Election 2008

The Progressive Movement: Out of Work and Losing Hope

Eric Lotke — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:42:48 -0400

The progressive movement that fueled Obama’s stunning 2008 election victory is out of work. Sure, lots of people are unemployed — but the demographic groups at the heart of the Obama coalition have been hit especially hard. That’s why it’s so bitter to watch Obama be so passive on the economy. He is meekly awaiting the upturn as if patience will be rewarded, and he has adopted many of the right-wing talking points that got us into the mess.

Okay, we’re happy with what we have. The Recovery Act provided the only light in the tunnel, and health care reform will kick in someday. But we want more. We want the political alignment to reflect our wins.

Obama won the national election with 53 percent of the vote compared to McCain’s 46 percent, a margin of seven percentage points. Unsurprisingly, he carried African Americans by a 91 point margin (95 to 4) and women by a 13 point margin (56 to 43). But that’s not all. The political coalition that carried him to victory is the wave of the future. Hispanics voted for Obama by 36 percentage points (67 to 31). Youth under thirty — many voting for the first time, and all of them eligible for decades into the future — voted for Obama by a 34 percentage point margin (66 to 32). White youth chose Obama over McCain by ten points (54 to 44). The Obama coalition could be a progressive coalition for a generation to come.

But he seems to have abandoned them. Obama’s people care about jobs but Obama talks about deficits. The Democratic base needs work but the Democrats can’t muster enough votes to extend unemployment benefits or aid to the states to avoid layoffs of teachers and firefighters. Our progressive coalition is ready to fight, but Obama seems more intent on making friends with his enemies (AKA bipartisanship) than making friends with his friends.

Obama’s people are hurting badly. Teenage unemployment stands at 25.7 percent. African Americans as a whole have an unemployment rate of 15.4 percent; black youth from 16 to 24 are unemployed at a horrifying 31.1 percent. The figures nearly double if they include people who are underemployed — working part-time but looking for full-time — or who have simply given up. People in prison don’t even count as part of the potential labor force, so unemployment data acts as if one young black man in nine doesn’t even exist.

	Obama victory margin over McCain (%)	June 2010 unemployment
National	7 (53 to 46)	9.5 percent
African American	91 (95 to 4)	15.4 percent
Hispanics	36 (67 to 31)	12.4 percent
Unmarried Women	41 (70 to 29)	10.3 percent
Youth	34 (66 to 32)	14.7 percent

Sources: CNN exit polls. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We need more! This is the time to talk about jobs. Time to put people to work rebuilding our infrastructure, laying our tracks for high speed rail, and fixing the water mains that burst every two minutes somewhere in the country. This is time for clean energy jobs, building wind turbines and retrofitting public buildings for energy efficiency. It’s time to revitalize our manufacturing sector by doing all of that with parts made in America.

There’s plenty of work to do, and people are hungry to do it. Democrats can make friends with their friends. Working class Republicans won’t complain either.

This is not the time to obsess over deficits. Our WW2 debt to GDP ratio was higher when we passed the GI bill and put a generation of Americans through college. We were still in the hole when Eisenhower built the interstate highways. The same politicians who nowadays rail about fiscal responsibility didn’t seem to care when they were in power, passing unfunded wars and top end tax cuts. Debt is a long term problem but it’s being used for short-term politics.

This coalition of blacks, Hispanics, youth and women worked to elect democrats a few years ago. They might be willing to work to keep them in office — especially if they see that it did them any good. Right now they’re sitting at home, out of work and low on hope. The Republicans have won the message war. Democrats don’t even seem to be fighting.

“Use them or lose them” advises the New Democratic Coalition. Put us to work. Fight for us. Give us a reason to fight for you.

john devlin

john devlin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:19:04 -0500

concerned citizen

CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS DELIVER A PROGRESSIVE MANDATE

Toby Chaudhuri — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0500

WASHINGTON – Twenty-six out of the 29 Democratic candidates who won seats previously held by Republicans in the House and Senate championed bold progressive economic positions, according to a new report released today by the Campaign for America’s Future. The report shows that these progressive candidates’ victories represent a swing to the left of 34 votes in the House and 10 in the Senate, reflecting a clear mandate for progressive change.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., newly elected Rep.-Elect Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman joined Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage on a conference call with reporters today to discuss the report’s findings.

“This was not simply a change election. It was a sea-change election that marks the end of the conservative era that has dominated our politics over the past three decades.” said Borosage. “Democrats won because they campaigned as progressives, not as moderates or conservatives. On core economic issues, voters gave these legislators a mandate for reform.”

Sen. Brown said candidates that won last night were unified around a common set of bold progressive themes.

“This election ushered in the next progressive era for our nation,” said Sen. Brown. “From health care to trade to education, progressive values will now be the priority in Washington. It’s time to get to work.”

Rep. Edwards, who easily won re-election last night, campaigned with several candidates in close races across the country. Rep. Edwards said the candidates she campaigned with embraced bold progressive positions on every major economic issue.

“Candidates across the country ran and won on a bold progressive agenda,” said Edwards. “Now our challenge is to govern on the progressive agenda – including smart investment in jobs, in infrastructure, in health care and energy, and bringing a safe and responsible end to the war in Iraq. It’s an exciting time and I am confident that we will be able to set priorities to deliver the bold solutions Americans expect.”

Rep.-Elect Pingree, who became the first woman to represent Maine’s first Congressional District after leading Republican Charlie Summers in late results, said voters in her district were yearning for bold progressive change.

“This is day one of the change that we so desperately need in this country,” said Rep.-Elect Pingree.

To distinguish progressive candidates from conservatives and moderates, the CAF report compared the positions of the candidates on six major economic issues, including health care, workers’ rights, tax policy, trade, Social Security and clean energy. Out of the 29 Democrats who won House and Senate seats previously held by Republicans, 21 House candidates and 5 Senate candidates supported the progressive position on at least five out of the six issues. Only three of the winning candidates chose to run on a more conservative platform.

# # #

**NOTE: An electronic copy of the post-election report is available at www.ourfuture.org/progressive-mandate-2008.**

PROGRESSIVE ISSUE POSITIONS OF DEMOCRATS WHO WON
SEATS PREVIOUSLY HELD BY REPUBLICANS

--Sen.-Elect Mark Udall, D-Colo.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Sen.-Elect Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Sen.-Elect Tom Udall, D-N.M.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Sen.-Elect Kay Hagan, D-N.C.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Sen.-Elect Mark Warner, D-Va.: health care, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Bobby Bright, D-Ala.: trade, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Betsy Markey, D-Colo.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Jim Hines, D-Conn.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Alan Grayson, D-Fla.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes,
--Rep.-Elect Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Walt Minnick, D-Idaho: health care, trade, energy, worker rights,
--Rep.-Elect Debbie Halvorson, D-Ill.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Frank Kratovil, D-Md.: health care, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Mark Schauer, D-Mich.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Gary Peters, D-Mich.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Dina Titus, D-Nev.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect John Adler, D-N.J.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Harry Teague, D-N.M.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Michael McMahon, D-N.Y.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Dan Maffei, D-N.Y.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Eric Massa, D-N.Y.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Larry Kissell, D-N.C.: trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect John Boccieri, D-Ohio: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Kathy Dahlkemper, D-Pa.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Glenn Nye, D-Va.: health care, energy, worker rights, Soc. Sec.
--Rep.-Elect Gerry Connolly, D-Va.: health care, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Senate candidate Al Franken, D-Minn.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.
--Senate candidate Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.: health care, trade, energy, worker rights, taxes, Soc. Sec.

Remembering Studs Terkel

Tula Connell — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:22:15 -0500

What bitter irony. Studs Terkel, who gave voice to working people throughout his life, passed away yesterday, just days before a potentially historic presidential election. Should Sen. Barack Obama win on Tuesday, his victory would be a sweet vindication for Terkel, whose affinity for America's workers would be reflected in the policies of an Obama administration.

Terkel, 96, has been renowned for his compilations of oral interviews with famous and mostly not-so-famous Americans. He has talked with thousands of people about their experiences on the job, serving their country in World War II, their perceptions of race and most recently, the challenges of growing old and facing death. One of his most famous books is Working, in which more than 100 Americans share their hopes, dreams and daily struggles on the job.

In April 2006, Terkel received the Lifetime Achievement award from the workers' advocacy organization, American Rights at Work. After accepting the award, Terkel said:

What brings workers together can be a belief, a hope of improving the climate and community at work--the spaces where so many of us spend so much of our lives. Respect on the job and a voice at the workplace shouldn't be something Americans have to work overtime to achieve.

Born Louis Terkel, he grew up in the 1920s and 1930s in an environment filled with workers, union organizers and other progressives who gathered in the lobby of his parents' Chicago rooming house. Starting his career as an actor, disc jockey and radio and television personality, Terkel ultimately turned to documenting oral interviews in a series of books. In Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, Terkel elicited first-hand experiences of workers as varied as bus driver and strip miner, policeman and film critic. Blacklisted in the 1950s by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Terkel went on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1985 and a National Humanities Medal from President Bill Clinton in 1997.

Terkel, who has been called a "guerilla journalist" and a man "whose name is synonymous with Labor Day," sprinkles his conversation with references to the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and American revolutionary Thomas Paine--yet has the unique ability to engage people in a way that draws forth the hopes, dreams and heartfelt experiences of everyday Americans.

In July 2005, I was honored to interview Terkel, and in his inimitable style, his conversation ranged from erudite quotes from the classics to conversations heard at his local bus stop. In remembering Terkel, there's no better way than to hear him in his own words. Below is the excerpt from that July 2005 interview.

"The thing that's so ironic, is we are stuck with what I call national Alzheimer's disease. The general American public, through no fault of its own, but through the media--which is laughingly called, absurdly called, obscenely called--liberal media, which is a joke, of course. But the point is that because of that, day after day after day, putting down of labor organizations, or not mentioning them led to the children not knowing a thing about it.

How did the eight-hour day come into being? It began in Chicago and four guys got hanged for it--the Haymarket affair in 1886. What were they fighting for? The eight-hour day.

There's no knowledge what the labor movement did for the lives of people. Social Security came out of the New Deal, and the minimum wage idea, and the idea of national health, these all came out of [labor]. And that's all being dismantled by what we have now. And so part of it is not knowing the past. No past, therefore there is no present and no future.

What was the first thing Ronald Reagan did as president of the United States? In 1981, he broke the air controller's strike. You know what they were striking about? It wasn't about pay. It was about R and R, rest and recreation. So the issue was passenger safety, right? And Ronald Reagan said, 'No,' and four out of five Americans applauded.

You start wondering, 'Wait a minute. Are we a necrophiliac people?' And you start thinking some more. 'We're the only industrialized country that still has the death penalty, right? We're the only industrialized country that does not have national health insurance.' So one is death, and the other is life. And so you start thinking, 'My God, have we become so perverse?

If so, then all my books are junk? Because my books depended on the sense of decency of ordinary Americans and their native intelligence and it's under assault today as never before.

[Americans' sense of decency and native intelligence are] there, but the information has been siphoned through--we know what it's siphoned through: Fox News, Rupert Murdoch and Rush Limbaugh. And thus we have a certain kind of news filter to it. Right? It becomes entertainment, it becomes banality, it becomes nothing. And there's no past. The big thing is to revivify in one way or another the past and to show how we came to be.

So that's part of the problem facing labor, to reacquaint these people with what happened. The new members are fresh and they have grievances and we've got to hit that and reach as many as possible--caregivers and…maids and get all the people who never thought of organizing, organized. And that's what the oral histories I write are all about, I hope--to recapture our history. And I think we can do it--provided we…stick together.

Whatever split there is has to be healed--immediately. Because we agree on the big thing. Basically, it has to be under one big tent. I like the phrase 'under one tent.' And so, that's pretty much the ticket."

This is a cross-post from the AFL-CIO Now blog.

Give Mayors a Role in the Obama Administration

Harry Moroz — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:58:28 -0400

This year's presidential campaign has not involved the "urban decline" rhetoric that rallied politicians - and policymakers - to the cause of cities in the mid 1960s and late 1970s. Instead, as Alex MacGillis pointed out in Sunday's WaPo, Senator Obama

"has adopted the framing increasingly favored by many mayors and urban-policy types - promoting America's cities based on their strengths, not their failings."

This framing involves a slight shift of perspective from urban cores to metro areas. In many ways, this optimistic view of cities as nestled within metros (which aren't as politically, or racially, charged as cities) is productive. Economics backs up the sunny view, as MacGillis notes, with the majority of the nation's GDP generated and of its population and jobs located in metro areas.

But the champions of the metro perspective fail to defend the political relationship - the partnership - that is necessary between the federal government and cities. In interviewing mayors from cities across the country, I have consistently heard that cities will not truly prosper until mayors are provided more substantive opportunities to influence federal policy. This influence would extend beyond calls for more funds for the CDBG and COPS programs to provide mayors and other parochial officials occasions to highlight model local policies and coordinate with state officers and, indeed, with other officials inside their metro area.

Mayors have already joined together in ad hoc groups to meet Kyoto Protocol targets and in official organizations like the Conference of Mayors, but they have little formal means to influence federal policy. If mayors are heard at all, they are heard to be begging for money; if they receive money, they often receive too little or are constrained in its use. Providing mayors a platform for influence, exchange, and coordination -similar to Senator Obama's White House Office of Urban Policy - would capitalize on the economic power of metro areas while restoring urban policy to its proper place in national discourse. At its best, this would mean strengthening the power and authority of mayors at the federal level--something that Obama's transition team should embrace.

In today's WSJ, June Kronholz points out that few mayors become president. They have often been overlooked when they should be empowered. Today, mayors nationwide overwhelmingly want the next presidential administration to reverse that trend.
A recent interview DMI's MayorTV did with Mayor Dannel Malloy of Stamford, CT explores the much-needed political partnership between cities and the federal government. Check it out.

For similar video interviews, visit MayorTV.

The Republican Party’s Return to McCarthyism

James Clarke — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:05:46 -0400

The Republican Party is spent the last few days in an awkward spiral of jingoism, as evidenced by a slew of controversial statements. Let's review the events of the last few days:

Friday, 10/17:

Representative Michele Bachman (R-Minnesota) states that she is "very concerned that [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views"

Saturday, 10/18

Representative Robin Hayes (R- North Carolina) tells a crowd that "liberals hate real Americans that ...believe in God."

Sunday, 10/19

Sarah Palin levies a new line of attack against Barack Obama by implying that an Obama Presidency would be an "experiment with socialism".

Tuesday, 10/21:

Sarah Palin is forced to apologize for earlier suggestions that some areas of the United States are "Pro-America"; and that, by association, other areas of the country are less patriotic.

My fellow Americans, this is NOT an isolated series of unrelated Gaffs. These gaffes are the embarrassing side-effect of the Republican Party's mindset; that it can successfully use the tactics of Joseph McCarthy, a politician who gained power by publicly targeting individuals and groups as Anti-American, Communists, and Atheists.

Yes, these statements are evidence that the Republican Party is returning to the values of McCarthyism to help them win this election. They do, in fact, want to paint Barack Obama as a communist, but they can't because they wouldn't be taken seriously.

Instead, the Republican Party is exploiting politically convenient semantics; "socialism" is closely enough associated with "communism" to concern Americans.

What the Republican Party has risked by playing by Joseph McCarthy's rules is redefining the concept of the "Red Scare".

Talking Cities: A Video Letter from the Nation's Mayors

Harry Moroz — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:45:09 -0400

As final preparations for the last presidential debate are made – water glasses weighed and secret memoranda consulted – both candidates have revamped their economic plans for the economic crisis now gripping the country.

McCain was uncertain, at first, about whether to release a revised plan. But even after deciding that certain “economic news and conditions” demanded such action, he seems to have omitted several critical elements from the proposal. No, if you were concerned, he remembered to include a cut in the capital gains tax. And yes, if you’re worried he was going soft, he will employ a surge strategy to prevent foreclosures.

What McCain forgot is perhaps less obvious, unless you’re Mayor Doherty of Scranton, Mayor Wilder of Richmond, or Mayor McLin of Dayton. Although the McCain-Palin team rallied recently in each of these cities – McCain even announced Palin’s vice presidential candidacy in Dayton – the Republican’s campaign seems not to have taken to heart their experiences in these swing state cities.

Indeed, the McCain-Palin ticket thrived off the rallies’ rabid crowds , but their economic recovery plan provides no aid for the struggling state and local, including city, governments that employ, provide benefits to, and protect the crowds. Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio all face midyear FY2009 budget gaps and city governments are increasingly pessimistic about their economic health. This is just one more example of the McCain camp’s failure to address urban issues.

Tonight is the final opportunity that both candidates will have to demonstrate their understanding of the importance of cities. We’ve put together a short video to remind the candidates why cities matter:

Akilah Rosado-McQueen

Akilah Rosado-McQueen — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:49:29 -0400

Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Akilah Rosado is the daughter of a Puerto Rican nationalist and Bajan American educator. As a child, Akilah was introduced to and given access to the world of mainstream and “alternative” politics views. She saw first hand the impact of community engagement and activism. She also experienced firsthand the impact of a government’s abuse of power as her father was targeted by the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) for his involvement in the Puerto Rican Independence Movement.

After highschool, Akilah first attended Chatham College in Pittsburgh, PA before transfering to SUNY Purchase (Purchase College at SUNY) in New York. While earning a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, she became involved in organizing students in protesting Pataki’s tuition hikes and drastic cuts to essential academic programs for SUNY and CUNY schools. Akilah also was invited to join the Judicial Board, a Board made up of students, faculty, and administration which served to address issues of importance relative to breaking and amending policies on campus. This experience brought Akilah back to her passion for politics and influenced her thesis entitled “Insitutionalized Racism and Neo-Slavery in North America.”

After graduating college, Akilah accepted a position as a Legislative Analyst with the NYS Assembly. Between 1997 and 2005, she worked in various capacities including serving as a Legislative Aid, Director of Constituent Affairs, and Chief of Staff for various members of the Assembly. In 2005, Akilah left the Assembly to attend graduate school time, ultimately earning a Master’s of Science in Urban Policy and Mangement from Milano, the New School for Urban Policy and Management where her thesis focused on the need of performance management in early child development, particularly for day care centers that serve Black and Latino children.

Shortly before recieving her Master’s degree, Akilah was offered an opportunity to work as a consultant with The Public Strategies Group. Here she was given the freedom to work with leaders and experts in the field of performance mangement and government accountability. The mission of this work is to move government and relative agencies towards a results based post-bureaucratic system in form and function by providing better transparency and service to citizens.

While her primary work is to help transform government, Akilah’s passion for urban politics continues lead her back to supporting and developing current and emerging leaders in Brooklyn politics through campaign work and leadership development; primarily those committed ensuring that communities have access to and the support of their representatives. In 2008, Akilah successfully secured a seat on the Kings County Democratic County Committe to represent the 24th Election District in the 57th Assembly District.

Akilah resides in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, Kelvin and their 6 year old daughter.

Real Change Happens Off-Line

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would McCain Support Pro-Life Pharmaicies?

Corinne Ramey — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:57:00 -0400

You walk into a pharmacy and pass the pain relievers, deodorants, and shampoos. But when you get to the spot where the condoms normally are shelved, there's nothing. And don't even think about asking to fill a prescription for birth control pills -- you'll get turned away and frowned upon in no time.

Where are you? A "pro-choice" pharmacy.

A story in yesterday's Washington Post chronicles the growing movement of "pro-life" pharmacies -- pharmacies that choose not to stock condoms and not to fill prescriptions for the "morning-after" pill, birth control pills and other standard varieties of contraception. The pharmacists and owners of these stores claim that they have the right to not stock products that they find objectionable, and that using standard contraception is tantamount to having an abortion. According to the article,

The most common, widely publicized conflicts have involved pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, morning-after pills and other forms of contraception. They say they believe that such methods can cause what amounts to an abortion and that the contraceptives promote promiscuity, divorce, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and other societal woes. The result has been confrontations that have left women traumatized and resulted in pharmacists being fired, fined or reprimanded.

At first glance, this seems somewhat acceptable -- after all, stores have the right to stock the products that they like, and there are usually other pharmacies available. But it's not that simple. These pharmacies don't advertise their "pro-life" status, and when a woman walks in to a pharmacy to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill, the last thing she needs is to be told that she's killing a fetus and get yelled at about her lifestyle choices. There have been instances of pharmacists ripping up prescriptions for birth control pills (because, yes, says the Pharmacists for Life International website, the "pill kills") and humiliating women seeking contraception. "Rape victims could end up in a pharmacy not understanding this pharmacy will not meet their needs," said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center in the Post. "We've seen an alarming development of pharmacists over the last several years refusing to fill prescriptions, and sometimes even taking the prescription from the woman and refusing to give it back to her so she can fill it in another pharmacy." These pharmacies could be especially problematic in rural areas of the country, where there are not always alternatives.

After reading this article on Monday, I had a sinking feeling that it sounded vaguely familiar. Although I've never been in a pro-life pharmacy, last week I watched several videos from Brave New Films about the "McCain Clinic" -- spoofs on what a women's clinic would be like if McCain were president. In one, a customer asks for information on STDs and the pharmacist hands her a flyer with the words "DON'T HAVE SEX." In another, the receptionist hands a woman a blank sheet of paper with her "birth control options."

So is McCain's record on reproductive rights really as bad as Brave New Films makes it out to be? He hasn't started any "McCain clinics" staffed with annoying, fingernail-tapping receptionists, but he has accumulated an impressively bad voting record, and proudly bragged that he's received a score of zero from NARAL. A bit of McCain's voting record from a terrific article by Arianna Huffington:

He has repeatedly voted to deny low-income women access to abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life (although McCain is now wavering on trying to put these exceptions into the party platform).

He voted to shut down the Title X family-planning program, which provides millions of women with health care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screenings.

He voted against legislation that established criminal and civil penalties for those who use threats and violence to keep women from gaining access to reproductive health clinics.

He voted to uphold the policy that bans overseas health clinics from receiving aid from America if they use their own funds to provide legal abortion services or even adopt a pro-choice position.

Given this voting record, I suspect that McCain would support these pro-life pharmacies. And on the subject of those pro-life pharmacies, apparently some of them stock Viagra. Anyone else see the irony here?