I've been reading plenty of books that address progressive perspectives. And while I do my fair share of bashing the right-wing, I actually prefer to combine some sort of discussion along with examination of current policies based on fringe ideology. David Sirota's "Hostile Takeover" is a very good example of taking stock of the current landscape and then, looking beyond the present, proposing a short list of solutions per issue. It provides a good framework from which we can begin to address issues that matter to most Americans.

From the jacket: "Sirota considers major public issues that feel intractable and shows how in each case workable solutions are buried under the lies of lobbyists, the influence of campaign cash, and the ubiquitous spin machine financed by Big Business." This encapsulates the approach and goal of the book nicely.

I want to quickly address the issues he brings up, one per chapter, in summary fashion today. I am including one solution that I found interesting per issue. In future posts, I will go into each subject in a little more detail, hopefully in a national as well as a more local sense.

Taxes: Stop letting companies rip off American taxpayers by using off-shore tax havens
Wages: Raise the minimum wage to a living wage
Jobs: Make unemployment statistics truthful
Debt: Create strict laws that control lending to the most vulnerable
Pensions: Don't let corporations rip off their workers' retirement nest eggs as a way to cut costs
Health care: Regulate health insurance prices like any other utility
Prescription drugs: If taxpayers invest in the research and development of a drug, don't let companies reward us with the highest prices in the world for the final product
Energy: Buy out the profiteers
Unions: Force corporations to disclose as much as unions
Legal rights: Allow tougher state laws to apply

These are by no means meant to represent an all-inclusive list of issues that face Americans and Coloradans today. My intent in bringing them up is to initiate some brainstorming from myself. I would appreciate input from the community. We have an opportunity to help provide momentum on multiple levels. I want to search out solutions that are a combination of big in scope and easily digestible by a majority of people. There's plenty of problems out there. I want to make progress on as many of these issues as possible.