Progressive Opinion

Where Is The Outrage, Where Is The Debate?

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:48:52 -0400

Politics tends to be reactive. Issues often aren’t issues until they make news. Media outlets and political candidates tend to speak out after disasters occur not before, even when that old handwriting is on the wall.

So it is with the financial crisis that seems to be toppling bank after bank, affecting company after company and threatening the global economy.

Many of us have been in denial about it perhaps because until now we were not directly affected or it seemed abstract. It has also been a slow-motion crisis building steam since the markets first melted down in August 2007.

What’s happened since has been unprecedented: a freeze-up of all credit, massive multibillion-dollar write-downs by brand name banks. Three-and-a-half million families faced foreclosure, and then one after another major financial dominos started toppling, triggering seven interest rate cuts and requiring infusions of capital in the hundreds of billions. Then Bear Stearns fell, followed now by the troubles at Lehman, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, etc.…

It doesn’t seem to be stopping, as a thousand banks are expected to fall. Words like “bailout” and “plunge protection” are becoming more common.

Oddly, all the economic pain and uncertainty leading up to what may still become a catastrophe had mostly been buried in the business section. They had been overlooked by both parties in their platforms and by both leading presidential candidates on the campaign trail.

Events are now forcing them to respond to the disaster, but the issues and choices we face are still not being discussed clearly.

Bloomberg News reported during the conventions that even as we confront the most serious economic crisis since the depression the reasons our economy is not working are not discussed.

Part of the problem is that media itself is not putting the issue on the agenda, asking candidates about it only in a breaking-news context. Rather than expose predatory subprime loans when Wall Street was riding high, many media outlets were carrying deceptive ads for lenders and credit card companies.

And even now as disaster threatens, the coverage is tepid, superficial and misleading, as the Marketwatch website argued:

“There was an absence of tough, in-your-face questions… But where was the skepticism or the sense of outrage by the media? We’re supposed to be the proxies for the public. When I saw television networks interview the (wo)man on the street during the crisis, I saw more emotion in the faces of ordinary citizens than in those of the journalists.”

The same thing must be said about presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. It won’t do for McCain to rail against fraud and corruption on Wall Street without someone pointing out that the Republicans have been in charge while all this is going on. It won’t do for Obama to mouth platitudes and make this into a partisan issue when many top Democrats, including his running mate, were on the wrong side during the debate on the 2005 bankruptcy bill.

I have been trying to rouse concern about this with a film “In Debt We Trust” exposing subprime loans and the role of Wall Street firms that profited on them, the regulators who turned the other way and the press that missed the story .

I have just followed up with a timely book, “PLUNDER: Investigating our Economic Calamity” (Cosimo) detailing the existence of a white-collar crime wave and a mass of victims who are losing their homes and their hope. Thirty-two publishers passed on it, many saying that I was exaggerating the depth of the problem. I wasn’t.

Even I have been shocked with the trillions of dollars that seem to being flushed down the drain, and the fact that some of the companies once considered the smartest of the smart managed to destroy themselves in the grip of greed.

So what do we do now?

l. Educate ourselves about how this system collapsed and about the need for both financial regulation and personal financial responsibility. We need to spark a national conversation about these issues.

2. Encourage the politicians we support to get away from symbolic stances and trivia and focus on our economic well being.

3. Insist that our media explains these structural problem and offers diverse perspectives on how to solve them—not just the same old pundits.

4. Demand a bill of economic bill of rights for all Americans that promotes fairness and equality. We must begin thinking about how to promote debt relief in America in the same way that Third World peoples have fought for it for years.

5. Back the campaign of the Institute for American Future to get these issues into our media and on to the agenda.

We have to stand up and be heard before—sounds stilly doesn’t it—it’s all gone!

News Dissector Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org and is the author of PLUNDER: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo) now in online book stores.

Tackle Wealth Concentration

Sarah Anderson — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 10:37:32 -0400

Other contributors to this debate will no doubt highlight policy changes that would directly benefit working people, such as stronger labor laws, fair trade agreements, living wage laws, and increased investment in training and infrastructure. All of these are essential to make the economy work for working people. However, we also need to recognize that we are unlikely to achieve these goals as long as our country tolerates extreme levels of wealth concentration.

Not since the era of the robber barons have so few held such a large piece of our economic pie. America's top 0.01 percent of taxpayers have seen their collective income quadruple, after inflation, over the past two decades. Together, this ultra-rich class has 976 times as much income as the bottom 90 percent of U.S. society.During the late 1940s thru the 1970s, that ratio was around 200 to 1.

For working people, this is not merely symbolic. As long as so much economic power is concentrated in the hands of so few, the wealthiest will continue to have excessive influence over our nation’s political priorities. And until we seriously tax the holders of concentrated wealth, our government will lack the funding resources to meet social needs and build adequate infrastructure for the future. In short, we will never achieve economic justice for those in the middle to the bottom of our economic pyramid until we tackle wealth concentration at the top.

How can we do this? Previous generations pushed back against the robber barons of their day was by demanding tax fairness. And indeed, the acceleration of wealth concentration since the 1980s has tracked closely with an erosion of taxes on the ultra-rich. Throughout most of the mid-20th century, the top tax rate was just over 90 percent. The current top rate is 35 percent.

John McCain thinks the current tax system is just dandy. Barack Obama has proposed some changes in the right direction, but a bolder agenda is needed to reverse our second Gilded Age. A few recommendations:

Tax wealth the same as work: Why should someone pay a higher tax rate on income from actual labor than they do from investments (i.e., sitting back and letting money do all the heavy lifting)? America’s rich regularly realize vast amounts of this unearned income, through dividends, interest, and capital gains from trading stocks, bonds, and other forms of property. On these unearned dollars, they pay taxes at 15 percent, less than half the top rate on ordinary “earned” income. Obama has promised to increase the “capital gains” tax rate, but only to 20 percent.

Plug the loopholes for executives: The U.S. tax code is riddled with loopholes that allow top corporate and financial leaders to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. A recent study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy found that five of these loopholes, all of which are the targets of Congressional reforms, cost taxpayers more than $20 billion per year. Obama has not yet endorsed all of these fixes.

A more progressive estate tax: Foes of the estate tax, our nation’s only levy on inherited wealth, are pushing to slash rates down to mere nuisance status. If they succeed, the last three decades of excess in Corporate America will turn into a skyscraper-high foundation for a new aristocracy that would have the wealth — and power — to frustrate progressive social change for generations to come. One Congressional proposal would preserve the estate tax and make it more progressive, by applying a 55 percent tax on fortunes greater than $10 million. Candidate Obama’s estate tax reform proposal would lose over $100 billion in revenue over the next decade by unnecessarily lowering rates and raising the amount of wealth exempted by the tax to $3.5 million.

Use the power of the public purse: By law, the U.S. government denies contracts to companies that practice race or gender discrimination in their employment practices. So why should we let our tax dollars go to companies that increase economic inequality? Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars flow annually to companies that pay their CEOs more for a day’s work than their workers make in a year. Even the rescue package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac contains only loose controls over executive pay, stating that it must be “reasonable,” without defining the term. One bill pending in Congress, the Patriot Corporation of America Act, would be a step in the right direction. The bill would extend tax breaks and federal contracting preferences to companies that meet benchmarks for good corporate behavior. Among the benchmarks: not compensating any executive at over 100 times the pay of a company’s lowest-paid full-timer.

Raise the top income tax rate: In 2004, after exploiting loopholes, taxpayers who took home over $5 million paid an average of 21.9 percent of their incomes in federal tax. Back in 1954, the federal tax bite on taxpayers with comparable incomes averaged 54.5 percent. How much revenue could be raised by a significant tax hike on America’s highest incomes? If the top rate were raised to 50 percent on all income between $5 million and $10 million and 70 percent on income above $10 million, federal revenues in 2008 would jump $105 billion — and the nation’s richest 0.1 percent would still be paying less in taxes than they did under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower. Obama proposes raising the rates on the top two tax brackets, but only to the 1990s levels of 36 percent and 39.6 percent. The inequality of wealth is a political barrier to creating an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy. A bolder program to broaden prosperity will tax the top and make investments in education, infrastructure and economic opportunity.

Who Will Be In Obama's Cabinet?

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:23:12 -0400

What Really Scares Us About Barack Obama

OurFuture.org Staff — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:59:43 -0400

Moving Obama Left

OurFuture.org Staff — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:32:20 -0400

Sexism, Racism: What Lies Beneath

Isaiah J. Poole — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:53:34 -0400

What Patriotism Is

OurFuture.org Staff — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:46:17 -0400

At the beginning of the week, a friend sent me a scurrilous, anonymous e-mail attacking Barack Obama that has been circulating around her elderly cousin's Jewish senior living community in New Jersey. Headlined "Something to Think About," it lists 13 acts of assassination, kidnapping, war and terrorism, all of which, it notes, were committed "by Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40."

After several other claims, including a bogus citation from the Book of Revelation, the e-mail concludes, semi-literately, "For the award winning Act of Stupidity Now... the People of America want to elect, to the most Powerful position on the face of the Planet — The Presidency of the United States of America to A Muslim Male Between the ages of 17 and 40? Have the American People completely lost their Minds, or just their power of reason? I'm sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the 'unknown' candidate Obama."

To point out the obvious errors, that Barack Obama's a Christian, not Muslim, and that he's 46, not "between the ages of 17 and 40," feels a bit lame, like damning with faint fact checking. Let's call this appalling missive what it is — bigoted, hysterical and more than a little nuts. Unless, of course, it comes from the hands not of a mere delusional crank, but one of those beneath-the-radar smear forces that we all know are out there, ratcheting into higher and higher gear as November gets closer.

E-mails such as the one my friend passed along are insidious, appealing to our deepest fears and prejudices. A front-page story in Monday's Washington Post profiled retired worker Jim Peterman of Findlay, Ohio. He's a decent guy who "believes a smart vote is an American's greatest responsibility," the Post's Eli Salsow wrote. "Which is why his confusion about Barack Obama continues to eat at him...

"Does he trust a local newspaper article that details Obama's Christian faith? Or his friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?

"'I'll admit that I probably don't follow all of the election news like maybe I should,' Peterman said. 'I haven't read his books or studied up more than a little bit. But it's hard to ignore what you hear when everybody you know is saying it. These are good people, smart people, so can they really all be wrong?'"

So it goes across the nation. Chances are, many of the perpetrators of this nonsense think they're being patriots, saving us from Obama and ourselves. And goodness knows, there's a long history of this kind of guttersnipery in American politics. As Obama pointed out in his Monday speech on the nature of patriotism, "Thomas Jefferson was accused by the Federalists of selling out to the French. The anti-Federalists were just as convinced that John Adams was in cahoots with the British and intent on restoring monarchal rule... the use of patriotism as a political sword or a political shield is as old as the Republic."

Details of Obama's speech got buried in the wake of General Wesley Clark's politically lunkheaded comment about John McCain that, "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president." But over the Fourth of July weekend, it might be appropriate and enlightening to take a few minutes to read or watch the whole thing.

It's a good speech. The senator talks about American history and his own patriotism, about the need for service and sacrifice. "For those who have fought under the flag of this nation," he said, "for the young veterans I meet when I visit Walter Reed; for those like John McCain who have endured physical torment in service to our country — no further proof of such sacrifice is necessary. And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides."

And this: "I believe those who attack America's flaws without acknowledging the singular greatness of our ideals, and their proven capacity to inspire a better world, do not truly understand America... But when our laws, our leaders or our government are out of alignment with our ideals, then the dissent of ordinary Americans may prove to be one of the truest expressions of patriotism."

Which brings me to what I think was an unusual and especially fine expression of American patriotism. It's the June 19 closing argument of Air Force Reserve Major David J.R. Frakt, arguing for the dismissal of charges against Mohammed Jawad, a young detainee at Guantanamo, charged with throwing a hand grenade that wounded two GI's and their interpreter in Afghanistan. Frakt argued that Jawad should be released because sleep deprivation — two weeks' worth — was used to torture him. You can read it on the website of the ACLU (http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/35753res20080619.html).

Frakt stood before the military commission upholding the inviolability of the American principle of due process, even for an alleged enemy of the United States. "Under the Constitution all men are created equal, and all are entitled to be treated with dignity," he said. "No one is 'undeserving' of humane treatment. It is an unmistakable lesson of history that when one group of people starts to see another group of people as 'other' or as 'different,' as 'undeserving,' as 'inferior,' ill-treatment inevitably follows...

"After six and a half years, we now know the truth about the detainees at Guantanamo: some of them are terrorists, some of them are foot soldiers, and some of them were just innocent people, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the detainees at Guantanamo have one thing in common — with each other, and with us — they are all human beings, and they are all worthy of humane treatment."

Thus, in the face of adverse public opinion and White House opposition, Frakt bravely defended a constitutional principle as all-encompassing, including under its protections even those who might seek to destroy us and the very constitutional principles for which we stand. In fact, he said, "It is a testament to the continuing greatness of this nation, that I, a lowly Air Force Reserve Major, can stand here before you today, with the world watching, without fear of retribution, retaliation or reprisal, and speak truth to power. I can call a spade a spade, and I can call torture, torture."

To me, that makes Major David Frakt a patriot and this a great country. Happy Fourth of July.

Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog.

Drilling for Defeat?

David Sirota — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:15:26 -0400

Creating New Progressive Narratives

Undercover Blue — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:23:06 -0400

An Example: Turning common ground into progressive messages.

“Civilian life is nothing,” spits fictional Vietnam vet, John Rambo, in Sylvester Stallone’s 1977 “First Blood.” Facing hundreds of police and recurring nightmares, Rambo tells his former commander how, since leaving the army, he’d felt isolated and abandoned by the country he once served.

“In the field,” he accuses, “we had a code of honor. You watch my back, I watch yours. Back here there's nothing!”

That Nothing is what movement conservatives are selling.

It is time we said so.

Conservatives make a great show of supporting our men and women in uniform, holding them up as exemplifying America's highest ideals of service, sacrifice, selflessness, and a code of honor. (Google “never leave a Marine behind” for a sampling.) We tell ourselves Americans will risk blood and treasure to save a single countryman at risk. That kind of all-for-oneness in films like “Behind Enemy Lines” makes our hearts swell.

Especially movement conservative hearts – until you're discharged. Then their message flip-flops. Now it’s every man for himself. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Don't expect any help from me.

For movement conservatism, “leave no man behind” represents America at its best – inside the base front gate. Step through it into the civilian world, and it’s subversive, creeping socialism.

No wonder Rambo had a hard time adjusting.

If “leave no man behind” is America at its best, what does “every man for himself” represent?

Why shouldn’t those same high ideals and principles that tax dollars instill in our military inform public policymaking as well? Why are they good enough for our troops, but not the rest of us?

No American Left Behind is a progressive message – we are all in this together. In an age of political divisiveness in which medicine is a luxury, home foreclosures are setting records and American jobs continue to bleed away, it speaks on a gut-level to people’s ideals of how America at its best ought to work: for everyone.

From experience, conservatives find No American Left Behind unsettling. They become defensive. Because liberals aren’t supposed to be able to challenge them on their turf. Because their objections about the proper role of government clang wonky and hollow. Because their insistence that government breeds weakness sounds laughable. (Tell it to a Marine.) Because it exposes the emptiness of movement conservatism. And especially, because for liberals to pose the question is for liberals to win voters’ hearts and minds.

That is most the unsettling thing of all.

The practical problem for Democrats, liberals and progressives prone to long-windedness is how to convey their message to independents and swing voters in a sound bite. The Right mastered that art long ago. The Left is still learning.

The message must be short, pithy, and built around familiar visual images, themes and cultural references voters already recognize.

We begin not by attacking conservative memes voters may already believe. Instead, embrace them – a kind of political aikido – then expand upon them. Identify points of universal agreement. Use common ground as the foundation for promoting a more progressive worldview. A view they share with us, and maybe didn’t know it.

That’s leadership. Meet people where they are, and lead them to where we are.

Based on No American Left Behind, here is an example delivered in under 30 seconds (text and audio).

The message advocates no programs or policies. It promotes a progressive idea. Programs and policies grow out of ideas. That’s the point: planting them so they can take root.

The most forceful pushback on No American Left Behind has come from veterans, taking some form of, "Marine – Always earned, never given." Common citizens should first have to exhibit “personal responsibility” (conservative code-speak we can unpack another day). One vet stated bluntly that the military’s “elite groups” are entitled to privileged treatment above people who are Americans merely by “accident of birth.”

So put this scenario to critics: You are a squad leader. You and your team have been ordered to take a building and extract a group of American civilians under fire – putting your lives at risk for your fellow countrymen. I know you don’t mean that, upon arrival, you would vet each person to ensure (by some subjective measure) that they are real Americans worthy of not being left behind. I know you don't mean that. What do you mean?

Happy Talk on the Bailout

Dean Baker2 — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:46:22 -0400

Steven Pearlstein usually makes sense in his columns for The Washington Post, which is why I'm inclined to believe that he has been kidnapped and an Al Qaeda operative wrote today's column "A Bailout: For Everyone." The column makes no sense.

As I've written way too many times, the Fed's actions are keeping banks from having to write down large losses and quite likely go into bankruptcy. The result is that the bank executives, whose inept management pushed them into bankruptcy, get to keep their jobs and their salaries, which run into the tens of millions a year. Stockholders will also have more time to unload their stock before the day of reckoning, and the banks themselves may be able to unload some of their junk if they find enough suckers. With luck, they may even be able to survive the collapse of the housing bubble.

Does this bail out the rest of us? Why should any of us who are not top management at Citigroup, or major shareholders, care if it goes into receivership like Northern Rock did in England? The bank's operations will still continue. Those who have deposits there will still be able to get their money. The only difference is that there will be new management, the stockholders will have lost their money, and the bank would more quickly come clean on its bad debts.

Does the bailout do anything for the tens of millions of homeowners who have seen their life savings disappear because house prices collapsed -- in spite of the fact that all the experts said house prices never fall? How about the families who are now tapping their retirement accounts in a desperate effort to prevent foreclosure, is the Fed bailing them out?

The bubble was driven by incredible incompetence by those calling the shots both at the Fed and other regulatory institutions and in the financial sector. We should clean house as quickly as possible. This bailout is not in the public interest.

Crossposted at The American Prospect.