Op-ed

Will United States Senator-Elect Scott Brown follow through on his promise of creating a “big tent”? Will he work collaboratively with those of us that are hurting the most in the economic crisis -- low-income people and the unemployed, African-Americans, immigrants, and families living in distressed communities? We challenge Senator-Elect Brown to join us. We challenge him to move beyond partisan politics by standing up for all families in Massachusetts and supporting a comprehensive package that will create a just and equitable economy that works for everyone.

At this time last year, the bombs had just begun to rain down on the Gaza Strip. In a devastating war that seems all but forgotten here in the United States, Israel brutally massacred more than a thousand people in Gaza in the short space of three weeks. A significant portion of those murdered were children; most were ordinary people hiding in their homes or UN buildings, terrified families and workers hoping to escape what they quickly discovered to be the inescapable carnage of the Israeli military.

On October 27, 2009 Massachusetts adopted a $1.4 billion plan that will

* cut greenhouse gas emissions,

* create high-quality jobs in the state’s highest-unemployment communities, and

* provide up-front financing so low-to-moderate income residents can save money and do deep retrofits on their homes.

This is a victory for the Green Justice Coalition, a community-labor-environmental alliance that is less than a year old. Here’s how we won.

On Tuesday, September 22, health care activists protested and rallied in front of the Massachusetts offices of Cigna, one of the largest national health insurance companies. Their demands were simple: they wanted Cigna executives to sign a pledge stating that the company would cease practices that deny coverage to Cigna customers. Such denials have resulted in personal bankruptcies, prolonged illness, and death for many people across the country. No one at Cigna signed the pledge. On Thursday, October 15, those activists returned in force to find out why.