January 27, 2012

Democracy V. Plutocracy, Unions V. Servitude

Servitude: "a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one's course of action or way of life"

Democracy: "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"

Plutocracy: government by the wealthy

Labor union: an organization of workers formed for the purpose of advancing its members' interests in respect to wages, benefits, and working conditions

You may have seen the recent flurry of stories about how hi-tech products are made in China. The stories focus on Apple, but it isn't just Apple. These stories of exploited Chinese workers are also the story of how and why we -- 99% of us, anyway -- are all feeling such a squeeze here, because we are suffering the disappearance of our middle class. Our choice is democracy or servitude.

Working In China

A collection of excerpts from the Charles Duhigg and David Barboza story, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad and the Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher story, How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work both from the NY Times:

Rousted from dorms at midnight, told to work:

Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow.”

Banners on the walls warned the 120,000 employees: “Work hard on the job today or work hard to find a job tomorrow.”

(How close is that to the very definition of servitude?)

Long shifts, legs swollen from standing:

Shifts ran 24 hours a day, and the factory was always bright. At any moment, there were thousands of workers standing on assembly lines or sitting in backless chairs, crouching next to large machinery, or jogging between loading bays. Some workers’ legs swelled so much they waddled. “It’s hard to stand all day,” said Zhao Sheng, a plant worker.

Write confessions if late:

Mr. Lai was soon spending 12 hours a day, six days a week inside the factory, according to his paychecks. Employees who arrived late were sometimes required to write confession letters and copy quotations. There were “continuous shifts,” when workers were told to work two stretches in a row, according to interviews.

Injuries from speed-up toxics:

Investigations by news organizations revealed that over a hundred employees had been injured by n-hexane, a toxic chemical that can cause nerve damage and paralysis.

Employees said they had been ordered to use n-hexane to clean iPhone screens because it evaporated almost three times as fast as rubbing alcohol. Faster evaporation meant workers could clean more screens each minute.

American companies forcing Asian suppliers to squeeze workers:

“You can set all the rules you want, but they’re meaningless if you don’t give suppliers enough profit to treat workers well,” said one former Apple executive with firsthand knowledge of the supplier responsibility group. “If you squeeze margins, you’re forcing them to cut safety.”

The Results For The 1%

A series of recent newspaper headlines tells the story of how China's working conditions benefit the 1% here.

NYT: Apple's Profit Soars‎

CBS Moneywatch: Apple shares close at record high

SF Chronicle: Apple CEO's Stock Awards Lift Compensation to $378 Million

ZDNet: Apple: made in China, untaxed profits kept offshore. We don't even get to tax the profits from moving our jobs to China, to use for schools, roads, police, etc.

The Results For The 99%

Headlines like these show how things are going better and better for the 1%. But what happened to our middle-class prosperity? We allowed companies to move jobs and factories across the borders of democracy to places where workers are exploited, calling that "trade." This enabled the breaking of unions and the weakening of our democracy.

The threat is in the air: "Shut up and take the wage cuts or we will move your job to China." How is that threat used on us? Here is an example: We have heard the stories of Mitt Romney's company Bain Capital, and how it "earned" its millions. According to the Christian Science Monitor, this is the story of what happened when a Bain-owned company "came to town":

The new owner, American Pad & Paper, owned in turn by Bain Capital, told all 258 union workers they were fired, in a cost-cutting move. Security guards hustled them out of the building. They would be able to reapply for their jobs, at lesser wages and benefits, but not all would be rehired.

Workers in countries like China where people have no say have low wages, terrible working conditions, long hours, and are told to shut up and take it or they won[t have any job at all. They are given no choice.

Increasingly workers here have their wages, hours, benefits, dignity cut and are told to shut up and take it or their jobs will be moved to China. Because we are pitted against exploited workers in countries where people have no say, we have no choice.

The unions are weakened, the government doesn't enforce or weakly enforces labor laws and regulations, age, gender or race discrimination laws, worker safety laws, so workers are placed in a terrible squeeze. Workers who try to organize unions are isolated, moved, smeared, fired, humiliated, whatever it takes.

This quote by Steve Jobs is from How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

Democracy Brought Us Prosperity

We used to be a democracy, where everyone used to have a say in things. Because we had a say we built up a country with good schools, good infrastructure, good courts, and we made rules that said workers had to be safe, get a minimum wage, overtime, weekends… we protected the environment, we set up Social Security. We took care of each other. This made us prosperous. A share of the prosperity for the 99% was the fruit of democracy.

China, on the other hand, is not a democracy, and workers in China don't really have a say. So they don't make much money, they don't have good working conditions, the environment isn't protected, etc.

We Used To Protect Democracy

We used to protect our democracy. We used to put a tariff on goods coming in if they were made by people who didn’t have the ability to speak up and better their condition. We’d let the goods in but we would use a tariff to strengthen our country, our infrastructure, our schools – our democracy. This brought us prosperity.

For some reason, we started letting our companies move our factories over there, forcing our workers to compete with workers who have no say. We got tricked, by people who call that "trade," and said it would be good for us. (Like cutting taxes for the wealthy "job creators" is good for us.)

We opened the borders and let the big companies move the jobs, factories and industries over the border of our democracy, to places where workers don't have a say, so they are exploited. And the result was the big corporations were able to come back and cut our pay, and get rid of our pensions, and tell us, "take it, shut up, or we will move your job, too." We made the wages and working and conditions and environmental protections prosperity that democracy brings into a cost. We turned ourselves into a cost. We made democracy a competitive disadvantage.

Plutocrats Say Shed Benefits Of Democracy

Plutocrats say we need to shed the benefits of democracy and become more like China if we want to compete. They say get rid of regulations, employee protections, environmental protections, good wages, benefits like pensions and time off, etc... They say that We, the People (government) "get in the way of doing business." They say the taxes that pay for good infrastructure and schools and police and courts and services like Social Security and care for the disabled and health care for children "take money out of the economy" but they mean these take some of the money that they have been taking from the economy.

Democracy Is The Best Economics

Look at the primary target of the corporate/conservatives: unions. That should tell you something. This is a power confrontation. This is the power of the 1% overcoming the power of the 99%.

Democracy is the power of the 99% to make the decisions, and to build structures that protect us from exploitation by the wealthy and powerful. This confrontation is the story of the origin of our country -- how We, the People confronted the power and corruption of the British aristocracy, overcame that power, and built a country of, by and for the people.

Democracy and the taxes it enabled us to ask from the wealthiest is what enabled us to build the infrastructure and schools and everything that enabled our prosperity. The regulations of democracy are what enable our smaller businesses to compete with the giants. The shared prosperity -- redistribution of wealth -- is what enabled the middle class to grow, and turned us into the most prosperous country and largest market in the world.

Unions

Unions are about building up the power of groups of people, to confront and overcome the advantages of wealth and the power wealth brings to a few. When a union is strong enough to be able to confront the power of big corporations the result is that the 99% get a share of the pie. When unions are strong we all get better wages and better working conditions and a say in how we are treated, whether we are in unions or not. The benefits flow to the rest of the economy.

It would be nice if our system worked well enough that we didn't need to organize unions on top of the structure of laws and regulations, but it is just the fact of life that the wealthy and powerful and their corporations have throughout our history been able to exert tremendous influence over legislative bodies, again and again. So to fight that working people organize and build these organized unions of people, and leverage that power of the group to demand wages and benefits and weekends and a share of the prosperity. The story of the power confrontation between unions of working people (99%) and the large corporations (1%) is the story of how we built a middle class that brought us the prosperity we enjoyed.

It is not just a coincidence that the weakening of the unions coincides with the decline of the middle class. It is not just a coincidence that the current rise of the plutocrats brings in a swarm of anti-union legislation. It is not just a coincidence that the times when our democracy is strongest we all do so much better. And now, when our demcoracy has been weakened by the money and power of the 1% and their corporations, the rest of us are so much worse off.

Not US v. China

This is not about US workers and markets vs China. Working people in all countries are at risk when their countries trade with countries where workers are exploited. China's huge trade imbalance is threatening the world's economy. The loss of manufacturing to countries that exploit workers is threatening workers in many countries.

The US market is still large, and the US can still demand that imported goods be made according to better standards for workers. The rest of the world can also demand that China's workers be brought up to international standards. And we can certainly hold companies like Apple accountable, and demand that they only buy from suppliers that treat and pay workers according to international standards, because allowing companies to cheat, exploit workers and commit fraud drives the good companies out of business.

This is not about taking jobs back from Chinese workers! This is about demanding they be paid fairly and given a say in their workplaces! This is about not exploiting people there or here!

Trade can be an upward spiral, rather than a lever for exploitation of the 99% by the 1%. If Chinese workers are given a say and paid fairly then they can buy things we make and we can keep buying things they make.

Unions = Democracy = Middle Class = Shared Prosperity

Jon Stewart explains:

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:42 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 23, 2012

To Get Our Economy Back Hold Cheaters, Fraudsters And Exploiters Accountable

The spiral-to-the-bottom and inequality we are suffering is not an inevitable result of globalization, it is what happens when we don't hold cheaters and exploiters accountable and stop them. This is not just about Wall Street, it is the story of what has happened to our wages and benefits, jobs, factories, companies, industries, economy and democracy in the last 30-or-so years.

Cheaters, Fraudsters and Exploiters

If cheaters and exploiters are not held accountable and fraudsters are not prosecuted, then the advantages this brings them forces honest players out. We're all waiting to see if there is a deal in the works that lets big banksters off the hook for mortgage fraud and other (uninvestigated) crimes, making their shareholders pay fines for them instead. But that story of the 1%'s fraud and cheating and the consequences to the 99% are not what I am writing about here. This post is about how letting 1%er cheaters, fraudsters and exploiters off the hook has hurt America's manufacturing and trade.

Apple Can't Make It Here

Recent news stories about Apple hilight how we allowed our thriving, high-paying manufacturing sector to erode, with the result that our middle class is in decline. Apple used to proudly make their computers in the United States, but now everything is made in Asia. The NY Times' Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, in How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work describe how China's massive government subsidies and exploitation of workers mean “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

The Entire Supply Chain Is Over There

China has done what it needs to do to bring factories, which bring supply chains, which bring industries. The NYT story describes what it means to have an entire supply chain located where the factories are,

When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant’s owners were already constructing a new wing. “This is in case you give us the contract,” the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.

The Chinese plant got the job.

“The entire supply chain is in China now,” said another former high-ranking Apple executive. “You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That’s the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours.”

Subsidies are often a violation of trade rules. Even so, as the article says, "The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory." So, of course, "the Chinese plant got the job." Meanwhile, our own country has resisted having an "industrial policy" to keep our industries and foster new ones. This is finally changing, but good efforts like "Buy American" and President Obama's green energy policies are fought tooth-and-nail.

Exploited Workers

Another key part of China's advantage is the ability to exploit workers and get away with it -- which lets Apple get away with it, too. And when Apple sees violations, it doesn't stop them.

One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

Later in the story,

The first truckloads of cut glass arrived at Foxconn City in the dead of night, according to the former Apple executive. That’s when managers woke thousands of workers, who crawled into their uniforms — white and black shirts for men, red for women — and quickly lined up to assemble, by hand, the phones.

... The company disputed some details of the former Apple executive’s account, and wrote that a midnight shift, such as the one described, was impossible “because we have strict regulations regarding the working hours of our employees based on their designated shifts, and every employee has computerized timecards that would bar them from working at any facility at a time outside of their approved shift.” The company said that all shifts began at either 7 a.m. or 7 p.m., and that employees receive at least 12 hours’ notice of any schedule changes.

Foxconn employees, in interviews, have challenged those assertions.

Apple Audits Its Suppliers, Finds Many Violations

Earlier this month Apple released a report describing the practices of its suppliers. NY Times: Apple Lists Its Suppliers for 1st Time,

Apple said audits revealed that 93 supplier facilities had records indicating that over half of workers exceeded a 60-hour weekly working limit. Apple said 108 facilities did not pay proper overtime as required by law. In 15 facilities, Apple found foreign contract workers who had paid excessive recruitment fees to labor agencies.

And though Apple said it mandated changes at those suppliers, and some showed improvements, in aggregate, many types of lapses remained at general levels that have persisted for years.

William K Black, writing in Apple's Foreign Suppliers Demonstrate Widespread Scamming and Horrific Abuse of Employees at AlterNet, looked at Apple's report. Black writes that the audit of suppliers, "shows that anti-employee control fraud is the norm."

Black says that two things stand out in the report,

First, Apple rarely terminates suppliers for defrauding their employees – even when the frauds endanger the lives and health of the workers and the community – and even where Apple knows that the supplier repeatedly lies to Apple about these fraudulent and lethal practices. Second, it appears unlikely in the extreme that Apple makes criminal referrals on its suppliers even when they commit anti-employee control frauds as a routine practice, even when the frauds endanger the worker’s and the public’s health, and even when the supplier repeatedly lies to Apple about the frauds. Apple’s report, therefore, understates substantially the actual incidence of fraud by the 156 suppliers (accounting for 97% of its payments to suppliers).

As Black wrote, "Apple knows that the supplier repeatedly lies to Apple about these fraudulent and lethal practices" and "...it appears unlikely in the extreme that Apple makes criminal referrals on its suppliers" Apple doesn't stop these violations. They get too much of a competitive advantage out of it.

This Is Fraud

When you buy a product you assume that it is on the shelf at the cost you are asked to pay because laws and regulations were followed and standards were met. So you buy the one that has the right quality at the right price. But what if a product has a low cost as the result of cheating, exploitation and violations of environmental, labor and trade laws? What if there is a lie at the root of the transaction you are engaged in?

China's massive investment in capturing entire industries -- a violation of trade laws -- means that many of the components of the high-tech manufacturing supply chain have migrated out of the US to that country. And China's non-democracy political system means that workers have few, if any rights, and often the rights they have are not enforced. Black says American companies taking advantage of this are engaging in "a form of control fraud (fraud in which the head of a company subverts it for personal gain)."

Anti-employee control frauds most commonly fall into four broad, but not mutually exclusive, categories – illegal work conditions due to violation of safety rules, violation of child labor laws, failure to pay employees’ wages and benefits, and frauds based on goods and loans provided by the employer to the employee that lock the employee into quasi-slavery.

Allowing Fraud Drives Legitimate Businesses Out Of Existence

The key point Black makes is that allowing cheating, fraud and exploitation to continue brings them advantages that drive legitimate businesses out,

George Akerlof, in his famous article on markets for “lemons” (largely describing anti-customer control fraud), explained the perverse “Gresham’s” dynamic in 1970: "[D]ishonest dealings tend to drive honest dealings out of the market. The cost of dishonesty, therefore, lies not only in the amount by which the purchaser is cheated; the cost also must include the loss incurred from driving legitimate business out of existence.”

A Criminogenic Environment

Specifically, what this means to companies that try to compete with companies like Apple,

Anti-employee control fraud creates real economic profits for the firm and can massively increase the controlling officers’ wealth. Honest firm normally cannot compete with anti-employee control frauds, so bad ethics drives good ethics out of the markets. Companies like Apple and its counterparts create this criminogenic environment by selecting least-cost – criminal – suppliers who offer components at prices that honest firms cannot match. Effectively, they hang out a sign – only the fraudulent need apply to be suppliers

When we let companies get away with building products in places that violate trade rules, allow environmental degradation, exploit workers, cut corners on safety, use cheap components and ingredients, these companies get cost advantages that force honest companies out of business. This is the story of our economy. This is why our middle class is engaged in a race to the bottom.

Should Companies Like This Exist In The US?

Robwert Cruickshank puts two and two together, in a must-read post, Thinking Differently About Apple and 21st Century Society. He writes,

In the last year or two, it’s become increasingly clear that the way Apple makes its products is deeply flawed. Working conditions at the factory which makes most of their products – Foxconn in Shenzhen, China – are so appalling that workers engaged in a rash of suicides in 2010 to ameliorate their own suffering. Earlier this year workers threatened mass suicide over pay and working conditions. And of course, there’s the fact that Apple makes these products overseas rather than in the United States, where unemployment remains at some of the highest levels we’ve seen since the Great Depression.

Cruickshank asks if companies with this attitude should be allowed to continue to do business? He writes that Apple has,

...a narrow focus on their products and their profits, and disdain wider concerns for the good of society. When an unnamed Apple executive was asked about their role in addressing America’s economic problems, their response was revealing:

They say Apple’s success has benefited the economy by empowering entrepreneurs and creating jobs at companies like cellular providers and businesses shipping Apple products. And, ultimately, they say curing unemployment is not their job.

“We sell iPhones in over a hundred countries,” a current Apple executive said. “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.”

That quote is perhaps the best encapsulation of the pathologies of the modern American corporation. In fact, Apple does have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Everyone who lives in this country has that obligation. And corporations have that obligation too. If they don’t want to help make things better, then they shouldn’t exist.

Then he gets to the wider point,

The notion that companies exist only to generate profit or build a specific few set of products is corrosive. Those profits and products serve the rest of society. And as a part of that society, companies and their executives exist to make that society a better place. If they are engaged in a set of practices that make society worse off, then those actions are indefensible and need to be changed.

For the last 30 years, American businesses have been devoted to a single-minded pursuit of maximizing short-term profits. Unsurprisingly, this has had profound ripple effects throughout the rest of society. The economy became focused on those profits, and so with it followed politics, culture, and our values as a civilization.

By now it should be clear to everybody that while this works well for the small elite that has hoarded all these profits – the so-called “1%” – it has utterly failed to provide a happy and fulfilled life for everyone else.

Here I quote Cruickshank quoting Black, who is looking at Apple's report of its suppliers, with "overwork and other forms of employment fraud being rampant."

As William K. Black explains at Alternet, this is a good example of what may be a widespread tolerance for fraud in the global economy:

These frauds take place abroad, but they harm employees at home. Mitt Romney explains that Bain had to slash wages and pensions to save firms located in the U.S. who had to meet competition from foreign anti-employee control frauds. The damage from foreign anti-employee control frauds drives the domestic attack on U.S. manufacturing wages. Bad ethics increasingly drive good ethics out of the markets and manufacturing jobs out of the U.S. and into more fraud-friendly nations.

"These Frauds Take Place Abroad But They Harm Employees At Home"

Once again, for emphasis, "these frauds take place abroad, but they harm employees at home."

If we want the downward slide to stop we have to decide to hold the cheaters, exploiters and fraudsters accountable for their actions. At home the efforts by the giant corporations to keep the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from doing their jobs, enforcing the rules and holding them accountable further show how this is affecting us all. Abroad we have to demand enforcement of labor and trade rules so companies like Apple can not gain advantages that put more ethical and honest companies out of business. We certainly should not be letting products made there have cost advantages here and stiff tariffs can fix that. Letting companies get away with this makes democracy a competitive disadvantage.

We have to get mad and hold the cheaters, fraudsters and exploiters accountable.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:43 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 12, 2012

MUST Watch: When Mitt Romney Came To Town

This is the story of what has happened to America since the 80s:

Outsourcing jobs to places where people don't have a say so they can't demand good wages, firing people and making them reapply for their jobs but at half the pay, gutting people's benefits, stripping companies, treating employees like throwaway Kleenex, closing factories, stealing pensions, borrowing and pocketing... Locust capitalism. Chop shops.

MUST WATCH!!

And keep this in mind if people try to tell you that doing what it take to increase the stock price helps everyone:

Also see post above, When Mitt Romney Came To Town -- Who Benefits?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 9, 2012

More Evidence That Appealing To "Center" Is A Losing Strategy

In a May, 2011 post, Appealing To The "Center" Drives Away Voters I wrote that the traditional Democratic campaign strategy of taking positions perceived to be "between" the left and the right not only doesn't appear to work, it actually might be costing Democrats.

The traditional idea, driven by Democratic campaign consultants, is that "independent" voters "swing" between parties. SO you can get them to "swing" your way by taking positions that are not those of the base of your own party, but instead creep over towards those of the other party. I wrote in that May post,

The problem here is the effect the metaphor of a "center" has on our thinking. Thinking about independent voters as being a "block" that is "between" the parties is the problem. It forces the brain into a constraint because of the visual image that it evokes. What I mean is that the actual language of "centrist" changes how we think. The metaphor makes us think they are "between" something called left and right. And as a result it forces certain conclusions.

I said that Karl Rove figured this out, and used this to get Bush to instead "appeal to the base," which increased Republican turnout, while dispirited Dems, tired of their standard-bearers taking wishy-washy positions that give everything away, decided to just stay home. I wrote that Rove has "nailed it,"

Karl Rove believed that there were independents who were not registered Republican because the party was not far enough to the right for them, who would only turn out if the party gave them something to vote for. I think Karl Rove's model is more accurate, that the independent voters are a number of groups, and very large numbers of them are MORE to the left or right than the parties, and don't vote unless the parties appeal enough to them.

Rove decided this means the Republicans need to move ever more to the right, and this will cause those "independent" voters who had changed their affiliation out of disgust with the centrism of their party to now turn out and vote.

Now there is confirmation of this. On NPR's Talk of the Nation today, Clarence Page talked with host Neal Conan about the role of independent voters, saying that we might be surprised to learn that candidates who try to appeal to "independents" tend to lose, because they turn off the voters who closely follow and care about the issues.

Click the Play button below to hear this Talk of the Nation segment:

In fact, candidates that try to "appeal to the center" lose, because this idea of a :center" is a myth. From the transcript:

You know, there is a professor Alan Aramowitz of Emory University, who has been studying this using voting statistics, and he found that the - well, as he put it, in all three of the presidential elections since 1972 that were decided by a margin of less than five points, that the candidate backed by the independents lost.

This was - this surprised me. You know, he's citing here Jimmy Carter in '76, Gerald Ford - sorry, Gerald Ford beat - excuse me, Gerald Ford won the independent vote but lost the election. Put it that way, OK.

Most independents voted for George W. Bush in 2000, but Al Gore got the overall popular vote. As you recall, he got the popular vote but not the state vote.

CONAN: Yeah, but that's fudging your statistics a little bit. The guy who got the independent vote got the big prize.

PAGE: Yeah, but still, though, most of the - the one backed by the independent voters, though, did not get the majority of the popular vote. And in 2004, John Kerry, most independents voted for John Kerry, but he lost the overall election.

What does that mean? What it means is that Karl Rove and others, who have often advocated firing up the base rather than reaching out for independents, they've got a point. In some elections, that works. If you fire up your base, get your vote out, it can be big enough that it will overwhelm the opposition and the independents, because independents also tend to have the least turnout, and they also tend to be the least committed, not just to a party but also to - well, less engaged with the whole campaign.

They are joined by Daron Shaw, who was a campaign strategist for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

SHAW: Well, I think the thing that Clarence pointed out that's worth reiterating is that the distinguishing characteristic of independent voters is they're not that interested, they're not that involved, they're not that engaged with politics. So if you're a political professional and you're dealing with finite resources, and you have to make decisions about where you're going to invest dollars, and where you're going to invest manpower, you know, the idea of reaching out to independents, who may or may not show up, and if they do show up may or may not vote for you, can give you pause.

So you know, it's interesting that there's been this movement in the last two or three election cycles, and as Clarence correctly pointed out, I think Karl Rove is kind of given credit for this, although I don't know if he's, you know, the architect or godfather of it; a lot of people who have moved in this direction.

But the idea of sinking your resources into mobilization, which primarily targets, you know, sort of identifiable partisans and appeals to them, that that's become kind of a staple and maybe even the dominant perspective. And I find it kind of interesting that word out of the White House - and you have to read all these things with a dose of caution - but suggests that they're kind of moving in that direction. That's sort of what their thinking is. And I just find that fascinating.

As I wrote in May:

The way to grow your voting base is NOT to try to "appeal" to some group that is not left or right, but is "between" something called left and right. To get more voters -- especially the "independent" ones who won't identify with a party -- is to take stands, be more committed to progressive positions, and to articulate them more clearly.

See also, Clarence Page: What it means to be an 'independent voter' might surprise you.

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:19 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

My Local Paper - A Typical Day

Reading my local morning paper, I see that it is a typical day...

Front page story about the exponential growth in the crow population since a 1981 measurement, Counting crows: Number of black birds on the rise in Bay Area ('Eden For Crows' in the print edition), can't find an explanation, but doesn't bring up that the climate here is changing. 

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:37 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 6, 2012

Questions For 2012

There are so many unanswered questions and contradictions all around us. But like the families of alcoholics in denial we stay quiet and try not to rock the boat. Here are some questions that need to be asked, and maybe 2012 can be the year we start demanding answers.

1) Who is our economy for, anyway?
2) Why did we invade Iraq?
3) Why haven’t we broken up those too-big banks yet? Instead they just get bigger and more powerful.
3a) How long will we continue to let the banks "extend and pretend?"
4) Why do we still let tobacco companies kill more than 400,000 Americans every year?
4a) Why don't we make tobacco companies pay to clean up all those cigarette butts everywhere?
5) Wouldn't lowering the Social Security age fix a lot of unemployment and help a lot of people?
6) Is moving a factory to a low-wage country really "trade?" Seriously?
7) If our government is supposed to be of, by and for "We, the People," what do conservatives mean by demanding "less government?"
8) How come we never, ever see someone from a union on the big TV networks talking about the benefits of being in a union or how and why to organize one?
9) Since we didn't have big deficits before the Reagan tax cuts, and since the Bush tax cuts didn't create any jobs ... ???
10) Why haven't there been any criminal prosecutions of Wall Street banksters? (OK, some people are starting to ask that one a lot.)

So Many More

There are so many more questions like those. I guess that's enough for now. We as a country have to start asking questions again and demanding answers. Hey, that reminds me:

11) When will our mainstream "journalists" start asking questions and demanding answers again, instead of just saying things like "both sides do it" and "if one side says the earth is flat and the other side says it is round, that means that the earth must be oval-shaped"?

Wall Street got bailouts, the rich got tax cuts, people got job loss and wage cuts and longer hours, protests got crackdowns and it's getting too obvious to ignore. It's time to stop ignoring things and do something about them.

Please, ask your questions in the comments, and then take them out in public and ask them and keep asking them until you get answers. It's your right to ask, and your right to demand answers.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:19 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 24, 2011

What Next In The Fight Over Who Our Economy Is For?

Who is our economy for, anyway? In the United States We, the People are supposedly in charge and our country and economy are supposed to be managed for the public good. But that isn't how things have been working out, is it?

Let's take a quick look at America over the last few decades.

We used to have a social contract. We invested in top-notch infrastructure (like the interstate highway system) and education (the best universities and research), and then tax the resulting gains at very high rates, to recirculate those gains for the benefit of all of us.

Broken Social Contract

Then the contract was broken. Starting in the 1970s a cabal of wealthy businessmen and conservative ideologues organized and funded an attack on We, the People government, manipulating public opinion and our political system, gutting the regulations and trade rules that protected us and our way of life, privatizing -- selling off things We, the People own -- and killing the tax-and-invest cycle so they could keep the gains from all of that prior investment for themselves.

Blanket Of Propaganda

To provide cover for the operation these agents of the 1% spread a thick blanket of propaganda, using every technique in the modern marketing book. They divided us by race, religion, gender, sexual preference, even pitting people who like quiche and lattes against those who like beer and sausage. To cripple potential opposition they infiltrated and fractured key institutions, and turned the public against the news media. They developed a professional career-path system that rewards those who play along with the corruption and destruction and punishes those who do not. To cripple dissent they used ridicule, shame and intimidation.

Destructive Choices Come Home To Roost

Since then things have steadily fallen apart. The infrastructure is crumbling. Unemployment is extreme. The country has very high debt. The trade deficit is extreme. Half of us are poor or nearly poor. Inequality is at the highest levels.

Bailouts For The 1%, Sell-Outs For The 99%

When things hit the fan it became clear that our country is no longer run for the good of We, the People. When it came down to it, a few got special treatment, the rest of us got ... uh, less-than-special-treatment. (And weren't even kissed.)

When the financial crisis occurred Congress was told they literally had only hours to come up with hundreds of billions to bail out the too-big-to-fail banks, and they did - with almost no conditions. We know now that the Federal Reserve also stepped up, providing trillions to the big banks, even hundreds of millions to bankers' spouses! State and local governments, institutions and smaller businesses? The unemployed and millions facing foreclosure? Not so much.

Plutocracy Not Democracy

They provided assistance for the giant financial institutions of the 1%. Instead of providing assistance to the 99& -- We, the People -- our government instead cut the things We, the People do for each other. It was made clear that this country is now a plutocracy, not a democracy.

System Of Control Breaking Down

It is clear where we are. But it is also clear that the system of control is breaking down. The elections of 2006 and 2008 shook the foundations. Democracy tried to reassert control. The behind-the-scenes system of lobbyists writing legislation that passes under cover of "studies" from corporate-front think tanks, telling us this is for our own good, propelled by a flurry of corporate-funded op-eds, stopped working. After the bailouts for banks / sell out for the rest of us, people started figuring things out. In response the 5-4 Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United decision, flooding the system with corporate money.

Instead of stealth takeover masked by propaganda we now see blatant grabs of wealth and raw power poorly disguised. Now the control is in our faces every day. Even constant filibusters of acts that might help We, the People were no longer enough to keep a lid on. So now it is shutdowns, hostage-taking, refusal to follow laws, refusal to prosecute, threats to take down the government and/or the economy. Now more visible methods of suppression are in use -- batons, tasers and pepper spray.

Waking Up

Everyone has been frustrated, discouraged, betrayed, scared and angry but without a focus for action. Then came the Occupy movement, people actually showing up and showing how! It resonated. People responded, and the conversation of the country was pulled out of the propaganda fog, at least for a while.

Stephen Lerner, interviewed by Sarah Jaffe for AlterNet, discusses where we go from here, saying, "[I]t's an exciting feeling to see something a lot of people spent a lifetime hoping for --this kind of dramatic increase in activity that targets financial capital, those who really control the country." On Occupy Wall Street, Lerner says,

Everybody knows they're getting zapped by banks, and what's so good about Occupy is that it's put that front and center. The fact that they were in Wall Street, I think everybody forgets. It was not Occupy a park somewhere, it was the fact that it was in the middle of the financial district. And I think on an intuitive level, people all over the political spectrum understand that those guys are at the center of how the economy is organized in a way that doesn't work for most people.

On Wall Street's position in our economy,

I don't think people are mad at somebody who invented a product or founded a company. It's that people see that Wall Street is not productive. Their wealth and their riches, they do not come through any normal means -- they come through cheating and gambling and ripping us off, which I think troubles us in a different kind of way.

On today,

I don't think anybody should view a sort of holiday or winter lull in activity as a sign of anything. As people have said, movements ebb and flow, and whenever we look back, spring is the time that things take off again. It's really important that people not say “Oh, everything was front page news and now it's not.” People instead should be stepping back, saying, “In three months we did more than anybody imagined we could do, now it's time to step back and figure out the next stage.”

What Next?

Now comes the long slog of organizing people into focused action to take back our country from the 1%. Van Jones has been laying the groundwork, joining with MoveOn.org and other organizations to organize the Rebuild the Dream movement, and its Contract for the American Dream. Please visit and get involved.

Here is Van Jones at Netroots Nation, talking about the American Dream movement:

Organized labor is fighting, too, with new tactics and getting more people involved. They are focusing on labor's role in creating a middle class in America. The recent Take Back the Capitol demonstrations are a case in point. In conjunction with many local and national organizations SEIU brought unemployed people to the DC to occupy the offices of 99 legislators, asking for jobs programs and extensions of unemployment benefits. They also marched on "K Street" - the symbolic center of lobbying activity.

Here is AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, Take Back the American Dream conference in October, calling for "a massive, militant movement":

Trumka told the audience that the right wing is “banking on an upside-down America for its path to political power.” Trumka said that now is the time for “a mighty movement for jobs and a just economy," adding, "We won't stop fighting, shoving and kicking until everyone is back at work."

Here is Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, talking about labor support for Occupy Wall street, and holding Wall Street accountable:

Here is Communication Workers of America President Larry Cohen discussing the fight for the middle class on The Ed Show.

See the pics in this post, showing labor's involvement at the November 2 Occupy Oakland actions:

Up To Us

What happens next is up to us. Don't be discouraged. "The people, united, will never be defeated."

THIS is what democracy looks like. Here are Wisconsin protesters chanting: "Tell me what democracy looks like. THIS is what democracy looks like!"

For those of us who can't get enough, here is 13 minutes of THIS is what democracy looks like!

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:36 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

December 21, 2011

For 2012 Let's Restore Our "Industrial Commons"

David Brancaccio's Marketplace story Tuesday, Decline of Kodak offers lessons for U.S. business traced the decline of Kodak and the loss of Rochester, NY's good, middle-class jobs to Kodak's failure to tend its "industrial commons." This is a national problem. For 2012 let's resolve to restore our industrial commons and bring manufacturing back to the U.S.

Kodak on Marketplace

Listen to Tuesday's Marketplace story, Decline of Kodak offers lessons for U.S. business.

Click to listen.

Story summary: Kodak didn't tend its "industrial commons," the local concentration of expertise in making the things that go into a camera.

You make your money by selling cameras. And you now needed to make components. You needed to make lenses; you needed to make shutters -- all kinds of things that the skills for which no longer existed in Rochester.

This is what we have done in our country, too. We have been dismantling our "industrial commons." By sending manufacturing out of the country we have been taking apart the supply chains and abandoning the expertise and skills and culture that go with it.

Other Warnings

Last year former Intel CEO Andy Grove sounded a warning about this problem. In How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late. Grove wrote that we are not just losing jobs to China, we are losing the "chain of experience" that enables new companies and industries to form and to create new jobs and argues for a national economic strategy to preserve our manufacturing and technology base. He lays out a plan: "rebuild our industrial commons,"

The first task is to rebuild our industrial commons. We should develop a system of financial incentives: Levy an extra tax on the product of offshored labor. (If the result is a trade war, treat it like other wars—fight to win.) Keep that money separate. Deposit it in the coffers of what we might call the Scaling Bank of the U.S. and make these sums available to companies that will scale their American operations. Such a system would be a daily reminder that while pursuing our company goals, all of us in business have a responsibility to maintain the industrial base on which we depend and the society whose adaptability—and stability—we may have taken for granted.

We Gave It Away

Many American manufacturers made a deal with China to lower their manufacturing costs. Here is how it worked: Americans (used to) have a say in how this country was run, and said they want good wages, benefits, job safety, clean air, etc. These are the fruits of democracy, but to some they are an impediment to quick profits. So executives at the big multinational companies wanted a way around the borders of democracy and its demands, and pushed for "trade" deals that would let them move manufacturing to places where people had no say, in order to force American unions to make concessions. They got their deals and packed up our factories, moved them to places like China and then brought the manufactured goods back here to sell.

We lost 50,000 factories to China just in the 'W' Bush years, and our trade deficit soared, and now we as a country are paying the price. Making (and growing) things is how a country earns its living. It is how we bring in the income with which to buy things others make and grow. Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers said it clearly,

"You don’t create real wealth by flipping coupons or hamburgers, you create it by taking real things and turning them into things of value. And those things of value are turned into other things of value and all of a sudden you have a wind turbine with thousands of parts made here. You can’t have a clean economy without good jobs and can’t have good jobs without a clean economy."

We just gave it away, and justified the loss by saying that better things will replace it. The result has been ever-increasing trade deficits that brought us a huge debt that makes us poorer. Our debt is not because of government spending, it is because we have given away our ability to make a loving!

An Ideology To Justify

In the process the 1%'ers who did this to us developed an ideology around hating America and democracy. To justify outsourcing our jobs and factories they said Americans had grown lazy and wanted handouts. They said that the huge profits reaped by a few from selling off our manufacturing infrastructure meant they were "producers" and that democracy was "statism" and "collectivism" that enabled the "parasites" to "steal" from them. They declared that "taxes are theft" that "punish" the "successful" and the "job creators." They stopped funding infrastructure and education and law enforcement, denegrating these as "government spending," and declared that the wealthy few have a "right to rise" and saying the rest of us are "imbeciles."

They moved our "industrial commons" out of the country, closing the factories and thereby dismantling the supply chains and the "chain of experience" that enable us to innovate and compete. They let China capture the lead in emerging green manufacturing technologies that will bring millions of jobs and trillions of dollars. They even let China extort proprietary technologies, in exchange for short-term profits.

They rode the tiger and now the tiger is coming back to bite us.

Riding The Tiger

Richard Eskow reminded me of an old Chinese saying, "He who rides the tiger cannot dismount." American manufacturers rode the Chinese tiger to short-term profits, and now they cannot dismount. They "partnered" with China to get around the borders of democracy and the good wages and benefits democracy demands. But now the tiger wants more. The tiger wants to eat them up.

Riding the tiger: Forbes: Currency Manipulation is NOT the Biggest Chinese Threat,

China’s hidden threats are a multi-headed info-tech “Hydra,” the parts of which are interrelated:

• Intellectual property rights violations (or lack of enforcement in China) allowing open theft of proprietary designs, etc.
• Theft of private-sector technology (which has been going on for years) accelerating Chinese development cycles
• Growing number of cyber-attacks, accessing highly confidential US government information, costing the US private sector billions of dollars in IT disruption.
• Growing military/technology stolen secrets (e.g., stealth fighter plane designs, acquisition of downed stealth-helicopter parts from the bin Laden attack, electronic technology & software from US companies in China, etc.)

Riding the tiger: NYT: Chinese Rules Said to Threaten Proprietary Information,

China is expected to issue regulations on Saturday requiring technology companies to disclose proprietary information like data-encryption keys and underlying software code to sell a range of security-related digital technology products to government agencies, American industry officials said on Friday.

Riding the tiger: Fiscal Times: Stealing America: China’s Busy Cyber-Spies,

Economic and industrial spying by China appears to be more pervasive and egregious than ever, costing America billions of dollars each year, according to a new report by a U.S. government agency. And the report raises an important question: If stolen trade and technology secrets help fuel China’s breakneck growth, then is more espionage required to feed the growing beast?

The Chamber of Commerce rides the tiger: WSJ today: China Hackers Hit U.S. Chamber: Attacks Breached Computer System of Business-Lobbying Group; Emails Stolen,

A group of hackers in China breached the computer defenses of America's top business-lobbying group and gained access to everything stored on its systems, including information about its three million members, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The break-in at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the boldest known infiltrations in what has become a regular confrontation between U.S. companies and Chinese hackers.

They rode the tiger. But now the tiger wants more. The tiger wants to eat them up.

Let's Resolve To Rebuild American Manufacturing

Let's resolve to rebuild American manufacturing, starting in 2012. Manufacturing is the backbone of a prosperous economy. Let's resolve to bring back good jobs that pay good wages and unpin a middle-class lifestyle. Let's resolve to balance trade with the rest of the world so we can fight our debt problems. Let's resolve to start fighting to win the lead in the Green manufacturing revolution.

Don't let the "free traders" exploit workers in countries where they do not have a say to force concessions from Americans in unions. Don't let the oil and coal companies create false "scandals" like Solyndra to block government from investing in green alternatives. Don't let the 1% make democracy a competitive disadvantage -- democracy is the only economics that works!

Last week President Obama appointed Commerce Secretary John Bryson and National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling to co-chair a new White House Office of Manufacturing Policy. The new Office of Manufacturing Policy will have cabinet-level status, reflecting the importance of the manufacturing sector to our economy. It will coordinate the efforts of different government agencies, such as the Small Business Administration, the Department of Commerce and the Transportation Department.

This is a positive step if there ever was one. Let's resolve to develop and execute a national manufacturing strategy. (please click through)

It is time to restore our national "industrial commons."

Frank Sobatka explains:

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:37 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 16, 2011

Who Protects Info You Give To Offshored Call Centers?

Companies are always looking for ways to reduce the number of people they employ, and for ways to reduce the pay and benefits for the ones they keep. One way they have been doing this is to send jobs out of the country to places where the people don't have the protections of democracy. Then they come back here and threaten the rest of us with losing our jobs, too, if we don't give in. We have to find ways to restore the protections of democracy.

We are all familiar with "offshoring." This is the process of packing up a factory or office, and moving what it does outside of the US to places where people are paid less -- usually because they don't have any say in how their country is run (a.k.a. democracy). Then the company brings the same products or services back to the US and calls that "trade." Allowing this to happen makes democracy a competitive disadvantage.

One (more) job that has been offshored is call centers. We call to place an order or to get customer service, etc., and the person we talk to is in another country and we can't understand them. This is frustrating, but it is even more frustrating when you think that this is one more job that someone here used to do.

Earlier this week I wrote about a new bill called The U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act that would help bring call-center jobs back to the US. In Call-Center Bill Would Let Customers Ask To Talk To Americans, I explained,

Today many call-center jobs are being moved out of the country to India and the Philippines. This costs American jobs, and can be very frustrating to consumers who have to speak to people who they cannot understand because of language problems or cultural differences. The The U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act gives consumers the right to ask where the person they are speaking with is based, and ask for an American-based representative instead.

Not JUST Jobs Lost -- Data Privacy Is Lost, Too

A new study by the Communication Workers of America backs up the need for that bill. The report is called, Why Shipping Call Center Jobs Overseas Hurts Us Back Home. The study found that offshoring call-centers undoes protection of Americans’ private information. Personal data can be available to people who could use it for criminal purposes. Also, once information is sent across borders governments do not need warrants to collect this info.

From the press release, CWA Study Exposes Overseas Call Center Issues That Threaten American Consumers’ Personal Information,

The Communications Workers of America today released a sobering report detailing the linkage between the off-shoring of call center jobs and a range of serious negative effects on U.S. consumers and job seekers, including placing consumers’ personal information at risk.

… Key findings of the report include:

When a U.S. customer’s financial information is sent overseas, it loses the protections of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. As long as an individual’s data is not specifically “targeted,” the data can be collected and analyzed by U.S. federal agencies without a warrant.

The documented security hazards are in addition to the damage caused to individuals and communities in the United States by the movement of local call center jobs overseas, off-shoring that often comes after taxpayer-funded dollars and other incentives are heaped upon the corporation.

As of this year, the Philippines surpassed India as the top destination for U.S. companies off-shoring call center jobs. American companies also have opened call centers in countries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China and Mexico.

Americans’ personal data also is at risk in foreign call centers in the relative difficulty in providing background checks on employees. Many foreign nations do not maintain central criminal databases and do not have standard identifiers such as the U.S. Social Security number. As a result, proper background checks are expensive, with one estimate putting the cost at up to $1,000 per employee.

This is one more way that offshoring is hurting us. By sending call-center jobs out of the country we are sending the data we give to those call centers out of the country and outside of the protection of our laws. So this call-center bill, named The U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act (H.R.3596) is important to us. It is bipartisan, introduced by Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) and Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.). Call your own member of Congress and let them know that you support this.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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December 8, 2011

99% March On K Street To Take Back The Capitol From The 1%

I am in DC covering the Take Back the Capitol "99 in DC" events. On Tuesday I wrote about the efforts of unemployed people and others to get in to talk to their senators and representatives. (Watch some of them tell their stories.) On Wednesday they marched to “K Street” – the symbolic ground zero of the corporate takeover of our democracy. But first…

When I was waiting to get on the plane to come here the jetway was backed up. Now that the airlines are charging $25 just to check a bag, everyone brings their bags on and tries to cram them into the limited on-plane carry-on space. But of course, the airlines aren't paying the flight attendants more because of the extra work this causes. So this guy come pushing his way down the left side, shouting, “First class, out of the way, first class, let me through,” because he missed boarding first, and he was entitled to already be on the airplane and not have to wait in the line like the rest of us.

The rest of us are supposed to walk past the already-seated, first class passengers, eyeing their large, comfortable seats, while they sip their champagne mimosas, and look important and ... rich. We're supposed to envy them, and hope to eventually be among them. But until then we are supposed to be grateful that they "create jobs" and allow us to serve them. This is America today.

Why Occupy?

Outrages like this been getting worse and worse, and have reached a breaking point, with many of us unemployed -- because actually, the rich don't "create jobs, WE do! So the rest of us -- the 99% -- have been getting mad about things like this for a long time, and are finally starting to show it, now that things have gotten so bad. Across the country people are "occupying" places and ideas that have been taken over by the 1%. They are letting themselves get angry about the things that have been happening, the change from democracy to plutocracy, the way the big corporations and Wall Street now make the rules while they don't themselves have to follow the rules.

Not only has our Congress come under the control of the 1%, they have done very little to help the 99% through this crisis that was caused by the 1%. This Congress -- the first since the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court -- has done nothing to create jobs while doing a lot to kill jobs, and worse, at the end of this year extended unemployment benefits run out and 2 million people will lose their entire income.

Take Back The Capitol

So this week Take Back the Capitol brought unemployed people and others to Washington to confront their members of Congress and the lobbyists on "K Street" that they work for, to demand a change. Today they marched on K Street, the center of lobbying activity. CAF intern Sean McMartin was observing and writes,

On December 7, 2011, a date 70 years after Pearl Harbor, another piece of history was made. Supporters of the American Dream Movement and several other organizations from all over the country marched from the National Mall up to K Street in Washington. They came to protest their outrage with the rich, corporations, and the special interests, many of which have lobbyists with offices on "K Street." They shouted they were the 99% of the country, who have not fared well over past few years with high unemployment and stagnated wages.

Just before noon the people from the Take Back the Capitol came to the intersection of 16th and K Street, which became the epicenter of the protest. Occupy DC, which happened to be camped only a block away, saw what was happening and came out of their tents to join the protest. Then a group came marching from the west, too, as Occupy DC came from the east. The coordination was something to see in real time and represented several groups coming together from all over the place.

The police had to use their cars to block off a perimeter for the protest that involved 14th Street to 17th Street and I Street to L Street. Even policemen on horses,not seen often in Washington, were used as a show of force. There was no violence from what I could see, but a good old protest where people come together to show their outrage with the status quo.

Pedestrians going to lunch stepped out of their offices to witness history in the making. They took out their cameras and smartphones to record history as it happened and some even shouted their support for the movement.

After 1 pm city workers and police ordered the protestors onto the sidewalks and of the streets. The protestors slowly but surely followed and cleared the streets as were told.

Politico reported:

Wednesday morning, protesters organized by the ADM swarmed the headquarters of major corporations and financial institutions including Verizon, General Electric, Capitol Tax Partners, the American Bankers Association and the financial lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford.

A labor organizer said the protesters targeted corporations and lobbying groups representing companies that have paid more in executive compensation and lobbying in recent years than they’ve paid in taxes, citing a recent study by Public Campaign.

Hundreds of protesters from around the country converged on Verizon’s headquarters, chanting slogans like, “whose street — our street” and “shame on Verizon, pay your fair share.” Verizon employees and building staff looked on from the building lobby as protesters swarmed by.

Protesters also marched around the front of the American Bankers Association, where extra security had been put in place to prevent outsiders from getting into the building.

About 20 protesters were in the lobby of the Capitol Tax Partners’ building for a brief time, according to a source in the building.

Also on Wednesday, activists aligned with the Occupy D.C. movement based in McPherson Square marched to protest the Podesta Group, one of the city’s most powerful lobby shops, which has close ties to the Obama administration.

Here is a collection of photos and videos from the action at K Street (click through for videos)::

Click here to tell House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: Stop sabotaging the economy. Quit obstructing extensions of the payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment insurance.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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November 17, 2011

Big Day Of Action Around The Country

A government that says corporate money is “speech” dispatches lines of police to stop actual human-being citizens from actually speaking out. It's all right there in front of us: Wall Street got bailouts, the rich got tax cuts, corporations got to buy elections, people got job loss and home loss and pension loss and health care loss, protests got crackdowns.

(All pics are from twitter streams, clickable for larger, hover over them for descriptions.)

This is a BIG day of action in cities and towns all across the country. Here is a mid-day roundup of just some -- just some -- of what is going on. Click here to see a map of the hundreds of planned actions across the country. The scope and scale of this is just amazing, and is not at all being conveyed in the media.

Wall Street: Chanting “You’re sexy, you’re cute, now take off those riot suits,” demonstrators marched on the New York Stock Exchange. Retired police captain Ray Lewis was arrested holding a sign that read "NYPD Don't Be Wall Street Mercenaries."

A tweet: @digby56digby
RT @OccupyWallSt: Some bankers are holding signs that say, "get a job." Unemployment is at 10% and they're smug in suits. #N17 #OWS

At a Portland, Oregon bridge:

Los Angeles: AP: LA protesters march in financial district,

Los Angeles police have begun to arrest about 20 people sitting in an intersection at a rally by Occupy Wall Street sympathizers in the downtown financial district.

Hundreds of people marched Thursday before the small group linked arms around several tents and awaited arrest.

Iowa City:

Dallas: Reuters: Occupy Dallas protesters evicted, more than a dozen arrested,

More than a dozen people were arrested on Thursday morning in Dallas when police on horseback and in riot gear evicted Occupy Dallas protesters from a site near City Hall where they have been camping for the past six weeks.

There was no violence. Dallas city officials put the number of people arrested at 18, while Occupy Dallas officials said 17 were arrested.

Duluth:

Binghamton:

Detroit: Huffington Post: Occupy Detroit Joins Nov. 17 Day Of Action

Occupy Detroit protesters on Thursday were set to join nationwide protests on the two-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement's initial encampment in New York City.

... The group's day of action comes the morning after Detroit Mayor Dave bing announced the need for significant austerity measures to avoid an even greater financial crisis in the city. In a Wednesday night address, the mayor called for a further 10 percent wage cut for city workers and an increase in worker contributions to health care coverage. Bing city police and firefighters should give the same concessions.

Albany: WGRZ: Occupy Buffalo Joins Demonstrations in Albany, NYC

About 250 protesters gathered Thursday at the Occupy Albany demonstration near the state Capitol, where activists planned to present their grievances to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office.

Buses from Buffalo, Rochester and other Occupy Wall Street encampments from around the state delivered the protesters to downtown Lafayette Park. Members of public employee unions have joined the Occupy Albany protesters.

A bridge in Montana:

Denver: ABC7: Occupy Denver Joins 'Day Of Action',

The first rally at noon will be at the Denver Municipal Building at 201 West Colfax Ave. The building is across the street from Civic Center Park where the Occupy Denver protesters have been camped out.

The second rally will be held at the Greek Amphitheatre at 6 p.m. in Civic Center Park.

Occupy Denver said the 6 p.m. rally will be a "General Assembly meeting" where they will discuss the Occupy movement as a whole and how the group feels they should progress over the coming months.

Houston: Houston occupiers join worldwide day of action,

“Occupy Houston stands in solidarity with those Occupy movements who have recently come under attack, including Occupy Oakland, Occupy Wall Street and now, Occupy Dallas,” spokesman Dustin Phipps said in a statement. “We continue to assert our right to occupy public space and conduct our first amendment right to peaceably assemble.”

One Occupy protester was arrested earlier this week during an argument with police over tarps the group placed over electronic equipment in Tranquility Park, an ongoing point of contention between the protesters and City Hall.

Columbia:

Boston:

NY Daily News: Occupy Wall St. spreads across the United States has pictures from around the country (not necessarily today) including Minneapolis, Miami, Providence, New Orleans, Lincoln, Seattle, Anchorage, Montgomery, Cincinnati, Burlington, Salt Lake City, Little Rock, Jackson, Ashland, Richmond, Hartford, Casper, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Tulsa, St. Louis, Boise, Honolulu, Salem, Austin and others.

Don't forget San Francisco, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Oakland/Berkeley, Philadelphia, Muncie, Davenport, Lexington, ...

Around The World, Too

London, Sydney, Toronto, Rome and Tokyo ... Is this pic really Tokyo?

Occupy Colleges

National Student Strike

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:46 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

November 15, 2011

Government Shutdowns Get The 1% What They Want

A while back I was writing about the Republican threat of a government-wide shutdown, and the two-week Federal Aviation Administration shutdown (and Delta Airlines' anti-union role in that). The shutdown threat was used to force the government to give even more favors and bucks to the 1% and even less to We, the People.

Guess what? The shutdown threats are back.

Last Time

Earlier this year, and then again in September, the Republicans threatened to block the budget from passing and to just let the government shut down. In exchange for allowing the government to continue to operate they wanted favors for the 1% and their corporations, including gutting environmental regulations, gutting healthcare (especially women's healthcare), and generally gutting the things We, the People do for each other.

They largely got their way. They even shut down the FAA, stopping construction projects in an attempt to gut union organizing. Four thousand FAA workers and about 90,000 construction workers were laid off, and the shutdown cost the government about $30 million a day.

Which Was Which?

The Republican threat of shutting down the government is not to be confused with the debt-ceiling hostage-taking debacle that was engineered by Republicans.

The debt-ceiling hostage-taking involved Republicans threatening to let the government default on its obligations, sending the world's economy into a tailspin, unless We, the People dramatically roll back the things we do for each other. They got their way, resulting in big cuts plus the "super committee" of the 1% that is currently working on cutting things for the 99%. (The secretive committee is actually talking about cutting Medicare and cutting top tax rates, and calling it "pro-growth.")

FAA And Labor

In August Republicans shut down the FAA for two weeks, with Republicans trying to get in an anti-union rule. A temporary FAA reauthorization is currently funded only until the end of January. Last week Rep. John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, predicted that the FAA “reauthorization” bill would be done, passed and signed by Christmas.

But the anti-labor provision is still in the bill.

Former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said the fights over funding bills like this could "make a grown man cry." According to The Hill, "We're working on the 20th-plus extension" of the FAA bill, Mineta said during an interview with The Hill. "That's something we really have to get resolved, and [with] a long-term bill."

The Game Is Squeeze-The-Rubes

Here is how the squeeze-the-rubes game is played.

First, cut taxes for the rich. To accomplish this, call it "pro-growth," make the claim that these cuts will "boost the economy" for the rubes, "bring them jobs," or basically whatever they need to hear that week to get them to go along. Then borrow a ton of money to make up for the lost revenue, because when the debt comes due you have serious leverage.

Meanwhile, cut government, cut back on education for the rubes, health care for the rubes -- they don't need it, what are they going to do with educations and health, anyway? Cut regulation. Cut enforcement. And, most of all, do what you can to hamstring labor because organized labor is the one remaining force in the country that has some power, and is working to maintain the middle class. because with a strong middle class, government is able to pay down the debt, so there is no cover for all the cuts.

Then, to speed things up, boost the government's spending on the things that increase your wealth and power. The big one is military. Find something to scare the rubes, watch them run and hide and squeal and let you crank up the military budget, give yourselves no-bid contracts, lucrative consulting contracts, even send pallets of cash to be disbursed to you and your friends.

And, by the way, tax subsidies for your oil and finance companies will drain the treasury pretty fast, too.

Then, when the bill comes due, that's when the hammer comes down. That's when you spring the trap. That's when you can have real fun. You've got them where you want them, and you can go to work. Scare the bejeezus out of them with stories of insolvency, poverty, whatever it takes to make them fear the debt. And then crank up the demands.

Congress Plays Along

Members of Congress see this game of squeeze-the-rubes for what it is, and get what they can for themselves, too. Rep. Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, led the two-week FAA shutdown over that anti-union rule. (See The Hostage-Taking Just Keeps Coming - This Time The FAA Shuts Down, Think Default Threat Is A Yawn? The FAA Is Still Shut Down and Delta's Greed Helps Shut Down The FAA)

Well, according to the Florida Independent, Mica, just months after being involved in the temporary shutdown over “spending” on the FAA was bragging about an FAA grant awarded to his district. Mica said he worked for a provision in that bill to keep unions from being able to organize “said he had used his vote as a ‘bargaining tool’ to gain the support of Senate Democrats” for the grant to his own district.

P.S. Take a look at where Rep. Mica gets the money to run his campaigns.

How The Game Is Played

Watch Jack Abramoff explain in a 60 Minutes segment how it works Once the member of Congress or staffer thinks they might get a lobbying job from you,

ABRAMOFF: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, “You know, when you’re done working on the Hill, we’d very much like you to consider coming to work for us.” Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to ‘em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they’re gonna do. And not only that, they’re gonna think of things we can’t think of to do.

Perks, Too

Are airlines giving perks to members of Congress and staffers, as they prepare to vote on more favors for the 1%, possible shutdowns of government for the rest of us, even the FAA reauthorization? From Roll Call, Being in Congress Has Perks,

Most major airlines have phones lines dedicated to customers on Capitol Hill, aides and lobbyists told Roll Call. To accommodate their unpredictable travel schedules, Members are allowed to reserve seats on multiple flights but pay only for the one they board.

A spokesman for Delta confirmed the airline has a Congressional call desk and allows members to double-book flights. United Continental Holdings Inc., US Airways and American Airlines, all of which are rumored to have similar practices, did not return Roll Call’s request for comment.

“We get on every single flight,” said one Capitol Hill aide familiar with process. “Every offices uses it. ... The scheduler uses it for Members and chiefs of staff who fly.”

The perks have long raised the ire of consumer advocates. “They are treated completely differently from the time they book their ticket until the time they land at the airport,” said Kate Hanni, director of Flyers Rights, an airline passenger advocacy organization.

Short Run Good For 1%, Long Run Bad For 99%

In the short run this game yields great riches to a few. In the long run, of course, getting rid of government defunds infrastructure and education so the economy eventually slows to a crawl. Pitting the parts of the citizenry against each other breeds social chaos, maybe even violence.

What do they care, when they can just hop in their own jots and fly to their own private islands?

Government is us: We, the People. Our government of the people, by the people and for the people exists to reign in the1% and act as a counterweight to the power of their wealth and their huge corporations. That is why We, the People formed our government, to counter the corrupt controlling power of the British King and his aristocracy. That is why we enabled organized labor. That is why we have regulations. That is why we have access to courts to sue giant corporations. It is about one-person-one-vote democracy, not one-dollar-one-vote plutocracy.

What You Can Do

Tell Delta: Stop The Union Busting,

Delta Air Lines is holding billions of dollars in funding for crucial FAA projects hostage by insisting that Congress pass new, undemocratic rules for airline workers trying to organize a union. Delta wants union elections to count workers who don't take part as voting "No"--an absurd demand that would undermine the entire system of majority-rule voting.

The rules are under debate now, Delta's powerful allies in Congress are holding up a long-term solution by continuing to insist on the new election rule.

Without a long-term reauthorization bill, job-creating airport infrastructure projects and critical security improvements are on hold. And we run the risk of another FAA shutdown at the end of the year.

Thursday National Day Of Action

Many organizations are calling for a national day of action Thursday Nov. 17, with various events around the country.

Follow the Twitter hashtag #N17 for info.

Occupy Wall Street, on Thursday's Day Of Action

Interfaith Worker Justice: National Days of Action Against Wage Theft

Check out this We Are The 99% event Thursday,

We're starting to get the 1% to pay attention. But this system's still rigged against us: Wall Street is still making billions and taking our homes, and Congress can't pass a jobs bill. To amplify the economic emergency, we're making Thursday, November 17, a massive day of action to show "We Are The 99%.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:01 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 14, 2011

Egypt-Style Attacks On Several Occupy Camps

When Egyptians stood up to Mubarak they were met with tear gas and clubs. Once upon a time American had freedom of assembly, speech and protest. Even now, as long as protests don't take on the 1%, they are OK. But in today's America-for-the-1% protests, assemblies and speech against plutocatic, 1% rule are met with tear gas and police batons to the head.

Occupy Movement camps around the country follow strict practices of nonviolence and democracy. As with any diverse community of people, there are troublemakers who take advantage of loose organization and predators who prey on others. This is why we have police departments in every city and town. But plutocratic government response is to discourage the Occupy Movement, so government services are denied these citizens. Instead of helpfully serving communities, the frown of disapproving authority is cast upon their activities.

Disgust and fear are powerful propaganda tools, and there has been a remarkable "soften up public opinion" media drumbeat using repeated accusations of bugs, thugs, drugs, muggings, disease, rats, filth, and other disgust and fear-invoking imagery. (Perhaps worst of all in the "shame them" index, even beards and general non-consumerism and non-conformity are described!) So with the ground prepared and the way paved for police actions, Occupy camps in Portland, Oakland, Chapel Hill, St. Louis, Albany, Salt Lake City, Burlington, San Francisco, Denver and other cities were raided over the weekend.

"The 1% And Its Government Facilitators"

Of course in one form or another Occupy actions will continue as long as the 1% continues its extreme shock-doctrine power and wealth grab. There are still scores of other Occupy actions taking place in cities around the country and world.

In Oakland the mayor's legal advisor posted on Facebook that he has resigned over Monday's police raid of Occupy Oakland.

His Facebook post: "No longer Mayor Quan's legal adviser. Resigned at 2 am. Support Occupy Oakland, not the 1% and its government facilitators."

Report From Oakland

AlterNet's Joshua Holland reports on the police action in Oakland, in Thousands of Riot Cops Descend on Occupy Oakland, 32 Arrested,

It's the explosions and large volume of gunshots that made these actions excessive. The generous use of flash-bang grenades, tear gas and “less lethal” rounds deployed by police in heavy black body armor felt more like the opening scene to Saving Private Ryan than footage of, say, protests against the Vietnam War being broken up by helmeted police swinging batons. While the weapons deployed by police are designed not to kill or maim (if used properly), the visceral sensation of walking through streets dodging explosions and chemical agents while rounds crackle in the air creates an effect similar to that of actual combat – abject terror, disorientation and a sense of unease that lingers for days.

Roundups And Videos

RT has a roundup of of some of these actions, Occupy camps under attack across America

Here is an AP video roundup of some of these actions:

Here is CNN footage of various actions around the country:

Here is footage from an early Occupy event:

What You Can Do

Attend at least one Occupy event.

You may have heard about the "Occupy" protests that are occurring in cities around the country. They aren't what you are hearing. Please come to one and see for yourself. If you are young, old, white, black, brown, poor, rich, left, right, centrist, even Tea Party you will find people just like you. You might agree, you might disagree, you might love it, you might hate it, but you owe it to yourself to come and see for yourself.

A lot of people feel frustration with the huge and increasing gap between the rich and the poor and the effect this is having on our country, culture, politics and the way we relate to each other as Americans. It seems like everything in the country is now geared toward the top 1%, and the rest of us are divided and supposed to keep quiet and accept this. Somehow the Occupy movement started at just the right time, when just the right number of people were fed up with the way things are going and the lack of solutions coming from our political leaders. It grew quickly, because people were tired of keeping quiet while our government seems to operate only for the benefit of the top few and expects the rest of us to sacrifice to pay for that.

This all brings us a chance to restore democracy not just in our communities, but within ourselves. By attending and participating, we are exercising the "muscles" of democracy, of speaking up and being part of something. The thing is, you won’t just see it, you’ll feel it. You'll feel what it is like to have so many people around you who agree with you. You'll feel what it is like to be part of something important.

How To Find One Near You

The "Occupy" movement has now been going on for just over six weeks, and has spread to hundreds of towns across the country. You can probably find one near you. Start at Occupy Together which is at http://www.occupytogether.org/. Take a look at the page where they show you what is happening in your area, using a map. Also, try typing 'Occupy' and the name of your town into Google just to see what pops up.

Also see them on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/occupyeverywhere, and http://www.facebook.com/Gilded.Age . Also visit the Rebuild the Dream movement, and, of course, MoveOn.org.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:34 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 9, 2011

Mic Check

In a democracy
     In a democracy
The 99 percent
     The 99 percent
Count just as much
     Count just as much
As the top few
     As the top few

In a democracy
     In a democracy
It’s one person one vote
     It’s one person one vote
And it’s not
     And it’s not
One dollar one vote
     One dollar one vote

In a democracy
     In a democracy
Big corporations
     Big corporations
Don’t get
     Don’t get
To write the laws
     To write the laws

In a democracy
     In a democracy
We the People
     We the People
Are the ones
     Are the ones
Who make the rules
     Who make the rules

In a democracy
     In a democracy
We have rule of law
     We have rule of law
And the rich
     And the rich
Aren’t above the law
     Aren’t above the law

Tell me what democracy looks like
     This is what democracy looks like
Tell me what democracy looks like
     This is what democracy looks like

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:49 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 4, 2011

Occupy's Asshole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie

A guest post by Sara Robinson

I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they're not. In fact, they're problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.

As a veteran of those days -- with the scars to prove it -- watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, racists, and anarchists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn't think we were allowed to say "no" to. It's heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call "the asshole problem." In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks -- things that it's high time somebody said right out loud.

1. Let's be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms. #Occupy may be a DIY movement -- but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we're obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they're able to meet that standard.

2. It is OK to draw boundaries between those who are clearly working toward our goals, and those who are clearly not. Or, as an earlier generation of change agents put it: "You're either on the bus, or off the bus." Are you here to change the way this country operates, and willing to sacrifice some of your almighty personal freedom to do that? Great. You're with us, and you're welcome here. Are you here on your own trip and expecting the rest of us to put up with you? In that case, you are emphatically NOT on our side, and you are not welcome in our space.

Anybody who feels the need to put their own personal crap ahead of the health and future of the movement is (at least for that moment) an asshole, and does not belong in Occupied space. Period. This can be a very hard idea for people in an inclusive movement to accept -- we really want to have all voices heard. But the principles #Occupy stands for must always take precedence over any individual's divine right to be an asshole, or the assholes will take over. Which brings me to....

3. The consensus model has a fatal flaw, which is this: It's very easy for power to devolve to the people who are willing to throw the biggest tantrums. When some a drama king or queen starts holding the process hostage for their own reasons, congratulations! You've got a new asshole! (See #2.) You must guard against this constantly, or consensus government becomes completely impossible.

4. Once you've accepted the right of the group to set boundaries around people's behavior, and exclude those who put their personal "rights" ahead of the group's mission and goals, the next question becomes: How do we deal with chronic assholes?

This is the problem Occupy's leaders are very visibly struggling with now. I've been a part of asshole-infested groups in the long-ago past that had very good luck with a whole-group restorative justice process. In this process, the full group (or some very large subset of it that's been empowered to speak for the whole) confronts the troublemaker directly. The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it's like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.

This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual "we" statements that reflect the observations of the group. "We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave."

When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic assholes is they're usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up -- always with "I" messages. "I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We're all worried about the cops here, and we think you're putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave." Every statement needs to end with that demand -- "We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back." No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.

These interventions can go on for a LONG time. You have to be committed to stay in the process, possibly for a few hours until the offender needs a pee break or gets hungry. But eventually, if everybody stays put, the person will have no option but to accept that a very large group of people do not want him or her there. Even truly committed assholes will get the message that they've crossed the line into unacceptable behavior when they're faced with several dozen determined people confronting them all at once.

Given the time this takes, it's tempting to cut corners by confronting several people all at once. Don't do it. Confronting more than two people at a time creates a diffusion-of-responsibility effect: the troublemakers tell themselves that they just got caught up in a dragnet; the problem is those other people, not me. The one who talks the most will get most of the heat; the others will tend to slip by (though the experience may cause them to reconsider their behavior or leave as well).

This process also leaves open the hope that the person will really, truly get that their behavior is Not OK, and agree to change it. When this happens, be sure to negotiate specific changes, boundaries, rules, and consequences ("if we see you using drugs here again, we will call the police. There will be no second warning"), and then reach a consensus agreement that allows them to stay. On the other hand: if the person turns violent and gets out of control, then the question is settled, and their choice is made. You now have a legitimate reason to call the cops to haul them away. And the cops will likely respect you more for maintaining law and order.

Clearing out a huge number of these folks can be a massive time suck, at least for the few days it will take to weed out the worst ones and get good at it. It might make sense to create a large committee whose job it is to gather information, build cases against offenders, and conduct these meetings.

And finally:

5. It is not wrong for you to set boundaries this way. You will get shit for this. "But...but...it looks a whole lot like a Maoist purge unit!" No. There is nothing totalitarian about asking people who join your revolution to act in ways that support the goals of that revolution. And the Constitution guarantees your right of free association -- which includes the right to exclude people who aren't on the bus, and who are wasting the group's limited time and energy rather than maximizing it. After all: you're not sending these people to re-education camps, or doing anything else that damages them. You're just getting them out of the park, and out of your hair. You're eliminating distractions, which in turn effectively amplifies the voices and efforts of everyone else around you. And, in the process, you're also modeling a new kind of justice that sanctions people's behavior without sanctioning their being -- while also carving out safe space in which the true potential of Occupy can flourish.

Posted by Guest at 12:56 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

October 31, 2011

Why You Should Attend An Occupy Meeting

Please forward this to friends, relatives, "centrists" and conservatives you know. You may have heard about the "Occupy" protests that are occurring in cities around the country. They aren't what you are hearing. Please come to one and see for yourself. If you are young, old, white, black, brown, poor, rich, left, right, centrist, even Tea Party you will find people just like you. You might agree, you might disagree, you might love it, you might hate it, but you owe it to yourself to come and see for yourself.

A lot of people feel frustration with the huge and increasing gap between the rich and the poor and the effect this is having on our country, culture, politics and the way we relate to each other as Americans. It seems like everything in the country is now geared toward the top 1%, and the rest of us are divided and supposed to keep quiet and accept this. Somehow the Occupy movement started at just the right time, when just the right number of people were fed up with the way things are going and the lack of solutions coming from our political leaders. It grew quickly, because people were tired of keeping quiet while our government seems to operate only for the benefit of the top few and expects the rest of us to sacrifice to pay for that.

This all brings us a chance to restore democracy not just in our communities, but within ourselves. By attending and participating, we are exercising the "muscles" of democracy, of speaking up and being part of something. The thing is, you won’t just see it, you’ll feel it. You'll feel what it is like to have so many people around you who agree with you. You'll feel what it is like to be part of something important.

How To Find One Near You

The "Occupy" movement has now been going on for just over six weeks, and has spread to hundreds of towns across the country. You can probably find one near you. Start at Occupy Together which is at http://www.occupytogether.org/. Take a look at the page where they show you what is happening in your area, using a map. Also, try typing 'Occupy' and the name of your town into Google just to see what pops up.

Also see them on Facebook, at http://www.facebook.com/occupyeverywhere, and http://www.facebook.com/Gilded.Age . Also visit the Rebuild the Dream movement, and, of course, MoveOn.org.

So now that you know where one is, come on down, and see for yourself. If you need a ride ask your niece or your aunt. If your aunt needs a ride, give her a ride.

What To Expect

Warning, there might be some people with beards, and God forbid, drum circles.

People are out there speaking for themselves, and learning how to be citizens again, instead of just consumers. This will have a lot of interesting outcomes, most of them good, some of them won't work out. But it will be people who want to be involved again.

Depending on your community, there will likely be a turnout of some people with signs and leaflets, maybe some people set up with tables to do things like register people to vote, organizations with literature, groups that know each other, people who don't know each other standing around, etc. There will be a diversity people people.

These events are self-organizing, no one is "running" these events, but volunteers will be helping to organize them. The character of the event completely depends on who shows up, who volunteers to help run it, and how much the people speak up. So it's up to you to do your part.

See the website How To Occupy and the Field Manual wiki.

Occupy events have a "General Assembly" meeting once or twice every day. In New York the meeting is at 7pm. At the recent Redwood City, CA Occupy event it was at about 6pm. As I said above, volunteers run things, which means that after you get to know the ropes you might want to volunteer.

From the Occupy Wall Street website:

The occupations around the world are being organized using a non-binding consensus based collective decision making tool known as a "people's assembly". To learn more about how to use this process to organize your local community to fight back against social injustice, please read this quick guide on group dynamics in people's assemblies.

These meetings are the heart of the movement. Please come attend one, even if it is just to watch. You'll feel what it is like to be say what is on your mind. (And you'll feel what it is like to sit there while so many other people say what is on their minds. ;-) Don't worry, it works, and people keep comments short.) This is what democracy looks like.

Occupy Redwood City

Friday I attended Occupy Redwood City (California), and took some pictures. It was the first Redwood City event, maybe 50 people showed up, and the General Assembly lasted a couple of hours. They'll meet again next Friday, and probably should expect a lot more people now that it is up and in operation and people are telling each other about it. If 50 people doesn't seem like a lot, this is not a huge city, and there are more than a hundred events like it going on, some with thousands of people turning out.

Scary, no? Especially the guy (me) with the little white dog. Was that a beard? Of, that first one is a short video, click here in case it doesn't work in this post.

Don't Let Them Scare You Away

Speaking of being scary: There will not be violence. This is a non-violent movement. The media outlets, talk show hosts, columnists, etc. that tell you there is violence are trying to keep you from showing up. They are trying to scare you. When they send large numbers of police to shoot tear gas into these events, it is an attempt to intimidate people, not just there but people who are thinking of showing up.

Another way they are trying to keep people from showing up is with humiliation. This is a remarkably effective technique. Make people ashamed to show up, tell them they will be laughed at, or shunned, and people will stay away. They tell you the "protesters" are "dirty," even "urine-soaked." They tell you they are "hippies" and thinkthis will make you ashamed to show up and speak your mind.

This is about what speech is "permissible" and what is not. The corporate-conservatives on the Supreme Court say that corporations are people who “speak” and can use all of their money to swamp our elections. But when people show up to complain about the 1% running everything, they are met with force. The big banks can crash the economy and commit crimes and are offered modest “settlements,” but when people show up to complain they are beaten, maced, tear-gassed and arrested.

Don’t let them make you feel scared or ashamed to stand up for your rights.

Show Up & See For Yourself

If you want democracy you have to fight for democracy. You have to stand up for your rights or they will go away. Please visit at least on Occupy event in your area, and see for yourself.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:54 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 27, 2011

Plutocratic Government Tries To Beat Down #Occupy

In Oakland peaceful #Occupy demonstrators were camping out in front of city hall. The city launched a police raid to clear out the camp, using tear gas, flash-bank grenades, rubber bullets and beating people with batons. An Iraq war vet was hit in the head by either a rubber bullet or tear gas canister and critically injured. These days this is the typical government response to non-Tea-Party "protesters." Let's look at how the Occupiers and protests would be treated if we were a functioning democracy -- a government of by and for We, the People -- instead of a dysfunctional plutocracy serving the biggest corporations and the billionaires behind them.

Citizens?

The first thing to understand about every single person involved in the #occupy movement is that they are citizens and human beings. Even the ones with beards. Alas, even the drummers. (What do you call a drummer who breaks up with his girlfriend? Homeless. What do you call a drummer with half a brain? Gifted.)

The people involved in the #occupy movement are upset that our country has abandoned democracy in favor of plutocracy. They are upset that every decision made in Washington is based on the wishes of the top 1%. They are upset that we do not have a reasonable health care system, no reasonable pension system, or child care system, or other benefits that people in democracies around the world receive. They are upset that most of the benefits of our economy instead go to a very few at the top. They are upset that a huge amount of our money goes to pay for a military machines that costs more than all other countries spend on military combined. They are upset that there is a "Super Committee" meeting in secret to decide how much money to take out of the economy to pay for the bailouts and other costs of the fiasco caused by Wall Street and the big banks.

So with their government ignoring their majority demands they have finally decided to voice their protests publicly. For doing this they have been met with smears, derision, and police attacks.

Police Ordered To Attack

Just as in countries like Syria, Egypt, Libya and Iran, the instinctive response of our plutocratic government and Wall Street-backed power structures has been to see those people who have shown up at these protests as somehow suspect, possibly even as an enemy, and to attack them. FOX News and the entire corporate/conservative media machine regularly attacks them. And the police are ordered to attack them.

This is not "protesters vs police." People who work in law enforcement are part of the 99%, just like us. They have families to feed, bills to pay, and have to do what they're told.

Source: http://twitpic.com/6s2g4a

And this is what they were ordered to do, to people who were exercising their legitimate rights:

American citizens were treated as criminals and attacked just for speaking out about the injustice of Wall Street getting a huge bailout after they caused this mess, and now the rest of us are told to sacrifice to pay for it.

John Stewart on The Daily Show reacts to the Oakland attack:

If We Were A Democracy Instead Of A Plutocracy

The occupy movement clashes with federal, state and local governments the way they currently work. We really have an opportunity here to come back to an understanding of democracy and the role of government, and who government should serve. Currently government is really set up to serve the top few, and facilitate bigger businesses, and understands the people in their communities as consumers and corporate employees, and not as citizens.

So imagine how it cold be different, if we had a government designed to serve the people rather than keep them in their place. In a country with a true democratic culture the local governments would be serving these people and honoring their right to dissent and protest. They would instinctively be showing up at protests like this and offering to help with any sanitation problems, etc, setting up public toilets, and other services. They would even be offering tents. If there are security problems in the occupy camps a city would be posting police in the encampment to help the people there, with a clear mission to serve them. They certainly would not be seeing them as the enemy, and attacking them.

Imagine Real Democracy and its Implications

The #occupy movement opens up the space to imagine what the country could be if we really did have a democracy with a first instinct of serving the people, instead of serving only the wealthy and their big corporations.

Imagine a government of, by and for the people and the things that regular people want and need. Imagine everyone entitled to a free education through college? Imagine a transportation system that helps us all get around -- mass transit and high-speed rail systems instead of just roads and highways for those who can afford cars, with plutocratic pay lanes so those with more money can get around.

Imagine a people outraged at special passes through airport security for those with first-class tickets.

Imagine advertisers having to get people's permission before they are allowed to interrupt their attention. Imagine the things we would have if We, the People were in charge.

Imagine a modern, maintained infrastructure, good schools, and a guarantee of a job working on those for any9one who needed work.

Imagine a government that enforced laws even when the top few violated them, enforced job discrimination laws, enforced anti-trust laws... or a government that protected citizens from corporate fraud, fees, scams, etc.

Occupiers Are People Too

These occupiers are "the people' just as much as any other people in the community and government should exist to serve them just as much as any other group.

Alas, even the drummers.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 26, 2011

People Distrust Government -- Conservative Mission Accomplished

The corporate/conservative plan for decades has been to turn people against government and democracy. Because when people stop accepting the idea of We, the People making decisions, guess who gets to make the decisions instead? Last month a retiring GOP staffer explained how it works, this month a new poll show how well it works.

Distrust

NY Times today: New Poll Finds a Deep Distrust of Government,

Not only do 89 percent of Americans say they distrust government to do the right thing, but 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track and 84 percent disapprove of Congress — warnings for Democrats and Republicans alike.

... A remarkable sense of pessimism and skepticism was apparent in question after question in the survey, which found that Congressional approval has reached a new low at 9 percent.

The Gameplan

At the beginning of September a Republican Senate staffer retired, and wrote a widely-read "confession" that laid bare the conservative gameplan: turn people against government and democracy. In Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult, retiring Republican Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren wrote,

Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

[. . .] A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

Please read the whole piece. This Republican, writing from the inside, explains that they are doing it on purpose. They are making the government dysfunctional on purpose. They are making people hate government on purpose. They are working to turn people against democracy and put themselves and their corporate sponsors in power in its place.

#occupy Brings Signs Of Hope

There are signs of hope in the poll. Even with a dearth of media coverage (compare to the well-funded, billionaire-backed Tea Party!!!) the #occupywallstreet movement has changed the national conversation. From the NYTimes article,

Almost half of the public thinks the sentiment at the root of the Occupy movement generally reflects the views of most Americans.

With nearly all Americans remaining fearful that the economy is stagnating or deteriorating further, two-thirds of the public said that wealth should be distributed more evenly in the country. Seven in 10 Americans think the policies of Congressional Republicans favor the rich. Two-thirds object to tax cuts for corporations and a similar number prefer increasing income taxes on millionaires.

[. . .] With the nation’s unemployment rate at 9.1 percent, income inequality remains a palpable issue for Americans. Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats, two-thirds of independents and just over one-third of all Republicans say that the distribution of wealth in the country should be more equitable, even as a majority of Republicans said they think it is fair.

There is hope. The public is not stupid, and can at least sense what is going on.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:08 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 15, 2011

Connect The Dots

Looks really good: Connect The Dots For Democracy, Connect The Dots USA

In the confusion of today’s 24/7 spin machine, doesn’t it often seem like the “Flat Earth Society” gets equal or more time than the “Round Earth Society”? And, left unchallenged by journalists, people are free to just pick their own facts?

The goal of these visual, easy-to-understand presentations is to help regular, busy folks like yourself understand the issues and what is happening with our political process. Then we can start to connect the dots to get our policies to work for the benefit of most Americans again.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:47 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 7, 2011

Washington Ignored The People, And Now You’ve Got #Occupy

What did the politicians in Washington think would happen? They forgot about the "We, the People" part of our Constitution. After bailing out the banks and bankers and interests of the top 1% they fiddled while our jobs burned and mortgages defaulted. With people losing their incomes, pensions and healthcare they worried about deficits instead of jobs and cut back on essential services. They smugly spouted slogans at us and thought we'd be fooled and pacified. People voted for change and they didn't get change. And now people are in the streets.

Part of the fiddling was by plan, Republicans obstructing efforts to create jobs and help the economy hoping this will give them an edge in the next election. Part of it was an attempt at "bipartisanship," trying to accommodate the ultrapartisans who only wanted to to advance their obstructionist agenda, thusly deprioritizing the needs of the people. Whatever -- change did not happen.

One Spark Could Bring Trouble

The problem with big groups of angry people is that it is very difficult to maintain control. This sudden enthusiastic energy of people taking to the streets to voice their anger at Wall Street and Washington is growing fast and there is really very little to control and channel it. Large groups of people concentrated into crowds can become mobs all too quickly. One cop-with-baton too many and it could turn into something no one wants. Or one too-clever Wall Street type, hiring agent-provocateurs to start violence, thinking it will "discredit" the movement... (Yes, nonsense like this happens and never works out the way the strategerizers hope.)

Look what happened in England, with terrible riots. Did it happen as a result of the austerity - putting the top 1% ahead of regular people? Maybe, maybe not. But the tensions in England, where they still have a good safety net and everyone has health care, were certainly not greater than they are here.

Do not take the people for granted. Do not think you can engineer a population with slogans and ignore solutions. And when they take to the streets to express their unhappiness do not ignore them or think you can finesse things. It shouldn't have gotten to this point. People have had it, they are fed up, and they are telling the leadership that they have to remember just who is supposed to be in charge here.

The New Left Pole

So the "incoherent" street occupiers and marchers represent the new left poll of the spectrum. Suddenly groups like Campaign for America's Future, labor unions, MoveOn.org, and especially the coalition making up the Rebuild The Dream Movement now represent the center. More importantly, they represent a controlled, organized path to sensible solutions that give the people what they need.

The Path Forward

There is a path forward that has been clearly defined by the responsible organizers and members of Congress who have been trying to push the political system to respond to the needs and demands of We, the People. Start by passing the President's jobs bill. Then pass The People's Budget. Take a look at CAF's "Big Ideas" for a bold jobs agenda.

It's time to get moving, and finally get to work on the side of We, the People. That is how it is supposed to work here.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:51 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 1, 2011

Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution

A video about Occupy Wall Street

(The reason people repeat what the spokesperson is saying is to relay what they say back into the crowd.)

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:46 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 22, 2011

Conservatives Say It Out Loud: They Hate Democracy

The roots of today's toxic conservative movement lie in Ayn Rand's teaching that wealthy "producers -- now called "job creators" -- should be left alone by the government, namely the rest of us. The rest of us are "freeloaders," "moochers," "leeches" and "parasites" who feed off these producers and who shouldn't be allowed to make decisions to collect taxes from them or regulate them or interfere in most other ways. The Randians hate democracy, and say so, declaring that "collectivism" sacrifices individual rights to majority wishes. (See Concern Over Republican Embrace Of The Ayn Rand Poison.)

For decades these selfish, childish, "you can't make me" beliefs stayed largely below the radar, because conservatives understood that voicing them in public risked alienating ... well, anyone with any sense at all. But for various reasons sense has departed the country and conservatives are finally saying it out loud, for everyone to hear: they hate democracy. They want to limit the country's decision-making and the rewards of our society and economy to those they feel "deserve" to be on top, namely the "producers" and "job-creators."

Writing in Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American conservative columnist Matthew Vadum reflects these views, writing that democracy is "like handing out burglary tools to criminals." He writes,

It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.

A decade before the Motor-Voter law that required states to register voters at welfare offices was enacted, NAACP official Joe Madison explained the political economy of voter registration drives. "When people are standing in line to get cheese and butter or unemployment compensation, you don't have to tell them how to vote," said Madison, now a radio talk show host in Washington, D.C. "They know how to vote."

Vadum echoes the Randian ideology that we should be government by the "producer" supermen, and the parasites (the rest of us) should have no say in this, calling it communism:

Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor. It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money. It's about raw so-called social justice. It's about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers.

Registering the unproductive to vote is an idea that was heavily promoted by the small-c communists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, as I write in my new book, Subversion Inc.: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.

Thom Hartmann talks on his TV show with Vadum about this:

In response, conservative outlets like FOX News have been giving Vadum a platform to repeat his views to large numbers of people:

Other Conservatives Weigh In

Vadum's perspective are not unique in conservative circles. Rush Limbaugh has questioned on the air whether poor people should be allowed to vote. Judson Phillips, president of Tea Party Nation thinks voting should be limited to those who "own property."

Other conservatives are also on the record as opposing democracy. Walter Williams, in Democracy Versus Liberty, writes, "I find democracy and majority rule a contemptible form of government." He echoes the old "taxes are theft" line, writing, "Laws do not represent reason. They represent force."

Pat Buchanan picks up the baton and mocks democracy, calling it a "childlike faith," and laments the downfall of a corrupt tyrant, in The Democracy Worshipers,

...Hosni Mubarak, though a ruthless ruler, had been our man in Cairo since the assassination of Anwar Sadat, fighting alongside us in the Gulf War, keeping the peace with Israel, allying with us in the war on terror.

But as soon as the tide turned against him, we ditched him and cheered on the crowd in Tahrir Square, a few of whom celebrated the downfall of despotism with a sexual mauling of Lara Logan.

Some Good Points

Earlier this year, writing at the Cato Institute, Senior Fellow Steve H. Hanke offers a more nuanced view of democracy's failings, in, On Democracy Versus Liberty Mr. Hanke makes very good points about the tendencies of the public to be steered toward bad decisions by panic during crisis. "The result is that crises acted as a ratchet, shifting the trend line of government size and scope up to a higher level." Later, he equates the power of organized wealth (Cato's funders, anyone???) to influence lawmakers with the problems of majority rule! He uses examples including farmers continuing to receive subsidies long after the depression ended, and the Bush-era expansion of government in response to 9/11.

But Hanke fails to see that it is not democracy that causes these distortions, but the failure of our system to keep the power of concentrated wealth from shouting down the collected wisdom of the people. It is the suppression of democracy that causes the very problems Henke attributes to democracy.

Republican War On Voting

Today in several states Republicans are making it harder to vote. In The Next Voting Rights Movement Must Start Now, CAF's Isaiah J. Poole warns,

In state after state, new hurdles, such as voter ID laws, are being constructed to the right to vote that will especially trip up low-income people, students, rural residents and seniors. They disproportionately affect many of the groups who helped put Barack Obama in the White House in 2008 and who are in the vanguard of opposition to right-wing economic policies today. This disenfranchisement is largely happening below the radar of a populace and a national media preoccupied with the poor state of the economy and with the series of attacks by governors on public employee unions.

Ari Berman, in The GOP War on Voting at Rolling Stone,

As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots.

. . . In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

All told, a dozen states have approved new obstacles to voting. Kansas and Alabama now require would-be voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering. Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters. Maine repealed Election Day voter registration, which had been on the books since 1973. Five states – Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia – cut short their early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters. And six states controlled by Republican governors and legislatures – Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin – will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before casting ballots. More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such identification, and the numbers are even higher among constituencies that traditionally lean Democratic – including 18 percent of young voters and 25 percent of African-Americans.

Taken together, such measures could significantly dampen the Democratic turnout next year – perhaps enough to shift the outcome in favor of the GOP.

In Taking Back The Vote, CAF's Terrance Heath writes about the Republican war on voting,

If tea party conservatives have their way, the right to vote will revert back to a privilege — and one enjoyed by far fewer people. It's easy to dismiss media motormouths like Ann Coulter, when she says that women should not have the right to vote, because too many of them vote Democratic (single women, anyway). But it's a mistake to shrug off someone like Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips, who thinks it would be a good idea to put "certain restrictions on the right to vote," like restricting voting to property owners.

Phillips' claim is reminiscent of Republican attempts to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the 2008 election in states like Michigan and Ohio. When right-wing pundits like Matthew Vadum (author of the ACORN "exposé" Subversion, Inc.) and Rush Limbaugh say that the poor shouldn't have the right to vote, they're expressing the same sentiment. It's a manifestation of the conservative concern that too many of the "wrong people" have too much of a voice in politics, and too few of the "right people" have any. That's what Paul Weyrich meant when he said to a group of evangelical activists in 1980: "I don't want everybody to vote. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

Undermining Democracy On Purpose

We are not dealing with the Republican Party we used to know. This is not even George W. Bush's Republican party anymore. In Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult, retiring Republican Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren writes,

Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

[. . .] A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

Please read that again, and then read the whole piece. This is a Republican writing, from the inside. They are doing it on purpose. They are making the government dysfunctional on purpose. They are making people hate government on purpose. They are working to turn people against democracy and put themselves in power in its place.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:13 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 24, 2011

Republicans Afraid Of Town Halls, Order Police To Seize People's Cameras

Through Digby's Hullabaloo watch what happens when a citizen tries to document what a Republican Congressman is saying:

Now go read Digby's post.

These people are not fooling around. They do not like accountability, transparency or democracy. Not at all.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:32 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 23, 2011

Rich Guy "Deeply Resents" Helping Pay For Democracy

Hey here's a real dog bites man story for you: a really, really rich guy says to readers of billionaire Murdoch's Wall Street Journal that he "deeply resents" paying taxes and whines about how the government does things he doesn't like. This in response to Warren Buffet's call to ask billionaires to at least pay as much in taxes as their secretaries. Seriously, it wasn't in The Onion.

Let's set the stage. Thanks to the "trickle down" policies of Reagan and Bush all the income gains in recent decades have gone to the top few. One in seven Americans and 25% of our children now live in poverty. (43% of our children are "at risk.") The average family income for "the bottom" 90% of us is $31,244, while the average income of the top .01% is over $27 MILLION. Per year, each year. The average income of the richest 400 Americans was $227.4 million -- and those 400 hold more wealth than the "bottom" 50% of Americans combined. Etc., etc. (I don't have to write about how many are unemployed, do it?)

So with those statistics as background, former American Express CEO Harvey Golub wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, responding to Warren Buffet’s call for the rich to start paying taxes again.

Mr. Golub writes,

I deeply resent that President Obama has decided that I don't need all the money I've not paid in taxes over the years, or that I should leave less for my children and grandchildren and give more to him to spend as he thinks fit.

... After all, I did earn it.

Now there's attitude! Never mind that someone who reached the high position of CEO of America Express doesn't even seem to understand the system well enough to know that the President doesn't spend tax dollars "as he thinks fit." In American We, the People (used to) decide how best to spend our tax dollars, for the benefit of We, the People.

Golub gets to the heart of his complaint, government services like post offices where "no one lives":

Governments have an obligation to spend our tax money on programs that work. They fail at this fundamental task. Do we really need dozens of retraining programs with no measure of performance or results? Do we really need to spend money on solar panels, windmills and battery-operated cars when we have ample energy supplies in this country? Do we really need all the regulations that put an estimated $2 trillion burden on our economy by raising the price of things we buy? Do we really need subsidies for domestic sugar farmers and ethanol producers?

Why do we require that public projects pay above-market labor costs? Why do we spend billions on trains that no one will ride? Why do we keep post offices open in places no one lives? Why do we subsidize small airports in communities close to larger ones? Why do we pay government workers above-market rates and outlandish benefits? Do we really need an energy department or an education department at all?

Summing Up His Complaint: Democracy

He complains about the inefficiency of providing services for rural citizens because no one who conts in his eyes would live out there. He complains about efforts to help workers displaced by pro-corporate trade policies. He complains about efforts to fight the harm caused by pollution-for-profit. He complains about paying people good wages with benefits. To sum up his complaint in one word: democracy.

Above I set the stage for Golub's complaint: millions unemployed, in poverty, wages stagnant... Contrast the situation so many of us find ourselves in with the lifestyle if the beneficiaries of the dominant conservative "trickle down" policies. Just imagine the lifestyle of Golub and the rest of the wealthiest few today. Private jets, multiple mansions, servants... (This might help your imagination: Nine Pictures Of The Extreme Income/Wealth Gap.) Did you know that the latest trend is to send your kids to summer camp in private jets?

Now, even as the economy limps along, more of the nation’s wealthier families are cutting out the car ride and chartering planes to fly to summer camps. One private jet broker, Todd Rome of Blue Star Jets, said his summer-camp business had jumped 30 percent over the last year.

... “We have 50 to 60 jets up here in just that one day,” Mr. Kilmer said. “It’s a madhouse because they all leave at the same time, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.”

Extreme Inequality Makes Even The Rich Resentful

They say that extreme inequality causes even the very rich to feel poor. They look upwards and feel inferior. They don't look down; We, the People are literally invisible and meaningless in their lives. They look up and see vast extremes, and feel like they are missing out. And they feel resentful.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:34 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 20, 2011

Town Hall Pressure Is Working

You aren't hearing about it on the news, but people are SHOWING UP at the local town halls put on by their members of Congress. And they are speaking up. And it is working.

See David Dayen's Invisible Town Hall Revolution Continues to Roll, With Real Impact on GOP | FDL News Desk.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:37 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 9, 2011

Contract For The American Dream And The Emergency Jobs Bill

Rebuild The Dream

As I wrote earlier in Ten Years Ago We Were Paying Off The Nation's Debt. But Then We Elected Obama., the The American Dream Movement is rolling out their Contract for the American Dream. The Tea-Party-fascinated press is largely ignoring this, but this movement represents the majority of the public, and can't be ignored for long.

Today on a call with bloggers and the press to announce the The American Dream Movement Van Jones described the movement's origins. He has been traveling around the country giving talks and talking to people, and found that it seemed that the American people had smarter solutions to our problems than our politicians seemed to. So he helped set up an "open source" process to gather ideas from regular people. 131,203 participated, held 3,600 house meeting, and came up with 29,000 ideas. These ideas have been distilled down to the ten most popular ideas, which are now the Contract for the American Dream.

No Help From FOX News

Unlike the Tea Party, they had "no help from FOX TV or the billionaire Koch brothers." And unlike the Tea Party, which began with much smaller numbers, the American Dream movement is getting almost no press attention.

The Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act

Rep. Jan Schakowsky was on the call to talk about her upcoming Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act. She said this legislation reflects the spirit of the Contract for the American Dream. She said we have a jobs crisis, a disappearing-middle-class crisis, a disparity-in-income crisis. America is not broke, the top 100 make $27 million per household. This disparity means we have a shrinking and disappearing middle class.

She said that Washington is about cuts that will make jobs situation worse, and the economy worse. We have to grow our way out, there really is no other choice, and that means put people back to work so they become taxpayers.

The Emergency Jobs To Restore The American Dream Act creates 2.2 million jobs for 2 years to put the economy back on track. These are jobs for teachers, firefighters, cops, health care providers, maintenance, construction, and jobs for youth in parks improvement and other things.

This is paid for by her Fairness in Taxation Act, with new tax brackets 45% income over 1 million, 49% over a billion. This will generate about $800 billion over 10 years. This is not punishment or revenge, it is fairness. To have a robust economy Have to have a robust middle class, and care about our elders.. We have to make sure youth can go to college.

The Same People Who Led Us Off A Cliff

Economist Dean Baker was next on the call. He said it is amazing as an economist to follow what’s going on here. He couldn’t envision that after the collapse we would have the same people determining the policy agenda who just led us off a cliff.

Our huge deficits are the result of the economy collapse, now that is turned on its head that it is government spending, by people who don’t know the facts or just are not being honest. We have a big deficit because the economy collapsed, to fix it we get the economy going again. It is simple to show and in fact that is the history. To get the deficits down, get people working. We have 25 million un- or under-employed, if we don’t get them employed they fall out of the labor force, may never work again, politicians should be taking that very seriously. This has to be front and center and all polls show it is what is on people’s minds.

Will Serious People Take The People Seriously?

Justin Ruben of MoveOn.org was next on the call. He said that serious people in DC won’t take this plan seriously.
It represents 5 million MoveOn members and majority of the American people, and a majority of economists say this plan makes sense. None of this is seriously being talked about in Washington right now and that needs to change.

We already have a Tea Party downgrade and Tea Party recession and the government is about to enact even more economy-slowing cuts on the middle class. So people are wondering what DC is thinking. This is what is fueling the rise of the American Dream movement.

This movement began with people standing up to the attacks in Wisconsin. It is about people fighting back. We will take this contract into the streets in August, to Congressional town halls, and if they won’t do town halls we’ll find them wherever they are. We are going to make sure our elected officials in Washington hear that the American people want jobs not cuts, want everyone to pay their fair share, and want to get the economy moving again.

The American people are not giving up on the American dream.

America Can Be Great Again

Jeff Parcher of the Center for Community Change said they are joining this movement to raise the voices of low income people into the policy debates that affect them. They are going to address joblessness, poverty and material deprivation and change the conversation in Washington.

We have a revenue problem, by rectifying that America can be great again.

In Every Laundromat, Barbershop, Etc, People Will Agree

Van Jones then summed up: They have organized in every congressional district. This has been growing since Madison. The network, movement, has organized in every district in record time. They can take any one of those 10 points in the Contract for the American Dream, and because of such broad participation, we can take this into every laundromat, barbershop, etc, and people will agree.

The Contract for the American Dream

The Preamble to the Contract for the American Dream

We, the American people, promise to defend and advance a simple ideal: liberty and justice . . . for all. Americans who are willing to work hard and play by the rules should be able to find a decent job, get a good home in a strong community, retire with dignity, and give their kids a better life. Every one of us – rich, poor, or in-between, regardless of skin color or birthplace, no matter their sexual orientation or gender – has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That is our covenant, our compact, our contract with one another. It is a promise we can fulfill – but only by working together.

Today, the American Dream is under threat. Our veterans are coming home to few jobs and little hope on the home front. Our young people are graduating off a cliff, burdened by heavy debt, into the worst job market in half a century. The big banks that American taxpayers bailed out won’t cut homeowners a break. Our firefighters, nurses, cops, and teachers – America’s everyday heroes – are being thrown out onto the street. We believe:

AMERICA IS NOT BROKE
America is rich – still the wealthiest nation ever. But too many at the top are grabbing the gains. No person or corporation should be allowed to take from America while giving little or nothing back. The super-rich who got tax breaks and bailouts should now pay full taxes – and help create jobs here, not overseas. Those who do well in America should do well by America.

AMERICANS NEED JOBS, NOT CUTS
Many of our best workers are sitting idle while the work of rebuilding America goes undone. Together, we must rebuild our country, reinvest in our people and jump-start the industries of the future. Millions of jobless Americans would love the opportunity to become working, tax-paying members of their communities again. We have a jobs crisis, not a deficit crisis.

To produce this Contract for the American Dream, 131,203 Americans came together online and in their communities. We wrote and rated 25,904 ideas. Together, we identified the 10 most critical steps to get our economy back on track and restore the American Dream:

The Contract for the American Dream consists of 10 critical steps to get our economy back on track: (click through for details and ways to sign up and help)

I. Invest in America's Infrastructure
II. Create 21st Century Energy Jobs
III. Invest in Public Education
IV. Offer Medicare for All
V. Make Work Pay
VI. Secure Social Security
VII. Return to Fairer Tax Rates
VIII. End the Wars and Invest at Home
IX. Tax Wall Street Speculation
X. Strengthen Democracy

The Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act

Rep. Schakowsky is introducing the The Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act. This bill:

• Creates over 2 million jobs to address the real crisis facing America: the jobs crisis.
  
• Emergency jobs are created for two years, to provide time to get the economy back up and running.
  
• Emergency jobs will meet critical needs to make American communities stronger.
  
• Costs $221 Billion ($110.5 billion for each of fiscal years 2012 and 2013).
  
• Can be fully paid for through separate legislation such as Rep. Schakowsky’s Fairness in Taxation Act, which creates higher tax brackets for millionaires and billionaires, eliminating subsidies for Big Oil, and through eliminating tax loopholes for corporations that ship American jobs overseas.

Here is a summary of what's in the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act:

• School Improvement Corps – Creates 400,000 construction and 250,000 maintenance jobs through new funding to public school districts for needed school rehabilitation improvements ($100 billion)
  
• Park Improvement Corps – Creates 100,000 jobs for youth between the ages of 16 and 25 through new funding to the Department of the Interior and the USDA Forest Service’s Public Lands Corps Act. Conservation projects on public lands include restoration and rehabilitation of natural, cultural, historic, archaeological, recreational and scenic resources. ($400 million)
  
• Student Jobs Corps – Creates 250,000 more part-time, work study jobs for eligible college students through new funding for the Federal Work Study Program. ($850 million)
  
• Neighborhood Heroes Corps –
  a. Teachers: Direct funding to states to hire, re-hire, and prevent lay-offs of 300,000 teachers. ($40 billion)
  b. Cops: New funding to hire 40,000 police officers. ($10 billion)
  c. Firefighters: New funding to hire 12,000 firefighters. ($2.4 billion)


• Health Corps - Grants to hire at least 40,000 health care providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and health care workers to expand access in underserved rural and urban areas. ($8 billion)


• Community Corps – Creation of a new Community Corps that will create 750,000 jobs to do needed work in our communities, including energy audits and conservation upgrades, recycling and reclamation of reusable materials, urban land reclamation and addressing blight, including foreclosure and disaster-affected areas, rural conservation work, public property maintenance and beautification, housing rehabilitation, and new housing construction modeled after Habitat for Humanity. ($60 billion)

Standards for new programs:

• Priority for jobs given to the unemployed, particularly those who have exhausted their unemployment benefits (the “99ers”).
  
• Formulas will allocate fair distribution of funding and jobs among states, with targeting based on high unemployment and need.
  
• Ensures that jobs don’t undercut the rights of other workers or lower wages.
  
• Ensures work is additive and doesn’t displace current workers or take business from small/local businesses.
  
• Includes trigger for phase-out if unemployment drops below 5%.

Fully Paid For

The steps in the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act are paid for by Rep. Schakowsky's Fairness in Taxation Act, introduced in March.

The Fairness in Taxation Act asks enacts new tax brackets for income starting at $1 million and ends with a $1 billion bracket. The new brackets would be:

• $1-10 million: 45%
• $10-20 million: 46%
• $20-100 million: 47%
• $100 million to $1 billion: 48%
• $1 billion and over: 49%
• The bill would also tax capital gains and dividend income as ordinary income for those taxpayers with income over $1 million.

What To Do

Go to the Contract for the American Dream page and sign up.

Download the Contract as a PDF.

Print the Contract.

Distribute the Contract by leaving stacks of them everywhere, laundromats, barbershops, coffeeshops, etc.

Tell people to go to http://contract.rebuildthedream.com/

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:56 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Ten Years Ago We Were Paying Off The Nation's Debt. But Then We Elected Obama.

Just ten years ago this country was running huge surpluses and paying off its debt. But then we elected Obama and all hell broke loose. Oh, wait...

Something Happened

Between the time ten years ago when we had big surpluses and were paying off the debt and now when we are told the "Obama spending and deficit" mean we have to cut back on the things We, the People do for each other, something happened. Something changed. The things that happened, the things that changed, are being ignored in the current DC discussion about what we need to do to fix things.

Separation From Reality

This DC/Tea Party argument over deficits and the Reagan/Bush debt is completely separated from facts and history. And it is completely separated from what the public wants. There are things that we are supposed to just not remember and which seem to be taboo in the national media. There are things that are "off the table" for discussion, and certainly for solving our problems.

But here is some reality anyway, even if we're not supposed to see it. Just ten years ago we were paying off debt at a rate that would have completely paid it all off by now. But under George W. Bush we cut taxes for the rich and more than doubled military spending. We deregulated and stopped enforcing laws. We let the big corporations run rampant. Our federal budget turned from huge surpluses to massive deficits, and Bush said it was "incredibly positive news" because it would lead to a debt crisis they could use to shock people into letting the corporate right privatize and thereby profit.

And then, under and because of Bush, our economy collapsed.

Deficits From Tax Cuts And Military Spending

Once again: the deficits are the direct result of tax cuts for the rich, and huge increases in military spending. Then that huge jump in already-large deficits up past the trillion-dollar level that occurred in Bush's last budget was the result of the Bush-caused financial collapse. The economy collapsed and the government stepped in with hundreds of billions, even trillions, to rescue the wealthy, with "bailouts," while doing little, even cutting back, on what our government does for We, the People. That all happened in Bush's last budget year, not Obama's first.

To Fix The Damage, Undo The Cause

The way to fix deficits is to undo the damage Bush did, by raising taxes on the rich, and cutting back the huge, bloated, extreme, massive, astonishing, incredible, stratospheric military budget. And we have to boost the economy by investing in rebuilding our infrastructure to get people employed. We have millions of jobs that need doing, while millions are looking for jobs. Then those people will be paying taxes instead of collecting unemployment and food stamps. And the infrastructure improvements will bosst our economy's competitiveness. This is all so simple and obvious that only DC insider types could miss it.

Taxes And Spending = Democracy

Cutting spending doesn't cut the need, it shifts the burden. Cutting government spending does not cut the costs to society and the overall economy of meeting those needs. Cutting government spending just shifts -- or privatizes -- those costs onto the backs of people who can't afford to spend that money. That need and cost is still there in the economy, except without government -- democracy -- handling it, doing it for all of us, less expensively. Cutting government's role opens those functions up to private profit, instead of We, the People taking care of and watching out for each other -- and making the decisions.

Do you really think that if you phase out Medicare, that old people won't still need the medical care? Of course they will still need it, but the government won't be negotiating cost-savings for them, they'll be on their own, up against the giant insurance monopolies.

In the 1950s the top tax rate was 90%, and the country's economy worked a lot better for a lot more of us. We didn't have big deficits. We certainly weren't piling up huge debt. With high tax rates at the top, predatory, sell-the-farm business models didn't make sense. We were investing in infrastructure, and that infrastructure made us competitive in world markets. We as a people were doing better every year, paying our bills, getting educated and becoming more civilized. This empowerment led to demands for equal rights for all of us.

Ignored By Media

The "both sides do it" major media is simply ignoring the majority of the public. But people aren't fooled. Poll after poll (did I already say that?) shows that the public "gets it." Poll after poll shows that the public wants our government to address jobs, not deficits, to restore top tax rates, to invest in America's infrastructure, to leave Social Security and Medicare alone (or increase them,) and to put more money into education. Poll after poll.

The Public Wants Jobs

The public gets it. Poll after poll shows that Americans want their government focused on jobs, not deficits. The latest, from CNN, taken August 5-7, shows 49% of Americans think unemployment is the biggest issue facing the country, while only 27% say deficits. Only 16% say the deficit is the country's biggest problem.

Rebuild The Dream

The The American Dream Movement is rolling out their Contract for the American Dream. The Tea-Party-fascinated press is largely ignoring this, but this movement represents the majority of the public, and can't be ignored for long. I'll be writing more about it later.

Also the Take Back the American Dream conference is coming up on Oct. 3. Click through and learn more.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 30, 2011

Golden Oldie: Did Bush Leave Us Bankrupt, Corrupt, Ungovernable?

Feb. 2010: Did Bush Leave Us Bankrupt, Corrupt, Ungovernable?

When you sell the farm, the farm's gone.

Is it already too late for America? I’m starting to think that the anti-tax, anti-government conservative movement that started in the mid-70s, elected Reagan and led to the terrible Bush Presidency may have effectively destroyed the country, leaving it bankrupt, corrupt,ungovernable, ruled by a wealthy elite -- and we're only now just starting to realize it. To cover tax cuts we stopped maintaining the infrastructure and started borrowing. To satisfy their hatred of government we increasingly stripped away rule of law, regulation, and belief in one-person-one-vote. We are seeing the consequences of all of that coming back to roost now.

Reagan left us with massive debt and ever-increasing interest payments. Bush left us with $1.3 trillion deficits and a destroyed economy that would force further increases in the borrowing for years - to be blamed on Obama. The "free marketers" gave away our manufacturing base that will take decades and massive capital investment to recover. Obama can try, but it may just be too late to do anything about the borrowing. We need massive investment in jobs and infrastructure, and a national economic/industrial plan. But, with their own Reagan/Bush debt as ammunition, conservative ideologues continue to block every effort at investment to get out of the mess we are in.

And with the country on the very edge of defaulting on the Reagan/Bush debt, Senate Republicans are FILIBUSTERING the very debt-ceiling deal they were for just a few weeks ago...

There is much more at that old post, go read.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 25, 2011

A Bipartisan Move Against Democracy

Step back from the day-to-day, hour-to-hour details of the debt-ceiling negotiations for a minute and look at the bigger picture. Look what we're in the middle of. Our legislators are being stampeded by a manufactured "crisis" into profoundly changing the nature of our country and who our economy is "for," on extremely short notice, against the clear wishes of the majority of the public. They are doing so without following the long-established process for due consideration of important issues; they are not holding hearings, not giving time for public input, not going through committees... The act of negotiating with these hostage-takers at all is itself a violation of our established, democratic system. The question to ask is not, "What painful cuts should we agree to to save our country," but rather, "Why are we engaged in this anti-democracy exercise at all?"

A Functioning Democracy?

In a functioning democracy an informed public considers and debates its options and then comes to a decision on how best to proceed. In a representative republic our representatives are called "representatives" because they represent us, and vote to implement our wishes.

The founding idea of our country is that We, the People are in charge, and our country exists to promote the common good -- "welfare" -- of all of us. Elected officials take an oath of office to protect and defend our Constitution, which begins with those words, "We, the People." Over time we have built up a system of institutions, processes, procedures, traditions and mechanisms to implement this founding idea. The oath they take is to protect and defend this system.

Oath Of Office: Protect and Defend Our System

Today all of this seems all to have fallen away from us. A fanatical but extremely well-funded minority is using a manufactured "crisis" to hold the country's economy hostage. As ransom -- if we don't want the country to go into default, destroying our economy -- they demand that we force fast and dramatic changes to the nature of our country and our social safety net. These changes will take effect before the public can react and gather the forces of opposition. They will be "locked in," creating "facts on the ground" that we have to deal with, and which are extremenly difficult to undo, no matter what We, the People want or need.

Rather than honor their oath of office to protect and defend our We-the-People system from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to listen to "We, the People," and to promote the common good of all of us, our leaders have instead entered into negotiations with the hostage-takers. The act of entering into these negotiations is by itself an agreement to work outside of our established system, and the result of these negotiations will be to change the equation of who our system is for.

Crisis?

Is there really a "debt crisis" necessitating such a dramatic and immediate response? Just 10 years ago the "crisis" we faced was that we were paying off the debt too fast and it was claimed this would lead to socialism as government surpluses were invested in private assets. So taxes for the wealthy were cut. At the same time, enabled by another "crisis," the military budget was dramatically increased -- in ways that enriched "private contractors."

The result of these changes was an immediate return from budget surpluses to the dramatic budget deficits initiated by President Reagan. Then-President Bush called these deficits "Incredibly positive news" precisely because they would bring on a debt crisis that would enable today's stampede to change our system of government. The debt "crisis" was intentional.

Cause Of Deficits and Debt

The increase of deficits beyond $1 trillion occurred in President Bush's last budget year -- the consequence of the financial collapse and the resulting drop in tax revenue combined with increases in social safety-net program payments. But the underlying cause of the deficits was the Bush tax cuts and wars. Today, in How the Deficit Got This Big, the NY Times offers charts and figures that show that:

...under Mr. Bush, tax cuts and war spending were the biggest policy drivers of the swing from projected surpluses to deficits from 2002 to 2009. Budget estimates that didn’t foresee the recessions in 2001 and in 2008 and 2009 also contributed to deficits. Mr. Obama’s policies, taken out to 2017, add to deficits, but not by nearly as much.

As for the causes of the longer-term debt picture The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has put together this chart, explaining:

Longer term most of our country's future debt problem is from tax cuts, increases in military spending, and the effects of the economic downturn. Most of the rest is because of our private healthcare delivery system. These "debt-ceiling" negotiations are not addressing these causes of the problem at all. Instead they are about using whipped-up panic over those intentionally-created problems to move the common wealth into private hands.

Not The First Time

This tactic of whipping up panic over a "debt crisis" has been used before to stampede legislative bodies into making radical changes on short notice, moving common wealth into private hands. In the post Debt Crisis? Really? I hilighted a 1993 example from Canada that was very similar to today's. From the source's account,

By the time Canadians learned that the “deficit crisis” had been grossly manipulated by the corporate-funded think tanks, it hardly mattered – the budget cuts had already been made and locked in. As a direct result, social programs for the country’s unemployed were radically eroded and have never recovered, despite many subsequent surplus budgets.

There is example after of example of the use of manufactured "crises" to panic and stampede legislatures into privatizing public wealth, just as we are experiencing today.

Democracy Eroded

What is happening here is not supposed to be the process of decision-making used in a representative democracy. Instead what we are experiencing is designed specifically to engineer circumstances that persuade us to bypass established processes and safeguards. These safeguards are in place to protect us from making the very sort of panic-driven decisions that we are about to make. And they are designed to "lock in" the changes, so we can't reverse the damage when we are able to catch our breath.

How can our leaders not recognize and resist what is being done here? Have our own leaders drifted so far from America's traditional love of democracy that they accept this and fall into playing the game?

Elitist Mindset

It seems that our own leaders have fallen into an elitist mindset, which enables them to go along. Persuaded by decades of corporate-funded propaganda, many now believe that the public doesn't know what is good for them, that the things democracy entitles them to -- "entitlements" -- will bankrupt the country, that taxing the wealthy and corporations -- the "job creators" -- will harm the economy. They do not seem to see how much of our wealth is now flowing to a very few at the top of the pyramid. The fact that taxes on the wealthiest have been cut from a top rate of 90% all the way to a rate of only 15% for hedge-fund managers making billions -- far lower than many of the rest of us pay -- is ignored. And the fact that we did not have budget deficits when the wealthy paid higher taxes is also ignored. In fact, today just 400 people now have more wealth than half of our population, and the trend is accelerating. But many of our leaders believe that the things We, the People do for each other are a problem, and we must be protected from ourselves.

One example of the slow drift away from love of democracy is the recent "Deficit Commission." This was a commission of elites -- there were no teachers or unemployed or plumbers or disabled or poor people in that room -- that was assigned to come up with ways to lower our budget deficits. They did not come up with any recommendations, but the leaders of the commissions came up with a plan of their own -- to cut taxes on the wealthy while cutting the things that We, the People do for each other.

Again and again our elites try to create bodies like this that act as an external force they have to submit to, allowing them to escape accountability to voters.

These commissions come up with plans that benefit the wealthy few but violate what the vast majority of Americans want. They are designed to come up with recommendations that benefit the wealthy few, and are presented to Congress with "up-or-down-vote" procedures that leave legislators and voters with no recourse – on purpose. Pre-ordained conclusions with non-democratic force-through procedures.

"Super Congress"

Another example of this kind of anti-democratic, elitist drift was a proposal floated over the weekend to establish a "Super-Congress" -- a Politburo of elites, that sits above the Congress and is not accountable to the public. The idea is to save the people from themselves by creating a special 12-member panel of lawmakers who come up with proposals that the Congress must vote on, with no changes and an "up-or-down vote" to implement, thus bypassing the established, democratic system and keeping individual members from being held accountable for the results. The idea is to "tie the hands" of Congress, keep them from meddling, and get things done quickly before the public can rally opposition.

That this idea was even floated shows the extend of separation that exists between our elected officials and We, the People.

Public Will Revolt

Regular Americans are not currently following this, and are turned out because it is just one more Chicken Little coming out of DC. But the public will revolt when the final decisions are put in front of them. The public overwhelmingly supports Social Security and Medicare, and overwhelmingly want taxes increased on the wealthy.

So when the results are presented to them there will be trouble. And that is also part of the plan.

In the 2010 election Republicans campaigned on a theme that "Democrats cut $500 billion from Medicare" and won the election. In 2012 the public will be presented with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaign ads, crying out that "Democrats cut your Social Security and Medicare, while keeping taxes low for the rich."

Think I’m kidding? They have already started.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:14 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 21, 2011

Government Spending Cuts Don’t Cut, They Shift Costs To US

The conservatives are following up on their decades-old plan to use tax cuts to create terrible deficits, and then use the resulting "debt crisis" to cut government. But cutting government doesn't mean the costs go away, it means that we each have to bear those costs ourselves, on our own, without the help of the rest of us. This is really about cutting democracy so the very rich can be even very-richer.

A Huge Tax Increase On Regular People

A government budget cut is like a huge tax increase on regular people because it increases what each of us pays for the things government does -- or forces us to go without. This is because cuts in government spending don’t actually cut the cost of things, they just shift those costs onto each of us on our own.

For example, if you cut the the government's Medicare or Medicaid budget our health problems don’t disappear, but each of us has to find ways to pay the cost of medical care or a nursing home on our own. If you cut what government spends for maintaining infrastructure, the roads/bridges/dams/schools/etc. deteriorate and we all pay for that through a less competitive economy, car-repair costs, and sometimes with our lives. And when each of us has to pay more for these things, it really does take money out of the economy. We're spending on those things, instead of more usefully contributing to the economy.

Cuts Just Shift And Increase The Costs

So spending cuts really just shift the spending and cost of the things we have to do – and often increase those costs. This is because doing things on our own instead of collectively through our government is the smallest possible economy-of-scale. The best example of this shift-and-increase effect is the Republican plan to phase out Medicare. As I wrote above, our health problems won’t disappear just because government cuts out Medicare. But the costs of treating – or not treating – those health problems is now on us, individually, instead of aggregated through the mechanism of democracy. And that is money that would otherwise be spent elsewhere in the economy.

In Cost of Medicare Equivalent Insurance Skyrockets under Ryan Plan the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) explains what happens to the cost of health care if Medicare is eliminated. Summary: it shifts the costs to us, except each of us ends up paying seven times as much as the same care costs under Medicare. This is because Medicare covers millions, and that economy-of-scale means the government can negotiate bulk discounts, etc. that we cannot get on our own. From the CEPR explanation:

[The Republican] plan to revamp Medicare has been described as shifting costs from the government to beneficiaries. A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), however, shows that the [Republican] proposal will increase health care costs for seniors by more than seven dollars for every dollar it saves the government, a point missing from much of the debate over the plan.

... In addition to comparing the costs of Medicare to the government under the current system and under the [Republican] plan, the authors also show the effects of raising the age of Medicare eligibility. The paper also demonstrates that while [the Republicanplan ] shifts $4.9 trillion in health care costs from the government to Medicare beneficiaries, this number is dwarfed by a $34 trillion increase in overall costs to beneficiaries that is projected ...

The Mechanism Of Democracy

In other words, the Repubican plan to phase out Medicare would cost the economy seven times as much as it cuts government. In this case the mechanism of democracy works seven times better than doing the same thing on our own. The economy of scale introduced by democracy -- We, the People gathering together to watch out for and take care of each other -- saves the economy sevenfold on costs. And that is money that would be spent by each of us but now goes just to cover the healthcare costs. This is one more reason why democracies are more prosperous for regular people than other forms of government that leave people on their own against the wealthy and powerful and drive all of the income and wealth to a few at the top.

Budget Cuts Deals Hurt Us And The Economy

When you hear that the "debt-ceiling" deal being negotiated in Washington is going to cut $4 trillion from the government's budget it doesn’t mean that $4 trillion is is going to be saved and put into the economy, it means the opposite, and worse. It means that $4 trillion in costs will be shifted from the mechanism of democracy and onto our backs, each of us, on our own. And that means that the total costs of accomplishing the same things will go up. And that means each of us will have less to spend in the economy. Think about what that will do to jobs.

• As government health care is cut each of us will take on those costs on our own, and will be paying up to seven times what the same care would have cost.

• As infrastructure maintenance and modernization is cut, our economy will become less competitive, unemployment will increase and our wages and spending power will fall.

• As spending on education is cut, our costs of educating ourselves and our kids will increase. College costs will soar.

• As environmental regulation and enforcement is cut the costs of the resulting health problems and cleanups will increase.

• As enforcement of labor laws is cut, our wages and protections will fall.

• As etc. is cut, the costs of etc. are shifted to each of us, on our own, and the total costs of accomplishing etc. actually increase.
  

This Is About Democracy

In the bigger picture budget cuts are about shifting away from the mechanism of democracy -- where We, the People aggregate and cover these costs in a more effective way -- and instead moving costs to each of us on-our-own. And because of the effect of reduced economies-of-scale we then each face a much greater cost-per-person than if we did these things through the mechanism of democracy. This hurts our economy.

Don't be fooled: this is really about shifting from democracy to a system where we are on our own, up against the wealthy and powerful. This is about shifting from a system where we can all be prosperous to a system where a few have all the wealth and power.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 18, 2011

Can US Hold Corporations Accountable Anymore?

In the UK the News-Of-The-World/News Corp/Murdoch scandal seems to be reawakening democracy. A big, powerful corporation has been found to be engaged in criminal activity, manipulating news, paying off police and politicians, and generally getting its way. The people, press and politicians are rising up, holding the company and its executives legally accountable and are taking back control of their system. Could this happen in the US?

This is my last full day in the UK. The top story in the media for the two weeks I have been here has been the News-Of-The-World "phone-hacking" story that I explained in some detail last week. This newspaper was engaged in criminal activity, was caught a few years ago, but used American-style damage-control techniques to manipulate the government, police and public opinion into accepting that the criminality was limited to the sacrificial lamb they threw to them. So the damage to Murdoch's News Corp. was limited at the time, and News Corp appeared to have impunity. But, unlike how things are now done in the US, investigative reporters (particularly at the Guardian) continued to dig into the story and continued to reveal to the public that News Corp. was engaging in criminal activity until the story could no longer be ignored by the powerful.

The latest big news is that the head of Scotland Yard has resigned, in part because earlier investigations into Murdoch-corporation activities "didn't get to the bottom of this." The press is full of questions about how this criminal company was able to operate for in this manner so long, and who in the government looked the other way. This is now as big a story as the original and ongoing criminal activities of Murdoch's companies.

Another story is the way executives left Murdoch's companies and entered government into positions where they could protect the interests of Murdoch's company, including influencing the phone-hacking investigations. And finally, the story here is about politicians who are "cozy" with Murdoch's media empire, who were propelled into government by the power of that empire.

Not yet part of the story: the manipulation of government policy to serve the interests of the owners of the criminal company. In fact, just as the media was beginning to touch on this aspect of the story the company took extraordinary steps to build a firewall and attempt to contain the scandal. Top executives in the UK and in England were removed from their posts, an "apology" was printed in all the papers here, and Murdoch himself made public apologies and News Corp started a major counterattack. So far News Corp's second-largest shareholder, Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal has been kept in the background. Prince Al Waleed was interviewed by the BBC Thursday on his yacht in Cannes. Immediately the firewall began to be constructed.

(These are questions, not accusation. While being part-owner of the conservative News Corp., Al Waleed also speaks out for democratic reform and women's rights in Saudi Arabia.)

But questions about News Corp. pushing policies that benefit its owners have yet to be pursued. Does News Corp. push climate-change denial to benefit the interests of oil-producing Saudi Arabit? Did News Corp push the invasion of Iraq to benefit Saudi Arabia?

What About In The US?

Does all of this sound familiar to any of you reading this in America?

And so the parallels to American standard-operating-procedure stand out. Criminal corporations manipulating government, police and public opinion. A revolving door through which corporate executives pass into government and protect the interests of their companies. A conservative media empire manipulating news and propelling politicians to benefit their financial interests. Politicians cozy with corporate executives who never seem to be held accountable.

As Richard Eskow wrote the other day, Want to Solve All your Problems, Rupert Murdoch? Become A Banker.,

But there's an easy way for Mr. Murdoch to protect himself from these inquiries and save his company at the same time: Turn the News Corporation into a Wall Street bank. There won't be any prosecutions, and the government will even sweeten the deal with billions of dollars in easy money. And if Murdoch follows the trail blazed by bankers like Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase, soon they'll be begging him to acquire more companies.

... By contrast, despite its long list of proven crimes nobody at [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Dimon's bank has been arrested. Apparently arrests, like the financial consequences of one's actions, are for borrowers only. And Dimon only appears before our elected representative for cozy private get-togethers, not public enquiries.

Seriously, there was just enough democracy left in the institutions of the UK to enable a media giant like News Corp to be held accountable. Just how accountable is yet to be seen, but with the press in full investigative mode, parliamentary investigations, resignations and arrests at the tops of big, powerful corporations that are way-to-cozy with politicians we are seeing a reaction to this story that is simply not imaginable in our own country today.

Some Tests

Here is one test that will tell us if accountability is still possible here. What follow-up will we see from the Justice Department in response to the revelation that members of the Financial Crisis panel illegally leaked inside information, including plans to investigate foreign banks, to lobbyists? See Financial Crisis Panel Commissioners Leaked Confidential Information To Lobbyists, Report Alleges,

Republican commissioners on the panel created by Congress to probe the roots of the financial crisis leaked documents to partisan allies and shared confidential information with influence peddlers, according to a Wednesday report by Democrats on a Congressional oversight committee.

Another area for investigation is the revolving door through which lobbyists or top people of the criminal corporation became government officials and government officials become executives or lobbyists. Are they using their influence in government to protect the interests of the companines that paid or will pay them? That sure looks like bribery, whatever other words one might use.

Another area of investigations is companies that fund or otherwise infleunce public opinion and politics and campaigns or reward politicians or fund their campaigns. That is bribery, because companies have to act in the financial interest of shareholders and rewarding a politician in the interest of shareholders is bribery by definition.

Please, add some more tests in the comments. What stories have you seen revealing illegal activity and collusion between elected representatives, government officials and big corporations with no one held accountable? Obviously there is Wall Street, mortgage fraud and securities manipulations. There are all the crimes from the Bush era that went uninvestigated. (Who ended up with all that money that went missing in Iraq?) But there are so many instances of crimes reported but not investigated and certainly not prosecuted. There are so many clear cases of big corporations using media to manipulate public opinion. And there are so many cases of our election laws violated with impunity.

Are we going to be able to take back democracy and accountability here? Or not? Will our own Department of Justice start to hold law-violators accountable? Or not.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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July 9, 2011

False Conventional Wisdom In The UK, Too

In England people "know" many of the same false things that people here "know." Except in England the false things work against English working people instead of against American working people.

I am in England this week and next and am enjoying some pub conversations while here. (Several pubs, actually. Heh.) Here are some of the things that at least some British working people "know." I think you will find them to be familiar:

• The reason so many people are unemployed is because the government spends too much money.

• Public employees get lavish pensions, which is part of why working people are falling behind.

• The government spends a lot of its money helping countries in Africa and other places.

• People are living much longer than they used to, so the retirement age should be raised.

• The government gives a lot of money to people who come here from other countries and then get handouts that the rest of us (British) pay for.

• Also, there are too many lawsuits.

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound familiar? It looks like the same false propaganda is being served up here in the UK -- but with a UK twist. For example, the retirement system here isn't "going broke," it just isn't affordable. (How come no one says our military is "going broke" or unaffordable?) People are coming here from Eastern Europe, not Mexico. The differences stand out for the similarities of the rest of it. Things that work to create anti-government tension and panic get reformatted and used elsewhere. Hey, if it works, why reinvent the wheel?

I did not hear that the problems come from companies not paying taxes, from bailing out the big banks, from the cost of wars, etc. I haven't probed or argued, just asked what people think to see what is on people's minds.

I have to emphasize this is just from some conversations and not with all that many people at all. I'm only writing because of the similarities of the justifications for cutting back on things working people get from their government. Again, this is just a few people. It's like the old newspaper-pundit cab-driver test of conventional wisdom. But I heard echoes of the same stuff that is being dished out in the US.

Things We Know

Everyone reading this has read or is familiar with the premise of The Shock Doctrine (I hope) and maybe Winner-Take-All-Politics and The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy and some of the other key books. Anyway, we all see clearly what is going on behind these things that people "know." We understand how it works, what the public is hearing and why, who they are hearing this from, and how people are being set against each other and distracted from what is really happening. Working people are being tricked into giving up their share of the common wealth, etc. We get it.

What To Do

But what do we do about it? I think our task, as always, is to get more info out to the public. As more people understand how shock-doctrine attacks work they are more able to resist them. But how do we get more info out to the public? And how do we do that without it sounding like WE are the nutcases? I mean, if you try to tell regular people the crazy things the right is planning for them you sound like an extremist for even saying such things. People are really tuned out these days and don't see what is happening.

I think sites like OurFuture.org, AlterNet, Daily Kos, FDL, Crooks and Liars, etc. have developed a progressive information ecosystem where things are being explained a dozen ways, and understood, and reinforced, over and over, and a lot of people spend time there they are getting it. So how do we drive more people to those sites? How do we loop more people into the information ecosystem we have going on?

ONE thing I think we can do is ask our labor friends to start bringing their membership in to this loop. I think we have gotten the blogosphere tuned into labor issues, and it's time for the labor community to start joining back with us now. Join the conversation, help us understand your viewpoint, while we all help; each other understand what is happening to us.

Maybe we can make the blogs and site more accessible to new people who show up to check it out, and explain more about how the comments work, about how to write a diary, etc... Maybe we all need "what this site is about" videos... I think this is a good next step.

What do you think? I think we have to start reaching more and more of the public. We owe it to them. How can we accomplish this?

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:06 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

June 24, 2011

How Free Trade Made Democracy A Disadvantage

This is my presentation from last week's Netroots Nation panel session: Revitalizing Manufacturing: The Road to Renewed Job Growth. Click through for panel details and other panelists, here for a pdf of slides, including Jared Bernstein's. See below for video -- and be sure to watch Beri Fox!!!

Four Stories

I want to share four quick stories:

1. Democracy

The story of America

We fought a wealthy powerful few who had all the say and didn’t let us have a say, and made a country where We, the People made the decisions and share the benefits.

So because we had a say we built up a country with good schools, good infrastructure, good courts, and we made rules that said workers had to be safe, get a minimum wage… we protect the environment, we give out social security. We take care of each other.

And we used to protect that. We used to put a tariff on goods coming in if they were made by people who didn’t have the ability to speak up and better their condition. It was called the American System. Look it up. We’d let the goods in but we would use a tariff to strengthen our country, our infrastructure, our schools – our democracy.

But that changed. Superman left and we stopped protecting the American Way. We started letting goods in made by people who had no say, so the goods were cheap and they undercut us.

We have made democracy a disadvantage. We made it a disadvantage instead of an advantage.

Make no mistake, people who say they want things more “business friendly” they mean they want America to be less of a democracy, with fewer of the protections we fought to build for ourselves.

2. Trade

Once upon a time some areas made some things well, and other areas made other things well, and they would trade, and both areas could have the things they made AND the things made somewhere else, and everyone benefitted. And both areas increased the customers they had.

And so to most people “trade” means we buy things made somewhere else, and they buy things we make. In what world does “trade” mean closing a factory that is located here, moving it there where they don’t already make something, laying off all the people, and then bringing back here the same things that used to be made here and selling them in the same stores?

And the result is a lot of people have lost jobs, devastating our communities.

And then they tell workers who still have jobs that the same can happen to them, we can just close this factory, so shut up and don’t expect raises or benefits or safety or dignity.

What we see happening when a company moves production out of the country is not trade, it is getting around the borders of the democracy we built, and the things we fought and sacrificed to build.

Letting companies move factories away was giving up our ability to make a living. Sure a few people might get really rich from it, but look around you the rest of us, and our communities, and our economy have been sent sliding down a hill into the sewer.

3. The Deal

There once was a company. The company made a deal with a company in the next county, they make something you don’t, and you make something they don’t. So the deal is you’ll buy things from them if they buy from you. And you start buying from them, but they aren’t buying from you. And this goes on, and they still aren’t buying from you, but you are starting to owe them a lot of money. And they you’re borrowing from them to buy from them, and they still aren’t buying. And then they show up in your county selling the things you already made and sold, buy they used the money they got selling to you to set up to make what you made.

And by the way they say you have to pay them what you owe them.

That is how our deal with China is working out. We bought from them, they didn’t buy form us, and now they have accumulated $1.5 trillion which they were supposed to have been buying American-made goods with.

And they cheated. Or I would say they were smart and watched out for their own interests excessively, and we didn’t at all.

$1.5 trillion! So imagine what would happen if we said we're going to default on the debt but these bonds are redeemable in the next 3 months for American made good. Can you imagine what $1.5 trillion of orders would do for our economy right now? $1.5 trillion in orders? Factories humming...

Well the picture of what that would do FOR our economy is a way of understanding what that has done TO our economy.

4. The Cost

I like to tell you a story about the cost of our free-trade deals and tax policies.

I took a road trip last fall, through four industrial states, MI, OH, WV, PA to visit some of the Manufacturing Town Hall meetings that Scott’s group put on. [Note - see posts about this tour here.]

They call it the "rust belt" because so many factories are closed and rusting.

From town to town you see downtowns devastated, because the way you make a living is gone and the cheap imported goods at wal mart competing with local businesses. Michael Moore wrote about Flint after the auto plants closed. That kept happening, town after town, year after year, and got worse.

You have to see to first hand. [Note - there are pics in this post.]

But I’ll tell you, we’re even seeing it now in Silicon Valley, seeing downtowns with lots of empty storefronts. Empty office and manufacturing buildings everywhere. That wave that hit the Midwest has reached the tech areas now.

So the moral of the four stories is that We the People have to protect the things we fought for and won. And we have to remember that We, the People have to take care of and watch out for each other because the wealthy and powerful won’t do that for us. And markets aren’t about that, either.

When we relax our eternal vigilance they will come back with a vengeance.

Progressive Solutions

a. Industrial Policy

We don’t believe in having the government help. We think the markets will fix everything. But other countries don’t see it that way.
We are pitting our companies on their own against the national resources of governments. We can live in an ideological dream world and say we shouldn’t, but our competitors in the rest of the world DO.

b. Protect Democracy

Tariffs. Call it a democracy tariff. Or a thugocracy tax. Use this to help lift others out of their exploitation. By making democracy a disadvantage we are only encouraging the worst, and encouraging it here, too. “Business friendly” is a code word that means get rid of all the protections We, the People have built for ourselves.

They can protect the environment, etc, or charge a tariff to bring those goods in.

c. Renegotiate Trade Deals

Trade can mean something different. We still have a huge market. We can require goods to either be made by people who are not exploited and who have a say so

d. Enforce Trade Laws

China cheats in so many ways, and we all know it. Currency rates. Indigenous innovation . Forcing companies to turn over proprietary IP…

We can do these things. Because of the strong prosperity that democracy brought us others really want to sell into our markets.

And my own favorite:

e. Top tax rates

With high top rates it takes time to build a fortune. You have to have long-term plans, sustainable businesses that are surrounded by healthy communities, good schools, good infrastructure.

Lower rates, you can make a fortune in a few days. Business models changed, became short term, cash in, quick-buck schemes. Harvest infrastructure, close factories, no need for healthy communities, etc.

Video Of The Panel

Scott Paul opens
Jared Bernstein at 6:02
Rep. Jim McGovern at 17:00
Beri Fox at 31:29
Dave Johnson at 48:13

IF the video below doesn't show up, click to see it here.

Sobotka

As always, Frank Sobotka explains what's wrong:

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:16 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 2, 2011

Jobs Fix Deficits

Polls show that the American Majority is much more concerned about jobs than deficits. So why is DC talking only about deficits instead of jobs, when jobs are the medicine for deficits? And why is DC only talking about budget cuts as a path to fixing the deficits, when the deficits were caused by tax cuts and lack of jobs? In fact most of the “deficit cures” being discussed in DC don’t make the deficit better, they make deficits worse because they kill jobs.

Stimulus Ends And Job Growth Ends, Too

Now that the stimulus is running out, so is any sign of a jobs recovery. The stimulus stopped the economic freefall that was occurring under the prior administration, and restored at least some job growth. It worked, but it was not big enough. Much of it was wasted on tax cuts that leave behind only debt, and it is running out. At the same time, state and local government cutbacks are working against any current economic rebound. For the longer term, badly-needed restructuring of trade deals, development of a national industrial policy and removal of the plutocratic tax and regulatory changes that led to intense concentration of wealth have not occurred, keeping the economy from moving forward. See for yourself in the following chart:

Follow the timeline on this chart:

• First, the Bush freefall,


• then the effect of the stimulus spending,


• then the stimulus winds down,


• combined with state & local budget cutbacks.

Until needed changes are made the economy remains mired in the failed Reagan/Bush/Bush plutocratic, everything-to-the-top structure and cannot sustain itself without stimulus. The worst thing that could happen now is federal budget cutbacks on top of the state and local government cutbacks. Pulling that much out of the economy, laying off all those government employees, and ceasing to invest in the infrastructure and education that make us competitive in the world would be a tragic mistake.

Jobs In The News

Stimulus winding down, state and local governments cutting back, trade deficit increasing again... Which brings us to to this week's economic news. Reuters: Private sector job growth slumps in May,

The ADP report showed private employers added a scant 38,000 jobs last month, falling from a downwardly revised 177,000 in April and well short of expectations for 175,000. It was the lowest level since September 2010.

... A separate report showed the number of planned layoffs at U.S. firms rose modestly in May with the government and non-profit sectors making up a large portion of the cuts.

... The housing market, meanwhile, continued to struggle as a report from an industry group showed applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week, pulled lower by a decline in refinancing demand.

And, Manufacturing growth slowest since September 2009: ISM

The pace of growth in the manufacturing sector tumbled in May, slackening more than expected to its slowest since September 2009, according to an industry report released on Wednesday.

... New orders fell to 51.0 from 61.7 in April, the lowest since June 2009. The index for prices paid fell to 76.5 from 85.5, below expectations of 82.0.

Forbes: Double Dip in Housing; Could Double Dip Recession Be Next?

This chart from Business Insider shows what the Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Index looks like on a graph chart: bad. National home prices are back to their 2002 levels, according to the index data released May 31.

. . . Moreover, consumer confidence unexpectedly declined in May to its lowest level in six months due to the lackluster job market and declining home values.

Austerity Cuts Jobs

But DC is not only not talking about jobs, they are talking about austerity -- cutting the very things that create jobs. History and the experience of other countries as they struggle to crawl out of the economic collapse has shown again and again that government investment in infrastructure and education and scientific research and manufacturing are the path to recovery. England, Greece and others trying austerity are falling back into recession. Meanwhile China is investing hundreds of billion in high-speed rail and other infrastructure. Germany is investing in manufacturing. Others are investing billions more in infrastructure. All are pursuing green energy sources.

Mired in austerity ideology we are doing none of these. For example, on a PBS NewsHour discussion of the House vote rejecting a "clean" debt-ceiling bill Tuesday, Rep. Peter Roskam said,

...any raising of the debt ceiling has to be preconditioned upon cuts that drive towards a real economic recovery and long-term growth and prosperity and job creation.

Rep. Roskam actually claimed that cutting the things that have proven to drive growth and job creation will drive growth and job creation.

Austerity Can't Cut Deficits

The other day I wrote about calculations that shows that cutting budgets does not cut deficits. From See WHY Austerity Can't Reduce The Deficit, (click through to see the calculations that prove austerity can't reduce deficits),

Austerity -- cutting government benefits and services -- is not the path to fixing deficits. In fact, economists warn that trying to fix a sluggish economy by cutting government spending will just make things worse. Worse yet, this approach can have damaging effects that last into the future. This can be easily shown with simple calculations.

Jobs First In Democracy

In a democracy jobs would be the first topic of discussion and the only toipic until plenty of good-paying jobs are available. But in a plutocracy -- government by the wealthy -- jobs for regular people would be of little concern. Which are we seeing here?

The American Majority clearly, absolutely, firmly and primarily want jobs as government's -- our -- first priority (click through to see the polling), while our leaders are talking about doing things that cut jobs and cut the thing that We, the People do for each other.

The solution to the huge post-collapse jump in deficits is to restore the jobs. Restoring good-paying jobs starts to restore the tax base and stops the emergency spending on the unemployed. The increased demand as people find work and paychecks revives retail and manufacturing. Housing recovery, for example, depends on more jobs. With more jobs and better pay. Unemployment is high and wages are low, so many people just can't afford to buy -- or keep -- a house.

Just cutting people out of the economy doesn't fix the problem, it shifts the problem and eventually will kill the economy.

Jobs First In Election

One thing is for sure: jobs will be the first concern of voters in the coming 2012 elections. And Republicans understand that making things worse now helps Republicans later. The question is why aren't Democrats and the President focusing on making things better now to help themselves and all of us later?

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:33 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 31, 2011

Dems Should Vote For Clean Debt Limit Bill

The House is voting on a “clean” debt ceiling bill today -- a bill to raise the debt ceiling without any "hostage-taking" conditions. This is the right thing to do for the country and every Democrat should vote for this. Voting for a clean bill will draw the contrast for the public between those who are doing the right thing, and those willing to hold the world's economy hostage to a make-the-rich-richer plutocracy agenda. Democrats who do not vote for a clean bill should lose committee assignments, parking places, even bathroom keys.

The Debt Ceiling

The country's "debt ceiling" has been reached. This means that the government's authority to borrow money has reached its limit. The Treasury Department is engaging in gimmicks and schemes to keep the country going but time is running out. The Congress must extend this limit, or the government will default on its bonds.

If our government defaults on its bonds it would initiate a worldwide financial crisis that dwarfs the Wall Street meltdown of a few years ago.

WHY We Have This Debt

In 1981 the Reagan administration dramatically changed the course of the country. They defunded government by passing huge tax cuts for the rich and massively increasing military spending, and began cutting back on the things We, the People (government) do for each other. The country cut back on maintaining -- never mind modernizing -- our infrastructure, our schools, colleges and universities, scientific research and other things that make us competitive in world markets. We began cashing in our factories and moving the jobs out of the country. As a result of Reagan-era changes our trade deficits soared, wages stagnated, pensions disappeared, and a few extremely wealthy started getting much, much richer.

One major result of these changes, of course, was the huge budget deficits that accumulated into today's massive debt. This was the plan from the start, to "starve the beast" by defunding government and forcing the debt to reach a level where there was no choice but to cut back on democratic government's protections for the people, unleashing plutocracy.

Hostage-Taking Enabled: The Tax Cut Extension

This debate over the debt ceiling and hostage-taking follows the recent extension of the Bush tax cuts -- another product of hostage-taking. At the end of the last Congress unemployment benefits for the millions of unemployed were running out. Republicans -- having filibustered much of the legislation of the prior two years -- held the extension of benefits "hostage" saying they would not let it pass unless the deficit-creating Bush tax cuts were extended.

Enough Democrats caved and passed an extension of the Bush tax cuts. This validated hostage-taking as a successful tactic while making the deficit much worse, setting the stage for today's debt-ceiling fight.

The Vote Is A Trick

Today's vote has been scheduled by the Republican leadership as a trap, trying to get some Democrats to vote with Republicans to support their hostage-taking agenda and create the appearance of bipartisan support for plutocracy. If the Republican position gets the support of enough Democratic members, Republicans can then demand deep cuts in Medicare and other programs that help people and hold corporate power in check, in exchange for their votes to allow the world's economy to continue to operate.

From TPM: First Debt Limit Vote Today As GOP Looks To Divide Dems,

The vote is intended to expose fault lines within the Democratic caucus, with Republicans counting on sizable number of Democrats to side with them and bolster their case that Democrats need to agree to deep spending cuts as a condition to raising the debt limit.

Vote For A Clean Debt-Ceiling Bill

Voting for a clean bill stops government-by-hostage-in its tracks. Voting for a clean bill saves the world's economy. Voting for a clean bill fights the plutocracy agenda. Voting for a clean bill saves Medicare, Social Security and the things We, the People do for each other. Voting for a clean bill is the right thing to do and doing the right thing is the right thing politically.

Call your member of Congress NOW and demand a vote for a clean debt-ceiling bill.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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May 25, 2011

They're STILL Demonstrating in WI

The news might not tell you, but there a big demonstrations still going on in the states. Read this about WI today: Let it be known that the day Walker suppressed the vote, people yelled like hell. - blue cheddar blog

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:08 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

NY-26 Lesson: Don't Mess With Medicare -- Or Social Security!

In 2010 Republicans and corporate front groups ran ad after ad after ad after ad claiming that Democrats had "Cut 500 billion from Medicare." Those ads brought them the senior vote, and they took the House. Confident in their ability to "create their own reality" they came out with a plan to privatize Medicare and told the public it would save Medicare. Well, last night's win by Kathy Hochul in the NY-26 special election -- with pretty high turnout in a Republican district -- shows that the American people are smarter than they look, and figured out what was what. The lesson: don't mess with Medicare.

Soundly Defeated

Yesterday's NY-26 Congressional election turned on Medicare and the candidate who supported Medicare won. The candidate who supported the Republican plan to privatize Medicare was soundly defeated.

House Republicans voted to change Medicare from a single-payer plan to a private-insurance voucher plan as a measure to "cut government spending." Republicans had talked themselves into believing the public hates government as much as they do and therefore gutting it is what the public wants. Instead of working to control health care costs they just shifted those costs away from the government into "personal responsibility" land. In plain non-propagandized English personal responsibility means each of us on our own, alone, instead of all of us watching out for and taking care of each other.

The public figured it out and voted to keep the Medicare-gutter out.

American Majority

The American Majority understands what is going on. They know that our budget problems come from tax cuts, military spending and the lack of jobs. Those are the things the public wants the Congress to fix.

Where the deficits come from:

What the public wants:

Gallup Poll, January 14-16, 2011

• 64% oppose spending cuts to Medicare.

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, February 24-28, 2011

• 54% believe it will not be necessary to cut spending on Medicare to reduce the national deficit.
• 76% believe cutting Medicare to help reduce the budget deficit is mostly or totally unacceptable.
• 60% oppose turning the Medicare system into a government-issued voucher program, which would require the beneficiary to purchase private health insurance.

First Focus and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research Poll, April 13-18, 2011

• 70% oppose cuts/changes to the Medicare system as described in the House Republican Budget.
• 49% support not reducing funds to Medicare.
• 53% believe replacing the current Medicare program with a voucher system in which retirees will receive vouchers to use to purchase subsidized insurance from private insurance companies for those 55 or older is totally or mostly unacceptable.

CBS News/The New York Times Poll, April 15-20, 2011

• 61% believe that Medicare is currently “worth the costs.”
• 76% think government has the responsibility to provide health care coverage to the elderly.
• 49% believe higher-income beneficiaries should pay more in taxes.

Bloomberg News Poll, March 4-7, 2011

• 54% oppose replacing Medicare with a system in which government vouchers would help participants pay for their own health insurance.
• 76% oppose reducing benefits for Medicare.

Pulse Opinion Research for The Hill Poll, April 28, 2011

• 53% said they would oppose a reduction in Medicare benefits in order to get the deficit/debt under control.

Pew Research Poll, March 8-14, 2011

• 65% oppose changes to Social Security as a way to reduce the budget deficit.

More recent polling shows the public has moved to an even strong support for Medicare, and will remove from office anyone who votes to cut it.

Social Security The Same

Those polls don't just test public support for Medicare, they test support for Social Security as well. The public feels just as strongly that politicians had best keep their hands off our Social Security.

In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose cutting spending on Social Security, which is the retirement program for the elderly? Ohio: 16% support, 80% oppose Missouri: 17% support, 76% oppose Montana: 20% support, 76% oppose Minnesota: 23% support, 72% oppose

Reality Restored

During the Bush years the idea of a "reality-based community" circulated after an article by Ron Suskind about a meeting he had with "a senior advisor to Bush." In the article he described how the aide scoffed at people who bother with reality:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Republicans and their corporate money tried to create a reality that let them gut Medicare without the public rising up to do something about it. It didn't work.

Do The Right Thing

Well, reality is coming back. The public is figuring things out. Politicians should learn the lesson of NY-26: don't mess with Medicare -- or Social Security. To fix the deficit fix the causes of the deficit: invest in jobs through maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure, restore top tax rates to where they were before we had huge deficits and, by the way, the Soviet Union is long gone so cut military spending back to maybe only twice our nearest potential competitor.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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May 18, 2011

Privatization

In 2001 Defense Sec Rumsfeld launched a campaign to shift Defense Dept, government functions to private contractors, because the private sector is more efficient.

Here is a chart of US spending on "defense:"

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:44 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 17, 2011

The People's Budget Is The Template

The debt limit has been reached. The President should be demanding a "clean" debt ceiling bill instead of letting hostage-takers force negotiations over their ransom. For deficit reduction The People's Budget is the right approach. It's the budget that polls show the majority of the public wants, but the media and Washington elite are ignoring.

Just this week we heard that America's richest 400 taxpayers averaged $270.5 million of income each last year but paid only 18.1 percent of their total incomes in federal income tax. (In 1955 the top 400 paid 51.2 percent of their total incomes in taxes. No wonder we didn't have huge-ass budget deficits then.) And this is at the same time that Republicans are trying to turn Medicare into a voucher program, saying "We're broke."

As pointed out for us in this morning's Progressive Breakfast (sign up here and get it every morning), Robert Reich, in The Battle is Squared, and Why We Need Budget Jujitsu,

Technically, the federal government has now reached the limit of its capacity to borrow money.

Raising the debt ceiling used to be a technical adjustment, made almost automatically. Now it’s a political football.

Democrats should never have agreed to linking it to an agreement on the long-term budget deficit.

But, being the Democrats we have come to know and love, they did, and here we are. Where can we go from here?

We can reduce the long-term budget deficit, keep everything Americans truly depend on, and also increase spending on education and infrastructure — by cutting unnecessary military expenditures, ending corporate welfare, and raising taxes on the rich.

I commend to you the “People’s Budget,” a detailed plan for doing exactly this – while reducing the long-term budget deficit more than either the Republican’s or the President’s plan does. When I read through the People’s Budget my first thought was how modest and reasonable it is.

A reasonable budget that would have been called "centrist" not long ago. The public supports the approach.

The message from the “People’s Party” should be unconditional: No cuts in Medicare and Medicaid or Social Security. More spending on education and infrastructure. Pay for it and reduce the long-term budget deficit by cutting military spending and raising taxes on the rich. The People’s Budget is the template.

Reich said it all for me...

The People's Budget

The Progressive Caucus -- a group of progressives in the Congress -- have put together a budget that fixes the deficit and grows the economy, providing jobs. It is called The PEOPLE'S Budget Plan.

Read the plan at: Congressional Progressive Caucus : FY2012 Progressive Budget,

The CPC proposal:

• Eliminates the deficits and creates a surplus by 2021
• Puts America back to work with a “Make it in America” jobs program
• Protects the social safety net
• Ends the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Is FAIR (Fixing America’s Inequality Responsibly)

What the proposal accomplishes:

• Primary budget balance by 2014.
• Budget surplus by 2021.
• Reduces public debt as a share of GDP to 64.1% by 2021, down 16.5 percentage points from a baseline fully adjusted for both the doc fix and the AMT patch.
• Reduces deficits by $5.6 trillion over 2012-21, relative to this adjusted baseline.
• Outlays equal to 22.2% of GDP and revenue equal 22.3% of GDP by 2021.

Rep. Mike Honda and Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva explain, in The Only Real Democratic Budget: Why Progressives Have the Answer to What the American Public Wants,

Budgets are more than collections of numbers. They are a statement of our values. The Congressional Progressive Caucus Budget is a reflection of the values and priorities of America's working families. The "People's Budget" charts a path that keeps America exceptional in the 21st century, while addressing the most pressing problems facing the nation today. Our Budget eliminates the deficit, stabilizes the debt, puts Americans back to work, and restores our economic competiveness.

[. . .]

Our Budget listens to what the American people are telling us. It does all of the above in a fiscally responsible way that dramatically reduces our borrowing from banks and foreign governments and ensures our long-term economic competitiveness.
...
Our Budget Eliminates the Deficit by 2021: The CPC budget eliminates the deficit in a way that does not devastate what Americans want preserved, specifically, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. ...

Our Budget Puts America Back to Work & Restores America's Competitiveness: The CPC budget rebuilds America and makes it competitive again. We put America back to work. We rebuild our roads and bridges, ensuring that those who use it help pay for it. ...

Our Budget's Fair Tax System: The CPC budget implements a fair tax system, based on the American notion that fairness and equality are integral to our society. ...

Our Budget Brings Our Troops Home: The CPC budget responsibly ends our wars, currently paid for by American taxpayer dollars we do not have. ...

Our Budget's Bottom Line (Over 10 year Window)

• Deficit reduction of $5.6 trillion
• Primary spending cuts of $869 billion
• Net interest savings of $856 billion
• Total spending cuts: $1.7 trillion
• Revenue increase of $3.9 trillion
• Public investment of $1.7 trillion
• Budget surplus of $30.7 billion in 2021, debt at 64.1% of GDP.

Take action: Tell President Obama to put the People's Budget on the table.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:08 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 13, 2011

Actually, "The Rich" Don't "Create Jobs," We Do.

You hear it again and again, variation after variation on a core message: if you tax rich people it kills jobs. You hear about "job-killing tax hikes," or that "taxing the rich hurts jobs," "taxes kill jobs," "taxes take money out of the economy, "if you tax the rich they won't be able to provide jobs." ... on and on it goes. So do we really depend on "the rich" to "create" jobs? Or do jobs get created when they fill a need?

Here is a recent typical example, Obama Touts Job-Killing Tax Plan, written by a "senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth,"

Some people, in their pursuit of profit, benefit their fellow humans by creating new or better goods and services, and then by employing others. We call such people entrepreneurs and productive workers.

Others are parasites who suck the blood and energy away from the productive. Such people are most often found in government.

Perhaps the most vivid description of what happens to a society where the parasites become so numerous and powerful that they destroy their productive hosts is Ayn Rand’s classic novel “Atlas Shrugged.” ...

Producers and Parasites

The idea that there are producers and parasites as expressed in the example above has become a core philosophy of conservatives. They claim that wealthy people "produce" and are rich because they "produce." The rest of us are "parasites" who suck blood and energy from the productive rich, by taxing them. In this belief system, We, the People are basically just "the help" who are otherwise in the way, and taxing the producers to pay for our "entitlements." We "take money" from the producers through taxes, which are "redistributed" to the parasites. They repeat the slogan, "Taxes are theft," and take the "money we earned" by "force" (i.e. government.)

Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner echoes this core philosophy of "producers" and "parasites," saying yesterday,

I believe raising taxes on the very people that we expect to reinvest in our economy and to hire people is the wrong idea,” he said. “For those people to give that money to the government…means it wont get reinvested in our economy at a time when we’re trying to create jobs.”

"The very people" who "hire people" shouldn't have to pay taxes because that money is then taken out of the productive economy and just given to the parasites -- "the help" -- meaning you and me...

So is it true? Do "they" create jobs? Do we "depend on" the wealthy to "create jobs?"

Demand Creates Jobs

I used to own a business and have been in senior positions at other businesses, and I know many others who have started and operated businesses of all sizes. I can tell you from direct experience that I tried very hard to employ the right number of people. What I mean by this is that when there were lots of customers I would add people to meet the demand. And when demand slacked off I had to let people go.

If I had extra money I wouldn't just hire people to sit around and read the paper. And if I had more customers than I could handle that -- the revenue generated by meeting the additional demand from the extra customers -- is what would pay for employing more people to meet the demand. It is a pretty simple equation: you employ the right number of people to meet the demand your business has.

If you ask around you will find that every business tries to employ the right number of people to meet the demand. Any business owner or manager will tell you that they hire based on need, not on how much they have in the bank. (Read more here, in last year's Businesses Do Not Create Jobs.)

Taxes make absolutely no difference in the hiring equation. In fact, paying taxes means you are already making money, which means you have already hired the right number of people. Taxes are based on subtracting your costs from your revenue, and if you have profits after you cover your costs, then you might be taxed. You don't even calculate your taxes until well after the hiring decision has been made. You don;t lay people off to "cover" your taxes. And even if you did lay people off to "cover' taxes it would lower your costs and you would have more profit, which means you would have more taxes... except that laying someone off when you had demand would cause you to have less revenue, ... and you see how ridiculous it is to associate taxes with hiring at all!

People coming in the door and buying things is what creates jobs.

The Rich Do Not Create Jobs

Lots of regular people having money to spend is what creates jobs and businesses. That is the basic idea of demand-side economics and it works. In a consumer-driven economy designed to serve people, regular people with money in their pockets is what keeps everything going. And the equal opportunity of democracy with its reinvestment in infrastructure and education and the other fruits of democracy is fundamental to keeping a demand-side economy functioning.

When all the money goes to a few at the top everything breaks down. Taxing the people at the top and reinvesting the money into the democratic society is fundamental to keeping things going.

Democracy Creates Jobs

This idea that a few wealthy people -- the "producers" -- hand everything down to the rest of us -- "the parasites" -- is fundamentally at odds with the concept of democracy. In a democracy we all have an equal voice and an equal stake in how our society and our economy does. We do not "depend" on the good graces of a favored few for our livelihoods. We all are supposed to have an equal opportunity, and equal rights. And there are things we are all entitled to -- "entitlements" -- that we get just because we were born here. But we all share in the responsibility to cover the costs of democracy -- with the rich having a greater responsibility than the rest of us because they receive the most benefit from it. This is why we have "progressive taxes" where the rates are supposed to go up as the income does.

Taxes Are The Lifeblood Of Democracy And The Prosperity That Democracy Produces

In a democracy the rich are supposed to pay more to cover things like building and maintaining the roads and schools because these are the things that enable their wealth. They actually do use the roads and schools more because the roads enable their businesses to prosper and the schools provide educated employees. But it isn't just that the rich use roads more, it is that everyone has a right to use roads and a right to transportation because we are a democracy and everyone has the same rights. And as a citizen in a democracy you have an obligation to pay your share for that.

A democracy is supposed have a progressive tax structure that is in proportion to the means to pay. We do this because those who get more from the system do so because the democratic system offers them that ability. Their wealth is because of our system and therefore they owe back to the system in proportion. (Plus, history has taught the lesson that great wealth opposes democracy, so democracy must oppose the accumulation of great, disproportional wealth. In other words, part of the contract of living in a democracy is your obligation to protect the democracy and high taxes at the top is one of those protections.)

The conservative "producer and parasite" anti-tax philosophy is fundamentally at odds with the concepts of democracy (which they proudly acknowledge - see more here, and here) and should be understood and criticized as such. Taxes do not "take money out of the economy" they enable the economy. The rich do not "create jobs, We, the People create jobs.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:26 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 12, 2011

Budget Talks: Who Speaks For The American People?

When we hear about the deficits we hear a lot of scare stories, which most "serious" media just echo and amplify. The prevailing "serious" narrative we hear is that we must cut entitlements -- any “serious” budget proposal cuts Medicare and Social Security. Even though they just extended tax cuts for the rich the deficits are the worst problem in the world, ever, so we are supposed to be really scared and give in. Seriously.

Polls show that the public wants taxes raised on the rich, cuts in military spending and more & bettter-paying jobs. The public isn't stupid, because it turns out that these are exactly the things that economists say will get us out of the deficits. But raising taxes isn't considered a "serious" deficit-cutting option. Either is cutting military. And to top it off, in DC the idea of creating more and better-paying jobs is so unserious that it isn't even discussed.

Serious Commissions and Gangs Of Negotiators

The public recoils every time politicians get close to reaching their "serious" goal of cutting Social Security or Medicare, instead of raising taxes and cutting military. So the DC elite come up with ways to mask what they are doing : commissions, "triggers," "caps," "across-the-board cuts" all of which avoid actually spelling out that these will cut Social Security and Medicare without touching taxes or military. All the "serious" people favor this approach.

There are so many “serious” reporters and editors and politicians and deficit commissions and negotiators and even “gangs” consist of very “serious” people who come up with these “serious” recommendations.

Who Is At The Table?

These “serious” people who engaged in these “serious” negotiations have something in common. They are almost all very, very well paid, usually white, always DC or Wall Street or big-corporate insiders, always college-educated and comfortable people who work in offices. They do not reflect the diverse makup of the American population. Doing that wouldn’t be “serious,” but it would be ‘small-d’ democratic.

The fact is, the American People just are not reflected "at the table" in these budget negotiations. When you hear about these deficit commissions, discussions, etc. ask yourself: How many make less than $250K? How many are unemployed? How many work taking care of someone else? Who speaks for We, the People in these negotiations?

And ask yourself: What would these deficits talks, commissions, gangs consist of if they were representative of the interests of regular Americans?

What If a Deficit Commission Looked Like America?

If a deficit commission with 100 members had the diversity of the American population "at the table" it would look like this:

• 19 people on the commission would receive some form of Social Security benefits, 12 of those as retirees. And on this deficit commission they get to talk when the ones making over $250K propose cutting Social Security.
• 43 of the commission members would have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement. 27 of those less than $1,000.
• 98 of the 100 members would make less than $250,000 a year.
• 50 of the members would come from households in which the total income of all wage-earners is less than $52,029.
• 13 wold have income below the poverty level.
• 14 members would be receiving food stamps.
• 16.6% of the commission members would be un- or underemployed, and would be wondering why they are on a deficit commission at all instead of a jobs commission.
• The commission would include the right proportion of factory and construction workers, and people who work in a kitchen, and work waiting tables, and teaching, and nursing, and installing tires, and all the other things that people do except, apparently, those on DC elite commissions. (People who do hard, manual labor get an extra vote each on what the retirement age should be.)
• 74 members would not have college degrees.
• 20 would not have graduated high school.
• 18 would speak a language other than English at home.

Have you seen any deficit commissions like that lately? No, seriously, have you?

What does the PUBLIC want?

A "serious" deficit commission in a democracy would come up with deficit solutions that reflect what the public wants. Here are some of the polling results compiled at The American Majority Project Polling:

Social Security & Medicare:

• 53% support Collecting Social Security taxes on all the money a worker earns, rather than taxing only up to about $107,000 of annual income.
• 57% oppose raising the retirement age from 66 to 67.
• 64% oppose spending cuts to Social Security.
• 82% oppose cutting Social Security benefits in order to reduce the debt.

67% oppose cutting Social Security to make the program more solvent in the long term.

• 66% support enacting Social Security taxes on wages about $106,800 (the Pay Roll Tax Cap) to make the program more solvent.
• 64% oppose spending cuts to Medicare.

Lots more polling on Social Security at The American Majority Project Polling

Taxes:

• 74% believe eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries to help reduce the budget deficit is mostly or totally acceptable.
• 68% believe that phasing out the Bush tax cuts for families earning $250,000 per year is mostly or totally acceptable to help reduce the budget deficit.
• 72% of one group of 512 participants favored raising taxes on people earning more than $1 million a year over cutting important programs once they received details on the impact of the budget cuts. That percentage had been 62% before receiving details of the cuts.
• 53% believe it is totally or mostly unacceptable to reduce the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% .

etc...

Lots more polling on taxes at The American Majority Project Polling

Military Spending:

• 67% support minor or major reductions in funds to national defense.
• 66% support removing all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
• 49% said to cut defense “even if it means eliminating programs that bring jobs to your state.”

Pew Research Poll, March 8-14, 2011

etc.

More polling on military spending at The American Majority Project Polling

Union Employees and Collective Bargaining Rights:

• 81% support the rights of workers to unionize to negotiate with their employers.
• 77% believe public employees who belong to a union and work for the state government, city government, or school districts should have the same right to bargain when it comes to their health care, pension and other benefits like those members of unions who work for private companies.

More polling on labor rights at The American Majority Project Polling

Job Creation and the Economy:

• 56% believe creating jobs, rather than spending cuts is the more important priority for the federal government right now.
• 56% agree that “it is time for government to take a larger and stronger roll in making the economy work for the average American.”
• 62% believe the government should focus on creating jobs, even if it means increasing the deficit in the short-term.

More polling on jobs and the economy at The American Majority Project Polling

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:30 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

May 7, 2011

Require Corp Political Disclosure

Go sign this petition: President Obama, Stand Up to the U.S. Chamber and Fight for Disclosure

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:50 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 3, 2011

American Workers - Unneeded

Nancy Folbre: Super Sad True Jobs Story - NYTimes.com

Unneeded as workers, the unemployed also become superfluous as consumers and burdensome as citizens.

We CAN fight this, but we have to remember who "We, the People" are. We have to remember WE are supposed to be in charge here, and do something about it. We are the people in charge, not a burden, in the way of profits.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:48 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 29, 2011

A Medicare Phase-Out By Any Other Name Still Stinks

The Republicans voted to phase out Medicare and use the money for even more tax cuts for the rich. The public found out and turned out. So now they are coming up with new ways to mask the same thing. They call them "triggers," "across-the-board cuts" and "spending caps" but these are all really just about cutting Medicare and Social Security and education and giving more and more tax cuts to the rich. Please don't be fooled. And please get active and let them know you do not like what they are up to.

The "Ryan Plan" To Phase Out Medicare

A Republican named Paul Ryan came up with a plan to phase out Medicare and use the money to give even more tax cuts to the rich. Hence the name “Ryan Plan.” The plan replaces Medicare with a “premium support” voucher that covers some of the cost of insurance, (as if an ill 80-year-old can get insurance at all. The trick was to start the phase-out in 10 years, hoping people won't notice.

While this phase-out of Medicare cuts “government spending” it just shifts that cost to you and me, and actually dramatically increases the overall costs. The Center for Economic and Policy Research calculates that it adds $7 in individual costs (you and me) for every $1 it cuts in “government spending.” But the mask that it cuts "government spending" gives them cover for even more tax cuts at the top.

Town Hall Anger

Last week every Republican in the House (save for a few) voted to say, “Yes, let’s do this.” Then they went home and met with constituents at town hall meetings, and were surprised to learn that regular people are smarter than they thought they were. They thought they could just slip this past people, under the cover of deficit hysteria. Instead people shows up at town hall meetings demanding answers. And they were not happy about what the Republicans were doing.

So now, returning from exposure to the unwashed masses they are saturating the airwaves with corporate-funded propaganda, ads with soothing voices telling us how good for us the Republican plan to get rid of Medicare will be. And they are working on new plans to do the same thing, but to make it less obvious what they are up to. "Triggers. "Caps." "Across-the-board cuts (that leave out military and cut taxes at the top.)" Etc.

The Polls

Poll after poll after poll after poll shows that the public understands where the deficits came from -- tax cuts for the rich, huge increases in military spending and the costs of the recession -- and wants their government to fix these causes of the deficit. But the people are not in control of the government, the powerful few who own the giant corporations are, so the government keeps coming back again and again with schemes to cut the things government does for We, the People and use the savings to cut taxes on the wealthy and the corporations.

Demand The Details

Do not accept any plan that does not detail specifically what they are doing to fix the problems. Any plan that does not clearly raise taxes on the rich, cut the military spending and provide jobs and a solid economic foundation for the future by investing in infrastructure and alternative energy is not addressing the problems. (The People's Budget is a plan that does these things.)

These are the things that the public is demanding. This is why the powerful forces in control of the government keep coming up with shadowy detail-free schemes like "triggers" and "spending caps." They are trying to mask tax cuts for the rich and cuts in the things We, the People do for each other like Medicare, Social Security and education.

Get Angry

We are bombarded with scheme after scheme to take away what is ours, so that a wealthy few can have even more. They have plan after plan. Here is comedian Lee Camp explaining that "Evil People Have Plans":

Don't just take it, foil their plans. React. Get angry.

And then:

Get Active

Get out there and get your voice heard. Call your member of Congress and both senators. Show up at town hall meetings and demonstrations and protests. Sign up to be on mailing lists of organizations like Campaign for America's Future, MoveOn, Srengthen Social Security and Don't Make Us Work Till We Die!, Credo Action, Coalition on Human Needs, US Uncut, On May 12, Campaign for Community Change, Working America and others who are working to fight back. Join Up.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:07 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 26, 2011

Does Government Know Who The Boss Is?

In Washington state workers are allowed to organize and form unions so they can win good wages and benefits. In "right-to-work" states like South Carolina, though, the government sides with big companies against their workers. (They used to have even harsher anti-worker laws there but the North stopped rounding up the escapees…)

Boeing workers in Washington go on strike, so Boeing sets up an assembly line in anti-union South Carolina and tells the Washington workers to take what they offer and like it. This is a standard move from companies these days, telling workers, “Take the cuts or we’ll close the plant and move your jobs somewhere where workers can’t do anything about it.”

Illegal, But So What?

You probably didn’t know this but retaliating against workers like that is against the law. It is even illegal to threaten workers in order to avoid a strike. It is illegal to fire or intimidate employees for organizing.

But companies go ahead and do these things anyway, and other illegal things, because no one does anything about it. And it has been so long since anyone did anything about it – just like with banking fraud or age discrimination – that it is now standard operating procedure. No one even remembers that it is illegal. No one cares.

Like age discrimination. Look at the faces of the employees behind President Obama when he visited Facebook and tell me if Facebook is the least bit worried about age discrimination enforcement.

Or this picture of the President visiting Google:

Workers' Rights A Thing Of The Past

With labor-law enforcement -- or even a sense that workers should have rights -- seemingly a thing of the past, these anti-worker sentiments are spreading. Recently, for example Arizona and South Dakota passed anti-worker laws, forbidding the formation of a union after a majority workers sign cards asking for one. Wisconsin and other states have passed laws restricting the labor rights of public-employees and restricting the ability to collect union-membership dues.

But THIS Time!

But THIS time something unusual happened. The government has actually threatened to enforce the law! The National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Boeing and is suing Arizona and South Dakota for violating labor laws!

Boardrooms across the land are rising up in indignation. How dare the government threaten giant corporations that they might enforce the law? Don’t they know who's the boss? The Wall Street Journal explains, "Boeing management did what it judged to be best for its shareholders and customers and looked elsewhere. ... As Boeing chief Jim McNerney noted on a conference call at the time, the company couldn't have "strikes happening every three to four years." and calls Boeing's threats against unions a "reasonable business decision."

Conservative columnists and bloggers are earning their pay, writing indignant column after column about "union bosses," some even praising Ayn Rand. Conservative astroturfers (also) and politicians are not far behind them.

How dare We, the People (government) tell a business that it has to respect its workers and our laws!!!

Who Is Boss?

Do We, the People have the ability to enforce our laws? Do we have the power to tax corporations and the wealthy?

Do we have the power to protect the protections of democracy?

Democracy provides workers with safety protections and fair wages. We fought so hard to build and maintain this democratic society so that We, the People could share the benefits. We passed laws allowing union organizing, as a balance to the immense power of corporations and wealth. We passed laws prohibiting companies from telling workers, "Work for what we give you or don't eat."

And for a time this built our prosperity. But we let the protections slip, and allowed companies to cross borders to escape the protections democracy offers -- to non-democratic countries like China where workers have few rights, where pay is low, environmental protections practically non-existent. Companies locating manufacturing in places like have huge cost advantages over companies located in democracies that respect and protect the rights of citizens.

The Threat Against Us

Won't companies just move out of the state/country if we try to enforce labor laws or tax them? Won't China just stop selling to us if we apply a tariff to protect democracy, or try to enforce trade laws? Won't the rich just pack up and move or stop working if we don't just give them everything they want? Won't they move even more factories out of the city/state/country if We, the People try to demand our rights?

We Still Have The Power

Here's the thing. We, the People still have some power left in our hands. For one thing we still have a huge market. We still have the power to make demands on those who would like to sell into that market. And we can still choose to enforce tax laws, and wage laws, and tariffs, and labor laws, and trade laws to protect and strengthen what remains of our democracy.

But we can only do this if we decide to stand up for ourselves and do something about what is happening. We have to put our foot down, and demand that our politicians listen to We, the People and do what we say. It is time to get organized, to talk to neighbors and relatives, to show up at town hall meetings and protests. We can demand that news media begin to cover more than just the corporate/conservative viewpoint. We can go out and register others to vote, and get them to the polls, and demand that votes be counted accurately. We can take back our democracy and put We, the People back in charge.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:44 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 21, 2011

Congressional Town Halls

The Republicans in the House just voted to privatize Medicare. They voted to cut taxes on the rich. And Social Security is threatened. Here is a list of upcoming Congressional Town Hall meetings. You should show up and let them know how you feel about getting rid of Medicare to pay for tax cuts for the rich:

Elected Official Date City
Sen. Ron Wyden (DEM - OR) 4/23/2011 Brookings
Sen. Ron Wyden (DEM - OR) 4/23/2011 Coos Bay
Rep. Tom Reed (REP - NY) 4/23/2011 Caton
Rep. Tom Reed (REP - NY) 4/23/2011 St. Bonaventure
Rep. Tom Reed (REP - NY) 4/23/2011 Wellsville
Rep. Diane Black (REP - TN) 4/25/2011 Lebanon
Sen. Orrin Hatch (REP - UT) 4/25/2011 Roosevelt
Rep. Bruce Braley (DEM - IA) 4/25/2011 Davenport
Rep. Tom Marino (REP - PA) 4/25/2011 Williamsport
Sen. Ron Wyden (DEM - OR) 4/25/2011 Hood River
Rep. Francisco Canseco (REP - TX) 4/25/2011 Fair Oaks Ranch
Rep. Mo Brooks (REP - AL) 4/25/2011 Florence
Rep. Joe Wilson (REP - SC) 4/25/2011 Lexington
Rep. Tom Cole (REP - OK) 4/26/2011 Norman
Rep. Diane Black (REP - TN) 4/26/2011 Carthage
Rep. Dan Boren (DEM - OK) 4/26/2011 Vinita
Rep. Alan Nunnelee (REP - MS) 4/26/2011 Tupelo
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (REP - KS) 4/26/2011 Clay Center
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (REP - KS) 4/26/2011 Minneapolis
Rep. Steve Pearce (REP - NM) 4/26/2011 Ruidoso
Sen. Charles Grassley (REP - IA) 4/26/2011 State Center
Rep. Rick Berg (REP - ND) 4/26/2011 Bismarck
Rep. Bruce Braley (DEM - IA) 4/26/2011 Cedar Falls
Sen. Orrin Hatch (REP - UT) 4/26/2011 Vernal
Rep. Randy Hultgren (REP - IL) 4/26/2011 Sycamore
Rep. Daniel Webster (REP - FL) 4/26/2011 Orlando
Rep. Francisco Canseco (REP - TX) 4/26/2011 San Antonio
Sen. Ron Wyden (DEM - OR) 4/26/2011 The Dalles
Rep. Kurt Schrader (DEM - OR) 4/26/2011 Milwaukie
Rep. Lou Barletta (REP - PA) 4/26/2011 East Stroudsburg
Rep. Dan Boren (DEM - OK) 4/26/2011 Pryor
Rep. Tom Cole (REP - OK) 4/27/2011 Ada
Rep. Xavier Becerra (DEM - CA) 4/27/2011 Los Angeles
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (REP - SC) 4/27/2011 Rock Hill
Rep. Rick Berg (REP - ND) 4/27/2011 Fargo
Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (DEM - HI) 4/27/2011 Honolulu
Sen. Jerry Moran (REP - KS) 4/27/2011 Horton
Rep. Bruce Braley (DEM - IA) 4/27/2011 Dubuque
Sen. Jerry Moran (REP - KS) 4/27/2011 Centralia
Rep. David Wu (DEM - OR) 4/27/2011 Portland
Sen. Jerry Moran (REP - KS) 4/27/2011 Alma
Rep. Bruce Braley (DEM - IA) 4/27/2011 Fayette
Rep. Charles Bass (REP - NH) 4/27/2011 Colebrook
Rep. Steve Southerland (REP - FL) 4/27/2011 Eastpoint
Rep. Francisco Canseco (REP - TX) 4/27/2011 Castroville
Rep. Francisco Canseco (REP - TX) 4/27/2011 San Antonio
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (REP - NY) 4/27/2011 Cato
Sen. Jerry Moran (REP - KS) 4/27/2011 Topeka
Rep. Tom Cole (REP - OK) 4/28/2011 Duncan
Rep. Tom Cole (REP - OK) 4/28/2011 Lawton
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (REP - SC) 4/28/2011 Camden
Rep. Diane Black (REP - TN) 4/28/2011 Cookeville
Rep. Alan Nunnelee (REP - MS) 4/28/2011 Columbus
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (REP - KS) 4/28/2011 Goodland
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (REP - KS) 4/28/2011 Sharon Springs
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (REP - KS) 4/28/2011 Colby
Rep. Steve Pearce (REP - NM) 4/28/2011 Roswell
Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (DEM - HI) 4/28/2011 Honolulu
Rep. David Wu (DEM - OR) 4/28/2011 Newberg
Rep. Joe Wilson (REP - SC) 4/28/2011 Hardeeville
Rep. Randy Hultgren (REP - IL) 4/28/2011 Geneseo
Rep. Steve Southerland (REP - FL) 4/28/2011 Blountstown
Rep. Francisco Canseco (REP - TX) 4/28/2011 San Antonio
Rep. Frank Guinta (REP - NH) 4/28/2011 Exeter
Rep. Russ Carnahan (DEM - MO) 4/28/2011 St. Louis
Rep. Francisco Canseco (REP - TX) 4/29/2011 Hondo
Rep. Rick Berg (REP - ND) 4/29/2011 Grand Forks
Rep. David Wu (DEM - OR) 4/29/2011 Hillsboro
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (REP - KS) 4/29/2011 Cottonwood Falls
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (REP - KS) 4/29/2011 Marion
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (REP - KS) 4/29/2011 Emporia
Rep. Francisco Canseco (REP - TX) 4/30/2011 Uvdale
Rep. Francisco Canseco (REP - TX) 4/30/2011 Del Rio
Rep. David Wu (DEM - OR) 4/30/2011 Astoria
Rep. David Wu (DEM - OR) 4/30/2011 Rainier
Rep. Dan Lungren (REP - CA) 4/30/2011 Angels Camp

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:16 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 20, 2011

Yet Another Poll Shows... Plutocracy Stupid, Democracy Smart

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Yet another poll is out, showing that the public wants taxes raised on the rich and on Wall Street and the giant multi-national corporations, and does not want cuts in the things We, the People do for each other. Other polls show the public wants cuts in military spending, and increases in spending on infrastructure and other job-creation, economy-growing investment. And, in fact, if we did these things the deficit problem -- caused by tax cuts for the rich and increases in military spending -- would be fixed. So why do Washington deficit-reduction plans always do the opposite?

From today's Progressive Breakfast,

Yet another poll shows strong support for raising taxes on the wealthy, opposition to Medicare and Social Security cuts. W. Post: "The Post-ABC poll finds that 78 percent oppose cutting spending on Medicare as a way to chip away at the debt ... 72 percent support raising taxes [on family income over $250,000] ... "

Meanwhile, in DC the insider story is that the "Gang of 6" is "closing in" on a "deficit deal." In all likelihood it will (they all do) end up being about cutting taxes for the rich and cutting the things We, the People (government) do for each other and cutting investment in the things that make our economy grow: infrastructure, education, science, job-creation, etc...

Serious People

Another popular DC-insider deficit plan is called "Simpson-Bowles." This plan was put together by a right-wing Republican, former Republican Senator Alan "three hundred million tits" Simpson and a Wall Streeter, Erskine Bowles, a member of the Board of Directors of Morgan Stanley. This plan (they all do) cuts taxes for the rich and cuts the things We, the People (government) do for each other. It is put together by "serious" people so it is considered "serious."

Poll after poll shows one thing, DC plan after DC plan does another. The public isn't considered "serious." Republicans and Wall Streeters are considered to be "serious." In fact, things the public wants and needs are not considered at all in today's DC. Democracy is not "serious."

Democracy vs Plutocracy

In January I wrote about this phenomenon in, Sen. Conrad Plutocracy Plan Vs. Democracy Deficit Commission. Back then the deficit plan was (they all do) to cut taxes on the rich while increasing them on everyone else, and cut Social Security, even though Social Security has nothing whatsoever to do with the deficit. I wrote,

This is what happens when Wall Street and conservative Republicans design a plan: give even more to the already-wealthy few, gut what our government does for We, the People.

Here is the real deficit commission that you would expect to see if we were a democracy instead of a plutocracy: It would have 100 members:

• 98 of the 100 members would make less than $250,000 a year.

• 50 of the members would come from households in which the total income of all wage-earners is less than $50,221.

• 17% of the commission members would be un- or underemployed, and would be wondering why they are on a deficit commission instead of a jobs commission.

• 19 people on the commission would receive some form of Social Security benefits, 12 of those as retirees. And on this deficit commission they get to talk when the ones making over $250K propose cutting Social Security.

• 43 of the commission members would have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement. 27 of those less than $1,000.

• The commission would include the right proportion of factory and construction workers, and people who work in a kitchen, and waiting tables, and teaching, and nursing, and installing tires, and all the other things that people do except, apparently, those on DC elite commissions. (People who do manual labor get an extra vote each on what the retirement age should be.)

• Include people who are on active duty in the military – the people who said they don’t need that expensive plane, but couldn’t get body armor.

• 60 members would not have college degrees.

• 13 members would be receiving food stamps.

What The Public Wants Is Smart

And guess what, when you take a poll, you are measuring what the public wants. A poll shows what would happen if the deficit plans were drawn up by regular people. And POLLS SHOW they want tax increases on the rich and cuts in military. They want jobs programs and infrastructure investment and investment in the things that grow the economy. They want a Medicare-For-All health care plan, and in fact other countries have proven this solves the long-term health care cost problem.

Plutocracy Stupid, Democracy Smart

Here's the thing: what the public wants actually would fix the borrowing. And what the plutocrats want would make it worse. The deficit is the result of tax cuts for the rich, increases in military spending, spending on the recession and long-term cost increases in health care. So fixing that means putting taxes back where they were before the deficits, realizing that the Soviet Union is gone, investing to grow the economy, and implementing a Medicare-For-All plan like the rest of the world has.

And that is what polls show the public wants to so.

So maybe the public isn't that stupid after all. Maybe democracy can work. The plutocrats plans are stupid, because the plutocrats just greedily give everything to the plutocrats, and sacrifice everyone's future, even the plutocrats'.

Plutocracy stupid, democracy smart, fire baaaad!:

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:34 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 9, 2011

Please Read

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Why Progressives Keep On Losing and the Right Keeps Winning

Despite the naysayers, the nation elected a President who presented himself as an unambiguous progressive and gave him both houses of Congress too. So it can be done. So what keeps going wrong, over and over?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:27 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 7, 2011

Budget Battle: Who Is Our Country FOR?

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Who is our country for? Is this a country for We, the People, where all of us are banded together to protect and empower each other, together? Or is this a country where a powerful few reap all the benefits, and the rest of us are little more than "the help?" That is what the coming budget/deficit/debt/shutdown battles are about.

In the past several decades our country and economy has been thrown out of balance in ways that hurt most of us but greatly benefit a powerful few. Communities are being bankrupted, forced to lay off police, firefighters, teachers, nurses and other essential people who work to protect and help us. More and more working people are hurting, falling ever further behind, losing or barely clinging to their jobs and homes and businesses and health. At the same time big-company CEOs who cheat, bankrupt their company, ship jobs overseas and fire white collar workers by the thousands are not held accountable -- instead they are rewarded with big bonuses.

And in the larger picture the country is falling behind, the economy is losing its competitive edge, the infrastructure that supports our businesses is crumbling and our public structures like the court system and schools are deteriorating. And in the face of this decline our public confidence, trust, civility and other measures of civic health are falling.

The measure of any serious budget deficit reduction program should be to look at these imbalances and address them. That is the role of We, the People government. But instead, the new Republican budget accelerates the imbalances -- on purpose. It cuts or eliminates the programs that assist people, helping us maintain or rise to a middle-class existence.

Decades of Stealth Attack

Most of us probably thought this country was a "We, the People" democracy where we are all in this together, looking out for each other. But for decades corporate conservatives have been engaged in a stealth attack on the middle class, taking all of the gains of our joint investment in a prosperous economy just for themselves.

The effects of the stealth attack on the middle class have been creeping up on us, and are now widely felt. Incomes have been stagnant for some time, as costs rise. Predatory industries increasingly prey on the public and small business. At the same time a powerful and wealthy few have benefited from these changes so much that today, just 400 people have more wealth than half of our population of 300 million people combined!

One measure of the price of maintaining a middle-class existence is the "toil index." The index of toil measures the work hours it takes for a family to live in an average home where children have access to an average school. In the past few decades the work hours required to maintain a middle-class existence has gone up 62.4%.

So in 1950 the "toil index" was 42.5 hours. That dropped to 41.5 by 1970. But then it started to rise -- a lot. By 2000 it was 67.4 hours, an increase of 62.4%! Yet this was at a time when the country as a whole got ever wealthier. And since 2000 it has obviously gotten much worse.

Now The Attack Is In The Open

Now the attack on the middle class is out in the open. The new Republican budget plan takes away any pretense of our government working for We, the People, and transforms it completely to a government of, by and for the top 1%. Programs to maintain the middle class are cut or eliminated. Help for the jobless is cut back. Government workers are eliminated. Medicare is privatized. Social Security is phased out.

But in this budget taxes for the wealthy few and big corporations are cut, big oil companies continue to raid the treasury, the arms industry prospers and other multinational giants continue to receive subsidies and advantages over smaller, less-powerful competitors.

This budget is clear in its purpose: to create a one-dollar-one-vote plutocracy for the wealthy few, while gutting our one-person-one-vote democratic system.

How We Got Here

Let's look at the effect of the recent decades of this stealth attack on our We, the People government and economy.

Top tax rates for the rich have been dropping and dropping, resulting in big budget deficits that add up to big debt:

The Republican budget doesn't fix this at all. It makes it worse. It cuts tax cuts for the rich even more, and guts the things We, the People do for each other.

The next chart shows how corporate taxes have declined, the one after that shows who owns those corporations:

So at the same time as income taxes for the wealthiest dropped the tax share from the corporations -- mostly owned by the wealthiest few -- also declined dramatically. On top of that cuts in taxes on capital gains and dividends pushed even more of the gains to the top. The Republican budget plan makes this worse.

As top tax rates have been dropping working people's payroll taxes have been rising. This is the money we set aside in the Social Security Trust Fund for our retirement. (Chart from Urban Institute)

The Republican budget not only doesn't address this, it raids this money we have set aside for retirement by cutting our retirement benefits!

Because of cuts in taxes for the rich and the corporations they own, inequality has been increasing dramatically. The Economic Policy Institute shows that, "The share of income going to the majority of households has dropped considerably since the 1970s.. Share of household income held by bottom 99.5%, 1913-2008:"

The share of income that 99.5% of us get has fallen from 93.7% to 83.1%. The top half percent get all the rest. The Republican budget plan doesn't fix this at all. It makes it worse.

Here is a chart of the increasing concentration of income at the top:

The Republican budget plan doesn't fix this at all. It makes it worse.

How It Happened

The "Reagan Revolution" cut taxes, deregulated business, opened our borders to let in goods from "thugocracies" that exploit workers, dramatically increased military spending and cut back on the things we (government) do for each other. It cut back on investment in our people, our infrastructure, education, public structures like our courts, our labor protections, our consumer protections, and attacked the independence of the ways we receive objective information. Things have gotten steadily worse in the years since.

Last year's post Reagan Revolution Home To Roost -- In Charts shows the impact on us of these changes over time, concluding,

Sometimes it can be so obvious where a problem comes from, but very hard to change it. The anti-government, pro-corporate-rule Reagan Revolution screwed a lot of things up for regular people and for the country. Some of this disaster we saw happening at the time and some of it has taken 30 years to become clear. But for all the damage done these "conservative" policies greatly enriched a few entrenched interests, who use their wealth and power to keep things the way they are. And the rest of us, hit so hard by the changes, don't have the resources to fight the wealth and power.

Look at the influence of these entrenched interests on our current deficits, for example. Obviously conservative policies of tax cuts and military spending increases caused the massive deficits. But entrenched interests use their wealth and power to keep us from making needed changes. The facts are here, plain as the noses on our faces. The ability to fight it eludes us. Will we step up and do something to reverse the disaster caused by the Reagan Revolution or not?

The Republican budget plan doesn't fix this at all. It makes it worse. Much, much worse.

More Charts

In the meantime, lobbying to influence our government against the things that help We, the People has gone through the roof.

(Chart source Sunlight Foundation.)

The Republican budget doesn't fix this at all.

They lobby because it pays off. It pays off because the lobbying buys them special favors, breaks, subsidies and policies that favor them over their competitors and the rest of us. This happens because we let them get away with it. Of course when powerful interests can use money to bend the rules they will bend the rules in their own favor -- and will start by bending the rules in ways that let them bend the rules even more.

Of course this is what they have been doing. Here is what is happening in the case of some specific industries:

Lobbying for "defense' has increased:

And the result show how this has paid off: (note, chart includes defense-related spending.)

We spend more on military than all other countries combined. The Republican budget doesn't fix this at all.

Imbalances

So these are just some of the imbalances that government should be addressing. But it isn't. The Republican budget doesn't fix this at all. It just makes all of these problems and imbalances worse. And this is because of that ability of the wealthy and powerful to pay to get the rules bent in their favor. We need to instead change the system to hold politicians and CEO’s accountable, making sure the rich are not abusing the system.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:23 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 5, 2011

Social Justice: AT&T Plows Over Tenants’ Rights to save their iPhone Business in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley’s crown jewel, Palo Alto just got mowed down last evening by AT&T. To be specific AT&T effectively tied the hands of many of the City policymakers, and then plowed through the City Council and over 35 residents leaving their bodies scattered on the sidewalks in their wake. Using the big stick approach, they bullied and threatened action in the Federal court system if their addendum to their existing site permit was not approved; and the Council caved to the mighty sword sacrificing many of their downtown rental residents. Most troubling is that with these actions of passing this addendum for the mounting of two AT&T antennas on this residential building, this City Council may have set a precedent to severely limit tenants’ rights going forward in this particular city and longer term in the state. Commercial building owners may now have enlarged rights that grant them the ability to railroad their tenants with whatever side businesses they choose. If this decision by Palo Alto holds, California may be able to rewrite the Civil Codes that govern the rights granted to landlords by allowiing them to enter the premises far beyond the scope of maintenance and/or emergency. You see the only way to get to this balcony is by gaining access through the bedrooms of the residents.

Effectively this City Council has opened a hornet’s nest that may continue to sting them as this decision raises questions of social justice for over 40% of the City’s residents, of which over 70% are management or other professionals in the tech industry. We all know that we live in a society that is fraught with corporate collusion, fraud and bad behavior. Yet it is troubling to see this kind of reprehensible behavior in our own backyard without tacit consideration for the privacy, health and/or safety of the rental residents. Palo Alto is a city that is full of bright entrepreneurs willing to risk it all to create technologies that can change the world. Sadly, none of them signed up to give away their rights. Who would have thought that liberal Palo Alto, the place of big dreams, would sink to this level! Most importantly, what is to prevent other such activities that suggest some degree of collusion between the private and public sectors? Not much with this precedent setting action, huh? Will Palo Alto become a city that only protects their landed gentry? With this decision, they are certainly well on their way to solely protecting property owners over the serfs that rent.

Taking this further, can building owners throughout the City now run either brothels or daycare centers while residents are working during the day or evening? After all given this recently enacted City precedent – building owners now have the right to discount the objections of their tenants to cut whatever side deal that want. This means that building owners can engage in mixed use and side deals regardless of the vocal protests of their tenants. As outrageous as this may seem, this is the box that has been pried open with last evening’s decision and it may prove to a gift that keeps on giving. The young, the bright and the able may now choose to take their start-ups elsewhere and be treated far better in the short and longer term. Maybe there were bigger reasons that Facebook, the symbol of all that is good in Palo Alto, has chosen to jump ship and move to a neighboring city.

Note: This post will appear in other blogs.

Posted by Michelle at 1:50 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

March 31, 2011

Did American Workers "Get What They Deserved?"

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

What did people expect would happen when they voted for Reagan, Bush and other conservatives, or supported their policies? In the Holland (Michigan) Sentinel community columnist Ray Buursma writes, American workers got what they deserved. Some of the things he says might resonate with many of us,

Remember the Reagan standard? Are you better off today than you were a decade ago? Two decades? Three? Unless you make more than $380,000 a year, the answer is no. In fact, your standard of living over the last quarter century has actually decreased while millionaires have added 30 percent to their net wealth. Why? Two reasons.

First, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs went overseas while the politicians you elected did nothing to stop them. Yet you continue to elect leaders who offer nothing but tax cuts, as if that would stem the flow of disappearing jobs.

Did you demand your leaders address America’s trade imbalance or continuous outsourcing of jobs? Did you demand your leaders require foreign countries to buy a dollar’s worth of American goods for every dollar of goods they sell here?

No and no. You didn’t bother.

Buursma writes that instead of resenting people who make more because they are in a union, people should join a union and fight for your job, wages and benefits. He continues,

Maybe you’re thinking, “I’m not a union worker, so this doesn’t affect me.”

Stop being stupid. Union benefits provide a standard other companies have to match, or at least come close to. When those benefits are cut, yours are, too. Or do you think you operate in your own little employment vacuum?

Agree or disagree, please click through and read his entire piece.

Whose Fault?

There is no question that things are not going the way they should be going. We see decline all around us -- all pointing back to the changes made after the election of Ronald Reagan. Tax cuts led to massive debt. Deregulation led to mine, oil and financial disasters that cost us more than deregulation ever saved. The infrastructure is crumbling. It seems like we are entering third-world status.

So is it the fault of American workers that their wages and benefits have declined as jobs are shipped overseas?

I don't blame working people. After all, they're working! So they're busy, and stressed, and focused on work. They can't be expected to keep up with the little details and facts and nuances -- especially when they are attacked daily with a barrage of well-funded and professionally crafted corporate/conservative propaganda!

This assault on information and truth has been going on for decades. Under Reagan there was a dramatic shift toward "market" -- one-dollar-one-vote -- sources of information and away from objective, citizen-oriented democratic -- one-person-one-vote -- sources. This market-sourced information necessarily reflects a conservative/corporate view because it is driven by money and profit instead of humanity and humanity's needs.

Information for Democracy!

How do we counter the corporate/conservative assault on truth? One answer to the problem of getting accurate, objective information is to use (and support) alternative sources that are not offered by the conservative/corporate machine. Here is a list of a few links to alternative news sources. Please send these to relatives, friends, and even post them to conservative forums.

• Campaign for America's Future -- and especially sign up for Progressive Breakfast as well as the afternoon emails.
• AlterNet
• TruthOut
• Talking Points Memo
• Daily Kos
• Daily Agenda
• Womens eNews
• Reader Supported News
• Common Dreams
• Smirking Chimp
• Mother Jones
• The Nation
• Op-Ed News
• The Progressive
• Think Progress
• In These Times
• American Prospect
• Huffington Post

PLEASE suggest more progressive information and news sources in the comments! And forward this to others.

Added suggestions, not necessarily just news:
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Manufacture This
Scholars & Rogues
Crooks And Liars
Firedoglake
Black Agenda Report
Washington Monthly
Eschaton
AMERICAblog
The Raw Story
Agonist
Today's Workplace
Republic of T
Democrats.com
Hullabaloo
Jack and Jill Politics
Liberal Oasis

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:47 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 1, 2011

Did You Know

that there were rallies all across the country Saturday? Here is a video: Democrats in Congress Speak Out at Rallies Across the Country

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:22 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 23, 2011

What Is The Real Agenda Of The Budget-Cutters?

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

What is the real agenda of the budget-cutters? Are they really trying to bring the country back from the edge of financial ruin? Or did they bring about the appearance of a borrowing crisis to create a public panic that enables them to impose "solutions" that change the very nature of our country -- while doing little about the borrowing?

In the news this week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker "ginned up" a budget crisis, then introduced legislation that removes collective bargaining rights from public employees, and over time effectively destroys their unions. Similar measures have been introduced by Republican governors or legislatures in several other states.

This legislative attack on public employees follows more than a year of "preparing the ground" with a coordinated campaign from conservative organizations to convince the public that public employees are overpaid and that their pensions are "bankrupting" state governments -- not the effects of the recession.

In the news soon, the coming strategic "shutdown" of the federal government by Republicans. After decades of forcing through tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, again and again -- most recently just a few weeks ago -- Republicans and corporate conservatives are engaged in a national campaign promoting the belief that there is a "deficit crisis." Their solutions involve gutting the things government does for We, the People like consumer, health, safety, labor and financial, retirement and income protections, while keeping things the government does for corporations and the wealthy "off the table."

We see variations of the same formula over and over. Here is how it works:

1) Cut taxes for the rich and corporations (corporate stock is mostly owned by the top 1%); big deficits result.
2) Claim a deficit emergency and use their domination of corporate-owned media to whip the public into a panic, creating the appearance of demand for corporate-approved "solutions." Manipulate the appearance of consensus.
3) With taxes and military “off the table” push through cuts in the things government does for We, the People.

Repeat as often as needed to create a plutocracy.

Today's "debt crisis" is the culmination of the long-term "starve the beast" strategy from an organized corporate-conservative movement. By cutting taxes for the wealthy they have starved the government, created massive debt (guess where the interest payments go) gutted the infrastructure, and put our country on the road to third-world status. This conservative movement has an agenda, and is not interested in working out "bipartisan" compromised.

In an example in the news this week, a hoax call, purported to be from David Koch, one of the billionaire-industrialists helping fund the conservative movement and major funder of efforts to make it appear that Wisconsin is having a budget crisis. In the hoax call, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker clearly understands that he and Koch are in engaged a joint effort, describing a Democratic Senator who could work with him as "not one of us."

Koch: Now you’re not talking to any of these Democrat bastards, are you?

Walker: Ah, I—there’s one guy that’s actually voted with me on a bunch of things I called on Saturday for about 45 minutes, mainly to tell him that while I appreciate his friendship and he’s worked with us on other things, to tell him I wasn’t going to budge.

Koch: Goddamn right!

Walker: …his name is Tim Cullen—

Koch: All right, I’ll have to give that man a call.

Walker: Well, actually, in his case I wouldn’t call him and I’ll tell you why: he’s pretty reasonable but he’s not one of us…

Elsewhere in the call Walker and faux-Koch talk about whether "planting troublemakers" would "work" or not.

In another example of the self-awareness of this strategy: On public radio's Marketplace, February 22 Vincent Vernuccio of the Koch/conservative movement/corporate front-group Competitive Enterprise Institute discusses how the real agenda of the state actions is to destroy unions and their ability to fight corporate power politically, not to solve budget problems. (Note, he was not identified on the show as funded by conservative/corporate interests and Koch.)

VINCENT VERNUCCIO: Union bosses want to inflate these budgets so they can get more members, so they can get more dues. And in turn, they take that dues money they have and give it to politicians who are going to give them more favors in the future.

Several states are considering bills that would allow workers to opt-out of a union. Again, Vincent Vernuccio.

VERNUCCIO: The main focus of this isn't just the budget cuts. It's actually giving workers the right to say no to the union if they so choose.

Professor Bruno also sees broader implications for the debate. Since union money helps support the Democratic party, he argues changes in collective bargaining could shake up the political landscape far beyond the Midwest.

These are just two small examples, in the news on the same day, showing the difference between the public pronouncements of concern for the country and a private agenda to fool the country. It is one thing when responsible leaders disagree on the best way to solve the country's real problems. It is quite another thing when organized wealth pursues a strategy to scare the country into handing over our remaining wealth and power.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:58 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 18, 2011

WI Dems Show Right Way To Filibuster

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

In Wisconsin the Governor and Republican majority are trying to strip state employees of the right to collective bargaining. The are literally trying to "ram through" in a very short time, out of nowhere, a bill that removes employee rights.

The Democrats in the Wisconsin Senate had one recourse: just leave. There are not enough members of the Wisconsin Senate to hold a vote if none of the Democrats are there, so in a dramatic move they left the state. And it is making news.

This short post by Thers at Atrios' Eschaton blog sums it up:

Hey, remember how for the past couple of years the Republicans routinely and shamelessly and without precedent used a parliamentary gimmick to enforce a non-Constitutional supermajority in the United States Senate?

Keep in mind those shenanigans whenever you're told that the Wisconsin State Senate Democrats are opposed to "democracy."

Exactly right. This is how it should be done. The Democrats in the Wisconsin legislature are engaged in a delaying action to give the public a chance to express their opinions on how this should proceed. This is what a filibuster is supposed to do. It is not supposed to be an easy, silent "parliamentary procedure" that lets a minority just block everything, as Washington Republicans have been doing. It is supposed to be rare, dramatic, a show, something to rouse public interest, giving the public a chance to weigh in.

In the post Filibuster: Make Them Talk

Making them talk would be good for democracy, because the public will be able to see that a dramatic event is taking place. Just as in the movie, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, the public will have a chance to rise in support of the effort, or let Senators know they oppose it.

Making them talk all night gives the public an opportunity to rally, one way or the other. It also, frankly, puts on a show, which will engage the public, restoring interest in government. This is good and we should do it.

Unlike so many in Washington, Wisconsin Democrats are showing they have a spine. They are showing that they understand democracy and how public opinion can be moved. They are showing us all how to stand up for ourselves!

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:45 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 14, 2011

Nine Pictures Of The Extreme Income/Wealth Gap

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Many people don’t understand our country’s problem of concentration of income and wealth because they don’t see it. People just don't understand how much wealth there is at the top now. The wealth at the top is so extreme that it is beyond most people’s ability to comprehend.

If people understood just how concentrated wealth has become in our country and the effect is has on our politics, our democracy and our people, they would demand our politicians do something about it.

How Much Is A Billion?

Some Wall Street types (and others) make over a billion dollars a year – each year. How much is a billion dollars? How can you visualize an amount of money so high? Here is one way to think about it: The median income in the US is around $29,000, meaning half of us make less and half make more. If you make $29,000 a year, and don’t spend a single penny of it, it will take you 34,482 years to save a billion dollars. . . . (Please come back and read the rest of this after you have recovered.)

What Do People Do With SO Much?

What do people do with all that money? Good question. After you own a stable of politicians who will cut your taxes, there are still a few more things you can buy. Let’s see what $1 billion will buy.

Cars

This is a Maybach. Most people don’t even know there is something called a Maybach. The one in the picture, the Landaulet model, costs $1 million. (Rush Limbaugh, who has 5 homes in Palm Beach, drives a cheaper Maybach 57 S -- but makes up for it by owning 6 of them.)

Your $1 billion will only buy you a thousand Maybach Landaulets.

Here are pics of just some of Ralph Lauren’s collection of cars. This is not a museum, this is one person’s private collection. You don't get to go look at them.

Luxury Hotels

This is the Mardan Palace Hotel in Turkey, Burj Al Arab in Dubai.

Here is a photo gallery of some other expensive hotels, where people pay $20-30,000 per night. Yes, there are people who pay that much. Remember to send me a postcard!

A billion dollars will buy you a $20,000 room every night for 137 years.

Yachts

Le Grand Bleu - $90 million.

Some people spend as much as $200 million or more on yachts.

You can buy ten $100 million yachts with a billion dollars.

Private Jets

Of course, there are private jets. There are approx. 15,000 private jets registered in the US according to NBAA. (Note: See the IPS High-Flyers study.)

This is a Gulfstream G550. You can pick one up for around $40 million, depending. Maybe $60 million top-of-the-line.

Your billion will buy you 25 of these.

Private Islands

If the rabble are getting you down you can always escape to a private island.

This one is going for only $24.5 million – castle included. You can only buy 40 of these with your billion.

Mansions

This modest home (it actually is, for the neighborhood it is in) is offered right now at only about $8 million. I ride my bike past it on my regular exercise route, while I think about how the top tax rate used to be high enough to have good courts, schools & roads and counter the Soviet Union and we didn't even have deficits.

I ride there but that neighborhood is not like my neighborhood at all. While there is one family in that house, I live closer to the nearby soup kitchen that serves hundreds of families. One family in a huge estate and hundreds at a soup kitchen roughly matches the ratio of wealth concentration described below.

Here are a few nearby homes up for sale.

You can buy 125 houses like this one with your billion.

Luxury Items

Here is an article about ten watches that are more expensive than a Ferrari.

The one in this picture costs more than $5 million. You can buy 200 of these with your billion.

Medieval Castles

Just for fun, this is Derneburg Castle. Do you remember the big oil-price runup a few years ago that too the price of a gallon at the pump up towards $5? One speculator who helped make that happen got a huge bonus paid with government bailout money. He owns this castle. He has filled it with rare art. You can’t go in and see any of the rare art.

Click here to see the layout in an aerial view. That’s as close as you're going to get, peasant.

Let's Go Shopping

So you say to yourself, "I want me some of that. I’d like to place the following order, please."

• One Maybach Landaulet for $1 million to drive around in. (Actually to be driven around in.)


• One $100 million yacht for when I want to get seasick.


• One Gulfstream G550 private jet for $40 million.


• One private island for $24.5 million (castle included) for when I want to escape the masses.


• One $8 million estate for when I have to go ashore and mingle with the masses (but not too close.)


• One $5 million watch so I can have one.
• Total: $178.5 million.

My change after paying with a billion-dollar bill is a meager $821.5 million left over. I might be hard up for cash after my spending spree, but I can still stay in a $20,000 room every night for 112 and 1/2 years.

So, as you see, $1 billion is more than enough to really live it up. People today are amassing multiples of billions, paying very little in taxes and using it in ways that harm the rest of us.

How Extreme Is The Concentration?

Now you have a way to visualize just how much money is concentrated at the very top. And the concentration is increasing. The top 1% took in 23.5% of all of the country’s income in 2007. In 1979 they only took in 8.9%.

It is concentrating at the expense of the rest of us. Between 1979 and 2008, the top 5% of American families saw their real incomes increase 73%, according to Census data. Over the same period, the lowest-income fifth (20% of us) saw a decrease in real income of 4.1%. The rest were just stagnant or saw very little increase. This is why people are borrowing more and more, falling further and further behind. (From the Working Group on Extreme Inequality)

Income VS Wealth

There are a few people who make hundreds of millions of income in a single year. Some people make more than $1 billion in a year But that is in a single year. If you make vast sums every year, after a while it starts to add up. (And then there is the story of inherited wealth, passed down and growing for generation after generation...)

Top 1% owns more than 90% of us combined. "In 2007, the latest year for which figures are available from the Federal Reserve Board, the richest 1% of U.S. households owned 33.8% of the nation’s private wealth. That’s more than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent." (Also from the Working Group on Extreme Inequality)

400 people have as much wealth as half of our population. The combined net worth of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007: $1.5 trillion. The combined net worth of the poorest 50% of American households: $1.6 trillion.

Corporate wealth is also personal wealth. When you hear about corporations doing well, think about this chart:

The top 1% also own 50.9% of all stocks, bonds, and mutual fund assets. The top 10% own 90.3%.

Worse Than Egypt

In fact our country's concentration of wealth is worse than Egypt. Richard Eskow writes,

Imagine: A government run by and for the rich and powerful. Leaders who lecture others about "sacrifice" and deficits while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy. A system so corrupt that rich executives can break the law without fear of being punished. Increasing poverty and hardship even as the stock market rises. And now, a nation caught between a broken political system and a populist movement that could be hijacked by religious extremists at any moment.

Here's the reality: Income inequality is actually greater in the United States than it is in Egypt. Politicians here have close financial ties to big corporations, both personally and through their campaigns. Corporate lawbreakers often do go unpunished. Poverty and unemployment statistics for US minorities are surprisingly similar to Egypt's.

The Harmful Effect on The Rest Of Us

This concentration is having a harmful effect on the rest of us, and even on the wealthy. When income becomes so concentrated people who would otherwise think they are well off look up the ladder, see vastly more wealth accumulating, and think they are not doing all that well after all. This leads to dissatisfaction and risk-taking, in an effort to get even more. And this risk-taking is what leads to financial collapse.

Aside from the resultant risk of financial collapse, the effect of so much in the hands of so few is also bad psychologically. People need to feel they earned that they have earned what they have, and develop theories about why they have so much when others do not. Bizzare and cruel explanations like Ayn Rand's psychopathic theories about "producers" and "parasites" take hold. Regular people become little more than commodities, blamed for their misery ("personal responsibility") as they become ever poorer.

Teddy Roosevelt, speaking to the educators about "False Standards Resulting From Swollen Fortunes," warned that while teachers believe their ideals to be worth sacrifice and so do non-renumerative work for the good of others, seeing great wealth makes people think that obtaining wealth is itself a lofty ideal,

The chief harm done by men of swollen fortune to the community is not the harm that the demagogue is apt to depict as springing from their actions, but the effect that their success sets up a false standard, and serves as a bad example to the rest of us. If we do not ourselves attach an exaggerated importance to the rich man who is distinguished only by his riches, this rich man would have a most insignificant influence over us.

Societies that are more equal do better. In the book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett make the case that great inequality harms us physically as well as spiritually, and the these harmful effects show up across society. The book examines social relations, mental health, drug use, physical health, life expectancy, violence, social mobility and other effects and show how inequality worsens each.

Influence Buying

There is a problem of the effect on our democracy from the influence that extreme, concentrated wealth buys. In the book Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson make the case that the anti-democracy changes we have seen in America since the late 1970s that led to intense concentration of wealth and income are the intentional result of an organized campaign by the wealthy and businesses to use their wealth to, well, buy even more wealth.

The secretive Koch Brothers are said to have a net worth of $21.5 billion each and are particularly influential. They financed the Tea Party movement and along with big corporations and other billionaires they financed the massive assault of TV ads in the midterm elections that helped change the makeup of the Congress. And now Congress is paying them back,

Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the panel signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group — Americans for Prosperity — to oppose the Obama administration's proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. Of the six GOP freshman lawmakers on the panel, five benefited from the group's separate advertising and grassroots activity during the 2010 campaign.

... Republicans on the committee have launched an agenda of the sort long backed by the Koch brothers. A top early goal: restricting the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the Kochs' core energy businesses.

We Must Address This

We owe it to ourselves to come to grips with this problem. We owe it to democracy to begin taxing high incomes and inheritance again. We owe it to future generations to use a temporary wealth tax to pay off the debt.

Resources

The Working Group on Extreme Inequality explains why inequality matters in many more ways, and is well worth clicking through to study. They also have a page of resources for study with links to other organizations. Also, spend some time at Too Much, A commentary on excess and inequality because it is "Dedicated to the notion that our world would be considerably more caring, prosperous, and democratic if we narrowed the vast gap that divides our wealthy from everyone else." The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a Poverty and Income area of research with good resources. The Center for Economic and Policy Research has a research section on Inequality and Poverty.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:32 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

February 3, 2011

Jobs, Income Crisis As Govt Captured By Interests

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Earlier in Jobs Crisis In Real World ... Just Not In DC I wrote about the gap between DC/Wall Street thinking about the jobs crisis and reality in the rest of the country. Summary: Our government is not addressing out problems because it is captured by interests:

Out here in the real world the real problem is not "structural," it is that there just are not enough jobs, they don't pay enough, "free trade" deals have lowered wages and undermined our manufacturing base, there is not enough demand in the economy and the government is not doing its job of picking up the slack and after 30 years of tax-cutting the infrastructure is crumbling and not supporting competitiveness for our businesses.

There are millions of unemployed and millions of infrastructure jobs that need doing. There is a new green energy and manufacturing revolution going on in the world and we do not have an economic/industrial policy to capture our share. There is problem after problem that is not being addressed by a government captured by interests.

Harold Meyerson writes today, in What's holding back the U.S. economy? that income has stagnated for everyone, while a few at the top are raking in tremendous amounts, because we have "lost power to our corporate and financial elites."

From 1947 through 1973, according to the Economic Policy Institute's State of Working America report, released this week, the incomes of the poorest 20 percent of Americans rose 117 percent, while the middle 20 percent saw a rise of 104 percent and the wealthiest 20 percent a rise of 89 percent. From 1973 through 2000, however, the income of the bottom fifth increased by a scant 9 percent, the middle fifth by 23 percent and the richest fifth by 62 percent. Since 2000, the concentration of income gains at the very top has grown only more pronounced. The share of income going to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, which was less than 10 percent in the early '70s, reached 23.5 percent in 2007 - the highest level on record save for 1928. (Note: Both years preceded epic crashes.)

Lagging innovation may explain many things, but it doesn't explain the rise of the rich over everybody else. For that, we need to look at changing power relationships, something that most mainstream economists resolutely ignore. Surely, the shrinking of unions - from 35 percent of the private-sector workforce in the 1950s to less than 7 percent today - has decreased American workers' ability to win good wages. Surely, the offshoring of manufacturing has diminished both the number of good jobs and our ability to exploit our innovations productively. Surely, the deregulation of finance has diverted more and more resources to a relatively small circle of bankers and speculators. And that tiny cadre has chiefly enriched itself at the expense of the rest of the nation.

Meyerson is saying that the changes in our economy that are causing the middle-class-destroying joblessness and wage stagnation are not due to lack of innovation, a great stagnation from a "lack of low-hanging fruit," or any of the other excuses we are hearing. (Other countries and their economies are growing.) He says it is because the economic benefits of growth are now going to a very few.

The difference between America pre- and post-1973 is that in the years preceding, the benefits from economic growth were widely shared, while in the years following, they increasingly went only to the top.

These things are happening because we have lost the checks and balances that functioning democracy brings to our economic and political system, which are supposed to moderate the savage effects of unbridled, top-down capitalism. As a result both systems are captured by the very wealthy interest who are running things to further concentrate their wealth and power.

As I began the earlier post: Who is our economy for? Who is our government for? For 30 years we have been undergoing a transition from "We, the People" democratic government to a plutocracy run by and for the wealthy.

Jobs, income, infrastructure, dignity, security and mostly the benefits of democracy, all falling away from us at a faster and faster rate. This is The Reagan Ruins, hitting us upside the head like a hammer. This is "trickle down" not trickling down at all.

March 10 Summit on Jobs and America's Future

On March 10, 2011, the Summit on Jobs and America’s Future will bring together leaders and activists who understand that America faces a jobs crisis – and who are committed to building a political movement for sustainable economic growth, dynamic job creation, and a revival of the American economy.

Free. $15 with lunch. Register here.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Jobs Crisis In Real World ... Just Not In DC

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Who is our economy for? Who is our government for? For 30 years we have been undergoing a transition from "We, the People" democratic government to a plutocracy run by and for the wealthy. One indicator of this transition is the way the DC Elite respond to unemployment. 9-10% unemployment used to be a national emergency. Now it's a yawn.

What The Washington Paper Says

The Washington Post has a front-page story, Why does Fresno have thousands of job openings - and high unemployment? that says the problem is really "structural," a skills gap, and there is little we can do. This is significant because so many people who make policy read the Washington Post while sitting in their nice, expensive restaurants. Stories like this risk that they will think that there really are plenty of jobs out there, but the serfs just aren’t up to taking them, or are too spoiled, but in any event there is no problem that needs solving, and call the lobbyist because this month’s check is late.

Meanwhile, anyone in the real world outside of Washington or Wall Street, reading about “thousands” of job openings going unfilled immediately knows something is fishy. In fact, if this story ran on the front page outside of DC or Wall Street we might even need to worry about Egypt-style riots. Anyone on the same side of the continent as Fresno knows that there are not “thousands’ of unfilled job openings. There might be thousands of foreclosures, or thousands of people in food lines, or thousands of people whose unemployment has run out but there are not thousands of unfilled job openings.

What The Local Paper Says

The Fresno Bee has a different story to tell, EDITORIAL: President should come see impact of joblessness in Valley:

The economy may be improving, but it would be difficult to persuade the thousands of out-of-work Valley residents that things are looking up.

The six Valley communities cited in a U.S. Labor Department report have unemployment rates that run from 16.4% in Hanford-Corcoran to 18.6% in Merced. The other Valley cities on the list are Fresno (16.9%), Visalia-Porterville (16.8%), Modesto (17.2%) and Stockton (17.5%).

. . . The nation's economic recovery will not be complete until Americans go back to work. At every level of government, the goal should be to implement policies that improve consumer confidence and encourage businesses to hire workers.

The Fresno Want Ads

The Fresno Bee help-wanted ads tell the story.

There are 963 “Sales” jobs listed, but the first 519 of those are at the same "company," called “Work At Home Jobs, Inc.” and are mostly the same "job," if you can call it that. The next 136 are a different "company" and the "jobs" are calling people from home to sell them wireless cell service – on commission. The next 52 are the same deal but a different "company," selling internet from home, on commission. The next 46, same story. Etc.

The next category after Sales is “Business development”, with 691 jobs, 466 are “work at home” and many of the rest are the same jobs at the same companies as the “sales” jobs. The next two categories are "General Business" and "Other" and, again, list the same "jobs" at the same "companies." The next category is "Business Opportunity." I challenge you to guess what "companies" and "jobs" are listed. (Hint: it's the same ones again.)

Supply And Demand

Among the few specifics in the story is the example of "Jain Irrigation, which cannot find all the workers it wants for $15-an-hour jobs running expensive machinery that spins out precision irrigation tubing at 600 feet a minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

$15-an-hour is just above the poverty level for a family of four, at about 130%.

Dean Baker, writing in, The Problem of Structrual Unemployment: Really Incompetent Managers, makes the point that a company complaining they can’t find skilled workers at $15 an hour needs to think about raising their offer. Baker writes,

It presents comments from one employer who complains that he can't find workers for jobs that pay $15 an hour. This is not a very good wage. It would be difficult for someone to support themselves and their children on a job paying $15 an hour ($30,000 a year). If the company president understand economics, then he would raise wages enough so that the jobs were attractive to workers who have the necessary skills.

If they can't get workers, they should know that they need to bump up the wage offered until they can. That is about as basic as it gets in the supply/demand equation.

Can't Sell The House And Move

Part of this problem is the housing market. If Fresno really doesn’t have the skilled workers businesses need, Silicon Valley and Las Vegas certainly do, and have very high unemployment rates, but the people there can’t sell their houses and move! And even if they could sell they are "underwater," will come out of the sale owing a ton of money that they can't make up by taking a $15-per-hour job!

Externalizing Training Costs

Companies expect workers to already be trained, “externalizing” one more cost onto local communities, while shopping for the lowest tax areas to locate.

California has a budget crisis and is cutting back on funding for the community colleges and other programs where people are trained for jobs. One reason for the budget crisis is businesses demanding ever-lower taxes, or playing communities and states against each other for tax incentives to relocate, using property tax avoidance schemes and so many other ways to get out of paying something back to the public for the public investment that enabled them to prosper.

The Real Problem

Out here in the real world the real problem is not "structural," it is that there just are not enough jobs, they don't pay enough, "free trade" deals have lowered wages and undermined our manufacturing base, there is not enough demand in the economy and the government is not doing its job of picking up the slack and after 30 years of tax-cutting the infrastructure is crumbling and not supporting competitiveness for our businesses.

There are millions of unemployed and millions of infrastructure jobs that need doing. There is a new green energy and manufacturing revolution going on in the world and we do not have an economic/industrial policy to capture our share. There is problem after problem that is not being addressed by a government captured by interests.

DC Avoids Dealing With The Problem

It seems that the DC Elite will do anything to avoid just seeing what is in front of their faces.

Clearly we have lost jobs from trade deals, Wall Street financialization and domination, lack of investment in infrastructure and education, etc. But the DC Elite come up with a thousand reasons not to fix these because the interests that benefit from those deals have influence over them. Our budget deficit is obviously from tax cuts and military spending – but you will never, ever, ever, ever hear that. Instead we hear job-killing "austerity" solutions that avoid asking the wealthy few to pitch in.

On one issue after another, the DC Elite provide cover for the wealthy elite interests who now control DC. The transition from We, the People democracy to a plutocracy of, by and for the wealthy few is nearly complete.

The real problem is not a breakdown of the structure of the job market and is not a mismatch between the jobs and the skills, it is a lack of jobs because of lack of demand, and a mismatch between who our government and economy are supposed to work for, and the interests that have brought this about.

March 10 Summit on Jobs and America's Future

On March 10, 2011, the Summit on Jobs and America’s Future will bring together leaders and activists who understand that America faces a jobs crisis – and who are committed to building a political movement for sustainable economic growth, dynamic job creation, and a revival of the American economy.

It's free, $15 if you want lunch. Beat that.

Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:33 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 1, 2011

Democracy vs Plutocracy: Public Transportation

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Here is a letter in a recent "Mr. Roadshow" column in the San Jose Mercury News. The letter illustrates the problems in plutocratic/libertarian thinking vs democracy. (Note: Caltrain is the commuter-rail line serving towns between San Francisco and San Jose.)

Your recent article on Caltrain's $30 million deficit is once again showing your socialist leanings. Saying Larry Ellison of Oracle or Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google or Steve Jobs of Apple should rescue Caltrain is one of your famous inane ideas. If Caltrain cannot operate without taxpayer funding, it should go out of business. Just how much taxpayer money is used to fund the likes of Southwest Airlines, Greyhound Bus or any taxi services? As a taxpayer, I have never received a billing statement from any of these companies for not using their business! If you want the rich to pay for Caltrain, I suggest you tax rich athletes, actors, entertainers, the major news network anchors and, of course, rich politicians such as Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry, to name a few. Private business is the heart of America! Not government! Maybe you should quit the Mercury News and go to work for Gov. Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown and become director of Caltrans.

Let's look at the assumptions in this letter:

If XXXX cannot operate without taxpayer funding, it should go out of business. (Insert Caltrain, Public Radio, schools, libraries, health clinic for the poor, etc., as needed.)

Private business is the heart of America! Not government!

No taxpayer money goes to help airlines, bus companies, etc. operate.

Never mind the idea of public infrastructure, courts, etc. that provide the underpinnings of all business. An airline can't operate without an airport, air traffic control, weather forecasting, etc. A bus or taxi company cannot operate without roads, police, and the rest of the system. No business would exist without courts and the financial system...

I want to explore a deeper question. What are we, as citizens in a democracy, entitled to? Yes, that word, "entitled." There are things we are entitled to because we are human beings and citizens. We are supposedly still a one-person-one-vote system and not a one-dollar-one-vote system, and we are supposedly entitled to equal opportunity, equal access and an equal voice.

But for-profit systems only respect those with lots of money. In a democracy is it right to require people to have a lot of money have access to transportation? To health care? To information?

What are your thoughts?

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:36 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

January 28, 2011

Democracy or Plutocracy? A Chart

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

DEMOCRACY	PLUTOCRACY
We, the People	Wealthy Few
One Person One Vote	One Dollar One Vote
Government	Limited Government
Majority	Supermajority
Information	Propaganda
Taxes on the Wealthy	Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
Budgets	Budget Cuts
Jobs programs	Bank Bailouts
Welfare	Warfare
Express Lanes for 2 or More People	Express Lanes for 2 or More Dollars
Security Lines at Airports	Special First-Class Security Lanes at Airports
Public Schools	Private Schools
Public Investment	Private Investment

Updates:

Public Transportation	Private Jets
Accountability	Impunity
Rule Of Law	Above The Law
Transparency	Secrecy
Sustainable growth	Polluter Growth
Medicare-For-All	Healthcare For Profit
Clean Elections	Rigged Elections
Savings Accounts	Offshore Accounts
Credit Card Debt	Credit Default Swaps
Union members	Serfs
Layoffs	Payoffs
Homies	Cronies
Grassroots	Astroturf

Feel free to add additional contrasts in the comments.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:52 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

January 24, 2011

Filibuster Changes Would Bring The Public Back In

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

We all want to see the Senate start working again, and be more democratic. We have all lived through the breakdown of the Senate and the damage this has done to our democracy and the public's faith in government because of the abuse of the current rules. There is a vote likely tomorrow and we want to see real changes. There is a way to fix the problem and restore public interest in government at the same time: make them talk!

Background

On the first “day” of a Senate session the rules can be changed. The Senate met January 5 but did not adjourn the session, which means that the first “day” continues. The Senate reconvenes tomorrow. There is likely to be a vote on rules reform tomorrow. And if the vote is not tomorrow, the Senate can go into recess instead of adjourning for the day, and continue in the “first day.”

Rumors

There are rumors in every direction about what they might do about the dysfunction of the Senate. Rumors aside, one month ago every Democrat in the Senate signed a letter in support of changing the rules to require Senators to actually talk. This is the best outcome and there is no reason at all not to do this. If another "compromise" against democracy occurs, the public will be further demoralized. The country does not need another blow against trust in government.

Restore Public Interest

The public thinks this is how it is done. The movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” has cemented this in the minds of everyone. Unfortunately it isn’t how it has been done, and the result is that the public does not even know that the Senate is broken. They only know that “government” doesn’t work for them, and the change they need just does not happen.

If the Senate required Senators to actually stand up and talk, in the conventional understanding of what a filibuster is, it would restore public interest. It would be dramatic. People would notice. It is a show, with a purpose. When Senators stand up and talk and don't stop the public wants to know why and they want to get involved. People would want to weigh in. This is the right way to fix the Senate. Just as in the movie, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, the public will have a chance to rise in support of the effort, or let Senators know they oppose it.

Please visit Fix The Senate Now for more information. And CALL YOUR SENATORS to tell them you support reforming the filibuster!

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:11 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 18, 2011

Filibuster: Make Them Talk

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

The Senate is considering reforming the rules for filibusters. In the last few years the filibuster has been used so frequently that it is now conventional wisdom that "it takes 60 votes to pass a bill in the Senate." This is because the public, and apparently even much of the news media, does not understand how the Senate operates. In fact, when you hear that something takes 60 votes to pass it is because it has been filibustered.

In the last two years everything has been blocked by an obstructive minority in the Senate. This was done as a strategy, on purpose, with the idea that by blocking everything and keeping the public from understanding this was what was going on, the public would turn against the Democrats for not getting enough done to solve the country's problems. And it worked.

Make Them Talk

So the Senate is considering changing the rules for the filibuster, in an attempt to restore democracy and enable a return to governing and problem-solving. They are not talking about getting rid of the filibuster, they are talking about returning to its original purpose. To sum it up, they are going to try to make them talk.

Currently a Senator can can announce a filibuster or place a "hold," and that alone requires that the Senate gather 60 votes to undo it. For nominations the Senator does not even have to be identified. But this is not what the public understand the filibuster to be. The public thinks the filibuster is a dramatic event, with Senators talking all night, like in the movie Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

So the proposed changes in the filibuster will bring this back. Senators will have to talk, and it will be dramatic, and the public will know that there is a filibuster underway.

Senator Harkin: The Purpose Of The Filibuster

On a call with the press today Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa talked about this idea for changing the filibuster. He began by reminding us of the original purpose of the filibuster. This was so that when the majority is doing something that is egregious, the minority can hold it up, giving the public time to react if they so choose. But this is not at all what we have today. Today it enables the minority to block everything, subverting democracy.

Harkin said that by enabling the minority to block everything we have "stood democracy on its head." The minority decides everything, which means "the majority has the responsibility but not the ability to govern." "The minority should not have the power to dictate what the senate does."

The purpose of the filibuster, he said, should be to slow things down and let the public know something dramatic is happening. And the use of a supermajority was historically limited, originally for impeachment, treaties and overturing a veto. Not for passing legislation or confirming nominees.

Harkin would like to see a return to a dramatic, make-them-talk filibuster.

Good For Democracy

Making them talk would be good for democracy, because the public will be able to see that a dramatic event is taking place. Just as in the movie, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, the public will have a chance to rise in support of the effort, or let Senators know they oppose it.

Making them talk all night gives the public an opportunity to rally, one way or the other. It also, frankly, puts on a show, which will engage the public, restoring interest in government. This is good and we should do it.

Please visit Fix The Senate Now for more information. And CALL YOUR SENATORS to tell them you support reforming the filibuster!

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:15 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 15, 2011

Tunisia???

Tunisia tossed out a dictator after months of public protests and street demonstrations. Scarecrow at FDL, talk about ... Tunisia? Tunisians Help "Expand Our Moral Imaginations"

Suppose you lived in a country in which the ruling elite had retained power for decades and then used that power to heap enormous wealth and privilege on the ruling elite, while the elite’s financiers profited even more from their regime by looting the nation’s financial system.

Suppose these financial and political elites had ignored the plight of ordinary citizens, allowed massive poverty and income inequality to persist, and instead fostered conditions allowing the elite to plunder the country’s resources and loot its citizen’s wealth, leaving millions unemployed and at risk of losing their homes.

Suppose this same elite controlled the media, could buy/bribe government officials at will, and could use the media and the trappings of democracy to claim legitimacy while enforcing a narrow range on political discourse and even narrower range of which problems and solutions possess political legitimacy.

And suppose any efforts at reform kept the same elites and their institutions in charge, even after they ransacked the country and caused great harm to millions of ordinary citizens, while the elite held none of themselves accountable, let alone criminally responsible.

What should the citizens of that nation do? And which country am I describing?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:08 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 12, 2011

They Even Filibustered The Public Printer!

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

The Senate is considering changing the rules for the "filibuster" and this is an opportunity for you to do something that can make a difference. The filibuster has been abused and the Senate is broken. Call your Senators and tell them you want this fixed!

"Abuse" does not adequately describe what has happened with the filibuster and "broken" does not adequately describe what has happened with the U.S. Senate. Two years ago We, the People voted for change, but in the Senate change and everything else was blocked. Everything was filibustered as part of a strategy to demoralize people and undermine democracy. Everything. Important bills, judges, agency heads, ambassadors and all the things that constitute "everything." And the strategy worked.

They even filibustered the Public Printer!

What is the Public Printer? The Public Printer heads up the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO). The GPO manages our country's public documents. They print but also electronically distribute the Congressional Record, Supreme Court decisions, passports, tax forms, internal government documents, and agency publications. (They don't print the money.)

Benjamin Franklin served as the Public Printer when we were a colony, though the current office was established by Congress in 1861.

I am unable to locate any stated reason why the nomination of the Public Printer was filibustered, leaving me to assume that this particular filibuster came under the classification of "everything." Therefore the Public Printer was filibustered.

So now the Senate is considering whether to change their system. They are voting on January 24. They are considering making Senators actually filibuster instead of being able to block things from a nice table at a nice restaurant. This way the public will be aware that this tactic is being used to block things and can respond accordingly.

This is why you should call your Senators - both of them - today, and tell them that you want the Senate to reform the filibuster.

If you do this, some of them will say "Uh oh, they're on to us." They depend on the public not understanding what is going on, but if you call they will know that you are hip to their bag of tricks.

Others will say, "Hey, I don't have to be afraid to change things, they are paying attention!" These Senators will know that they have support and will be nudged toward voting to fix the problem, which will help make it so they can fix the rest of the problems.

Either way, calling WILL do some good. So call. Today. And tell others to call.

This is Annie Hill of the Communication Workers Union, with an overview of Senate Rules Reform:

Warning: If you are not a political junkie you might want to stop reading now and go call your Senators and say you want the filibuster reformed. The following content might be unsuitable for normal audiences.

Ezra Klein, with one of the best blog post titles in a long time, If you read only one John Kerry speech today ...,

I'm not going to summarize it here, because I think it's actually worth taking five minutes to read it in full. But the whole thing is below the fold:

Yes, if you like to read John Kerry speeches you should click through to read the whole thing, but just in case you are the rare individual who does not live to read John Kerry speeches here is "the meat," (and keep in mind that I, a vegetarian, had to actually read the speech to find "the meat" for you),

John and I considered postponing this speech, which had been planned for some time. But serious times call for serious discussions. And after some reflection, both of us felt that not only should this speech not be postponed, but that, in fact, it was imperative to give it.

Oh, wait, that's apparently not the interesting part. This is, about 115 paragraphs into the filibuster talk.,

Sometimes, as John Kennedy once said, “party asks too much.” Sometimes, party leaders also ask too much, especially if they exploit the rules of the United States Senate for the sole purpose of denying a President a second term. But that is what we have witnessed the last two years; Republicans nearly unanimous in opposition to almost every proposal by the President and almost every proposal by Democratic colleagues. The extraordinary measure of a filibuster has become an ordinary expedient. Today it’s possible for 41 Senators representing only about one tenth of the American population to bring the Senate to a standstill.

Certainly, I believe the filibuster has its rightful place. I used it to stop drilling for oil in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge because I believed that was in our national interest --and 60 or more Senators should be required to speak up on such an irrevocable decision. But we have reached the point where the filibuster is being invoked by the minority not necessarily because of a difference over policy, but as a political tool to undermine the Presidency.

Consider this: in the entire 19th century, including the struggle against slavery, fewer than two dozen filibusters were mounted. Between 1933 and the coming of World War II, it was attempted only twice. During the Eisenhower administration, twice. During John Kennedy’s presidency, four times-- and then eight during Lyndon Johnson’s push for civil rights and voting rights bills. By the time Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, there were about 20 filibusters a year.

But in the 110th Congress of 2007-2008, there were a record 112 cloture votes. And in the 111th Congress, there were 136, one of which even delayed a vote to authorize funding for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps during a time of war. That’s not how the Founders intended the Senate to work-- and that's not how our country can afford the Senate not to work.

If only I could move to DC so I could listen to speeches like this every day instead of just reading them.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:19 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 10, 2011

Filibuster Reform ... But

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

“But.” Everything you read about the filibuster talks about how important the filibuster is, allowing a minority to retain some power over abuse by a majority… and then it says, “But.”

For example, the Camden, NJ Courier Post, editorial today, Alter filibuster rules in Senate, reads,

In a representative democracy, the minority group or party should never be without any power, and the filibuster in the Senate has proved an important tool for both Republicans and Democrats when they've been in the minority. It allows the minority party to have a voice in the legislative process, even when the majority party would like to ignore that voice.

But over the last decade, as partisan divisions in Washington have become more entrenched, the filibuster privilege has been overused and abused by both parties. In just the last two congresses, filibusters have been used to block legislation or nominees 275 times. During the eight years when Dwight Eisenhower was president from 1953 to 1961, the Senate had to vote just twice to stop filibusters, according to Senate records.

"But over the last decade..." "overused," "used to block," etc... "But."

Of course the Courier Post threw in the “both sides” equivalence with no evidence. It’s a media rule that you can’t explain what conservatives are doing to the country without finding some way to equivalently blame "the other side."

The Albany, NY Times Union Fix the Senate, gets to the heart of the problem,

There actually were more filibusters in 2009 alone than in the 1950s and '60s combined.

A tool designed to guard against the tyranny of the majority has instead led to the tyranny of the minority. It's time for the Senate to consider allowing fewer than 60 votes to keep a bill under consideration. The rule of the majority, in both spirit and letter, remember, is just 51.

Even if a minority in the Senate is to retain this weapon, it should have to use it in a way that enhances debate, not undermines it.

More filibusters in the one year than the '50s and '60s combined...

The Problem: Blocking Everything

In the last two years Republicans pursued a strategy of trying to block everything -- every bill, every nominee, every judge -- and then campaigning saying that our country's problems were not being fixed. It worked. They got away with it. And our country's problems were not solved.

How bad is the problem? Last year one Senator placed a "blanket hold" on all Presidential appointments until he got earmarks for a defense contractor that was giving him tons of "campaign contributions." Even worse, here is a story about a lobbying firm that arranges filibusters for cash.

Abuse And Consequences

The filibuster is being abused, and the Senate is broken. Important bills are blocked. 420 important bills that had passed the House were not voted on in the Senate. The judges and executive appointees we need are not able to be confirmed. The country's problems are not being addressed.

This is more than just abuse, the filibuster is abused to the point that it is damaging the country and the world's understanding of democracy itself. Columnist Thomas Friedman has been warning that the abuse of the filibuster is causing the world to believe that China's autocratic system is a more effective form of government than our own. In Our One-Party Democracy, Friedman wrote,

The fact is, on both the energy/climate legislation and health care legislation, only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” Many of them just want President Obama to fail. Such a waste.

And in a column titled, Never Heard That Before, he writes about whisperings heard at the Davos conference of world leaders,

This year, Asians and Europeans, in particular, pull you aside and ask you some version of: “Tell me, what’s going on in your country?” We’re making people nervous. . . . “Our two-party political system is broken just when everything needs major repair, not minor repair,” said K.R. Sridhar, the founder of Bloom Energy, a fuel cell company in Silicon Valley, who is attending the forum. “I am talking about health care, infrastructure, education, energy. We are the ones who need a Marshall Plan now.”

Indeed, speaking of phrases I’ve never heard here before, another goes like this: “Is the ‘Beijing Consensus’ replacing the ‘Washington Consensus?’ ”

Please read that whole column to see the damage to our country this obstructionism is bringing in the world's eyes. It is causing the world to view democracy as an inferior system.

Democracy Thwarted

The filibuster is not just abused now, so is the public's understanding of it. The public understands what a filibuster is and when it should and should not be used. But they think a filibuster is Senators talking, not sitting in a restaurant and placing an anonymous "hold."

The problem is that the public does not even know that the filibuster is being used. The public is not getting the information it needs to make decisions, and to apply political pressure where it should be applied. All they hear is that the Senate can't pass things. How many times have you read that "Senate rules require 60 votes to pass a bill?" This is now the accepted "conventional wisdom" assumption. But, in fact, Senate rules require a simple majority to pass a bill, not 60 votes.

Lat year, in Harry -- Roll Out The Cots! Again And Again And Again!, I wrote,

You are not drawing a clear contrast and repeating it. You are not telling a simple story in a clear, understandable way. It is not getting through to the public that the hated filibuster is being used over and over. You need to put on a show that breaks through the haze and informs the public. There is a way to do that: roll out the cots! The public gets that. They associate cots with filibusters. It is theater but the public needs to have the information and without the theater – yes, the circus – of rolling out the cots again and again and again, the public is, in effect, having that information withheld from them.

Ever since the movie, "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" the public has believed that a filibuster is about Senators staying up all night, talking. If that is what they believe, then that is what you have to give them. You have a responsibility to democracy to find ways to break through the media filter and help the public to understand what is