Remarks for Gabrielle Giffords Fundaraiser

David Bradley
Tucson, Arizona - June 21, 2008

We just recently noted the 40th year since the assassination of RFK.  One can not help but wonder how different the trajectory of our country would have been should he have become President and not Richard Nixon.

Arthur Schlesinger wrote the book, Robert Kennedy and His Times. In the book he has a description of Kennedy that he took from the existentialist writer Albert Camus to describe Kennedy’s life and leadership.

It was this. The mark of a great leader is not usually found at one extreme of the political spectrum or another, it is rather that person who has the ability, the wisdom and the grace to be able to touch both extremes at once and bridge the differences.

We live as Robert Kennedy noted about his own era, in times of danger and uncertainty.  We need people on our school boards, city councils, board of supervisors, legislature and the governor’s office and in the Congress who have the skill and the vision to do deal with that danger and uncertainty.

RFK often spoke of the energy required to seek, as he was fond of quoting, Tennyson’s line from Ulysses, a newer world.  He called on others to be strong of will and deliberately and boldly to seek, to find and not to yield in pursuit of that newer world. 

In that newer world a premium would be placed on the bridge builder, the person who understands that the invisible hand of the market must at times be complemented by the invisible heart of good government; a government that stands by people when they are down and steps aside to let them grow.

There is much to be done at every level of government to execute Kennedy’s vision of this newer world.  We are so fortunate to have such a bridge builder in our Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

That quality makes her ideal for this diverse district, in which resides the richest of the rich, the poorest of the poor.  A district that has bases that are crucial to our nation’s defense and an international border that is crucial to our commerce. A district that is rich in history and natural resource and with a future of limitless opportunity.

Gabrielle, as everyone knows, is married to an astronaut, one of a very few people who has had the opportunity to view the world from unparalleled heights and perspective.

Perhaps, he knows better than anyone else how important it is that someone like Gabrielle, who has the perspective, the talent and the will to seek that newer world, should be returned to Congress to continue the work of building bridges.

Her opponent in this race will be well funded and although soft spoken he is fundamentally hard lined in his beliefs.  He is the legislative head of a party that has become vacuous of ideas, rent asunder by discord and possesses neither a vision for nor a concept of a newer world.  It is simply beyond their imagination.

He and his party have become what Plato referred to as the most dangerous of all people; those who along with their talk radio surrogates, peddle easy answers to complex questions.  They have become the very people John Kennedy was going to warn us about at the lunch he never attended in Dallas, “America’s leadership must be guided by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will gain ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple solutions to every world problem.”

Finally, Robert Kennedy noted long ago that “Our answer is the world’s hope; it is to rely on youth. This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life, but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease…”

Gabrielle is such a person with such qualities.  It is imperative that you help with this campaign and that together with her, continue the work of building bridges to seek a newer world based on the lights of learning and reason and imagination.

High School Graduation

David Bradley
Sonoran Science Academy - May 16, 2008

Thank you very much for the privilege of addressing you this evening.

Whenever you are asked to be a keynote speaker, it’s important to remember the fate of one Edward Everett.  Mr. Everett was one of the most gifted speakers of his day.  He was invited to speak at a momentous occasion which you will soon recognize.  He spoke for two hours to an enormous crowd in an outdoor setting without the benefit of, the not yet invented, microphone.  His speech was well received.  He took his seat and the next speaker, who was invited almost as an after thought, rose and spoke for little more than two minutes. 
One hundred and fifty four years later the second speech has become the American Gospel.  It starts with the words;
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Very few people remember Mr. Everett.  Mr. Lincoln of course is remembered for his short talk which many consider the greatest speech ever given.

I was asked to speak to you for a few minutes.  I am hoping that I am not followed by a two minute orator who instantly causes you to forget that I was ever here. 

While I am most grateful to be a State Representative, I do have other roles in my life that are of far greater responsibility, namely, as a father, grandfather and director of an agency that has 200 foster kids on any given day. 

My professional career as a mental health counselor started here in Tucson 28 years ago after having spent 8 years in the Navy. 
Although, my interest in politics stems from my family’s commitment to serve others, I was also touched by the voices of a now ever increasingly distant past. 

Among those voices was a man named Robert Kennedy who if you have studied your 60’s history was a U.S. Senator and brother of President John Kennedy.  Like his brother he would be assassinated when he was running for president himself.  Two years prior to that he gave what was probably his most famous speech in which he said that the hope for the future was always to be found in youth, he said:

“This generation cannot afford to waste its substance and its hope in the struggles of the past, beyond these walls there are lives to be saved, there is work to be done…Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease…”

Kennedy’s reliance on youth as the hope of the world I think captures the purpose and the urgency of our times and is a fitting topic for your reflection on this special day.  That is to activate and energize yourselves and your peers to recognize how desperately the world needs you.  You are tasked I believe in promoting the idea of a French poet named Paul Claudel,

“that youth is not made for pleasure but for heroism”.

Your graduation here tonight marks a milestone on a path that will lead you to the first steps of your career.  The word career literally means a race or a course of action.

You are in a sense taking up the race of life.  If you can accept Claudel’s belief about youth’s call to heroism, then the race of your lives will hopefully include more than just becoming wealthy and owning a lot of nice things or being famous, but hopefully taking up the cause of helping others, leading them and guiding them in some cases out of darkness and into the light.

You, more so than many others must understand that beyond the walls of your school there are lives to be saved, there is work to be done.   I would maintain that you are the people for whom the world is waiting.  You have to get it in your head that no one else is coming.

The root of the word education means to lead. The purpose of your education really is for you to learn how to be a good citizen.  A good citizen first and foremost must learn how to build and sustain relationships and be prepared to participate in your community.

School then is not just a place where you acquired content information about particular subjects.

It is more importantly, a place where you learned the fundamentals of communicating effectively with peers as well as adults, and along with reading, writing, math and science you were exposed to the essential elements of good citizenship.

A school is really a dynamic testing ground where the connection is made between effort and results, where failure is turned into the opportunity to learn.  Skills, essential to success in the world of work, such as learning to cooperate, share and play with others, negotiating and compromising were learned, practiced and demonstrated.

In the classroom, the schoolyard, the lunchroom you were exposed to how others think and feel, believe and perceive the world. Here is where you uncovered the diversity of cultures, attitudes, thoughts and values of others.

You were given many tests in school to measure what you have learned.  But you also took a lot of other tests beyond those that measure what you have learned in the classroom.

These tests results will never be reported or recorded.
These tests included you figuring out who and what you really value.  Your judgment was tested, as well as your ability to judge right from wrong. 

Your sense of who you are was tested.  Your beliefs, religious and otherwise, were tested and your view of the world was formed and changed as you were exposed to people who are different from you.  All the things your parents taught you were tested.

And these tests, really more so than your course tests will best predict the success or failure that you will experience in the world of work, and marriage and community.

The most important outcome of an education is the development of good citizens who reach an academic milestone with a hunger for knowledge and an eagerness to be involved in society so as to reach your greatest potential.

If you are sitting here tonight without a hunger to learn and to become more than what you are then your teachers have failed you miserably.  The more educated you are the more you realize how much more you have to learn.

Your greatest potential will be achieved when you learn not to simply define yourself by how much you own, or who you know or how educated you are, but rather of how prepared you are to live a life of daring and imagination. 

Leaders are separated from others because they prepare themselves to deal with the unexpected.  They are able to take advantage of circumstances while other people are waiting around for life to come to them.

You have the obligation and duty to be prepared to seize the opportunities that life will inevitably present you.

Let me illustrate that from an example from the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games in the woman’s individual figure skating event.

The winner of the individual woman’s gold was a young American girl who was not expected to place in the top three, let alone win.

Sarah Hughes, however, skated the routine of a life time and took the gold medal right from her more experienced and seasoned competitors. After her final Olympic figure skating routine she was literally on the floor in shock.

At that very moment she made one of the most profound statements that I have ever heard. She said in that spontaneous moment of exhilaration and disbelief;

“I did things that I can not do.”

She literally skated beyond her imagination. She answered the call of expectation by unexpectedly doing what she literally thought she could not do.

At the moment of maximum challenge she relied not solely on experience but also rose up to the level of expectation.

This is a key element of your education, the development of your expectation of yourself beyond your imagination.

Surround yourself with people who believe in your capacity to go beyond your experience and education. 

You see, we are more than the sum of what we have learned and whom we know or what we own or where we have been. Our uniqueness lies in that unknown and unforeseen call to daring and action.

The opportunity to change the world for the better is often right before our eyes. To have the capacity to seize that opportunity is not only a matter of good preparation; it is also the willingness to embrace the unexpected as a call to duty.

The nightmare of hurricane Katrina illustrates this very point.
While the focus has been on what went wrong and what should
have been done, the fact is that with absolutely no warning countless persons were instantaneously called upon to act, to literally save the lives of others, many of whom they did not know and had never met.

There was no script, no map, no guidelines just the call to duty, it came without warning and countless people answered and acted. Yes, they are heroes but they did not become so by accident.  They prepared themselves to respond when the call of civic action demanded their participation and total commitment.

Education is a door that can lead to a life of daring and action and adventure.  Hopefully, you are sitting here hungry for more.

St. Francis of Assisi was remarkable man who lived nearly 8 centuries ago.  He spent his life caring for the poor.  He lived a life of total poverty so much so that he had the presence of mind on his death bed to rise and give his clothes away to the person closest to him. His purpose was to leave the world as he had entered it, owning absolutely nothing. It was Francis who noted long ago;

“When you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received only what you have given: a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.”

I would suggest that these are four of the five keys of leadership which you must learn to use to your advantage;

they are courage, sacrifice, service and love.

Courage is the first key and the most important of virtues for without it you can practice no other virtue. Courage is not just charging up the hill regardless of the odds, for most of us it is something far less spectacular. It is quietly but consistently standing up for what we believe in regardless of the cost.

Courageous people hear the whisper of duty more so than most people do. The call to duty is a chant that they can never ignore.
Courage leads to a life of expectation and challenge and avoids a life in pursuit of comfort and ease.

Consider most recently Wesley Autrey.  With not a moment to lose, he risks losing everything.  Mr. Autrey is the ordinary man with extraordinary courage who jumped on top of another man who was having a seizure and fell in front of an oncoming subway train.  Mr. Autrey performed beyond his own expectations and made an instantaneous decision to save the life of another with no regard for his own.

Sacrifice is the purest form of duty. Sacrifice, the second key, literally means to ‘make sacred’.

Ultimately, nothing is more sacred than our relationships with other people. In a world in which information slides by us at double warp speed, the connections that we have to others often get put on the shelf to be dealt with later.

Issues become more important than the people the issues are centered around. If you can learn that relationships are sacred, you will avoid most of the trauma and trouble of life.

Truly understanding service, the third key, means knowing that true power comes from putting others first. To serve is literally to be a slave to someone else, in the sense of Francis who always put the needs of others before his own.

Again, a word that is really only understood in the context of relationship. It is the opposite of being in control of others.

Here finally is the big mystery of life, the fourth key. When all is said and done and you are approaching your final breaths, you will not be reviewing what you own, listing your degrees or trying to measure the value of your life than by any other means than this;

Whom did you love and how well did you do so?

Consider the people who were trapped in those buildings on 9/11.
Those who knew they were going to die communicated to others not about their money or possessions; they communicated what was most important.

They told the most significant people in their lives how much they loved them. In the end we all will know that nothing else matters, nothing.
 
And now the fifth and perhaps the most useful key of all;

I will illustrate it with a story.

His name is Viktor.  He was born in 1905. He was a very smart man.  He becomes a doctor before the age of 20.  Everyone who knew him recognized that he was going to something great in life.  He had a life full of great expectations.

He married and settled in Vienna, Austria surrounded by many family and friends.  As time went on he became very well known and respected. 

Viktor and his family were Jewish and if you remember your history, being a Jew in Austria/Germany in the 1930’s was extremely dangerous.  Another Austrian had come to power in that part of the world, his name was Adolph Hitler.

Eventually the Nazi’s come to town.  Viktor could have escaped but he did not.  His parents could not leave so he stayed.  That decision would cost him everything.

The Nazi’s came and over the next few years they in deed take everything that Viktor loved.  He loses his medical practice and all of his possessions. In time, he, his wife and parents are arrested, separated and put into concentration camps.  He is sent to the death camps of Auschwitz and Dachau. 

While he is there, every tooth is extracted from his mouth. He is forced to do hard labor all day and night.  He withers to half of his body weight.  His humanity is gradually ripped away from him.

Eventually, he learns that everyone who was dear to him was murdered.  The day comes when a Nazi guard tells him that he is worthless, growing to weak to work and that he is going to kill him in a few moments.

Viktor knows that he cannot fight, he cannot run, he has no weapons to defend himself.  But he does have something that the guard cannot take and does not know about or understand. 

He replies to the guard, that it is true that he is without recourse. But here Viktor pulls out the fifth key.  He tells the guard that he will choose to die smiling, because in death he will be reunited with everyone he loves.  And the guard cannot take that away from him.

You see he pulls out the key that very few people know about.  He then opens a door that no one else sees.  The key is called the choice of attitude.  The door is called freedom

Even when you are trapped you have a choice.

Regardless of the circumstances of your life, no matter how horrible your experiences may have been or will be.  Your response is completely and totally yours to make.  Which door you will open will always be in your control.

No one can make you take the door marked inferior or force you through a door not of your choosing.  Not unless you hand your key over to them.

The choice of attitude is yours and yours alone.

Some of the smartest well educated people I know can’t understand how important this key is.  They go through their entire lives blaming others for how they feel and what they do.  There is always some circumstance beyond their control that causes them to think, feel and act in particular way.  They never take responsibility for their behavior.

Remember that no matter what happens to you, you can choose your attitude about it.  You can choose what you will do next and no one can take this away from you.

So there are five keys.  Courage, Sacrifice, Service, Love and Choice of Attitude.

If you can get a hold of those keys and use them at the right time. I guarantee you a life of daring and adventure.

Remember, youth is not made simply for pleasure but more importantly for heroism.   We need you to take the keys of leadership and open the doors to a better life.

The final moments of your high school career are upon you.  You have, in your own individual and unique ways, won this race.  But ah, there is more to come.  You have arrived at 12 or 13 years of education to find yourselves at the beginning.  Cherish this moment because if you have done well here you should be feeling both happy and sad as illustrated by this final story.

There was once a man who found himself seriously injured by the side of the road.  Many people passed him by, thinking him to be responsible for his own difficulties and therefore not worthy of any assistance.

In time a young person about your age sees the man and assists him in getting help and ensuring that he is able to take care of himself.

The man is most grateful so much so that the young person is just hoping to get on with her journey.  But the man, who appears to have only meager resources, insists on giving the young person something.

He tells the young person to pick up as big a handful of rocks as she can and to put the rocks in a pocket.  The young person initially refuses but the man keeps insisting so in order to placate him, the young person picks up a handful of rocks and places them in a pocket.

The man smiles and says to the young person, “the next time you reach into your pocket you are going to initially be very happy and then on reflection you will become somewhat sad.”

The young person goes about her day and it is not until late at night that the realization comes that she has a pocket full of rocks that she completely forgot about.

The young woman reaches into her pocket and pulls out the contents and discovers that all of the rocks have all turned into solid gold.

And the words of the injured man come to mind, “you will be both happy and sad.”  And sure enough the young person is both; Very happy that the rocks have turned to gold, but very sad that she did not grab more of them.

And hopefully it is so with your experiences at this school, as you look both back and forward at the same time.  You should be happy for all of the opportunities presented to you and all the good friendships that you have developed and all the experiences you had both within and without these walls.  But I hope you are a little bit sad because upon reflection you could have had even more.

Hopefully that will be motivation for you to seize every moment of every day on the journey of your life which in many ways is about to begin anew.

 

I wish you lives of daring and adventure.
 
Be courageous;

Prepare for the unexpected;

Recognize that honor comes from service;

Remember ultimate power rests in the choice of attitude.

Hunger for knowledge;

Be ready to sacrifice for others;

Thirst for justice;

And remember in the end the final measure of your life will be whom did you love and how well did you do so.

Flag Day Celebration

David Bradley
Arizona Department of Corrections - June 27, 2007

Although we gather here under the title of Flag Day, it is clearly not simply a star spangled banner that we come to honor.  It is rather the depth, breadth and height of what our flag represents for which we come together at this time and place to acknowledge and celebrate on this occasion.

The depth of its meaning comes from the countless sacrifices, both large and small, that men and women, including those who came before us and those who currently serve, have and will make in the fields, seas and skies of battle.

The breadth of its meaning emanates from the time, talent and treasure given by the many people who have served in the armed forces behind the scenes supporting our soldiers, sailors and airmen and who rarely are recognized but who have done so much for so long without fanfare. 

And finally the height of its meaning stretches well beyond the heavens to those who have given and will give the last full measure of devotion to their country in a cause that they believed to be just and honorable and which reflected all that our flag represents.

Wrapping themselves in a flag many people have tried to desecrate its meaning coupling it with narrow minded slogans, as if the presence of the flag lends them credibility and merits them allegiance.

But we who have served our country in the armed forces know that the flag is larger than that.  We pledge allegiance not simply to a flag but to the principles upon which it is built.  We honor our democracy with all of its flaws, we honor our history with all of triumphs and tragedies, and we acknowledge that we bring meaning and value to the flag.  That is why it can never really be desecrated by anyone who does not first honor what it represents.  It is our values, our commitment to one another and the sacrifices of over 11 generations of our forbearers that raise our flags,

You and the families that support you are the true patriots, because you know that patriotism cherishes both freedom and responsibility, it couples justice with discernment, it is honest and when necessary constructively critical. 

The flag represents first and foremost that we are in relationship with one another; stars in a blue field; that we do not stand alone; that we are in this perpetual process of building, refining and sustaining our democracy together. 

We know that our country is always a work in progress, building on those red and white stripes, the symbols of those who came before us in order to assure a better future for those who will follow.

For well over 125 years we have had on our east coast the Statue of Liberty beckoning the world to join us in the never ending journey that is our democracy; a democracy that is weathered but never beaten, challenged but never broken.

Perhaps it would be appropriate if on the west coast we erected the Statue of Responsibility.  This would communicate to the world that freedom lies between these two conditions and that freedom cannot exist without men and women of courage and fortitude who stand and protect these ideals at any price even unto the ultimate sacrifice of limbs and lives.

Men and women like you and your families who bear the burden of freedom so willingly and so valiantly.

It is an interesting phenomenon of the human condition that the heart always does everything it can to come to the rescue of the wounded body.  The heart will keep pumping even when our other organs have long since stopped functioning.  The heart will do everything possible to keep blood flowing to those vital organs.

Poets have known this long before science demonstrated it to be true.  The flowing of blood is a common denominator among all of us.  It is the sign of life.   Identical blood types are found among every ethnic group.  We all, in essence, share the same blood.

It is little wonder then that our flag, the symbol of freedom, and blood, the loss of which is how the price of freedom is measured, are so closely linked in our heritage and history.

Today, rightfully so, you honor in particular two of your extended family members who together served this department for over 22 years and who in the service of their country and the ideals that our flag represents consecrated their lives, that is, their blood at the altar of freedom.

This sacrifice can never be diminished or lessened regardless of the ultimate outcome of this current war.  Staff Sergeants Charles Browning and Darrel Kasson have been joined to our flag in a way that can never be withdrawn or surrendered.  These men did not shrink from duty, they embraced it.  These men made irrevocable contributions to the cause of freedom by accepting the call of their country and bringing honor to all who know and love them.

The heart comes to the rescue of those who are left behind as well.  In a way, the sacrifices of Charles and Darrel and the contributions of all who serve our country become that relentless beating heart that brings blood and therefore life to our democracy and the best of its ideals even when parts of that democracy are not functioning so well. 

It is as if their hearts are still beating; still raising our flag; still reminding us that they live on and to this extent will never really die.

Take comfort then every time you see our Flag raised and know that your loved ones are there present participating in its raising.

Be comforted in the knowledge that it is their breath and spirit that cause that very flag to yet wave.

Be comforted that when we all so proudly hail that star spangled banner that what we are all collectively really doing is hailing the beating heart of your loved ones from whom our democracy will draw sustenance and hope until the end of time.

Sadly, it appears, much more will be required of us as a nation and of you in particular as this conflict rages on.  And you, because it is in your nature to serve will answer the call again and the beat will go on, the perpetual beating of the heart of freedom will go on, sustained by your devotion to all that our flag represents.

Thank you for all that you do on behalf of your communities, this State and our country.

Today the flag rises in your honor and our hearts beat today with great pride and gratitude for your good works.

Thank you for allowing me to share this day with you.

Careers, Academics, Relationships, Encouragement

David Bradley
School Counselors Care – Administrator Breakfast - February 2, 2007

Thank you very much for the privilege of addressing you this morning.

Whenever you are asked to be a keynote speaker, it’s important to remember the fate of one Edward Everett.  Mr. Everett was one of the most gifted orators of his day.  He was invited to speak at a momentous occasion which you will soon recognize.  He spoke for two hours to an enormous crowd in an outdoor setting without the benefit of, the not yet invented, microphone.  His speech was well received.  He took his seat and the next speaker, who was invited almost as an after thought, rose and spoke for little more than two minutes. 

One hundred and fifty four years later the second speech has become the American Gospel.  It starts with the words, “Four score and seven years ago…”

I was asked to speak to you for twenty or thirty minutes.  I am hoping that I am not followed by a two minute orator who brings the house down.  
As is frequently the case, politicians end up speaking to groups who know much more than they do about a particular topic, I want to make it clear that I am here in the spirit of Aeschylus who noted long ago that, “It is always in season for old men to learn.”

I certainly am not here to impart any wisdom about which you are not already very familiar or provide some simple prescription for carrying out the mission of your valuable jobs.
Plato noted long ago, that the great danger in this world of moral
ambiguities where every thing is questioned and simple assertions of moral authority are not adequate is the man who peddles easy answers to complex questions, and the greatest danger of all is the man who has only one answer to a host of different questions.

I will do my best to heed both of Plato’s warnings. Rather, I am hopeful that you will find it in your hearts to bless me as I ask your indulgence to overlook the paucity of my knowledge. I am relying on your good graces to permit me to both encourage and honor the good work that you have done and will no doubt continue to do on behalf of the young people whom we seek to mutually serve.

She was twelve when she was removed from her home and school.  She was placed in a shelter and placed in a new school.  No familiar faces, no friends.  She is on her own.  No one told the school she was coming.

While I am most grateful to be a State Representative, I do have other roles in my life that are of far greater responsibility, namely, as a father, grandfather and director of an agency that has 200 foster kids on any given day.  Standing before you then is a fellow counselor, an elected official and a beggar.

My professional career as a mental health counselor started here in Tucson 27 years ago after having spent 8 years in the Navy. 
Although, my interest in politics stems from my family’s commitment to serve others, I was also touched by the voices of a now ever increasingly distant past. 

Among those voices was Robert Kennedy who noted in what is probably his most famous speech given in Capetown, South Africa in 1966 that the hope for the future was always to be found in youth, he said:

“This generation cannot afford to waste its substance and its hope in the struggles of the past, beyond these walls there are lives to be saved, there is work to be done…Our answer is the world's hope; it is to rely on youth. This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the life of ease…”

Kennedy’s reliance on youth as the hope of the world I think captures the purpose and the urgency of the mission to activate and energize the youth in your charge to recognize how desperately the world needs them.  You are tasked I believe in promoting the idea of the French poet Paul Claudel, “that youth is not made for pleasure but for heroism”.

She is told that she will only be in this school for a brief time and will return to her home school when the CPS investigation is concluded.  Her mother has been using drugs since she can remember.  Many abusive men have come in and out of her life  This will complicate her return home..

I would also suggest that Kennedy’s quote incorporates all of the themes that you have chosen for your gathering today, “Careers, Academics, Relationships, Encouragement”.

The first theme is the word careers.  It is rooted in the French and literally means race or course.  It also means a swift movement; progress through life with respect to one’s work.

You then work with young people who are just taking up the race of life.  If you can accept Claudel’s belief about youth’s call to heroism, then the race of their lives will hopefully include more than the acquisition of wealth and position, echoing Robert Frost’s refrain, “of those who for some good discerned, will gladly give up paradise.”

Beyond the walls of their schools there are lives to be saved, there is work to be done and they are the people for whom the world is waiting.

Counseling like teaching, being both art and science, takes an enormous amount of time to master. The master counselor prods without pushing, encourages without excoriating and challenges without chastising.

In so doing, the most powerful of all desires is triggered, the unquenchable thirst for both knowledge and action.

Erica is her name, rarely does anyone refer to her by name.  In 15 months since leaving home she has been to three schools.  She is graduating from middle school.  She does not bother to attend the graduation ceremony; she was kicked out of her foster home and is back in a shelter on the other side of town.

‘Academics’ is another one of your themes.  I would suggest that there is far more to academics than reading, writing and mathematics.   Academics should be designed to prepare your kids for the ‘race’, that is, a career, not only of a particular discipline, but also to their development as contributing members of society, that is, their lifelong careers as citizens.

You are then both artists and scientists and your task of leading youth into the 21st century includes preparing them for the world of civic duty that rests at the core of the central purpose of all education.

There are numerous types of tests, some more practical and useful than others. Reducing all that a student should have mastered in twelve years of schooling to a single test would be quite an achievement. I would suggest to you that ‘academics’ is a word that encompasses far more than can be reduced to a simple test.

To assert that mastering prescribed course work is the sole purpose of attending twelve years of school is to insult a profession that really is older than any other, that is, the art and science of leading and guiding the young to take their place in society. 

The root of the word education means to lead. The purpose of education in a civil society is to first lead youth into good citizenship. 

Any measurement that has its sole purpose revealing what a child has mastered in the narrow sense of academics reveals only a small portion of what is really important in the education of citizens.

It will tell you very little about how the individual has mastered the basics of citizenship, that is, the skills of civility, the ability of a young person to build and sustain relationships or how prepared they are to participate in community.

Over the summer Erica has her first experience with drugs she uses methamphetamines.  In July her mother dies of a drug overdose. There is no home to go back to; she is in her own mind alone.

You have also wisely chosen this issue of ‘relationships’ as one of your themes as well.  I would suggest that school is not just a place where a child acquires content information about particular subjects.

It is also, and more importantly in my humble opinion, an incubator of interpersonal development where the young learn the fundamentals of communicating effectively with peers as well as adults, and along with reading, writing and mathematics, is exposed to the essential elements of good citizenship. This is just one of the many reasons that counselors, teachers and school administrators are so important. 

Under your tutelage and guidance in a safe and enriching environment character is formed. Over time, skills, essential to success in the world of work, such as learning to cooperate, share and play with others, negotiating and compromising are learned, practiced and demonstrated.

The school is really a dynamic interactive laboratory where the correlation is made between effort and results, where a portfolio of success is assembled and failure is transformed into the opportunity to learn.

In the classroom, the schoolyard, the lunchroom children are exposed to how others think and feel, believe and perceive the world. Here is where a young person uncovers the diversity of cultures, attitudes, thoughts and values of others

Many tests are administered in our schools beyond the academic assessment, the results of which will never be reported or recorded.
These tests include the practical application of one’s family values and their applicability to the broader world. It is at school, in and out of the classroom, where judgment and the ability to discern right from wrong will be challenged and given its first test outside the confines of family.

One’s individuality and personhood are tested by the relentless assault of peer pressures. Worldviews are developed and modified as children are exposed to other perspectives. These are the tests that will best predict the success or failure that these children will experience in the world of work, and marriage and community.

The most important outcome of an education is the development of good citizens who reach an academic milestone with a hunger for knowledge and an eagerness to be engaged in society so as to reach their optimum potentials.

Their hunger for knowledge becomes a lifelong pursuit because it serves to further connect them with others. Their hunger for action makes them not only taxpayers but civic-minded individuals who participate actively in their communities.

The central question should be, has the school prepared a student for citizenship? Surely, school districts should ascertain what it is they want their students to master academically. But far more of their time should be focused on ensuring that graduation means that their students have completed their apprenticeship in citizenship.

Our graduation requirements should mimic this reality. Academic test results reveal only a part of the purpose of a good education.
Grades matter because they reflect achievement but also effort, cooperation and participation as well; the very building blocks of citizenship.

Engaging in meaningful community service projects gives students a taste of what it is to build and not simply consume. In service to others youth develop a regard for community and justice, key elements of citizenship.

The purpose is to graduate good citizens. These are individuals prepared to enter the world of work or higher education not only because they have basic academic skills but also because they have an eagerness to acquire knowledge and skills that will ultimately contribute to the greater good of the society that they are about to inherit. That is the ultimate test of a good education.

The old and young alike often define themselves by their accomplishments of education or income or some other marker of status. I would suggest that in the process of instilling civic duty in students that we should focus not simply on experience but perhaps just as importantly on expectation and imagination.

Erica is enrolled in High School, she has registered too late and can not get many of the classes she had hoped for.  She has a talent for art and loves music, there are no classes available.  She gets an appointment with an academic advisor; she does not keep it she has moved again.

You also have encouragement as one of your themes.  Encouragement literally means to give heart.  As counselors you perhaps more than others in the academic setting must understand that you have the obligation and duty to encourage your kids to be prepared to seize the opportunities that life will present them.

Let me illustrate that from an example from the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games in the woman’s individual figure skating event.

You may recall that the winner of the individual woman’s gold was a young American girl who was not expected to place in the top three, let alone win.

Sarah Hughes, however, skated the routine of a life time and took the gold medal right from her more experienced and seasoned competitors. After her final Olympic figure skating routine she was literally on the floor in shock.

At that very moment she made one of the most profound and compelling observations I have ever heard. She said in that spontaneous moment of exhilaration and disbelief;

“I did things that I can not do.”

She literally skated beyond her imagination. She answered the call of expectation by unexpectedly doing what she literally thought she could not do.

At the moment of maximum challenge she relied not solely on experience but also rose up to the level of expectation.

There is the job of the school counselor.  You along with your teachers and administrators must develop your kids’ expectations of themselves beyond their imagination.

This is the duty we have to the youth we serve. To first demonstrate our belief in our own capacity to go beyond our experience and education. 

You see, we are more than the sum of what we have learned and whom we know or what we own or where we have been. Our uniqueness lies in that unknown and unforeseen call to daring and action.

I am not suggesting that we role model lives devoid of planning and preparation. I am only suggesting that we prepare our kids to embrace the unknown and the uncharted opportunities that will come their way in the due course of their lives.

By the end of her sophomore year Erica has four credits.  She is attending her fourth high school in two years.  She is becoming more hopeless about the future, she has gained a lot a weight from the medication she is on.  School is becoming more painful by the day as she is becoming more isolated.

The opportunity to change the world for the better is often right before our eyes. To have the capacity to seize that opportunity is not only a matter of good preparation; it is also the willingness to embrace the unexpected as a call to duty.

The nightmare of hurricane Katrina illustrates this very point.
While the focus has been on what went wrong and what should
have been done, the fact is that with absolutely no warning countless persons were instantaneously called upon to act, to literally save the lives of others, many of whom they did not know and had never met.

There was no script, no map, no guidelines just the call to duty, it came without warning and countless people answered and acted. Yes, they are heroes but just as important and this is crucial to my point, so too are the teachers, mentors and counselors who perhaps unknowingly had prepared them to respond when the clarion call of civic action demanded their participation and total commitment.

Education then can be the portal to a life of daring and action and adventure. As our Greek forbearers noted long ago; to be good is to do good. To lead a life of purpose is to be a good citizen.

Goodness always had an active quality about it for the ancient Greeks. Goodness was not a passive condition of the soul, like innocence; nor was it simply to be well-intentioned. To be good was to do good things, and to be considered good was to be seen to be doing them.

Doing good requires practice so that it becomes second nature. No amount of diligent study of the list of good acts will produce good persons.  Good teachers, counselors and good administrators create the opportunity for goodness of their students to be made manifest.

Erica seemed to be rebounding, she became attached to an art teacher in her school and was working through many of her problems she even mustered enough energy to catch up in school, by the end of her Junior year she has a 11 credits.  Art and music are literally saving her life.

If ever there was an individual who lived a committed life of civic purpose it was certainly one Giovanni di Bernardone, better known as Francis of Assisi.  G.K. Chesterson wrote of him that Francis anticipated all that is most liberal and sympathetic in the modern mood; the love of nature, the love of animals; the sense of social compassion; the sense of the spiritual dangers of prosperity and even of property.

He could be presented as a humanitarian hero who was described as the morning star of the Renaissance, a troubadour of a nobler romance that chanted the love of community and nature as no other person before or after him.

Francis of Assisi had the presence of mind on his death bed to rise and give his clothes away to the person closest to him. His purpose was to leave the world as he had entered it, owning absolutely nothing. It was Francis who noted long ago;

“When you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received only what you have given: a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.”

I would suggest that these are the four pillars of civic duty, courage, sacrifice, service and love. These four pillars are only clearly understood in the context of our relationships with one another and as Francis exemplified in the totality of our relationship with the environment.

Courage is the first pillar and the most important of virtues for without it you can practice no other virtue. Courage is not just charging up the hill regardless of the odds, for most of us it is something far more subtle. It is quietly but consistently standing up for what we believe in regardless of the cost.

Courageous people hear the subtle whisper of duty more acutely than most do. The call to duty is a chant that they can never ignore.
Courage leads to a life of expectation and challenge and eschews a life in pursuit of comfort and ease.

Consider most recently Wesley Autrey.  With not a moment to lose, he risks losing everything.  Mr. Autrey is the ordinary man with extraordinary courage who jumped on top of another man who was having a seizure and fell in front of an oncoming subway train.  Mr. Autrey performed beyond his own expectations and made an instantaneous decision to save the life of another with no regard for his own.

Sacrifice is the purest form of civic action. Sacrifice, the second pillar, literally means to ‘make sacred’. Imagine if that meaning was imprinted on the minds of our youth from their earliest years.

Ultimately, nothing is more sacred than our relationships with other people. In a world in which information slides by us at double warp speed, the connections that we have to others often get put on the shelf to be dealt with later.

Issues become more important than the people the issues are centered around. If you can teach the young that relationships are sacred, you have permanently ordained a civic activist for whom in regard to the pursuit of justice tomorrow is always too late.

Her foster parents however are moving out of state and they choose not to take Erica with them.  She is moved to the other side of town.  Another new school, no friends and no art program.

Truly understanding service, the third pillar, means knowing that true power emanates from the lowest seat. To serve is literally to be a slave to someone else, in the sense of Francis who always put the needs of others before his own.

Again, a word that is really only understood in the context of relationship. It is the opposite of being in control of others; it is really the root meaning of stewardship. If we could raise an entire generation of civic activists who understood this we would be bequeathing our country and its government to the finest of all generations.

Here finally is the big mystery of life, the fourth and most important pillar. When all is said and done and you are approaching your final breaths, you will not be reviewing your retirement account, listing your degrees or trying to measure the value of your life than by any other means than this;

Whom did you love and how well did you do so?

Consider the people who were trapped in those buildings on 9/11.
Those who knew they were going to die communicated to others not about their stock portfolios or possessions; they communicated what was most important.

They told the most significant people in their lives how much they loved them. In the end we all will know that nothing else matters, nothing.

I would suggest that before we can live lives of daring and courage, sacrifice and commitment; service and stewardship; love and honor, for that matter, of true civic commitment we need to acquire a solid foundation.

Erica is placed in a Charter School, the curriculum is self paced and she loses interest quickly.  She leaves school one day she will never return.  On the run and 17 years of age, she enters the underworld of drugs, violence and sexual exploitation.

That foundation is built upon rich and fulfilling relationships; that call us to ensure the survival of the weakest, to protect our increasingly fragile and interdependent environment; and pass on to our children a legacy of honorable civic action. We can then leave this life like Francis, knowing that we gave everything we had to those who would follow, taking nothing with us but the satisfaction of having lived a life of courage, sacrifice, service and love.

I am very confident that you who work in this field and struggle daily to discover new and imaginative ways to inspire others have dreams that still far out number your memories.

It is the energy and devotion generated by your dreams that creates the ripples of hope, which Robert Kennedy so eloquently noted in that Capetown speech, that cross each other from a million different centers of energy and daring and which build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Like Robert Kennedy’s time we too live in times of danger and uncertainty. But it is also a time of great challenge and creativity.

Thank you very much for answering the call to civic duty yourselves. I am certain that the young citizens you serve can see, hear, taste, touch and smell your dedication and devotion to the cause of building a just and free society. I know that as a result of having their lives touched by you that they will thirst for justice and hunger for action.

I mentioned to you at the beginning of this speech that I came to you as an elected official, a fellow counselor and a beggar.

As a beggar, I implore you to take special attention to the hundreds of foster children who are in your charge.  Some are literally homeless; others reside in foster, group and shelter homes through out your communities. They have usually attended many schools and have been caught in the swirl of poverty, violence and substance abuse, epidemic conditions that often weaken their spirits and sometimes take their lives.

Statistically, the odds are enormously against them.  For instance, one out of every two homeless people in this country is a former foster child.

My Erica is not fictional, her destiny is, as you might suspect, short lived.  The opportunity to save her was through art and music, her AIMS score was a meaningless piece of data.  She needed what your conference suggests, a  relationship where someone took an interest in her career, her academic life, in the broadest sense, and gave her the opportunity and encouragement to pursue her dreams.  She wanted a life of purpose of daring and adventure she could have escaped her mother’s fate.  We all missed helping, she slipped through a thousand set of hands.  She lies in the paupers’ grave at Evergreen Cemetery.

My agency, La Paloma Family Services, is building a foster care resource center on Miracle Mile.  Just to the North of our property are those pauper’s graves.  Given the statistic I just gave you it is probable that half of those interned there are former foster kids.

I am hopeful that our efforts at that facility will in effect call upon the spirits of those lives ended prematurely and often anonymously. 

I want you to be haunted by their voices and I implore you to take special care of those kids in your school so that their destiny is far different than those who came before them. 

Those unknown dead are to be honored by your care of their successors in the foster care system. 

I am begging you to ensure that those who rest in the pauper’s graves, like my Erica, have not died in vain, because their fate will act as a catalyst for you to care for, encourage and challenge the foster children who grace your schools every day.

So again thank you for all that you do, I know that you work hard on the behalf of so many kids.  I know your caseloads are ridiculously high.  I wish I could tell you that help is on the way but it would not be true.  We have a ways to go before the value of your services is fully appreciated in this legislature.

Do what you are doing, and although your efforts may go unseen there are many people in the background who know of your good work. Although they applaud quietly they do so incessantly.

Thank you for having me here today, you have been most kind and gracious. I am very grateful and most honored to be with you.

Candidate Announcement Speech
Arizona State House of Representatives

David Bradley
Democrats of Greater Tucson - July 10, 2006

For the fifth time I announce that I am running for the House of Representatives here at the Democrats of Greater Tucson luncheon.

At this point I am batting .500, two for four, two wins and two losses. I am hoping to break the tie this year in favor of the wins.

I will give you the same reason for running that I gave 14 years ago when I first spoke at this luncheon, it is this.

Running for office stems from this simple core belief. If you have the opportunity and the wherewithal to help a fellow human being and you do not do it you have wasted your life.

As I noted then and do so again, I am the son of a man who made it clear to me that I had one entitlement in life and that is to work hard.

I am the son of a woman who made it equally clear to me that if my life were to be of any value it had to be in the service of other people.

I am running for reelection to the House of Representatives to answer again that call to duty that comes to me not only in the voices of my parents but also from the voiceless children for whom I have worked my entire professional life.

I have had reasonable success in my time in the legislature despite the odds being enormously against all Democrats who serve in this legislature.

Working with colleagues in both parties, I have had legislation passed that put anti-bullying measures into schools, acquired post-secondary school funding for foster children, protected consumers from medical fraud, assisted medical research opportunities for Tucson based companies and promoted cord blood stem cell storage and research.

Additionally, helped by dedicated legislative staff, I have assisted many constituents in resolving problems both large and small in their day-to-day dealings with State government.

If re-elected, I will continue to advocate for children and will carry on the fight against the scourges of poverty, violence and substance abuse which continue to wreck havoc in the lives of so many of our fellow Arizonans.

Please allow me to first review the most recent legislative session and secondly to look forward to the next one regardless if I am fortunate enough to be reelected or not.

Every legislative session is essentially about money, this one was no exception. After all we are sent by our fellow citizens to primarily produce a budget for the coming fiscal year.

There was, so to speak, a lot of silver to be had this year. From very early on it was clear that our central problem was what to do with a lot of money, much of which was unexpected. Let me give you my take on what silver does to governing.

I would like you to think of the legislative session in terms of looking out of a huge picture window.

Through that window we have the power to look at the vast majestic beauty of this state from the geological wonders of the Grand Canyon to the rugged mountains of Patagonia from the Colorado River to the beauty of the lush pastures atop the Mogollon rim.

Through that window we can also see the wants and needs of our entire state; from the youngsters on the Navajo reservation needing day care to the young mother in Douglas working two jobs just to make ends meet, who has no healthcare and whose kids attend a struggling school.

To the young woman in Phoenix who has just been turned away from a Domestic Violence shelter for lack of room to the developmentally disabled man having his teeth extracted because that is the only dental service we will provide him.

As our session goes on advocates for one cause or another come and go. Lobbyists on behalf of every issue imaginable from the obscure needs of a small water company in Northern Arizona to the enormous needs of the university system come knocking at our door

It is a good year so that there are revenues a plenty and many requests for assistance are granted or augmented to the delight of many a lobbyist.

Many good things occur, teachers get pay raises, all day kindergarten absent the rooms to put the children in are approved. DES is nearly funded in the totality of its requests. There are new expenditures for kidney programs, temporary medical coverage for AHCCCS, $10 million for a Tucson Veterans home, $35 million for the 21 st Century fund and Rio Nuevo's funding has been extended.

And so as every expenditure is allocated our window to the state is gradually obscured with a little a silver for this cause, that program or that tax cut. The silver is to symbolize the money that has been allocated to a vast array of purposes and causes.

So that by the end of the session our panoramic view of the state's beauty and it needs is now obscured.

Our window to the world over the course of the session has slowly become a mirror and our view of the world has been reduced to looking at our own reflection, as we contentedly smile at our selves for what we have accomplished and what silver we got to put on that window.

And yet behind that mirror there are faces and on those faces there are no smiles. Because, surprise, surprise these are the faces yet again of the weakest, the children, the elderly and the fragile.

We had it within our reach to have done so many things for the children, the elderly and the mentally and physically disabled, but not now.

Within our reach we could have easily increased the compensation of day care providers which means keeping the working poor in the workforce where they can earn their way to independence.

Within our reach we could have easily provided expanded dental and health care for the disabled, but not now.

Within our reach we could have easily fully funded housing for the seriously mentally ill.

Within our reach we could have provided adequate funding for Family's First, the program that provides substance abuse services for families first identified by the Child Protective Services system.

Within our reach we could have easily provided full healthcare coverage including dental care for every child in this state, but not now.

Within our reach we could have allocated more funds to make I-10 a safer highway.

Within our reach we could have invested in the border and transformed it from our first line of defense against people coming over illegally to a vibrant and rich economic catalyst for our nation's emergent employment needs.

Within our reach we could have done justice to those who provide for our security in the prisons of our state.

The leadership's response to these needs; a flag in every classroom, English in every transaction, making sure that women's eggs are not harvested without their consent.

One of the first e-mails I received as a first-term legislator was from a woman asking for help in the care of her 35-year-old multiple-handicapped daughter who was confined to a wheel chair.

The woman, in her 70s, was requesting that funds for the developmentally disabled be maintained. She relies on those funds to provide an in-home aide for two hours a week.

She needed those two hours to go shopping for the family and run other errands. Her husband is now an invalid as well.

She recognizes time is not on her side and she dreads the day when her energy alone will not be enough to carry out what she sees as her duty and mission in life.

She apologized for making her request because she deemed it selfish to make such a plea on her own behalf.

With or without the help she made it clear, she would never give up on her beautiful daughter. She hoped I could meet her most precious child one day.

Hundreds of requests have come my way since this simple poignant plea. Mayors and university presidents, doctors and lawyers, farmers and social workers, insurance companies, the film and travel industries and lobbyists representing nearly every aspect of life and commerce in our state make their case for funding.

There are many good causes with high purpose needing government to provide the spark so that they can sustain the flame of their many worthwhile goals.

There are not resources for every cause, many are turned away. Government cannot and should not be the sole resource for every good idea.

However, this is not the time to abandon hope or to stop advocating. Together we must increase our vigilance and raise our voices in support of our most needy citizens, our universities and community colleges, our child protective service, justice and health-care systems.

As in previous sessions, individuals who espouse broken and tired ideologies dominate the Legislature. They cannot distinguish between a hand up and a handout. In their view, government can only spend and not invest.

A correlation between the prevention of domestic violence and economic development is beyond the periphery of their vision.

They see no relationship between the provision of day care subsidies or adult education and work force development.

It is big news to these people that the evolution of government did not cease in the 19th century, when law, order and protection were the state's nearly sole function.

As Democrats we know that our times call for a government that is a partner in the progress of our society; one that aggregates resources and distributes opportunities.

This should be the era of an agile government that acts as a catalyst of change and development of its citizens and their communities.

We know that government is not the sole patron or arbiter of progress, we recognize that government should be a partner of business, education, health care and social welfare systems not their master.

We Democrats know that the mission of government is to incubate and facilitate, not control and dominate. It steps in to lift people up, it steps away to let people grow. It rehabilitates those who fail or fall; it protects the weakest and lets the market promote the wisest.

It is more difficult to discern the meaning of our elections in this era of the spin masters. The victors will claim mandate, the vanquished will assert that the people have been duped again. Ultimately, both are wrong. Governing is always more complex and nuanced than campaigns would have us believe.

As I have noted on other occasions, we are stuffed every day with news from multiple sources and we are starving for a sense of history.

Consider this.

We continue to live in times of danger and uncertainty and our priorities seem so distorted. We have a Federal government that is projected to spend the equivalent of a million dollars a day for the next 3,487 years on the Iraq war.

That is a million dollars a day up until the year 5493. Oh what a little of that silver could do for so many people for so long.

In our own state it was only three years ago that we were in an economic decline that resulted in a billion dollar shortfall. Whom did the leadership in the legislature expect to take the brunt of that hit?

You guessed it, the people behind the mirror, those at the dawn of life our children, those at the sunset of the life the elderly and those in the shadows, the mentally and physically handicapped, those ravaged by the tragic triad of poverty, violence and substance abuse.

Economic cycles are not fiction; they are a fact of life. We can not hide our heads in the sand in bad or good times. Our state will continue to grow no matter how robust or depressed our economy is.

It is foolish to think otherwise and our State government must be prepared again for the inevitable downturn in our collective fortunes.

We are in this together, we do not have the option of simply throwing people over board when the inevitable storms of economic recession come again.

The recommendations the Citizens Finance Review Commission of 2003 still stand and still make sense.

In an economic environment driven by extraordinary sales and income tax revenues we still need to focus on the economic vitality, long term planning and money management recommendations of the commission.

We still need a resilient tax base that is simple, diverse and equitable. The good times should not cloud our vision that more difficult days are ahead.

The Governor made the best deal she could make to achieve the goals that we did in this session. Yet, I am afraid that we will rue the day that we enacted these permanent tax cuts.

I would venture to guess that this year's voters hope for a government that can, with common sense, light most of the following candles.

An enlightened government should be responsive to the needs of the weakest, fair in the distribution of economic resources, wise in the conservation of natural resources, deliberate and thorough in the exercise of justice, unrelenting in ensuring that education is available to citizens throughout their lives and, finally, committed to make government as unobtrusive as possible in the personal lives of its citizens.

These are the candles that Democrats in the Legislature must try to light in the next session. We can anticipate a difficult time keeping them lit amid the fundamentalist winds that howl through the halls of the State Capitol every day.

Some of the more challenged members of the legislature will brandish bright torches of righteousness at the start of this next session.

They will be back again to limit a woman's right to choose, they will come after the immigrant, and they will try again to pass the disastrous tax payer bill of rights legislation.

In due time, we hope, their offensive and blinding lights will be extinguished, leaving them in darkness as the rest of us try to shed a steady, more reasoned light on our many challenges.

I am hopeful that our citizens, regardless of political affiliation, will forgo the garish lights of libertarianism and fundamentalism and stick with the steady candles of common sense and common purpose.

This is what distinguishes us from that other party. It is the acknowledgement that we are in this together.

Injustice to any is injustice to all.

Not leaving children behind, means children of every socioeconomic class, it means funding a public school system that produces good citizens not simply good test takers.

It means not eviscerating the public school system with vouchers and corporate tax credits.

It means a comprehensive healthcare plan that pools the resources of small business, large corporations, government employees as well as the poor and the working poor.

We Democrats know as Franklin Roosevelt reminded us that “happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

Our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to our fellow citizens.”

Keep in mind that elderly woman who needs a few hours a week of support in order to prevent the institutionalization of her daughter.

Good government finds a way to help people like this. Democrats know that if that woman should fail or falter we all fail and falter.

We are in this together. We all have a stake in her beautiful wheel chair bound 35 year old daughter, who can not speak on her own behalf. We must be her voice.

We know that if that young mother in Douglas doesn't get health coverage for her children, we are all at risk.

We know that if that woman in Phoenix can not find safe haven from an abusive partner, then none of us are safe.

We know if that developmentally disabled person can not receive any relief from his dental pain save extraction then we are all in pain.

As John Winthrop, the oft quoted 1630's Puritan put it while in route to the New World , “We must be knit together in this work as one, we must make others' conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together”

Despite all the silver that was scattered about during this last legislative session, I would urge you not to be lulled into passive acceptance of the world as it is.

We Democrats are who we are because we still hear the trumpet beckoning us to always seek a newer world, a world as it should be.

In common purpose with those whom we serve, in pursuit of the common good that benefits all of our citizens, I respond, in humility to the whisper of duty that forever rings in my ears and respectfully ask for your vote once again.

Thank you very much for your support, encouragement, guidance and confidence all of these years.

Pima County Sports Hall of Fame Dinner La Paloma Award for Sportsmanship

Presented by David Bradley, CEO La Paloma Family services
October 15, 2006

Come back with me to a different era, laced with familiar themes.

April 1945, President Roosevelt has just died.  The most cataclysmic war in human history is drawing to a close.

We find our selves in the Arizona desert on the Gila River Indian Reservation.  We are in the War Relocation Authority camp called Butte, one of two camps holding approximately 13,000 Japanese-Americans from all over the west coast.

Losing to the Tucson High School State Champions 9-4 in the bottom of the sixth, things don’t look good for the Butte High Eagles.

Although, not likely on the minds of many of the players that day, they are gathered on this field playing a sport that had become in a short 50 plus years, America’s pastime.

They have been brought together by chance and circumstance.  Events which occurred before any of the players were in high school and in places far away were key factors in why this game was being played in the desert located between two small western cities, Phoenix and Tucson.

The Butte Eagles are down but not out.  In their half of the sixth inning they score five runs and tie the score at nine.

One thousand two hundred thirty three days  and fourteen hours prior to the beginning of the 7th inning the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor was bombed in a surprise attack by the Imperial Forces of the Empire of Japan.  Only a few hours later the United States and the Empire would officially be at war.

Unknown to each other and unaware of the broad consequences of that attack a group of 10 to 14 years old boys scattered around the western United States will be drawn together on a dusty field in the Arizona desert in a few short years.

The seventh inning is uneventful but Tucson High scores in the top of the eighth to take a one run lead.  Lowell Bailey, who the previous year had gone an entire season without allowing a single earned run, was still on the mound.

Fueled by anti-Japanese sentiment among farmers who competed against Japanese labor, politicians who sided with anti-Japanese constituencies and the general public whose frenzy was heightened by the Japanese attack, Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive order 9066 on February 19, 1942. 

Put into place 74 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the order commences the rounding up of 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage to one of 10 internment camps, officially called “relocation centers”, in California, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arkansas and Arizona.

Hastily assembled and poorly planned the Internment camps were overcrowded and provided miserable living conditions.  Food was rationed out at an expense of 48 cents per day per internee.  Well over 2/3’s of the Japanese internees are U.S. citizens.

The Butte High Eagles tie the game in their half of the eighth inning.

Partial Instructions to all persons of Japanese Ancestry alien and non alien in the San Francisco area.

The Following Instructions Must Be Observed:
Evacuees must carry with them on departure for the Assembly Center, the following property:
(a) Bedding and linens (no mattress) for each member of the family;
(b) Toilet articles for each member of the family;
(c) Extra clothing for each member of the family;
(d) Sufficient knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls and cups for each member of the family;
(e) Essential personal effects for each member of the family.
All items carried will be securely packaged, tied and plainly marked with the name of the owner and numbered in accordance with instructions obtained at the Civil Control Station. The size and number of packages is limited to that which can be carried by the individual or family group.
3. No pets of any kind will be permitted.
4. No personal items and no household goods will be shipped to the Assembly Center.
5. The United States Government through its agencies will provide for the storage, at the sole risk of the owner, of the more substantial household items, such as iceboxes, washing machines, pianos and other heavy furniture.
6. Each family, and individual living alone will be furnished transportation to the Assembly Center or will be authorized to travel by private automobile in a supervised group.

J.L. DeWitt.  Lieutenant General U.S. Army

 

Tucson High comes to bat in the top of the ninth.  Four of the Tucson High players will go on to play professional ball.  Their coach is the legendary Hanley Slagle, who between 1942 and 1954 led the Badgers to a 52-game winning streak and 10 State Championships.  No baseball coach in Arizona High School Baseball history has ever won more.

Two important legal cases were brought against the United States concerning the internment.  The defendants argued their Fifth Amendment rights were violated by the U.S. government because of their ancestry, not to mention the fact of their U.S. citizenship.  In both cases, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the U.S. government.  The internees reached a tri-fecta of sorts; every branch of the U.S. government had now turned their backs on them

The Tucson High Badgers do not score in the ninth and Butte Eagles come to bat in the bottom of the ninth with a chance to defeat the defending State Champions.  The Eagles have a legendary coach of their own.  His two sons who are members of the team will go on to play professional ball in the Japanese Professional Baseball League.  Beginning in 1919 Kenichi Zenimura spent 55 years in competitive baseball and his teams would attain state and national recognition.  In the 1930’s Zenimura coached teams would dominate the college clubs of Stanford, Southern California and Fresno State.

Both coaches are enlightened men who recognized the value of sport to cross boundaries.  Sport has always provided such a bridge to understanding and peace.  The Olympic spirit is in fact this willingness to suspend for a time the depravity of prejudice.  In a desert in a field built not by dreams but by indomitable spirit, built by the hands of young men who refused to be destroyed by the ignorance of others, here on a field that was chalked by flour surrounded by barbed wire in that place at that time, fear strikes out.

The Eagles do not score in the bottom of the ninth.  The game is headed for extra innings.

For Japanese-Americans unconstitutionally interned during World War II, watching and supporting baseball behind barbed wire brought a sense of normalcy, created a social and positive atmosphere and helped maintain their self-esteem despite the harsh conditions of desert life.

The last interment camp was closed by the end of 1945, President Roosevelt himself had rescinded Executive Order 9066.  It would take over a year to shut down the camps.  Nearly 24 years later the U.S. Government began reparations to Japanese Americans for property they had lost.  In 1988 formal payments of $20,000 each to surviving internees were approved.

Despite out-hitting the home team Eagles 19-13, the Tucson High Badgers come up empty in the top of the tenth, the score remains tied. 

Interestingly, ten people were convicted during World War II of spying for the Japanese Empire against the United States.   All were US citizens, all of them were Caucasian.

The Butte Eagles quickly cause some havoc in the bottom of the tenth. 

Joe Tully, who later will play pro in Mexico takes the mound for Tucson.  Shosan Shimosaki is the first batter and he draws a base on balls, Osada follows reaching safely on a fielders choice.

The engineers typically designed the fenced camps in block arrangements wherein each block contained 14 barracks, 1 mess hall and 1 recreation hall on the outer edges, and ironing, laundry, and men's and women's lavatories on the interior.

Hasegawa grounds out, the runners advance.  Katakoka flies out and the runners hold.

Households were assigned space in the spartan 100 by 20 foot family structures of wood and tar paper according to the number of people in their household.

Nishino is intentionally walked, with two outs and the bases loaded Kenshi Zenimura, a future pro player and the coach’s son comes to bat. 

Six hundred and sixty two children were born in the Gila Camps during the internment.

He takes three balls and then two consecutive strikes.

Two hundred and twenty one people spent their last day on earth in the camps. 

Zenimura takes the next pitch down the third base line for a  single. 

The Eagles win the game, defeating the defending Arizona State High School Champions.

The game, while surely important to all of these kids brought together by the swirling destinies of war, prejudice and irrational fear, portends a greater lesson beyond the results of a score sheet.  In a sad aftermath the rematch game in Tucson is canceled because of residents’ fears that it may be dangerous to have the Japanese team come here to play.  Many other communities throughout the West had overcome their fears, our community did not.

Both coaches lament this outcome.

Coach Zenimura, “This war has created many unpleasant incidents and I am sorry to have put you and yours in this spot in your district.  I can only hope that in due time the difference in opinion can be overcome and that we may be able to resume our athletic rivalry.  If our return game can’t be brought about, I sincerely hope that we may meet once again not as a team perhaps but as a single member of Uncle Sam and fight together for one principle.

Coach Slagle, “As for the possibility of canceling our game – we had never given it a minute’s thought – till we arrived home and started hearing from some of these so called 100% Americans.

I sincerely hope it won’t be too long till we are all thinking straight again and can live together in a true Democracy that we Americans of all races have created.”

The principles that both coaches are of course alluding to are multi-faceted involving the exercise of freedom and responsibility, the value of hard work and perseverance, the belief that we really are all equal, that justice will prevail and that people can rise as far as their talent and effort will take them.

So some sixty years ago on a dusty field of play surrounded by barbed wire with thousands of interned fans present, two communities of young boys and their coaches came together and bound together by the common love of sport and fair play, and like true sportsmen, they overcame fear and prejudice.

For this reason the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame selects the players and coaches of the 1945 Tucson High Badgers and Butte High Eagles as the first recipients of its La Paloma Award for sportsmanship.

Please stand and acknowledge these men.

Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cell Research and the Arizona Legislature

David Bradley
April 5, 2006

First of all let me thank Dr. Harris for inviting me to speak to you. Often times as state legislators we are asked to speak to groups who know far more about a topic than we will ever know.

Never has that been truer than it is right here, right now.

You very likely have near heard from someone with less scientific credentials.

I will make a plea for your indulgence and tolerance at the beginning of my remarks for my naiveté and limited knowledge of the complex and marvelous science of stem cell research.

It is inevitable that I will at some point in the next few minutes abuse some word or concept that is very familiar to all of you but which for me is as the first tentative step across an unfamiliar frozen pond.

If I have understood my commission correctly you have asked that I talk to you about how the Arizona legislature discusses, discerns and ultimately creates stem cell policy. And you have asked for some prognostication as to where I think we are headed.

I will try to attend to those issues and then conclude on what you can practically do to educate legislators and make them more receptive to scientific research in general and medical, stem cell research and regenerative medicine in particular.

I have two items that are good news for all you. The first I will tell you now and the second will bring my talk to conclusion.

The first piece of good news is that there is some cord blood banking legislation making its way through the cumbersome process of the legislature.

You have probably heard the expression that the legislative process is somewhat like watching sausage being made.

I am told that analogy is an insult to the sausage making business.

At least in that endeavor you have a clear sense of what the end product is and the process can at least be replicated with some consistency.

State legislatures, at least this one, when first looked at from without are complex and at times bewildering places where the end product is often far removed from the original intent of an idea or concept.

It is also important to understand why legislation is introduced and what motivation the sponsor may have in introducing it.

The current cord blood banking bill making its way through the Senate after having passed the House is a good example of why it is important to understand how legislation comes into play and what some of the motivations are for bringing it forward in the first place.

When Mr. Moore and his organization asked me to speak at the grand opening of the CBR facility last December it forced me to learn about the miracles of cord blood stem cell research and treatment.

I was very inspired by what I learned and witnessed. Meeting two young children cured of sickle cell anemia and leukemia was a remarkable experience that I will not soon forget.

I wanted then and there to be part of the effort to educate Arizona about the benefits of cord blood stem cells and the opportunity and need for cord blood banking.

With the help of the dedicated minority staff of the legislature, that is, the people who do the bulk of the work there and whose job it is to make members of the legislature like me look good, we crafted a piece of legislation that would establish an outreach and education program directed at expectant mothers here in Arizona.

Unknown to the staff, at the same time that we were vetting this legislation with interest groups such as the medical association, the hospital and healthcare association and the Department of Health Services another member of the legislature had drafted somewhat similar legislation.

This is a member with whom on most controversial issues we would find ourselves on opposite sides of the fence.

Because I am a member of the minority it was made clear to me that my legislation was not going anywhere as long as a member of the majority had a similar bill.

My choices were to abandon the concept or work with the other member and see if I could achieve the same end.

It became clear that our staff had done a far more thorough job in working the bill prior to dropping it into the 'hopper' than had the other member and his staff.

Something else became clear as well, the majority member had dropped the bill not necessarily because he had become enamored or amazed with the science of cord blood stem cell research, but for other motives as well.

Historically, he has steadfastly been opposed to any type of embryonic stem cell research. He was the prime sponsor of this type of legislation during the last session in addition to legislation to prohibit any type of human tissue cloning research regardless of its purpose or its funding sources.

All that aside, and recognizing that in order to accomplish a good end one must make do with the hand that is dealt, I agreed to help facilitate the passage of what was now his legislation.

Since our staff was further along in the process of educating the specific interest groups that would be affected by the legislation we were able to make amendments to the other member's bill to make it nearly identical to our own.

This legislation will probably make it through the legislature and to the governor's desk before long. It may or may not have funds attached to it and of course without any money to promulgate the news about the benefits of cord blood banking it will make its enactment nearly pointless.

I may have to come back to you at some point and beg for money to help the State communicate the advantages of cord blood banking to expectant mothers.

So while I feel it my good fortune to be part of stem cell legislation that I hope will bring awareness to cord blood stem cell research I could not tell you that I believe the Arizona legislature is on the cutting edge of scientific pursuits.

Unfortunately, I would be forced to say more the opposite is true. The pursuit of scientific research in nearly any field of endeavor is rarely the motivating factor in many of the decisions that the legislature makes.

Despite espousing a belief that government should get out of the way in regard to business and the free enterprise and despite an almost libertarian view towards government involvement in personal matters, our legislature is rife with members who seem to espouse an antipathy towards science in general and of the medical profession in particular.

This is particularly true if that research conflicts with their own religious or philosophical beliefs.

Moreover, many members remain at least skeptical if not entirely opposed to the concept of public/private partnerships, such as, TGEN and the research activities of the major universities.

Indicative of these beliefs was the aforementioned restrictions on stem cell research and human tissue cloning but also the practice of medicine itself.

Legislating medical best practice in regard to fetal pain and the prescription of psychotropic medications in medically supervised research are only the most current examples of the legislature's distrust of the medical profession's standards and ethical practices.

Resistance to the Phoenix medical school and the investment in genomics and TGEN is sometimes rooted in a visceral distrust of the scientific and medical community to make decisions that they consider moral and ethical.

They even struggle with the notion that a medical school would produce researchers and not just practitioners, as if the two goals were not interrelated and complementary.

It is as if a board of inquisition that is dominated by fear and a shallow moral certitude coupled with a worn out theory that government and private enterprise must remain separate has determined that scientific medical research can only go so far and no further.

Such inquisitions are certainly not a new phenomena in the history of science but that they should hold such sway in the twenty first century is truly amazing.

Given a legislative audience that in great numbers is at best skeptical and in some cases often hostile to the science of studying the essence of human life, what is your profession to do?

First you must take the time and make the effort to enter the arena of politics even if you find it distasteful or exacerbating.

Politics is many things to many people but first and foremost it is about relationships. I am always tickled when people tell me that they aren't political or don't like politics.

I ask them, have you ever been in a relationship or belonged or worked in an organization that consisted of more than one person. If you have then you at some level know what politics is about.

Personal experiences and anecdotal evidence are often the seed of legislation, often times for the bad. As a profession you must take the time to inform elected officials about your work so that your science becomes their anecdotes.

You must put it in terms that are understandable and you must put in a context where the benefit is self evident and to some extent urgent.

Relationships, as we all discover, are primarily a function of time. You must develop a long range plan to promote and sustain stem cell research in Arizona or whatever your home state may be.

You must recognize that you must repetitively and frequently make your case known to individual legislators particularly to those who hold seats of authority and influence in each body.

You must always be prepared to put your research into a broader context. Clearly, you should present the short and long term value of your work.

Just as important you should connect your work to other concepts such as economic development, the alleviation of pain and suffering, the opportunity to expand and promote research and development of other services and products that generate income and attract other researchers and practitioners.

You should show your results in presentation packages that are easily understandable.

You should demonstrate how education from pre-K to college is necessary to the recruitment, retention and development of scientists who will build upon the work you are doing.

I would urge you to not come to the legislature singing only one tune. While it is of course important to advocate for your science, you must also advocate for the arts and the cultural and overall well being of the community in which you live.

I would like to suggest that you cannot simultaneously advocate for your science and be oblivious to issues of justice.

Alleviation of the scourges brought on by poverty, violence and substance abuse are as much your issues as anyone else's.

When you speak to these issues legislators will listen and appreciate more clearly how your work is connected to the community as a whole.

Make it your business to ensure that your communities are healthy and vibrant enough to host and nurture your work.

Like it or not, your vocation has brought you dead center into the arena of politics. If you do nothing else in politics at least vote.

In summary, to successfully lobby legislators you have to connect what you do to the level of understanding of the legislator with whom you are dealing; show them how your work benefits his/her community both now and in the future.

We live in times of danger and uncertainty, in an age where religious ideology and fanaticism are running rampant. Many of what Plato referred to as the most dangerous people are about proposing simple answers to complex questions.

Some of this distorted thinking is blatantly overt and some of it is disguised in terms such as "a return to family values" which for some has become a code word for intolerance of diversity and a fundamental distrust of intellectualism and scientific endeavor.

Let me end by telling you the second piece of good news that I had for you.

It is safe to say that none of you are going to hell or at least Dante's version of it from his work The Inferno .

You may recall that the gate to hell has inscribed along the top of it, "All you who enter here abandon hope."

All of you have the great good fortune to work in a profession that is full of nothing but hope.

Yours is a hope that is based on your relentless pursuit of scientific truths and the unraveling of nature's heretofore best kept secrets.

Hope built on this foundation ultimately can not be stopped.

It may be thwarted at times by the actions and votes of ideologically challenged elected officials, but it will not be stopped.

At any cost, keep pushing the envelope of regenerative medicine and stem cell research and treatment. Never, never give up.

Dante reserved the hottest places in hell for those who in times of great moral crisis, danger and uncertainty maintain their neutrality or silence.

Rest assured, there are many of us in the background, both in and out of the legislature, who are in awe of your work.

We will be with you wherever your thirst for knowledge and hunger for scientific discovery may take you.

My hope is that we will not let you down and that when you need us to speak up on your behalf that we will not be silent.

Thank you very much for having me speak to you, I anxiously await your next discoveries and very much regret having avoided so many science classes in my youth.

Trying to Understand Poverty

David Bradley
Democrats of Greater Tucson - October 17, 2005

Some of our more religious brothers and sisters try to dismiss the pervasive seemingly intractable nature of poverty by reference to a verse in Deuteronomy that Christ made famous when he said, “The poor will be with you always.” The reference like many such allusions to scripture is, of course, taken out of context. In both, Deuteronomy and Matthew where the words are mentioned the message is clear, there should be no poverty among you but it is likely that because of human weakness, indifference and frankly sin, the poor still are there. The message was do something about it, not accept it.

We are still conflicted by the presence of the poor. Michael Harrington noted in the Other America which was one of the impetuses for the War on Poverty, that one of the costumes of poverty is invisibility. As we all experienced in the three months ago or so that cloaking device was torn away with the winds of Hurricane Katrina as that thin opaque veneer was torn away and the poorest of the poor, to the shock of many, were exposed. They were there all along; we just did not see them.

David Shipley in his book, the Working Poor , touches on our conflict about the poor. At times we see poverty as an indicator of the moral failure for which the poor are solely responsible. If they weren't malingering or just plain lazy there would not be as many people on the public dole. While it is easier at times to accept that the mentally and physically disabled are eligible for public assistance that is not true for those who take care of them, or for those who have been victimized by violence and substance abuse. “Why can't they just get away from their abusers, stop hurting each other or stop using drugs and go to school and get a job like I did.”

Shipley notes that “A harsh logic dictates a hard judgment: If a person's diligent work leads to prosperity, if work is a moral virtue, and if anyone in the society can attain prosperity through work, then the failure to do so is a fall from righteousness. The marketplace is the fair and final judge; a low wage is somehow the worker's fault, for it simply reflects the low value of his labor. In the American atmosphere, poverty has always carried a whiff of sinfulness.”

At other times we romanticize poverty as if it were synonymous with holiness and that while they might be suffering now we can ignore it because some omnipotent deity is going to reward these people in a special way in the next life.

Many people remain oblivious of the depth and breadth of entrenched poverty and why it is so difficult for the poor to break the cycle, no matter how well intentioned or righteous that they may be.

Shipler notes that “for practically every family the ingredients of poverty are part financial and part psychological, part personal and part societal, part past, and part present.

A run down apartment can exacerbate a child's asthma, which leads to a call for an ambulance, which generates a medical bill that cannot be paid, which ruins a credit record, which hikes the interest rate on an auto loan, which forces the purchase of an unreliable used car, which jeopardizes a mother's punctuality at work, which limits her promotions and earning capacity, which confines her to poor housing where her child's asthma is exacerbated.

The problem is interlocking and the solutions need to be as well. A job alone is not enough. Medical insurance alone is not enough. Good housing alone is not enough. Reliable transportation, careful family budgeting, effective parenting, effective schooling are not enough when each is achieved in isolation from the rest. There is no single variable that can be altered to help working people move away from the edge of poverty.

The first step is to see the problems, and the first problem is the failure to see the people.”

Relatively speaking, the poor in the United States don't seem so badly off. However, when we peel back that thin opaque veneer that cloaks poverty as we did in the hurricanes, some of us may beg to differ.

Each of us must be exposed to the reality of poverty in a personal way if we are ever to make headway in breaking its vicious cycles. It is possible to go through the day with no awareness of the effects of poverty on people. Most communities have done a reasonably good job of disguising the poor by putting shelters, and food kitchens in those parts of town where very few people encounter them.

When my daughter was a little younger we had to watch repetitively various videotapes, Barney, Thomas the Train and Madeleine to name a few. In the Madeleine tapes there is a headmistress of Madeleine's boarding school who diligently works on behalf of the twelve girls who live in the home. There is a repetitive line she uses when she senses without knowing for sure that something is wrong. She sits up in bed from a sound sleep and says, Something is not right!”

My wife, daughter and I volunteer at the Primavera Shelter once a month. We bring chili dinner along with some folks from our church one Sunday a month. In the four years that we have been doing this, there has never been a time when the 100-bed shelter had a vacancy. On top of that, I have never seen the same person twice during my visits. Admittedly, this is just a snap shot on one day per month, but that is about 5000 men who I have personally encountered with nowhere to live. Something is not right!

Amazingly all the food banks in Arizona last year gave out nearly 158 million pounds of food. That is the most that they have ever distributed in one year. Far more amazing, however, is the fact that there was a 206 million pound shortfall in the same year. Something is not right!

For a single mother with two children on minimum wage to afford an entry-level apartment in Arizona , she will have to work 125 hours a week. That is 24 hours a day for five days. I guess she could take the weekends off. Something is not right!

In this country as a whole, payday loan companies drain about $30B per year out from the poorest neighborhoods in the form of fees and exorbitant interest rates. In Tucson alone that number is about $20M per year. Taking money out of the poorest neighborhoods and distributing to the rich is a classic reverse Robin Hood story. Something is not right!

Each day 281 families are turned away from emergency and transitional housing programs in Arizona due to lack of space. That is approximately 40,000 families a year with about 82,000 children that are left out in the street. Something is not right!

A recent USA Today article on the homeless guesstimates that on any given day there are approximately 730,000 homeless people in the United States . In Arizona , there are about 8,000 homeless individuals on any given day. Something is not right!

There are approximately 1.7M people in Arizona who would be classified as the poor or working poor. Among them are 275,000 children. According to the executive summary of the book, Neurons to Neighborhoods , a book on the importance of investing in early childhood development, “young Children are the poorest members of society and are more likely to be poor today than they were 25 years ago. Growing up in poverty greatly increases the probability that a child will be exposed to environments and experiences that impose significant burdens on his or her well being, thereby shifting the odds toward more adverse developmental outcomes. Poverty during the childhood period may be more damaging than poverty experienced at later ages, particularly with respect to eventual academic attainment. The dual risk of poverty experienced simultaneously in the family and in the surrounding neighborhood, which affects minority children to a much greater extent than other children, increases young children's vulnerability to adverse consequences.”

Something is not right!

And of course, I could go on, highlighting the issues of rural poverty and the fact that our poverty numbers are increasing at a higher rate than nearly every other State. The gap between the rich and the poor grows even quicker. It is now that the median salary in Arizona cannot support the mortgage on a median priced home. The gap is not going to shrink in the very near future.

The fact that Domestic Violence shelters turn away 2/3's of the people who request help. In case you were wondering, these are the poor . Our prisons keep packing in more and more people, providing them less and less training, release them only to re-arrest them within a year. These too are the poor .

In my district, there are schools where over two-thirds of the kids will turnover in a given year. These are the poor , they sometimes stay invisible because they are always on the move.

Ten thousand children have been taken from their guardians in the State of Arizona . The overwhelming majority of these kids are taken because the tragic triad that I have spoken to you about in the past, namely, of parental substance abuse, violence and poverty. The methamphetamine epidemic that you have heard so much about is impoverishing individuals and families and leaving the children behind. These are the poor .

Clearly, poverty, violence and substance abuse are wrecking havoc throughout every community in this State and the country as a whole.

So, as you can tell, when we want to see the poor it is not difficult to find them. They are everywhere and their numbers are growing.

What if anything is to be done?

Our Federal government has a curious solution to this problem. It reduces itself to the three arrows of outrageous fortune, they are, shrink, shift and shaft. In essence, it is blaming the poor for being so and trying to shame them out of poverty, an approach that hasn't worked in over 3000 years.

Tax policy in this country has shifted the burden of the poor to government at lower levels. The goal was disguised as a positive, giving local control to those governments to deal with their problems as close to the issue as possible. Unfortunately, the philosophy plays into the right wing agenda of shrinking government at every level. Matching Federal funds are cut back or squandered and those in need of assistance must jump through more hoops or be forced into an inadequately funded social service support system at the local level, often forced into jobs that keep them just above the water line of being swamped by the slightest blip in their personal lives.

The Shift part of the equation is to transfer the bulk of the tax burden on to the middle class that is simultaneously being squeezed by the lack of services for their parents and their children.

The final arrow in the quiver of broken government is the Shaft. This is shafting the poor and permanently forcing them in a hand to mouth existence from which they and their children can never escape.

The poor stay poor from generation to generation because they cannot accumulate any assets. Senator John Edwards is spending his time and energy on this very issue. Some of his efforts are directed at issues such as:

•  Helping families earn more money at work, raising the minimum wage and expanding wage supports through the tax system. Helping single workers in particular receive more money through the Earned Income Tax Credit.

•  Asset Building . Looking into ways to set aside monies from birth that families could contribute to so that when a child turns 18 he has accumulated enough savings to attend school or put money down on a home.

•  Tax Reform. Taxing the wealthiest more fairly.

•  Increasing Employment Opportunities in Low-Income Communities. HUD just recently completed a long-term study showing the efficacy of recruiting employees in distressed areas and providing them with transportation and training to access better jobs.

•  Providing access to education at University, Community College and technical school levels.

To further understand the entrenched nature of poverty you must appreciate what the forms of capital are and then you can see how difficult we are making it for the poor to accumulate capital in any form.

Jeffrey Sachs identifies six major types of capital:

Human Capital: health, nutrition and skills needed for each person to be economically productive. This is difficult to accumulate when you do not have access to adequate healthcare and when you avail yourself of it; you use up your meager disposable income and savings.

Human Capital investment also means access to a quality education, P-20 as we say these days. The vital importance of early education an antidote to poverty, violence and substance abuse is without question. Education throughout the lifespan, which leads to improving ones' employment options, is crucial for the poor to have any change at escape into the middle class.

Business Capital: the machinery, facilities, motorized transport used in agriculture, industry, and services. We debate at the City, County and State level about investing in bringing good paying jobs into the state, which of course translates into tax incentives for businesses to come to Arizona . We would be better off incubating small business and building our own companies to compete in the global economy. The best way to life up a community is stimulating small business, through tax breaks, loans and shared access to equipment, supplies and block purchasing opportunities.

Infrastructure: roads, power, water and sanitation, airports and seaports, and telecommunications systems that are critical inputs into business productivity.

This of course speaks also to the issue of mobility. As we say in the evacuation of New Orleans , there were poor people who had never been more than a few blocks from their homes for generations. Lack of mobility in our day and age is a lifelong sentence to generational poverty. Mass transit options allow the poor to traverse the divide between their neighborhoods and more affluent neighborhoods and business districts thus allowing them access to higher paying positions.

Natural Capital: arable lands, healthy soils, biodiversity, and well functioning ecosystems that provide the environmental services needed by human society. Natural capital is the connection between the poor and the environment. We have seen in our own community how the environmental decisions can have an inordinately adverse effect on the poor. Environmental policies have a direct effect on those in poverty. They are more often than not the victims of polluted air and water.

As Jonathan Friedman pointed out in his book, From Cradle to Grave , a book about poverty written during the tenure of Bush One, “ America is now spending its resources to pay the interest on its enormous debt, and this creates a hidden tax on our entire economic system. When basic institutions fall beneath the poverty line, communities go bankrupt and human capital is wasted.”

The interest on the debt is another way to further debilitate the poor. As we squander our treasure in a war without end in Iraq , we condemn the poor to do with less and less. The debt that the Clinton administration had eliminated has returned to eviscerate programs for the poor.

A recent New York Times article by Jason DeParle highlights how conservatives in the Republican Party are using the expense of rebuilding after the hurricanes to continue to cut away the safety net of health care and food stamps for the poor throughout the country. Suspending requirements that federal contractors have affirmative action plans and pay locally prevailing wages will not help the poor escape the cycles we have talked about.

Rick Cohen, in an article in the Nonprofit Quarterly of Spring 2005 discusses at length how devastating the cuts in Community Development Block Grants will be to neighborhoods throughout the country particularly in our bigger cities. He notes with great irony how the Bush administration proposes shifting the government program that addresses childhood obesity from the Department of Health and Human Services to Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and PBS kids.

When government abandons the poor to market forces and charitable organizations it will result in devastating blows to the poor, particularly children.

Knowledge Capital: the scientific and technological know-how that raises productivity in business output and the promotion of physical and natural capital. In a world gone increasingly dependent upon knowledge-based economies, what does our Federal Government do? It reduces funding for the National Science Foundation by $150M; it limits access to student grants and loans.

In order to raise people from poverty there must be access to these forms of capital. Without it as Shipler noted in the Working Poor , there really is not much change to break the cycle of poverty.

Our conservative brethren like to point out how their tax policies have created jobs. Unfortunately, they often create the low paying dead end jobs that serve to barely fee, let alone clothe, house and provide health care for the working poor.

Jonathan Kozol, who has written so eloquently over the years on the effects of poverty on the young particularly in the inner city, has highlighted the inequity of our school systems throughout the country in his latest book, The Shame of the Nation . He asserts and supports the notion that we have recreated apartheid in our school by deliberately and perniciously isolating the poor, particularly the African American and Hispanic poor, in under funded, understaffed and dilapidated facilities. With total disrespect for their intellect, potential and beauty we consign them to second and third tier schools with an emphasis on tech training and business skills, assuming that higher education is beyond their imagination and dreams.

Respect is taking every poor person as a unique individual and helping them in the way that a physician would do by using, as Jeffrey Sachs suggests in the End of Poverty , a differential diagnosis approach to solving the social, psychological and economic problems of poverty.

In medicine, the differential diagnosis approach starts with the reality of the complexity of the human body, likewise the society that possesses, tolerates and, by omission, permits poverty is equally complex. As we have seen from Shipler's analysis the problem of poverty is multidimensional. All problems are systemic and people are connected to others in multitudinous ways. When we do intervene on behalf of others, there is no silver bullet. We have to monitor and evaluate what is working, not working and why. We also have to approach the problem of poverty logically and scientifically; we cannot be seduced in placating the society at large with poison maxims, such as, “the Poor will be with you always.”

Poverty as a matter of fact continues to be the moral issue of our day. Jim Wallis of Sojourners makes this case very clearly in God's Politics . If you were to drop in from Mars and land in our state legislature you might become convinced that issues like gay marriage, or guns in bars or school choice or tax credits are the pressing issues of our day.

However, the bible that so many of our members flout as their guide and moral compass makes over 3000 references to the poor. The topics of the prophets included: land, labor, capital, wages, debt, taxes, equity, finances, courts, prisons, immigrants, other races and peoples, economic issues, social justice, war and peace.

When the religious right is waving its bible around with no reference to the poor then clearly their bible has a lot of holes in it and through those holes fall the poor and destitute.

Our moral imperative is the same as those who came before us, to eliminate the multi-layered problem of poverty.

The prescriptions are difficult and without the will and direction from the Federal level, interventions lower down the line are often fraught with nearly impenetrable obstacles.

But we can do some things at the State and local level. Let me close with some of them.

First we have to see the problem longitudinally and look to long-term solutions. At the State and local level we can begin to develop what I would call a poverty portfolio. In this portfolio we follow on a continuous basis the interplay of these issues on the most vulnerable of our society. The components of the portfolio are:

•  A comprehensive review and overhaul where necessary of tax policy including: Exemptions, Deductions, credits, sales tax, and a State Earned Income Tax

•  A perpetual review of welfare reform policy and practice that constantly assesses the adequacy of cash assistance, food stamps, disability payments, unemployment compensation

•  Access to affordable health insurance, including coverage, for the working poor

•  Assessment of housing availability, rent supports and expanding assistance for first time home owners

•  Evaluation and implementation of employment accessibility and job training opportunities throughout the lifespan

•  Access to state of the art early childhood development, education and child care

•  Access and availability of educational programs. Leveling the playing field between poorer and wealthier districts. Increasing access to community colleges and universities

•  Violence prevention and adequate safe haves for victims of violence. Prison reform that recognizes that 97 of the people in prison will get out. They must be given the opportunity to acquire skills to become productive citizens.

•  Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention as alternatives to incarceration

•  Respecting the poor by increasing their access to the arts and culture and actively seeking their participation

•  More restrictions and oversight of the payday loan industry

•  Exploring new and creative means to identify and implement asset Building Strategies

Let me close with a summary statement from David Shipler's, The Working Poor .

“Breaking away and moving a comfortable distance from poverty seem to require a perfect lineup of favorable conditions. A set of skills, a good starting wage, and a job with likelihood of promotion are prerequisites. But so are clarity of purpose, courageous self-esteem, a lack of substantial debt, the freedom from illness or addiction, a functional family, a network of upstanding friends, and the right help from private or governmental agencies. Any gap in that array is an entry point for trouble, because being poor means being unprotected.”

It you have been wondering what a Democrat is and should be, what we should be working for in city, county and state wise elections, I would suggest that there it is, ensuring not only the survival of the weakest and most vulnerable, but giving them a chance to thrive and escape the ravages of entrenched and generational poverty.

References

The Bush Budget Disaster , Rick Cohen, The Nonprofit Quarterly, Volume 12, Issue 1, Spring 2005

Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate , Jason DeParle, The New York Times, October 11, 2005

Nickel and Dimed , On (Not) Getting by in America , Barbara Ehrenreich, Owl Books, 2002

From Cradle to Grave , The Human Face of Poverty, Jonathan Freedman, Atheneum Press, New York , 1993

The World is Flat , A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux , New York , 2005

The Shame of the Nation , The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America , Jonathan Kozol, Crown Publishing, New York , 2005

The End of Poverty , Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey D. Sachs, The Penguin Press, New York , 2005

Respect in a World of Inequality , Richard Sennett, Norton Publishing, New York , 2004

God's Politics , A new Vision for Faith and Politics in America , Jim Wallis, Harper Press, San Francisco , 2005

Tucson Design College Graduation

Dave Bradley
January 14, 2006

Thank you very much for inviting me to your graduation ceremony. I will try not to torture you too long with my remarks. It is always tough however to provide a politician with an open microphone and no time limit imposed. I'm guessing we'll be out of here by 3:30 or 4:00 pm. I hope that is OK with you.

Ceremonies such as this always cause us to at least pause and contemplate for a period how you got here and where you are going. It is appropriate that this event occurs in January which is named after the Roman god Janus, who is referred to as the two faced god, one looking back and one looking forward.

Henry David Thoreau noted long ago that, "the cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it." The price we pay for what is important to us can then be measured by the time, i.e., life which we have put into it.

Clearly, all of you have put your time, talent, and some of your treasure into the degree that you are being awarded with today. The most valuable asset you have invested in this is your time. Your degree will hopefully allow you to expand your treasure by acquiring more fulfilling and hopefully lucrative positions. Your degree also is evidence that you have developed your talent and that you have the potential to continue to expand your talent and skill and knowledge. However, your degree will not provide you with more time. What it will hopefully do is allow you to use your time more wisely and productively.

When people reach an academic milestone it is always a noteworthy event. The diploma you receive cannot be taken back. You have opened a new door in your life and there is in a sense no turning back.

Your teachers and this program have failed you and you have wasted your time if you are not sitting in your chair hungering for more. Education always leads you through new doors but it should also be clear to you that by opening one door you now see that there are an almost infinite number of doors to open. So many so that you will in fact run out of time before you run out of new doors to walk through.

Graduations, I would assert, are more beginnings than endings so in the time remaining let me suggest to you that as you move on to further adventures from here that you allow me to provide you with four keys to help you through the future doors that you will pass through in the coming years.

The keys are of course are not physical keys that I can hand you but rather ideas that will allow you to unlock the doors of your further adventures. Behind those doors lies the unexpected. You must be prepared and these keys will help you do so.

Whether this is your last graduation ceremony or just one of many more to come, you have already acquired the first key and that of course is the development of you mind. The purpose of your past is to prepare you for the expectations of your future and you must be ready all of the time to learn. You can never afford to simply wait for life to come to you. You must be poised and prepared to seize the moment.

You have certainly heard the expression that the rich get richer. In a similar way the successful become more successful, the wise become more so. As much work as you have put into your degree today, you must come to realize that there is more to learn, do and become.

The more education you have the more likely you are to succeed. The more you develop your mind the better your key becomes. The more doors it will open. That is a fact that is absolutely true.

The second key no one can take from you is your attitude. Regardless of the circumstances of your life, no matter how horrible your experiences may have been. Your response is completely and totally yours to make.

Which door you will open is always in your control. Which path you take is in your control. No one can make you take the door marked inferior or force you through a door not of your choosing. Not unless you hand your key, your attitude, over to them. The choice of attitude is yours and yours alone, keep this key and use it wisely.

There are many people who do not believe this key even exists. Many others will simply give this key away. Some of the smartest well-educated people I know can't understand how important this key is. They go through their entire lives blaming others for how they feel and what they do. There is always some circumstance beyond their control that causes them to think, feel and act in a particular way. They are never responsible for their behavior and ultimately, which they have a difficult time understanding, no one will ever trust them.

This is one of the most powerful lessons you can learn and subsequently pass on to those whom you care for and love. No matter what happens to you, you can choose your attitude about it. You can choose what you will do next; no one can take this away from you.

A fictional character, named Alonzo Quijan illustrates the third key. Alonzo is confined to prison, he is considered mad. In his delusional state he thinks of himself as a Knight Errant, that is, a wandering soldier of fortune whose mission it is to fight evil and injustice wherever he may find it.

Following the words of this soliloquy, his sanity slips away and he is transformed into a person who may be more familiar to you, Don Quixote de la Mancha.

Who knows where madness lies?

Perhaps to be too practical, this may be madness.

To surrender dreams, this may be madness.

To look for treasure where there is only trash,

Too much sanity may be madness.

But maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be,

To see life as it is and not as it should be.

This transformation is, in fact, the third key. It is transformation by imagination, a subject of your course work no doubt. It is the ability to see beyond what is in front of you and find the goodness in others, no matter how deeply it may be buried.

Other people see a homeless prostitute, Don Quixote sees a princess. Reluctantly she succumbs to his calling her out of the darkness of a sordid and violent life. He transforms life as it is by striving to make it as it should be. He changes the environment, much as you will, by seeing beyond it. He transforms life as it is by striving to make it as it should be.

This is not an endorsement of madness, it is, rather, focusing on strengths and not weakness, it is not looking for what is wrong and trying to fix it, it is seeking out what is right and trying to build on it.

This is a powerful key that when utilized appropriately transforms one's self as well as the environment around us.

And now for the last key and perhaps the most important of all;

Ultimately, we all have the same destiny. No title or degree or office or any amount of wealth brings with it any exemption.

We will all come to the end of our lives and we will not be able to carry over into the next, one item that we have received in this life.

More important than anything we achieve or acquire in our lives, are the relationships that we have, the connections we have to those whom we love. And the power of love allows you to bring the people you love into your life at any time and in any place.

They don't have to be sitting here for you to be with them. They may have even passed on to the next life. But yet, they can be with you now and they can be with you at the moments of triumph and trial that await you behind the next doors that you will pass through.

In the end, the measure of your life will be exactly this, whom did you love and who loved you?

On September 11 th of 2001, the people who were trapped in those buildings, who knew they were about to die, had only one concern among them. Each and every one of them spent the last moments of their lives reaching for those whom they loved.

The message was the same. "I love you." Nothing about their stock options, nothing about any possession or future plan, only this, "I love you." Nothing else mattered, absolutely nothing.

True love cannot be destroyed; even death has no power over love.

The fourth key that no one can take away from you is your choice to love. It conquers all things and in the end is the only thing that matters. No one can take it away from you.

When you have in your possession these four keys, it is then that you can become the master teacher, the master designer. You yourself must never, never, never give them up and believe that no one or no thing is worth their surrender.

The first key is nurturance of your own mind. This task never ceases. The more you develop your mind the more doors this key will open.

The second key is your ability to choose your attitude under any conditions, knowing that people may exert physical or psychological power over you but that they cannot make you think or feel anything. The more control you have over your attitude, the more power you will have to control you destiny.

The third key is seeing beyond what is in front of you. It is transformation by imagination. It is seeking out the good and the beautiful and bringing it to the attention of others.

And the fourth key is the power of love. In the end, it is the only thing that matters. As Francis of Assisi, a man with a great eye for design noted long ago, "When you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received only what you have given; a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage."

This literally is the key to your life. The more honestly and selflessly you learn to love, the more meaningful you life will be. The more you give of yourself, the more beautiful you will become.

It will not matter how much money you have or what position you hold, if you keep in mind that these four keys to success will open the door to a life of confidence and purpose.

When you expand your mind you are opening yourself to more opportunity and responsibility; when you are master of your attitude you gain resiliency to deal with any challenge; when you look beyond what is in front of you and find the good in others you transform yourself and them; and when you learn to love and give of yourself you gather all the strength of character that you will ever need.

I think that your training gives you a leg up on many people, creativity and an eye for the beautiful helps you master the four keys better than most. You are people who are bursting with potential and from whom much can and will be expected in your lives.

In the creative mastery of these four keys you will define who you are and who you will become. The world needs your energy and spirit and vision.

Keep in mind that no project is too mundane or unimportant. By transforming the places in which people work, live and love you will be transforming the world.

You have accomplished many things heretofore in your life. But this is only a slight indication of what you can and will do. If this is the spark of what you can become, Oh imagine what must be the flame!

As the poet Alan Dugan has written, "Those who have in them to be beautiful, flower everywhere." Creativity enveloped in love is invincible and flowers everywhere.

Speech on the English Language Referendum

HB 2036
Dave Bradley, LD 28, Tucson
March 23, 2006

Arizona State House of Representatives

As I have noted on other occasions, we are stuffed every day with news from multiple sources and we are starving for a sense of history.  Let me provide some sense of history on this issue.

This bill unfortunately has the faint odor of a bygone era.

He gained control of his party by one vote.  Years later when he ran for the top spot in the country he did so by running on a platform of family values, restricting immigration and emphasizing the importance of protecting the country's native language and culture.

He had the support of the clergy of his day, who saw his platform as an antidote to what they considered to be the decadence of the era, a decadence that had been diluting the social fabric of the country, namely, its language and its mores.

The name of that leader still brings a shudder to all good and decent people, sixty years after his death.  Now it would be beyond the pale to assert that people who support this bill have anything to do with the warped beliefs of the Nazi regime.

Nothing could be further from the truth, nothing.

However, my concern is not directed at the people of this body who find this legislation necessary, it is rather those people lurking in the background who distort and use legislation like this for negative purposes.

Keep in mind that Hitler had to do very little convincing of people to assume power.  He rode the wave of a generation of xenophobic concerns and he reduced it to trite slogans that emphasized the purity of language and culture and by extension, to race, religion and sexuality.

Less than a decade after assuming control of the country, his followers, heretofore good and decent men and women, driven by fear that he so adroitly created and cultivated, convinced themselves that sustaining the purity of their language, culture and race justified horrendous crimes against humanity.

These same people went home at night and lovingly tucked their children into bed, only to wake up the next morning to destroy others because they were different.

Now the leap from emphasizing the purity of language to murder is enormous and no one in this chamber could ever be accused of taking such a leap.

But those of you who think such legislation is necessary must at some level be aware that you maybe lighting yet another candle of intolerance, that distorted and less well intentioned minds will use as a catalyst for a conflagration that may grow beyond your imagination and control.

This dim light when coupled with the language that we are being invaded by brown hoards of people from the south, immigrants who supposedly fan the flames of crime and who, it is asserted, are destroying our social fabric, our health care system, our schools and our businesses ignite the fires of fear and bigotry in those troubled people in the shadows.

This legislation does nothing to bring resolution to the complex problems of immigration.  Its acknowledgment of our State's rich diversity will not be emphasized by people who will distort its intent.

Mr. Speaker, the harsh reality of civilization is that power ultimately goes to the most fertile.  In three, four or five generations the majority of the people in this State will be Hispanic and Spanish speaking.  Our successors in this body will be mostly some hue of brown skin color and who knows, may even be reciting the pledge of allegiance in more than one language.

But regardless of their skin color or their language, they will love this country as much if not more than we do, for they will have paid a high price to participate in the dream that is our country.

Let it be said of this legislature that we did not let ourselves be seduced into protecting a language that needs no protecting and that we refused however subtly to light one candle to intolerance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I vote no.

Within Our Reach

David Bradley
Tucson, Arizona

As we look back over the year it is easy to focus on a long list of intractable problems that we face as a nation and as a community.

Therese of Lisieux, despite an obscure and brief life, became a revered saint for her commitment to do ordinary things in an extraordinary fashion.  Her belief was by attending to the self-evident needs of others one could have a positive impact on people and gradually bring peace to one’s immediate environment.

In a world where fear is a pervasive condition, in a time when our daily news is riddled with senseless violence, in a place where the color of skin or the accent of voice may draw suspicion, each of us, in simple and humble ways, can stand for peace.

We can dismiss this concept as some trite slogan from a bygone era.  We can, as our Greek forbearers chastened their contemporaries, choose to participate in our community in the simple ways that Therese’s life suggests.  In fact, the word ‘idiot’, originating from that era, meant one who refuses to participate in their community.

Therese’s approach to life merits reexamination.  Humility seems to be a rare commodity these days.  The humble always seem to keep in mind the importance of the simple aspects of life, such as, kindness, patience and forgiveness.  Proudly, many of us would maintain that we keep our focus on ‘greater’ things, so much so that we are oblivious to the importance of the relationships that are within our reach. 

And if that were not enough to impair our vision, the infection of cynicism often obscures opportunities to mend and heal, bridge and build.  Intense political seasons, such as the one we are passing through, reinforce this notion.  Political discourse sometimes focuses our attention on a litany of seemingly inscrutable concerns that in turn fuel a cynicism that further devolves into a culture of blame. 

The poor, the immigrant, the homeless become easy scapegoats for many ills. Left unchecked, cynicism cuts a wide bleak path.  Differences take priority over common bonds and sometimes even common decency is eroded and laid waste. Cynics have become this era’s idiots.

With the New Year upon us, a year that portends to be rich with many challenges, each of us can resolve to focus on the good that we can do in our immediate environment. By building on what is right instead of searching for what is wrong and by doing the ordinary extraordinarily well we can, in time, replace cynicism with action and sow the seeds of peace.

Therese became the patron saint of simplicity.  Her beauty was reflected in the perfect accomplishment of small duties.  She noted that it is not so much the greatness of our actions, or even their difficulty, but it is the love with which we do them that really matters.

Alan Dugan, the poet, wrote, “Those who have in them to be beautiful, flower anywhere.”  Each of us, if we take the time to do so, have within ourselves the gift to flower everywhere in this coming year by focusing on the good that we can do within our reach.

Next Legislative Session

David Bradley
Arizona Daily Star

The legislature is about to convene and as the saying goes, “citizens beware.” This legislative session portends to be a difficult one as we face revenue shortages of ever growing proportions.

I would like to suggest to the house and senate leadership as well as the governor’s office that we do things a little differently this time around. What if we dealt with the root cause of some of our problems? What if we looked forward a little bit and tried to acknowledge that there is, in fact, the future well being of the state at stake as opposed to simply focusing on what will get us through the legislative session and please voters in this next election?

Why might we want to do this? Well, maybe because, “here we go again.” Shockingly (to some), there is a shortfall in our state revenue, not only this fiscal year but possibly for a few years to come given the recent analyses of several economic prognosticators. Gee whiz, it appears that there is an economic cycle that, while not perfectly predictable in regards to timing, is and always will be inevitable.

In the meantime, the state keeps growing and the infrastructure continues to age and the needs of a population, that grows both younger and older at the same time, demand more of us and not less.

There will be nearly 1300 bills dropped by the 90 of us at or near the beginning of this session. All well meaning from someone’s point of view and all done to help citizens deal with one conundrum or another created by the presence or absence of some condition in current law.

Let’s take all of those bills and set them aside for now. Deal with two things, at least for the first couple of months of this session.

Let’s go to the root of the short and long term problems we are facing, namely, comprehensive tax reform. The Citizens’ Finance Review Commission of 2003, which was multi-partisan in its make up, did that for us.

They came up with 36 recommendations that addressed the issues of economic vitality, long term planning, money management, simplicity, diversification and equity in regard to our tax structure. We start there.

Secondly, we work on the budget with an eye not only to the current and coming year but for the long term needs of our state.

The alternative is to hammer away for weeks on 1300 bills, passing on some two or three hundred to the governor. Then we’ll spend a couple of months doing essentially nothing as everyone postures for position. Then we will agree to a convoluted budget where everybody saves face and which leaves the people of this state, particularly the most vulnerable, short changed one way or another.

I do not purport to be a tax expert of any sort. But I do know that our current structure dooms us to be at the mercy of an economic cycle that is too dependent on sales and corporate taxes. There are other ways to do this and we know that some taxes can be cut while others, which are more equitable, are raised.

Let’s make this our legacy regardless of the political consequences.

Guest Opinion: Lighting candles of hope in Arizona Legislature

David Bradley
Tucson Citizen

As the saying goes, it is always better to light one candle than to curse the darkness. Many people may interpret recent election results as a lunge backward into the dark. The voting majority must feel relief that more of the same was the best antidote for their fears and our fiery folly of war.

My party will spend considerable time trying to figure out what combination of messenger, message and marketing was lacking in this most recent electoral round.

While much wiser minds ponder these issues, many of us will continue to hold our lighted candles through the long dark nights when we return to the Legislature this winter.

For while we will debate into many nights what government should do in regard to a thousand issues, an ever-increasing number of our fellow and most vulnerable citizens will be in the background waiting for us to discern, yet again, the meaning of justice and the role that government will play in their lives.

Solutions to many challenges often seem just outside our reach. We often are thwarted in attempts to reach consensus because we must spend so much energy dealing with fundamentalist approaches. (Fundamentalist is defined as someone rigidly adhering to beliefs they assert to be true without exception.)

There are many types of fundamentalists; they come in all philosophic and religious cloaks. The most dangerous are those whose self-acclaimed good fortune it is to have a divine pipeline to an assortment of universal truths.

Just as difficult are the free-market, conservative and liberal fundamentalists sprinkled throughout our elective bodies. These are people who struggle against or for government intervention instinctively, without regard to practicality or consequences. They believe they are right because, conveniently, they know they are.

Our faith in the electorate expands and contracts over time. Our founders did not enfranchise women, blacks and poor white folks because they would not trust them to participate intelligently.

Many people in this past election exercised their franchise to vote and, regardless of the outcome, that participation bodes well for our future.

It is more difficult to discern the meaning of our elections in this era of the spin masters. The victors will claim mandate, the vanquished will assert that the people have been duped again. Ultimately, both are wrong. Governing is always more complex and nuanced than campaigns would have us believe.

Despite candidates' certainty about what people need and want from government, interpretation of election results should be held off for the time being. However, I would venture to guess that this year's voters hope for a government that can, with common sense, light most of the following candles.

An enlightened government should be responsive to the needs of the weakest, fair in the distribution of economic resources, wise in the conservation of natural resources, deliberate and thorough in the exercise of justice, unrelenting in ensuring that education is available to citizens throughout their lives and, finally, committed to make government as unintrusive as possible.

These are the candles many of us in the Legislature will try to light in the next session. We can anticipate a difficult time keeping them lit amid the fundamentalist winds that howl.

Some of my colleagues will brandish bright torches of righteousness at the start of this session. In due time, we hope, their offensive and blinding lights will be extinguished, leaving them in darkness as the rest of us try to shed a steady, more reasoned light on our many challenges.

I am confident that our citizens, regardless of political affiliation, will forgo the garish lights of fundamentalism and stick with the steady candles of common sense and common purpose.

Children’s Issues During the 2006 Legislative Session

David Bradley
Tucson Citizen

The current impasse that the majority party finds itself in with the Governor and the people of Arizona calls to mind an inexperienced person firing a rifle for the first time having received no instruction beforehand. There is typically little or no damage done to the intended target but a lot of pain to the novice rifleman caused by the recoil of every shot.

In this case the majority keeps firing away and seems unaware that it is bloodying its own face over and over again. This would be comical if it weren't so dangerous to the children of this state. The current controversies expose a tired and worn out theory of the role of government which is rooted in a deep and abiding cynicism about the scope of that role.

Cynicism comes in many disguises and is often rooted in a frustrated labyrinth of conflicted good intentions. It is often exposed in the relentless pursuit of knowing the price of everything simultaneously having no sense of the value of anything.

Usually dangerous because it is rarely productive, cynicism running rampant in a legislative body is perhaps even more alarming.

Pope Benedict's recent encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, notes that, “justice is both the aim and the intrinsic criterion of all politics…The State must inevitably face the question of how justice can be achieved in the here and now.”

Justice is the process or act of giving back, restoring or making something right. The controversy over the funding of the English language learners (ELL) is an excellent example of the justice that is due our youngest citizens. The mixing of the issue with illegal immigration, tax credits and taking money from other sources that are not intended for this purpose is punitive and detrimental to the very students that need to be helped with the ELL funding.

Although we are distracted now with the vetoes and the impending court ordered fines surrounding ELL funding, there are many other issues where the Republican budget thrusts its sharp and cynical knife deep into the well being of children.

It would not be unreasonable to assume in this day and age that access to healthcare for working families and their children would be a right; not true if you are an Arizonan. Yet again, we will have to fight to retain basic health coverage for 16,000 parents and thousands of children in working families.

Premium increases for children in the KidsCare program are not covered in the majority budget plan. Research, often a victim of cynicism, shows that even modest sounding premiums will prevent many children in low income families from getting coverage. When uninsured children become sick, where do they go? Of course, they go to emergency rooms where the care is uncompensated which drives up the cost of care for everyone else; another example of counting pennies as dollars blow out the window.

Well researched and longitudinal studies have demonstrated that every dollar spent enhancing early childhood development programs and services save thousands of dollars as that child grows to adulthood. What is the majority's response to that reality? As you might suspect, they want to cut access to child care, cap subsidies for child care providers at 1998 levels and provide no additional funding for inspectors or case managers.

In the areas of substance abuse, domestic violence and homelessness, despite record revenues, the legislative budget proposes to under fund these crucial services. The outcome of this approach is fore ordained. More money will be required in the social service, healthcare and law enforcement areas because we let the opportunity to intervene pass by.

Prevention seems like a good idea but it presupposes that one can see beyond the current fiscal year. Cynicism often clouds one's vision. Sadly, the needs of children are lost in the mist.

Educators, parents, social and healthcare workers do not despair, but do not stand idly by either. You can not assume that justice will prevail. You will have to keep working for it and hope that the leaders in the legislature remain lousy shots or better yet, put the gun down and work together to ensure that justice for our children can be achieved in the here and now.

Guest Opinion: Economy's thriving, so it's time to rescue needy

David Bradley
Tucson Citizen

The Legislature is beyond its 100th day now and, of course, no budget. Machinations beyond my influence are at play. Surely, if the majority party had its votes, they would put forth a budget. They have not.

Those who advocate for the universities and all-day kindergarten, for children and the powerless, for adult education and health care, come to attention and beware.

Although our state budget exceeds $17 billion - nearly $10 billion being federal funds - the Legislature has less than $3 billion it can actually manipulate.

The other $4 billion is obligated by federal or prior state initiative mandates. The remaining variables lie mostly in the support of education, social programs and services to Arizonans.

We are fortunate that the Arizona economy is improving on almost every indicator. According to Marshall Vest of the Eller College of Business, retail sales, tourism, restaurant and bar sales, hotel sales, resale of homes are surging up. Wages have risen at 3.6 percent annual rate, twice that of 2002. It is likely that both the governor's budget and the Joint Legislative Budget Committee estimates for tax revenue are too low.

The majority in the House then is not wrestling over a fiscal crisis but rather a philosophical one. Those who believe government has little or no role in education or helping the weakest hold the power. Just as they were last year they are again, wrong on nearly every count. They of course will not concede, at least not now. They cannot let it appear that the governor can or will win this time.

One of the first e-mails I received as a first-term legislator was from a woman asking for help in the care of her 35-year-old multiple-handicapped daughter who was confined to a wheel chair. The woman, in her 70s, was requesting that funds for the developmentally disabled be maintained. She relies on those funds to provide an in-home aide for two hours a week. She needed those two hours to go shopping for the family and run other errands. Her husband is now an invalid as well.

She recognizes time is not on her side and she dreads the day when her energy alone will not be enough to carry out what she sees as her duty and mission in life. She apologized for making her request because she deemed it selfish to make such a plea on her own behalf. With or without the help she made it clear, she would never give up on her beautiful daughter. She hoped I could meet her most precious child one day.

Hundreds of requests have come my way since this simple poignant plea. Mayors and university presidents, doctors and lawyers, farmers and social workers, insurance companies and lobbyists representing nearly every aspect of life and commerce in our state make their case for funding.

There are many good causes with high purpose needing government to provide the spark so that they can sustain the flame of their many worthwhile goals.

There are not resources for every cause, many are turned away. Government cannot and should not be the sole resource for every good idea.

However, this is not the time to abandon hope or stop advocating. Now is the moment to increase our vigilance and raise our voices in support of our most needy citizens, our universities and community colleges, our child protective service, justice and health-care systems.

Just as last year, individuals who espouse broken and tired ideologies dominate the Legislature. They cannot distinguish between a hand up and a handout. In their view, government can only spend and not invest. A correlation between the prevention of domestic violence and economic development is beyond the periphery of their vision. They see no relationship between the provision of day care subsidies or adult education and work force development.

The evolution of government did not cease in the 19th century, when law, order and protection were the state's nearly sole function. Our times call for a government that is a partner in the progress of our society; one that aggregates resources and distributes opportunities. This should be the era of an agile government that acts as a catalyst of change and development of its citizens and their communities.

The government is not the sole patron or arbiter of progress, it is rather the subservient partner of business, education, health care and social welfare systems. Its mission is to incubate and facilitate, not control and dominate. It steps in to lift people up, it steps away to let people grow. It rehabilitates those who fail or fall; it protects the weakest and lets the market promote the wisest.

Meanwhile the budget negotiations continue behind closed doors. To my colleagues, "Keep in mind that there is an elderly woman who needs a few hours a week of support in order to prevent the institutionalization of her daughter. Good government finds a way to help people like this."

To the selfless petitioner, "Don't give up. They may yet hear you."

Guest Opinion: No justice in death sentence for juvenile killers

David Bradley
Tucson Citizen

Each of us is a product of nature and nurture, even young murderers. As our lives progress, our personal choices become central to our development, but this clearly is not a solitary effort.

Our lives have become far too complicated to seriously assert that we stand alone. There may be, though, at least one lonely exception.

From our first moments, we are inundated with information. To survive, we have devised our own filters to determine what is important. We are not born with all of those filters in place. Much of our ability to sort out information is the product of growing up in nurturing environments.

Our skill evolves over time, not really maturing until adulthood. Thus the importance of having good teachers and role models to guide us along the way. In time, we learn to separate the wheat from the chaff. Some of us, however, will be tested, mortally so, before that skill is acquired.

Even the stages of normal development can be handicapping. Thrust into situations that require more discernment than we are capable of at a given time in life, we sometimes make horrific decisions. The majority of us make it through these crises.

The day our immaturity, inexperience and limited judgment were tested went unnoticed or at least not recalled. Most of us have the luxury of looking back and saying to ourselves, "What was I thinking?" We can do this with relief in that no one was harmed as the result of our failure to respond appropriately in a situation that required more from us.

Others, though, will pay dearly for this collision of poor judgment and circumstance. This group of people will never find the ledger of their life in balance. The evil will outweigh the good for eternity.

These are the young who commit murder. The horror they have wrought cannot be withdrawn. While there may be one death, there are numerous victims - families of the slain and the slayer writhe in pain. Often the product of a lethal combination of immaturity, selfishness, ignorance and fear; no absolution can undo the crime.

Generally, the fact that the offending juvenile was very likely the victim of some prior abuse makes no difference to the offended. The perpetrator, regardless of the idiosyncrasies of his upbringing or inherited traits, must pay.

The question is, does it require that he pay with his life? The answer, in a civilized society unencumbered by any shortcomings in judgment or lacking in reflection or impulse control, should be no.

The state achieves nothing, deters no one by exercising the ultimate vengeance, the taking of a life. If the punishment replicates the offender's crime, does it not then imitate the paucity of judgment exercised by the murderer himself?

Refusing to engage in the archaic and worn out eye-for-an-eye philosophy is not the exercise of mercy. It is, rather, evidence of the collective conscience of a society that is mature enough to stop the cycle of violence.

Every child murderer has unindicted co-conspirators. Murderers are not produced in a vacuum. Killing the slayer does not slay all of the killers. The conditions that incubate young murderers move on unabated.

The vast majority of youth will find their way through the daily distortions of life that flood their consciousness without debilitating their sense of right and wrong. Some children do not escape the scarring of spirit and temperament.

These young people are often left with a distorted moral compass that points continuously to self as the first and last concern. The compass needle is further disturbed when the immediate environment is enveloped in substance use, violence and poverty.

Meanwhile for the young murderer, life in prison, if warranted, is certainly no reprieve. He will not play out his youth on ball fields. Not one moment will be spent building a family or a career. There will be no reflecting back in old age on a life of accomplishment.

Instead, he will spend the hours of his remaining days in a space smaller than a bathroom. His last and perpetual homework assignment is to bring purpose to his life under the starkest of conditions. He stands alone. Justice is more than served.

David Bradley is a Democratic state representative from Tucson and a child welfare administrator. For 10 years he has been president and executive director of La Paloma Family Services.

Guest Opinion: Labor Day is tribute to our faith in each other

David Bradley
Tucson Citizen

As Labor Day approaches, it occurs to me how intertwined this holiday is with our more highly celebrated Independence Day.

The complementary nature of these national holidays was unexpectedly brought to mind while waiting for a light to change at a busy intersection in Scottsdale last week.

He was in the crosswalk alone, each step rapid and deliberate, a destination clearly in mind. The business establishment on the corner he was heading for had a well-manicured lawn and sports a flagpole, with the Stars and Stripes waving in the warm breeze. Wearing a fresh clean uniformed shirt with neatly pressed trousers, he is to the other side of the street in short order.

He has a serious and kind face, he also has the physical characteristics of Trisomy 21, otherwise known as Down syndrome. Having crossed the street, his goal is now very clear, there is a public bus pulling up just ahead of him.

Startling, to me at least, his approach to the bus is abruptly interrupted. He stops completely and, as if an unseen drill sergeant has suddenly commanded his attention, he straightens his posture, clicks his heels and renders a crisp and perfectly executed salute to the American flag. Just as smartly he drops the salute and proceeds directly to the waiting bus.

In the time it takes to wait for a traffic light to change, on a muggy busy afternoon, in a city partially paralyzed by a gas crisis, is made manifest so much of what is good about this country. Here at a congested intersection, the themes of justice, liberty, opportunity, responsibility and duty make a refreshing appearance.

A young man cheerfully on his way to his daily labor takes the time with no prodding or fanfare to acknowledge the symbol that permits his life to be what it is despite nature's foiled attempt to handicap him. Here, embodied in a simple gesture, clear evidence that, given the opportunity, nurture can overcome great odds.

In other eras and other places justice would not be so well served. His countenance alone would have sentenced him to an institutionalized life at best. This young man with the noble gait commands respect.

Respect literally means to look again. Look again and see what belief in another person can accomplish. His pride is not simply self-induced. It is, in part, the product of others believing in him, encouraging, guiding and teaching him.

Natural law dictates self-preservation. That is why work is so important. It is our affirmation and acceptance of our duty to carry our weight, to survive no matter the odds. Providing this man and so many others like him with the opportunity to work is what being in a civil society means.

John XXIII, noted over 40 years ago, "State activity in the economic field, no matter what its breadth or depth may be, ought not to be exercised in such a way as to curtail an individual's freedom of personal initiative. Rather it should work to expand that freedom as much as possible by the effective protection of the essential personal rights of each and every individual."

This young man's individual labor is the objective manifestation of our collective freedom.

If July 4 is the celebration of our independence then perhaps Labor Day is the celebration of our interdependence. None of us labors in a vacuum. One way or another we are beholden to each other. The collective value of our labor is directly proportional to the value of our relationships with one another.

As a function of his own determination and nurtured by the grace of some unknown freedom lovers, a young man makes his way to work. He stops to acknowledge the symbol of what makes his walk possible. We are all part of it.

Off to work, young man, let freedom ring. Thanks.

Guest Opinion: Grads' readiness for work is test of good education

David Bradley
Tucson Citizen

There are numerous types of tests, some more practical and useful than others. Reducing all that a high school student should have mastered in 12 years of schooling to a single test would be quite an achievement. I would suggest that it is not possible to do so, for the simple reason that there is far more to the development of young people than reading, writing and mathematics.

To assert that academic mastery is the sole purpose of attending 12 years of school is to insult a profession that really is older than any other, that is, the art and science of leading and guiding the young to take their place in society. The root of the word education means to lead. The purpose of education in a civil society is to first lead youth into good citizenship.

Any measurement that has its sole purpose revealing what a child has mastered in academics reveals a small portion of what is really important in the education of citizens. It will tell you very little about how the individual has mastered the basics of citizenship, that is, the skills of civility and the ability of a young person to build and sustain relationships.

A classroom is not just a place where a child acquires content information about particular subjects. It is also an incubator of interpersonal development where the young learn the fundamentals of communicating effectively with peers as well as adults, and along with reading, writing and mathematics, is exposed to the essential elements of good citizenship. This is just one of the many reasons that teachers are so important.

Under the tutelage of a skilled teacher in a safe and enriching environment character is formed. Over time, skills essential to success in the world of work - such as learning to work and play with others, negotiating and compromising - are learned, practiced and demonstrated. The classroom is really a dynamic interactive laboratory where the correlation is made between effort and results, where a portfolio of success is assembled and failure is transformed into the opportunity to learn.

In the classroom, the schoolyard, the lunchroom, children are exposed to how others think and feel, believe and perceive the world. Here is where a young person uncovers the diversity of cultures, attitudes, thoughts and upbringings of others

Many tests are administered in our schools beyond the academic assessment, the results of which will never be reported or recorded. These tests include the practical application of one's family values and their applicability to the broader world. It is at school, in and out of the classroom, where judgment and the ability to discern right from wrong will be challenged and given its first test outside the confines of family.

One's individuality and personhood are tested by the relentless assault of peer pressures. Worldviews are developed and modified as children are exposed to other worldviews. These are the tests that will best predict the success or failure that these children will experience in the world of work, and marriage and community.

The most important outcome of an education is the development of good citizens who reach an academic milestone with a hunger for knowledge and an eagerness to be engaged in society so as to reach their optimum potentials.

Their hunger for knowledge becomes a lifelong pursuit because it serves to further connect them with others. They not only become taxpayers but civic-minded individuals who participate actively in their communities.

The central question should be: Has the school prepared a student for citizenship? Surely, school districts should ascertain what it is they want their students to master academically. But far more of their time should be focused on ensuring that graduation means that their students have completed their apprenticeship in citizenship and that they are ready to move on to higher academic pursuits or enter the world of work.

Our graduation requirements should mimic this reality. Academic test results reveal only a part of the purpose of a good education. Grades matter because they reflect achievement but also effort, cooperation and participation as well, the building blocks of citizenship.

Engaging in meaningful community service projects gives students a taste of what it is to build and not simply consume. In service to others, youth develop a regard for community and justice, key elements of citizenship.

The purpose is to graduate good citizens. These are individuals prepared to enter the world of work or higher education not only because they have basic academic skills but also because they have an eagerness to acquire knowledge and skills that will ultimately contribute to the greater good of the society that they now inherit. That is the ultimate test of a good education.

No More Time

David Bradley
Tucson Citizen

My high school Latin teacher required that we practice it repeatedly. We had to recreate the speaker's indignation and exasperation with our whole body. It was Cicero 's rebuke of Catiline in the Roman Senate. It started with, "Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?" (How long, then, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?) It never occurred to me that my brief career as a Latin thespian would someday serve me well in the Arizona legislature. The day has come, my patience is wearing thin.

All of us, regardless of our party affiliation, ethnicity, economic status, educational background, employment, and personal beliefs make up this diverse Arizona community. Our individual destinies are inextricably intertwined with each other. This was the theme of the governor's inauguration, Many lands, Many people, Many Faiths, One Arizona . Included in this one Arizona , are the poor and the wealthy; the disabled and the healthy; the most secure and the most at risk. It is a condition of our times that ultimately if any one group fails or falters, we all do. It taxes our patience when others can not or will not accept this.

We cannot suspend our social problems while we wrestle with our economic uncertainties. We can not allow our safety net for the poor and the disabled rot away as we reconfigure our tax structure. We can not let our universities and public school system disintegrate while we in the legislature wrangle about the role of government in the lives of the governed. These challenges are upon us now and they will not conveniently disappear, they will only exponentially grow the longer we leave them unattended. Is it so difficult to grasp, so hard to understand that being penny wise and pound-foolish is such a costly mistake?

Oh, how our patience is tested when our colleagues are willing to forgo some $300 million in Federal matching funds because of the inconvenient strings of accountability accompanying the dollars. In some cases, they are refusing to accept a nine to one match of Federal to state dollars. This reasoning is ludicrous.

On top of all this convoluted thinking there is secrecy. No participation from stakeholders, no hearings, no involvement from department heads, no input from the minority, no voice of reason allowed to the table. Cum tacent, clamant . Their very silence is a loud cry, as Cicero , in the same oration, urged his colleagues to action.

Likewise, we implore our legislative leadership to hear that cry which is now being made throughout the social service, education and public safety communities. Their message is nearly identical, their facts are indisputable. Prevention works, whether it is early childhood education, programs to avert child abuse, facilitating family literacy or providing healthcare to low-income families. It pays enormous dividends to medicate the HIV positive, to educate adults, rehabilitate our exploding prison populations and deliver substance abuse treatment services to the addicted. Money spent on the front end is returned many times over by the contributions of the productive tax paying citizens who arise from these programs. What restraint it takes not to scream these facts up and down the corridors of the legislature!

O tempora, o mores! Oh the times, oh the manners! Cicero exhorts to the legislature of his day. Look at what you are doing! The clock is ticking and time is running out for those whom we protect and for those who are at the gates providing the front line services that sustain our communities.

To the Republican leadership in the legislature, how long will you try our patience?

The Rectitude of our Intentions

David Bradley
July 4, 2003

The world has turned over 82,500 plus times since our predecessors declared their independence. As is our custom, many of us will acknowledge this passing with family, feasts and fireworks.

Deservedly so we take great pride in the fact that the course of human events has served our declaration well. Our founders' risk filled decision withstood the pangs of birth, endured the fire of rebellion and survived the rise and demise of other world orders.

Over time, our less distant ancestors nurtured the ingenuity of the people as they learned to harness the country's vast natural and human resources by forging the complementary relationship of government and free enterprise. In time, we found ways in this partnership to soften the travail that usually accompanied economic cycles, absorb millions of immigrants, educate the masses, build superhighways and use the sky for rapid transit.

Still we are a work in progress. I would assert that the higher power that the signers of the Declaration invoked has more in store for us or perhaps continues to expect more from us. No generation that pledges allegiance to this country can abdicate the solemn and perpetual responsibility for building our nation that Jefferson declared on this day.

There is nothing static about the document. One gets a clear sense not only of the revolution that is explicitly declared, but also that government must evolve and make continuous progress in a never ending pursuit of those self-evident and inalienable rights to life, liberty and happiness.

Today, this nation and particularly the State of Arizona, where commerce is ubiquitous, communication instantaneous, and opportunity boundless still struggles in public debate with some very fundamental principles. Among these are the inability to ascertain the importance of educating its populace throughout the life span, caring for it youngest, vaccinating itself against disease and preventing abuse of the weakest and defenseless.

We still struggle to reconcile the paradox of the wealthiest nation in human history still containing intractable pockets of poverty. There are still beggars among us, thousands of them with not enough food or adequate shelter. It is nearly incomprehensible that the most sophisticated health care system in the world is not able or willing to provide adequate healthcare to vast sectors of society.

In seeking to overthrow a worldly power the Declaration invoked a higher power four times for three purposes. The signers sought from a Supreme Being the affirmation of inalienable rights, the approval of their intentions to break away from an unjust ruler and finally they asserted that their decision relied on the protection of divine providence.

For the brief period of time that this heritage is ours to preserve and protect, we must continue to diligently work to achieve the attainment of those inalienable rights for all us while we protect the weakest of us. We are bound, I would assert, by the same sense of urgency and decency that brought the signers together in common cause and purpose to reaffirm on this day our intention to seek a newer and better world.

Legislative leaders believe state government does too much for too many. They are Wrong

David Bradley
Arizona Daily Star

We live, as Robert Kennedy noted of a bygone era, in times of danger and uncertainty. As I write this, our national government has taken up the torch of a preemptive strike, having decided to "bring fire where light alone may have sufficed." At our state and local level we are wrestling with serious problems that reduce by hour legislative leadership to this simple unbalanced equation, more need than resource.

You are not alone if you are frightened, well we should be. War comes with no guarantees. Even when you take the first shot, you cannot predict when and where the last shot will occur. And if you or someone you protect because of familial or even professional duty is dependent on the resources of the state, you have good cause to be concerned.

Most of us would agree that government has certain duties. We are currently discerning the scope and breadth of what those duties entail in the state legislature. Those currently in power in both the house and the senate see it this way.

Government has taken on too many duties. The resources of the state are limited. Those in need will have to do with less or without or find other resources.

Their budget priorities make it clear to anyone who can read. Rise up faith communities and other philanthropic organizations and do your duty. Feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Shelter the homeless. Care for the mentally and physically disabled and abused. Provide adult education. Medicate those with HIV. Provide medical care to the indigent and the children of the working poor. These things, their budget asserts, are not included in the duties of government.

Our colleagues in leadership have cornered themselves. Many of them have taken a pledge not to raise taxes for any reason. They cannot fathom how government could borrow to build. They find it inconceivable that government can be a resource of economic stimulus. They have also wrapped themselves in a philosophy that they will not compromise. They are convinced that government that governs least governs best no matter how crude or cruel the implementation of the philosophy may become.

Those in leadership at the legislature are not evil people. Nor are they blind to the suffering their budget ferments; they are not deaf to the legions of people who are urging that their service or cause should be sustained. It is not as if they do not care, cannot see or will not hear. It is, in their minds, simply that government was never meant to be the caretaker of first or last resort. They are, in their own mind, nobly holding the line. They are the strict parent who will no longer indulge the wasteful child. They are cutting off the addict from his addiction, money.

They are wrong. And if their philosophy prevails, they will in some cases literally be dead wrong. It is true that government should not be all pervasive in the life of the governed but it is the characteristic of truth never to run to excess. Government's approach to solving problems evolves and adapts over time. This is such a time.

Business in this country borrows to build, to the tune of $3.5 trillion. Government collects money but it also spends most of what it takes in. That money moves throughout the economy and creates jobs in the public and private sector that in turn spends money for goods and services throughout the state. And, as Holmes noted long ago, "taxes are the price we pay for civility." Whatever the cost, civilized people protect their children; they invest in their own people, i.e. educate them throughout the lifespan; they stand by the weakest. They have the alacrity and wisdom to change when the needs of people change.

We do live in times of danger and uncertainty, it is in these times that government not only defends it also protects. Of course, government must be accountable; it should not take in more than it needs but neither can it eviscerate the hope of so many people for the sake of an ideology that is not responsive to our times. Similar to our current international challenges in addressing the problems we have in Arizona we have forgotten the wisdom of Victor Hugo.

First, do no harm

David Bradley
Tucson Citizen

It is very early in my own political career and I am keeping in mind my place in the bigger picture, I have no monopoly on the truth. The admonition of Sophocles is always a good thing for a freshman legislator to keep in mind, namely, "For if anyone thinks that he alone is wise, that in speech or in mind he has no peer, such a soul, when laid open, is always found empty." Yet, as a freshman legislator who finds himself in the minority by two to one, I have been relegated by circumstance to if nothing else, 'keep watch in the night' as our Republican colleagues push a budget with little common or business sense contained in it.

In a hearing last week, I tried to get the representative from a medical discipline to acknowledge what I thought was a fairly well known fact. Namely, that the profession which he was testifying on behalf of, had, in fact a code of ethics that reflected the basic principle of the well known Hippocratic oath, namely the 'primum non nocere' clause, first do no harm . To my surprise, the lobbyist was not sure whether the profession had one or not. That lack of knowledge made my support of his position ineffectual and resulted in his opponents' position prevailing quite easily despite its reliance on anecdotal fears and pseudo-science.

Reflecting on a week in which a series of cloudy and at times, mean spirited, public decisions made their way through the House of Representatives, I thought to myself that perhaps the public should make a demand of my colleagues and me in the legislature, especially as it now begins discernment on the budget. We should be required to add to our oath of office, the first do no harm clause.

Were we to do so, perhaps we could avoid even trying to advance a budget plan that would result in the evisceration of the social, educational and economic structures that not only protect the most vulnerable but also provide them with the opportunity to build and restore their lives. The underlying assumptions of the Republican budget, fail to live up to the most important moral imperative that the political process has and which is the measure of any civilized society. It is not our purpose to simply ensure that the strongest prevail, but rather, it is our solemn duty to nurture survival of the weakest.

Their proposals as they now stand hit the same people, not once, but many times. They cut off access to health care for the children of the working poor, adult education for the people most needed to work in a recovering economy. They shut down prevention services that keep children and families from disintegrating. They further handicap the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled, thus requiring the state to later assume more expensive burdens down the road. Not content at stopping there, they cripple the K-12 educational system that in nearly every one of their individual campaigns they had promised to protect. Even more remarkably, our business minded friends simultaneously debilitate the economic engines of commerce, tourism and most importantly the universities.

Throughout my career as a mental health professional, I encountered people who were trapped in ideologies and mindsets that did not permit them to see outside their own self-defeating approach to problem solving. They remained steadfast to their vacuous and destructive ideas and in time, lost everything that was important to them.

I am hopeful that, while there is still time, our colleagues can see that there are other ways to deal with our budget problems. Let's follow our instinct to invest in people and the infrastructures that will allow them to raise themselves up, but most importantly, let us do no harm.

Again, just the comments of a freshman who ends with another thought from Sophocles, from the same play, Antigone, "Though a man be wise, it is no shame for him to learn many things and to bend in season. Do you see, beside the wintry torrent's course, how the trees that yield to it save twig, while the stiffnecked perish root and branch"?

For the brief period of time that this heritage is ours to preserve and protect, we must continue to diligently work to achieve the attainment of those inalienable rights for all us while we protect the weakest of us. We are bound, I would assert, by the same sense of urgency and decency that brought the signers together in common cause and purpose to reaffirm on this day our intention to seek a newer and better world.

I am you neighbor you can call on me. The people of Southern Arizona deserve a legislator who will pledge to listen to them and represent them after the election.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Reader - February 1, 2006
Tucson Citizen

Bradley realizes duty to children

In response to your Guest Opinion by Dave Bradley (Monday, "Don't assume justice will prevail, but work for it for sake of our children"), I would like to point out that Rep. Bradley obviously knows what true leadership is.

True leadership involves inspiring those you lead and directing them to an accurate and compelling picture of the consequences of following a variety of paths.

I often wonder why we in Arizona still neglect the needs of the most vulnerable among us. In the short term, perhaps some of us believe we are gaining something. In the long term, however, we are depriving ourselves of the very things we think we may be gaining.

Wake up, Arizona citizens of all ages; it is time to take care of the younger generation, which will produce the future leaders of our state and our country.

Whatever happened to the realization that we reap what we sow? Thank you, Rep. Bradley, for reminding us all of our duty to the young and vulnerable among us.

I am not a Democrat, just a citizen concerned about the direction Arizona continues to follow. It truly is time to react with a spirit of cooperation to the serious needs of our children and grandchildren in this community we know as Arizona.

JILL S. McCAIN

Vail

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Reader - March 16, 2004
Tucson Citizen

Smart enough to be a Republican

I love the "opinions" of others under "Perspective" in the Tucson Citizen. The Feb. 18 guest opinion by David Bradley - "Growth as a citizen is real measure of a student" - was great.

Bradley is a great Democratic state representative. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and agree with every word he wrote.

ELIZABETH DEWALL

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Reader
Tucson Citizen

Fighting discrimination

I greatly appreciate Reps. Ted Downing and David Bradley, both from Tucson, for fighting discrimination at the Legislature.

Despite their efforts, however, the House Committee on Universities, Community Colleges & Technology voted for a bill that would fund discrimination based on age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and/or veteran status on college campuses.

Downing and Bradley have demonstrated time and time again that they will fight oppression. It is time we, the people, start fighting with them. It is time to stand up against the extremist majority at the Legislature that continually enacts hateful policies that hurt our communities.

Sam Holdren