Take to the Streets

We should be taking inspirationfrom the courageous people of Iran.At great personal risk, hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets– almost entirely peacefully – to nurture their democracy. Their clarity of vision and boldness ofspirit is a wonder to behold. Theyrisk personal injury and arrest, or worse, at the hands of the state police. Surely their lives are as full as ours;the usual "I don't have time" excuse could certainly apply. Yet they march.

What if tens of thousands ofMinnesotans were to take to the streets to say "no" to Gov. Pawlenty'sdestructive cuts? What if we wereto say "no" to draconian cuts to health and human services, "no" to cuts inbasic services provided by hard-pressed city and county governments, "no" to usingdisadvantaged people in Minnesota as fodder for Gov. Pawlenty's nationalelectoral ambitions?

The people of Minnesota should berising up to say, "No, this is not the way." These are hard times for all of us. The poor should not be paying adisproportionate share of the solution to the state's budget woes. County hospitals should not have toclose emergency rooms, which provide health care to far too many vulnerableMinnesotans. Cities and countiesshould not have to raise their own taxes to maintain basic levels of publicsafety, so that Gov. Pawlenty can continue to declare the disingenuous claimthat he balanced the state's budget without raising taxes.