LITTLE SISTER GOES LEAFLETTING

A protest in Boston last weekend around Int'l Women's Day

My youngest sister lives in Central Florida and yesterday she called to say that she was considering going to a rally that was being organized by unions to protest their new Republican governor's plan to destroy their pensions and social progress. She's been reading this blog and has my rap down pretty well and thought she might take a leaflet with her that spells out the cost of war. So she went to the National Priorities Project web site and printed out the cost of war to the citizens of Orlando. She made copies and pushed through her nervousness as she'd never done anything like this before.

She called me this morning and was swinging from the chandeliers with excitement. She went to the rally, handed out the leaflets and talked up a blue streak about the cost of war spending. She even volunteered to get involved in the effort.

Former Congressman Alan Grayson, who was swept out of office last November in the Republican tide, was there and she spoke to him as well.

I was proud to hear that my sister took this step. She overcame her fears about talking to people about politics and discovered that she was actually good at it. She did what we all must do more of - go out and talk to the people on the streets in order to provide them with more information so they can better articulate a real solution to the economic crisis. In the case of Orlando the taxpayers there have given over $1.85 billion since 2001 to pay for the wars in Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan.

I did two interviews yesterday, a half-hour public access TV spot out of Burlington, Vermont via Skype (you can see it here) and then a one-hour radio interview from the San Francisco bay area.

This evening I drive an hour south to Biddeford where my friend Richard Rhames will interview me on his public access TV show called Out in Left Field. Then on Friday he will drive up here and I will have him on my own public access TV show. Richard is one of my favorite guests. He has a small family farm and understands what it means to struggle for a living. He's been a political activist for a long time and is quite open and direct about telling the truth about how our political system has been corrupted by the corporations that now control both political parties.