Watch Your Mouth! Ten Phrases that Progressives Should Retire in 2013

Alan Jenkins — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 20:23:27 -0500

Along with the usual New Year’s resolutions about exercising, getting more sleep, and being more patient with the kids, progressives should add better communications to their list. We have an historic opportunity to frame the public debate this year in terms of social justice, human rights, and opportunity for all. But that requires being smarter and more deliberate in the way we talk about the nation’s priorities and future. At the very least, we need to stop using certain words and phrases that erode support for progressive values and policies. Here’s my list. I’ll ask for yours at the end of this post.

1. The Market. Building public support for a more fair economic system requires highlighting the fact that the economy is a set of human-made rules, systems, and structures, not an autonomous organism or an unbridled force of nature. Referring to bankers, CEOs, and other financial actors as "the market" obscures that reality, and reinforces the conservative notion that economic regulation is a hindrance rather than a crucial part of the rules that govern a just society. Instead, let’s clearly identify the people and institutions that are at work—for good or for ill—in our economic system. Instead of “regulating the free market,” let’s talk about “rules that hold banks accountable” or “consumer protections.”

2. Entitlements. When used to refer to safety-net protections, the term “entitlements” suggests handouts and dependency rather than a societal investment in shared prosperity and economic independence. It also obscures the tremendous subsidies and other benefits that corporations and the wealthy receive through other channels. Let’s instead call popular programs like Social Security and Medicare by name, while challenging “public service cuts,” and supporting “economic security policies.”

3. Felon. Activists around the country are doing inspiring work to create a more fair, effective, and equitable criminal justice system. To speed that work along, we should stop using the word "felon," which reduces the identity of people convicted of crimes to the worst thing they’ve ever done. Worse still is “felon disenfranchisement” (banning people with felony convictions from voting), which combines a negative word with an arcane one that means nothing to many people who might otherwise care about the issue. Instead of opposing "felon disenfranchisement," for example, we should uphold the “voting rights” of “people with felony convictions," "people emerging from prison," or “people who’ve paid their debt to society.” Let’s also drop “ex-offender.” And, while we’re at it, let’s stop using the word “criminal” as a noun too, for the same reasons.

4. Illegal. Terms like "illegal immigrant," "illegal alien," and, worst of all, “illegals” are dehumanizing as well as grammatically flawed—since people cannot be illegal. Conversely, talking about "legalization" and "getting right with the law" suggests, by implication, that those who lack authorization to live or work in the U.S. are inherently lawbreakers. We should instead talk about a “roadmap to citizenship” for "new Americans," “aspiring citizens,” and, when greater specificity is needed, “immigrant parents,” “workers,” or “students” who are "undocumented" or “lack authorization” to work in the U.S. To be sure, those phrases are more of a mouthful than “legal” and “illegal.” But reducing people’s lives and identities to one negative word undermines our values and goals.

5. Immigration Reform. Things that need “reforming” are bad, and the phrase “immigration reform” implicitly suggests that immigration—which is the age-old movement of people from one place to another, and a profound benefit to U.S. society—needs rectification. Let’s instead talk about improving our flawed “immigration policies,” creating a “roadmap to citizenship” for new Americans, and adopting “commonsense approaches that uphold our nation’s values and move us forward together.”

6. Gay Marriage. Terms like "gay marriage" and "same-sex marriage" suggest that we are debating a unique exception to "real” marriage. By instead calling for "marriage equality" and "the right to marry," we can make clear that we are promoting the same fundamental right for all people in loving relationships.

7. Level the Playing Field. This metaphor is intended to connote fairness, but it’s often misused by progressives. The purpose of institutions like public education and healthcare is not competition (as the “playing field” sports metaphor implies), but community, societal wellbeing and the common good. Instead, let’s talk instead about “expanding access,” “toppling obstacles,” and “ensuring equal opportunity.”

8. Judicial Activism. Conservatives coined this term to criticize landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court like Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, and Miranda v. Arizona that finally recognized long-ignored fundamental constitutional rights. But progressives now frequently use the term (sometimes earnestly, sometimes ironically) to criticize the current Supreme Court’s conservative rulings, many of which go out of their way to decide questions that were not even raised by the parties. We should call out these rulings as “judicial overreaching” that “tramples Americans’ constitutional rights” and, where appropriate, as “based on politics instead of the Constitution.” But let’s not reinforce the conservative “judicial activism” frame, or imply that it’s improper for courts to make momentous decisions that uphold the Constitution.

9. Work Hard and Play by the Rules. This phrase is a staple of Democratic candidates, and “tests well” with a range of demographic groups. But it’s always been flawed, suggesting that there are “good” Americans with a strong work ethic and respect for the law, alongside large numbers of “bad” Americans (and foreigners) who are lazy, dependent, and dishonest. Poor people and people of color are most frequently on the losing end of these negative implicit stereotypes. Indeed, President Bill Clinton coined the term largely to distance himself from issues of poverty and inequity, and used it in enacting welfare reform. President Obama has helpfully shifted to calling for a country in which “everyone plays by the same rules – from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, DC,” and where everyone “has a fair shot.” That’s a verbal step in the right direction.

10. Responsible Homeowners. Misconduct by banks and inadequate consumer protections pushed our economy to the brink of collapse and continue to cost millions of American families their homes. But President Obama and others continue to respond, rhetorically, by calling for aid to “responsible homeowners.” That phrasing buys into the conservative narrative that reckless, irresponsible homeowners were a major cause of the meltdown, and that reforms should rigorously benefit only those with “clean hands.” That conservative narrative, in turn, undermines support for the very policies—like adjusting mortgage principal to fair market value—that the President and progressive allies are promoting. Dropping the loaded word “responsible,” and promoting initiatives that enable “homeowners,” “families” and “communities” harmed by the crisis to get back on track, will make it easier to see those initiatives enacted.

I’m taking nominations for other phrases to retire in 2013. Post your ideas in the comment section, and I’ll publish the top picks in a future blog. Until then, let’s all watch our mouths!

GOP Threat: Cut Social Security and Medicare or we'll kill the economy. Americans say NO to both.

Roger Hickey — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 19:25:51 -0500

Here we go again. Republicans are very clear about their latest extortion threat to the American people: Unless you cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, within the next two months we will throw the US economy back into recession - by refusing to allow the US raise the debt ceiling and pay our bills - or by pushing the economy over another fiscal cliff of deep spending cuts and tax increases - or by shutting down the government by refusing to pass a continuing budget resolution.

But it is very important for progressives and politicians to remember that most Americans hate what the Republicans are doing here. Who but Right Wing terrorists could support pushing the economy back into recession, throwing millions of Americans out of work? That's what Republicans are threatening. And huge majorities also hate the price Republicans are demanding to prevent their threat of manufactured chaos: the idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Republicans can get their way only if Democrats fail to realize they have the American people on our side. And once Republicans are clear about their proposals, Americans turn against them.

During the election, Paul Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into a voucher was so unpopular that candidate Mitt Romney ran away from his Vice Presidential nominee's proposal. Democrats won the election.

Now, Tennessee Republican Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander have dared to unveil a proposal (called their "dollar-for-dollar plan") that would only allow the debt ceiling to be raised by the amount we allow them to cut what they term "entitlements." How many Americans would embrace these changes?:

They would privatize Medicare by creating competing private options giving seniors greater choice of healthcare plans. Shades of the plan Mitt Romney endorsed and then ran from.
They would also give states more flexibility to cut Medicaid programs.
And they would gradually raise the Social Security retirement age and immediately impose the "chained CPI" formula to cost-of-living adjustments - a cut to retirement benefits of today's seniors.

"Unfortunately for America, the next line in the sand is going to be the debt ceiling," Corker told The Hill, laying out his leverage strategy for negotiations with Democrats. These guys couldn't be more explicit

Over the next two months, everyone who loves our country must rise up and say NO to this Republican nihilistic extortion. We must isolate them, ridicule and shame them. And we must force the Democrats to have the backbone to stand with us and reject Republican extortion and economic terrorism.

President Obama campaigned for reelection on his pledge to repeal the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000, but he backed down and agreed to raise taxes only on people making more than $400,000. In return, he got an extension of unemployment benefits and important low income tax provisions. But he could only get Republicans to postpone for two months the Fiscal Cliff tax increases and spending cuts known as "sequestration." And he failed to get them to give up the threat to destroy the full faith and credit of the United States that their refusal to raise the debt limit ceiling would bring on. Their refusal to support the once-routine legislation insuring we can pay our debts is already causing the Treasury Department to juggle accounts and will reach crisis stage by the end of February.

President Obama has pledged that he will not bow to Republican extortion over the debt limit:

"I will not compromise over ... whether or not Congress should pay the tab for a bill they've already racked up. If Congress refuses to give the United States the ability to pay its bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy could be catastrophic. The last time Congress threatened this course of action, our entire economy suffered for it. Our families and our businesses cannot afford that dangerous game again."

But remember that President Obama did negotiate the last time Republicans threatened to crash the economy by refusing to raise the debt limit, in September 2011. Obama was willing to offer up Social Security benefit cuts (in the form of a new "chained CPI") and a change in the Medicare eligibility age (from 65, when many people are forcibly retired, to 67). It was only because Republicans refused to accept tax increases that Obama's dangerous offer was not accepted. Instead, in return for Republican votes to lift that last debt ceiling, the draconian fiscal cliff sequestration budget cuts scheme was created (now postponed until early March).

So while President Obama may refuse to negotiate with Republicans over their latest manufactured debt limit crisis, he could end up negotiating to avoid the threat of sequestration. And Social Security and Medicare cuts could be on that table.

A Powerful Coalition Reminding Democrats What Americans Want - And Don't Want.

President Obama and other Democrats need to listen to the voices of the groups who helped get them elected in 2012 - unions, community organizations, groups representing women, African Americans and Hispanics, and online activist groups like MoveOn and the Campaign for America's Future.

On November 8, many of these groups placed an ad in the Washington Post making a set of demands on the President and Congress. These demands have served as unifying principles for a powerful organizing and outreach coalition. Signed by organizations including the AFL-CIO, SEIU, Center for Community Change, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and the Campaign for America's Future, the ad was accompanied by an open letter to the White House and Congress signed by 146 national organizations.

If the President and the Democrats in Congress listen to these principles - and to these groups who have been communicating with them before and after the election - they will refuse to cut Medicare and Social Security in response to the Republicans' threat reject the debt ceiling and tank the economy. And they will discover they have the vast majority of Americans on their side.

Here what the ad said, in part:

To the President and The Congress.

As you face urgent budget decisions, you must keep the election results in mind and resist budget cuts that slow our economy and hurt families. The best way to reduce the deficit is to put people back to work and get our economy going again. That's why we are calling on national leaders from both parties to stand up for the middle class and demand that any budget agreement:

Asks all Americans to pay their fair share of taxes.

Prioritizes job creation first. It's time to grow--not slow--the economy.

Does not cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits and does not shift costs to beneficiaries or the states. Voters loudly and clearly spoke up for these programs.

Protects the safety net and vital services for low-income people.

Stops the sequester. The scheduled automatic budget cuts threaten our fragile recovery and put huge numbers of people out of work while cutting education, child care, job training and dozens of vital services people and communities need.

The groups involved have helped the American Majority of working families communicate these demands to the President and the Congress. So far, we have kept Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid off the chopping block. We are redoubling our efforts to prevent Democrats from capitulating to Republican hostage-taking and extortion. And we are turning our campaign to opposing conservative austerity - and fighting for jobs and robust economic growth.

DeMarco Must Go

Alan Jenkins — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:25:28 -0500

It’s time for President Obama to fire and quickly replace the Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Edward DeMarco, with a Director who will uphold the Agency’s mission to “support housing finance and affordable housing, and support a stable and liquid mortgage market.” DeMarco, a holdover from the Bush administration, is interim head of the FHFA, which currently oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Opportunity Agenda and dozens of other housing and consumer groups have called for DeMarco’s ouster and replacement with an appointee who will utilize a full range of effective solutions, including adjusting mortgage principal to reflect the fair market value of homes that are underwater—meaning that they are worth less than what the homeowners owe on their mortgages. DeMarco has blocked principal correction on any of the 30 million mortgages owned or backed by Fannie and Freddie, despite incentives from the Treasury Department and undisputed evidence that it would strengthen the economy while helping homeowners get back on track.

The opportunity to own a home under fair terms is a defining element of the American Dream and an important pathway to the middle class. But abuses by lenders and inadequate consumer protections over multiple years have robbed millions of Americans of that dream, and wrecked our economy. Replacing DeMarco with a Director committed to opportunity and concrete problem solving is an important step toward restoring both.

An Opportunity Century? Election 2012, Social Justice, and America

Alan Jenkins — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 21:53:31 -0500

As the election results sink in, partisans are busy debating what 2012 voting patterns mean for Republican and Democratic prospects in the next election cycle. But what lessons do this year’s results hold for those of us who are committed to expanding opportunity and protecting human rights in ways that transcend party and outlast individual elections or candidates? The lessons are plenty, including some that defy the conventional wisdom.

An American Values Majority
Political observers are arguing that Mitt Romney and conservative Senate candidates were done in by “demographics,” meaning that the traditional base of white male voters is no longer sufficient to attain electoral victory, both nationally and in an increasing number of states. The ascendancy of people of color, young people, and single women as voters, the story goes, overpowered that base in ways that will only strengthen over time.

That story is only half right. The demographics of the U.S. electorate have indeed changed substantially over the last eight years, and the fastest growing segments went heavily for President Obama and other Democrats this year. But Mitt Romney and friends were defeated not so much by changing American demographics as by a coalescing of American values in an increasingly multicultural nation. The diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives that today’s voters bring to the franchise inform those values, but do not define them.

The demographic changes are undeniably significant. The Latino share of the electorate rose in 2012 to 10% from 8% in 2004, and the Asian American proportion to 3% from 2%. Today’s U.S. electorate is 28% nonwhite, which is more than twice the proportion from the early nineties. Younger voters and African Americans defied predictions by increasing their turnout over 2008. And nearly a quarter of 2012 voters were unmarried women.

These fast-growing groups voted heavily for President Obama. Sixty-seven percent of unmarried women, 60% of voters under 30, more than 70% of both Latinos and Asian Americans, and 93% of African Americans voted for the President. Their votes made a particular difference in swing states like Nevada, Colorado, and Ohio, and in Senate upsets in Missouri and Indiana.

It would be a big mistake, though, to view demographic change as political destiny. History predicts that nothing about these increasingly diverse Americans destines them to be Democratic voters in perpetuity. The African-American vote was very much up for grabs until the 1960s—it was John F. Kennedy’s support for Martin Luther King, Jr. that began the black shift to the Democrats, and Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” that solidified it. In a modern parallel, President Obama appears to have won half of the historically conservative Republican Cuban-American vote this year. Romney’s 27% of the overall Latino vote was down from George Bush’s 44% as recently as 2004. Party classifications, in other words, are a poor guide to understanding the changes we’re seeing.

More accurately, the diverse voting bloc that determined the outcome of the 2012 elections is part of an emerging American Values Majority. The ideals of Opportunity—economic security and mobility, equal treatment and voice, human rights and community, the notion that we are all in it together—defined their voting patterns and priorities. They embraced a positive role for government to uphold those values by enforcing fair rules and solving big problems. And they saw America’s diversity as a strength rather than as a liability or threat. This year, they decided in large numbers that President Obama and the Democrats most closely embodied those values.

Opportunity values were dominant in the positions that these voters brought to the ballot box. In exit polls reported by the New York Times, “two-thirds of voters said undocumented immigrants working in the United States should be offered a chance to apply for legal status. Only about one in three said they should be deported…. Six in 10 voters said abortion should be legal. More than 50 percent said they believed the economy favors the wealthy, and most of them supported raising taxes on people making more than $250,000.”

Groundbreaking ballot initiative results also help to define this American values constituency. In Maryland, voters overwhelmingly approved in-state college tuition rates for young undocumented immigrants. In California, they scaled back the vindictive Three Strikes law and supported education through fairer taxation. Voters in Washington and Maine instituted marriage equality.

Several important Senate contests turned on those values as well. In Wisconsin, voters elected the first openly gay U.S. Senator. And while Missouri and Indiana remain relatively conservative states, unmarried women were critical in defeating Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdock, respectively, after each candidate’s deeply ignorant comments about rape.

These outcomes were not just progress; most were reversals of conservative momentum from just a few years ago. And they represent not just individual issues or candidates, but also a coherent and inclusive worldview that is on the rise. The diverse electorate that returned Mr. Obama to the White House, expanded the Democratic majority in the Senate, and broke new ground in upholding human rights and dignity through ballot initiatives was responding to values, not to demographic or partisan allegiance.

Their values, moreover, flow not from ethnic or genetic make-up, but from experience. Today’s younger voters are far more likely than previous generations to personally know and have friendships with people of diverse races, nationalities, and sexual identities. That familiarity has moved many of them beyond “tolerance” to an embrace of diversity as part of America’s strength. And it has inoculated many of them against the scare tactics that served conservatives well in past elections.

Younger Americans, people of color, and single women are also more likely to understand personally that the public structures, investments, and political will that helped their parents and grandparents achieve greater opportunity and human rights are threatened by conservatives’ intolerant, you’re-on-your own ideology. And they are more likely to understand what it means to be treated like an outsider in one’s own community, workplace, and country. That conservatives continue, post-election, to talk about their “Hispanic problem” is just one example of their profound disconnect with these voters’ values.

A Compelling Story
The nascent American values majority clearly had the potential to transform the electoral landscape this year. But another critical ingredient was that the President and his party tied their appeal to a compelling narrative rooted in the same values and priorities.

The Democratic National Convention, from which Mr. Obama received a pivotal five point bump in the polls, featured Opportunity values, powerfully delivered and woven throughout the choice of speakers and imagery, as well as the words spoken. Diversity as America’s strength and government’s important role were also front and center. From Julian Castro to Elizabeth Warren, from Lily Ledbetter to the President himself, the moral and practical stakes were laid out with unprecedented breadth and clarity.

The Republican convention, by contrast, was a flop not so much because of Clint Eastwood and the empty chair as because the convention lacked a core story that fit with the new values majority. The conservative tenets that government has no role beyond military defense, that prosperity depends solely on personal responsibility, and that uniformity and tradition trump diversity and progress, were out of step with a majority of the electorate, as well as with the times.

But before we get carried away…
The emerging values majority is one of the most exciting developments in generations. But things could go south fast. Breaking events, different candidates, and updated messaging by conservatives could still shift today’s majority toward their agenda, just as they did in previous eras.

Many aspects of the conservative worldview—personal responsibility, fiscal restraint, competition and individualism—resonate with a majority of Americans across demographics, even for people who simultaneously embrace Opportunity values. In the shadow of the Obama victory, 49% of voters still chose Mitt Romney’s uneven but starkly conservative message. And while Republicans maintained their House majority more through creative gerrymandering than through electoral support (Democratic House candidates won 1 million more votes than Republicans), large swaths of the country favored very conservative candidates. The GOP grabbed 30 governor seats, the highest for either party in over a decade.

On issues, a majority of Americans supports Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070, even as they support the DREAM Act and a pathway to citizenship. And alongside historic victories this year, there were also significant ballot initiative defeats, from preserving the death penalty in California, to ending affirmative action in Oklahoma, to abortion restrictions and the denial of state services to undocumented immigrants in Montana.

Events also matter. The biggest challenges facing the country this year fit especially well with Opportunity values. The economic and financial crises and the painful road to recovery highlighted the importance of community, economic security, and fairness, and exposed the dangers of the you’re-on-your-own mindset. As Mitt Romney found out, they made it harder to demonize people who need public programs to get by and showed the danger of hyper-inequality. Wall Street abuses, hurricanes, and the BP oil spill each brought home why a proactive, positive role for government is in everyone’s interest.

But new events could cut in the other direction. A jump in violent crime rates or a terrorist attack, for example, could summon up the fear and insularity that erode Opportunity values. And as the economy recovers, many Americans will find it harder to see themselves in the same boat as those who are still struggling.

Nor can we count on Democrats, on their own, to prioritize opportunity and human rights in their communications or their lawmaking in the coming years. President Obama, by all accounts, did a terrible job of telling a values story during most of his first term—and he is among the Democrats’ most gifted communicators. As Americans struggled with the competing visions of the Occupy and Tea Party movements, for example, he and most Democrats remained mute on the subject. And they actively avoided discussion of equal opportunity for people of all races.

On policy, the President and his colleagues waited until election time to take basic executive action on LGBT equality and a reprieve for DREAM Act students, failed push positive immigration legislation, neglected the housing and homeownership crisis, failed to close Guantanamo or institutionalize human rights protections here at home, and abandoned truly universal healthcare in their opening bid to Republicans. They took late or half measures on many of the issues of greatest importance to the American values constituency.

In many ways, then, the Democrats looked so good in part because the Republicans looked so bad. That trend may or may not continue, but it falls far short of achieving the Opportunity Society to which so many of us aspire.

The Bottom Line.
So what does it all mean for those of us whose priorities lie with realizing opportunity and human rights for all? We have a tremendous opportunity, but also a momentous challenge. We must tell our own values story in a rapidly changing media and communications environment, and in ways that are not dependent on any candidate or party. We must demand policies, corporate practices, and civic behavior that uphold those values. We must work together, listen, and bridge our own differences in ways that we often haven’t in the past. And we must adapt to unprecedented levels of rapid change—in our global economy, in the media landscape, in the integration of our cultures and experiences.

So far, the prospects are good. Twenty-first century movements like Occupy Wall Street, the Dreamers, and workers’ rights in Wisconsin are increasingly rooted in values, networked, diverse, globalized, and communications-savvy. More and more, Opportunity values and storytelling traverse traditional media—think Maurine Dowd, Melissa Harris Perry, or John Stewart—as well as alternative, ethnic, and social media that are on the rise.

But there are some important gaps that we must fill. Low-income Americans, immigrants, and many others still have inadequate opportunities to be part of the public discourse. Progressive faith communities are just beginning to raise their voices, and progressive business leaders are still all but silent. The toxic mix of big money and politics unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision continues to pollute our democracy. And the community organizers and public interest groups that proved crucial to protecting and re-invigorating the franchise this year remain under-funded and under-recognized.

What happens in the Republican party is also important. Opportunity values were among that party’s founding principles, and motivated many of its candidates long into the 20th Century. An ideologically diverse Republican party that competes for new voters based on a genuine commitment to opportunity and human rights is in everyone’s interest. Voices inside the party are finally empowered to make that argument and, as with Democrats, should be encouraged and rewarded for doing so.

Addressing these issues is part of a 21st century infrastructure that’s needed for the new American values majority to realize it’s full potential. It won’t happen on it’s own. But if we’re smart as well as lucky, 2012 could be the beginning of an Opportunity Century.

Arm Yourself For Fiscal Cliff Arguments

Dave Johnson — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 13:27:53 -0500

I joined Campaign for America's Future's Richard Eskow to talk about the "fiscal cliff" scare, austerity, Social Security, Medicare and how we WON the election so we really should be talking about jobs instead.

This was a GREAT hour, and hold the information you need to arm yourself to win holiday-dinner conversations with your right-wing brother-in-law.

The conversation refers to my post, Fiscal Cliff Scare Talk Follows Shock Doctrine Script as well as several posts by Richard Eskow including, Wall Street Finds a ‘Third Way’ to Plunder Our Wealth, The “Fiscal Cliff” Is a Hoax … and a Mel Brooks Routine, The Grand Swindle – Veterans on a Cliff, After the Election, a New Mandate – and New “Fiscal Cliff” Math

Click here to listen, or listen using the widget below:

Listen to internet radio with Jay Ackroyd on Blog Talk Radio

---

Hey check out what happens when you click these:

Help Change The Economy -- Join Walmart Workers Striking On Black Friday

Dave Johnson — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:55:58 -0500

You can help change the economy! Big companies use their size and the fear of losing our jobs to force us to accept no raises or even lower pay and benefits. They can use their size to force communities, states and even the federal government to lower their taxes. You can help change the economy by standing with Walmart workers next week. They have the money but we have the people.

A month ago there were strikes at 12 Walmart stores and protests at more than 200 stores. Walmart illegally tried to silence organizers. Now there are strikes planned for "Black Friday." But Walmart workers aren't waiting, there are actions going on between now and next Friday, and you can join in.

Walmart is BIG. They are so big they can dictate to their supply chain, the communities where they are located, state governments, and even the federal government. And, of course, their workers. And when Walmart's workers are paid less, that puts pressure on workers everywhere else.

This is like so many other companies right now, using their size and the fact that so many people are looking for work to force wages down. And this forces pay down for the rest of us. All of this while these companies are reaping record profits for themselves.

You can stand with Walmart's workers, and demand changes in the way our economy works.

Video from OURWalmart: "Why are we standing up to live better?"

Yesterday: The News Tribune (Tacoma), Hundreds gather in Federal Way to support striking Walmart workers,

Today: Josh Eidelson at The Nation, Walmart Strike Wave Rolls Back Through Texas as Organizers Promise a Thousand Points of Protest,

Protests by Walmart workers that are spreading across the country came to Federal Way on Thursday, with between 20 and 30 employees leading a rally demanding better working conditions and pay.

The employees, from six Western Washington Walmart stores, gathered outside the store on South 314th Street, cheered on by at least 200 supporters. Many were from other unions and organizations including SPEEA, the National Organization for Women and One America, an immigrants’ rights group. The large group marched between a staging area at the end of the parking lot and the front of the store, chanting and talking to customers.

This morning, at 10 AM local time, Dallas Walmart store workers are headed back to the picket line. Theirs is the latest in a string of strikes that hit a California warehouse Wednesday and Seattle stores on Thursday. There’s more where that came from: On a Thursday call with reporters, union-backed Walmart worker groups said to expect a thousand strikes or demonstrations spread over nine days, culminating in an unprecedented array of “Black Friday” disruptions. That news follows a major legal settlement by a Walmart contractor that organizers credited to a 2011 sit-in at Hershey’s Chocolate.

Dallas striker Colby Harris emphasized that despite issues with low pay and repeated retaliation, he’s committed to remaining a Walmart worker. “If you leave this job, you’re going to face retaliation in some form somewhere else…” he said last night. “If you change Walmart, and you change corporate America, it can really better a lot of people’s lives.”

Also from Josh, Walmart Ex-Employee Was Handcuffed in Front of Workers

A former Walmart employee was handcuffed Wednesday when he visited his old store to talk to workers about next week’s “Black Friday” strike. Alex Rivera, who was fired in September, told The Nation that Walmart management intentionally misled Orlando police, leading them to detain him for twenty minutes in the store. The incident was denounced by the union-backed workers’ group OUR Walmart, which alleges that Walmart has been breaking the law to keep its workers in line.

Resources:

ForRespect.org – OUR Walmart’s official page

Corporate Action Network - Black Friday campaign - A Comunity Call To Action
Go here to find local events
Go here for: Materials you can use
Go here to send a Letter to the Editor to your local newspaper.

ColorOfChange: Hold Walmart accountable to Black workers,

For the first time in the company's 50-year history, Walmart workers are striking to protest their notoriously exploitative working conditions — and management's retaliation against workers who have spoken out. Stand with workers at Walmart: tell the Walmart Board and Chair Rob Walton to meet with workers and take immediate steps to improve working conditions.

CREDO Action: Tell Walmart to stop exploiting workers,

Walmart Stores Inc. - notorious for years for trampling the basic rights of American workers1 - has become the focus of a historic strike by its store workers.

... Tell Walmart Chairman of the Board Rob Walton: Meet with Walmart workers about their demands for better pay and working conditions.

Corporate Action Network Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/CorporateActionNetwork

ChangeWalmart.org – Making Change at Walmart official page
Facebook.com/MakingChangeWMT
Facebook.com/OURWMT

Download the app (link http://www.shareforrespect.com) to send a message to Walmart Associates you know through Facebook.

Share the infographics on Walmart from the Corporate Action Network Facebook Page -- https://www.facebook.com/CorporateActionNetwork

Twitter: Follow @CorpAction and the #WalmartStrikers tag to get the latest on the lead up to Black Friday.

---

Hey check out what happens when you click these:

Sherrod Brown Reelected Voicing Middle-Class Populism And Class-War Campaigning

Dave Johnson — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 13:43:58 -0500

Ohio Senator Sherror Brown won reelection by "waging class warfare" using middle-class populism. Here is how.

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, faced a tough battle for reelection. Huge amounts of Wall Street, multinational corporate, billionaire and undisclosed money (China?) -- at least $35 million -- poured in. Brown beat Ohio's State Treasurer Josh Mandel and was reelected by more than 5% using a strong middle class populist argument. He called for curbing the excesses of Wall Street, and ending taxpayer-funded giveaways to huge corporations that send American jobs overseas. And Brown especially, especially championed American manufacturing over the interests of Wall Street and the giant multinational corporations.

Brown stood up for the class interests of Ohio's blue-collar voters and won reelection. He took the side of the many against the side of the big-money few.

Visit the Wage Class War website and see how candidates who supported the economic interests of the many over the few won their elections.
Earlier this year Brown was considered vulnerable because he had voted for the stimulus and Obamacare. But Brown supported the "auto bailout" and was a strong proponent of manufacturing, and of taking on China, especially over currency manipulation. Josh Mandel, Brown's opponent, opposed the auto bailout.

On jobs, Brown stressed investing in maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure, developing a coherent national manufacturing strategy, and taking on China for manipulating its currency and other trade violations. Mandel stressed the Republican basics: tax cuts and cutting regulations -- especially those limiting mercury and other air-pollution standards that affect coal-burning utilities. Also said we should "eliminate government bailouts of industries."

Brown campaigned as, in EJ Dionne's words, "A proud labor-populist," (Note that the $20 million figure is from early October.)

A proud labor-populist, Brown seems to invite the hostility of wealthy conservatives and deep-pocketed interest groups. The amount they have spent to defeat him topped $20 million this week.

... Ryan, Brown said, has “dressed up trickle-down economics and wrapped it in an Ayn Rand novel.” The vice president, Brown added, should highlight the Republicans’ desire to privatize both Medicare and Social Security, reflected in Ryan’s own record and Republicans’ attempts to do so whenever they thought they had the votes. “It’s clear they want to go there,” Brown said.

In an Oct 24 email to supporters, Brown wrote about himself,

I’m fighting to end “too big to fail” and put the reins on Wall Street banks. I want to end taxpayer-funded giveaways to huge corporations that ship American jobs overseas. I want to put an end to the torrent of special interest spending in our election process unleashed by Citizens United.

They’ve spent more than $21 million on attacks against me.”

Mandate

By campaigning with a middle-class populist class-warfare argument Brown has won a mandate to act in the interests of working people. And this is exactly what Brown is doing:

Fiscal Cliff, Taxes & Social Security: WFIN, Sherrod Brown Talks About Pressing Issues In Washington

Brown, siding with president Obama on tax increases for those making over $250,000 a year, should not be negotiable, nor should Social Security. Despite the market sell-off Brown said that the Dow is up nearly 100 percent since Obama took first took office.

Campaign Finance: Coshocton Tribune: Sherrod Brown calls for tougher finance rules,

It should come as no surprise that Sen. Sherrod Brown’s first post-election legislative push would be on campaign finance reform. After all, Brown won a second term in the U.S. Senate this past week despite a barrage of outside spending — about $40 million from conservative groups gunning for his ouster. ...

He called for three steps:

• Passage of legislation called the Disclose Act, which would require independent groups to disclose the names of their high-dollar donors.

• Adoption of a measure giving shareholders the right to vote on a company’s political expenditures.

• An investigation by the IRS into whether some nonprofit groups are abusing their tax-exempt status by engaging in overt political activity.

Arguing For Working People And The Middle Class Works

Here is the point. The public understands that there is a war going on between the top few and the rest of us. The top few benefit from keeping unemployment high and wages low. They benefit from keeping We, the People from investing in a modern infrastructure and good schools & universities and good courts and the rest of the public structures that democracy builds, because it means they would have to pay taxes and follow the rules that benefit We, the People.

The top few can cough up a lot of money to run ads that tell people they shouldn't support their own interests. And this can go a long way, so a lot of politicians go down the road of saying what the billionaires want to hear, and getting their campaigns funded, and getting themselves lucrative jobs after they leave office.

But when votes are on the line, when votes are the deciding factor, and when people understand where their interests really are -- then a candidate needs to be on the side of We, the People.

If you are running for office take note: the big money bought a lot of campaign ads, but standing up for We, the People won the election. The public is behind this, and it works. Sherrod Brown's reelection shows that it works.

Visit the Wage Class War website and see how candidates who supported the economic interests of the many over the few won their elections.

---

Hey check out what happens when you click these:

The Scandal We Should Be Talking About

Stephen Miles — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 12:51:28 -0500

By Stephen Miles and William Hartung

Nothing grips Washington more than a good scandal, particularly when it involves sex, power and money. Last week’s surprise resignation of C.I.A. Director David Petraeus has filled countless column inches and primetime minutes of television. The news of Gen. John Allen’s involvement in the scandal is surely going to keep the story at the top of the news cycle for days to come.

While our news media pours over every titillating detail of the Petraeus affair, there’s another scandal that’s gone largely unnoticed by the defense community. Last Friday, Lockheed Martin quietly announced that after having been groomed to take over for departing C.E.O. Robert Stevens this January, that would-be C.E.O. Christopher Kubasik would be resigning over a long term extramarital affair with a “subordinate employee.”

And that might have been where this story ended. There is clearly no shortage of stories of rising stars whose careers were ended over personal indiscretion. However, on Monday, the Washington Post reported that according to S.E.C. filings, Lockheed Martin will pay Mr. Kubasik $3.5 million in separation pay. In other words, for being fired for misconduct before he ever spent one day in the job as its C.E.O., the Pentagon’s largest contractor will be giving their former employee one heck of a going away gift.

Some may rightly point out that Lockheed Martin is a private company and they can spend or waste their money as they see fit. They problem is that the U.S. government is essentially Lockheed’s only customer. Last year, a full 82% of their sales came from Uncle Sam directly while a good portion of the remaining 17% was funded by the federal government through our support for foreign military sales and local and state government security contracts. Put another way, nearly every penny that Lockheed earns comes directly from you and me.

Lockheed Martin is now using taxpayer dollars to pay $3.5 million to someone they’re firing. This is tragically unsurprising for a company with Lockheed’s executive salary track record. Before being summarily fired last week, Mr. Kubasik was likely on pace to match the $9.5 million he made in 2011. Upon his promotion to C.E.O. he would have been eligible to earn something closer to the $25.4 million Robert Stevens earned in 2011. All told, last year Lockheed Martin paid their top 5 executives a combined $51.9 million.

Outrageous executive compensation isn’t the only way Lockheed spends the taxpayer’s dime. Lockheed spent more than $11.5 million on a small army of lobbyists in the first three quarters on 2012, putting them on pace to surpass the $15.1 million they spent in 2011. Meanwhile, Lockheed’s top executives have threatened tens of thousands of layoffs as the Pentagon starts to tighten its belt after more than a decade of runaway spending.

Furthermore, any review of Lockheed’s many troubled weapons systems paints a bleak picture. After years developing the F-22, Lockheed delivered a plane that has the pesky problem of leaving its pilots without oxygen (a problem the Pentagon is ironically addressing by giving Lockheed Martin an additional multimillion dollar contract). Lockheed’s marquee project for the Navy is the Littoral Combat Ship, a program so flawed that a recent investigation by the Project on Government Oversight called the many failures “almost too outrageous to fathom.” However, the most egregious example of waste is infamous the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35. The F-35, originally conceived in the 1980s to fight the Soviet Union, is now so far behind schedule and so over budget that at a lifetime cost of $1.5 trillion and growing, it has the unique distinction of being the most expensive (and possibly least useful) weapons program in American history.

Which brings us back to Christopher Kubasik, the C.E.O. to be that never was. Pretty soon, Washington will move on from the sordid details of David Petraeus and turn its attention back to the fiscal showdown, the Bush tax cuts, and sequestration. Americans will be told scary stories about the dangers of cutting the Pentagon’s grotesquely large budget and once again threatened with layoffs at Pentagon contractors. But as we debate how much to cut at the Pentagon, let’s remember the story of Chris Kubasik. It’s the story of how our tax dollars are wasted, not on keeping America safe, but on corporate greed and excess.

China Trade: Republicans Choosing Money Interests Over Voters -- And Their Own Ads

Dave Johnson — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 12:39:19 -0500

The voters clearly voted to do something about the bad trade deals, trade cheating and currency manipulation that are draining our jobs and economy. The big money likes things just the way they are. Which will prevail -- the voters who just voted, or the big money that just lost? One week after the election in which the airwaves were saturated with Republican ads blasting China, and so far the Republicans are still siding with the money, and with China.

The Voters And The Ads They Saw

A report on campaign ads was released today by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) conducted for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM). The report said, "more than 975,000 mentions were made in presidential TV advertising about the key issues of jobs, outsourcing, and trade generally or involving China specifically, and Gov. Romney’s involvement with Bain Capital."

975,000 mentions, seen my X-million people, multiplied by 2 eyes and ears each is a lot of eye- and ear-minutes that were exposed to messages calling for doing something about the problem of our trade deals hurting our jobs, factories, industries and chunks of our economy.

China

When we say trade and manufacturing and jobs, we mean "China."

Republicans used China trade again and again in their ads, blaming Democrats for the loss of jobs to China. But in spite of millions of dollars of ads blaming Democrats for inaction on China people understood who was and was not on their side. Reality intruded on Republican rhetoric. This chart from Think Progress shows what happened to our manufacturing base immediately after Bush took office. Seriously, look at this chart and see if you can just guess why we have such a terrible economy today:

This chart shows our import/export balance with China: (blue is imports from, red is exports to China)

People understand what happened, and is happening (see Sensata) people voted for American factories: Elizabeth Wilner, vice president of Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group said, “Even in today's service-and-dotcom economy, one of the most popular images in 2012 political advertising was the American factory. Whether depicted as desolate through chained gates or shot from a brightly lit, busy floor, the factory starred in an air war dominated by debate over the American economy.” Scott Paul, Executive Director of AAM agreed, saying, “Both the Democratic and Republican candidates spent a stunning amount of money on television advertising to convince voters that they could best represent the interests of America’s manufacturers and their workers. Obviously they latched on to the right issues because jobs and outsourcing are absolute, top-of-mind issues. Across the partisan spectrum, these issues move voters.”

The Money

The Club for Growth is a big-money Wall Street front group. The Chamber of Commerce is looking a lot like a big-money China front group.

John Nichols explains in The Nation, Club for Growth Pressures Republican Candidates to Choose China Over US in Currency Manipulation Fight. John calls Club for Growth, "the exceptionally well-financed conservative pressure group that takes bushels of money from Wall Street speculators—who, of course, like nothing better than a little currency manipulation."

Currency manipulation achieves many ends for the Chinese government and the corporate interests with which it has aligned: wages are depressed in the United States and China. Corporations that are willing to play one country against another come out ahead. And speculators make a boatland of money.

These goals are all so appealing to the Club for Growth that the group has now made the stance of GOP presidential candidates on the question of whether to crack down on currency manipulation an official “litmus test.”

The ~~Chinese~~ Chamber of Commerce says that enforcing trade rules is "protectionism" because it would protect American wages, jobs and factories. From the Wall Street Journal, Chamber of Commerce’s Donohue: China Currency Bill Invites Retaliation

Thomas Donohue, the president and CEO of the influential business group, told a group of Dow Jones reporters and editors that U.S. policy makers should resist embracing protectionism. While understandable in times of economic stress, an attempt to force China’s hand could have negative repercussions for U.S. firms, he said, as Beijing seeks to maintain full employment for its citizens.

The Money is siding with China. (Of course, the Money is getting a lot of its money from China...)

The Politicians

So the public is solidly behind doing something about the problem of jobs, factories, industries and big chunks of our economy moving to China.

The politicians? Well, the Republicans so far -- having just run tens of millions of dollars of ads promising to side with the voters and do something about China and currency manpulation -- are still siding with the money over the voters.

Specifically, there is a bill to crack down on Chinese currency manipulation -- that thing Romney promised he would do "on my first day in office." The bill has passed the Senate, the only bill to pass over a Republican/McConnel "side with the money" filibuster. The bill has more than 60 Republican House co-sponsors. But even having overwhelmingly passed the Senate, and even with more than 60 Republican co-sponsors in the House -- and even though Republican just campaigned promising to do this -- the Republican leadership refuses to bring this bill up for a vote and those 60-plus Republican co-sponsors refuse to ask that it be brought up for a vote.

The election was then, the money is now.

Again: In spite of running tens of millions of dollars of ads calling for a crackdown on China, not one House Republican has asked Boehner to bring the China currency bill up for a vote.

The Study

Some key findings from the study:

Republicans outspent and out-aired Democrats on jobs. In all five races, Republicans spent more money and had higher spot count rates than Democrats on advertising that mentioned “jobs.”
Democrats’ ads about jobs focused on businesses that sent jobs overseas and laid off workers, which explains why the two sides’ spending and spot-count levels on jobs were closer to parity in the Presidential contest but much further apart in the Senate races. While Bain Capital’s business practices were a major theme of advertising in the race for the White House, the issue was exclusive to that race.
Despite being outspent and out-aired, Democrats’ messaging on jobs proved more effective.
Republican mentions of “jobs” tended to increase, and Democratic mentions tended to decrease, around the release time of the monthly jobs reports.
“Jobs” was the most-mentioned issue in 2012 advertising by far, not just in the five races but in federal races overall.
In the four Senate races in particular, Republicans outspent and out-aired Democrats on jobs mentions by anywhere from 2:1 to 4:1. The Democrats used their ads about outsourcing and firing workers to distance the Republican candidates from the voting blocs they needed to win, often punctuating them with taglines such as, “He’s not for us anymore,” and “If [he] wins, the middle class loses.”
Looking more closely at the presidential race, Democrats spent $57 million in TV advertising attacking Gov. Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital, for its alleged practices of shipping jobs overseas or eliminating them altogether. The Obama campaign also devoted substantial advertising to the outsourcing angle, including an ad suggesting that, under Romney’s leadership, Bain laid off workers and destroyed livelihoods.
While the anti-Bain ads received enormous media attention, more money—$68 million—actually was spent to advertise about trade. The two sides spent roughly the same amount on ads mentioning trade, about $34 million, but all the Republican spending went toward ads specifically mentioning China trade. The Romney campaign in particular used ads to accuse the President of not being tough enough on China trade and currency manipulation.
The Ohio market in general and Cleveland in particular were dominant for both presidential ad spending and occurrences on all these issues. Across all markets seeing presidential advertising, Cleveland ranked second-highest for both spending and spot mentions of jobs: $37 million and 33,877, respectively. For anti-Bain mentions, it ranked second-highest for spending and highest for spots: $4.8 million and 5,676. On trade, it ranked second-highest for spending and highest for spots: $5.8 million and 5,138. And on China trade, it ranked highest for both spending and spots: $4.6 million and 4,722.

READ AAM'S SUMMARY: Post-election Analysis Finds Manufacturing, China, and Outsourcing Dominated 2012 Political TV Advertising

READ THE FULL REPORT: Post-election analysis by Kantar Media/CMAG.

DOWNLOAD: Kantar Media/CMAG's full summary of election ads and costs.

VIEW A CHART: Spot count trend of TV ads mentioning "jobs" in the election.

---

Hey check out what happens when you click these:

Election Affirms Education "Reform" A Beltway, Rich Person Fetish

Jeff Bryant — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 22:23:35 -0500

In President Obama's stunningly convincing reelection, only part of his education policies got reaffirmed -- the part he talked about most of the time during the campaign.

Meanwhile, the president's policies known to align with what is commonly called "education reform" -- which closely adheres to Beltway conventional wisdom and the druthers of rich folks -- appear to have little support on the ground.

His return to office is undoubtedly due, in part, to most Americans agreeing with his assertion that education is an essential "investment" in the future of our country.

This was "the softer part of his education agenda," as Joy Resmovits explains at Huffington Post, that he brought out in "speeches and debates" to differentiate himself from his opponent Mitt Romney.

Certainly, the President's support for spending on public education was a hit with minorities, single moms, and young voters -- communities tending to value education -- who showed up big for the president.

This is not to say that support for Obama's spending on investing in education is something that unifies the country. Also on the ballot in many states on Election Day were a number of state initiatives related to education funding that experienced mixed fates with voters.

For instance, California's Proposition 30, which provides new funding that prevents "massive" cuts to education programs, passed with a comfortable, 54 percent, margin.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, voters rejected an extension of a sales tax increase that would have provided millions in additional money for public schools.

While voters in Portland, Oregon agreed to tax themselves to help pay for arts education, voters in South Dakota voted down a one-percent sales tax increase that would have given schools approximately $725 more per student annually.

But make no mistake about it -- the issue of funding public education mostly falls along the red state vs. blue state divide. And with the nation's demographics on the whole clearly trending toward a blue state profile, the future of public education funding seems to be mostly a matter of getting politicians to act on the will of the people. Tough to do, for sure, but pretty clear-cut.

However, the other part of Obama's education policy -- the part he didn't talk about very much during the campaign -- didn't fare so well on Election Day.

That part -- his agenda of standardization, test-driven outcomes, and alternatives to traditional public schools -- mostly took a beating. And unlike the coalition that backed public education spending, opposition to top-down mandates imposed on local schools is anything but predictable. In fact, the forces are exceedingly diverse, grassroots, and "purple" -- rather than sharply red or blue -- in their make up. And their presence and force is growing and spreading.

What Happened In Indiana

This opposition was particularly potent in Indiana, where the state's voters, in rejecting Obama, also rejected his education policy as well, even though, in this case, to do so meant to split their tickets and cross the party line to vote for a Democratic candidate.

The Republican was Indiana state superintendent Tony Bennett, who had been on the frontline of implementing education policies very similar to Obama's education policies, most notably Race to the Top and Common Core State Standards.

Bennett's Democratic opponent Glenda Ritz, on the other hand, "campaigned on halting those reforms, saying they were misguided and pushed through too quickly."

A county-by-county analysis reveals that Bennett, whose campaign raised four times as much money as Ritz’s, was beaten in places where conservative Republicans split their tickets and joined members of the state teachers union, parent activists, and public school supporters in opposition to Bennett.

Indiana NPR attributed these results to Hoosiers' preference for "local control" of their schools.

Another observer on the ground, journalism professor John Krull, concluded, "People voted against Bennett because no one had explained to them in any sort of detail how giving grades to schools or creating a voucher program without testing it really would help their children and grandchildren."

Indeed, when did Obama's reelection campaign ever explain exactly how Race to the Top will help children and grandchildren?

But back to the election, Indiana wasn't the only red state to vote purple on education.

What Happened Elsewhere

In Idaho, Republicans again crossed party lines to join teachers unions and public school advocates to vote down propositions that favored what's come to be called "education reform."

As Diane Ravitch explained on her blog, these propositions would have "imposed a mandate for online courses for high school graduates (a favorite of candidates funded by technology companies), made test scores the measure of teacher quality, provided bonuses for teachers whose students got higher scores, removed all teacher rights, eliminated anything resembling tenure or seniority, turned teachers into at-will employees, and squashed the teachers’ unions."

But despite, more likely because, of their "reforminess," these measure went down.

Similar to the Idaho referendum that would erode teachers' job security and working conditions, a state ballot measure in South Dakota that would have reduced teacher job security and given bonuses to teachers based on student test scores also went down in flames.

Reform enthusiasts, in their defense, are going to point to the passage of charter school ballot measures in Georgia and Washington as proof that their agenda is prevailing. Charter schools indeed have been heavily promoted by the Obama administration.

But let's be clear-eyed about the election results of charter school initiatives. In Georgia, although voters decided, with 58 percent in favor, to create a new state agency to approve charter schools that are rejected by their local school boards and by the state board of education, the ballot language "was deceptive, confusing, and misleading to Georgia voters" and will likely be challenged in court.

In Washington, the vote remained a "cliffhanger" until the very end and exemplified that charters may be "the most controversial issue of the 2012 vote."

The Great Education Divide

Many observers, including journalists at The Wall Street Journal, have accurately surmised that the American public is currently deeply divided on education policy. But that analysis barely scratches the surface.

Go much deeper and you find that the "new liberal consensus" that Adam Serwer wrote about in Mother Jones, which propelled Obama into a second term, believes in funding the nation's public schools but has little to no allegiance to Obama's education reform policies.

Outside of the elite circles of the Beltway and the very rich, who continue to be the main proponents of these education policies, it is getting harder and harder to discern who exactly is the constituency being served by Obama's reform agenda.

Most Americans do not understand where there is any evidence that punitive measures aimed at their local schools are in any way beneficial to their children and grand children. In fact, there's some reasonable doubt whether the president himself understands it.

In Obama's victory speech, he spoke about listening and learning from the people who have voted for him. He also spoke, again, of being president not just for the blue states or the red states but for the United States.

So maybe now he will hear this: With the exception of your support for education funding, your education policies are generally not backed by the people of the United States. Period.

Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/jeffbcdm

Election 2012 and Our Sensible Super Rich

Sam Pizzigati — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:49:07 -0500

Take all that post-election commentary about foolish billionaires and wasted millions in political contributions with a grain of salt. Our billionaires don't have to actually win on Election Day to get their way.

We’ll never know exactly how much America’s super rich pumped into the 2012 elections. Hundreds of millions in “dark money” — contributions laundered through hyper-politicized nonprofits like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — will forever remain untraceable.

Even so, we do know that hundreds of billionaires and mega millionaires spent at incredibly extravagant levels on 2012 election campaigns. Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson appears to have spent at least $53 million. The notoriously right-wing Koch brothers likely spent even more.

The prime targets of this super-rich cash offensive, from President Obama on down, almost all seem to have survived quite nicely on Election Day. In race after race, candidates that super-rich conservatives opposed swept to victory.

The final election results, a New York Times editorial declared yesterday, amounted to “a landslide loss for big money.” Rich people, adds Slate political analyst David Weigel, "wasted their money.”

These super rich themselves are now coming across, in the election wake, as a cast of rather pathetic characters, as egotistical political dilettantes and rigid ideologues unable to make rational political calculations.

Who ever thought, marvels Washington Post analyst Steven Pearlstein, that businessmen would be “even worse at making political investments than politicians are in making business investments.”

This image of bumbling billionaires no doubt comforts many mainstream pundits. Our democracy has triumphed, their emerging narrative goes. We don’t have to worry about our super rich. All their billions can’t buy victory at the ballot box.

But our super rich didn’t bumble — or waste away — anything in 2012. Ideology didn’t blind them. Self-interest drove them. They behaved rationally.

All investments involve some level of risk. Wise investors balance risk and reward. The political investment the right-wing super rich made in this year's elections involved little risk — and promised substantial reward.

Let's examine, as an example, the political calculus for a deep pocket with a $1 billion fortune and $100 million in annual income. Let’s assume that our billionaire pays federal taxes on this income at a 14 percent actual rate, the same rate that Mitt Romney paid on his 2011 income, after exploiting various tax loopholes.

After federal taxes, our billionaire would be left with $86 million in annual income. In 2012, this billionaire could have spent $10 million on political contributions and still ended the year with a higher personal net worth than he had when the year began. In other words, that $10 million would hardly represent much of a risk.

And the potential reward? Consider the tax implications alone.

Candidate Mitt Romney pledged that he would repeal Obamacare. Much of the Obamacare funding comes from new taxes on the rich, a 0.9 percent payroll tax on ordinary income that couples pull in over $250,000 and a 3.8 percent tax on capital gains, dividend, and interest income over that same threshold.

President Obama also campaigned on a pledge to let the Bush tax cuts for wealthy households expire, a move that would hike the top marginal income tax rate on ordinary income from 35 to 39.6 percent and the core tax on capital gains from 15 to 20 percent. A Romney victory would have prevented these increases.

Just the tax savings alone from a Romney victory would have saved our billionaire, in just one year, his entire $10 million in 2012 political contributions. Quite a reward, a most satisfying return on investment.

But candidate Mitt Romney, of course, lost his White House bid. Does that make our billionaire’s $10 million investment to elect him a total waste? Absolutely not. Even without a Romney victory, our billionaire’s investment will pay dividends for years to come.

Here’s why. All those millions super rich right-wingers pour into politics force the candidates they target, if they want to remain electorally competitive, to go out and aggressively cultivate their own deep-pocket sources of campaign cash.

The more cash these targeted candidates need to raise to remain competitive, the greater the pressure on them to push a political agenda that an appreciable number of affluent deep pockets will find appealing.

This inexorable dynamic may help explain why President Obama isn’t proposing to restore taxes on America’s super rich to their pre-Ronald Reagan levels. The President is only asking the rich, as ne noted repeatedly on the campaign trail, to pay a “little more.”

If President Obama wins all the tax increases on the rich he has proposed — and the new Obamacare taxes on the rich stay in place — America's super rich will still be paying taxes at less than half the rate that our richest faced back in the 1950s, under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

So right-wing billionaires like Sheldon Adelson are essentially winning, even when they lose on Election Day. Their hundreds of millions in political contributions are distorting our national political discourse — and keeping real change off the table.

Our conservative billionaires, in short, only look crazy. They're actually behaving, given their long-term goals, quite sensibly. We have to behave sensibly, too, and start fighting to trim their colossal fortunes down much closer to democratic size.

Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, the online Institute for Policy Studies weekly on excess and inequality. His latest book, The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, will appear later this month.

Fiscal Cliff Scare Talk Follows Shock Doctrine Script

Dave Johnson — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:15:00 -0500

Anyone who has read The Shock Doctrine understands exactly what this "Fiscal Cliff" scare is.

If you have already read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein you have probably been rolling your eyes at all this "Fiscal Cliff" scare talk. "Here they go again" you're thinking... If you haven't read the book, you should. You really, really should.

The Phony "Fiscal Cliff" Scare

At the end of the year the Bush tax cuts expire. When this happens tax rates will rise modestly to where they were when Clinton was President. Also at the end of the year budget "sequestration" occurs. This means that the various cuts Congress approved to end the debt ceiling "crisis" will begin to phase in. (Remember, the debt-ceiling "crisis" was when Republicans refused to allow the country to honor its debts, holding the economy hostage, unless they got deep budget cuts in the things We the People do for each other.)

That's it. That's the "crisis." All of the people who had been hysterical about the budget deficit "crisis" are now hysterical that taxes will go up and spending will go down. Go figure. Maybe -- just maybe -- I shouldn't even say it -- these "serious people" weren't ... serious ... when they said they were worried about the deficit. You see, the hysteria now is because tax rates at the top will go up (cutting the deficit), and because a big part of those budget cuts (cutting the deficit) is military spending. Unfortunately the sequestration also cuts important things that help a lot of people and our economy. But these cuts do not take place all at once (a "cliff"), they will be phased in over time, and the Congress can act at any time to halt any of these cuts.

The "Fiscal Cliff" is not a cliff and the language itself is intended to scare people. The name itself is designed to create panic, evoking disaster imagery of people and the economy falling off a cliff. It is the latest manufactured "crisis" and we are all supposed to be terrified and demand immediate and extreme solutions.

Again, the very people screaming loudest about deficits are the people who passed tax cut after tax cut, and military spending increase after military spending increase, and started war after war. Then these same "serious people" terrify the public, telling them that budget deficits will lead to the destruction of the country — and soon. After a decade of screaming “9/11,” “9/11,” noun verb “9/11,” they screamed "deficit, deficit, deficit." Now they scream, "fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff, fiscal cliff."

Then after the public is suitably stirred up and terrified they offer “solutions” they say are necessary to cut the scary deficit (that they caused, for this purpose).

And the fixing all has to happen right now, in the "lame duck" Congress, before those new legislators We, the People elected can take office.

The "Grand Bargain"

The "serious people" are pushing for a "grand bargain" that they say will "solve" the "deficit problem" "once and for all."

Of course, nothing in any "grand bargain" can bind the Congress, and any part of this "grand bargain" can and will be undone by Congress at the earliest opportunity.

The outline of this "bargain" involves "tax reform" and "getting a handle on entitlements." Tax "reform" does not involve allowing raising tax rates on the wealthy. It "reforms" taxes by getting rid of various deductions. "Getting a handle on entitlements" means cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps and the rest of the things that We, the People do for each other. Social Security by law does not contribute to the deficit -- they just threw it in because it is "in crisis"

(Note -- The Social Security "crisis" is that under certain economic projections its funding might run a bit short many years down the road. This future shortfall is in comparison to the military budget which, unlike Social Security, has no separate funding mechanism and runs 100% short every year. But that is not a "crisis.")

So a fix for a budget problem that as caused by cutting taxes, massively increasing military spending and crashing the economy will be "solved" by ... not fixing those things. Once again the income and wealth of the country will be shifted away from We, the People and upward to the same 1% who have been benefiting from everything in our economy since the election of Ronald Reagan and the disaster-capitalism formula: cut taxes, raise military spending, then use the resulting deficits to scare people into accepting extreme "solutions." Rinse and repeat.

The Shock Doctrine

The Shock Doctrine is a book by Naomi Klein that describes a "disaster capitalism" strategy used by wealthy and powerful people to take advantage of crises -- even causing crises -- to herd people into accepting "solutions" to those crises that really just enrich the 1% at the expense of the rest of us.

In times of crisis (real or perceived) the public is in a state of shock, distracted and ready to grasp at straws to get out of the panic. This is the perfect time for "serious people" to come in and offer pre-planned "solutions." These solutions usually involve privatizing public institutions and wealth, cutting public services, cutting taxes on the rich, seizing property, lowering wages and pensions ... well, just look at Europe's "austerity" and you get the picture.

This shock-doctrine disaster capitalism model has become standard practice. We see this happening over and over again: crises occur or are manufactured, the media whips people into a panic, and then the "solution" is introduced. The solution involves a "reform" that transfers wealth or institutions into a few private hands.

The Real Problem And Real Solution

We have a jobs problem, not a deficit problem. The best way to deal with the deficit is to put Americans back to work. The real job creators are working people with money in their wallets. We can’t cut our way to growth. These are not just slogans, these are solutions to real problems.

We need to invest in our economy, restoring and modernizing our infrastructure, retrofitting our homes and buildings to be more energy efficient, upgrading our public schools and universities, and fighting to create the manufacturing ecosystems for the new industries of the future,. All of these investments create jobs while they are underway, and pay off by improving our economy for the long term.

Inoculate yourself by reading The Shock Doctrine. Inoculate your friends by telling them about the book, and how this game works, over and over again.

“Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." — Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay, 2003

---

Hey check out what happens when you click these:

Sensata vs Solyndra

Dave Johnson — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:54:07 -0500

The public looked at the stories about Solyndra and Sensata and voted. They voted for clean energy jobs IN the US, not for vulture capitalism that ships our jobs and industries OUT of the US. They voted to act as a united country instead of a leaving everyone on their own, in it only for themselves. They said We, the People are a people, not just a bunch of dorks out there on our own, alone at the mercy of the wealthy and powerful.

Solyndra Was About Jobs Here

Our government's investment in solar-manufacturing companies was part of an attempt to bring clean energy jobs to the US. Solar power is obviously a big industry of the future, and the countries that can build up a manufacturing/research/education/skill/supply chain ecosystem will do well. Solyndra was one of several companies working on solar technologies that the government thinks will help our economy.

After solar-panel prices dropped, partly as a result of Chinese government subsidies to their own companies, Solyndra and some other solar-power companies didn't make it. But the country still gained from the investment in expertise, research and other parts of the solar-manufacturing ecosystem that occurred in this country through the Solyndra investment.

Remember, the investment in Solyndra and companies like it is an attempt to trigger a manufacturing ecosystem here in the US, not to make a profit from individual investments.

Voters decided this is a good thing. In California, in fact, there was a ballot initiative, Prop 39, to tax out-of-state corporations and use half the money on energy efficiency projects, create 20,000 to 30,000 construction related jobs. It passed 60% to 40%.

Voters want more government help creating jobs and companies, especially green-energy jobs and startups!

Sensata Was About Jobs There

Sensata is a company that Mitt Romney's old company Bain Capital bought, and immediately announced they are moving the jobs and manufacturing equipment to China. Sensata makes sensors for the auto industry. This is a key technology and a key component of the auto-industry supply chain. Bain is moving this technology and the manufacturing to China.

Voters said that what Bain Capital did with Sensata is bad. Voters said that what our government did by investing in a solar-manufacturing ecosystem is good.

Romney tried to knock down American clean energy jobs by blasting our investment in Solyndra. And his former
But the public looked at Sensata and chose.

Voters chose Solyndra over Sensata. Voters want investment in America, not China.

---

Hey check out what happens when you click these:

Progressive Breakfast

Bill Scher — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 08:17:14 -0500

MORNING MESSAGE: Obama Has Political Capital

OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "So, let’s get this straight: A Republican President is re-elected in 2004 with 284 electoral votes and the pundits say he has the 'political capital' to push an extreme right-wing mandate. A Democratic President gets re-elected in 2012 with 303 electoral votes, and they’re telling us he needs to 'unite a divided country.' Nonsense. This election was a clear and unequivocal victory for the populist positions the President took on the campaign trail."

Biden, Boehner Begin Budget Dance

Biden asserts tax mandate. HuffPost quotes: "There was a clear, a clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy."

Boehner's conciliatory tone does not necessarily mean a new GOP position on taxes. W. Post: "Boehner and Republicans have long promised to enact comprehensive tax reform that would curb tax exemptions as long as that reform lowered tax rates instead of raising them. He’s also long said he’s open to more revenue so long as it comes from a stronger economy rather than higher taxes. Again, nothing new there. That’s classic supply-side economics, and most Democrats and most economists doubt it applies to the current tax code. So there’s no deal if that’s what Boehner is proposing. But Boehner’s final sentence is interesting: 'Because the American people expect us to find common ground, we are willing to accept some additional revenues, via tax reform.' That sounds like he’s accepting some version of the Simpson-Bowles approach to tax increases, in which you close tax breaks and deductions and use some of the money to lower rates and some to reduce the deficit."

Democrats not taking Boehner's bait. TPM: "...their hopes rest on a vague suggestion that they’ll concede higher revenues in a future tax reform agreement with Obama, so long as he drops his demands for higher tax rates and agrees to cut entitlement spending. This sounds familiar because it’s broadly speaking the same deficit cutting deal Republicans spent most of this past Congress pursuing — one that raises little, if any revenue, let alone revenue from high earners. And early signs indicate that Democrats won’t bite."

Signers of Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge fare poorly. ThinkProgress: "... at least 55 Republican House incumbents or candidates who signed the pledge — and 24 Republican Senators or hopefuls — lost on Tuesday. Linda McMahon (R-CT), Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), Treasurer Josh Mandel (R-OH), Secretary of State Charles Summers (R-ME), former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R-CA) all signed the pledge and were attacked by their Democrats opponents in face-to-face debates over the issue. All five were defeated in their Senate bids."

National People's Action launches 25-city grassroots push for a "Fair Deal": "Either Congress and the President will ensure that corporations and the richest 2% pay their fair share or the rest of us will pick up their tab and face devastating cuts ... We're taking this message to our senators and representatives: if you want to get our economy back on track we need to focus on additional investments in jobs and services that rebuild our economy."

Values Over Demographics

President Obama's pollster stresses election about "values" not "demographics" in NYT oped: "The president’s victory was a triumph of vision, not of demographics. He won because he articulated a set of values that define an America that the majority of us wish to live in ... 89 percent of those surveyed agreed that 'for my children to have the economic opportunities I’ve had, we need to make real investments in education, creating world-class schools and making college more affordable.' Mitt Romney’s negative drumbeat about the president’s record and his insistence that our economic agenda was failing were essentially tone-deaf, missing the mark with voters to such an extent that they undermined the central premise of his candidacy — his economic expertise."

Republicans ponder shifts on abortion and immigration to get in sync with modern America. Politico: "West Virginia Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who’s considering a Senate bid in 2014, said Republicans had to confront the reality that they’re 'not diversified like the country ... It’s a broader issue than women just being concerned about abortion. There’s a concern that people in the Republican Party want to intervene in the choices women have,' ... Republican State Leadership Committee President Chris Jankowski, whose group supports GOP candidates in non-federal elections, put it this way: 'We ran into what I would describe as a buzz saw of Democrat-driven Hispanic turnout that was all about the top of the ticket but it caught us down ballot.' To get past that obstacle, Jankowski said Republicans need 'the immigration debate … to be addressed and settled in a way the Republican Party can live with.'"

Latino turnout was up. LAT: "...Latinos represented a bigger share of the electorate this time. All told, Obama probably netted at least 1.4 million more Latino votes this year than in 2008, the exit poll data suggest. The increased vote provided his margin of victory in several states, including Colorado and Nevada, and also helped the Democrats win several close Senate contests. It gave Obama a similar margin in Florida, where he is leading but the result is still undecided. 'For the first time in United States history, the Latino can claim to be nationally decisive,' said Stanford University professor Gary Segura..."

Democracy Pushes Forward

Dave Johnson — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:33:49 -0500

In the last election the forces of concentrated wealth and corporate power played the same old divide-and-conquer game they have been playing for decades, but this time it didn't work! They tried to divide us by race, religion, sex, sexual preference, class and every other wedge they could find, and it didn't work! The era of dividing the people for profit is over. Democracy pushes forward.

The Conservative Con Game

For decades a simple formula has played out. Divide us by religion, race, whatever, divert our attention, get us to vote out of feat and hate or just get us to stay away from the polls, and they can pocket the spoils. The game has been to pump a few hundred million a year into the Karl Rove/Grover Norquist/conservative movement con game and pull out billions in tax breaks, subsidies, wars-for-profit, grants of monopoly and the other fruits of the lobbying/corruption game.

This time it didn't work.

The Era Of Division Is Over

Today TPM's Josh Marshall wrote about the Nixon years, when Pat Buchanan prepared a strategy memo titled "Dividing the Democrats," advising Republicans to "cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have by far the larger half." They've played it out that way in the decades since, usually with great success. Marshall notes, "But now, in this election, you see the Republican party still cutting the country in half but now having the smaller part."

This time it didn't work, and won't work again. Businesspeople and investors are practical and pragmatic. They don't like to pour money down a rathole. The conservative movement con game has turned into a freakshow, and the money it sucks up has nearly stopped paying off. They still have the House -- largely the result of gerrymandering Congressional districts and not by the preference of the people. So the game is ending.

Division didn't work. Absorb that -- the implications are vast. The professionals who look at the electorate and figure out how to manipulate us into giving them tax cuts and free reign are certainly absorbing this. The billionaires and corporations are not going to pump more hundreds of millions -- billions, in fact -- into the same old politics of division because they understand that now it is a bad investment. The demographics have passed them by. It didn't work. They don't get the big payoff. They aren't likely to play the game again.

Dividing us didn't work, and won't work again. This is a center-left nation. The "brown people," gays, poor and working class, single women, union members, combined with people in other demographic groups who "get it" -- We, the People -- are together enough and strong enough to fight back, so it didn't work.

Fiscal Cliff -- The Next Fight

Now we face another DC elite manipulation designed to shovel even more favors to the wealthy and their corporations. It is called the "Fiscal Cliff" fight.

This is what is going on: Very soon the Bush tax cuts expire. And then the "sequestration" budget cuts -- the result of the "debt ceiling" hostage-taking fight -- begin to slowly kick in. Some of these cuts, like cutting the huge, vast, bloated military budget, are good, and others will hurt as they are phased in. But this is not an emergency, they phase in and can be changed.

In typical "shock doctrine" fashion, the end of the tax cuts and the beginning of the budget cuts are being cast as a "fiscal cliff" that will destroy the economy. A "grand bargain" is proposed to head off the military cuts, cut Social Security and Medicare, and cut tax rates for the wealthy and corporations.

The negotiations for the Grand Bargain take place soon, after the election and between elites, so that democracy is kept at bay. Democracy is messy and gets in the way of the things the elites want. But this view is just wrong.

The Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan/Ayn Rand anti-democracy belief that the public consists of "takers" is just wrong. Our prosperity comes up from the people. We, the People invested in good schools, infrastructure, public structures like our system of laws and courts and universities and libraries and scientific research and we demanded good wages and worker protections and that is what brought us prosperity. Democracy brought us our prosperity.

The fruits of democracy – Social Security, Medicare and health care, good wages and benefits, worker rights and worker safety and the rest of the things We, the People get out of the bargain – are not the problem.

Repeat: the fruits of democracy are not the problem.

And democracy is not the problem. Democracy is what brings the prosperity. A “grand bargain” struck after the election so the bargainers cannot be held accountable is a mistake. It is a corrupt deal and it will hurt our economy.

Let's stop them. If we stop them again, so soon after we stopped them in the election, they will have to face that this is a bad investment, that the demographics have passed them by, that the public has wised up, that democracy pushes forward.

Now We Move Forward

Democracy has pushed forward. It is not an accident that the economy does best in the periods when our democracy is strongest. It is not an accident that the "regular people" economy has stagnated in the decades since Reagan, when the plutocracts corrupted our democracy.

We are on the road to taking our country back for We, the People. Democracy will push forward.

Just before election day Politico presented the official DC elite view that minorities, single women, etc. are not "real" Americans that count, writing,

If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.

A broad mandate this is not.

The elites understood where power rested, and it was not with the people. But that was then, and this is now. What a difference a few days makes.

If minorities, women, gays, working people, elderly, students, clap their hands, does it make a sound in Washington? Does it make a mandate? They think not, we think so. They will find out that it did. Democracy will push forward.

---

Hey check out what happens when you click these: