I just got back from my longest trip yet on my book tour promoting The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be. Outside of a quick trip to a Netroots Nation regional meeting in Denver, all of my book travel up until now has been to heavily Democratic cities on the east and west coasts, but this trip was right in the heart of the heartland: Missouri (a swing state leaning red), Kansas and Nebraska (2 thoroughly red states), Iowa (a swing state leaning blue), and the most thoroughly blue Midwestern state there is, Illinois.
Adam took some photos from the trip you can check out on our Flickr set here.
After this all-American, politically diverse, trip, I have certain things I can feel confident in reporting on:
• I continue to be heartened by the great response to the book's message - really good crowds, really responsive people, great questions, incredible passion about changing the country. There really is a movement building everywhere - yes, even in the red states - for big progressive change.
• The populist feelings about the banks are very strong. My biggest applause line every place I spoke was "If you are too big to fail, you are too big to exist." Even though I was speaking to strongly pro-Obama audiences, people were very troubled by his banking policies.
• In spite of the economy, people are still fired up enough to be coming to fundraisers. I was a speaker at three different fundraising events - for the Nebraska Democratic Party in Lincoln, the Iowa Citizen Action Network in Des Moines, and Citizen Action Illinois/USAction in Chicago. All of them were successes, with a combined crowd of over 400 people.
• People very much want to be involved in changing America. There was no sense at all that folks are passively waiting for President Obama to take care of things. Every single event I went to - every single one - someone asked a version of the question "What can we do to help change things?"
It was a great trip, and now I'm back in D.C. for a couple of weeks before heading out again. I look forward to continuing to spread the message about the history, and future, of the progressive cause in America.
Post, 3/15/08, lead story: "The Federal Reserve took the extraordinary step yesterday of providing emergency funding to one of Wall Street's venerable firms, Bear Stearns, after it ran out of cash to repay its lenders....The Fed's action...is one of the most significant government efforts to save a private firm in modern times."
Hmmm. And the Fed thought this was more important than saving all the homeowners who are being foreclosed in the mortgage crisis that led to the threat to Bear Stearns?
And the Bush Administration thought this was more important than either holding down the price of $108/barrel oil, or - better yet, from my point of view - capturing some of those super-profits and plowing them back into energy efficiency like more transit and green jobs and rebuilding our cities instead of sprawling out to Nunavut?
Or ending the three-trillion-dollar war in Iraq?
Or taxing hedge fund managers at a reasonable rate - people who make super-profits by inventing new and unregulated forms of investment that even Robert Rubin says he can't understand?
And Bear Stearns hasn't been known for its political contributions? 7th in the securities industry in the last ranking I found at OpenSecrets, http://www.opensecrets.org/ind...
To be fair, I do have to give the Post a bit of credit: here's how it's many-inch article ends: "In 1998, the New York Fed cajoled all the large Wall STreet firms into buying up assets of the failed hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management to avert a global financial meltdown. All the large firms, that is, except one, which refused to participate: Bear Stearns."
I hope progressive politicians and organizations hit hard on why bailing out a multi-billion dollar fund of the super-wealthy is urgent economic politics, but extending unemployment benefits, or state Medicaid assistance, or forcing banks to renegotiate balloon mortgages, is not.
We need public policies that invest in America's future, and that isn't limited to the richest 1% of the world's population.
I am about as old school as you can get. I started knocking on doors in campaigns 35 years ago, at the age of 12, and I still go out door-knocking at least a little bit every election cycle. I think that kind of person-to-person political work can tell you a lot more about how people are thinking and feeling about politics then anything else you do throughout a campaign.
But I am also very excited, as I think is pretty obvious to anyone who has read my posts at OpenLeft.com or on The Huffington Post, about online organizing today, as well as its long-term potential. From the first time I talked to Wes Boyd as he was starting MoveOn.org, I have been completely enamored with the potential that organizing over the internet has for progressive politics.
That's why I'm so excited to announce the merger between USAction and TrueMajority, and discuss its potential impact. USAction is a great old school organization specializing in the best kinds of field organizing, door knocking, voter registration and get-out-the-vote work. (Full disclosure, I was the executive director of USAction's Iowa affiliate back in the 1980s, and currently do some consulting work for them.) TrueMajority is one of the most innovative internet organizations in the country, with a membership topping 600,000 people strong. By bringing old style community organizing and door-knocking together with innovative online strategies, this newly merged group has the potential to really create some exciting new models of organizing.
This merger also presents a great opportunity to build the greater progressive infrastructure. This merger is, in some sense, a cooperation agreement between two powerhouse organizations and organizing models to help bring about greater progressive change today and in the years to come. I am very excited to see the interplay that will take place between the new USAction and the netroots community, who will team up to win big fights for our side. Today, they are working on SCHIP, but they are already working on strategies for ratcheting up the fight over on Iraq and stopping a possible war with Iran, as well as fighting for health care for all Americans. They will work hard to bring the netroots community to the table and help facilitate the new ideas and campaigns that will surely rise out of this new and innovative organization.
A great model of how the netroots and specifically the local blogosphere can help win big fights is the Lamont campaign in 2006. Lamont's campaign manager, Tom Swan, was on leave from his job as the long-time executive director of USAction's Connecticut affiliate, and he brought that old school organizing experience to bear to great effect in the campaign. However, the primary campaign never would have won without bloggers and MoveOn.org making it their cause as well. The combination of the two kinds of organizing brought about a huge upset in the primary, and almost knocked off Lieberman, even after he cut a deal with the Republicans for their money and support in the general election.
Today, USAction affiliates are planning dozens of events across the country to oppose Bush's threatened veto on SCHIP, and to urge members of Congress to stand with their constituents to override the president. TrueMajority will urge its members to participate in these events, and will launch an online petition demanding congressional support for SCHIP.
So, in honor of this marriage of two great organizations, I urge you to take a stand today and check out their SCHIP petition, attend a rally or event in your hometown and continue check in on the new and improved USAction, as I expect great things out of them in the years to come.
