Great Minds Think Alike?

[Written April 9, 2007 on W9]

The Service Employees International Union, the trade union organizing SinceSlicedBread.com (SSB), the national clearing-house web-site for commons sense ideas, submitted by ordinary Americans and designed to help working families, continues to give profile to FOCUS On Poverty.

This is excellent news for the 50 million Americans living below the poverty line. And I'm deeply grateful to SEIU and SSB for helping to remind our friends and neighbors that they are not alone. That we stand by them.

You too can show your support for America's working poor, by going to SSB and 'adopting' FOCUS On Poverty as an idea you wish to see become a reality.

This may be particularly crucial now that the Presidential Campaign of John Edwards has faltered.

The primary reason that I supported John's Campaign - and still hope that a miracle might occur - is that he was the only Candidate prepared to put forward proposals that would help to lead to the elimination of poverty in the United States.

There are plenty of national organizations that assist in giving profile to the plight of the poor. But what I wanted was action. And John's Campaign held out the real possibility of that action becoming a reality.

However, if we are to be brutally honest - and John has stated he wishes to be - then we have to admit that it is now highly unlikely that John will be the Democratic Nominee in 2008.

And so I will turn my mind to other other avenues, which on the one hand will parallel and compliment John's efforts, but on the other may hold out a greater chance of our jointly-conceived proposals on poverty becoming a reality.

Now, I'm getting there! And I will be updating you with my thinking and planning - as they progress.

But, in the meantime, you can at least show that your heart is in the right place by 'adopting' FOCUS On Poverty at SSB:

Themes from two of our most adopted ideas -- FOCUS on Poverty and Consumer Credit and Debt -- are cropping up in the news and in the blogosphere. Jim Wallis, of Sojourners, has long been a leading voice in the evangelical community on poverty issues, and on his blog this week he called for a "moral budget" that will "prioritize the poor," and quoted from a letter he sent to every U.S. Senator:

In a letter that went to every senator, I requested that each “make sure to prioritize poor and working families, children, and the elderly as you determine where our nation commits its energies and resources.”

I continued, “what is needed now is bold leadership and an agenda that sets clear priorities and seeks to empower families. We need to protect critical programs and increase aid, but also recommit ourselves to the notion of the common good.”