The Blog: On The Edge - toward public policy that is visionary, effective, courageous and compassionate
| | Welcome to my blog on public policy, a place for exploring ideas on the policy problems that test our times. This space is for discussion, co-learning, collaboration and—I hope—organizing actions. Some of my own views come from fifteen years in the US Foreign Service, most of them spent way off the beaten track. Some come from my career since then as an activist, coach and mentor to activists, and President of the Giraffe Heroes Project, moving people to stick their necks out for the common good. | | | —John Graham |
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Written by John Graham
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I was in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, when CNN announcedthat Obama had won. It was seven in the morning and, as word spread, the cityseemed to surge with joy. I could hear Obama’s name shouted in the streets.People who spotted me as an American high-fived me and clapped me on the back.I’m told that many Nigerian babies were named Obama that day.
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Written by John Graham
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As a 65 year-old white man, I thought I “got” Barack Obama’s celebrated speech on race when he gave it. But I didn’t. Not until yesterday, when a black stranger walked into the changing room at the gym I go to on South Whidbey Island, Washington.
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Written by John Graham
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There’s a new Third Rail inAmerican politics--the huge and rapidly growing gap between rich and poor. It’smore dangerous to us than Al Queda and more imminent than the dislocationsheading our way from global warming. Unbridged, the wealth gap will destroy oursociety as we know it.
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Why the Bailout is a Bandaid |
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Written by John Graham
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This piece started as a comment on the bailout plan. But then I saw that just about everything I wanted to say was being said by others, an embarrassing number of whom were better versed on the subject than I. Yesterday I gave a speech to 500 high school kids in Seattle. The 20 minute speech was about service and selflessness, about working hard and taking risks to solve public problems. I told those kids that they would add meaning to their own lives by making life better for others. I hit a chord with that speech. Those kids leaned forward in their chairs. They listened. Afterwards they cheered. Driving home, I realized that what I’d just told those teenagers was what was missing in the national debate on the bailout. No offense to this country’s leadership, but some things are just true at any age. How did we get into this mess except by the near-absence of a concept of working for the common good?
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