Category: My Work

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Penn ACTION and CLEAR lead Democrats and Republicans to Stand Together In Support of FMAP, Education Funding

  By FMAP, Penn ACTION

Just three hours before the House of Representatives voted to extend FMAP funding and provide additional federal funds for education, a bi-partisan group of state legislators from the Greater Philadelphia suburbs stood together on the steps of the Delaware County Courthouse in Media with representatives of labor unions and social service providers to urge Congress to extend funding of the FMAP program through the end of June 2011. They were joined by a crowed of more than fifty people. Republican and Democratic State Senators including Edwin Erickson, Stewart Greenleaf, and Daylin Leach, and state Representative Tom Murt, come together or issued statements with Penn Action, CLEAR, the SEPA Budget Coalition, Education Voters PA,  the Mental Health Assocation of SEPA, and the Delaware County Literacy Coatlition.  to say that the House of Representatives should follow the Senate in passing an extension of FMAP. The theme of the event was that FMAP… Continue reading

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Penn ACTION, Democracy for America and UFCW tell Pat Toomey to come clean on Social Security

  By Penn ACTION, Social Security

In response to Pat Toomey’s waffling on Social Security, dozens of seniors, labor leaders, and community residents brought together by Penn ACTION, Democracy for American and UFCW Local 1776 gathered at the Municipal Services Building across from City Hall to tell Toomey to come clean about his position on Social Security.  “When Pat Toomey attacks Social Security he is attacking all of us, every participant, which is every American that participates in that system,” said Arshad Hasan of Democracy for America. “Worse than that he’s attacking me and my generation – people who are working, and he’s saying, ‘you work for it, you pay into it, but you don’t get it. I don’t want to leave a system for you.’ And I think that is fundamentally unfair.” Seniors held up bars of soap and shouted, “Come clean Toomey!” Toomey came under criticism last month when he responded to a question… Continue reading

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Join Penn ACTION to get out the vote in 2010!

  By Penn ACTION, Penn Action and Election 2010

Election 2010 is under way. You can make a huge difference in 2010 by taking part in Penn ACTION Get Out The Vote (GOTV) Campaigns in Bucks County and Philadelphia. Click here to apply for a paid canvassing position in Bucks County. Click here to volunteer to do phone banking in Philadelphia. We will have also have opportunities for Penn ACTION supporters all over the state to do phone banking from home into a variety of critical areas in the state. Details will be available soon. Most people are just starting to pay attention to the 2010 Election. And this election is all about turnout. Every poll shows that, if we can turnout supporters of progressive causes and candidates, we can win statewide, Congressional and General Assembly elections. Penn ACTION is beginning two major Get Out The Vote (GOTV) Campaign in Bucks County and Philadelphia. Please join us! Paid Canvass… Continue reading

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Penn ACTION in brief

  By About Penn Action

Penn ACTION is a relatively new organization that has become the only progressive grassroots organization outside the labor movement with statewide reach in Pennsylvania. We are committed to working on our own, and in coalition with other groups, to building and expanding the progressive movement in Pennsylvania—one that realizes our idea of a New Commonwealth in Pennsylvania and the United States as a whole. To realize that ideal, we will work to advance critical progressive legislation and to help elect progressive political officials. We have a statewide email list of 195,000 with an activist base of 15,000 people who have taken actions—online or in person—in support of progressive issues and electoral campaigns. We have extraordinary volunteers who hold political events and actions in every corner of the state. We aim to keep staff members working in Northwestern PA, Northeastern PA and Southeastern PA and hope to expand to two other… Continue reading

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The Next Step in Building Progressive Power in Pennsylvania

  By Penn ACTION, Politics, Take political action

We won a big victory. But the struggle is not over, either for health care or for the larger progressive agenda. I’m writing to ask you to sign up so that together we can build a force in Pennsylvania to keep America moving forward.For over twenty months, we worked together to do something that will make us proud for the rest of our lives. Continue reading

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A small victory: Blues will support AdultBasic for six more months

  By Health Care, Penn ACTION

We had a small victory for AdultBasic today. But there is still more to be done to insure that the program continues until it is no longer necessary. The Adult Basic Program Health Care For America Now joined five events around the state led by the Pennsylvania Health Access Network in support of Adult Basic, Pennsylvania’s health insurance program for 47,000 people who cannot afford health insurance but whose incomes are not low enough to qualify for Medicaid. AdultBasic is inadequate insurance, but it provides a lifeline for many people. And over 350,000 are on a waiting list for the program. AdultBasic has been funded in large part by community reinvestment funds contributed by Pennsylvania’s Blues—mostly from the two largest Independence Blue Cross and Highmark. The Blues agreed to make these contributions in the first year of the Rendell administration, when it was apparent that they were amassing surpluses in… Continue reading

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A Small Victory: AdultBasic Extended for Six Months

  By Health Care, Penn ACTION

We had a small victory for AdultBasic today. But there is still more to be done to insure that the program continues until it is no longer necessary. The Adult Basic Program Health Care For America Now joined five events around the state led by the Pennsylvania Health Access Network in support of Adult Basic, Pennsylvania’s health insurance program for 47,000 people who cannot afford health insurance but whose incomes are not low enough to qualify for Medicaid. AdultBasic is inadequate insurance, but it provides a lifeline for many people. And over 350,000 are on a waiting list for the program. AdultBasic has been funded in large part by community reinvestment funds contributed by Pennsylvania’s Blues—mostly from the two largest Independence Blue Cross and Highmark. The Blues agreed to make these contributions in the first year of the Rendell administration, when it was apparent that they were amassing surpluses in… Continue reading

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Democracy and Diversity

  By Academic, Civic virtue, Communitarianism, Conference Papers, Neighborhoods, NW Philly, Philadelphia, Political philosophy, Published Paper, West Mount Airy, West Mt. Airy Neighbors

This paper draws on my experience as a leader of West Mt. Airy Neighbors in the early 2000s as well as on my academic work on communitarian political thought. It was written for an International Conference on Deliberative Democracy held in Hangzhou, China in December 2004. It was published in Chinese translation in 2005 in a book edited by Bao-Gang He. An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in 2003. Abstract One of the oldest arguments in the history of political theory is that strong communities are only possible where people live a life in common. And one of the central themes of participatory democratic theory is that involved citizens are only possible where communities are strong. Together, these arguments lead to the conclusion that strong, democratic communities must be homogenous. Homogeneity is frequently thought to be a prerequisite for strong communities… Continue reading

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Christianity in the Western Tradition

  By Academic, Biblical thought, Christianity, Conference Papers, Modern Political and Moral Thought, Philosophy, Published Paper

“Christianity in the Western Tradition,” in Don Thompson, Darrel Colson, and J. Scott Lee, Universality and History: Foundations of Core(University Press of America, 2002) An earlier version was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Core Texts and Courses in April 2000. The link is to a slightly expanded version of the published article. This paper examines the place of Christianity in the Western tradition. It is a dissent from the idea—found in a wide variety of mid-century works—of a great tradition of political and moral thought that begins in Athens and Jerusalem and is rejected by the founders of modernity. On this view, Ancient Greek and Biblical thought share the aspiration to ennoble human beings. Modernity, on the other, builds on low but presumably more solid foundations. In this paper I wish to put forward a different story. My claim is that, though modernity fundamentally rejects the… Continue reading