What remains endlessly hinted at about the 2016 presidential race, but not fully articulated, is that something enormous — bigger than politics, bigger than America itself, perhaps — is trembling and kicking just below the surface, struggling to emerge.

I have a name to suggest for this hypothetical phenomenon: the New Enlightenment. Nothing less than that seems adequate.

There are millions of midwives at the ready — angry, despairing citizens — desperately hoping to assist in the birthing process . . . by being part of the Bernie Sanders campaign. I say this with full cognizance of the flawed, compromised nature of politics in general and the Democratic Party in particular. The political process is a stew of money and competing interests, power, compromise, cynicism and secret deals. But that’s not all it is.

It’s also the opening to our collective future. A failure to acknowledge this leaves the process in the hands of those who think they own it.

The New Enlightenment?

Wednesday, April 20  

11 am - 1 pm
Ohio Statehouse 
You/We CAN make a difference! 

 Simply Living is one of many sponsors of the Climate Action Coalition that  

is organizing a Rally and Lobby Day at the Statehouse. 

The last time there was a serious discussion about poverty in America was during the presidential campaign of 2008 when former United States Senator John Edwards (D-NC) announced his intention to run for the office from the back yard of a home in New Orleans. The city was still reeling from the impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005–the natural disaster that made poverty in America visible again.  Edwards had been identified as a champion for the poor throughout his legal career during which we successfully represented plaintiffs in seemingly unwinnable cases as they fought large corporations, physicians and others, winning multimillion dollar settlements for his clients.  He was also the director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Law.  During his political career Edwards had proposed that the government should place poor people in middle class neighborhoods through the use of one million housing vouchers.  The idea went nowhere, and once again, poverty fell off America’s agenda.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Millions of people staged the world's biggest
water fight celebrating a week-long holiday which ended on April 17,
during which traffic accidents killed 442 people and the military
regime warned females wearing wet shirts not to expose themselves in
Thailand's sweltering streets.
   Bangkok "turned into City of Aquatic Mayhem," U.S. Ambassador to
Thailand, Glyn T. Davies, posted on his official Twitter account
@GlynTDavies during the April 11-17 Songkran New Year holiday.
   "Happy Songkran all -- long life, happiness, blessings & fun," the
envoy wrote, celebrating Thailand's traditional new year and several
days of public water splashing during the hottest weather of the year.
   Ambassador Davies also posted a photograph of himself and his wife,
both grinning and wearing sunglasses while gently squirting each other
with plastic sprayers alongside revelers in a busy Bangkok street.
   At least 442 people died in nationwide traffic accidents during
April 11-17 -- annually dubbed the "Seven Days of Death" -- and 3,656