Puget Sound Liberals Weekly Newsletter #234
Enhancing Freedom, Opportunity and Cooperation in
Through informing and networking Liberals and Liberal Organizations.
Our vision is hundreds of thousands of well-informed Puget Sound Liberals
working together.
As Liberals, we
believe: 1. All Americans should have the same freedoms and opportunities. 2. We are each responsible for protecting the freedoms and
opportunities of all Americans. 3. We and our government should be competent and compassionate, using
our freedoms and opportunities wisely to: 1. Reduce our burden on others and 2. Help those with fewer freedoms and opportunities than the rest of us. 4. Our United States should be a cooperative member of our world's
community of nations. Having good
values is not enough. Organized effective political action is necessary. Our Vision is hundreds of thousands of
well informed Washington Liberals acting effectively in cooperation to
realize our values. Our Mission is to inform our Liberals
about our liberal values, historic struggles, political priorities and
policies, political strategies and organizing skills. And to enable them to identify,
communicate, associate and cooperate with each other and with political,
advocacy and caring organizations. Our
Political Priorities ·
Fair Clean
Elections and Open Government ·
Fair Taxes and
Competent Spending ·
Investment for
Productivity ·
Quality
Health, Education, Jobs, Income ·
Environmental
Protection and Energy Independence ·
Security and
Equal Rights ·
Justice and
Peace Everywhere ·
International
Cooperation and Leadership Conservatives oppose all of these Let’s
End Our National Nightmare
Let’s
Restore Our American Dream More on Conservative opposition to our American Dream Washington State’s 5 Major Needs · Federal Funding for Health and Education · Substituting
a Progressive Income Tax · Replacing
Conservative Legislators
Our Liberal
Values
As Liberals, we believe:
1. All Americans should have the same freedoms and opportunities.
2. We are each responsible for protecting the freedoms and opportunities of
all Americans.
3. We and our government should be competent and compassionate, using our
freedoms and opportunities wisely to:
1. Reduce our burden on others and
2. Help those with fewer freedoms and
opportunities than the rest of us.
4. Our United States should be a cooperative member of our world's
community of nations.
Historic
Liberalism
Our Liberal
values originated as part of the enlightenment of the 18th century. They were
expressed by John Locke who influenced our Declaration of Independence. Liberal
values were expressed by our Americans
Tom Paine. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and by Englishmen James Mill and
John Stuart Mill. Our values have been expressed by speeches of most of our
liberal presidents and other leaders.
Our Declaration
of Independence contained “All
men are created equal.” and “With due respect for the opinions of mankind …“.
But in practice, ‘all men’ did not include men without property, nor women, nor
slaves of African ancestry. Our American expression of
liberal values as ’life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ emphasizes
community less than the French expression of ‘liberty, equality and
fraternity’.
Our American Dream
Our American
Dream is: If we work hard and smart, we should be able to prosper. We should be competent, taking care of
ourselves to the best of our ability so as not to be a burden on others. We should be compassionate toward our less
fortunate. Our American Dream overlaps
with our Liberal values. We should all
have the same freedoms and opportunities.
We should be competent and compassionate.
Many
Victorious Struggles
Michael Lux has presented an excellent history of the American struggles
between Liberals and Conservatives in his 2009 book, The Progressive Revolution. How
the Best in America Came to Be. It
is perhaps the best book for Liberals to read concerning our values, our
history and suggestions concerning how we should now proceed.
Liberals have won many struggles to extend and enhance
our freedoms and opportunities, against opposition from conservatives.
·
1690’s
– John Lock struggled to place parliamentary limits upon
the English King and this occurred.
·
1770’s
– Our liberal colonists led the struggle against the English and their Tory
supporters (who were the conservatives of that time) to free us from colonial
rule.
·
1800’s – Due to liberals, the right to vote was gradually
expanded to include men without property and our national legislators came to
be elected directly by voters instead of by state legislators.
·
1830’s
– 1860’s – Opposed by southern Conservatives, liberals
supported abolition of slavery. Through
our devastating Civil War, slavery
was abolished.
·
1870’s – Liberals called Populists opposed
exploitation of farmers and others by giant corporations.
·
1890’s
– Liberals called Progressives promoted measures to
protect people from exploitation by giant corporations. Robert La Follett fought monopolistic pricing
by railroads. Theodore Roosevelt
obtained trust-busting legislation to dismantle large monopolies.
·
1890’s
– Muck-raking journalists exposed many abuses of consumers and workers which
led to Liberals passing regulatory legislation and agencies
consumer protections.
·
1890’s
– 1920’s – Liberals supported legalizing property, voting and
other rights for women. Conservatives
opposed them. Women obtained these
rights.
·
1930’s –
Responding to the great depression, Liberal FDR and his New Dealers won
the struggle against conservatives to regulate markets, provide a safety net
(including social security) and ensure the rights of labor to organize. After
World War II, macro-economic Keynesian fiscal policies were adopted to counter
business cycles.
·
1940’s -
As occurred during and immediately after previous wars, liberties were
threatened in the name of security.
Japanese Americans were interned in concentration camps. But President Truman began racial integration
of the military. As the cold war
mounted, conservatives increased their attacks upon liberals, but McCarthyism
has become a bad word.
·
1960’s
– Liberals mounted a civil
rights movement to eliminate legal supports for racial segregation. President Johnson managed the passage of
civil rights legislation
·
1960’s –
As poverty amid affluence was noted, liberals led by President Johnson
initiated the ‘War on Poverty’. Poverty was much reduced; to
increase again under conservative Reagan, reduce under liberal
·
1960’s -
Against corporate opposition, liberals won the passage of much environmental
legislation, including the endangered species, clean air and clean water acts.
·
1960’s
and 1970’s – Liberals led the struggle to end the Vietnam War.
·
1980’s –
Legislation to assist our elderly and handicapped people was passed
·
1990’s
– 2000’s – Liberals struggled against Christian conservatives
to grant equal freedoms and opportunities to gays and lesbians. Gays and lesbians are gaining more
rights. More than 60% of younger
Americans now support equal rights for gays and lesbians.
·
2000’s –
The newest group to have its freedoms and opportunities opposed by
conservatives are our immigrants.
Beginning in the 1820’s, conservatives placed restrictions for the first
time on immigration to
Just as we couldn’t enforce
prohibition of alcohol, we can’t enforce prohibition of immigration in response
to work opportunities. Conservatives
have only hurt themselves by losing the votes of our fast growing immigrant
population. Liberals now support legalizing immigrants who come, take needed
jobs, and will help support our social security.
Liberals
have always won eventually, often only after long and costly struggles and
sometimes setbacks, as are occurring now with our increasing poverty rates. We can wish that Liberals had undertaken some
of these struggles earlier and won more quickly, but history can’t be
redone. Overtime, our values have been defined to include
an increasing number of freedoms and opportunities for an increasing variety of
people.
Our Liberal values can be easily used as a basis for
our Liberal positions concerning: tax policy, balanced budgets, social
investments, social services, protection of civil rights, equal gender rights,
women's pregnancy choices, same-sex marriage, environmental protection,
regulation of corporate and other responsibilities, regulation of campaign
contributions and lobbying, and most if not all other positions shared by most
Liberals. A thorough discussion of the
relation between of Constitutional bill of rights and President Franklin
Roosevelt’s second bill of rights appears in Cass Sunstein’s 2004 book, The Second Bill of Rights. FDR’s
Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever.
We also need to struggle strongly to enhance freedoms
and opportunities for not just all Americans, but for all humans. By extending our community to include all of
our world's people, we base our foreign policy upon the same values. We have many unfinished tasks, including
removal of dictators, peaceful settling of disputes between and within
countries, enforcement of human rights internationally, provision of adequate
safety nets, protection of our environment and reduction of corporate
oppression.
Conservatives Oppose Our Liberal Values.
Most
Americans Most Americans Express Agreement with Our Liberal Values. But in practice, Conservatives oppose our
Liberal values.
Traditional Conservatives
Traditional
Conservatives typically come from rural areas and small towns which lack the
diversity of Americans that occur elsewhere.
There are fewer ethnic minorities, except for African Americans against
which there are racist attitudes. Gays
and poor people stay in the closet or have left for more tolerant areas. So when Traditional Conservatives say that all
Americans should have the same freedoms and opportunities, they only mean all
Americans like us. They treat ethnic
minorities, GLBT people, and poor people as second class citizens who don’t
deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as others like them. In spite of their professed agreement.
Traditional Conservatives oppose our Liberal values,
Religious Conservatives
Many
residents in rural and small town areas and some others elsewhere participate
in Conservative Christian Churches.
These Religious Conservatives treat Liberal Christians, people with
other religions and secular people as second class citizens who don’t deserve
the same freedoms and opportunities as others like them. In spite of their professed agreement,
Religious Conservatives oppose our Liberal values,
Libertarian
Conservatives
Libertarian Conservatives include many secular White
men who view themselves as successful.
Not recognizing the contributions that their parents, teachers and
others have made to their success, they imagine themselves as self-made. They don’t believe in community or in
compassion.
Libertarian Conservatives view life as a competition
in which everyone should make their own success or suffer the
consequences. They don’t believe they
should pay FICA or other taxes to support others. They support freedoms for themselves with
limited government, no safety net and low taxes. However, they may support programs from which
they benefit (such as veterans’ benefits or Social Security, arguing that they
have earned them through their military service or employment. Libertarians believe in civil rights,
especially freedom from government regulation and intrusion into their
lives. They also tend to be
isolationists, not wanting government to get involved internationally. Our best known libertarian is Congressman Ron
Paul. Libertarians oppose our Liberal
values.
New Conservatives (NeoCons)
Although there
is not a mass movement of New Conservatives (often referred to as neo-cons),
they include President Bush and many of his top officials, as well as many
Congressional Republicans. They believe
that the
In seeking
power, they have transgressed all politicized our executive branch (including
the justice department), appointed incompetent political followers to offices,
disregarded science which refutes their messages, deceived our public, and
corruptly given enormous numbers of large no-bid contracts to those who have
donated to their campaigns, also giving them greatly reduced taxes and reduced
monitoring contract performance and tax compliance. Our New Conservatives can best be described
as Deceptive, Incompetent and Corrupt. New Conservatives oppose our Liberal values.
Disgruntled
Conservatives
Like liberals, many Traditional, Religious and
Libertarian Conservatives are now disgruntled with the deception, incompetence and corruption of the neo-con Bush
administration, including the federal deficits, growth of government, the
Medicare drug legislation, FEMA incompetence, our vigilante Iraq War, and
invasions of privacy. Some Traditional
Conservatives are realizing that their values are more like Liberal values than
NeoCon values, although they find it difficult to support Democrats after
decades of opposing them.
Some Christian Conservatives are disgruntled because
Bush gives lip service to their causes just prior to elections, but has been
able to enact little of the legislation that they want. Some want to leave politics to focus on religion. Others are adopting more liberal
environmental and socially compassionate stances. They are fragmented. The 30% of the voters who still support
former President Bush’s actions may include 15% Christian Conservatives, 10%
Traditional Conservatives and 5% Libertarians.
Tea
Party Conservatives
Tea Party
Conservatives have most recently emerged.
They consisted of a varied group of mostly white people who object to
politicians who favor Wall Street over Main Street and to fiscal deficits. But they mistakenly favor Republicans over
Democrats on these issues, although some are disgusted with both parties. Many Tea Party Conservatives are Religious
Conservatives. Tea Party Conservatives
include racists and has generally been unwilling to censor them. They have divided the Republican Party by
supporting Republican candidates whose positions are against mainstream
acceptance of various social programs and whose positions alienate Hispanics
and young people against Republican candidates that believe it is unwise to
alienate the increasing number of voters in these groups.
Profit Focused
Enterprises
Business
enterprises focus upon making profits, with other values having lower
priority. Competition for profits by
managers influences them to infringe on the rights of their suppliers, employees,
customers and others, even their stockholders.
We allow them to have the same freedoms as people and regard their use
of money as an expression of their rights of free speech, such that their
powerful resources are used to unfairly influence us and our governments. They
are not a political party, but they provide primary support to Conservative
political infrastructure, candidates and office holders.
Hawks and Doves
War is the most
extreme intrusion into the freedom of those it victimizes, both combatants and
non-combatants. Hawks allow defense and war a higher value than many rights and
compassion, while Doves are unwilling to allow defense and war to infringe upon
our rights and compassion as much. There are more hawks than doves in
Both Democrats
and Republicans split between doves and hawks, but the Democrats have a higher
proportion of doves and the Republicans have a higher proportion of hawks. Fear
of foreign threats may override liberal values. So Harry Truman,
Using the ‘cold
war’ and the so-called ‘war on terrorism’ as threats, the Republicans have been
able to attract some of the votes of the Hawkish liberals. They have thus won
some elections even though there are fewer Conservatives than there are
liberals. The failure of the Vietnam War convinced people to convert from hawks
to doves. The failure of the current Iraqi War may also convince people to
convert to doves.
Comparing Conservative, Liberal and
Socialist Values
Conservatives,
Liberals and Socialists
Conservatives trust private companies and distrust governments. Socialists trust governments and distrust
private companies. Conservatives and
Socialists thus hold opposite values.
Liberals Believe that both private companies and governments offer
benefits and both may be abusive. Unlike
both Conservatives and Socialists, Liberals believe that different situations
require different responses to enable benefits and curb abuses of both the
private companies and governments that are involved.
Conservatives continually demonize Liberals by characterizing us as
Socialists. Socialists continually
demonize Liberals by characterizing us as Conservatives. Both are wrong. Paul Starr’s 2007 book, Freedom’s Power. The True Force
of Liberalism provides an excellent discussion of these differences between
Conservative, Socialist and Liberal values.
Progressives
are fearful Liberals
Most Americans
are liberals. Due to the mischaracterization and demonization of the term
‘Liberal’ by Conservatives, some Liberals are afraid to call themselves
Liberals. They call themselves
‘Progressives’ or perhaps ‘Populists’ instead of Liberals, even though they
cannot identify any way in which their values differ from our Liberal
values.
The problem is
that ‘Progressives’ and ‘Populists’ are not as well defined as ‘liberal’ in
terms of values which Americans have struggled to realize since before the
American Revolution. Thankfully, the demonization has not affected most
Liberals. ‘Liberal’ is being used by an increasing majority of them.
Teachers, local, state and federal employees and other
providers of social services are Liberals in practice, whether or not they have
applied the term to themselves. Any
provider of social services is inconsistent if they also support
uncompassionate Conservatives, who continually seek to reduce funding for
social services.
We Liberals
believe in community, equality, freedom, opportunity, rights, equity, justice,
fairness, responsibility, competence, compassion and cooperation. More simply,
we believe that we Americans constitute a community whose members have equal
opportunities and responsibilities. Our main difference from Conservatives
is that they believe that people different from themselves should have fewer
freedoms and opportunities.
We believe that our rights (freedoms and
opportunities) are only limited by the rights of others. We may disagree on the details.
For example, who are members of our American community? Are fetuses considered
to have the same rights as people? When should children have the rights held by
adults? Should fathers have the same parental rights as mothers, even before
the birth of their child? Do we include only citizens, or also legal
immigrants, or also illegal immigrants? How much should our freedom of
expression be limited when it offends others? How many rights should criminals
be forced to give up? How much should threats to our security allow us to limit
our rights?
One question is whether our compassion should focus
upon helping specific disadvantaged groups, or whether it should focus upon
changing our institutions. But this is
generally a false dichotomy. We have to
administer first aid to those who need help now. We also have to find what is causing their
injuries and prevent it. Being competent
requires both short and long term solutions.
Liberals have provided both. Conservatives have generally opposed
both. For example, they opposed giving
poverty program money to the poor (because it motivates them to stay poor) and
opposed hiring counselors and others to help the poor become more self
sufficient because the money didn’t go directly to the poor.
Responding to Conservative Attacks
Instead of defending their own values and policies,
Conservatives typically prefer to attack Liberals. They use such epitaphs as extremist, elitist,
representing special interests, socialistic, and weak in defending our nation
from violence. We should not respond
defensively as whinny victims. We should respond aggressively as proud
mainstream Liberals.
We
Liberals are mainstream. We
represent the best of our American traditions expressed by our declaration of
independence; constitution; and victorious struggles to abolish slavery,
protect farmers and other workers from railroad and other trusts, protect
consumers from unsafe products, guarantee the rights of women to vote and own
property, provide safety nets to protect people from economic cycles and other
misfortunes, eliminate legal discrimination against blacks and other
minorities, provide opportunities for our poor, provide equal freedoms and
opportunities for all people of whatever sexual orientation, and provide legal
pathways for immigrants to obtain work in our United States. Public opinion polls show that a majority of
Americans agree with our liberal values of liberty, equality, responsibility
and community.
We are not elitist.
Just compare the composition of the delegates to the 2004 Democratic and
Republican Conventions. We are inclusive, including all of the
various groups cited above, whom the conservatives have attempted exclude from
rights (freedoms and opportunities) enjoyed by the rest of us. As liberals, we support the public interest which consists in enhancing freedoms
and opportunities for all, and especially people who have fewer freedoms and
opportunities for the rest of us. The
conservatives are the ones who support special interests by corruptly granting
huge benefits to the powerful and wealthy.
Unfortunately some liberal supporters do have special
interests which they demand our liberal politicians cater to in return for
their support. Some examples are labor
union protection of their health care benefits has been a major obstacle to
securing universal health coverage; automobile workers have joined their
employers in resisting raising vehicle mileage standards; teachers and other
public employees have sometimes placed a high priority on job security at the
expense of competence; senior citizens have resisted taxation of social
security benefits even for wealthy seniors.
Legislators whether Liberal or Conservative vote themselves benefits far
beyond those they provide to their constituents and exempt themselves from laws
that apply to others. Catering to these
demands is not liberal and should be strongly resisted. Loyalty
to our friends and supporters should not extend to allowing them to take
advantage of others.
We
support competence by people, by government and by companies. We believe that within their capabilities,
people should be self-supporting and supportive of others. We want to provide help to people who are
attempting to help themselves. We find
it difficult to help people who irresponsibly refuse to do their share. With limited resources, we want to help
others where our help will make a difference.
In so far as our institutions reward those who help themselves, we don’t
want to help others who don’t need our help.
Nor to we want to waste our resources trying to help those who refuse to
be helped. We recognize that it is often
difficult to distinguish who belongs in which triage category.
We
have always supported free private and public enterprise,
only resisting the capitalist premise that the only bottom line is that top
decisions should be made by and returns from production mostly accrue to the
providers of capital. We believe that
where necessary to stop external costs imposed by unfair, unsafe and polluting
practices upon workers, consumers, suppliers and others, effective regulations
should be imposed. We also believe that
powerful businesses should be stopped from corrupting legislators through
lobbying and campaign donations to obtain benefits at the expense of our
public.
We believe that our past Bush administration and
Republican-controlled congress was deceptive, corrupt and incompetent, beliefs
now shared by 2/3rds of Americans. We strongly favor open transparency in
government, competence for both our people and our government and honesty.
We believe in strongly
defending our country against violence, including finding cures for
diseases, protection from drunk drivers, reducing the availability of guns
primarily used for crime, effective responses to natural disasters, and attacks
by domestic and foreign terrorists. We
believe that such treats should be countered legally through research and
police action, with military force only rarely necessary and then conducted
through international auspices. We
believe that these threats should not be used as an excuse for extra-legal or
legal extreme government secrecy, invasion of personal privacy, unnecessary
military procurement of weapons suited only to conducting wars against
non-existing technologically advanced militarily powerful enemies, or for
partisan attacks on the loyalty of opposition politicians. We strongly believe in strengthening our
police and other first responder resources.
Following George Lakoff’s suggestions, we should not
accept conservative framing of discussions, including their using such terms as
moral majority (when conservatives represent neither), liberal media bias
(which is demonstratively not true), socialized medicine, death tax (which is
really a tax upon inherited unearned large wealth, much of which escapes
taxation anyway through using original values without capital gains), reform
(which often means lowering taxes and increasing benefits for the powerful and
wealthy), and numerous other terms.
Instead, we should continually refer to our mainstream
liberal values, inclusiveness, our general welfare, competence and compassion,
cost-controlled Medicare for all, birth tax (which is the amount of per capita
federal tax faced by every newborn) and similar terms which accurately portray
our values.
We should aggressively promote our beliefs while
disclosing the deceptive attacks and frequent hypocrisy of our opponents. We Liberals should be Happy Warriors. Let
Conservatives be Whinny Victims.
Winning Election Strategies, including People-Powered
Politics
Most liberals were disgusted by the outcome of the
2000 presidential election. Instead of
running on the peace and prosperity produced by the Clinton-Gore
administration, Gore offered numerous small programs to benefit specific voting
audiences. As a result, Bush was able to
run against Gore’s big government programs instead of having to present his own
programs. With more money, better
organization and more committed religious conservatives, Bush was able to win
enough states that chicanery in
We liberals were even more shocked in 2004 to see Bush
win not only the electoral, but also the popular vote. How could this occur when polls show that a
majority of voters prefer Democratic Party positions on the issues? How could so many voters vote against their
own interests? Many analyses have
occurred, suggesting the following.
John Kerry and other Democrats never attacked
Republicans, so they were forced to spend their energy defending
themselves. It is necessary to play both
offense and defense. Democrats do not
unite to express shared slogans and messages, as the Republicans do so well.
More generally, democrats have not clearly expressed
our values from which they derive their political policies and actions. We have substituted policy statements for
narratives which illustrate our values, challenges and policies. We have not clearly identified our
differences from conservatives. Nor have
we attacked conservative values, beliefs and actions. Instead of finding and expressing the broad
themes on which we agree, we have endlessly debated over details. We have let single issue groups influence us
to take dogmatic stands over details that alienate voters.
Nine Strategic Principles
The following strategic
principles for winning elections and governing have best been described by
Markos Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong in their 2006 book, Crashing the Gate. Netroots, Grassroots and the Rise of People-Powered
Politics. These strategic principles
are particularly relevant to winning in our upcoming fall elections.
1.
Contest races high and low everywhere all the time, thus forcing Conservatives to spend money and effort
defending their candidates everywhere instead of being able to divert money and
effort from uncontested races to contested ones. Howard Dean has promoted and
implemented this strategy In opposition to the Democratic establishment’s
losing strategy of narrowing the number of contested races.
This
strategy mobilizes Liberal voters to both vote and engage in additional
political activities. It produces
candidates for many lesser offices, forming a farm team of politically
experienced and recognized Liberal candidates for higher offices.
2.
Encourage
candidates to use the Netroots to raise money and volunteers to canvass and identify likely Democratic
voters, instead of relying on large donors which require candidates to use
consultants who benefit from spending campaign funds on purchasing
commercials. The result is mobilized
Democratic voters instead of wasted campaign funds. This strategy was successfully pioneered by
Paul Wellstone and Howard Dean. Paul
Wellstone expresses this well in his 2001 book, The Conscience of a Liberal.
Reclaiming the Compassionate Agenda
3.
Continually maintain databases of likely Democratic
voters. Continually canvass to add more likely
Democratic voters to databases.
Continually provide information
to identified likely Democratic voters about extreme views of Conservative
candidates and potential candidates (See strategy #5).
This strategy
and strategy #5 was used successfully by a Liberal coalition in Colorado before
the 2006 elections.
The
first three strategies provide for continuous political activity, with
opportunities for likely Democratic voters to become politically active beyond
simply voting and provide for cumulatively improving databases and continuing
exposure of Conservative candidates and potential Conservative candidates.
4.
Candidates should
also use the Netroots to enable supporters to form their own groups and actively
create new strategies and tactics for improving their campaigns. This strategy was pioneered by Joe Trippi as
part of Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign, described in his 2004 book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Democracy, the Internet and the Overthrow of Everything. This strategy was improved by Barack Obama’s
presidential campaign.
5.
Just as
Conservatives have successfully put Liberal candidates on the defensive, research Conservative candidates and
potential candidates and expose their extreme views which counter voters
views. Put Conservative candidates on
the defensive so that they defend themselves instead of attacking Liberal
candidates.
6.
Just as Grover
Norquist has done for Conservatives, get
various special interest groups to quit opposing candidates who differ from
them. Labor, environmental, gender
and gay rights should support candidates based upon whether these candidates
will be generally more liberal than their Conservative opponents.
This
strategy produces a greater variety of candidates who are much more Liberal
than their Conservative opponents, even though some of these candidates do not
agree with some special interest groups.
While such candidates may be more Conservative on one or several issues,
this may enable them to win in Conservative places. This strategy was used successfully by a
Liberal coalition in Colorado before the 2006 elections.
7.
Just as
Conservatives have a simple slogan, “Less
government, less regulation, less tax”, Liberals should use a simple
slogan: “More fairness for Main Street
Americans, more access to good jobs, education and health care.” Liberals should state these values simply
without making specific proposals for achieving them, so that they don’t
provide targets for Conservatives as Al Gore did in 2000. Having stated these values simply, Liberals
should attack Conservatives for opposing these values in word and deed (see
#4). Only during the last few weeks of a campaign should Liberals offer some
indication of how they would realize their values.
This
strategy has been successfully used by Liberal candidates in Montana and other
places where voters formerly simply agreed with the Conservatives simple
slogan. Barack Obama also used it in his
2008 election campaign.
8.
Just as
Republicans have done, Democrats should
be disciplined to repeatedly in unison express their values and attack
Conservatives in short easy to understand terms.
9.
Just as
Republicans have done, Democrats who win
elections should assume that they have a mandate to implement measures to achieve
their values, instead of attempting to compromise with their Republican
opponents. Abundant experience with
presidents Carter, Clinton and Obama shows that such compromises do not produce
Republican support, but only emboldens them to further oppose Democratic
measures. It is similarly inappropriate
for Democratic candidates to suggest compromises while they are running for
office.
These
last two strategies are best expressed by Ted Rall in his 2004 book Wake Up, You’re Liberal. How We Can Take America
Back from the Right. Strategy #8 is
also expressed well by Bill Scher in his 2006 book, Wait! Don’t Move to Canada. A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back
America.
Other
books recommend some of these strategies, especially clarifying and repeating our
values and attacking Conservatives for opposing them. The books include:
Paul Begala, 2002, It’s
Still the Economy, Stupid
James Carville and Paul Begala, 2006, Take It Back. Our Party, Our Country, Our
Future
Peter Beinart, 2006, The Good Fight. Why Liberals - and Only Liberals - Can Win the War on
Terror and Make America Great Again
Jared Bernstein, 2006, All Together Now. Common Sense for a Fair Economy
Earth Works Action, 2006, 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Fight the Right
Gary Hart, 2006, The
Courage of Our Convictions. A Manifesto
for Democrats
Two
books contain commentaries by many contributors, some of whom agree with some
of the strategies described above and some of whom disagree, wanting Democrats
to continue their attempts to appeal to Republican voters:
Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians (eds), 2004, What We Do Now
Don Hazen and Lakshmi Chaudhry (eds), 2005, Start Making Sense. Turning the Lessons of Election 2004 into
Winning Progressive Politics
Every
Liberal should be well acquainted with these strategies for winning elections
and should implement them, especially during our 2010 and 2012 congressional
and presidential campaigns. Dave Thomas
Election Reform
Most of us are aware of our government’s separation of
powers among our presidential, congressional and judicial branches. We also
give separate powers to our Federal Reserve and provide for the legitimacy of
separation of church, education and business from political control. These separations eliminate domination of
some arenas by others, thus allow vigorous competition within each arena.
We need also to create an Elections Commission which
independently of our political parties regulates our elections, both general
and primary elections. This Election
Commission might be entirely separate from the other separate powers, or it
might be included within our judicial branch.
To expand the choices that voters face, their interest
in voting and the well informed election results that occur, this Elections
Commission would be given the responsibility to expand the number of qualified
voters, ensure accurate vote counts increase voter choices and promote election
procedures that enable elections to accurately reflect the will of the people.
Expand Number of Qualified Voters
The Election Commission would
promote the following reforms to expand voter participation
·
‘Right to vote”
constitutional amendment
·
Universal voter
registration
·
National voting
holiday or weekend voting
·
Washington, D.C.
voting rights. This might include dividing Washington, D.C. between Maryland
and Virginia, with the result that Washington, D.C. voters would vote within
these two states.
·
Overseas voter
enfranchisement
·
Ex-felon and
prisoner enfranchisement
·
Prohibition of
voter suppression and intimidation
Ensure Accurate Vote Counts
The Election Commission would
promote the following reforms to ensure accurate vote counts, which would also
expand participation by voters who trust the election system.
·
Impartial
election officials
·
Professionalization
of election administration
·
National
elections commission
·
Require
voter-verified paper audit trail for voting equipment
·
‘Public interest’
voting equipment, designed and owned by the government
·
Long term
commitment and adequate funding for elections
·
International and
nonpartisan election observers monitoring polling places
Encourage Choices Based on More Candidates and Issues
·
To increase voter attention, shorten political campaigns by limiting
primary elections and caucuses to no more than six months before the general
election. Encourage states to hold both
primary elections and caucuses to attract both broad and intense participation.
·
Treat primary elections as of
general voter concern instead of only the concern of political parties. Publicly pay for them
and ensure that political parties can’t control them to further their special
interests. For each separate political
position, allow primary voters to vote for a candidate from any of the parties.
·
Regulate redistricting to eliminate gerrymandering to produce safe districts,
recognizing that residential patterns will still produce some safe districts
·
In order to
motivate candidates to compete in most states instead of being discouraged from
competing in districts where they are almost certain to win or almost certain
to lose, replace winner-take-all state
elections with proportional representation elections in which convention
delegates and electoral college representatives are elected from congressional
districts.
Through constitutional amendment or agreement among
the states, ensure that the candidate
that receives the most votes becomes president.
·
In order to avoid forcing voters to choose between voting for their
favorite candidate and helping a candidate they oppose or voting for a
candidate that is not their favorite choice, create instant runoff elections
(with voters expressing 2nd and
3rd choices) which allow voters to vote for their favorite
candidates. This encourages a greater
variety of candidates raising a greater variety of issues and solutions, which
engages the attention of a greater proportion of potential voters.
·
Increase the variety of candidates that can
participate in debates, so that more
issues are discussed and solutions promoted, which engages the attention of a
greater proportion of potential voters.
·
Provide for Public Campaign Financing, while limiting
Private Campaign financing.
·
Public Campaign Financing. To minimize the role of money in determining
elections, provide government funding for campaigns at local, state and federal
levels. Limit donations from other sources.
Prohibit corporate donations.
Prohibit bundling. Limit size of
individual donations. Establish limits
on spending.
·
Regulate media to maximize the exposure of a wide variety of issues and
candidates
·
Stop media
consolidation. Use antitrust laws to break up the media conglomerates
·
Break up the
cable television monopoly
·
Restore the
Fairness Doctrine
·
Establish a more
robust public television and radio sector to counter balance the corporate
media
·
Protect and
expand community broadband internet access
·
Subsidize daily
newspapers and magazines, increase ‘civic literacy’, establish daily newspaper
reading in classrooms to get students in the habit of reading the news
·
Demand that media provide free exposure to a wide variety of candidates.
Democratizing Our Government
The
election reforms described above will increase voter interest, participation
and provide that election results are based upon more information and
choices. But additional reforms are
necessary to ensure that our government officials respond to election results.
Direct Election of the President
·
Take intermediate
steps toward a national direct election:
·
Each state passes
a law to use instant runoff voting for its presidential election
·
Each state passes
a law to use a proportional allocation of electors, instead of winner-take-all
·
States cosign a
treaty awarding their electors to the winner of the national popular vote
·
Pass a
constitutional amendment creating a national direct election for president
using a majority requirement (elected by instant runoff voting)
Overhaul the U.S. Senate
·
Make the senate
closer to ‘one person, one vote’ by allocating more senators to high population
states
·
Reduce the powers
of the senate, especially powers of confirmation of judicial appointments and
give them to the house, or
·
Change to rules
of the senate to eliminate the ability of one of a few senators to stop
legislation and appointments and eliminate the need for supermajorities to pass
legislation.
·
Abolish the
Senate and create a unicameral congress, such as Nebraska’s unicameral state
legislature
Reform the Supreme Court
·
Set judicial term
limits of 15 year terms with no reappointment
·
Establish a
mandatory retirement age of 70 to 75 years old
·
Set higher
confirmation thresholds, 60 percent or two-thirds
·
Disperse the
power of the chief justice, separate the jobs of administration from
adjudication
·
Prohibit the
chief justice from lobbying elected leaders about any pending legislation
unless it is related to the operations of the federal judicial bureaucracy
·
Encourage
transparency—expose the chief justice’s administrative power
Reform Special Interest Lobbying
Reducing the inordinate
influence of rich and powerful industries, corporations and individuals upon
our legislative and executive officials is necessary to reorient these
officials toward our common welfare as expressed by the will of the voters,
reduce wasteful corrupt subsidies and public expenditures and eliminate
monopoly power which increases consumer costs.
Giant subsidies would not be given to highly profitable oil companies,
giant agro-businesses. Agricultural
Industries could not obtain quotas and other protections from fair competition,
nor compete unfairly in less developed countries. Media companies should have to pay for their
use of our airwaves. These are only a
few examples of rampant corruption that could be stopped with great savings to
American taxpayers and consumers.
The following reforms are
needed:
·
Corporations are
very dissimilar from people (more power, less morality). Legally recognize that corporations should
not have the same rights as people.
·
Corporations
should be chartered at local, state, nation or international levels depending
upon the range of their activities.
·
Corporate
charters should specify their specific limited purposes and the composition of
their governance to protect others from externalities. They should be accountable and subject to
penalties (including dissolution) if they fail to perform in accordance with
their purposes or negatively affect others.
·
Corporations
should not have rights of privacy from public inspection.
·
Corporations
should not have free speech rights. Much
of their misleading advertising which encourages consumption that is both
individually and environmentally dangerous should be disallowed.
·
Corporations
should not have the right to lobby government.
European countries don’t grant them this right.
·
Money is not
speech. It is much more concentrated,
such that allowing large private campaign contributions reduces free speech for
the majority.
Like
Republicans, Democrats Should Play Rough
Conservatives
have always played rough, using reconciliation procedures when necessary to
pass measures such as tax cuts and military expenditures that they favor. And imposing sanctions upon Republican
congress members who deviate from their agenda.
As Colorado Democrats have shown, playing rough can also be to our
advantage. Colorado Democrats changed
Colorado from having predominantly Republican state and national office holders
to having predominantly Democratic ones.
Instead
of making drastic compromises in an attempt to defeat filibusters, Democrats
should craft their reforms to use reconciliation procedures. In particular, we should use reconciliation
procedures to impose taxes and fees on Wall Street speculators and other high
income earners to both curb speculative bubbles and to provide lower fiscal
deficits. Democrats should refute and
not be deterred by false Republican claims that these tax increases would harm
job creation, just as President Clinton’s tax increases on the very wealthy did
not harm job creation or keep federal deficits from decreasing.
In
addition, the Obama Administration should reward Democratic congress members
who support reconciliation measures to increase taxes on the wealthy by helping
them raise campaign funds and in other ways.
It should refuse to reward and even punish those congress members who do
not support such members, even removing them for chairmanships of congressional
committees and sub-committees. Even if a
few of these recalcitrant Democrats later lose to Republicans, converting some
of them to supporting the reconciliation will be worthwhile. Like the Republicans, Democrats should impose
discipline upon their members.
Fiscal
Responsibility
The
Obama Administration should recognize that we need to replace our Borrow, Consume and Speculate mindset
and practices with government regulated Earn,
Conserve and Invest mindset and practices, similar to those that existed
during 25 years following World War II.
Toward this vision, the Obama should use reconciliation procedures to
adopt the following fiscally responsible measures which will reduce our
deficits, reduce speculation and provide revenues for stimulating creation of
well paying jobs.
These
measures qualify for reconciliation procedures through providing increased
government revenues. By adopting one or
several per week, they would present a moving target that is difficult for
Conservatives and Wall Street lobbyists to focus their opposition against. Alternatively, it may be better to rapidly
adopt them all in a single bill which presents so many targets that the
opposition will find it difficult to focus on one or a few.
1.
Enable people to
use their savings to purchase extra social security retirement benefits. Lowers a projected 1.34 trillion budget
deficit by unspecified amount, as funds are unused until they are paid out when
the people retire. Provides an
alternative to using savings to speculate in stocks.
2.
Tax financial
transactions. Lowers $1.34 trillion
budget deficit by $100 billion per year to $1.24 trillion. Taxing
financial transactions is particularly important because it would both produce revenue and reduce speculation. If 90% of stockholders quit owning stocks,
the stock market would still perform its function of enabling investors to cash
out their gains. Note that during the 25
years following World War II, very few Americans owned stocks as the stock
market performed its necessary function.
While the price of stocks would fall at first, they would stabilize at a
level that appropriately rewards investors, but not a speculative bubble level.
3.
Charge large
Financial Corporations a Financial
Crisis Responsibility Fee to raise $117 billion. Lowers budget deficit to $1.123
trillion. Dean Baker has suggested the
fee could be 4 times as large as proposed by President Obama. For more.
4. Repeal tax breaks for households with annual incomes
over $250,000: Lowers budget deficit by $43 billion per year to $$1.08
trillion.
5. Eliminate the tax preference for capital gains and
dividends: Lowers budget deficit by $80 billion per year to $1.0 trillion.
6. Levy a progressive estate tax on large fortunes:
Lowers budget deficit by $40-60 billion per year to $950 billion.
7. Establish a new higher tax rate on extremely high
incomes: Lowers budget deficit by $60-70 billion per year to $885 billion.
8. End overseas tax havens: Lowers budget deficit by $100
billion per year to $775 billion.
9. Eliminate subsidies for excessive executive
compensation: Lowers budget deficit by $18 billion per year to $757 billion.
10. Eliminate tax free employer provided health benefits:
lowers budget deficit by $185 billion per year to $572 billion.
11. Eliminate home mortgage interest deduction: lowers
budget deficit by $129 billion per year to $443 billion.
12. Eliminate 401(k) plans: lowers budget deficit by $69
billion per year to $373 billion.
13. Eliminate charitable donations deduction: lowers
budget deficit by $55 billion per year to $318 billion.
14. Eliminate state and local tax deduction: lowers budget
deficit by $54 billion per year to $264 billion.
15. Eliminate capital gains exclusion on home sales:
lowers budget deficit by $47 billion per year to $217 billion.
Even if some limits are placed, such as only eliminating home mortgage
interest deduction on second homes and mortgage interest over a limited amount,
the result is a deficit that is significantly smaller than past deficits. The resulting deficit can be farther reduced
by eliminating wasteful subsidies and spending relative to our military,
agriculture, pharmaceuticals, private health insurers, etc. One
example is to eliminate the huge profits that medical equipment makers are
making by selling motorized wheel chairs.
It is thus possible to stimulate creation of Main Street jobs while
maintaining fiscal responsibility. For
more. For
more.
Note that these measures only affect Wall Street speculators and high
income earners in the top few percentage brackets, not medium and low income
earners, unless they participate in speculation.
Spending hundreds of billions for stimulating job creation would still
leave relatively modest deficits, less than occurred during President Bush’s
last year. Priorities for stimulating
job creation might include a program to hire young people similar to
Roosevelt’s WPA program and funding education to save teaching jobs and ensure
students are served according to their needs.
Dave Thomas
Conservatives are wrong when they say that raising
taxes on corporations will just be passed on to low income consumers. Corporations can raise prices to the same
extent regardless of whether they are taxed.
For
more.
Regulating Wall Street Speculation
The
Financial Reform Bill as amended in the conference committee fails to
adequately include the following measures which are necessary to prevent
another bubble from forming and at least threatening to collapse:
·
Breaking Up ‘too
big to fail’ financial companies
·
Taxing Financial
Transactions
·
Prohibiting
speculation using taxpayer and other short term money
·
Eliminating Naked
Derivatives, including hedges against penalties for fraudulent behavior.
Without
these measures, much money which could be used to create Main Street jobs will
be directed toward creating a bubble, even if government action curtails the bubble
before it collapses. Without using more
money to create jobs, Democrats may lose congressional seats, such that our
economy will go further in direction of the failed President Bush economy.
The Financial Reform Bill as
amended in the conference committee appears to be better than the weak bill
which passed the Senate. I watched the
conference committee deliberations on C-Span and found them so technical that I
couldn’t understand how good they are.
The amended bill includes:
·
An audit of Federal Reserve’s bailout spending
to reveal how much was given to which companies.
·
A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in
the Federal Reserve, which comprehensively regulates mortgages, student loans,
credit cards and payday loans.
·
Regulating mortgages and mortgage-based securities, including:
·
Banning
fraudulent loans
·
Banning bonuses
for those who make and approve loans based upon the types of loans they make
·
Requiring lenders
to inform borrowers the maximum they would pay on adjustable rate mortgages
·
Banning penalties
for borrowers who prepay their loans
·
Requiring lenders
to retain 5% of securities which they form, so that they share the risk of
securities containing mortgages which will not be paid
·
Reinstating a modified Glass-Steagall Act which prohibits financial agencies which accept short
term deposits from speculating.
Different types of financial agencies would be regulated separately by
different departments coordinated within one agency to assure coordinated regulation
and enforcement, such that companies couldn’t change their form to reduce
regulation. Paul Volcker
is dissatisfied with the result.
·
Regulating derivatives, including banning banks with federally guaranteed
depositors from forming naked derivatives, but it is unclear how much this will
eliminate naked derivatives. For
more.
·
A ten member Council of Regulators led by the Treasury Secretary to monitor the
financial system for major risks. It
could liquidate companies which it decides are so big or so interconnected that
their failure could imperil the broader economy, with the costs being paid by
other financial companies instead of our government. There
is no reason to assume that a Federal Services Oversight Council will detect
and prevent future bubbles any better than the Federal Reserve did to
detect and prevent the housing-credit bubble that we just experienced.
It
provides shareholders the right to comment on payments to managers and
salespersons, but the decision makers do not need to heed the comments.
The
following are commentaries on the amended conference bill. For
more. For
more. For
more. For
more.
Unfortunately,
the financial reform bill does not immediately break up ‘too big to fail’
megabanks to stop bubbles from forming, but only acts after the bubble has
reached a perilous stage.
It
also studies, but does not eliminate the conflicts of interest which motivated
rating agencies to give securities unwarranted high ratings, thus deceiving
purchasers of these securities.
It
also does not include a tax on financial transactions which would reduce Wall
Street speculation and produce revenue to reduce our federal deficit.
In his weekly address, President
Obama praised the financial reform bill and asked for its passage. But while Representative Barney Frank
attempted to toughen the regulations, President Obama and Senator Christopher
Dodd attempted to weaken them. Senator Russ Feingold
opposes the financial reform bill because it won’t stop new bubbles from
occurring. For
more. Wall
Street speculators made large contributions to members of House Financial
Services Committee. I believe this
is a worthwhile but seriously flawed reform measure, which I wish had been
passed a year ago and which I hope will be strengthened in the future. Dave Thomas
What President
Obama Needs to Do
President Obama should act
more like President Roosevelt. He should not include Wall Street
speculators among his cabinet and close advisors. He should consult instead with those who early
identified the housing-credit bubble and predicted its collapse.
President Obama should
recognize that the future economy must not include extensive Borrowing, Consuming and Speculating. Instead it must return to the Earning, Conserving and Investing
economy similar to that which followed Roosevelt’s reforms.
I am disgusted that President
Obama and many Democrats who are otherwise Liberal have accepted two obviously
false Conservative claims:
·
Conservatives claim that increasing taxes on Wall
Street speculators and other high income and wealthy people will harm job
growth.
In 1964.
When President Kennedy reduced top income tax rates to 70% in 1964, job growth
followed. Conservatives claim that this
proves that lower taxes stimulate job growth.
It only proves that top income tax rates of 70% are not harmful to job
growth.
When
President Clinton increased taxes on high income people in 1993, Conservatives
predicted that it would cause an increase in unemployment. Instead a great increase in employment
followed.
When
President Bush decreased taxes on high income people in 2001 and 2003, he
predicted that this would stimulate job growth.
Instead job growth was significantly less than occurred after other
recessions.
Conservatives
believe high income and wealthy people who receive tax cuts will invest it to
create jobs. But there is no evidence of
this. They instead use their high incomes
for luxury consumption and for speculation.
Taxes
should be increased on high income and wealthy people should be increased from
current levels because these people have not paid their fair share to maintain
and enhance the social and physical infrastructure developed by previous
generations that enabled them to obtain their wealth. Higher taxes are simply recovering unearned
income.
Recovering
this unearned income reduces our federal deficits, to enable fiscally
responsible spending to stimulate job creation.
·
Wall Street speculation (including the use of naked
derivatives and derivatives which hedge against the failure of fraudulent
securities) helps the economy.
Wall
Street speculation does not assist our economy.
It uses money which could create jobs to gamble with the costs paid by
Main Street depositors and the benefits accruing only to speculators.
President Obama should
·
Increase taxes on
Wall Street speculators and high income earners to inhibit their speculation
and provide fiscal responsibility
·
Enabling more
money to be spent on job creation, including:
·
Support of
education to maintain teaching jobs
·
Stimulation of
private jobs (including maintaining our infrastructure, conserving energy and
implementing non-carbon based energy)
·
Creating WPA type
public jobs for young job seekers, who are less encumbered by mortgage and
other costs.
President Obama should also
promote creation of fair paying jobs through:
·
Encouraging state
and local governments to adopt best practices such as encouraging successful
entrepreneurs to advise would be entrepreneurs
·
Encouraging
individuals to reduce their relationships with Wall Street Mega-banks,
switching their savings to local banks and credit unions which lend to
entrepreneurs.
·
Establishing at
BP expense, wetland and beach reclamation and enhancement unionized companies
which hire Caribbean workers whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the BP
oil leak.
·
Greatly
increasing penalties and their enforcement against companies and individuals
who illegally resist unionization, such that more unionization occurs which
forces fair earnings.
If President Obama implements these
measures, his change will be the ‘change that people can believe in’ that was
the basis of his campaign to become president.
Without such implementation, Wall Street speculation and fiscal
irresponsibility will continue. This will fuel Tea Party Conservatives and others who
blame President Obama for fiscal irresponsibility and for siding with Wall
Street speculators against Main Street job seekers. It will assist Republicans to gain
congressional seats, making it even more difficult to achieve fiscal
responsibility or Main Street jobs.