Rise up, voices! Speak truth to power. Bark orders to justice. Sing praises to the good. Beg alms for the poor.
Twelve years ago, on this very date, on another Inauguration Day, I started this blog on a note of hope and change. Barack Obama was being sworn in as president for the first time and it was a day so overwhelming I felt as if I might burst if I didn't put my thoughts to good use.
We had come away from what seemed like an awful eight years, brought to us by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. They took us into an unnecessary, deadly war. They took a huge surplus left by Bill Clinton and turned it into a massive deficit. They lied so often it became commonplace, and too many people accepted the lies and turned against the best of our programs. Ordinary people didn't have a chance.