A New Year Begins…
… with the Providence Journal declaring itself part of the old, dead Rhode Island. Some of the paper’s journalists have been doing an admirable job of trying to cover Rhode Island as we all see it, but its list of “10 people to watch” in 2010 consists of:
- An arts entrepreneur
- A far left healthcare activist
- A social-service-oriented pastor
- A leader in a Providence student group
- A long-time central figure in the RI labor movement
- An Hispanic activist working with the U.S. Census
- A wind-farm executive
- A left-wing legislator likely to become House Speaker
- A moderate Republican mayor
- A big-dollar-hire, centralizing, unelected education commissioner
This isn’t to say that the choices aren’t individually defensible from a “news maker” perspective — some of them are even obvious — but the only one even close to arguably involved in deep statewide reform is Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, and as I indicated, she’s a hired dynamo working from within government. Where’s OSPRI, RISC, RIRA, the RI Tea Party, Operation Clean Government, Common Cause Rhode Island, RIILE, the Moderate Party, or any one of the various talk radio hosts? Anybody. The Providence Journal ignored the fight for Rhode Island’s soul in preference for identity groups and special interests, and even by that attenuated method, it didn’t consider right-leaning reform worthy of inclusion.
My characterization of an old, dead Rhode Island is not a statement of braggadocio with regard to political and cultural victory of a new Rhode Island. It’s a description of our choice as between killing an old way of doing things in this state or watching the state itself die. In some respects, one could suggest that the Providence Journal compiled a list of people to watch with the intention of stopping their political activism.
To be honest, if this weren’t an election year during a dire time, I’d be moving Anchor Rising back to the category of occasional hobby in my personal scheduling. We’ve been at this for half a decade, now, and although we’ve grown a respectable readership and thereby gained some satisfying privileges, all of the opportunities that have arisen through that effort have been to provide more free content in exchange for the potential for vague additional opportunities. I reach the down-slope of my ’30s, this year, and I need better prospects with greater definition.
That state of being applies to Rhode Island, as well. If things don’t turn around with this budget cycle and with the coming election, productive, ambitious Rhode Islanders will have very little reason to stay. The next ten years won’t be a period of rebirth and exciting growth, but a lost decade of struggle and wallowing. We’re off the cliff, and salvation is do or die.
So I, for one, am taking the Projo’s new-year step into line with the old guard as a motivator for renewed effort. Somebody’s got to do something. We’ve got to make every feasible effort to turn the tide. Anchor Rising was created for that purpose, but in order for the purpose to be served, we’re going to need your participation and your support. I’ll hurl myself at the wall of Rhode-apathy for another year, but if we’re going to break through, 2010 will have to see not just a shift in increment, but in level of combined effort and response.
What I noticed is that in the Projo article on the upcoming General Assembly session, there are several paragraphs of setup information, and then the first person quoted is a labor leader, not one of the governmental principals the article about whom the article was supposedly written.
Sorry, don’t know anything about the ProJo’s latest. Stopped the paper 3 weeks ago while on vacation and haven’t seen a reason to restart it. I get what I need from the online WSJ and no worries about humping the paper recycle bin to the curb every other week.
Please let me know if they have any news of consequence.
What the hell do you expect?
The Projo isn’t fit for wrapping fish’
They used to have reporters like lee Dykas,who reported the news.
Now they have the likes of Karen Lee Ziner and Steve Peoples-poor excuses for journalists.
Amanda Milkovits does a credible job,but she’s one person.
The odious Charlie Bakst was replaced by another left wing rumpswab named Fitzpatrick.Same sh*t,maybe better table manners.
Eddie Achorn is a holier than thou type “conservative” and was compromised by his wife’s involvement with the scholarship money boondoggle where Feinstein’s contributions disappeared via the Educational Partnership.
The Journal would never highlight a man like Terry Gorman,who has endured unfair and untrue abuse from the race pimps on the left simply because he wants existing law enforced.Oh,no,the Projo would never give him an even break.
Marta Martinez is no radical-she is just one of those professional Hispanics,kinda like professional Irishmen or Jews or Blacks….you get the point.
The Projo SUCKS!!I hope they go under.
“Fight terrorism – put up a windmill and buy a hybrid car.”
That sums up the Journal’s view of the world. I almost choked when I read this crap at the end of their terrorism editorial. This liberal bull should be added as their tag line.
Justin, I’m with you. This year is the all-out battle to save the state. If the Liberal Fascists and corruptocrats prevail in November, I’m moving to a free state that still understands what the United States of America means.
“If the Liberal Fascists and corruptocrats prevail in November, I’m moving to a free state that still understands what the United States of America means.”
Not yet a “free state,” but the closest you’ll find is New Hampshire. Go sign up at freestateproject.org if you haven’t already. I’m glad at least one person here acknowledges that RI might be beyond saving.
The Providence Journal is a socialist propaganda tool.
SV
“The Providence Journal is a socialist propaganda tool.”
What I find funniest about this is the former owner of the lesser blog has even started a whole web site for people to abandon the Journal, because of how right-wing it is.
Funny stuff how it is perceived.
Justin,
Please carefully read Don H’s and Tom W’s posts to the former’s item above. Lots of smart people have concluded that leaving RI to its own tragic fate is the only course of action that makes sense. Nobody would begrudge you a similar move, and your family would probably end up thanking you for it, once they saw what their new life outside of RI was like. Think about it, or at least make some plans, because like all the elections in recent years, this one isn’t going to have much of an impact. The public sector unions and welfare wings of the Democratic Party simply control too many votes on election day. Radical redistribution and the continued attack on people who try to grow the economic pie will continue to be the order of the day in RI, until the final crisis arrives. And even then, as another commenter noted, Detroit provides a cautionary tale of how long that final crisis can last without final resolution — think RI as the Argentina of New England.
I could be wrong, that happens to happen often, but you never really did name a person that you felt was excuded from the list. You named organizations and unnamed talk show hosts(let’s hope it isn’t John Depetro or, even worse, Dan Yorke, or, gasp!!, The Bud — that you have in mind). Maybe you could name a person from the groups you have assembled to promote.
This State is beyond hope or repair and it will not end well here. If you have the opportunity to leave, stage door exit right, ASAP.
As things crumble, due to Government gridlock, my vote for the “RI Black Swan Event” will be the implosion of the State and Teacher Pension Funds due to the collapse of investment markets. (Think DiCaprio is a fool? Who wants to occupy an electric chair?) And watch as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Austria crumble from within. Then the State Legislature and all the elected officials plunge the stake in the heart of the “Forgotten Man” (the hard working taxpayer) with fatal taxation to inflate this “Enron moment” that has been 30+ years in the making.
Providence will look more like Detroit in the next five years and what remains of the impoverished state will be divided by MA and CT. There will be no cavalry coming over the hill…our own Katrina moment!
Position: Long torches and pitchforks