As these words are written, large numbers of people are arriving our TwinCities to weigh in on the future of the United States. Some will take part in a tightly orchestrated pageant to select the republican Party’s nominees for the White House (I don’t know about you, but the suspense is just killing me). Others will be taking their place in the streets outside to voice their repudiation of the harsh realities in the workplaces, communities, farms and battlefields where our people find themselves.

Far to the south the wind and rain are moving across the waters, keeping residence of the scarred and battered gulf Coast in their own suspense about when, where and with what force the storms will strike land. Republican planners are watching closely to determine if this could affect their convention plans. By the time most of you read this, the answers to these questions will be settled.

Along that south coast, yet another storm is moving. Immigration agents are sweeping into workplaces and communities to round up the Mexican and Central American workers who had been shipped in en mass to rebuild New Orleans and other Gulf communities in the wake of Katrina. Like the rhythmic ebb and flow of the tides, workers are brought in and shipped out to alternately meet the labor and propaganda needs of the giant US economy.

Swept up, tried (if at all) in assembly line proceedings, these families are then shipped back to the devastated farm communities and abandoned storefront reeling still from the most powerful storm of them all: the North American Free Trade Agreement. Significant numbers of gullible US American, many of them union members, look on with approval, onvinced that these foreign law breakers are the cause of their own economic woes.

The elections soon to be upon us are interesting in so many ways. The hope for a better direction has propelled the campaign of democratic contender Barak Obama. Some see in him the fulfillment of their hopes for justice and peace. Others see him as merely manipulating those hopes in the centrist tradition. Where we sit we are always most interested in what happens on the street. The big news there is that huge numbers of people really want to live in a land that values community, equality and decency. That hunger is the material from which all movement toward a better world is derived.

The news from deep inside Northland World Headquarters (NWH) is that we are pleased with our recent digital mailing to high school social studies teachers. We’ve gotten orders from many new friends around the country in all kinds of high school settings. We look forward to keeping up the acquaintance. We’ve also seen active responses to our new web page offering of catalog bundles for unions, organizations and conferences. In this new age of high postage rates and online “communities,” we depend more then ever on our friends telling their friends telling their friends that a place like Northland exists.

Thanks to all of you who have done that, we do exist. (I don’t need to hint, do I, that we think it will be way cool if you continue?) In any case, stay in the streets, on the phone, in front of the laptop or wherever your choice of venue for fighting for a better shake and a better world. Just keep doing so. You know we’ll be there.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 @ 1:11 pm on the category News.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.