OurFuture.org Blogs: Sally Kohn

The People's Agenda in Washington: Live Webcast Thurs, Dec 4 3pm EST

Sally Kohn — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:16:13 -0500

Today, I sat in a room while a dozen or so everyday Americans prepared to share the stage with top leaders from the Obama transition team and the new Congress. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) will be shoulder to shoulder with April Page, a single mom working two jobs in Western Massachusetts. Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to Barack Obama, will sit next to Ghazala Chughtai, a Pakistani immigrant from Maryland. April, Ghazala and others were preparing for Realizing the Promise, a forum this Thursday, December 4 in Washington, DC, where over 2,000 grassroots leaders from across the country will present the people's agenda for change.

Watch the live webcast this Thursday, December 4 at 3:00pm EST.

Imagine if change wasn't about replacing a set of conservative elites with a set of liberal elites but actually delivering more power to the people! As a community organizer, it's in Obama's DNA to resist the urges of the Washington status quo to replicate itself with a blue-ish tint and instead implement the habits and structures of real democracy. Yes, this election is about change in the sense of policy --- re-regulating Wall Street, ensuring health care for all, fixing our trade policies wreaking havoc on both sides of the border.

But in this election, change was also about process, too --- it's no accident we elected a community organizer who won in large part by building a movement of voters who finally felt they could have a voice in politics. Don't be surprised when the new chorus fails to die down; once people get a taste of power they're expectations only tend to rise. On Election Day, Americans were merely clearing their throat. Now it's time to tell Washington what we want.

I recently appeared on GritTV hosted by Laura Flanders, along with Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, a grassroots leader with the Northwest Bronx Community Clergy Coalition, and Chris Hayes, Washington Editor with the Nation, to discuss the role of organizing in delivering change. We talked about Realizing the Promise, the first time following the election when the people will be coming to Washington to tell government about the big changes we demand. Check it out:

Valerie Jarrett, Melody Barnes, named director of the Domestic Policy Council, Rep. Chris Van Hollen and other members of Congress and key progressive leaders in Washington will share the stage with people just like you --- single moms who can't make ends meet, immigrants whose homes and offices have been raided, small business owners who can't afford healthcare. As the economy gets worse and worse, the funny thing you realize about a sinking ship is that we're all in it together. It's time to work together to find shared solutions to the shared problems we all face --- and tell Washington we won't take "no" or even "sort of" for an answer.

Watch the live webcast of Realizing the Promise: A Forum on Community, Faith and Democracy this Thursday, December 4 at 3:00pm EST live from Washington. And join the discussion --- we need your voice to help make the promise of change a reality.

You and millions of others turned out on Election Day to vote for change. Now we need your help to realize the promise. Watch, join and act!

Why I Love Taxes --- And Why Most Americans Do, Too

Sally Kohn — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:35:52 -0400

Over the last 40 decades, conservatives have launched a concerted attack on taxes with such success that now candidates of both parties reliably compete with each other to prove who is more anti-tax. When John McCain and Sarah Palin attack taxes, that’s one thing. But when Barack Obama starts doing it, we have a big problem.

Conventional wisdom has it that Americans hate taxes. But the conventional wisdom is wrong.

“Nobody likes taxes,” Obama said during his third debate with McCain. “I would prefer that none of us had to pay taxes, including myself.” Sarah Palin, during the Vice Presidential debate, said there is nothing patriotic about paying taxes. Well, I like taxes and am glad to be fortunate enough to pay them and I think April 15th is the most patriotic day of the year. And I’m not the only one. Polls show voters like taxes, too, so maybe politicians left, right and center should stop attacking taxes and instead start talking about the good they do.

So here are the three reasons why I love taxes — and, as it turns out, why the majority of Americans agree.

1. Taxes are a down payment on the common good

Public schools, roads and bridges, drinking water, national parks — we like these things and, polls show, we like the idea of our tax dollars helping make these things better.

In a great response to Sarah Palin’s remark that paying taxes is not patriotic, Thomas Friedman wrote:

What an awful statement. Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

According one national poll, a plurality of Americans think the biggest problem facing their local public schools is a lack of funding, and they support more federal money for public schools. According to a transportation poll, a majority of Americans think our roads need to be improved and would support an increased gas tax to do so. And notably, most Americans think (http://www.pollingreport.com/budget.htm) the share they pay in taxes is fair and about right.

Several years ago, I was buying one of those tax preparation software programs from a local big box store. The salesperson said, “Ugh, taxes.”

And I replied, “Actually, I love paying taxes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. How else do you think we have libraries and street lights and clean water and the Internet?”

“I never thought of it that way,” she demurred.

Taxes are how we pay for the things we, as a community, need. Think of taxes as our national membership card to the Costco called government.

2. Taxes fund government, and government is good

The conservative attack on taxes is really an attack on government. They want us to believe that government should be judged by its most aberrant inefficiencies and most extreme mistakes. They want us to ignore all the things we like, all the things that salesperson forgot about, how each of us is where we are today because of the help of government — whether it’s the roads that got us to work or the federally subsidized loans that paid our way through college, the unemployment benefits that helped our family through a rough time or the social security we’re counting on for our retirement. Government has positively touched each and every single one of our life stories. Conservatives talk about “starving the beast” of government, but given how much government has fed and nurtured all of us, we’d only be starving ourselves.

Politicians of all stripes need to vigorously defend government. When Barack Obama talks about taking a scalpel to the federal budget, not a hatchet, he should go one step further and say why, reminding Americans that especially in a time of economic crisis, government is more important than ever. Want to re-regulate Wall Street? Want to extend unemployment benefits and help homeowners renegotiate their mortgages? Want to make college more affordable? Want to lower gas prices and have alternative energy? Every single one of these goals goes against the instincts and incentives of the free market. For the problems we as a nation is now facing, government is the solution.

Again, to cite polls, earlier this year as the economy was already in a tailspin, more Americans said that increasing government spending on things like health care, education and housing would do more to fix the economy than cutting taxes. Americans are ready to talk about the role of government in solving our shared challenges and building our shared prosperity.

3. Spreading the wealth is a great idea

Unlike John McCain or apparently Joe the Plumber, the majority of Americans support raising taxes on the rich. According to one poll, 63% of Americans think that the rich pay too little in taxes and 51% think that low-income people pay too much. The idea of redistribution is not some liberal agenda imposed on the American public. It comes from our instincts about fairness and our fundamental community values.

Take Barbie Snodgrass, a working class white woman in suburban Ohio working two jobs to put food on the table for herself and her sister’s two teenage daughters, whom Snodgrass cares for. She is the classic up-for-grabs swing voter. George Packer of the New Yorker recounts Snodgrass recoiling at Obama’s tax plan. Why? Not because he’s going to raise taxes for families earning over $250,000 but, as Snodgrass puts it, “How many people do you know who make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? What is that, five per cent of the United States? That’s a joke! If he starts at a hundred thousand, I might listen. Two hundred fifty—that’s to me like people who hit the lottery.” Snodgrass doesn’t oppose spreading the wealth. She’d like to spread it around more.

In 2007, the wealth-research firm Prince & Associates conducted a survey of over 200 executives at six of the (then top) investment banks on Wall Street. In 2006, all of those surveyed received bonuses of more than $2 million. Half received bonuses of over $5 million. They spent an average of three percent of their bonuses — or $149,000 — on luxury cars. And now we’re spending $700 billion of our taxpayer money to make sure they can keep their jobs. Barbie Snodgrass is still trying to make ends meet. Of course the money to salvage Wall Street should come from the rich, not the middle and working class people who suffered under the economic policies that helped Wall Street prosper.

Raising taxes on the very rich isn’t class warfare. In fact, given the current dynamics in our economy and the fact that the super-rich continue to get richer as the rest of us struggle, not raising taxes on the rich would only fan class struggle. It’s through public infrastructure that lower and middle class Americans get the opportunity to move up the economic ladder. The Works Progress Administration and other New Deal programs got Americans working again and growing their net worth. The GI Bill helped millions of soldiers after World War II go to college and buy homes. The strong middle class that unfortunately we now see disintegrating in America is the direct result of redistributive policies that spread opportunity more evenly. We will only rebuild our middle class and lift millions of Americans out of poverty by spreading opportunity again, including to communities that have most been denied opportunity in the past. As a nation, we do better when we all do better.

It should go without saying that attacks on taxes always have a racial subtext to them — that we wouldn’t want our (read: white) money to be redistributed toward others (read: black people or, increasingly, Latino immigrants). But our low-road economic policies, putting the greed of a small few above the basic needs and survival of the rest of us, has led to an economic calamity that has not discriminated. Historically, we have seen moments like these impact communities of color, poor people and immigrants first, as canaries in the coal mine who, if we care to pay attention, are harbingers of the dangers that will affect everyone. Conversely, we know that solutions that only help white collar white workers in upper-middle class suburbs are not solutions at all — that we need to fix the fundamental, built-in inequalities of our economy so that everyone — everyone — can prosper and get America working again for working people.

We live in a nation because we know there are things we can do together that we cannot do alone. Patriotism means valuing — and investing in — the common good. Attacking taxes and undermining the tools by which we pursue the common good is the least patriotic thing I can think of.

Sure, many Americans hate taxes but not as many as we think, and not nearly as many would if politicians weren’t constantly pandering to the anti-tax Right. Like gay marriage, immigration and abortion before it, this is an issue of the far right successfully acting as though an extreme opinion held by a few voters is the opinion of the majority and timid politicians echoing the opinion until the prophecy of its dominance risks self-fulfillment. James Madison once said, “The power of taxing people and their property is essential to the very existence of government.” Presumably those running to hold office in government should be among those defending the value of its existence, not reinforcing the anti-tax bandwagon that is leading our common good off a cliff.

Exploiting Poverty Caused The Financial Crisis

Sally Kohn — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 09:41:30 -0400

Sure, the CEOs and hedge fund managers were greedy. There’s no question that wealth and the pursuit thereof led to the sub-prime fiasco and the decline of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch and more. But what’s really at play here is persistent poverty and Wall Street seeking to make a dime off the poor, consequences be damned, while Washington looks the other way.

The sub-prime crisis is the result of good people getting bad loans. Loans that triple or quadruple in interest rates, riddled with small print, are unbearable by most homeowners. But they are particularly unsustainable for low-income families working two or three jobs to make ends meet. Still, lenders scammed hardworking families with the promise of owning homes they really couldn’t afford. And then greedy Wall Street managers, looking for a new way to squeeze a buck from an already bursting-at-the-seams economy, bundled up these bad loans into worse securities, sold them off, and tried to gain a profit as our national economy lost its shirt.

We could have averted the current financial crisis by creating affordable housing and good jobs, strengthening public education and providing health care and child care for all families, to help hardworking Americans thrive in the middle class instead of being pushed into poverty. We could have averted this crisis if we really cared about all families owning their own homes and created nationwide programs including affordable loans. (Even subsidized loans in the first place would have cost taxpayers less than what we’re now spending bailing out Wall Street.) We could have averted this crisis if we put the needs of the majority of American families ahead of the needs of a small minority of greedy investors.

Now, 8,000 American families a day face foreclosure. But instead of prioritizing poor and even middle class families who are increasingly struggling, our government is spending billions and billions to bail out the Wall Street firms that created this crisis. Instead, we should be spending our taxpayer money to help the families who were taken advantage of in the “anything goes” unregulated financial system that years of misguided never-really-did-trickle-down economic policy created. These families need the government to help re-adjust their mortgages and cover bridge payments to avoid foreclosure.

The fundamentals of our economy are not sound. Real wages for the majority of American families have been declining while CEO salaries are at an all-time high. Health care costs and college tuition are crippling more and more families. The middle class is rapidly disappearing, and more and more of us find ourselves struggling while the gap between the rich and poor grows.

Instead of allowing Wall Street to profit off of poverty, we should fix our economy once and for all, to work better for all of us. We need universal health care, including a government-funded insurance option, to help families get out from under mounting health care debt. We need policies that reign in scam lending, from housing to the credit card industry. We need a nationwide living wage and a massive public jobs program, to address underemployment in our unstable economy while helping build essential shared infrastructure like public transportation and schools. We need new trade and immigration policies that work for working people on both sides to the border. And we need new corporate rules of the game that make big business accountable to communities and workers, not just greedy investors.

Wall Street and conservative economists have insisted that, in our laissez faire system, everyone is on their own. The poor were left on their own, to fend for themselves against twisted economic structures backed by the biggest institutions on Wall Street. Washington never left Wall Street on its own, and as Wall Street’s scam deflates, Washington is coming to the rescue. But shoring up Wall Street won’t make our economy work. We need to ensure that a greedy few can’t exploit those who are struggling. Without poor people, this crisis would have never happened. If we prioritize ending poverty, and preventing more and more Americans from slipping into poverty, we can be sure it won’t happen again.

Defending Community Organizing

Sally Kohn — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:54:07 -0400

In her Republican convention speech, Gov. Sarah Palin said:

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a "community organizer," except that you have actual responsibilities.

If the candidates are going to start attacking each other personally, why can't they leave hard working community organizers out of it? It's ironic that as both parties are focused on change, community organizers --- the ones who actually patch the holes and our democracy and help Americans demand change --- are now a political football.

I have the privilege of working everyday with community organizers across the country who wake up everyday burdened by the very real responsibilities of the people in the communities around them for whom our economy and our government isn't working, and hasn't worked, for a very long time. This election, the ranks of poor people, communities of color, factory workers, single moms, elderly Americans, janitors is swelling to include the vast majority of Americans who now realize that our economy and our democracy just is designed to benefit an elite few rather than all of us. The change voters are talking about this year builds on the shared problems community organizers have been helping people identify for decades. The change voters want builds on the solutions community organizers have been nurturing and putting into place, building the leadership of everyday Americans all across our country to demand that America work for everyone.

I thought I'd share this statement, released today, by Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Center for Community Change:

When Sarah Palin demeaned community organizing, she didn't attack another candidate. She attacked an American tradition --- one that has helped everyday Americans engage with the political process and make a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors.

All across the country, in every state and every community, there are community organizers helping people find shared solutions to the shared problems they face. The candidates for President and Vice President should be working to solve our shared problems, too, rather than attack others who trying to do the same.

From winning living wages to expanding affordable housing to improving the quality of public schools to getting health coverage for the poor and elderly, community organizers have made and will continue to make our communities and our country better for all of us.

The values that community organizers and grassroots leaders represent are not Washington values or Wall Street values but American values, that we care for each other and look out for each other and know we're all interconnected and have a valuable role to play in making our country work for all of us. Candidates should be courting these Community Values, not condemning them.

How's about instead of debating the relative merits of community organizing, the candidates take a cue from community organizers and start talking about the real problems Americans are facing and the real solutions we need? Maybe then candidates could make as valuable of a contribution to our nation as community organizers are making every day!

Beyond The Clintons: The Unity Democrats (and Republicans) Need

Sally Kohn — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:39:15 -0400

All eyes are on Denver and whether the Democratic party will unify around Barack Obama, healing rifts that remain from the protracted primary fight. But the focus should be on unity of values and purpose, not just candidacy. By now, we all know American voters want change. But what do they mean? It’s not just a change of leaders, continuing the same time-honored Washington tradition of sticking ones finger in the air to see which way the wind blows and calling that leadership (while continuing to the same, old politics behind the scenes). Voters want to change the wind. The parties should listen and unify behind the public (read: catch up).

For years, conservative and corporate political interests have convinced us that America is a dog-eat-dog nation and that poor jobs, foreclosed homes and no health insurance for some and mansions and yachts for others is perfectly fair and just. Liberal politicians, too, have talked about leveling the playing field and helping Americans compete --- presumably against one another --- as though life is some kind of game you either win or loose. But as working class Americans consistently find themselves on the losing end of a corporate paradigm stacked against them, and as a nation we find ourselves consistently slipping in the global economic medal count, we realize this winner-take-all game metaphor stinks. It’s not exactly Monopoly when you’re playing with people’s real families and homes and health care. Voters want an economy and an America that works for everyone, not just a handful of winners.

I’ve heard this sentiment from voters and community leaders across the country, from Iowa to Maine and from New Jersey to Colorado. Take Janice “Jay” Johnson, chair of the Virginia Organizing Project, a statewide grassroots organization knocking doors of more than 300,000 voters in that battleground state. “Virginians understand how we're connected to each other, and how healthcare is connected to good jobs and good jobs are connected to public education,” Johnson says. “That desire crosses the red and blue parts of the state. Our Community Values Voters are part of a larger trend that will change Virginia and the country this election.”

In two important ways, the “Community Values Voters” Johnson is talking about exhibit a unity that the parties haven’t come around to yet.

First, they oppose scapegoating. In the past voters have been swayed by the “ignore-your-problems-and-focus-on-this-shiny-thing-over-here” device, be it gay couples or undocumented immigrants --- the parties trying to obscure their lack of real solutions for middle class problems by erecting strawmen of supposed moral crisis that they can score points by slaying. Fortunately, an exciting moment for our democracy is looming as voters no longer seem to be moved by such scapegoating tactics. Polls suggest voters are trained like laser beams on the actual problems facing our country this election. Finally, candidates and the parties may have to address them.

The Community Values Voters Johnson is talking about are also united in their opposition to corporate orthodoxy. Even small children who can barely add are flummoxed by the fact that gas prices are rising at the same time as Exxon and other oil companies are reporting record profits. Anywhere outside Wall Street, that would be called thievery. Polls on everything from health insurance to housing reveal voters no longer place blind trust in the intentions of corporate America. And everything would suggest growing suspicion on the part of voters for political parties that are so beholden to corporate America that they are unwilling to change the laws by which they are governed and held accountable.

There’s a movement afoot in America. Voters of all stripes realize that America can be a better place for all of us --- that our politics and policies can help all of us do better, not just a privileged few; that in America, we are one big community and we can only move forward together, not by leaving some behind. Ironically, Americans have come to this place absent the leadership of bankrupt political parties that have been trying to court votes by not rocking the boat. Americans have come to this unity, on their own, because their collective ship is sinking --- and they blame the parties for drilling the holes. It’s no wonder that President Bush’s approval rating and the approval rating of the Democratic Congress are anemic at best. Voter displeasure with the current priorities of Washington is evident. What is not evident is whether the parties will wake up to the Community Values unity that is sweeping the nation --- and prioritize the kind of unity that has nothing to do with the Clintons and everything to do with the future of our nation.

Real Change Happens Off-Line

Sally Kohn — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:21:23 -0400

Today's American young people feel a deep connection to people in Tibet and Darfur, want to hold corporations accountable to environmental standards and worker justice, and value the role of government in meeting our shared needs. Yet the Internet tools that help Millennials appreciate our interconnectedness may actually erode the community values they seek.

The Millennials, or the cluster of young folks born roughly between 1980 and 1995, were raised between two conflicting phenomena. On the one hand, they have grown up with new technologies that have helped the world connect more easily; on the other hand, they have been raised alongside the rise of hyperindividualism in American culture that has isolated us from each other and the world around us.

As the Millennials were learning to walk, Ronald Reagan proclaimed that the only "excuse government has for even existing" is to protect the rights of individuals, not the larger, common good. Having once played a cowboy on the silver screen, Reagan helped transform America into a radical Darwinian Wild West. Industries were privatized, public school budgets and other social programs slashed, Wall Street given free rein. Reagan's British counterpart, Margaret Thatcher, went a step further, declaring, "There is no such thing as society." In the neoconservative political vision of the era, people were left to fend for themselves.

At the same time, the world became more interconnected than ever. Technology allowed the Millennials not only to imagine the children in Ethiopia, but to actually see them and, eventually, become their friends on Facebook. Changing demographics made the new generation more comfortable with difference and diversity than their parents. Plus, technological connectivity opened the door to economic interdependence.

Today, workers in China rely on shoppers in Chicago; investors in Boston track the latest trends from Bangladesh. And, via their cellphones, the Millennials are plugged into it all.

The political aims and vision of the Millennials clearly buck the Reagan "rugged individualism" in favor of the community values of connectedness, inclusion, and mutual responsibility.

But social movements are based on collective action. The American Revolution, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, and every significant social change movement in between and since has relied on community organizing, building mutually responsible communities to challenge the status quo.

On their own, for example, none of the activists in the civil rights movement had sufficient power and influence to end segregation. Coming together in local committees, led mainly by young people, they used the tools of face-to-face community organizing, developing shared strategies to address shared problems. And they took shared action; in sit-ins and Freedom Rides, they formed groups that were more than the sum of individual parts.

By contrast, Internet activism is individualistic. It's great for a sense of interconnectedness, but the Internet does not bind individuals in shared struggle the same as the face-to-face activism of the 1960s and '70s did. It allows us to channel our individual power for good, but it stops there.

This is great for signing a petition to Congress or donating to a cause. But the real challenges in our society -- the growing gap between rich and poor, the intransigence of racism and discrimination, the abuses from Iraq to Burma (Myanmar) -- won't politely go away with a few clicks of a mouse. Or even a million.

Millennials are poised to lead us all to reject the hyperindividualism and isolation that has dominated our recent past and recognize the deep interconnectedness and mutual responsibility that is our present and future.

The lone cowboy story was a myth. Our greatest accomplishments, as individuals and as a nation, have almost always come from hitching our wagons to others and working together, not just in going it alone.

To avoid eroding the values Millennials so appreciate, and to truly influence the world around them, they must transform their online activism into off-line communities and build an effective movement for change. From church basements to campus meetings to voters' doors, Millennials need to add face-to-face action to their innate sense of community.

Sally Kohn is a senior campaign strategist with the Center for Community Change, which runs Generation Change, a training program for the next generation of community organizers.

Does Everyone Matter Equally?

Sally Kohn — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:06:54 -0400

From the superdelegate process to the farm bill to the recent raid on immigrants in Postville, Iowa, elitism is rearing its nipped-and-tucked head all across America.

How else can you explain anointing a handful of Democratic party officials to have more power in the nominating process than millions of average American voters? According to CNN, each Democratic superdelegate has more power than 13,000 primary voters. So just like George Bush was able to ignore millions of people marching in the streets against the Iraq War, the superdelegates are free to replace the will of the voters with their own whims. The idea that, like father, superdelegates know best, is anti-democratic and elitist.

The farm bill passed by Congress last week is no different. The New York Times notes that Safia Ali, a 25-year-old mother of five in Somalia, can no longer afford rice or wheat or powdered milk. The price of food commodities has skyrocketed in recent months, setting off a global food crisis. Safi Ali has not eaten in a week and her family is starving. The response of the richest nation in the world? Pass a food bill that increases cash subsidies to the very same large, corporate-owned farms that are manipulating crop prices in the first place. Between 1998 and 2007, profits of the agribusiness giant Cargill increased nearly 1000% --- from $280 million to a whopping $2.3 billion --- extorting from rising crop prices on the one hand and from taxpayer-funded farm subsidies on the other. Small family farmers in the United States and poor people here and oversees like Safia Ali are the victim’s of our government policies, not the beneficiaries. Politicians in Washington side with big business elites.

Also last week, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency raided a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, and arrested and detained at least 300 undocumented immigrants but as many as 700. Workers at the Agriprocessor meatpacking plant were slaving away under extremely oppressive conditions --- in March 2008, the plant was cited with 39 violations of workplace health and safety laws. But rather than step in and twist the hand of the corporation to clean up its act, raise and enforce a minimum wage and provide good public schools and affordable healthcare --- the kinds of things Agriprocessor’s workers and everyone in the struggling town of Postville really needs --- government agents came with guns and handcuffs to terrorize the workers. (Any close-minded nativists who would argue that undocumented immigrants are the real criminals in Postville should kindly explain when pursuing the American dream became a crime.)

As a nation, we are more concerned with the few at the top than the many struggling at the bottom. It’s not just politicians who are guilty here. The majority of Americans are more concerned about Angelina Jolie’s shrinking waistline than Safia Ali starving in Somalia. Does Angelina Jolie matter more? Do the superdelegates? The corporate titans?

While donor-driven politics and celebrity-driven culture have always privileged the elite few over the many, it’s getting worse. It’s no longer simply that the rich and famous are worthier than everyone else. Increasingly, everyone else is worthless. The rise in reality television shows can be attributed to a growing sense, thank you Madison Avenue, that you only matter if you’re famous so now everyone wants to be. The staggering rise in CEO salaries, while real wages for most Americans have been stagnant or even decreased, is the direct result of the belief that the rich deserve to get richer at the expense of shared prosperity.

The plight of Safia Ali and the undocumented immigrants in Postville and even the discounted Democratic primary voters is not the result of a lack of hard work or personal responsibility, fingers we often point at those who are poor or disenfranchised in the United States. The plight of those at the bottom, a group growing bigger by the day as the economy tumbles and the middle class evaporates, comes because we think the people at the top are inherently superior --- and that elitism is cemented in our culture and in our policies.

Elitism is anti-American. When the colonists revolted against England, they were revolting against the idea that one person --- the King --- mattered more than the rest of them. And while we have stumbled gravely in our pursuit of egalitarianism --- from the very early mistreatment of American Indians to slavery to the examples above today --- the idea that we are all equally valuable and should be treated as such is emblazoned in the American story, our entrepreneurial independence alongside our deep moral commitment to be our brothers and sisters’ keeper. In the America we aspire to be, everyone matters as much as everyone else. We are all equal, interdependent and interconnected.

Undocumented immigrants have every much of a right to be in the United States as I do. That I was born on one side of the border does not make me fundamentally more deserving of the opportunities of this nation than anyone else. (In fact, arguably the fact that many immigrants have been forced to flee their home countries because of the disastrous economic and foreign policies of the United States, may argue for an even stronger claim than mine; having only ever benefited from America, I should be giving back not benefiting more.) Safia Ali, who has nowhere to which to flee, is no less deserving of food and shelter than I am, nor for that matter less deserving of a good job, a college education, or even designer clothes. And the superdelegates votes shouldn’t count more than yours or mine.

Those who are on top are not more worthy of being on top. Those who are on the bottom are not more deserving of being on the bottom. But until we really embrace the idea of inherent and equal human worth, in our hearts and our souls --- and not just among the people we know personally but for everyone, worldwide, no matter their situation --- the community values that America represents will remain a good idea on paper but warped and elusive in practice.

The War On Immigrants

Sally Kohn — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:27:34 -0400

When I hear the word “raid” these days, the first thing I think of us the war in Iraq. Something like, “US Forces Raid Shi’ite Stronghold of Sadr City.” I have images of American forces going home by home, banging down the doors, threatening anyone they find and taking away the supposed evil-doers.

But then sometimes I hear the word “raid” mentioned in my own backyard and the frightening thing is, the scenario isn’t all that different.

On Wednesday, federal agents backed by our precious tax dollars, banged down the doors of poultry plants in New York, Texas, Florida, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia, threatening anyone they could find, dragging away parents without notifying their families and, all told, arresting more than 300 undocumented immigrants.

Their crime? Leaving their homes and everything they’ve ever known in search of opportunity for their families and crossing the treacherous desert boarder between the US and Mexico or overstaying their visas in order to work long hours for low pay at a poultry processing plant where, according to an expose from the Charlotte Observer worker protections are lax and severe injuries are common. The Charlotte Observer series is littered with stories and images of workers crippled by their duties, and stories of management cutting corners not only on safety but on appropriate medical treatments when problems do arise.

Remind me who the evil-doers are?

From the SWAT team raids on immigrants to the para-military Minutemen staking out the US-Mexico border, we’re turning our nation into a war zone in violation of every decent principle on which our nation was founded. Many Americans are not immigrants — Natives who were already here, those who were forced here. But many of us, including most of today’s anti-immigrant voices I’m afraid, are the descendents of generations who sought America’s shores as a refuge from religious intolerance or famine, who saw in our stars and stripes the twinkle of possibility that tomorrow might be better than today. The American dream may be the most powerful promise in the world. It is plainly un-American to hoard it for ourselves and deny it to those who seek it as our ancestors once did.

In the community called America, everyone is included. In the community called America, we treat everyone with dignity and respect. In the community called America, we are all striving to build a better America together. Last time I checked, we were proud to stand together for this vision, rather than breaking down doors and breaking apart families for daring to share the same hopes and dreams. Raids against immigrants are demeaning to the America I know, our moral character and community values. It’s time we end these stupid and violent raids for good.

You can pledge your support for fair and just immigration reform at www.BuildingAmericaTogether.org

Juan: Undocumented But Not Un-American

Sally Kohn — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:40:19 -0400

Click here to see Juan's video

The first thing I noticed about Juan when I met him is his presence. For a young man, just graduated from high school --- that period when most of us were shy and awkward at best --- Juan is confident and vocal, the kind of person with clear potential to be a leader in whatever field he might choose.

The second thing you notice about Juan is the sadness in his eyes. His country, the only home he has ever known, decided his potential is irrelevant --- that no amount of talent and passion and vision and drive could ever overcome the fact that he and his family once crossed our nation’s arbitrary borders without permission. It’s as though Juan the person doesn’t exist without Juan the paperwork. In our country, he’s treated as a number --- one to be reduced. Or feared.

Fear is one of the dominant motivating (and manipulating) forces in politics today. Some have tried to convince us that we should be afraid of immigrants, exploiting our fear about our jobs and our healthcare and the economy and pointing fingers at immigrants and saying they’re the cause of our problems. Ironically these are problems that have existed for years, deep flaws in the distribution of wealth and opportunity in our society, and undocumented immigrants are just the latest scapegoats. Remember gay people? Welfare moms before that? Fear is used to distract us while the real problems only grow.

The other motivating force is usually pity. But that’s not the answer either. Pity is equal parts compassion and isolation --- a sort-of thank goodness that’s not me, there there, and be done with it removal. The word pity actually comes from the Latin piety, conveying a sense of literal or spiritual superiority over the poor, unfortunate, pitiful soul. To pity Juan would be to rob him of his dignity and power --- and absolve ourselves of responsibility.

What else, then? The most mutually respectful of emotions, where your fate is entwined with another’s, where you could never be truly safe if they are in danger, truly free if they are imprisoned, truly happy if they are unhappy. We call it love. I don’t just mean romantic love (although I suspect Juan is single…). I mean the moral, even spiritual love --- a deep feeling of connection to other human beings, that their struggles are our struggles, their pain our pain, and that no one person’s happiness or security or hopes for the future can be rightly put above any one else’s. Just as the interests of billionaires should not be put ahead of people who are starving or losing their homes, one person’s claim on the American dream should be put above anyone else’s by simple virtue of the geography of birth.

At what point did we close the borders on the American dream? The ideal of America has never been perfect in practice --- our present is still stained by a past of Native American extermination, slavery and sexism. Yet we have always marched toward inclusion, sometimes slowly, sometimes begrudgingly, but always bending the arc of our nation toward justice, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. observed. When did the arc start flattening out? Did we decide we’ve dished out just enough love and justice, thank you very much, or certainly there’s not enough to go around? In a nation founded on the idea that freedom and equality and opportunity are renewable resources and the more the merrier, have we achieved “peak love” and tapped out?

The writer CS Lewis wrote, “We love to know that we are not alone.” And we are not alone. And as a nation, we are blessed by the bounty of generation upon generation of immigrants who have come to our borders and our shores to make a better life for themselves and, in so doing, make a better country for us all. It is the nation that, despite its hiccups and growing pains on the path to justice, is one that we should be proud to love. And Juan, like millions waiting at the gates of the American dream, loves his country and asks for our love in return.

Sign the pledge to support fair and just immigration reform and build a better America for all of us at www.BuildingAmericaTogether.org.

Poorism? What Is Inequality Coming To?

Sally Kohn — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:29:51 -0400

It says something about the extremities of inequality in our world when rich people are now paying money to take tours of poor people. An article by Eric Weiner in the travel section of the Sunday New York Times highlights the growing business of “poorism” --- taking tour groups to visit the world’s slums and shanty towns for a glimpse at just how bad things really are.

Troubling enough is the irony of tourists paying enough money to a tour guide to traipse through a poor family’s home that, if given to that family instead, might actually help them escape from poverty. One excursion cited in the New York Times article charges $7.50 per person to gawk at the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, India. Worldwide, 3 billion people --- nearly half the world’s population --- live on less than two dollars a day, including almost 80% of Indians and, most assuredly, 100% of people living in the Dharavi slums.

It’s not that rich privileged folks seeing poverty first-hand is a bad thing. It’s vital that everyone from titans of industry to those of us privileged enough to have a home and running water understand the true depths of poverty that exist on our planet, in our own backyards and on the other side of the globe. Yet when, day-to-day, the privileged are so removed from the poor that we need tour guides and travel itineraries in order to actually witness what poverty is, it says something about just how extreme inequality has become.

Consider the recently opened Liberty Hotel in Boston, fashioned by remodeling a former prison. With more than 1 in 100 Americans behind bars, there’s something sick about people paying $319 and up a night for “lockdown” in a prison-turned-luxury-hotel. Can you imagine young African American men --- 1 in 30 of whom are incarcerated, and all of whom face the ever-present threat of incarceration through racial profiling --- finding it “vacation-like” to spend a night in the prison-hotel, even if they could afford it? That those who can afford a $319-a-night hotel room at the Liberty find it novel reveals how insulated they are from the nowhere-near-novel reality of prison in the lives of many, especially poor communities of color.

Then again, maybe I’m being too --- oh, I don’t know --- moral. Perhaps poverty tourism and prison-chic simply reflects pragmatic, economic opportunism. After all, we’ve build a society and an economy in the United States where extreme greed is rewarded and, in fact, reinforced. The resulting poverty and suffering at the bottom is not only accepted but, by growing prison construction and cutting domestic social service programs and foreign aid, sustained. So in the otherwise-collapsing US economy, poverty may be just the growth industry we need! Better yet, we should continue to slash public benefit programs and programs that help the poor, to open up new economic “horizons”.

With that in mind, knowing that the chieftans of exploitation are always looking for the next big thing, here are some other “poorism” suggestions:

** Inside an ICE raid --- Be there as armed agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency storm the home of a Mexican-American family at midnight, tear an undocumented immigrant mother away from her citizen children and partner, lock her up in prison and send her back to Mexico to never see her family again

** Waterboarding 101 --- Learn what all the fuss is about when you get waterboarded for hours on end until you finally confess to something and are then detained indefinitely without access to a lawyer or any communication with your family

** Oh no, HMO! --- Watch as a middle class family takes their sick child to the doctor only to learn that their health insurance won’t cover the life-saving medicine their child needs, then in a real nail-biter, watch as both parents take second jobs and wonder: Will it be enough?

** Human Wrongs Around the World --- Travel on a secret CIA extradition flight with stops in Pakistan, Columbia and all the countries where your tax dollars are funding dictatorships and human rights abuses.

I suppose if you can’t beat inequality, profit from it. That’s the American way, right? Land of opportunity (though some exclusions apply). We could choose to distribute resources and opportunity fairly to everyone, create pathways to education instead of prison and poverty, and re-build an America where we put the common good and common needs ahead of selfishness and exploitation. Or we could continue to allow those who’ve risen to the top to systematically kick away the ladder of opportunity for everyone else. And then sell tickets and call it tourism.

Sally Kohn is the Director of the Movement Vision Lab at the Center for Community Change.