It remains to be seen if Gov. Deval Patrick will grow a spine on the health care front and make his new "soft cap" on annual increases in health insurance company premiums into a hard cap. As it stands, Patrick has ordered the new state insurance commissioner Joseph G. Murphy to "investigate" any requests by insurers for increases higher than 4.8 percent a year. But with the insurers asking for premium increases of between 8 percent and 32 percent - while claiming to have lost money last year - it's anybody's guess whether Patrick will really follow through with this initiative and start putting the brakes on insurance industry greed.

Originally, I had intended to focus this week's editorial on the formation of the new Massachusetts Competitive Partnership by the CEOs of several major locally-based corporations. Then I took a look at the report just released by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and thought I could wait to discuss the former until they make more formal policy pronouncements - which will doubtless be quite similar to the Chamber's "RenewMass Economic Recovery Platform." The platform calls for major changes to state tax policy that its authors insist will attract more business to the Commonwealth, give startups a chance to survive the tough economic climate, and (of course) create jobs. All of which amounts to a tune that Mass. working families have heard before from corporate leaders: "give us tax breaks, and we'll give you more jobs." But after the tax breaks are given, time and time again few if any jobs are created. CEOs and their top investors get richer. And our state government - which has plenty of flaws, but remains vastly more transparent to public scrutiny and oversight than any corporation - has less money to work with then it did at the start of the process.

Well, it’s budget season in Massachusetts again. Where has the time gone? It’s only been a few months since the Gov. Deval Patrick used his Section 9C powers to make another bunch of budget cuts. Now he’s released his Fiscal Year 2001 budget proposal - and the Mass. Budget and Policy Center has released its usual helpful section-by-section analysis. So let’s take a look at what kind of hurt that working families of Massachusetts are going to be expected to suck up in the ongoing absence of any new progressive taxation policies at any level of government.

Judging by the numbers, it could be a lot worse. But the devil is always in the details, and even areas of the budget that are being level-funded or even contain increases, often merely paper over crippling cuts in critical service areas. And let’s not forget that level-funding government operations means that state employees are sometimes expected to do more with less as inflation remains high during the ongoing recession.

A community news publication like Open Media Boston is built on the hard work of our reporters. The more talented reporters we have, the more stories we can cover every week, and therefore the more we can accurately reflect the community (really several communities) that we serve. For almost two years now, this publication has gradually built up a dedicated crew of basically volunteer (unless you count pizza as renumeration) journalists that do their best to cover the stories that need covering week after week. But as the news industry continues to collapse, there are more and more stories out there that aren't being covered by anyone - most relating to the struggles of working families trying to get a fair deal in the midst of an economic crisis. And they desperately need coverage. More critically, stories that require deep, broad, long-term investigation over weeks and months are falling by the wayside - many of which deal with government at every level - making the growing news vacuum a threat to democracy itself. The idea of journalism as the "fourth estate" of government and watchdog of the public trust is predicated on a press that's able to pay professional journalists to fill that important role in our society. Many observers have written and spoken at length on this topic in recent months; so I won't repeat their points here. But suffice to say that the corporations that control most media in this country have long since decided to cut the news industry loose and focus on products (like "reality" TV) that ensure higher profits. This is why thousands of journalists and allied media professionals have been laid off over the last few years, and why new and still relatively small operations like this one are struggling to fill in news holes that are stretching out to become chasms before our eyes.

The race for Massachusetts governor got much more exicting for area progressives over the last week with the entry of two experienced candidates - Grace Ross and Dr. Jilll Stein. Both have run for the office (and other offices) in the last decade as Green-Rainbow Party candidates. Stein will continue doing so for this election. What's interesting, however, is that Ross has decided to dog incumbent Deval Patrick from within his own party. She's hoping to face off against him in the Democratic Party primary. This is a clever strategic move, despite the fact that it is also the result of internecine strife in the Green-Rainbow Party. Stein and Ross represented different camps within that party. My understanding is that Stein's camp more or less prevailed a while back, and Ross took her custom into the progressive wing of the Democrats following that development. At least for the moment.

There are too many good people passing away recently. I just participated in a memorial for my colleague Tim Costello yesterday, and now I find myself sitting down to write a brief note about famed historian and progressive activist Howard Zinn. I took his Spring 1986 class at Boston University ... and, let me tell you, it was quite a circus. His seminal work, A People's History of the United States, had only been published a few years previous and between that notoriety and his existing reputation as a great teacher his classes had to be held in the biggest theater in the old Nickelodeon Cinema next to the Mass Pike - both because he didn't turn away students so 300 person attendance was the norm and because BU's conservative president John Silber didn't much like him. I couldn't tell you the name of the class at this point. Doesn't matter anyway since I recall everyone on campus calling whatever course he taught "Zinn's class." He would basically mix up history, political science, sociology and a number of other social sciences into a wild stew and do what amounted to stand-up comedy every week for a couple of hours. We used a variety of texts including his People's History, and interesting ancillary material as well.

There has been much talk in the media about how a left-leaning state like Massachusetts could elect a conservative Republican to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in last week's special election. The bulk of the conversation has run along predictable lines - Republicans gloat about their victory and look forward to taking back control of the Congress, Democrats and tame allies to their left bemoan the loss and figure that Brown won't be able to hold onto the seat. But I'm not so sure about that. It's already widely known that there are more right-wingers in Massachusetts than common wisdom would suggest. The strength of the right in the Commonwealth is submerged in the 50 percent of voters here that are registered as "unenrolled." And there's an interesting thing about these Massachusetts right-wingers - a lot of them are in the suburbs. The stronghold of the "American Dream" of working class ascendancy to the middle class. To the individual house, the 2 cars, the 2.5 kids, the upward mobility. All of which is going to hell as the economy continues to founder - even as the earning power of millions of middle class families has stagnated in the last 4 decades and is now in decline.

Since Haiti was literally crushed by a massive earthquake last week, organizations and individuals across the political spectrum have called for all people of good conscience (minus Robertson and Limbaugh) to send money via the aid agencies of their choice to try to help the estimated 3,000,000 affected Haitians survive and start rebuilding. Open Media Boston joined that worldwide effort immediately, and we've already suggested a couple of well-known local aid agencies that we think will make sure all donated funds will do the maximum good possible on the ground in Haiti. However, as the death toll - now estimated at 200,000 - continues to mount, and the international response remains hindered by the lack of functioning transportation systems and other basic infrastructure, it is becoming evident that it will take more than emergency supplies to help the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere to get back on its feet. It will take a global movement for justice for Haiti to push creditor nations like the U.S. and France, giant banks, and international lending institutions to cancel Haiti's remaining debt - and provide massive aid in the form of grants to help alleviate the devastation caused by recent disaster and make amends for the long history of injustice towards the former slave state by the former slave-owning states. More loans like the $100 million that the International Monetary Fund just pledged will ultimately only make a bad situation worse. And the $100 million in aid pledged by the U.S. is woefully insufficient to meet the need - and a tiny fraction of what will be wasted this year in military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan (and possibly Yemen as well).

Web-based platforms for political discussion have really taken off in Massachusetts in the last few years. First there was Blue Mass Group - a very popular and groundbreaking online forum for partisans of the Mass. Democratic Party and liberals in general. Then Red Mass Group launched - and provided the same kind of virtual space for the Mass. Republican Party and right-wingers in general. Then there were further spinoffs like (the aptly named) Gold Mass Group by Mass. Libertarian Party folks and even an anti-genetic engineering Purple State Group.

Yet although many Open Media Boston viewers might be satisfied with much of the discussion on Blue Mass. Group, their cleaving to the Democrats leaves many of us on the political left unsatisfied (although it's certainly a welcoming community). Especially considering the many conservative Democratic politicians at all levels of government that seem to spend more of their time trying to thwart the progressive wing of their party than politicians on the official right. And the swiftly growing numbers of wars that President Barack Obama and company are prosecuting or instigating at the moment definitely gives the broad American left cause for alarm.

Turning to Red Mass Group (with tongue firmly in cheek), the fact that the Republicans stole the left's color - red - over the last decade annoys most left-wingers too much to even think about trying to debate with them on their site. I mean can you imagine your average Cold War era conservative bragging about being from a "red state" back in the 1950s or 1960s? I can't either. I've actually considered creating something like a "Wicked Red Mass Group" just to make the point. Regarding the other "color sites" that have sprung up representing other perspectives, I don't expect many progressives have spent much time on them.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise that Mass. Green-Rainbow Party activists have just started up Green Mass Group to provide an open forum for Bay State residents to discuss issues of the day from the progressive side of the political fence - with a welcome focus on independent progressive electoral politics.

Just a note to our viewers to let you all know that the Open Media Boston staff is taking this coming week to meet and do background work on infrastructure and fundraising. We'll be back shortly with more progressive news and views coverage. Until then please check out our recent editorials on how you can help us found our new coop and on other ways you can support OMB.