Working Indiana - Working for Democracy and Justice

Indiana’s only toll road follows the Michigan state line westbound to Chicago, never straying much more than ten miles away.   Passing through 157 miles of mixed agricultural and recreational land until its terminus in “the Region,” beneath skies stained ochre by industrial haze, “The Mainstreet of the Midwest,” streams through the broken heart of the area’s once mighty industrial body until it bridges the waters of Wolf Lake where Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb stufffed little Bobby Franks corpse into a culvert just for the fun of it.

Back in the 50’s Leon Festinger studied a Midwestern cult of UFO millenarianists; reflecting that most of us strive for the kind of foolish consistency Emerson dismissed as the hobgoblin of little minds, Festinger wondered how people handled “dissonant” situations, those occasions when deeply held beliefs collide with known facts.  He evolved two hypotheses: (1) since the existence of dissonance is psychologically uncomfortable, persons should be motivated to reduce it and achieve consonance, and (2) when it is present dissonance not only prompts efforts to reduce it,

Last night 31 new Working Indiana/Working America member households ljoined. Jane, Howard, Cheryl, and I were pretty darned happy. Every night we're out we realize what simple genius this is. Talk to people, listen to people, respect them, spark a little doorstep solidarity, and build the base to co-create better public policy on the issue that matter most to us all.

I have added a spell checker to the editor.