus and other basic civil liberties; "healthcare reform" largely crafted by the insurance, pharmaceutical and hospital industries . . .

A few days ago, responding to President Obama's latest embrace of Wall Street, the Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times blog: "How is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?"

Sad to say, the title of my article this week — "Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life" — was not hyperbolic.

The major military offensive that the Pentagon launched on Presidents Day weekend in southern Afghanistan made me think about young refugees who I met at a miserable camp in Kabul last summer. I wrote about one of them in an article titled "A Little Girl in Kabul."

I hope you'll take a couple of minutes now to click and watch some rare and stunning footage of Senator Wayne Morse as he spoke about war and congressional responsibility — at the outset of escalation of the Vietnam War — in ways that are not being heard today on Capitol Hill.

I'd be surprised if Senator Morse doesn't move you. His spirit is still with us.

Please share with others.

Best wishes,

Norman