It is about time for the 112th House to come back into session, and the first thing on the agenda appears to be an effort to take away any healthcare reform that have been passed by this Administration.
Next comes an effort to slash Social Security and Medicare, an effort to reverse financial reforms, and proposals to "slash" spending-but only on domestic discretionary items.
If the House majority had its way there would be no restrictions on offshore drilling, no rules designed to prevent climate change-in fact, few if any environmental protections at all...and all of this is intended to bring to life the philosophy that government, for all intents and purposes, should just go away and leave us all alone.
I don't buy into that kind of thinking-not even a little bit-and today we're going to look around the world and see if we can't figure out why.
Whatever the results this Election Day, it’s clear that visionary progressive ideas will be less welcome at the start of the next Congress. And that’s saying something, given their track record in this Congress.
But with that reality comes a new opportunity: the chance to tell our own story as progressives, instead of having it told for and about us. We have a new chance to articulate our vision for America, and how it can bring, not just change for the sake of change, but positive and transformative change that can move us forward as a nation.
(Project Vote Asks, "Who exactly isn't being listened to?" - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
"Can you hear me?" That's the recurring refrain in a radio promo for this weekend's "Virginia Tea Party Patriots Convention," which-with an estimated crowd of 3,000-purports to be one of the largest rallies yet of so-called "Tea Party" sympathizers. The 60-second radio spot by keynote speaker Lou Dobbs features allegedly outraged Americans repeating that line, interspersed with un-attributed stats about how Americans supposedly oppose stimulus spending, health care, and other government spending policies "Maybe Washington can't hear us," Dobbs intones dramatically, "because they're just not listening."
Not listening to whom? For two years media obsession with the Tea Party has drowned out nearly every other voice in the public debate, a self-perpetuating feeding frenzy that has raised the volume on this population’s views to a disproportionately deafening roar. Yet, as is shown all too clearly in Project Vote’s recent poll report What Happened to Hope and Change? A Poll of 2008 Voters, these shouts for attention are coming from a segment of the population that is overwhelmingly white, wealthy, and older—and one that is out of touch with the needs and views of most Americans.
One thing that Tea Party sympathizers say is confirmed by Project Vote’s poll: they are indeed almost universally angry. Yet, based on their responses to Project Vote’s survey, they seem to have precious little to be angry about. Three fourths of them report that their personal financial situation is fairly good or very good. Eight out of ten are employed or retired; they are overwhelmingly married; they went to college; and they make more money. Contrary to claims that the Tea Party represents a “wide swath of Americans,” nine out of ten Tea Party sympathizers are White.
Older, wealthier, White conservatives: this is hardly a population overlooked or ignored, either by the media or by Washington.
Can you hear me? This question is better asked by the 21 percent of young voters, the 37 percent of Black voters, and the 39 percent of low-income voters who reported to Project Vote that they did not have enough money to buy food for their families at some point during the past year. (Only 6 percent of Tea Partiers said the same.)
It is a question better asked by the strong majorities of black voters, young voters, and low-income voters who support stimulus spending, government programs to create jobs, and who say they agree with the statement that “government should work to provide for the needs of all citizens.”
It is a question better asked by the majorities of all American voters who support raising taxes on capital gains, ending combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and raising the minimum wage to ensure that no family of three with a full-time worker has to live below the poverty line.
Belying the exaggerated claims of Tea Party activists, Project Vote’s poll shows that most Americans—and particularly the black, low-income, and youth voters who increased their participation so decisively in 2008—share a common expectation that government should provide for the needs of all Americans rather than limit its activities to national security and police protection. This value translates into support for increased spending on infrastructure and public education and maintaining or increasing spending on income security programs such as Food Stamps.
In a press release about the Project Vote poll, Color of Change co-founder and executive director James Rucker said, “What Project Vote’s poll shows is that the views on government held by progressives represent the majority. We shouldn’t let Tea Party activists convince us that we, and not they, are the minority.”
Yet as the Tea Party minority turns up the volume on its microphones again this weekend in Richmond, Virginia, media attention will no doubt once again focus on their anti-government message. Meanwhile, the voices of the other 72 percent of American voters are calling for a different vision of government—one that does more, not less, to support and protect struggling Americans.
(Project Vote does some of the best & most important work out there, and this is very important information. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
Today, Project Vote released What Happened to Hope and Change? A Poll of 2008 Voters, a new report summarizing the results of a telephone survey of 1,947 Americans who voted in 2008, analyzing their views on the role of the government, government spending, and the budget. This unique poll not only surveys the historic 2008 electorate, but also includes special samples of black, low-income, and youth voters, and compares these groups both to a national sample and to self-identified “Tea Party” sympathizers.
“We wanted to learn more about the views of the black, youth, and low-income voters who overwhelmingly participated in 2008 election,” said Lorraine C. Minnite, director of research for Project Vote. “These voters represent roughly a third of the electorate, they will play an increasingly important role in American politics, and they fundamentally believe in a government that does more, not less. Yet their voices are largely ignored, and their views are not being represented.”
This is going to sound counter-intuitive at first but I have become convinced in the course of discussions with both conservative and progressive people in recent months that at its core, the surge in anti-government sentiment and the progressive angst in the Obama era so far both come from the same root issue. The heart of the problem is that our government has become captured by a small number of very big and very powerful corporate interests, and that has made the federal government increasingly dysfunctional.
This dysfunction feeds the right-wing plenty of fuel for its anti-government-all-the-time narrative, helping them build their movement. Unfortunately, though, it has also created a crisis point for progressives. Progressives have always understood that government not only has an important role to play in promoting the public good in areas the market doesn't work well, but is sometimes the only entity that can be strong enough to take on monopolistic or oligarchic private corporations who can become too powerful in a free market economy. When government gets captured by these powerful interests and becomes dysfunctional as a result, it puts progressives in a bad spot: defending the role of government when it keeps screwing up doesn't play very well with voters.
Because the progressive movement got used to the federal government playing a mostly positive role in economics, civil rights, the environment, and other issues during the New Deal era and the decades after, and because we don't worship the free market in all things and at all times the way conservatives do, there has been a tendency on our side in these last three decades of brutal attack on all things government to be reflexively defensive about it. As one example, I have had friends argue that progressives should avoid using the term "government waste" because it just feeds a bad frame about government. I have also heard many people talk about how important it is for us to be spending a lot of time explaining to people the positive role of government.
As someone who wrote about the historic political debate between the conservative and progressive movements, I don't agree with these arguments. The role and size of government in our society has changed dramatically over the course of American history, as has the role and size of private corporations, but the bedrock values and goals of the progressive movement have not changed. We stand for more democracy, more equality, and a better economic situation for poor and middle-income people, and we oppose trickle-down economics and the concentration of wealth and power for economic elites. To get better results in terms of those goals, we have frequently turned to government. But government is only a means to those ends, not the ends themselves- and it is not the only means to those ends, either. I want wages to go up for poor and working class people, and that can happen because the minimum wage increases (government) or through workers organizing a union and negotiating (collective action). I want to lessen the concentration of wealth and power of big corporations, and that can happen through regulation and anti-trust and progressive taxation (government), or through class action lawsuits, consumer boycotts, and shareholder resolutions (collective action). Of course it is always better for our purposes to have government on the right side, but we are not limited to government action to improve people's lives, and we also shouldn't be stuck defending government when it is on the wrong side.
When our government screws up, we shouldn't be afraid to say so. When government wastes money, we should call them on it. When government officials favor big business special interests over the rest of us, we should fight them. When government caves to the demands of powerful insider lobbyists, we should raise hell about it.
Social Security and Medicare are government programs which have worked incredibly well to lift senior citizens out of poverty and give them healthier, happy lives. Public education is the only way most children are ever going to get the education they need. Police, firefighters, roads, bridges, our national defense are all functions needed to be done by government. People with mental disabilities and people trapped in long-term poverty and unemployment need a government safety net. And only government has the ability to provide the oversight and check on the power of big corporations who would otherwise wreck our economy, pollute the environment, and make unsafe products. So, yes: government has an important role to play in our modern economy, and the right wing fantasy that government is not good at anything, and that the free market is always the way to go, needs to be thoroughly rejected. But progressives also need to stop being defensive of government in general. Government does waste money sometimes; government doesn't do all things well. And a progressivism that is always defensive of a government that isn't doing its job, that isn't delivering the things people need to make their daily lives better, will find itself at exactly the kind of crisis point we find ourselves in today.
Americans are known, for better of for worse, for their strong support of “capitalism” and hesitancy towards “socialism.” A recent poll by Pew Research Center confirmed this notion, although perhaps not with the intensity one would expect. When asked what their first reaction to the word “socialism” was, 59% gave a negative response and only 29% responded positively. Their reaction to the word capitalism was exactly the opposite, 52% gave a positive response, and 37% responded negatively.
OK. As we look at the alarming crisis that BP and the oil industry has brought us to, as we evaluate the amount of military spending we are pouring into the middle east for no evident return (and as we consistently apologize for killing innocent civilians with airborne missiles), as we observe politicians and lobbyists letting payoffs and focused fundraising deny the needs of voters in favor of the needs of corporations, as we see the Supreme Court gradually eliminate generations of civil rights achievements, we are getting more and more convinced that making a change in America... indeed in the whole world... is getting less and less possible.
What do voters really think about dramatic changes already underway?
by Steven Rosenfeld
Today's political chattering class-television barkers, talk radio hotheads, and even 2010's most visible candidates-keep telling Americans how angry and flustered we have become, and that the solution has to do with reeling in a government run amok.
On June 8, Californians will vote on several referendums, in addition to primary races. One of those referendums, Proposition 14 (aka the Top Two Primaries Act), could hugely change how those primary races are conducted, and it would definitely not be for the better. As if to add insult to injury, but it could take down a public campaign financing measure along with it.
Prop 14 was put on the ballot through the backroom dealings of State Senator (not Lt. Gov.) Abel Moldonado, the very last holdout on the budget this year. He used the budget crisis for his own profit and one of his demands was to put this measure on the ballot. Now, his reckless action is being opposed by every political party in California and numerous electoral reform groups, groups ranging from the NAACP to the Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition.
But big business wants this to pass because of the control it could give them over elections (explanation below the fold). So your help is needed - $5, $10, $100 - whatever you can chip in to prevent California from descending further into a mess of broken government.
While it would be unwise for any politician to govern by focus group, a recent New York Times/CBS News poll offers some support and some clear suggestions for future action for the White House. The poll, which was conducted in early February 2010, had 1,084 respondents – certainly a small group to be determining policy for 308 million Americans – but the results do resonate.
With or without government intervention? Public Opinion and Facts
Following a pro-longed debate over health care reform, a new legislative battle over financial regulation is under the way. What remains consistent in the public discourse and in Washington is the bone of contention: the role of government.
But what is it that we really argue about it? It could be many things such as the wellbeing of the people, the financial health of the country or America's leading role in world politics. In the bigger picture, a lot of what we are arguing and fighting for are embodied in the idea of the American Dream, that "dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" (James Truslow Adams).
Yesterday was the President's Deficit Commission and today is the Peterson summit. The very serious people (who didn't know there was a housing bubble) are telling us that our own government providing benefits to our people is baaaad and very unserious. (Military spending? What's that?)
So what about that deficit, and the Social Security crisis? Always, always keep in mind that the whole bruhaha over Social Security comes out of a strategic plan to get rid of it. As Paul pointed out in his post and as I have written about,
This strategy goes back to a larger Wall Street effort to get rid of Social Security. A 1983 Cato Institute Journal document, "Achieving a Leninist Strategy" by Stuart Butler of Cato and Peter Germanis of Heritage lays it out for us. The document is still available at Cato, and select quotes are available at Plotting Privatization? from Z Magazine. ...
[quotes from the Cato strategy document]
... Every time you hear that "Social Security is going broke" you are hearing a manufactured propaganda point. Every time you hear that "Social Security is a Ponzi scheme" you are hearing a manufactured propaganda point. Every time you hear that "Social Security won't be there for me anyway" " you are hearing a manufactured propaganda point.
Don't fall for it. If they can gut Social Security they stand to make a lot of money but you stand to lose your retirement.
AND never forget that the deficit was also manufactured on purpose, to defund government's ability to regulate business and protect citizens, and to force a shrinking of what the corporate right calls "big government." Government is We, the People making the decisions for ourselves, "big government" is We, the People making more decisions for ourselves. The only alternative is the wealthy and big corporations making the decisions for us instead. Don't fall for it. We didn't have deficits until we cut taxes on the rich.
Low awareness of role of federal agencies and Tea Party fever With examples from widespread frustration about tax day and the census, we can get an idea as to the confusion that many Americans have regarding the role of the government agencies and actions and their benefits and roles. According to a survey by Ipsos, 65% of American adults think that the government does not do an adequate job of communicating its agencies services and benefits.
When asked about particular agencies, respondents were more aware of these Federal agencies, but still unsure of their role and services. From the list of six agencies that the survey tested, the Federal Trade Commission was viewed least favorably as well as Americans being most confused over its role. However, once voters were exposed to more information about the agencies, they increasingly realized the daily influence of the agencies and viewed them more positively. These findings may yield good advice for the government. In increasing awareness about the impact of federal agencies and the benefits that they give to American citizens, support and satisfaction may increase.
According to a 2007 poll, Americans define human rights as the rights to equal opportunity, freedom from discrimination, a fair criminal justice system, and freedom from torture or abuse by law enforcement. Despite the current political wrangling over how to reform it, a majority of Americans even believe that access to health care is a human right.
There was a time when America’s leaders echoed those sentiments. President Franklin D. Roosevelt embraced them when he told Congress, “Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere.” And in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act, forming the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Commission was intended to conduct critical reviews of social needs and public policy – in essence, to be the conscience of the nation. Regardless of circumstances or leadership, the body was to operate as an independent voice for the broad range of civil rights issues facing the country.
One year ago our nation, and much of this world, was in a state of panic and turmoil. Companies and industries were shedding jobs faster than we could count. The stock market was tanking in front of our eyes. Waking up every morning to look at the headlines of the newspaper was a daunting task in fear of what a new day could bring to the American people. We needed a lifeline.
And so President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on February 17, 2009. Critics have been very vocal at pointing out the persistently high unemployment rate as well as flagrant examples of waste and inefficiency. At the same time, supporters have ample evidence to defend the act—a couple million jobs saved or created, a depression averted, and billions of dollars supporting and aiding colleges and universities to invest in the future of our country. Both sides have valid arguments and substantial verification. Undoubtedly, there have been great benefits from the act, but inevitably there is also vast room for improvement in the second year of the two year plan. With a year behind us, we must look ahead and focus our attention and energy in avoiding past mistakes by demanding greater transparency, and demanding higher quality outcomes. As the White House begins to craft the new jobs bill, we must make sure the bill creates good jobs—jobs that offer living wages, provide benefits, and have the potential for long-term growth and advancement.
STATE BLOGS
