Nearly three decades of experience teaching social welfare policy at BSW, MSW, and DSW levels suggests that the vast majority of social work students operate with a deeply flawed understanding of how the U.S. political/policy making system actually operates.  A superficial and idealized model of policy making in turn misdirects student thinking about policy change … Continue reading We need a “new civics” for social workers

It's true that most of the national and global news these days is frightening stuff - wars, wild weather and climate disasters, train derailments and toxic spills, mass shootings, earthquakes and building collapses, desperate migrants dying at sea and in unforgiving deserts, and on and on. Add to all that the political madness of book … Continue reading Some good news on labor and antiwar organizing

Some Mississippi leaders would have citizens believe that the state's condition has never been better. After all, the state's coffers are so flush (largely with federal cash) that many of the same leaders are itching to eliminate the mildly progressive income tax. Why tax when you have more money than you need to keep essential … Continue reading Here we go again: Mississippi leads U.S. in newborns with syphilis

I'm pretty sure you won't hear much of this from mainstream media - rock legend Roger Waters (79 yr-old co-founder of Pink Floyd) speaking eloquently on the Ukraine War at the United Nations this week - so here are highlights from Waters' remarks: "...With your forbearance, I shall endeavour to express what I believe to … Continue reading Roger Waters calls out global warmongers at the UN, voicing a peace vision social workers can embrace

We stumble into Black History Month 2023 with yet another police murder of an unarmed black man, Tyre Nichols, accompanied by neo-fascist assaults on the truthful teaching of black history, and purely performative responses to police violence by national political (so-called) "leaders." The celebrated Rev. Martin Luther King wrote "A Testament of Hope" in 1968, … Continue reading Where is the “radical reconstruction” that genuine hope calls for?

In light of our nation's latest mad act in the war in Ukraine - deciding to send advanced tanks to Ukraine, opening the gate for other NATO countries to act in kind - I wrote today to my three Congressional representatives (the rookie Rep. Ezell in the 4th Congressional district, and the veteran Senators Hyde-Smith … Continue reading Tell your representatives to stop sleepwalking their way to war and self-annihilation

If you haven't read Adam Ganucheau's editorial earlier this week in Mississippi Today, I recommend you do so - https://mississippitoday.org/2023/01/16/broken-lawmaking-process/ Ganucheau bluntly exposes the highly unrepresentative and very un-transparent legislative process presently dominating the state, contrasting ugly reality with the textbook democratic manner in which things are supposed to work. How is the process supposed … Continue reading Mississippi Today editorial tears away the veil of a badly corrupted political process

The title of this post is drawn from a speech delivered by Martin Luther King 56 years ago today. King was of course referring to the future of the struggle for Black liberation for which he is known and celebrated by a national holiday. But the question is one that every social worker - committed … Continue reading “Where do we go from here?”

There's perhaps no better proof of our political vocabulary's impoverishment than media portrayals of the Republican Party's hard-right Freedom Caucus as "conservative." In truth, there's very little about today's Republican Party as a whole - maybe better referred to as the Trump-ublican Party - that is conservative in any meaningful historical sense of the term. … Continue reading What’s “conservative” about the Republican Party’s Freedom Caucus?

Even social workers who hate thinking about policy know that policy, and especially national social welfare policy, is incredibly important - indeed, it is essential to the the primary mission of the profession "to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment … Continue reading Social workers, note: The circus in D.C. is no joke; it’s the next phase of the coup that started January 6, 2021