Medicare-for-All advocates say health care reform bill doesn't meet the needs of people

A statement by Katie Robbins and Tom Knoche of Healthcare-Now, Donna Smith of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses United, and Mark Dudzic of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer. Read the full release for a list of ten serious flaws with the current law.

On Tuesday, President Obama signed the health reform bill into law.  This bill closely resembles the legislation written by Liz Fowler, former Vice President of Public Policy for Well Point, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies.

Healthcare-NOW!, a national organization supporting expanded and improved Medicare for all, points out that this bill tweaks the same failing non-system of health care in the United States and further entrenches the for-profit private health insurance, drug, and hospital industries diverting to them the resources needed to achieve high quality, universal, comprehensive health care.  

"It is troubling to watch this bill touted as an equal in political significance and social implications to Social Security or Medicare.  As advocates of an improved and expanded Medicare for all system, we must educate more and more people about the difference between transformative healthcare policy that is yet to be achieved and this bill that will leave so many people without access to the basic human right of healthcare.  We must redouble our efforts,"  states Donna Smith, Healthcare-Now steering committee, National Nurses United/California Nurses Association. 

Healthcare-NOW! is most aggrieved about the following aspects of the bill:

1. About 23 million people will remain uninsured nine years out resulting in an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually. One-third of these will be undocumented immigrants who will be excluded from purchasing private insurance.

2. Millions of people who are not eligible for public health insurance programs Medicaid and Medicare will be pressured to buy commercial health insurance policies costing up to 9.5 percent of their income but covering an average of only 70 percent of their medical expenses, potentially leaving them vulnerable to financial ruin if they become seriously ill. Many will find such policies too expensive to afford or, if they do buy them, too expensive to use because of the high co-pays and deductibles.

3. Those remaining uninsured will be fined up to 2.5% of their income.

4. Insurance firms will be handed at least $447 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize the purchase of their shoddy products. This money will enhance their financial and political power, and with it their ability to block future reform.

5. The bill will drain about $40 billion from Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals, threatening the care of the tens of millions who will remain uninsured.

6. People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plan's limited network of providers, face ever-rising costs and erosion of their health benefits. As the cost of insurance grows, they will be taxed on their benefits.

7. Health care costs will continue to skyrocket, as the experience with the Massachusetts plan (after which this bill is patterned) amply demonstrates. The industry lobbying group, American Health Insurance Plans, came just short of announcing the industry's next rate increase in its brief statement in response to the bill: "The access expansions are a significant step forward, but this legislation will exacerbate the health care costs crisis facing many working families and small businesses."

8. The much-vaunted insurance regulations - e.g. ending denials on the basis of pre-existing conditions - are riddled with loopholes, thanks to the central role that insurers played in crafting the legislation. Older people can be charged up to three times more than their younger counterparts, and large companies with a predominantly female workforce can be charged higher gender-based rates at least until 2017.  

9. It allows insurers to expand so-called wellness programs that let insurers  penalize subscribers by hundreds—and even thousands—of dollars for not meeting certain "wellness targets," such as a particular cholesterol number, blood sugar measurement or body-weight target.

10. Women's reproductive rights will be further eroded, due to segregation of insurance funds for abortion from all other medical services.

"We now have insurance reform based on a market model, but that model has failed to work up to now.  This bill puts corporate interests before the American people.  What people need is health care, not health insurance," states Katie Robbins, National Organizer of Healthcare-NOW!

Ray Stever, President of the New Jersey One Plan One Nation Coalition states, "Thousands of men and woman have been laid off and are struggling to buy food or pay the rent or mortgage.  Now they are being forced under a mandate to buy health insurance or be financially penalized."

"This bill does nothing to provide relief to state and local governments that face crippling fiscal crises, caused both by the recession and uncontrolled increases in the cost of health benefits for government employees," comments Tom Knoche of Healthcare-NOW!.  "Expanding Medicare to cover everyone would have saved state and local governments literally hundreds of billions of dollars nationwide."

"The attacks on employment-based health benefits continue under this bill.  In fact, it will incentivize employers to shift more and more of the costs of healthcare onto the backs of workers.  Now is the time for the entire labor movement to unite around the movement to achieve Medicare for All," says Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator, Labor Campaign for Single Payer.


Healthcare-NOW! is committed to continuing to educate and advocate on the solution to our health care crisis: a single-payer system or improved Medicare system covering everyone is the only way to create a universal, high quality system at less cost than we currently pay for health care as a nation.

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Tenth anniversary of Point Arena Resolution coming up in April

April 25th will be the 10th anniversary of the Point Arena Resolution on Corporate Personhood, and local activists are proposing that the city proclaim the day "Democracy Day."

The resolution was passed by the City Council in 2000 by a 4 to 1 vote. It defines democracy as governance by the people, and says that only natural persons should be able to participate in the democratic process, and agrees with Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black's 1938 opinion, "I do not believe the word 'person' in the 14th Amendment includes corporations." The resolution also calls on the city to encourage public discussion on the role of corporations in public life, and to urge other cities to do the same.

Jan Edwards, who has developed several teaching tools for democracy activists, including the "corporate person costume" and the Tapestry of the Commons, will be organizing a celebration, likely featuring a screening of "This Land is Your Land," the documentary that features Point Arena, but which has yet to be shown locally. Speakers from Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County may also participate, either live or by webcam.

We'll have more information as the program develops!

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Mary Zepernick on the history of corporate personhood and a broad amendment strategy for overturning it

Last week, North Bridge Alliance for Democracy joined with Concord Carlisle League of Women Voters, Concord CAN, and the Carlisle Climate Action Network to present a panel discussion on the Citizens United decision and its implications for American democracy. Mary Zepernick, of POCLAD and WILPF, one of the presenters, was unable to attend in person but sent the following history of corporate personhood as well as her observations on the need for ending all corporate appropriation of personhood rights through a Constitutional amendment.

WILPF, POCLAD & AfD have been allies since the latter two organizations’ founding some 15 years ago, though WILPF has 95 years on the other two. And here we are on the Steering Committee together of the campaign to Legalize Democracy: movetoamend.org.

On occasions like this I describe myself as a reconstructed US history teacher doing penance. Of the many lenses through which to view US history, one that is central to our purpose this evening is: Who is and who is not a person under the law? And what does this mean for our ongoing quest to be truly self-governing?

At the outset, legal persons were white propertied men, 55 of whom gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, closed their doors and replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution – sealing their records for half a century. The historian James Beard referred to them as the well bred, well fed, well read, and well wed!

Cape Cod’s revolutionary pamphleteer and playwright Mercy Otis Warren when the new document was unveiled: the Senate is too oligarchical, the country is too big to be governed by a strong federal system, and where are the rights of the people?

Mercy would be even more outraged to learn that the three Democratic and three Republican Senators brought together by Max Baucus in search of a health insurance plan are from states with a combined population of 8.4 million, 2.7% of the US population. The country is many times larger now and still in the hands of a strong federal government, despite growing dissent. And the rights of the people have been hijacked by property’s most powerful expression, the corporate form.
A significant Court decision in 1803 set the stage for subsequent judicial supremacy, all the way to Citizens United v FEC and beyond, until we change it. Chief Justice John Marshall established in Marbury v Madison: the principle of judicial review: the right of the federal courts to review actions of executive or legislative bodies to determine their consistency with statues, treaties or the Constitution. Then President
Thomas Jefferson wrote: “ To consider judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”

Given the oppressive role of the Crown trading corporations and colonies under the British, post-revolutionary corporations were small, relatively few in number, and restricted by the conditions of their charters, which were often amended or revoked by state legislatures or courts when violated .

An example of the prevailing political culture regarding corporations is the PA legislature’s declaration in 1834: "A corporation in law is just what the incorporating act makes it. It is the creature of the law and may be moulded to any shape or for any purpose that the Legislature may deem conducive for the general good."

This was no golden age of democracy, but the corporate form was in the appropriate subordinate relationship to the people’s representatives – not withstanding the fact that at this point legal persons still consisted of white men, usually propertied.More than a century later, Justice Felix Frankfurter described the modern corporation this way:

“Today’s business corporation is an artificial creation, shielding owners and managers while preserving corporate privilege and existence. Artificial or not, corporations have won more rights under law than people have– rights which government has protected with armed force.”

So what happened between the Pennsylvania legislature’s and Justice Frankfurter’s description of the corporation role’s in society? The short version is that by the mid-19th century, the industrial revolution, the growth of railroads and banking, then the Civil War saw an increase in the size and wealth of corporations. Corporate executives and lawyers sought ways to slip the bounds of their charters, bringing case after case up through the federal court system. As you probably know, they hit pay dirt in 1886, in an otherwise insignificant tax case. A since-disputed headnote in Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad declared the corporate form a person under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

Of the three so-called Civil War Amendments – the 13th abolishing slavery and the 15th granting black males the vote – the mighty 14th was the corporate prize. Here is the relevant passage for our purpose:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty,or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person with its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Due process and equal protection

WILPF’s timeline includes the corporate “person’s” Bill of Rights protections that flowed from the Santa Clara decision; here are some examples:

• 1893: due process of the 5th Amendment

• 1906: “search & seizure protection of the 4th Amendment

• 1908: 6th Amendment right to trial by jury

• 1922: “takings clause” protection of the 5th Amendment

• 1976: 1st Amendment: “Political money is equivalent to speech” (Buckley v Valeo)

• 1977: 1st Amendment used to void a Massachusetts law restricting corporate spending on political referenda

A similar timeline could be constructed for the slow march of rights gained by women, including the Suffrage Amendment in 1920. Not until 1971 was the 14th Amendment ruled to apply to women, though it was assumed in earlier cases!

For WILPF’s campaign to Challenge Corporate Power, Assert the People’s Rights, AfD and WILPF and AfD members Jan Edwards and Bill Meyers coined the phrase: Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property, and corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person,

In 1857 the Supreme Court declared in Dred Scott v Sandford: "The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like any ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States, in every state that might desire it...And no word can be found in the Constitution which give Congress a greater power over slave property, or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than property of any other description. The only power conferred is the power coupled with the duty of guarding and protecting the owner in his rights."

Ten years after the Santa Clara decision on corporate personhood, the Supreme Court declared in Plessy v Ferguson, 1896, that separate but equal accommodations were legal.Thus African Americans saw their personhood diminished, even as the corporate form continued to accumulate power based on corporate constitutional rights. Half a century later, Brown v Board of Education in effect reversed Plessy. However, early last year the Supreme Court overturned desegregation plans in Seattle and Louisville. And women’s right to abortion, Roe v Wade, 1973, has been steadly assaulted and eroded.

Thus our struggle continues between justice and equality for natural persons and the illegitimate rights of the so-called corporate person to usurp our promised self-governance. May we seize this opportunity to see that the Supreme Court has at last overstepped its bounds!

According to Larry Kramer, author of The People Themselves, American revolutionaries considered the notion of "Popular Sovereignty" more than an empty abstraction, more than a mythic philosophical justification for government. The idea of "the people" was more than a flip rhetorical gesture to be used on the campaign trail.  Ordinary Americans once exercised active control over their Constitution.

After the initial shock at the 5-4 decision in Citizens United v FEC, dropping the remaining barriers to corporate funding of the people's elections, many of us realized that Court had actually handed us a great opportunity. In the 15 years that AfD, POCLAD, WILPF and a growing number of allied activists have focused on illegitimate  corporate power and rights, there has never been the ferment in the press and populace that this case has created. 

Why is the Campaign to Legalize Democracy: movetoamend.org using a broad amendment strategy?  In effect, we are seizing the opportunity to exercise active control over our Constitution – not a document belonging to the Courts, nor to the Congress nor to the Chief Executive, but to us, the people's Constitution. At this stage, no one knows the"right" path to take. This is a long term, multi-layered challenge. It's not a contest but a collaboration between two approaches (and probably more to come).

Given the nature of the case itself, it's logical and useful to have a focus on the First Amendment: freespeechforpeople.org. 

It's  logical for those of us who have been organizing around "legal" but illegitimate corporate constitutional rights to seize this opportunity to raise a range of issues and to go for what we want and need: like the examples in my talk's short list of cases, taking back our rights from the corporate form. In the wake of a retreat in California following the September rehearing of the case, these two approaches began to form. Since then the email dialogue representing a range of people and views in both budding campaigns has been vigorous, respectful and fruitful.

The Campaign To Legalize Democracy; movetoamend.org aims to claim and make real in law and practice our birthright of self-governance. The Steering Committee, representing 15 organizations, and dozens of partners and endorsers believe that the Supreme Court is misguided in principle and wrong on the law.

Thus we reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

    * Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
    
* Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count.
    
* Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments.     

Signed by 74,255 and counting . . .

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What about Clean Elections?

In the wake of the Citizens United decision and recent attacks on state level election funding laws, one very necessary reform is not as much in the spotlight: public funding for elections. A little media love came its way this morning with this NPR piece discussing the Federal Fair Elections Now Act.

On the federal level, the Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752 and H.R. 1826) sets up a system by which candidates seek small donations, limited to no more than $100, to receive funding for election primaries and for general election campaigning. House candidates could receive $900,000, plus matching funds if additional small donations are raised. Importantly, donations must be raised within the district (sorry, should be in-state--thanks to the reader who sent the correction!), to demonstrate local support for the candidate. The bill also helps meet the challenge of buying media time, a major expense, by getting a discount on broadcast time and additional funding.

The Fair Elections Now Act was introduced in the Senate by Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (D-PA), and in the House by John Larson (D-CT) and Walter Jones Jr. (R-NC), and currently has 140 House co-sponsors, and ten in the Senate, but co-sponsors have a tendency to melt like soggy waffles when a bill starts to show a dim chance of becoming law (cf HR 676); consequently, if this is an issue you back, you have to let your Congresspeople know you're watching for their active and steady support.

Senate races would be funded by a fee on large government contractors and House races would be funded by ten percent of revenues generated through auction of unused portions of the broadcast spectrum. Based on costs for existing state level clean elections programs, the federal program could cost between $700 and $850 million per year, a small price to pay for legislators that owe their office to their constituents, rather than to big-money contributors.

Such bills have worked for years--with bipartisan support--for statewide and legislative elections in Arizona and Maine, with Connecticut joining in 2008. Judicial and regulation commission elections are funded in New Mexico, some judicial and oversight positions in North Carolina, and governor and lieutenant governor in Vermont. Municipalities using a clean election system include Albuquerque and Portland, OR.

California is the closest to joining this list for some statewide positions, if voters approve a referendum this summer. The Alliance's former San Fernando Valley chapter has been part of this effort from the beginning, and has left AfD to pursue this initiative full-time. New Hampshire is also investigating public funding; Doris "Granny D" Haddock was an active participant in their study commission up to her death this month.

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Health care reform: a Massachusetts perspective

Massachusetts already has universal individual mandates and a system of subsidies for lower-income individuals to buy private health insurance. How do Massachusetts single payer activists feel about passage of health care reform? MassCare, the state's single-payer coalition, weighs in:

Late last night the House passed health reform into law, along with a "reconciliation" bill that the Senate is expected also to pass along party lines this week. What does this mean for the movement to make health care a right in Massachusetts, and how should single payer advocates respond?

Millions of uninsured residents in other states will receive life-altering assistance, and the prescription drug 'donut hole' faced by seniors under Medicare will be closed over time - it's important not to understate what a victory this is for many of our supporters and allies.

However, the law will create winners and losers. It contains no meaningful cost controls; the tax on workplace health benefits used to pay for the law will serve as a powerful driver towards universal underinsurance; and Massachusetts in particular will be a 'net loser' under the law, as many of its benefits are already in place here and we will be paying more under the new taxes than most states.

The bill is projected to cover 32 million uninsured people by 2019... However, by 2016 - if health costs and income continue to rise as they have been - the average cost of a family health insurance plan will consume 34% to 45% of an average family income! We know that this is not conceivable for a household budget or for a business that offers coverage to its workers. This tells us something important: we will HAVE to have another major health reform debate - one that does not ignore costs, and does not just shift them onto patients - way before the bill that just passed has been fully implemented. We also know that there is no country on earth, or any region of any country on earth, that has successfully controlled costs without a single payer system or regulations so stringent that private insurers are forced to behave like a single payer system.

This cost crisis will likely reach a head in Massachusetts, where we have the highest health care costs in the nation, before anywhere else. The debate here on how to control health care costs before our health care system implodes will be a crucial moment for the single payer movement to mobilize and ensure that we get health reform that works.

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After health care reform passage, some things to keep in mind

First, Jane Hamsher lists the bad news about the health care reform law.

And Physicians for a National Health Plan notes that "there is growing awareness that the bill won't work, and, sooner rather than later, we need single-payer national health insurance. As noted by Harvard economist Dr. William Hsiao, the architect of Taiwan's successful health reform, 'You can have universal coverage and good quality health care while still managing to control costs. But you have to have a single-payer system to do it.'"

PNHP asks their supporters to keep talking to the press, publishing opinion pieces, and invite PNHP speakers to your community. You can read their press release on the reconciliation bill's passage as a start to your own letter to the editor on the ongoing fight for single payer.

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North Bridge chapter helps turn out a crowd in Concord to discuss constitutional amendments and corporate personhood

A standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 people from Concord, Massachusetts, and surrounding towns, came out on Friday, March 19 to learn what the Citizens United decision means for election funding, and to start a discussion on what steps need to be taken locally and nationally to curb the Supreme Court's attack on democracy.

The talk was entitled "Democracy in the Balance: Corporate Power in Politics," and was modeled after the local "Life in the Balance" speakers series on environmental issues.

Planned speakers included Jeffrey Clements and John Bonifaz, of FreeSpeechforPeople.org, and Mary Zepernick, of WILPF and POCLAD, both part of the Campaign to Legalize Democracy/MoveToAmend.org coalition. Unfortunately, Mary couldn't attend in person, but sent a statement, which was read by a member of the Concord-Carlisle League of Women Voters, who sponsored the event along with AfD's North Bridge chapter, and the Concord and Carlisle climate action groups.

Although the audience was made up of people from a variety of local groups--including some supporters of the Citizens United decision--the general belief was that getting money out of politics was the necessary first step to achieving any substantial government action on any issue. Questions focused on ways to contain the behavior of corporations beyond their participation in politics, on various reforms proposed in Congress, and on the merits of an amendment to limit corporate First Amendment rights versus an amendment eliminating all personhood rights for corporations. FreeSpeechforPeople.org's approach, as explained by Jeff Clements, was to focus on taking away corporate First Amendment rights and overturning the legal definition of money as speech as the most harmful instance of corporate personhood because of its effect on campaign finance. Others in the audience felt that corporate personhood as a whole needed to be abolished.

Many in the audience signed up to be part of future events and action groups.

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Here's the Story of Bottled Water--spread the news for World Water Day

Here's the lowdown on manufactured demand for bottled water and the environmental cost of this overpriced pseudo-necessity.



Pass this YouTube link on to friends and let's get this video viral! And let's make the commitment to give up bottled water and reinvest in good local public water systems at home and overseas. See the video for more ideas for families, schools, and communities.

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Former co-chair Ted Dooley honored by Minnesota Lawyers Guild

Former AfD Co-chair and Minnesota chapter organizer Ted Dooley will receive the Paul Marino People's Lawyering Award from the Minnesota Lawyers Guild at their Annual Social Justice Dinner on April 17. In addition to his work with AfD, Ted has been a mainstay of the Minneapolis peace and social justice communities, both on the streets and in the courtroom. Congratulations, Ted!

The Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition (MIRAc) will also be honored at the dinner with the Guild's Social Justice award. Keynote speaker at the dinner will be Indigenous rights activist and scholar Waziyatawin.

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Local AfD'ers bring David Cobb to University of Arizona

A coalition of local groups, including the Alliance for Democracy, will be bringing David Cobb to speak on the need to amend the Constitution to establish broad democratic reforms, including the elimination of corporate personhood. The talk will take place Tuesday, April 13, at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law, starting at 7 p.m. The talk is free and open to the public.

David Cobb, who ran for President in 2004 on the Green Party's ticket, continues to oppose the granting of rights to corporations that should be reserved to natural persons. At the national level, he serves as a principal with the Program on Corporations Law and Democracy (POCLAD). As a member of the steering committee of Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County, Cobb helped to pass an initiative limiting corporate contributions to local elections. "Measure T" was eventually declared "null and void," but Cobb refuses to give up the fight against the burden of denying
"corporate personhood."

Writing as a member of a coalition that included Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), Cobb helped craft an amicus brief arguing in support of the Federal Election Commission, and in defense of restrictions on corporate political expenditures. Unfortunately, his task has been made more difficult when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Citizens United and opened the floodgates for corporate dollars to flow. As a result, Cobb once again finds himself involved in a grassroots movement to "legalize democracy."

Working with the Campaign to Legalize Democracy, Cobb notes that more than 70,000 people have already signed the following "Motion to Amend":
"We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to:

• Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
• Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our vote and participation count.
• Protect local communities, their economies, and democracies against illegitimate "preemption" actions by global, national, and state governments."

Cobb plans to engage the people of Tucson in a dialogue about the importance of pursuing this goal, as well as the challenges that will have to be faced in crafting an amendment that can win passage at the national level.

His lecture will be preceded by media interviews. On Wednesday morning, interested members of Tucson's activist community will be invited to participate in a planning workshop to be held from 9 - 11 AM.

Event organizers include the local chapters of the Alliance for Democracy, WILPF, Democracy for America, and the student chapter of the American Constitution Society at the University of Arizona.

For information about Cobb's visit, his public lecture and the planning workshop, contact C.J. Jones at 622-3580, or cj@mcn.org.

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The Story of Bottled Water

"The Story of Bottled Water" is being released on March 22, World Water Day. In just seven minutes the video tells the history of how corporations built a PR campaign to discredit public drinking water and the once-common water fountain in favor of individual consumers purchasing individual servings of water in plastic bottles.

Watch the trailer here and then be sure to check out the video on March 22. And e-mail all your friends to watch too! If everyone checks it out, the video could be one of the top hits on Google videos and go viral around the country.

The Alliance for Democracy is a partner in its release along with Corporate Accountability Internationa1, Environmental Working Group, Food and Water Watch, Pacific Institute and Polaris Institute.

"The Story of Bottled Water" is produced by Annie Leonard and Free Range Studios who produced "The Story of Stuff" viewed by millions around the world and being used in classrooms to teach how the corporate-driven economy depends on the consumption of goods.

To find out more about the Alliance's Defending Water for Life campaigns, see our local campaign sites for Maine, Oregon, and California.

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Lawyers poke Facebook group over Citizens United name

The Facebook group Citizens Against Citizens United gets a nasty letter from some lawyers; according to this message sent by Mike McCabe to group members:

Subject: Cease-and-desist letter from Citizens United

This morning we received a letter from a law firm in Virginia representing the group Citizens United claiming that our Facebook page "Citizens United Against Citizens United" is a trademark infringement. The group demands that we cease using the name "Citizens United" immediately and destroy all writings with a reference to the name.

To see the letter, go to
http://www.facebook.com/l/40378;www.wisdc.org/pdf/citizens_united_letter.pdf

The irony here is that the group described the outcome of the case as a great victory for the First Amendment and free speech, but now is seeking to stifle the speech of others who have a different view of the court decision's implications for political speech and the health of our democracy.

We are consulting with some attorneys and assessing our next steps.

No idea whether the lawyers also have their sights on Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River and its Tributaries, Citizens United for Democracy, Citizens United for Animals, Citizens United for Responsible Education, Citizens United for Renewable Energy and Sustainability, Citizens United for Economic Equity, Citizens United for Responsible Growth, Citizens United for Action, or Citizens United for State Sovereignty Now (...and that was only three pages into the Google search...)

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Raging Grannies take on the Supreme Court 5

Thanks to Dan Tilson for the video link!

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Concord, Massachusetts forum on corporate personhood and defending democracy

What led up to the Citizens United decision, how will it affect elections and our democracy, and what actions can individuals take in response? To answer some of these questions, four Concord, Massachusetts community groups have organized "Democracy in the Balance: Corporate Power in Politics," a free public forum on Friday, March 19, 2010, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Trinitarian-Congregational Church, 54 Walden St., Concord, MA.

The forum will feature three experts on the issues raised by Citizens United:

• Mary Zepernick, a researcher for the Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy and a board member of the Women’s International League of Peace & Freedom, both of which filed an amicus curiae brief in Citizens United;
• Jeffrey Clements, the Concord lawyer who was counsel of record for that amicus brief; and
• John Bonifaz, constitutional lawyer, founder of the National Voting Rights Institute and legal director of Voter Action in Western Massachusetts.

The March 19th forum has several aims:

• To look at the historical highlights of government restrictions upon or expansion of corporate power since the founding of our nation;


• To explain the recent Supreme Court case and its likely impact on our democracy; and


• To explore current options for redressing the now unfettered corporate influence on elections.

After the presentations, there will be an opportunity for discussion. This free forum is open to all, and refreshments will be served.

Democracy in the Balance is co-sponsored by four community groups dedicated to educating and engaging the public: the Alliance for Democracy, North Bridge chapter; Carlisle Climate Action; ConcordCAN (Concord Climate Action Network); and the League of Women Voters of Concord- Carlisle. For more information, visit www.lwvcc.com, email DemocracyForum@lwvcc.com or call 978-369-3842.

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Thank you, Doris "Granny D" Haddock

We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Doris "Granny D" Haddock, a long time friend and indefatigable ally in the fight for democracy. She passed away yesterday at home in New Hampshire at the age of 100.

She was best known for her walk across the country to promote campaign finance reform, a walk that started at age 89 in California, and ended with much fanfare almost ten years ago to this day in Washington DC. But the end of her walk was by no means the end of her work cleaning up what she never failed to refer to as bribery--the favors-for-cash exchanges that deform democracy and public policy.

She was a Democracy Brigade participant, arrested twice in the Capitol Rotunda, once while reading the Declaration of Independence (in her court statement she noted that one of the protestors had fallen while being taken away by police and left with a bleeding head for several hours, and added "I am glad we were only reading from the Declaration of Independence --I shudder to think what might have happened had we read from the Bill of Rights.")

She logged more than 23,000 miles to help with voter registration efforts in 2003 and 2004, and that year she ran for U.S. Senate against Republican Judd Gregg, following the last-minute withdrawal of the presumptive Democratic nominee. She also spearheaded a campaign for a state-level Citizen Funded Election Task Force, which has been meeting regularly to bring publicly funded elections to New Hampshire.

At her 100th birthday celebration, days after the Citizens United decision dismantled the limited protections she'd walked so far to help institute, she was neither bitter nor discouraged, likening the decision to a man hearing that his old cabin has burned to the ground and seeing it, not as a loss, but as a chance to build a better one from the ground up. Her optimism wasn't pollyanna-ish, but rooted in common-sense ideals of what it means to be both a responsible individual and part of a wider community.

As she said at a speech in Boston in 2000, "We have a duty to look after each other and we invent governments for this purpose. If we lose control of our government, then we lose our ability to dispense justice and human kindness. Our first priority today, then, is to defeat utterly those forces of greed and corruption that have come between us and our self-governance."

Our thoughts go out to Doris's family and friends, with tremendous gratitude for her life, spirit and work.

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Department of Justice says ES&S must sell off e-voting division purchased from Diebold

The Brad Blog reports that the Anti-trust division of the Department of Justice has ruled that Election Systems & Software, Inc.'s purchase of Diebold's e-voting division has created a voting machine monopoly. Had it stood, the purchase, made last September at rock-bottom prices, would have resulted in one privately-held and notoriously partisan corporation tallying some 70% of the votes cast in the nation.

The purchase was already under investigation by 14 different states, and had been opposed by election integrity groups, ES&S's competitor Hart Intercivic, the New York Times editorial board, and Senate Rules Committee chair Charles Schumer (D-NY).

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BCA Dispatch out--next issue in two months

The Boston/Cambridge Alliance "Dispatch" is out, and you can request a copy from editor Dave Lewit at dlewit@igc.org. Among the highlights: Using the Mondragon coop model to develop employee-owned businesses in Cleveland, "personal corporatehood," the repeal of Instant Runoff Voting in Burlington, VT, and building durable prosperity and democracy... in Europe.

Locally, Dave reports on groundwork for Boston participation in June's US Social Forum, following a meeting of mostly young people of color who are organizing around racism, militarism, climate, economy and education. People in the area who want to connect with the groups involved or learn more about attending with others from the area can visit Mass Global Action.

Finally, the Dispatch will now be published bi-monthly--with double the material, though, so having an extra month to read it will be a good thing! The revised schedule comes about because, as Dave writes, he "will soon be editor of a Common Good website--that's the tentative name of an institute or movement to bring together splintered, specialized movements of the left--health care, labor, women, immigration, globalization, localization, peak oil, climate change, and so on--springing from a shared philosophy. Theologian John Cobb, who reads the Dispatch, sensed in it the kind of thinking that underlies Process Theology--systemic thinking that is concerned with suffering (hell) and beauty (heaven), diversity and change, striving and realizing, community and reintegration. He and theologian-pastor Ignacio Castuera, both of the Claremont CA university community, asked Dave to join them to start the movement, with folks who are potential writers or steering committee members, or can help with technical services. " Interested? Email Dave at dlewit@igc.org.

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Organizing to overrule the court heads south after a great response in the northwest

Next wee Riki Ott will be speaking in Monterey and Santa Cruz CA following a great series of talks in the northwest, several with David Cobb, former Green Party presidential candidate. Some of the talks in Ashland OR, Portland OR, and Seattle were co-sponsored by Alliance for Democracy national and/or chapters.

David Delk, Portland chapter president and AfD co-chair, reported a high-energy presentation to a considerable turnout. The talk has been videotaped--we'll post the video when it's available. David Cobb also appeared on Thom Hartmann talking about the tour and the Campaign to Legalize Democracy/MovetoAmend.org.

Seattle's events included presentations at the Labor Temple and University of Washington, as well as visibilities and a model of the US Constitution that passersby could add their name to, thanks to the Backbone Campaign (see their site for ideas for visibility actions for this and other issues).

Here's video of the UW talk:

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Four days left for you to vote "abolish corporate personhood" into the final round at Change.org

Annually, Change.org sponsors Ideas for Change in America, a crowd-sourcing competition that empowers citizens to identify and build momentum around a diverse range of ideas for addressing the challenges our country faces.

During the last two months, more than 2,500 ideas were submitted and voted on by 100,000 people across the country. The top three rated ideas from each issue category qualified for the final round. Among those that qualified, "Abolish Corporate Personhood"--which currently has the most votes in "Government Reform and Transparency".

The wording of the proposal is a combination of two ideas on corporate personhood, and reads:

On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government.

Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions. The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law.

We need to restore our right to rule, to democracy. To do so requires creating major changes in our legal system; changes like abolishing corporate personhood. Hence, we support a constitutional amendment that will:

1. Firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.

2. Guarantee the right to vote and to participate, and to have our votes and participation count.

3. Protect local democracy: The economies and governance of local communities must be free from control and domination by large corporations or other entities like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Bank.

You can take action right now at www.movetoamend.org. But help spread the word by promoting this idea here on change.org!

Final round voting ends on March 12. The 10 most popular ideas will be presented to relevant members of the Obama Administration, and Change.org will subsequently mobilize its full community to support a series of grassroots campaigns to help turn each idea into reality.

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Winter in America: Democracy Gone Rogue

The forecast: bleak.

by Henry A. Giroux. Posted March 4 on Truthout

The absolute ... spells doom to everyone when it is introduced into the political realm.
- Hannah Arendt, On Revolution

Democracy in the United States is experiencing both a crisis of meaning and a legitimation crisis. As the promise of an aspiring democracy is sacrificed more and more to corporate and military interests, democratic spheres have largely been commercialized and democratic practices have been reduced to market relations, stripped of their worth and subject to the narrow logics of commodification and profit making. Empowerment has little to do with providing people with the knowledge, skills, and power to shape the forces and institutions that bear down on their lives and is now largely defined as under the rubric of being a savvy consumer. When not equated with the free market capitalism, democracy is reduced to the empty rituals of elections largely shaped by corporate money and indifferent to relations of power that make a mockery out of equality, democratic participation and collective deliberation.

The undoing of democracy as a substantive ideal is most visible in the illegal legalities perpetuated by the Bush-Cheney regime and reproduced under the presidency of Barack Obama that extend from the use of military commissions, the policy of indefinite detention, suppressing evidence of torture, maintaining secret and illegal prisons in Afghanistan to the refusal to prosecute former high-level government officials who sanctioned acts of torture and other violations of human rights. As part of the crisis of legitimation, democracy's undoing can be seen in the anti-democratic nature of governance that has increasingly shaped domestic and foreign policy in the United States, policies that have been well documented by a number of writers extending from Noam Chomsky to Chris Hedges. What is often missed is how such anti-democratic forces work at home in ways that are less visible and when they are visible seem to become easily normalized, removed from any criticism as they settle into that ideological fog called common sense.

If the first rule of politics is to make power invisible, the second rule is to devalue critical thought by relieving people of the necessity to think critically and hold power accountable. And always in the name of common sense. Under the rubric of common sense, democracy is now used to invoke rationalizations for invading other countries, bailing out the rich and sanctioning the emergence of a national security state that increasingly criminalizes the social relations and behaviors that characterize those most excluded from what might be called the consumer- and celebrity-laden dreamworlds of a market-driven society. As democracy is removed from relations of equality, justice and freedom, it undergoes a legitimation crisis as it is transformed from a mode of politics that subverts authoritarian tendencies to one that reproduces them. Used to gift wrap the interests and values of an authoritarian culture, the rhetoric of democracy is now invoked to legitimate its opposite, a discourse of security and a culture of fear enlisted by pundits and other anti-public intellectuals as all-embracing registers for mobilizing a rampant nationalism, hatred of immigrants and a bunker politics organized around an "us" versus "them" mentality. When tied to the discourse of democracy, such practices seem beyond criticism, part of a center-right mentality that views such policies as natural and God-given - beyond ethical and political reproach.

As the country undermines its own democratic values, violence and anti-democratic practices become institutionalized throughout American culture, their aftershocks barely noticed, testifying to how normalized they have become. For instance, one major report indicated recently that more "than 60 percent of children were exposed to violence within the past year ... [with] nearly half of adolescents surveyed ... assaulted at least once in the previous year [and] one-quarter had witnessed an act of violence."[1] In one week, the media reported on a 12-year-old student who was arrested for doodling on her desk at school. Her teacher thought it was a criminal act and called the New York City police who promptly handcuffed her and took her to the local police station.[2] In Montgomery, Maryland, a 13-year-old student at Roberto Clement Middle Schools was taken out of class by security officers after she refused to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.[3] The mainstream media provide glimpses of such assaults, but rarely are they analyzed within a broader political and social context that highlights the political and economic conditions that make them possible. For instance, such assaults say nothing about the increasing militarization of public schools, the right-wing attempts to defund them so they can be privatized, the rampant inequality that approximates a form of class warfare, or the racism often at the heart of such practices.[4]

Such actions are now normalized within the discourse of a bunker politics fueled by both the increasing militarization of all levels of society and legitimated further through a harsh and cruel notion of economic Darwinism. There are no shades of gray in this militarized discourse, no room for uncertainty, thoughtfulness or dialogue, since this view of engagement is modeled on notions of war, battle, winning at all costs and eliminating the enemy. Complex understanding is banished under the call for thoughtless, one-size-fits-all zero-tolerance policies in schools, intelligence is now quantified using formulas that may be useful for measuring the heights of trees but little else, and teachers are deskilled through the widespread adoption of both a governing-through-crime pedagogy and an equally debilitating pedagogy of high-stakes testing. Resentment builds as social services either collapse or are stretched to the limit at a time when over 17 million people are unemployed and over "91.6 million people - more than 30 percent of the entire population - fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty line."[5] Emerging out of this void and shaping a more militaristic anti-politics are the anti-public intellectuals and their corporate sponsors, eager to fill the air with populist anger by supporting right-wing groups, Sarah Palin types, Glenn Beck clones and self-styled patriots that bear an eerie resemblance to the beliefs and violent politics of the late Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma in 1995.[6]

This emerging conglomerate and diverse group of anti-public intellectuals, political pundits, populist agitators expresses a deep-seated hatred for government (often labeled as either socialist or fascist), progressive politics, and the notion that everyone should have access to a quality education, decent health care, employment and other public services. Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that Sarah Palin in addressing the recent National Tea Party Convention stated "I will live, I will die for the people of America, whatever I can do to help." Surely, these words leave little ambiguity for members of the John Birch Society, right-wing militia groups, Oath Keepers white supremacists, and other armed anti-government groups that appear to be growing in numbers and influence under the Obama presidency. But while these lines received much attention from the dominant media, the more telling comment took place when Palin offered the Tea Party audience lines she lifted from one of the more fascistic films released by Hollywood in the last decade, "Fight Club." Inhabiting the character of a self-styled, pathologically violent maverick, Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt), whose misogyny is matched by his willingness to engage in acts of militia-inspired terrorism, Palin unabashedly mimics one of Tyler's now famous wisecracks in attacking Obama's clever rhetoric with the line, "How's that hopey, changey stuff working out for ya?"[7] Going rogue in this context suggests more than a compensatory quip for any kind of sustained analysis; instead it offers a seductive populist reference to lawless violence.

This somewhat confused but reckless appropriation of the discourse of glamorized violence suggests the not-so-subtle ways in which violence has become the framing mechanism for engaging in almost any mode of politics. Under such circumstances, politics shares an ignoble connection to a kind of soft terrorism, a kind of symbolic violence blatantly tied to the pathologies of corporate corruption, state-sanctioned brutality and authoritarian modes of engagement.

As violence and politics merge, the militarization, disciplining and oppressive regulation of American society continue, often legitimated by a popular culture in which the spectacles of celebrity idiocy and violence become the only stimuli left to shock people out of their boredom or offer them an outlet for their anger. But they continue in ways that seem incidental rather than connected, diffused of its real meaning and abstracted from the politics that informs it - hence, it slips into a kind of invisibility, wrapped in the logic of common sense. Under its common-sense rubric, homelessness and poverty are now criminalized, schools are dominated by zero-tolerance policies that turn public schools into a low-intensity war zone, school lockdowns are the new fire drills, the welfare state morphs into the warfare state, and university research is increasingly funded by the military and designed for military and surveillance purposes. In one of the more frightening examples of the militarization of American society, David Price has brilliantly documented how government intelligence agencies are now placing "unidentified students with undisclosed links to intelligence agencies into university classrooms ... and has gone further ... than any previous intelligence initiative since World War Two. Yet, the program spreads with little public notice, media coverage or coordinated multicampus resistance."[8] Is it any wonder that when intellectuals in the social sciences and medical fields assist in the illegal torture of "enemy combatants" or embed themselves in military-sponsored counter-insurgency campaigns, such practices rarely get the critical attention they deserve. All too often, the blathering disciples of common sense tell us that politics is rooted in natural laws, unhampered by critical thought. Such appeals to common sense suggest that thinking is at odds with politics, and its hidden order of politics is hateful of those public spaces where speaking and acting human beings actually engage in critical dialogue, exercise discriminating judgments, and address important social problems. Common sense is in effect an anti-politics because it removes questions of agency, governance and critical thought from politics itself. As part of the logic of common sense, scapegoating rhetoric replaces the civic imagination, and a brutalizing, calculating culture of fear, demonization and criminalization replaces judgment, emptying politics of all substantive meaning. In this discourse, there are no social problems, only individual failings. Poverty, inadequate health care, soaring public debt, the bailout of corrupt financial institutions, the prison binge, the destruction of public and higher education cannot be addressed by the logic of common sense, because such issues point to broad, complex considerations that demand a certain amount of understanding, literacy and a sense of political and moral responsibility - all enemies of the anti-public intellectuals who wrap themselves in the populist appeal to a know-nothing common sense. Common sense makes human beings superfluous, depoliticizes politics and transforms human beings into the living dead, unable to recognize "that politics requires judgment, artful diplomacy, and judicious discrimination."[9] Common sense occupies the antithesis of Hannah Arendt's insistence that debate constitutes the very essence of political life."[10] This is the central message of Fox News, Glenn Beck and other right fundamentalists who live in circles of certainty and reject any real attempt at debate, persuasion and deliberation as the essence of politics. Their populist appeal to common sense to justify their various views of the world rejects enlarged ways of thinking, thoughtfulness and the exercise of critical judgment. Such a discourse creates a zombie politics in which deliberation is blocked and the ethos of democracy is stripped of any meaning.

A zombie politics enmeshed in the production of organized violence, surveillance, market-driven corruption and control, buttressed by an appeal to common sense, blocks the path to open inquiry. War not only becomes normalized under such circumstances, it becomes a defining force in shaping all aspects of society, including its use of science and technology. Put differently, as warlike values become more prevalent in American society, science and technology are increasingly being harnessed in the interest of militarized and commercialized values and applications. For example, the defense industries are developing drone aircraft that can be used to deliver high-tech violence not only abroad but also at home. Unmanned drones fitted with surveillance cameras will soon be used to monitor demonstrations. As the technology becomes more advanced, the drones will be mounted with taser guns, rubber bullets and other non-lethal weaponry in order to contain allegedly unruly individuals and crowds.[11] High-tech weapons have already been used on American protests and as the state relies more and more on military values, money and influence to shape its most basic institutions, the use of organized violence against civilians will become more commonplace. For instance, at the 2009 G20 summit of world leaders, democracy took a hit as the Pittsburgh police used sonic canons against protesters.[12] These high-tech weapons were used previously by the US military against Somali pirates and Iraqi insurgents and create sounds loud enough to damage eardrums and potentially produce fatal aneurysms. In public schools, surveillance has become so widespread that one school in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, issued over 1,800 laptops to high school students and then used the Webcams fitted on the computers to spy on students. The mainstream media hardly blinked and the public yawned.

Common sense may be good or bad in terms of its value, but in all cases it is unreflective sense and as such shortcuts the types of critical inquiry fundamental to an engaged public and an aspiring society. Surely, common sense is of little help in explaining the existence of brain research that is now being used to understand and influence how people respond to diverse sales and political pitches. Nor does it explain why there is not a huge public outcry over the emergence of a field such as neuromarketing, designed by politicians and corporations, who are "using MRIs, EEGs, and other brain-scan and medical technology to craft irresistible media messages designed to shift buying habits, political beliefs and voting patterns."[13] Nor does it explain the politics or the lack of public resistance to food industries using the new media to market junk food to children. Zombie politics loves to depoliticize any vestige of individual agency and will. How else to explain a story by New York Times writer Nicholas D. Kristof, who incredulously legitimates the notion that political judgments are primarily the result of how our brains are hard-wired. This is the ultimate expression of anti-politics, in which matters of agency are now removed from any sense of responsibility, relegated to the brave new world of genetic determinism.

Under such circumstances, memory is lost, history is erased, knowledge becomes militarized and education becomes more of a tool of domination rather than empowerment. One result is not merely a collective ignorance over the meaning, nature and possibilities of politics, but a disdain for democracy itself that provides the condition for a lethal combination of political apathy and cynicism on the one hand and a populist anger and an ethical hardening of the culture on the other. Symbolic and real violence are now the defining features of American society. Instead of appealing to the principles of social justice, moral responsibility and civic courage, the anti-public intellectuals and the market-driven institutions that support them laud common sense. What they don't mention is that underlying such appeals is a hatred not merely for government, but for democracy itself. The rage will continue and the flirtations with violence will mount. Going rogue is now a metaphor for the death of democratic values and support for modes of symbolic and potentially real violence in which all vestiges of thought, self-reflection and dialogue are destroyed. Hopefully, the voices of reason and justice will recognize how serious this threat to democracy really is and when they do, they will surely understand what Gil Scott-Heron meant when he talked about winter in America.

Notes:

[1] Editorial, "Violence in the Lives of Children and Youth," The Child Indicator, 10: 1 (Winter 2010), p. 1.

[2] Jenna Johnson, "Pledge of Allegiance dispute results in Md. teacher having to apologize," The Washington Post, (February 24, 2010), p. B01.

[3] Liliana Segura, "Arrested for Doodling on a Desk? "Zero Tolerance" at Schools Is Going Way Too Far," AlterNet, (February 27, 2010).

[4] I have taken this issue up in great detail in Henry A. Giroux, "Youth in a Suspect Society: Democracy or Disposability?" (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

[5] Bob Herbert, "They Still Don't Get It," New York Times (January 23, 2010), p. A21.

[6] Frank Rich, "The Axis of the Obsessed and the Deranged," The New York Times, (February, 28, 2010), p. WK10.

[7] Cited in Kathleen Hennessy, "Sarah Palin to Tea Party Convention: 'This is about the people.'" Los Angeles Times (February 7, 2010).

[8] David Price, "How the CIA is Welcoming Itself Back Onto American University Campuses," CounterPunch 17:2 (January 16-21, 2010), p. 1.

[9] Richard J. Bernstein, "The Abuse of Evil: The Corruption of Politics and Religion Since 9/11," (Polity Press, 2005) pp. 1-124.

[10] Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York, Penguin Books, 1977), p. 72.

[11] Paul Joseph Watson, "Surveillance Drones to Zap Protesters Into Submission," Prison Planet (February 12, 2010). For an excellent source on how the robotic revolution is being used to transform the nature of war, see P.W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotic Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (New York: Penguin Press, 2009).

[12] News Blog, "G20 Protesters Blasted by Sonic Cannon," The Guardian (September 25, 2009).

[13] (See, for example, Rinaldo Brutoco and Madeleine Austin, "'Spellcasters': The Hunt for the 'Buy Button' in Your Brain", TruthOut, (January 10, 2010).

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The money's being moved!

According to a Zogby Interactive survey, 32% of US adults have considered move some or all of their banking business from a large national bank to a community bank or credit union because of disapproval of big-bank policies, 14% have moved some of their banking from a big bank to a community institution, and 9% say they did it as a protest.

The survey reached 2,068 U.S. adults in mid-February. You can read more here.

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Good Read: Palin a populist?

When pundits brand Palin a populist, they're relying on discredited cultural history--real populists weren't cranky conservatives who just said "no"--they stood up for an active government role in protecting the economic welfare of the working majority. "Real populists" stood up to found AfD--and are still standing for democratic governance and an end to corporate rule.

by Charles Postel. Posted on Politico.com March 3
When David Broder praised Sarah Palin’s speech at the National Tea Party Convention as “perfect-pitch populism,” real Populists were surely spinning in their graves.

In the 1890s, American farmers and other activists rocked corporate power in a populist revolt. Now, the Washington Post columnist has passed the populist mantle to Palin. If they could, the Populists would protest this misuse of their name.

But why do political analysts insist on using the word “populism” to describe conservative activism? Why should we care? Because it makes hash of both history and our current political conflicts.

The Populists were all about economic justice. They demanded government regulation of railroads, banks, telecommunications and insurance. And if that failed to curb corporate abuses, they wanted public ownership or at least a “public option.” They demanded a federal stimulus to get the economy out of the terrible depression of 1893-97.

The Populists were the ones who pushed for a progressive income tax to pay for the needs of the people, especially for better and more accessible public schools and universities. The Populist Party of the 1890s failed. But, in failure, its proposals refashioned progressive politics for generations.

Yet the populist reputation has suffered a cruel fate. In the 1950s, historian Richard Hofstadter discovered a “cranky” side of populism. “Progressive populism,” he suggested, had morphed into the conservative intolerance of McCarthyism.

It didn’t matter that this never happened. It didn’t matter how many scholars had showed that there was not a scintilla of evidence for a populism/Joe McCarthy connection. The damage was done.

Today’s political analysts channel Hofstadter. George Will’s Feb. 18 Washington Post column smugly reduces populism to the whiny politics of self-defeating resentment “that never seems serious as a solution.” It may be bad history, but it makes for simple story lines about “angry” politics.

So they tell us Palin is a populist because she speaks for the “common people.” But every ambitious politician over the past 200 years has laid claim to “the plain people,” “the neglected middle class” or “the silent majority.”

Palin is a populist, the political analysts tell us, because she is “resentful” and “angry.” But Americans are divided in their anger. And those divisions run along well-worn historical ruts.

Take health care. Lots of Americans, in the populist tradition, are mad at the social injustice of 40,000 people dying every year because of a lack of health care. Lots of other Americans, in the conservative tradition, are no less angry at the idea that government would provide the care that they need.



Or income taxes. Lots of Americans, in the populist tradition, resent the fact that schools and bridges are crumbling because Wall Street millionaires no longer pay their share of taxes. Lots of other Americans, in the conservative tradition, believe that progressive taxation means theft — putting “your tax dollars at work for those who won’t!”

Or President Barack Obama’s stimulus. Lots of Americans believe that the feds should take more action — that is, print more money to pull the economy out of its slump and put people back to work. The Populists of old wanted to do this by taking the United States off the gold standard and printing money or coining silver.

This gave rise to the late-19th-century “battle of the standards” that we learned about in high school — with the conservative “gold bugs” pitted against Populist “greenbackers” and “silverites.”

Today’s tea party conservatives, like the gold bugs of yore, have put fear of inflation at the top of their political agenda. Tea party protesters are demanding a return to the gold standard.

Earlier this month, Mike Pitts, a conservative legislator in South Carolina, introduced a bill to make gold coins the only legal currency in the state. Fox News’s Glenn Beck peddles his “three-G system” of “God, gold and guns” on his show.

If we want to make sense of the storms brewing in American politics, a little history can’t hurt. The conservatives haven’t adopted gold as their symbol by accident. They are today’s gold bugs.

They proudly follow in the footsteps of the “sound-money” enemies of Populism. Of the conservative bloc that fought Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Of the militant Republicans of the McCarthy cabal, who exposed Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower as traitors. Of the Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan wing, who promised to free America from Social Security and government slavery.

But many Americans have different concerns. They want government action to put the unemployed back to work, to stem the tide of foreclosures and evictions, to regulate the financial industry, to provide health care security and to repair schools and infrastructure.

For such people, there’s another historical tradition they need to know about: It’s called Populism.

Charles Postel, an assistant professor of history at San Francisco State University, won the Bancroft Prize in American history for his book The Populist Vision.

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This week: Call in for consumer financial protection and Wall Street accountability

This week we're joining with groups across the country to ask you to call your Senators to demand creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency and stronger regulatory reform of the financial industry--it's time to hold Wall Street accountable for the damage they've done to the economy, including $11 trillion in lost family wealth, $14 trillion in bailouts, and more than 8 million jobs.

Join a National Call-In Week, today through March 4, and speak out now. Find contact information here or dial this toll-free number provided by SEIU: 866-544-7573 (note--as of yesterday this number asked you for a zip code and then connected you automatically with one of your senators--to reach the other you'll have to dial directly).

The first senators to consider reform legislation, including the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, are those that sit on the Banking and Agriculture Committee: Sen. Lincoln (AR), Sen. Bennet (CO), Sen. Dodd (CT), Sen. Bayh (IN), Sen. Tester (MT), Sen. Menendez (NJ), Sen. Schumer & Sen. Gillibrand (NY), Sen. Reed (RI), Sen. Johnson (SD), and Sen. Warner (VA).

But even if your senator isn't on this list, make the call--we need a groundswell from across the country in favor of strong reform. In the first nine months of 2009, the financial services industry spent over $344 million on lobbying, while the US Chamber of Commerce spent $2 million on advertising, including ads attacking the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. As Paul Krugman points out, the House already passed a fairly strong reform bill, but Senate Republicans are blocking further movement, and Democrats are wavering. That's why you need to call this week. Money talks--we need to speak out too!

Tell your Senators:

• To vote for financial reform that creates an independent consumer protection agency--not just a new department under an existing regulator
• To empower the agency to rein in the kind of financial products--deceptive mortgages and exorbitant overdraft fees--that are enriching banks at the expense of struggling families
• That creation of an independent CFPA will streamline federal regulation, increase industry accountability, and reduce the profitability of the kind of high-risk, high-consumer-cost products that precipitated the foreclosure crisis.

For more background, see this report by Demos Foundation. And thanks for calling!

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Defending Water for Life on "Paradigms"

An international outlook on defending water was the topic of Sunday's "Paradigms" radio show, on WBKM-FM in Burlington, Vermont. Host Baruch Zeichner spoke with Emily Posner, of AfD's Defending Water in Maine, Anil Naidoo of the Blue Planet Project in Canada,
Hemantha Withanage of Sri Lanka, Executive Director and Senior Environmental Scientist for the Centre for Environmental Justice, and Marcela Olivera, of Bolivia, who is Latin American Coordinator for Food and Water Watch and is part of the group putting on the 3ra Feria Internacional del Agua/3rd International Water Conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

You can listen to extended interviews with Emily and Hemantha here, and listen to past shows on a variety of topics at the Paradigms website.

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Tom Neilson, "the Jon Stewart of folk music," CD release (and party, if you're in Western Mass.!)

Political and funny, Tom Neilson is a long-time Alliance supporter, and we're delighted to hear that he has a new cd out--"Biomess"--with two songs already winning awards. You can hear Tom, along with backup musicians Derrik Jordan and Kat Allen, at a cd release party on Saturday, March 6th at 8 p.m., Burrito Rojo, 50 Third St., Turners Falls, Massachusetts. The cover is $10 and worth it. If you're far from Sik City, you can email Tom from his website, www.tomneilsonmusic.com, to find out how to get the disc or other releases (kids' music too!).

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Journalist Steven Higgs to speak at Indiana AfD annual meeting

On Saturday, March 20, 2010, the Indiana Alliance for Democracy will welcome Steven Higgs, Bloomington-based publisher of The Bloomington Alternative and author of the recently released book Twenty Years of Crimes Against Democracy--A Grassroots History of the I-69/NAFTA Highway. The book, available through The Bloomington Alternative, is a collection of Higgs' stories, columns, and pictures pertaining to this $5 billion boondoggle, opposed by trade activists, environmentalists, and urban planners.

Higgs is an Adjunct Lecturer at the IU School of Journalism in Bloomington. He is also the author of Eternal Vigilance: Nine Tales of Environmental Heroism in Indiana, which was published by Indiana University Press in 1995. He is currently researching and writing an investigative book with the working title “Autism and the Ohio Valley Environment,” which will explore the connections between the region’s high rates of pollution and children with developmental disabilities. It is tentatively scheduled for release in the Fall of 2012.

Higgs began writing about children’s environmental health while working as the senior environmental writer at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management between 1996 and 2000.

Mr. Higg’s presentation will begin at 1:00 to be followed by brief annual meetings of the two affiliated Alliance for Democracy organizations, Indiana Alliance for Democracy and Indiana Alliance for Democracy and Equality. Both are grassroots-based groups. Candidates for election as directors are being sought. To inquire, please contact the nominating chair, Clarke Kahlo at ckahlo@toast.net or 317-283-6283.

The event will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis, located just south of Butler University at 615 West 43rd Street. Light snacks and refreshments will be provided. Start time is 12:30, and business should wrap up by 3 p.m. We hope to see you on the 20th!

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Ten years ago today

Ten years ago, on March 1, 2000, Doris "Granny D" Haddock ended a 14-month, 3,200 mile trek across country to draw attention to how big money politics have deformed government and democracy. The final leg of the walk took her, and those who were walking with her that day, through Arlington National Cemetery. She ascended the east steps of the U.S. Capitol and made the following remarks:

So here we are, Senators, at your doorstep: We the people. How did you dare think we do not care about our country? How did you dare think that we would not come here to these steps to denounce your corruptions in the name of all who have given their lives to our country's defense and improvement? How did you dare think we were so unpatriotic to have forgotten all those rows upon rows of graves that mark how much we, as a people, care for our freedom and our equality?
 
This morning we began our walk among the graves of Arlington --so that those spirits, some of whom may be old friends, might join us today and that we might ask of them now, Did you, brave spirits, give your lives for a government where we might stand together as free and equal citizens, or did you give your lives so that laws might be sold to the highest bidder, turning this temple of our Fair Republic into a bawdy house where anything and everything is done for a price? We hear your answers in the wind.

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Rockland ME sidewalk summit

Rockland, Maine was the site of a sidewalk summit this weekend, as protesters called on Maine Reps Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud to take a step beyond the public option for single payer/Medicare for all. Organizer Jerry Call of Maine Health Care Reform sent the clip, which is online here, along with some interesting reader/viewer comments.

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