OBAMA IN 2012

Obama has formally announced his intention to run for re-election [no surprise there], and I have signed up to do what I can here in North Carolina. I have no doubt that I will now get a good deal of grief in the comments to this blog. So be it. I believe this is a moment of existential peril in America for what remains of democracy and simple decency. Feel free to tell me that Obama has gone over to the dark side [or, indeed, that he has never left it], but what I see is Republican efforts in Maine to roll back child labor laws that have stood for one hundred seventy years, efforts across America to destroy the last vestiges of a labor movement, assaults on the bodies of women, attacks on the voting rights of college students, a renewed attack on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which have softened the mortal blows of capitalism for hundreds of millions of Americans over the decades. I will die without seeing the fulfillment of my grandfather's dream of a socialist America. Selah, as the Good Book says. I invite all who will to join me. I shall not engage in arguments with those who decline.