The public option is not, in my opinion, even an option. If health care is to be fixed in this country, we must have a means of providing care that is not part of the commercial marketplace. Profit considerations are bad for your health, which means the public option is the only healthy means of assuring all Americans receive quality health care.

The debate over the public option is really a debate over the efficacy of two means of providing a product: the private sector, in particular major corporations, and the government, who some would argue is the biggest corporation of all. I say this is a discussion the country desperately needs.

Our economy is in tatters because the private sector was allowed by government to behave irresponsibly and now all Americans are paying a price. Government has a role in ensuring we have an economy that is strong, vital and working for everyone, not just a handful of stockholders and their pals. But government has to remain responsive to market conditions and allow for innovation and individual effort. I believe government can actually support the market more effectively than the private sector, but only with an involved citizenry. That is, only with a progressive government that includes grassroots citizens at all levels of government decision-making can we avoid the errors of both the private and public sectors.

Oh yeah, good luck with that.

Corporations are uniquely privileged in this country. They have acquired the rights of an individual, yet individuals within them are shielded from the legal, and often the economic, consequences of corporate behavior. Yet everything a corporation does is based on the decisions and actions of individuals. It's truly a bizarroworld where rewards far exceed worth and consequences can be skipped with a call to the lawyers.

Corporations have the ability to unite money, resources and labor to provide products and services unimaginable by small, private businesses. This can be a good thing, bringing millions of people things they desire or need at an affordable cost. It can be destructive as well, as the collapse, not to mention crap products, of GM shows. Or the way Dow has avoided responsibility for the horrific disaster in Bhopal, India.

Corporations will continue to be a fundamental part of the national and world economies for the foreseeable future. What's needed are not diatribes against them but an understanding of how they work: Not just the how, but the why. And there are usually two driving factors behind any corporation.

It's way too early to come a real conclusion about Mark Hass' vote on the revenue bill yesterday. On the surface, it does appear he chose business interests above the need to raise revenues; perhaps this does represent the interests of his Beaverton constituents. It does not serve the rest of the state well, but let's see what happens today.

What does come through is the apparent lack of clout voters carry. In 2008, across Oregon and the nation, voters demonstrated clearly they wanted a new kind of politics. The swing of voters from right to left, although limited, was decisive, from the Democrats' rejection of Hillary to so many unexpected wins in "red" areas across the nation. Oregon voters have been moving in that direction for years, not because they want Dems to act like moderate Republicans but to step up and do what is necessary to fix our state.

Mark Hass, and way too many other Dems in the Leg, did not get the message. He chose, it seems, to continue the broken status quo. Meanwhile, it appears the Dem leadship is giving away goodies to get votes. Stand on principle? Why? What good does that do? Once these guys get themselves holed-up in the Capital, they begin to lose touch with reality. The sound of their own voices whispering in the corridors and between office doors becomes the sound of wisdom.

Out here, we simply hear the roar of the avalanche hurtling down on us.

If what we saw yesterday turns out to be the final case, then Mark Hass may go down in modern Oregon political history as Karen Minnis' love child. Choosing to support corporate interests over the needs of school children, cops and firefighters, the elderly and others in need is a gross betrayal of the state. Perhaps we're just waiting now for Hass to do a reverse Ben Westlund and announce the Democratic Party has left him behind.

It appears they should.

One of the reasons Oregon is stuck (and I use that word purposefully) with a part-time Legislature is the idea, half-baked as the one that keeps the initiative process alive, that it gives us a citizen legislature. You know: Ordinary folks, average citizens who are not only more in touch with the lives of those they represent but more accessible to their constituents as well. In other words, less susceptible to the power of lobbyists and special interests.

What a crock.

Most Oregon legislators are, in fact, quite accessible. There is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, to stop anyone from entering the Capital and walking directly into the office of a state Representative or Senator. If, like me, you do some campaigning for them — spend several days during the campaign going door-to-door to help them get elected — you're like to get a warm welcome, even when you're not from their district. If it's your own representative, then you'll even find yourself listened to.

But this has nothing to do with it being a part-time legislature. This has to do with Oregon being a small state of only 3 million people and legislators, especially representatives, being able to meet and get to know those citizens who step forward and introduce themselves. This could happen with a full-time, annual, professional legislature, too. In fact, not having to cram 2 years worth of legislating into the compressed schedule currently required would allow our citizen legislators to take even more time to listen to their fellow citizens.

I love Twitter. I don't tweet (post to Twitter) a lot, and I don't obsessively check for new tweets all days — especially at work, when I'm too busy. But I love the concept, I love participating when I can, and I love the expansion of my personal universe into th twitterverse (although I do have mixed feelings about Twitter-derived words that come with that territory).

Not everyone loves Twitter. Fine. I'm not into RPG (role-playing games) or any of a zillion other options available online for fun and friendship. I rarely chat or IM apart from Twitter (and, less frequently since I post to thru my Twitter account, Facebook). But the difference between me and a lot of the non-lovers of Twitter is that I keep my mouth shut about those things I don't participate in. Two good reasons for my silence: One, just because I don't enjoy or "get" something doesn't means it's not a thing of great value. Two, it's likely any criticism from me would be pure ignorance.

In other words, I would be showing the world how stupid I can be by blathering on about how stupid something else is, something I know little about.

I'm an adamant believer in the truism that politics is personal. Everything is personal; what a stupid thing to have to state, but some people really try to believe there are non-personal reasons for doing politics. They must have a very narrow definition of personal.

Not me. But as to the matter at hand, I don't need a narrow definition: This is undeniably personal, as it regards my son and what I am experiencing in his absence. He is in Georgia with the rest of the Oregon National Guard, preparing to ship to Iraq at the end of next month. And while I knew his deployment was going to be difficult to deal with, I did not expect it to undermine me so soon. Hell, he's still in the States. His biggest danger still remains a training accident.

Even when he is over there, the odds are very much against him getting hurt. The Status of Forces Agreement, which Obama and his generals have shown every intention of following, will have removed American troops from the urban areas to the boonies, making it even less likely they will come under attack. It's quite probable that going over at the end of our occupatin of Iraq will be the biggest factor keeping him safe.

Nonetheless, he is going to war. He will be resented by millions and will be the potential target of others as long as he is there. The possibility of anything happening may be small, and growing ever smaller, but that does not remove the fear from my heart: He will be over there, and he will be in danger the entire time.

People were going to die; it was just a matter of which people and will the result help end the rash of piracies off the Somali coast. As it turns out, those who died were the bad guys; the American captain was rescued unharmed. As to piracy, well, we'll see.

People dying is never a good thing, not to me. I'm a believer in what Gandalf told Frodo: If you can restore life, then you can take life. Life is precious, so amazingly precious that even the most heinous people have an absolute right to theirs. I recognize there are circumstances where bad guys must be killed in order to spare harm to innocents; I also recognize that anytime we get to that position, a slew of mistakes has been made. If death is how we fix a problem, then we are really fucked up.

The Somali pirates were probably not going to release the captain unless the received a ransom, and they were never going to get a ransom. Which meant the only possible outcome was violence. That this was how this incident played out means that (big duh moment here) things in that part of the world are a mess. For a moment, some order was restored, but not, obviously, the rule of law. There will be more attacks, more pirate raids, and next time the bad guys will make a rescue much more difficult.

When we have to kill people to fix a situation, then the rule of law is broken. That includes in this country. The use of capital punishment is an admission that law is not enough; if we have to kill to make ourselves feel like our society is functional, then our regard for law is clearly lacking. The rule of law obviates the need to kill, whether in war, crime or any other aspect of civil society. I am hopeful that under Pres Obama, the United States will create new relationships around the world that will replace force and violence with cooperation and a respect for law. I also hope we see the same in this country. No doubt many will continue to insist that killing criminals is necessary; they are wrong. The rule of law is also respect for life. We cannot say we respect life while killing others, even if we disguise that violence as "justice" or "national defense".

Rep Earl Blumenauer did on the floor of the House what a number of writers and bloggers have done online: exposed a lie by Republican Congressional leaders. Here’s the video, which begins with a bit of back-and-forth as Earl tries to get the Californian Representative to give an actual citation of the number that is the heart of this particular GOP lie (and thanks to Carla at BlueOregon for posting this originally):

Pretty simple stuff. Republican staffers call the researcher, John Rielly of MIT, they learn their information is off — by 4000% — and so they do what they always do: jettison the facts and keep the lie, the better to sell their ideology. Earl, like many others with a concern for the fate of the planet, has had enough and comes as close to calling his GOP colleagues liars as one is allowed to do without facing censure. He uses the word “canard” - an unfounded rumor or story, as the Apple dictionary puts it. He does not call Boehner, McConnell, et al liars, just the purveyors of an “unfounded” story.

Anyone who knows of the Bus Project knows that no other organization in Oregon is doing more for the cause of progressive politics. The Bus not only is effective in getting progressives elected — securing victory in 9 of 10 targeted House races last year — the Bus does an unmatched job of getting citizens involved in the political process. People get on the Bus not just because they know they can make change happen, but because Bus trips are just so much damn fun. There is nothing the equal of an evening doing politics with the Bus.

So what kind of exciting progressive hijinks did I get up to at the Bus the past two nights? What kind of craziness did I get swept up in over at Jefferson Smith's little secret project? Wow, I hope you can stand the thrill better than I did: For 90 minutes each evening, I scanned data into a computer.

Yup. Walking lists from "Trick or Vote", a hand-held scanner and the VAN database. The giddiness. You cannot imagine.

But there's a reason I went back tonight. Wednesdays are "volunteer night" at the Bus; lots of people show up, there's food and other refreshments (blessings upon Nick Popechuk), friends, music and some kind of necessary work. Usually it's phone banking, but last night: data entry. Scan scan scan. Tonight, when I went back after work, there were still refreshments, Garrett and Lucy were there, but as for the volunteers? Moi.

The point is not how special I am — god knows I don't have to make that claim for myself. As Henry would assure anyone, the Bus loves me, and that's all I need. The point is that politics has always involved boring drudge work. Phone banking isn't very exciting; lots of people hate it (not my favorite task). Mailings used to be a staple political activity, but less so now. Nonetheless, there are always dreary admin tasks to be gotten through, and, in this era of computers, data entry can be an unending source of volunteer activity.

If the volunteers will step up and do it. If they do not, the organizations that depend on them are stifled in their attempt to affect change. The data we are entering at the Bus is from "Trick or Vote": We asked voters if they would pledge to vote their whole ballot — all the races from top to bottom, not just President and Senate. This data, once entered, will be the subject of research by a Notre Dame professor, and GOTV (get out the vote) has, it turns out, been poorly studied. So, given how vital GOTV programs are, any insight we can gain into our efforts may prove invaluable.