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March 24, 2008

Notes from the Take Back America

Conference
By Joan Brunwasser

At the very least, the Take Back America (TBA) conference was an effective antidote to
winter, the remnants of the flu, customary cynicism and a desperate desire to burrow
into my flannel-sheeted haven and wait until the coast is clear. Mothers of a certain
age will understand me perfectly when I say that I had finally hit that invisible wall
which stands between that maddeningly endless lists of things to do and the last straw.
Wham! “I’ve had it!” my body declared, and responded by shutting down for a bit, thus
allowing me to take a much needed time out. Some days later, I emerged like a mole,
blinking against the sudden light, winded but ready to jump back into the fray.
Last week, more than fifteen hundred progressives descended on the nation’s capital
for TBA’s sixth annual get-together, my third. No longer a newbie, I navigated the route
from lodgings to hotel with ease and was no longer paralyzed by rooms full of
hundreds of unfamiliar faces. Nevertheless, there was a distinct sense of disappearing
down a rabbit hole, a day at a time. Sessions started early and ended late, sunlight was
a rare commodity, and the winding corridors and numerous stairways appearing at
random further contributed to the image.
This year’s conference differed from the other two that I attended in that the emphasis
was not on the candidates. A year ago, there was a full field and each and every one of
them spoke before us. It was an efficient way to compare and contrast their style and
content. This time, the sessions zeroed in on our goals for the near future and were
characterized by a notable degree of passion and energy.
Articulate Economists
One pleasant surprise was that the economists presenting spoke so clearly that I
understood exactly where we are and how we got there. It was partially a sign of their
expertise, aided perhaps by how extremely grim our situation is. I’m going to spend a
little time on those two sessions because I’m betting that at least some of you are like
me, and your eyes glaze over when someone starts throwing figures and esoteric
concepts at you, often in a pedantic and off-putting manner. My experience at TBA was
entirely different and very refreshing. It was reassuring to learn that I am capable of
understanding the principles of economics, if the expert takes the trouble to explain
properly. The first session dealt with the housing bust. Dean Baker of the Center for
Economic Policy Research excoriated Alan Greenspan as “Villain #1” in the debacle.
Not only was the housing bubble’s bursting predictable, it was predicted. I actually
know this to be true because the twenty-something son of friends of mine has a
http://davidlereahwatch.blogspot.com/">blog on the subject and has been predicting
the end for many months, if not years. His reporting was picked up by the mainstream
media but apparently not by Greenspan, Bernacke and the rest of these so-called
experts.
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First, Baker laid out the arguments that Greenspan made in 2002 to convince us that
we were not in a housing bubble. Then, Baker demonstrated their patent falseness with
a simple look at statistics - purported population boom, income growth, and
environmental restrictions. The economists followed guru Greenspan’s lead, urging the
public to just “trust the experts.” The unwise nature of placing our trust in so called
experts is now playing out with drastic ramifications. The $8 trillion loss of housing
wealth nationwide is not a figure picked at random. It is based on an average of
$110,000 per home owner.
No Bail Out!
Baker urged us not to reward those who led us off the cliff - making boatloads of
moolah while the bubble lasted, and leaving us, like jilted lovers, with nothing but
empty promises. He cited a similar situation in the UK - when the “Northern Rock” Bank
went belly-up because of its speculation in sub prime mortgages. It was taken over by
the British government, which kept the bank running but kicked management out. The
neo-liberals in DC and Wall St. simply didn’t know what they were doing - and they
shouldn’t be able to walk away unscathed while two million homeowners face
foreclosure and family upheaval. That’s not radical; it sounds like common sense to
me.
Baker encouraged us to see the falling dollar as a positive sign. No matter what,
adjusting to this economic disaster is going to be painful, the only question how long it
will take to bottom out. A falling dollar can get American manufacturing back on track
making our goods more attractive to foreign buyers as well as bringing down our trade
balance.
This bubble-bust-bubble-bust cycle which started with the dot coms, then the stock
market, and now the home mortgages is an unhealthy economic syndrome. I now
understand that what Baker calls “bubble-driven growth” is a no-no, because it allows
speculators to make out like bandits while many individuals, families, union and state
pension funds, and our entire economy suffer the consequences. Doing away with bank
regulation over Clinton’s veto has been an unmitigated disaster for the country and
this is but the latest evidence.
The session on “Bushed: conservative failure and the danger the legacy lives on”
featured another articulate economist, Jared Bernstein. His powerpoint graphs and
charts offered clear proof that the conservative fiscal policy has not worked. YOYO
economics (You’re On Your Own) have led to an economic stratification resembling
1929 right before the Crash and the Great Depression. At that time, the top 1% had
24% of national wealth; the rate is now pegged at an eerily similar 23%. Looking at
other markers like hourly wage trends and job growth further illustrates how median
family income has not recovered since 2000, making it the first economic recovery
since the ‘40s where the middle class did not resume its former level of prosperity. This
chart illustrates what the concentration of wealth in a thin upper crust looks like in
simple numbers. Some 2007 data to contemplate:
$54,302 average income
$30,374 bottom 90% average income
$210,597 average income for the top 5%
$29,638,027 average income for the top .01%
”Unregulated markets derail.” A simple statement, this is not news. Here, Bernstein
echoed Dean Baker at the earlier session. We learned this lesson from the Great
Depression. Leaving all financial matters to a Wild West mentality is both inefficient
and destructive. We must clean up the mess the lack of regulations has allowed. It’s
like leaving a bunch of five year olds unsupervised and being surprised when they
trash your house.
Bernstein recipe for recovery:
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-Restore public faith in government by electing WITTs (We’re In This

Together) rather than YOYOs (You’re On Your Own)
-Get our fiscal house in order by making major reforms, rather than
trying to tinker around the edges
-Repeat pattern above as needed until shared prosperity is achieved
Other Progressive Issues
Other sessions dealt with global warming while using the crisis to create employment
opportunities. While it is clear that the federal government needs to jump in with both
feet and make this a clear priority, local communities, cities, states, and coalitions of
states have not been standing around holding their collective breath. They have
launched a series of ambitious and impressive initiatives, many of which can serve as
models for replication on a grander scale. Majora Carter, South Bronx activist and
recipient of the MacArthur genius award, has put her energy and imagination into
revitalizing her blighted neighborhood, breaking the cycle where race and economic
status determine quality of life, air, and the presence or absence of greenery. Her
mentor, Oakland-based environmental leader Van Jones, has most recently been
working with the Apollo Alliance to promote a nationwide “green-collar jobs” initiative
that will benefit the most poverty stricken neighborhoods. He and Majora have joined
forces and the combined energy and commitment that they bring to countering global
warming while simultaneously solving social and economic inequities is as impressive
as it is commendable.
Minority voters are courted and mobilized during election years, their participation
often playing a large role in a candidate’s victory or loss. But, after the votes have
been counted, recognition of their contribution and concerns customarily recedes until
the next cycle begins. Attention is belatedly being paid to breaking that pattern -
creating an enduring infrastructure that remains in place, that builds upon itself, that
listens to voters’ needs and concerns and doesn’t take anyone for granted. Democrats,
or at least this group of progressive Democrats, are getting more organized and
becoming more inclusive in the process. This convention seemed to emphasize greater
participation by people of color. Likewise, there was a tacit acknowledgment of the role
the youth vote plays, with more sessions on this aspect of the political process than in
the past.
Universal health care, kick starting the economy, rebuilding unions and the middle
class, ending the war, achieving social and economic justice were once pretty much
the exclusive province of the progressive movement. But activists pushed and talked
and pushed some more and these are now mainstream values, absorbed by the more
centrist candidates themselves.
TBA’s Recipes for Success: Some Examples
Energize, mobilize, join together. These were the themes of this conference. Many
speakers hailed this as a historic opportunity to toss out a broken system, an
unworkable ideology. John McCain has rapidly morphed from maverick to Bush clone,
mimicking his economic wrongheadedness as much as his foreign policy. And all this
while pandering shamelessly to the Religious Right. Before McCain’s emergence as top
dog of the GOP, the other contenders likewise distinguished themselves by being
indistinguishable from a president with the lowest approval ratings in our nation’s
history. Talk about sheep chasing one another over a cliff!
Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood comes by her vision of justice and
equality rightly. She is the daughter of former Texas Governor, Ann Richards. After
laying out some of Planned Parenthood’s achievement - among them, giving health
care to five million women last year - she sternly shunned applause with a big caveat.
Don’t think that any of these actions matter, she warned, if the next president appoints
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another conservative to the Supreme Court. Her words resonated with the crowd and
underscored how much remains to be done.
Anna Burger is chair of Change to Win, a joint effort of SEIU and six other major unions
which together represent more than six million workers. They have successfully worked
to mobilize and get out the vote to elect pro-worker candidates in the last several
election cycles. She told the haunting story of a woman who joined her in promoting
universal health care by going door to door. Anna asked her why she was involved. Her
adult son apprenticed to be a plumber and was now working in his field but was
worried about his lack of health coverage. She was mobilizing public opinion out of a
concern for him. Subsequently, Anna learned that the woman’s son joined the National
Guard to receive health insurance. He reassured his mother, however, that the
recruiter had promised that he would not be sent to Iraq. Victim of one more promise
that was not kept, her son is now overseas. As Burger poignantly put it: “No one should
have to join the National Guard to get health insurance.”
Burger also touched on the concept of accountability - how candidates so often know
the right thing to say while campaigning, but once elected, suddenly develop selective
amnesia about their promises. Change to Win has developed a program of exposing
elected officials’ records - their votes and their policies - so that they can no longer
hide their positions from their constituents. If your elected official no longer represents
your views, she urges you to find candidates to challenge them, or run yourself. “Take
them on or take them out.” Change to Win is making this possible.
Democrats traditionally have taken a perverse pride in their reputation for
independence, for shunning cooperation. The image that comes to mind is trying to
herd a roomful of cats. The Republicans are certainly infinitely more disciplined. Just
listen to their robotic, lockstep repetition of Talking Points. They’ve systematically
spent hundreds of millions of dollars since Goldwater’s defeat to build an infrastructure
of think tanks and media outlets that have pushed a message and an agenda with
frightful success.
Democrats may be belatedly understanding the need to coalesce and do what’s
necessary to take back America. Every election cycle, we bemoan that so much is at
stake. If you doubt it this time, think Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade, endless war. The
alternative is truly frightening. Simple awareness of that fact should be enough to
galvanize people into action. Almost 2000 years ago, in Ethics of the Fathers, Rabbi
Tarfon pointed out: "It is not up to you to complete the work [of perfecting the world],
but neither are you at liberty to desist from it." More recently, Yogi Berra said, “The
game isn’t over until it’s over.” In other words, let’s get crackin’; there’s a lot to do and
no time to lose.
Authors Bio: Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER)
which exists for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for
election reform. We aim to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where
votes are cast in private and counted in public. Electronic (computerized) voting
systems are simply antithetical to democratic principles.
CER set up a lending library to achieve the widespread distribution of the DVD Invisible
Ballots: A temptation for electronic vote fraud. Within eighteen months, the project had
distributed over 3200 copies across the country and beyond. CER now concentrates on
group showings, OpEd pieces, articles, reviews, interviews, discussion sessions,
networking, conferences, anything that promotes awareness of this critical problem.
Joan has been Voting Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005.