This is National Library Week, a time normally reserved for celebrating an institution that plays a vital role in many of our cities, towns and counties. Instead, many libraries, particularly public libraries, are being decimated by budget cuts at a time when library services are needed most.

Libraries, once considered a necessity, are now seen as a luxury. They are low-hanging fruit for budget pluckers, particularly at the state and local levels of government in communities across the country. It's been a slow death by attrition over the past couple of years. First, it was the budget for books and materials because, after all, books and materials aren't people. No matter that books and materials are what makes a library, well, a library. Then came the hours of operation, then the staff, then the closure of branches. No two communities are approaching the situation identically, but in cities from Boston to Indianapolis, the stories are increasingly dire.

One problem for libraries in some jurisdictions is that they don't fit squarely into any one policymaker's domain, like public safety or a school system. Libraries serve a range of purposes - they help teach children to read, they help students work on projects, they provide meeting space for tutoring, they provide Internet access. They serve students, seniors, immigrants. They provide assistance to the unemployed. Libraries combine education, workforce development, socialization, recreation. But they aren't the school board, or a social services agency, and so generally get buried in the larger budgets.

The cuts come at a time when library use is increasing, for all types of services. The one that hits home the most these days is the crucial access to the Internet. A study by the Information School at the University of Washington found that: "Low-income adults are more likely to rely on the public library as their sole access to computers and the Internet than any other income group. Overall, 44 percent of people living below the federal poverty line used computers and the Internet at their public libraries."

In addition, the study reported: "Americans across all age groups reported they used library computers and Internet access. Teenagers are the most active users. Half of the nation's 14- to 18-year-olds reported that they used a library computer during the past year, typically to do school homework."

Let's give the last word to someone who has a secret ambition to be a librarian, but whose career went in a different direction. No less an authority than Keith Richards put it best in his forthcoming autobiography: "When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equaliser."

I don't have an answer for this question. I now that there is a natural fit with public media - but pub radio and TV have the same challenge and the same financial connection to the states and the cities who themselves are dying.

As Washington fiddles, Rome burns. The connective tissue that makes for community - roads, schools, law enforcement, bridges, libraries fall into ruin, the Band Plays on in DC. It's enough to make me a Tea Bagger!

All that is needed is needed locally. But we now depend on a handful of people who live outside the bounds of a real community to supply all these services. Beyond these services, we rely also on a few disconnected people to supply us with food, energy and stuff.

I spoke recently to a community leader in Detroit about all of this. His response was: "The mayor has been in jail. The city and the state are broke and the feds don't give a fuck. It's up to us now. There is no one else. We have to rely on ourselves."

There are signs that Detroit is so far down that the only way is up and the only how is to take charge.

So I am only a Tea Bagger in this regard - Government no longer works. Corporations are out for themselves. If we want a better place to raise our kids. If we want work that we can rely on. Then we will have to create this place ourselves.