Every businessperson and every citizen wants to win with new residents and with economic development, all for good reasons.

As a member of the initial River Vision committee, I and hundreds of people talked about the visions of both Rock island and Davenport, and the riverfront they share. I listened and put forth my ideas for the Armory. Those ideas were a few years ago and not 2009. Armory Park is a wonderful concept in its time. Unfortunately, this is not the time. With fiscal responsibility to its citizens a primal concern of all mayors and city councils, we now must be diligent and closely monitor Rock Island in a troubled economy and be able to crunch down and maintain the status quo as necessary.

April 1775: The British are fighting American colonists in Concord and Lexington, and the siege of the British in Boston commences shortly thereafter.

January 1776: Despite these military conflicts, the large majority of the colonists favored reconciliation with Britain and had no truck with wild-eyed revolutionaries.

July 1776: The Continental Congress - with the landslide support of those same colonists - adopted the Declaration, told King George to take a hike, and the war was on.

What happened in between? What created this incredible realignment of public opinion in six short months?

"Black Friday," traditionally known as such as a ledger reference for retailers making profits on pre-Christmas sales the day after Thanksgiving, has now acquired another meaning as well: "black" as in death. At a Valley Stream, New York, Wal-Mart, "a temporary Wal-Mart worker died after a throng of unruly shoppers broke down the doors and trampled him moments after the store opened early Friday, police said." (Associated Press, November 29.)

There are times when a concrete, real-world event can serve as a focus, a highlight in microcosm, of the greater cultural milieu in which it is embedded, and this tragic occurrence -- as well as some of the "explanations" being offered in the wake of it -- is a textbook example.

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given up by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." - Martin Luther King Jr.

With the government's relentless assault on our pocketbooks and freedoms, the economic and fiscal picture for many Americans is bleak. The national debt is approaching $10 trillion. People are losing their homes and jobs, and 5 million have fallen into poverty. At the same time, lucrative tax breaks exist for the corporate rich, while the average citizen is heavily taxed. The Constitution and civil liberties have been undermined at every step. And don't expect any of these developments to let up anytime soon.