The Progressive Moment

America: Yours, Mine, and Ours (Part 1)

Terrance Heath — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:18:23 -0700

Part One: Yours, Mine...

One of the things I hoped for when Michelle Obama spoke at the Democratic convention, was that she would introduce people to the America that she came from, and that was the setting of her story. One of the biggest shames in the campaign — aside from the fact that political realities required this intelligent, accomplished woman to effectively bite her tongue for the last couple of months — is the lack of any honest discussion about the reality that we don't all live in the same America. It's one reality that both progressives and conservatives must grapple with between now and November, and beyond

Delivered on a night that carried the theme "One America," her speech should serve as a reminder that if we are to be America, we have to first acknowledge that what we have are three America's: yours, mine, and ours.

In speech after speech at the convention, love of country was invoked. Hillary Clinton spoke of reclaiming "the country we love." John Kerry declared "you don't decide who loves this country." And Michelle Obama, after having to stay silent for so long, had to step on to the stage Monday night and declare what shouldn't have been questioned in the first place: "I love this country."

And then she spoke of the America she loved, the America she grew up with — the America that she saw get up every morning, get up, struggle, and triumph, just like children in families across America right now. Just like I watched my father sometimes work two jobs to support us, pushing forward despite facing discrimination, and going to night school in an effort to extend his education and become an even better provider.

Right now, children like I was and like Michelle Obama was are growing up in a different America. Not an an America where people own seven homes, but where more and more people are losing theirs to foreclosure, and in neighborhoods darkened by blight — encroaching where it had once been pushed back — as their neighbor's homes are foreclosed upon. They're growing up in an America where some who still have them will find it harder to heat their homes this winter. And not just because of the rising cost of fuel, but because their employers — attempting to stay ahead of the rising cost of doing business — have cut full-time employees down to part-time or implemented part-time layoffs in hopes of cutting payrolls.

They live in an America where parents who aren't merely underemployed may be among the growing numbers of the unemployed, and where the employed are increasingly insecure, concerned that the reality of globalization makes it likely their jobs will be shipped overseas. Theirs is an America in which stimulus checks are long since spent and their temporary effects faded, leaving behind the reality that household incomes haven't grown during our so-called economic boom. Despite that, in their America people still spend ever more on on basic necessities like household utilities and groceries; where more and more families rely on food stamps, and where those food stamps buy less and less, leaving a growing number of families facing "food insecurity" — a condition we used to call "hunger."

They aren't likely to fare much better at school, where rising food costs have hit school lunches, leading to more families requesting reduced lunches. And even them, some can only look forward to school lunches four days out of five, as more schools cut back to four-day weeks in an effort to save costs. In their America, grandparents are chipping in on back-to-school bills, to help defray costs. That is, if they can. Some grandparents may be too busy working, as they've put off retirement to deal with falling home values and rising. Some grandparents are facing bankruptcy, due to increasing medical bills.

Theirs is an America where prescription drug costs and health care costs are cutting into stagnant wages, and where people tap into their savings accounts, home equity and credit cards, going into debt to pay for health care. Those 47 million without health insurance, contrary to popular belief, pay $30 billion collectively for health care — and typically get less than they pay for when it comes to the quality of that care.

It's a world away from the America where the rich have gotten richer in the past seven years, but just around the corner from the America where the poor have indeed gotten poorer, and more of them crowd into poverty-stricken neighborhoods — reversing a trend of upward mobility that began in the previous decade and ended around the time this one began. It's light years away from the America where and income of $5 million qualifies as "rich" and $250,000 annually is solidly middle class, but down the street from the America where wages are decades behind prices. And it's nowhere near the America where a CEO can keep a "compensation package" worth over 18$ million, even his company loses $841 million and requires a tax-payer funded bailout. It's light years away from the America where the economy is basically sound, but smack in the middle of an America full of "whiners" squeezed by that same economy, and most say it's getting worse.

Of course, the concept of "two Americas" isn't new, but it doesn't merely speak to economic injustices and inequality. There has been more than one America for as long as there has been an America. Sojourner Truth gave voice to it in her famous "Ain't I a Woman" speech. W.E.B. Du Bois named it when he wrote of a "twoness of being" in Souls of Black Folk.

As I've written before, I grew up in — and still reside in — a different America than the one that my friends grew up in or that even my next door neighbors reside in. I grew up knowing, because my parents knew and knew that I needed to know, that I lived in a different America than my white classmates; one where I couldn't get away with the same things they might get away with, and where I could expect harsher punishment if caught because of my race. I reside today in, and am raising two African American sons in, an America where I am still held suspect because I am an African American man; and where they most likely will be held suspect too.

It's an America where a woman I'd spoken to on the phone several times in a previous job exclaimed aloud upon meeting me, "I didn't realize you were black. You're so articulate!" And because I'd grown up in the America I grew up in, I could answer her "Is there some reason I shouldn't be?", without anger or resentment, and even with a smile, and get my message across. It's an America where the host of a baby-sitting co-op social we attended after our oldest son was born assumed that, because my son was (a) African American and (b) had two gay dads, that (c) he must have been a "crack baby." That time, my spouse spoke up while I was silent with rage.

My America is one where a friend of ours — whose wedding we attended, and with whom we celebrated when he and his partner adopted their son after several disappointments — was turned away from the hospital emergency room where his husband lay suffering a brain aneurysm. He was told that the hospital wouldn't give him any information or allow him to see his husband until he could show legal proof of their relationship, because he was "not net of kin." He drove all the way home to retrieve the documents — will, advance directives, medical powers of attorney — and all the way back to the hospital, not knowing if his husband would be dead or alive when he returned. He was lucky. He got the chance to see his husband before he passed away days later. Bill Flanagan and Robert Daniel weren't as fortunate. Neither were John Crisci and Michael Tartaglia, or Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond.

Because of those stories, my America is one where my family does not travel without those same documents — wills, advance directives, and medical powers of attorney — as well as our children's birth certificates and adoption decrees. (We started carrying those documents after Oklahoma passed a law banning recognition of adoptions by same-sex couples, and carry them still even though a federal court overturned the law.) My spouse and I each keep copies of all these documents in our desks at work, just in case. Even with those documents, there's no guarantee our relationships as a family will be recognized if we're somewhere far from home, but we're better off with them than without them.

Just down the street, my neighbor — whom I told the story of what my friend went through — lives in an America where she walked into a hospital when her husband was rushed to the emergency room, and said just three words to hospital staff: "I'm his wife." In response she got — not a request for documents or proof of their relationship — three words as well: "right this way." I don't know, but I'd hazard a guess that — in their America — my neighbors probably don't travel with their marriage license at hand, and probably don't need to.

It's not an America that Michelle Obama inhabits, but neither do she and her husband deny its existence — or insist upon the primacy of their America. Probably because they know there's another America that considers them "uppity." And coming from a white, Georgia congressman, that word should carry all the old historical implications. Born and raised in Georgia, I'm hard pressed to believe Rep. Westmoreland — who grew up in Georgia during the 1950s — had never heard the term used in a racially derogatory sense and had no idea just how his comment would be heard.

I've never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense. It is important to note that the dictionary definition of ‘uppity' is ‘affecting an air of inflated self-esteem -- snobbish.' That's what we meant by uppity when we used it in the mill village where I grew up.

Well, I was raised by parents who married in 1955, and lived in Georgia almost all of their lives; parents who grew up in the Georgia of the 1930s and 1940s, where the country's last mass lynching took place in 1946. They grew up in an America even more different than the one I grew up in, and almost certainly different than the one Rep. Westmoreland grew up in; where an entire social system was dedicated to keeping them, their families, and their communities "in their place." Or, more succinctly, to keep them from getting too "uppity." That dog-whistle is easy to hear, if you've had a lifetime to recognize its tone.

I've heard it before, and I hear it still. That's my America.

To hear all of the above, you might not believe that I love it — and even question whether or not I do — but I do. When I am proud of it, it is because of the times it lives up to its promise, and at other times in spite of its failure to do so. Sometimes I am less proud of it than at others. But that is the context of my America and my loving it.

Too often, when some of who have seen America fail to live up to what it promises to be on paper — and seen it finally coaxed and cajoled doing so after some time — give voice to that experience, first our love of country is questioned. Then, soon after, we're told how to love America.

Main thought. Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama's problem. America is Mr. Obama's problem. He has been tagged as a snooty lefty, as the glamorous, ambivalent candidate from Men's Vogue, the candidate who loves America because of the great progress it has made in terms of racial fairness. Fine, good. But has he ever gotten misty-eyed over ... the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter's Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills? There's gold in that history.

John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. McCain learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa's knee. Mrs. Clinton learned at least its importance in her long slog through Arkansas, circa 1977-92.

Mr. Obama? What does he think about all that history? Which is another way of saying: What does he think of America? That's why people talk about the flag pin absent from the lapel. They wonder if it means something. Not that the presence of the pin proves love of country - any cynic can wear a pin, and many cynics do. But what about Obama and America? Who would have taught him to love it, and what did he learn was loveable, and what does he think about it all?

Another challenge. Snooty lefties get angry when you ask them to talk about these things. They get resentful. Who are you to question my patriotism? But no one is questioning his patriotism, they're questioning its content, its fullness. Gate 14 has a right to hear this. They'd lean forward to hear.

Most often, this comes from someone who doesn't live in our America. And of course, whether they know it or not, they are really telling us how to love their America, demanding that it be our America, and that we love it their way. Not to put too fine a point on it, but do note what the examples from Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column — the Wright brothers, George Washington, and Henry Ford among others — have in common. And then ask why it is preferable that Barrack Obama get "misty-eyed" over them instead of Americans whose strivings made his life and his candidacy possible, or by Michelle Obama must get "misty-eyed" over the same rather than the father whose strivings made it possible for her story to happen?

And why is it assumed that love of that America cannot be commuted to the America that made possible the strivings of so many, strivings that lead to not only to civil rights movement, the womens' movement, and all the other progressive movements that — when others were "standing athwart history yelling Stop!'" — pushed of forwards into a present that has seen historic candidacies not dreamed of at the nation's founding?

In one sense, Noonan is right, it's not actually the patriotism of progressive Americans that's being called into question. It's the content of that patriotism that's questioned by some because its context is not their America. What's demanded, in the guise of questions about flag lapel pins, is what Michael Berube once astutely defined as contentless patriotism.

I'm familiar with Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A.," of course. We all are — it's been inescapable for twenty years. Or so I thought. It turns out, instead, that I somehow have managed to escape hearing the intro and the first verse until just this past month, when the song was used as part of Jamie's fifth-grade graduation video (as the background music for his school's visit to Fort Robideau). That's no doubt because, as a paid-up member of the latté-drinking liberal cultural elite, I tend to avoid social occasions and gatherings in which the song is played and sung along to.

And needless to say, I think the song is odious almost beyond measure. That's not because I'm a paid-up member of the latté-drinking liberal cultural elite who sneers at my fellow citizens' simple, heartfelt expressions of patriotism; it's because the song's version of patriotism is completely contentless. Two verses and three choruses, and Mr. Greenwood couldn't find a single reason to love the U.S.A.? Yeah, yeah, I know, pride, pride, freedom, freedom: "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free." But free to do what? To fire employees without cause, thanks to the at-will employment doctrine? To abolish the estate tax? To hold up a sign saying that Matthew Shepherd got what he deserved? Or to protest foolish wars, march for civil rights, and support the right of kids with Down syndrome to be educated in regular classrooms where they can go to visit Fort Robideau with their nondisabled peers? "God Bless the U.S.A." doesn't say, and that's what makes it such a perfect emblem of a certain kind of right-wing contentless patriotism, the kind of patriotism that supports the troops by flying flags from cars while supporting a President who leads the troops off to needless slaughter and then cuts their veterans' benefits. Had Greenwood said anything about that freedom — "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free of all taxes on my estate of $36 million," or "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free to fight for the right to register Mississippi's black voters in the face of murderous right-wing opposition" — one imagines that his song would be a good deal less popular.

Less popular because an honest account of my America or yours calls into question the context of someone else's? In that equation, whose America has both authenticity and primary? Or are there as many ways of being an American and loving America as there are Americans, each as authentic as the other? Must one — and only one — have primacy?

Whose?

Still Needed: An Elevator Pitch

Greg Colvin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:00:16 -0700

At the Denver convention, Sen. Barack Obama gave a very fine acceptance speech, but not a great one. His speech after winning the Iowa caucuses lifted you up and carried you along with the historical significance of the moment: “They said, this day would never come. They said…. But you said….” Goosebumps.

This speech felt programmed to hit all the right buttons: he introduced himself to those who didn’t know him, he connected to the plight of the undecided working class voter, he talked tough against McCain and he turned many good phrases along the way. But he did not sound a memorable theme, like Kennedy’s “New Frontier.”

Not only did he fail to name his vision, he failed to crystallize the change he stands for in a few key phrases that could be repeated, emphasized, and imbued with meaning by his supporters, by others running for office, by all of us with an undecided Uncle Fred.

In less than 20 words, he could have done it.

Paul Waldman, in The American Prospect, hoped he would. David Sirota proclaimed that Obama’s speech "(finally) signaled that progressive economic populism is going to be the central thrust” of his campaign. Too abstract. How do you explain economic populism in a short elevator ride?

To win, progressives must go beyond personality and empathy. They must clearly—and extremely briefly—state the case for progressive reform. What we will get if progressive-minded candidates take the White House and a 60-vote majority in the Senate?

Distilled from his acceptance speech, this is what I believe Obama is telling us he stands for:

Rebuild middle-class America
Universal health care
Clean energy
Respect our diversity
Smart government
Humane foreign policy

Rebuild middle-class America. Talking about how “we measure progress” in America, Obama spoke of “an economy that honors the dignity of work.” He defined the American promise: “through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.” The threats to this promise reside in the class stratification that has imperiled the well-being of most Americans and worsened under eight years of Republican rule and neglect, causing us to watch “a major American city drown before our eyes.” Obama wants to restore dignity and prosperity to the middle class, and help the poor climb up into it. He cited specific ways to accomplish that: cutting taxes for 95% of working families, giving our children a world-class education, equal pay for equal work.

Universal health care. Senator Obama called for “affordable, accessible health care for every single American.” There is no doubt, this is a popular Democratic reform promised by the Clintons in 1992 and still unfulfilled. It will take a Democratic president, a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, and a huge grassroots effort to do this, but it must be done.

Clean energy. This short phrase stands for what must be our top environmental priority if we have any hope to stop global warming and climate change. Obama spoke of a 10-year investment in “affordable, renewable sources of energy” (not quite as bold or explicit as Al Gore’s challenge). He said that drilling is a stopgap measure (but he didn’t say whether he would or wouldn’t drill or where). And he wants to “safely harness nuclear power” (doesn’t that make you a little nervous?) Despite these equivocations, there is no doubt that human abuse of the Earth’s biosphere is likely to cause an environmental crisis within the next eight years, and the new president will have to rise to meet it.

Respect our diversity. Obama barely mentioned race in his speech, and he didn’t need to. Throughout the talk, there was an awareness that America needs to achieve a level of tolerance and inclusiveness that it has not yet. He spoke of the “the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect,” and repeated the sense of unity in the American promise, “the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper; I am my sister's keeper.” On social issues, such as choice, gay marriage, and guns, he seemed to speak of making compromises, finding the “strength and grace to bridge divides.” Let’s hope that means official government respect for our diversity, allowing women reproductive choice and everyone freedom to marry the love of one’s life.

Smart government. I liked hearing him say, “Our government should work for us, not against us.” The things our government does are so frequently and obviously stupid that we have become schizophrenic patriots--we love our country but hate our government, the only one we have. We complain but we don't fix it. It's time we did. Replacing the big-business dominated party in power gives us our best chance.

Humane foreign policy. As expected, Senator Obama said that he would “never hesitate to defend this nation” and would only send troops into combat with “a clear mission.” He also spoke of restoring a legacy of American leadership and moral standing in the world. He intends to use “tough, direct diplomacy” and “build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease.” We have more musicians in our military bands than diplomats in the State Department, as Nick Kristof has said. Pursuing a humane, intelligent, culturally-literate foreign policy would be the best thing Obama could do for our national security.

For the last two years, many of us have been working on our elevator pitch, the essential elements of the progressive vision, reduced to as few words as possible.

Linguist George Lakoff pointed out that a strength of the conservative Republican ascendancy was its ability to communicate its political case in five short phrases: lower taxes, less government, strong defense, free markets, and family values.

Professor Lakoff's own nomination for a ten-word philosophy was: “stronger America, broad prosperity, better future, effective government, mutual responsibility.” One reporter called these the least objectionable words in American life.

Recently, Bernie Horn at OurFuture.org offered these twelve words as progressive principles consistent with the 2008 Democratic platform: fair wages, fair markets, health security, retirement security, equal justice for all. All related to economic justice in some way, but ignoring the environment and international relations.

In 2006, in a piece on progressive political philosophy on the Washington Monthly website, I proposed these five principles: one America, wise use of force, stewardship of the Earth, culture of respect, smart government. I still like them, but the reality in 2008 is that the phrasing needs to match the issues and debates of the day and tie as directly as possible to the campaign of the most progressive candidate for president.

We are not asking for the best slogans that Madison Avenue admen can contrive. Just simple words that name the reforms we need. A short sword for the foot soldiers of the progressive movement to use in everyday conversation.

So, I urge Obama and his speechwriters, at the next opportunity, to articulate the essence of what he stands for in as few words as possible. I suggest “rebuild middle-class America, universal health care, clean energy, respect our diversity, smart government, and humane foreign policy.” If they can say it better, I hope they will.

Greg Colvin is a San Francisco nonprofit lawyer who also writes political philosophy and hikes the Pacific Crest Trail with his sons.

Making Them Do It: The Next Challenge

Digby — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 13:23:38 -0700

Now that the festivities in Denver have drawn to a close and the bleary-eyed conventioneers (and media who cover them) have gathered up their swag and headed home, I wanted to take a moment to contemplate how this progressive moment looks in this short period of quiet after all the speeches and all the TV bloviating. One thing, at least, is clear to me after having spent four days among progressives from all over the country — they are convinced that this moment is real and that the stakes have never been higher.

In casual conversation and formal addresses, from health care to foreign policy to media reform and beyond, the progressive agenda dominated the discourse far more than I expected. I knew there would be solidarity in opposition to conservative rule, but it no longer stems from that alone. There is a sense of opportunity and engagement with issues that I haven't seen in progressive circles for some time.

There also seemed to be an understanding that a new administration is not the end of the fight. As much excitement as there is for the prospect of a new beginning, very few are naive about the tremendous obstacles of institutional torpor, establishment resistance and wealthy special interest pleading facing a progressive administration. If the last few years of conservative rule have taught us anything it's that those forces can get away with murder and it's very difficult to even get anyone to notice.

So, as much as progressives are excited, that excitement is tempered by a new maturity and an acceptance that the words "hope" and "change" are not magical incantations but rather exhortations to the hard and frustrating work of turning this massive ship of state in a new direction. As David Sirota noted, that grainy footage of Teddy Kennedy pounding his fist on the podium decades ago arguing for universal health care is a sober reminder of how little progress has been made. That promise was a casualty of The Age of Reagan, that decades-long failed experiment in free market fundamentalism and movement conservatism.

But I would also argue that at the time Kennedy was making those statements, the idea of an African American president was nearly impossible for a great many Americans to imagine. Even in an era of conservative political dominance, cultural progress happened anyway. And in the long run, it may even be seen that the modern conservative movement was simply a short lived reactionary blip on a much longer liberal trajectory, although that's not something anyone should ever count on in an age of global warming and nuclear proliferation. (And as as smart guy famously observed, in the long run we'll all be dead. )

But however you slice it, Sirota is right that political progress has been stalled and even reversed over the past few years. And for a time progressivism itself stalled and sputtered, unsure of how to respond to the sustained assault by the conservative movement. The Bush years shook it out of its doldrums and as Sirota notes, it is now ideologically ascendant in the Democratic party.

That does not, of course, mean that the Democratic party establishment is progressive. Everything indicates that there will be substantial resistance to a true progressive agenda, perhaps even at times from its standard bearer. The forces for the status quo are always very strong and the challenges are huge. But it seems to me that the energy and the direction is set and whether it happens quickly, with an administration honeymoon and a hundred days of furious activity, or more slowly over time, it's clear that the momentum of conservatism has been stopped and the process of turning in the other direction has begun.

So, the question for the movement seems to me to be less whether progressives recognize this moment, or agree on the agenda, which I think we do. We have also become pragmatic in our expectations of a new administration and take seriously FDR's admonition that a sympathetic president must nevertheless be "made to" do it. The next question then, in discussing this progressive political moment, is how.

By what processes can a progressive movement "make them do it?" I don't have the answers for that, but I think we'd better start focusing on it. You can bet that the status quo, including the corporate media, will use every bit of their money, personal influence and proximity to pressure a new president to slow any progressive momentum before it even starts. Indeed, the conservatives have an entire industry built for just that purpose.

In their piece on the Obama Moment in The Nation, Bob Borosage and Katrina vanden Heuval suggest that it will come with monitoring the opposition and creating large scale issue campaigns from outside the system:

Progressives will enjoy their greatest strength mobilizing independently to support Obama's promises. We can organize constituent pressure on politicians who are blocking the way, something even a President with Obama's activist network would be loath to do. We can expose the lobbies and interests and backstage maneuvers designed to limit reforms. Now that newspapers increasingly lack the resources for investigation, progressive media, online and off, and the independent progressive media infrastructure--from The Nation to Media Matters to Brave New Films to The Huffington Post--must assume a greater role in monitoring the opposition, even as we mobilize activists in targeted districts across the country.

In doing this, we can help give backbone to the Obama agenda, even as we supply muscle and energy to help pass it. The best way to achieve this is to generate large-scale independent-issue campaigns. A clear example is the Healthcare for Americans Now Coalition, which is ready to take on the insurance companies and support the White House's commitment to universal care. The new Half in Ten Campaign, spearheaded by ACORN and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, will help ensure that poverty does not disappear from the agenda. Progressives generally should join the AFL-CIO and Change to Win in their drive to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. The Apollo Alliance and a range of environmental efforts will support the initiative on jobs and energy.

Acting in support of Obama will require challenging legislators in both parties who stand in the way, a task progressives should undertake aggressively. The Service Employees International Union has already taken the lead in announcing a $10 million "accountability program," designed to force politicians to heed the will of their voters, with a new plan--Justice for All--as the core vehicle. This should be complemented by other independent efforts, despite likely objections from the Democratic Congressional leadership and possibly the White House. Democrats should be on notice from their own constituents that they will be expected to help move reform, not stand in its way.

Isaiah Poole wrote about this approach, discussed by Paul Krugman and others, which suggests that focusing on one historic achievement, like health care, could be what establishes progressive success in the public mind and opens the door to a more robust progressive government:

Paul Krugman, the columnist for The New York Times, told me in an interview here in Denver that getting a universal health care plan enacted will be one of he most important keys to creating a progressive moment on a whole host of issues.

His reasoning is this: “If you can get universal health care or something close to it in, however imperfect, then the country will never be the same again. It will be something that is an untouchable, and it will make people just understand once again that government can do things to make the society fairer, safer.”

Other people think the real key is pressuring the congress with attacks on the conservative forces within the party itself and threatening their majority. Still others believe progressives should seize the opportunity to fully discredit and expose movement conservatism, with hearings and legal action, before they have a chance to regroup.

Perhaps the answer lies in doing all of it and seeing what sticks, as FDR did during his first year in office, or assigning roles to certain players. But no matter what, this discussion of specific strategy should be fully engaged by everyone during this period before a new administration takes office. If even an informal consensus could be formed about aims and tactics among those who have platforms and access to institutional support, we will have a better chance of success.

Last week week in Denver I was convinced that the motivation, commitment and pragmatism necessary for progressive success are all in place, and they go beyond any specific candidate or campaign. The goals are clear. In this rather extraordinary moment of transition, as we move from a purely oppositional force to a force for positive action with allies in positions of great power, we need begin to focus in earnest on tactics, strategy and our specific roles for "making them do it."

And I have to say that after the last 25 years of fighting off a conservative movement at the height of its power, it's a very nice challenge to have.

Get The Right Blend Into The Discussion

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:10:07 -0700

We need to work harder to bring a larger set of voices into "the progressive moment," says Pam Spaulding, the founder of Pam's House Blend and one of the leading African-American and LGBT bloggers. Spaulding, in this interview at The Big Tent in Denver during the Democratic National Convention, offers some suggestions on how people of color and lower-income people who are not active in the blogosphere can be brought more closely into the coalition.

Flip Video courtesy of the Voter Genome Project

Sierra Club Director On T. Boone Pickens and Energy Obstructionism

Isaiah J. Poole — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:01:45 -0700

The Sierra Club's executive director, Carl Pope, discusses how progressives should respond to Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens' plan for energy independence and political obstruction on energy issues in Washington. Pope also explains harmful natural gas policies that need to be corrected by the next administration. Pope was interviewed after a forum at The Big Tent in Denver during the Democratic National Convention. (Flip Video courtesy of the Voter Genome Project.)

T. Boone Pickens And The Progressive Moment On Energy

Isaiah J. Poole — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:08:29 -0700

There they were, billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens, Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope and Center for American Progress president John Podesta on the same stage at The Big Tent in Denver on Wednesday, in near-perfect harmony. Something’s wrong here.

And indeed there was, and it was Pope who pointed it out.

“If our politics were even vaguely functional, anything that the three of us would have agreed on would have happened long ago,” he told the crowd of bloggers and Democratic Party activists who were sweating it out on the second floor of the tent.

But they clearly aren’t, and that was what seemed to concern Pope the most. And it should concern all of us.

When Pickens explained his plan, and the crowd was largely receptive. You know the basic details from his massive advertising campaign: Massively expand the amount of wind and solar energy being pumped into the electric grid and massively expand the amount of natural gas being used for automobiles (as well as increasing the number of hybrid electric vehicles). That would allow the country to dramatically decrease its dependence on foreign imports. And the effects would be more significant, and be seen more quickly, than the drill, drill, drill mantra being pushed by conservatives.

“As Boone says, this is not rocket science. This is pretty simple auto mechanics,” Pope said after Pickens spoke. “So let’s understand we have some deep, profound political problems that make us need to have this conversation.”

One of the problems is that the country is too comfortable with a fossil-fuel economy in which “we do not pay the bills” — others do, from lower-income people in oil-exporting countries who suffer from the environmental damage caused by oil drilling to people in coal-producing regions who have seen their environment and their health scarred by mining.

Pole said that what sold him on the basics of the Pickens plan was a visit to Sweetwater, Texas, a town whose economy had peaked in the 1920s and which had been on a long downward economic spiral ever since. But the town embraced wind turbines, and those turbines have spurred a green energy economic revival.

More people need to see examples of what Pope calls a “Dutch treat” energy economy, in which energy consumers in rich countries don’t shuffle the burdens of their energy consumption — the environmental damage, the health consequences, the lowered standard of living — onto others.

But perhaps more importantly for the political fight now being waged is to get the focus off of what Pope calls a massive “head fake” from the right wing. Even Pickens (a man who uses the words “drill, drill, drill” in one of his ads) concedes that the big U.S. oil companies aren’t nearly as interested in opening up offshore oil tracts to drilling as are conservatives in Congress and the White House. Nonetheless conservatives have too much invested in the oil companies that have funded the conservative movement for the past 30 years, and they know that changing the technologies that fuel America can shift the balance of who reaps the benefits.

“What we need to do is change the conversation,” Pope said. He says that we need to repower, refuel and rebuild. Repower by renewing the infrastructure we need to power a 21st century economy. Refuel using a mix of clean energy sources. (Imagine, Pope said, a “gas” station that sold natural gas or electricity for a plug-in hybrid as well as gasoline.) Rebuild so that we conserve energy. (Pope cited as an example Toronto, Canada, which has just launched a program of retrofitting all of its buildings to cut energy consumption and is expecting a 20 percent return on the public investment in the program. The next administration could launch a similar initiative even without significant government funding, since there are banks and other entities that are ready to commit the capital if politicians in Washington are prepared to commit the leadership.)

Conservatives are now touting “all of the above” rhetoric to hide what became naked when, under political pressure, Democratic congressional leaders indicated hat they would be willing to allow a vote this year on an energy plan that would include expanded offshore drilling—if it included such measures as having the oil companies give up tax breaks they received in 2003. When the question of what the oil companies would give up to break the nation’s dependency on foreign oil, the conservative answer was, “None of the above.”

Progressives are rightfully queasy about the man who not only funded the Swift Boat ads that helped derail John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004 but who has funded the campaigns of men like Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., one of the Senate’s chief obstructionists on progressive energy legislation. But Pickens has opened a window of opportunity for a meaningful conversation about how to transform our energy future, and it clears the way for even bolder thinking about how to wean ourselves from our oil addiction. The challenge for progressives is how to best use it.

Krugman: Why The Health Care Battle Is Key

Isaiah J. Poole — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:37:16 -0700

Paul Krugman, the columnist for The New York Times, told me in an interview here in Denver that getting a universal health care plan enacted will be one of he most important keys to creating a progressive moment on a whole host of issues.

His reasoning is this: “If you can get universal health care or something close to it in, however imperfect, then the country will never be the same again. It will be something that is an untouchable, and it will make people just understand once again that government can do things to make the society fairer, safer.”

Krugman calls himself a single-payer advocate, but he says he supports a proposal along the lines of the Health Care for America Now plan because “I want something that you can get into legislation fast.”

One of the barriers health care reform will have to overcome is the fear among the public that they would lose access to quality care under a radically changed system. If you can tell people that they can keep the insurance they have now, but they have the option of enrolling in a Medicare-type system that would provide universal coverage without regard to pre-existing conditions, more of the public would be prepared to get behind it.

Krugman’s prediction is that a united progressive movement could get a Health Care for America Now-style plan could get enacted by the fall of 2009 “by not being a purist.”

“One of the things that the Republicans have been good at is thinking a step ahead, playing the log game, setting things up,” Krugman continued. For those who believe that government “is the problem,” as Ronald Reagan famously stated, the strategy was to “starve the beast; deprive the government of revenue so it can’t do staff later on.

The other strategy was to take power away from the union movement, which Reagan began doing during his term. “Unions raise wages, but they also shift the political balance The destruction of the union movement in the 1980s, which was largely a Ronald Reagan thing, did not just undercut the workers’ bargaining power, but it also undercut their political power.”

That is why Krugman agrees that passing the Employee Free Choice Act is critical to the future of progressive politics.

“That is a big enough agenda to keep a Democratic Congress and President busy for a couple of years,”

Krugman says that the kind of presidential candidate that is needed over the next two months in order for progressives to be in a position to have an ally in the White House is one who is espousing “a clear progressive agenda.”

“Bill Cinton in 1992 had this very simple thing: The hard-working people, the people who played by the rules, who try to do it right, get cheated. He had a phrase about people who cut corners and cut deals. And we need to hear that. I think the theory that a broad, post-partisan appeal could lead to a transformative victory appears to have been refuted.”

Kuttner and Borosage Discuss the Progressive Moment

Isaiah J. Poole — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:37:08 -0700

Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage talks to Robert Kuttner, editor of the American Prospect and author of the book, "Obama's Challenge," about the challenges progressives face in setting the stage for changing the course of the country in 2009. Borosage asks Kuttner if it will be enough to expect external conditions, such as the state of the economy, to be the driver for dramatic change or will progressive activists have to forge a movement that drives change.

Their conversation takes place outside The Big Tent near the Democratic National Convention in Denver, after a three-hour "Take Back America" miniconference sponsored by Campaign for America's Future.

(Flip Video courtesy of the Voter Genome Project.)

Moving Obama Left

OurFuture.org Staff — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:32:20 -0700

What We Stand For—In Twelve Words

Bernie Horn — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:58:21 -0700

There’s no doubt that George W. Bush’s administration has been a catastrophe, and that historians will one day rank him as one of our nation’s very worst presidents. We’ve got to take back America—now—before solutions to national and global problems slip away into the distant future.

Because Bush and his allies have failed, our fellow citizens are ready to consider the progressive message. But what is it? In simple terms that all Americans understand, what do we stand for?

It’s crucial for us to have a simple, compelling answer. Yes, we’re for change…and prosperity, and peace. But these generalities aren’t persuasive enough. As U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan told a reporter for the New York Times:

I can describe, and I’ve always been able to describe, what Republicans stand for in eight words, and the eight words are lower taxes, less government, strong defense and family values. . . . We Democrats, if you ask us about one piece of that, we can meander for 5 or 10 minutes in order to describe who we are and what we stand for. And frankly, it just doesn’t compete very well.

The generic conservative message is pretty much taken for granted. Paul Waldman calls “low taxes, small government, strong defense, and traditional values” the “Four Pillars of Conservatism.” In Don’t Think of an Elephant!, George Lakoff listed the conservative message in ten words: strong defense, free markets, lower taxes, smaller government, family values.”

So what’s our philosophy? Fair wages, fair markets, health security, retirement security, equal justice…for all. Let me describe each in turn.

Fair wages means that we recognize and will address the problem of income inequality. Everyone wants, and deserves, a fair wage for their work. We’ll push toward this goal by increasing the minimum wage, promoting unions, and adopting a progressive strategy toward globalization.

Fair markets is the progressive response to free markets. Progressives need to employ this term to defend our economic ideology. There’s simply no such thing as a “free” market. If we continue to let the term go unchallenged without a proactive alternative, we may never overcome conservative economic framing.

Health security is a no-brainer. Quality, affordable health care for all is both an essential policy and a wildly popular one.

Retirement security may be the next healthcare. Baby Boomers are retiring, Social Security needs repairing, and current jobs generally don’t include any reasonable provisions for retirement pensions.

Equal justice encompasses many other values. This phrase is not only about justice in courts; we mean something broader—economic and social justice. After all, that’s what government is for. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist, “Justice is the end of government.”

Finally, for all represents the key distinction between progressive and conservative. Conservatives seek rights and opportunities for a select few. Progressives seek them for all.

You may look at this short description of progressivism and say there’s so much missing. What about environmentalism? Energy independence? Or national security? We can still talk about those. But the point of this exercise is to create a list that’s short enough to remember and repeat, while emphasizing the strengths of our progressive philosophy. We’re a multi-dimensional movement, but our strong suit is economic policy.

These twelve words are entirely consistent with the Democratic National Platform, which says in its very first paragraph:

We believe that each American, whatever their background or station in life, should have the chance to get a good education, to work at a good job with good wages, to raise and provide for a family, to live in safe surrounding, and to retire with dignity and security. We believe that quality and affordable health care is a basic right. We believe that each succeeding generation should have the opportunity, though hard work, service and sacrifice, to enjoy a brighter future than the last.

This is our time. The supreme challenge for progressives in 2008 is to focus our message so that all Americans understand who we are and what we stand for. If we succeed, we can change the future…for all.

The writer is a Senior Fellow at Campaign for America’s Future and author of the recent book, Framing the Future: How Progressive Values Can Win Elections and Influence People.