Save Our Schools Now.mov

Published on Tuesday, March 8, 2011 by RobertReich.org

The Birth of the People’s Party?

by Robert Reich

Look at the outrage in Madison, Wisconsin. Look at the crowds in DesMoines, Iowa. Look at the demonstrations in Indiana and Ohio and elsewhere around America.

Hear what they’re saying: Stop attacking unions. Stop making scapegoats out of public employees. Stop protecting the super-rich from paying their fair share of the taxes needed to keep our schools running.

Stop gutting the working middle class.

Are we finally seeing average Americans stand up and demand a fair shake in an economy now grotesquely tilted toward the wealthy and the privileged? Are Americans beginning to awake to the fact that our economy now delivers a larger share of total income to the very top than at any time in living memory? That big corporations are making more money and creating more jobs abroad than in the United States?

That this concentration of income and wealth has so corrupted politics that corporations can extort whatever they want from the government — tax breaks, loan guarantees, subsidies — while the super-rich can take most of their income as capital gains (taxed at 15 percent), and the rest at the lowest top rate in 25 years? And that because of this our kids are crowded into classrooms, our streets and highways and bridges are falling apart, and our healthcare bills are out of control?

The Tea Party grew out of indignation over the Wall Street bailout — an indignation shared by the vast majority of Americans. But the Tea Party ended up directing its ire at government rather than at big business and Wall Street. Was this because billionaires Charles and David Koch and their like funneled money to the Tea Party through front organizations like Dick Armey’s Freedom Works, and thereby co-opted it?

Now we may be seeing the birth of a genuine populist movement. Call it the People’s Party. Like the Tea Party, the People’s Party doesn’t have a clear organization or hierarchy or single address. It doesn’t have lobbyists in Washington. It’s not even yet recognized by the mainstream media.

But the People’s Party seems to be growing in numbers and in intensity. And it’s starting to push elected officials — first at the state level — to listen and respond.

© 2011 Robert Reich

Robert Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written twelve books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes.

Rhee opens office in Sacramento; Campbell responds

Note: Michele Rhee opens a lobby operation and gets a front page coverage in the Bee and a photo.  She certainly is effective at getting free media for her positions and her new agency.

Link.  http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/21/3340369/former-dc-schools-chief-to-headquarter.html

We  too have opened an educational advocacy organization with essentially the opposing views.  The Democracy and Education Institute;  link. https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/

Dr. Duane Campbell is the director. 

Starting from over 40 years of working in schools, preparing teachers and teaching, we advocate for a democratic approach to education.   Our  primary researchers have already  prepared  over 700 teachers in the Sacramento region, most of them Chicano, and over 100 educational administrators and leaders throughout the state. 

There are many  available advocacy  strategies.  However, the most important is to share and magnify teacher voices.  Politicians make bad decisions – such as the current budget cuts, or an over reliance on testing- because they are not listening to teachers voices.  Instead they are listening to paid consultants, and “experts” from the corporate establishment.

Newspaper writers and other media writers make the same mistake.  They call their favorite “source” which just happens to be a corporate promoter like Arne Duncan, Michele Rhee,  or one  of the “experts” at elite universities.  Note:  few professors in the elite universities work with  teachers.  They are several steps removed from the classroom.  You can read more about this on the blog Choosing Democracy http://www.choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com.  

The most basic  strategy is to insist on teacher participation in the development of policies.  Get the politicians and the corporate shills out of the classroom. – they have failed our children.

                       A major problem with  campaigns for a democratic approach to schooling is that most of the media and the politicians  has been sold a mindset or framework of accountability by advocates such as Michele Rhee.    Corporate sponsored  networks and “ think tanks” such as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Bradley Foundation,  the Olin Foundation, and now Rhee’s  StudentsFirst  and their access to the media is not likely to change.  The domination  of the accountability frame within the media and political circles  must be opposed.  The appointment of Arne Duncan was symptomatic of the problems.   He represents the kind of corporate/media approach to reform. Certainly  in the current battle with Arne Duncan over the "Race to the Top Funds,"  he has ceased the high ground with a claim of accountability – it’s a false claim- but it works. Education and explaining will be a constant struggle.

There are many advocacy  strategies.  However, the most important is to share and magnify teacher voices.  Politicians make bad decisions – such as the current budget cuts, or an over reliance on testing- because they are not listening to teachers voices.  Instead they are listening to paid consultants, and “experts” from the corporate establishment.

Newspaper writers and other media writers make the same mistake.  They call their favorite “source” which just happens to be a corporate promoter like Arne Duncan, Michele Rhee,  or one  of the “experts” at elite universities.  Note:  few professors in the elite universities work with  teachers.  The most basic  strategy is to insist on teacher participation in the development of policies.  Get the politicians and the corporate shills out of the classroom. – they have failed our children.

The news report says that Rhee’s first goal is to raise $1 Billion for advocacy.  Our goal is to raise $20,000 in in-kind contributions, and we already have that.

We will use public interest advocacy strategies  and to support community organizations to effect education policy. We intend to use important community resources and research such as the Robles v. California law suite and its supporters.

In the current era of draconian ( and unnecessary) school budget cuts almost all school reform efforts have ended, except for the hot air of politicians. Funded advocacy groups such as Rhee’s and  “Democrats?” for Educational Reform need to create a sense of doing something in order to raise funds from foundations and other sources.  However, they avoid the obvious. Schools need funding.  There is a reason why the avoid this topic.  The press should ask them why.

             A second ongoing project of the Institute for Democracy and Education is the development of a Chicano/Mexican American Digital History Project for the Sacramento Region.  This project is also on our web site here:

https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/chicano-mexican-american-digital-history-project

Testing and How to Destroy the United States

Interesting essay: Click on the title above to read the entire piece.

How to Destroy the United States

by zoniedude

   

Sun Mar 07, 2010 at 12:14:03 PM PDT

To destroy the United States it is first necessary to undermine the popular conception of democracy in the modern world. As long as the citizens feel they have a duty to protect democracy it will be almost impossible to destroy the United States. However, if the citizens can be convinced of the futility of democracy then there will be less opposition to its destruction. So the primary thrust of any attempt to destroy the United States must be to convince the citizenry that their democratic government is the source of their problems.

In addition, you absolutely must suppress any idealistic portrayals of democratic government. When you discredit popular democracy there must be no countervailing effort to convince citizens of the ideals of democracy. For the average citizen this is simple, but for parents of school children that are constantly reminded by their children’s schoolwork of how the struggle for democracy evolved in the United States, it can be problematic.

Thus to destroy the United States it is absolutely crucial to stop the teaching of the fundamental principles of democracy to children. At the same time, it would be helpful to destroy any knowledge of how democracy came to exist in the first place, and that would mean to stop the teaching of the American experience.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/7/843837/-How-to-Destroy-the-United-States

California Democracy Campaign

The campaign for majority rule has a new web site.

http://www.ca4democracy.com/

In the last two years California’s  k-12 schools have received over a  $16 Billion  cut back.  California presently ranks  45th  of the states in per pupil spending and last among the states in class size.  Now, the Governor proposes to reduce  k-12 spending by another  $2.4 Billion. The U.C’s and the CSU campuses have suffered over a  $2 billion cut while tuition and fees were increased over 30%.  Classes have been cut, graduation delayed, and faculty dismissed.  They must not be cut more.  We must work together to save public education.

For 2010, the Governor proposes  further draconian cuts in Cal Works, IHSS, Medi Cal and Children’s nutrition  among others-  each of which hurts the  poor in our state.   State  budget cuts make the crisis worse. They create more unemployment. The legislature must hear from us.

To respond to these cuts, California needs majority rule.  We must eliminate the 2/3 rule on budgets and revenue.  Sign the California Democracy Act initiative.

What caused this crisis?

“The reality is that we got into this mess because of an overwhelming excess of greed and stupidity on the part of the Wall Street bankers and the people deciding economic policy. “ Dean Baker.  Economist.  The bankers and finance capital caused this crisis- make them pay for it!

You Can End the Crisis in California!

Year after year our state continues its downward spiral:

financial crisis, gridlock, and the deterioration of our

public services: schools, parks, health care, public safety,

assistance for the poor, elderly, and disabled.

There’s one main reason:

Under California law, a two-thirds vote is required to pass

a budget or raise revenue. That means a minority of

legislators -- one-third plus one, in either the state Senate

or Assembly –– controls the legislature by saying no until

they get what they want. This is minority rule, not democracy.

The solution: bring democracy to California.

The Progressive Alliance has joined the California Majority Rule campaign; and we encourage you to join and work with us.

Sign up now at http://www.ca4democracy.com/

Get regular information. Make a contribution, large or small. Help gather signatures to put the  initiative on the November 2010 ballot. Join our speakers’ bureau, to speak at civic groups or to  help book speakers at events. Become an organizer. There are lots of ways for you to help!

Volunteer now!

Thank you for your participation

A Too Tall Order for Politics and Democracy

Maybe it's just me but it's hard to read Yasraf Amir Piliang, our Indonesian post-modernism guru, in Bahasa Indonesia (not that I have ever read his English pieces, too). Take his latest (seemingly Baudrillardian) op-ed here.

Basically he wrote that ideally:
#1. Political communication is to disseminate ideas, knowledge, and political enlightenment.
#2. Democratization is to build an architecture for a well-informed, ethical, and aesthetic political society.
#3. Political action is to bring virtues of goodness, nobleness, uprightness, honor, enlightenment, and authenticity.

But, he thinks, thanks to the (stupid) media, what we now in Indonesia get are:
#1. Political communication as an arena for rhetoric, parodies, and virtual political seduction.
#2. Democratization as a scheme for banality, artificiality, and electronic media virtuality based on the logic of commercial, popularity and media celebrity.
#3. Political action that brings banality, shallowness, manipulation, and mass deception.

OK, I agree that in general Indonesian media and their ill-informed press corps indeed still have to do a lot of their homework. I also could not say anything about Baudrillardian (or for that matter, any philosophical) approach on current Indonesian media practices since I know next to nothing on it. But I have to say that Yasraf Amir Piliang's ideals on political communication, democratization, and political action above are probably over the top.

I'd rather set a lower but by no mean easy metric. Political process and democratization shall hold the ruling government accountable, in a sense that they can not just make a redistributive policies go unchecked. Democracy should enable a citizen not only exit, but also voice their disapproval as well as to root for certain political affiliation (loyalty).

Yes, it's Albert O. Hirschman's insight.

Democracy's Metric

In his latest book, The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen writes:

But democracy must also be seen more generally in terms of the capacity to enrich reasoned engagement through enhancing informational availability and the feasibility of interactive discussions.

Back to current Indonesian democracy.
1. Informational availability, yes. We have various sources of information, thanks to free press, political websites, academic freedom -to mention some of information sources.
2. Interactive discussion, yes. Thanks to facebook, comment section of blogs, email threads, free electoral campaign, presidential debate, and warm warung kopi talks among ordinary folks.
3. reasoned engagement?

Many times I feel the most unreasoned too-normative arguments come from, ironically, the chattering middle class failing to fairly grasp the bigger picture and falsely believing in knowing all s@%ts --empowered by lousy journalism.

Education cuts: Sacramento Bee

This is from the Sacramento Bee editorial of today;
"Consider education spending and the way the Democrats who control the Legislature have acted over the past two weeks. Only 10 days ago, on the night of June 30, the Democrats were pushing a bill that would have cut education spending by $3 billion, or about 6 percent. When Republicans balked because they wanted those cuts to be part of a comprehensive solution to the state's massive fiscal shortfall, the bill failed, the clock struck midnight and a new fiscal year began.

Now the same cuts the Democrats were pushing cannot go into effect without a suspension of Proposition 98, the constitutional amendment that sets a floor beneath school spending. And many Democrats are saying they won't vote to suspend that measure, even to implement the very cuts they were so recently demanding.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't cut education spending, either. While there's little or no proof that more money for the schools leads to better outcomes for students, California is already well below average in per pupil funding, near the bottom of the states by some measures."

Now, lets see. California ranks 47th. of the 50 states in per pupil spending. (depending on how you count). If you use the dept. of finance figures, we rank 27th.
And, we have ranked near the bottom for decades.

Our reading scores and math scores rank about 47 -49 in the nation.
Lack of money produces results. The Governor and the legislature each year under fund the schools and they get exactly what they pay for - a low quality system.
The following is from the 4th. edition of my book, Choosing Democracy.

parochial schools have enjoyed these advantages for years.

Currently, our schools work for some students and do not work for others. As Berliner and Biddle well demonstrated in The Manufactured Crisis (1995), schools for middle class Black, Latino and European American children fundamentally fulfill their purposes. But the schools for poor African American, Latino and European American children fail. And while this failure affects all children, it disproportionately impacts the children of African Americans and Latinos. Fully half of all their children are in failing schools. In 2005 on the NAEP assessment, nationally over 58% of Black and 54% of Latino children scored below Basic in Reading levels in 4th grade (Reading Report Card of the National Center for Educational Statistics 2005). Differences in math scores are similarly stark. (See Figure 1.2) That is to say, we do not have a general education crisis in the nation, we have a crisis for Black, Latino, Asian and poor white kids. We have an unjust and unequal school system in an unjust and unequal society.

Duane Campbell

In Support of the Iranian Demonstrators

HURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2009
Open letter of support to the demonstrators in Iran!

This morning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded an end to the massive and forceful demonstrations protesting the controversial result of last week's election. He argued that to make concessions to popular demands and 'illegal' pressure would amount to a form of 'dictatorship', and he warned the protestors that they, rather than the police, would be held responsible for any further violence.
Khamenei's argument sounds familiar to anyone interested in the politics of collective action, since it appears to draw on the logic used by state authorities to oppose most of the great popular mobilisations of modern times, from 1789 in France to 1979 in Iran itself. These mobilisations took shape through a struggle to assert the principle that sovereignty rests with the people themselves, rather than with the state or its representatives. 'No government can justly claim authority', as South Africa's ANC militants put it in their Freedom Charter of 1955, 'unless it is based on the will of all the people.'
Needless to say it is up to the people of Iran to determine their own political course. Foreign observers inspired by the courage of those demonstrating in Iran this past week are nevertheless entitled to point out that a government which claims to represent the will of its people can only do so if it respects the most basic preconditions for the determination of such a will: the freedom of the people to assemble, unhindered, as an inclusive collective force; the capacity of the people, without restrictions on debate or access to information, to deliberate, decide and implement a shared course of action.
Years of foreign-sponsored 'democracy promotion' in various parts of the world have helped to spread a well-founded scepticism about civic movements which claim some sort of direct democratic legitimacy. But the principle itself remains as clear as ever: only the people themselves can determine the value of such claims. We the undersigned call on the government of Iran to take no action that might discourage such determination.
Peter Hallward
Middlesex University, UK.
Alberto Toscano
Goldsmiths College, UK.
This letter is also signed by:
Alenka Zupancic, Institute of Philosophy of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Alexander Garcia Duttmann, Goldsmiths College
Etienne Balibar, Paris X, Nanterre, and University of California, Irvine
Eyal Weizman, Director, Centre for Research Architecture, Dept. of Visual Cultures
Goldsmiths, University of London
Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley
Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor (retired), MIT, Cambridge MA USA
Philip Pettit, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
Rada Ivekovic, Prof., Collège international de philosophie, Paris.
Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the European Graduate School
Duane Campbell, Calif. State University -Sacramento
and hundreds more

And, the International Federation of Trade Unions


Iran Day of Worker Solidarity Action
Will Be Organized As Repression Continues

Brussels

The ITUC, EI, ITF and IUF today expressed their
solidarity with the many Iranian workers who have
joined the demonstrations in the streets to call for
respect for their fundamental democratic rights.
Protests for democracy in Iran, organized by trade
unions, will be held in countries around the world
tomorrow.

"The violence against those demonstrating for democracy
has left many people dead and several hundred injured.
This heavy repression of peaceful demonstrations and
lack of respect for human rights is completely
unacceptable," said ITUC General Secretary Guy Ryder.
Trade unions across the world have been appalled at the
Iranian authorities' targeting of independent trade
union action in recent years, with workers attacked and
arrested for demonstrating peacefully for workers'
rights, most recently on 1 May as they attempted to
hold a peaceful May Day rally at Laleh Park in Tehran.
Repression of fundamental rights has now intensified
and widened, with particularly violent reaction by
security forces to the many demonstrations in the wake
of the election, and the arrest of hundreds of people."

Bill Maher vs teacher unions

Real Time with Bill Maher
On the March 13, 2009 show, Bill Maher used Barack Obama’s comments on the need for school reform as a foil to launch into some extended criticism of teachers unions- This was not part of the President’s message. Unfortunately Maher seemed to be operating from Business Roundtable talking points rather than a serious analysis of the school crisis.
I have not yet been able to get the transcript.
His first claim was that union rules prevent teachers from being fired and that many teachers should be fired. He implies that problem with our schools in crisis was that administrators could not fire teachers.
Well, lets look at that. Large numbers of new teachers quit each year, almost 50% in the first 5 years of teaching. So, there is significant turn over.
And, to understand our school crisis, you need to know that there are many schools that work just fine, usually in middle class neighborhoods, and many urban schools that are crisis zones. There are few teachers fired in both parts of the system. There is a radical difference in where teachers quit. So, there does not seem to be evidence that not firing teachers makes the difference between successful and failing schools.
Where is the evidence?
Maher properly cited drop outs, as did Michael Eric Dyson as a measure of school failure. The drop out crisis is real and severe. What are the causes? Well there are many. However, note that the drop out rate between Freshmen and Seniors in college is higher than the drop out rate between Freshmen and Seniors in high school. And, the drop out or push out rate at community colleges is even higher.
So, what is the cause of the drop outs? Is it unionized teachers? No evidence has been provided.
Most cities now have a number of charter schools where teaches do not have union protection. Some of these charters are doing a good job, like the KIPP schools. The drop out rates, and the push out rates in the charter schools is parallel to the drop out rates in the public high schools. Teacher turn over, including firings, is high in these charters. Yet the achievement rates and the drop out rates are similar.

There is much more to say on this subject. But, this is a blog, not a textbook. You can read the detailed version by reading my book, Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. ( 4th edition, 2010).
While the media and the corporations argue that the schools are failing, I think it is more likely that the society has failed the schools – in particular state legislators and local governments have failed the schools.
First, we need consider the processes of schooling in the social, political, and cultural, and economic context which surrounds the school and to a significant degree controls the schools. Schools did not create and can not resolve the racial, class and gender divisions in our society. But, what schools can do is to effect individual students lives every day. Our multicultural society requires multicultural schooling. Students from all cultural and ethnic groups must succeed, and must learn to get along and to respect each other.

As my friend the late Henry Trueba said
“Education is crucial to the realization of the American dream. The reason is that it is primarily through the acquisition of knowledge and skills associated with formal education that immigrant and low-income students become empowered and a part of mainstream America. It is particularly relevant to speak of multicultural education as the kind of education that will permit Americans to become aware of “democracy at work,” realize their full potential, and live in harmony.”
This is time for a change for our society and in our schools. This generation must renew our democratic society. We face marked crises in government, politics, the economy, families, communities and in the schools. Public schools have a particular responsibility to reverse these crises and to renew our democratic society. The first mission of pubic schooling is to equip all students for the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship – and many of the schools in low income areas are presently not fulfilling this mission. If we do not solve the problems of low performing schools our democracy suffers. For our democracy to survive we need to create schools that value all of our children and encourages each of their educational achievement.

All children need a good education to participate in our democracy and prepare for life in the rapidly changing economy. Making schooling valuable and useful is vital to prosperity for all. Lack of education is a ticket to economic hardship. The more years of school that a student completes, the more money they are likely to earn as adults and the better their chance to get and keep a good job. Unemployment is highest among school dropouts as is incarceration for crimes. When we fail to educate all of our children, the high costs of this failure come back to hurt us in unemployment, drugs, crime, incarceration, violence and social conflict.


We need to invest in urban schools, provide equal educational opportunities in these schools, and recruit a well prepared teaching force that begins to reflect the student populations in these schools. We must insist on equal opportunity to learn, without compromise. When we do these things, we will begin to protect the freedom to learn for our children and our grandchildren, and to build a more just and democratic society.
Teacher advocates for democratic educational opportunities challenge those social forces acting to preserve the present inequalities and injustices in our schools. We consider schools as sites for the struggle for or against more democracy in our society. The struggle for education improvement and education equality will be a long one. The struggle for multicultural education, based in democratic theory, is an important part of the general struggle against race, class, and gender oppression and for democracy.
Schools serving urban and impoverished populations need fundamental change. These schools do not open the doors to economic opportunity. They usually do not promote equality. Instead, they recycle inequality. The high school drop out rates alone demonstrate that urban schools prepare less than 50 percent of their students for entrance into the economy and society. A democratic agenda for school reform includes insisting on fair taxation and adequate funding for all children. Political leaders in most states have not yet decided to address the real issues of school reform. We cannot build a safe, just, and prosperous society while we leave so many young people behind.
At present there is not a political agreement to make the necessary investments to bring about substantial school reform. The U.S. government and your state government will not make the necessary investments to improve education, nor to improve health care or to rebuild the economic infrastructure until we stop investing over 850 Billion dollars in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and whichever military intervention follows. Funding choices made at federal, state and local levels directly affect our children.
The conservative/ media emphasis on accountability for schools, and Bill Maher’s talking points are a distortion. We know which schools need improvement, and we know how to improve them..

The problem is to provide the resources, including well prepared teachers with adequate support, needed to make the current schools successful. We face a choice between providing high-quality schools only for the middle and upper classes, and underfunded, understaffed schools for the poor. Or, we can also choose to work together to improve schools that are presently failing.

Duane Campbell
Director. Democracy and Education Institute – Sacramento
http://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/

Building a Progressive Agenda

This is an essay from the journal Democratic Left.
The ideas provide a context for how we will need to work to change NCLB.

Part II: Mobilizing from Below to Enact an Economic Justice Agenda


The impressive depth and breadth of Obama’s electoral victory, combined with Democratic gains in both the House and the Senate, provides the possibility of reversing three decades of growing inequality that is the primary cause of an impending global depression. But these electoral gains will prove temporary if the Obama administration does not improve the living standards of middle and working class voters. To do so, the new administration will have to govern “big” and “quick.” While there is short-term consensus in favor of a major stimulus package, some of his centrist Democratic advisers are already warning that long-term spending plans will have to be put on hold, particularly universal health care and the increased taxes on the wealthy originally set to fund the program. And the moderate punditry, led by global-capitalist enthusiast Thomas Friedman, reminds Obama that “excessive regulation” of the financial industry could “strangle” the “entrepreneurial risk-taking spirit of capitalism.” We are in the midst of a global “liquidity crisis” in which banks will not lend capital out of fear that borrowers will not be able to pay them back. The mainstream media – and the Obama campaign and transition team – does not yet comprehend that this crisis has everything to do with the massive growth in inequality of the past three decades. The policies of deregulation, privatization, and de-unionization, supported by both Democratic and Republican administrations, led working and middle class Americans to try to maintain their living standards by taking on massive consumer debt and borrowing against their home equity. Once the housing bubble collapsed, so did their purchasing power.
Only activist pressure from below can force an Obama administration to govern in a manner than could secure a Democratic realignment. With the constitutional system of checks and balances and separation of powers consciously aimed at forestalling rapid change, it is no surprise that almost all the reforms identified with the twentieth century Democratic Party – Social Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Civil Rights Acts and Medicare – occurred in the period 1935-1938 and 1964-66, the only time when the Democrats controlled the presidency, had strong majorities in both chambers of Congress and insurgent social movements at their heels.
If upon taking office the Obama administration boldly leads, his administration could pass major legislation for universal health care, massive investment in green technology, and labor law reform that would transform United States social relations for generations to come. But already the corporate community is mobilizing heavily against the Employee Free Choice Act. As a former community organizer Obama understands that reforms do not come from the top down; in the past, they arose because moderate elites made concessions to the movements of the unemployed and the CIO in the 1930s and to the civil rights, anti-war, women’s and welfare rights movements of the 1960s. But while the December sit-down at Republic Windows indicates that a new wave of labor militancy could be in the offing, the strength of the labor movement and the Left is even weaker than they were in 1932, when an economic crisis still demobilized workers fearing losing their jobs if they rocked the boat. Nor does there exist the degree of social mobilization within excluded communities of color parallel to the vigor of the civil rights movement of 1960.

]Specifics of a progressive agenda [
Thus, a “realigned” new Democratic majority can only be built if the Obama administration enacts a legislative agenda that reconstructs a new “productive” egalitarian economy. I emphasize “productive” because as this economic crisis should teach us, an economy whose major “wealth” is created by the shuffling of paper assets by ‘mega-banks,’ hedgefunds, and corporate law firms will inevitably be divided between a privileged top 10 or 20 percent of credentialed “symbolic manipulators” and a precarious middle and working class who “serve” them.. Only an economic system that invests in production for human needs – such as renewable energy, mass transit, and urban infrastructure, school and housing construction – can generate a sufficient number of “good jobs at good wages.” The infotainment, finance, and service model of “post-industrial” capitalism is vulnerable to continuous speculative bubbles because it does not produce sufficient real value to sustain mass middle-class living standards.
And if the production of “useful goods” is increasingly off-shored, then United States living standards can only be sustained if the rest of the world will lend it the money to run massive trade deficits. If and when East Asian central banks decide that investment in Euros rather than U.S. Treasury bonds is a more secure way to preserve value, the entire United States model of indebted growth could collapse.. The dirty little secret is that aside from the auto industry, it is mostly military-related aerospace and military hardware production that sustains a high-wage manufacturing base in the United States. That base still produces 25 per cent of our GDP, while only employing 12 per cent of our workforce, whereas the financial industry has those figures reversed.. Such an imbalance between those who produce real value and those who shuffle paper value cannot sustain an egalitarian economic system. Republican intransigence and virulent anti-union sentiment is close to destroying our domestic auto industry.. Our domestic parts manufacturers alone employ 650,000 workers – or nearly triple the 230,000 remaining employees of the (once) Big Three— and sizeably in states outside of the Midwest. Should domestic parts suppliers go under with the Big Three, we could well lose several million industrial jobs forever. Even foreign transplants will switch to importing parts and supplies from foreign suppliers. Add in the Big Three auto dealers, who employ several hundred thousand workers, and the magnitude of the problem is clear.
Our other major remaining industrial centers – aerospace and machine tools -- are heavily tied to military production. While this is a form of high-wage industrial production, it is heavily capital intensive and produces goods that have little “multiplier” effect Tanks and planes are not capital goods – they don’t produce more material goods; rather they either depreciate or are blown up!. Thus, the truth that no “strong on defense” Democrat speaks is that unless we transition our military production to industrial production for civilian use, we cannot create a new “productive” economy that creates a larger number of high-value-added productive jobs. Obviously, not all jobs can be outsourced. There are , and will remain, large numbers of people employed in the “infotainment” industry, health care, retail, construction, and the food and hospitality industry., and further unionization could raise the living standards of those employed in these largerly service sectors. But if the purchasers of care and leisure goods are going to be able to pay human wages to their service providers, then there must be enough industrial high-wage jobs to sustain those not working in the service sector.
Only insurgent social movement activity will push the pragmatic Obama and his centrist, technocratic cabinet to govern “big.” While Obama’s web-based network of predominantly white and youthful middle-strata progressives could be activated in favor of “global warming” policies and major investment in green technology, they are unlikely to agitate for the industrial and social policies outlined above, which only mobilization by organized labor, new immigrant communities and excluded inner-city residents could engender. Obama’s victory raised hopes among these communities; but is there the organizational base within the labor movement, immigrant rights movement and inner city communities to mobilize quickly around an economic justice agenda? A sense of hope may lead the excluded to engage in more spontaneous acts of disruption that can scare elites into offering legislative change. (FDR’s pre-1935 reforms responded more to the homeless and unemployed movements of 1932-33 and the labor unrest in Toledo, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle of 1934 than to the later emergence of the CIO.) Perhaps we will see urban militancy akin to that of the mid-1960s -- though the protests against police brutality that led to mass riots were led by working and middle class community activists who no longer reside in the largely impoverished urban ghettos. And whether mobilization of communities of color would provoke a similar politics of white racial backlash to those of 1966 onwards remains an open question.

]Stimulus plan needed now[
Even before taking office the Obama administraiton confronts the most serious breakdown in the global economy since the Great Depression. Obama’s Treasury department and the Congressional Democratic leadership are likely to agree on a massive two-year stimulus package of at least $850 billion, but Republicans – perhaps joined by fiscally moderate Southern and Western Democrats – are likely to filibuster against such “massive deficit spending,” particularly if major public investment in alternative energy technologies is part of the package.. The Obama administration will have to remind the American public that Ronald Reagan ran deficits equal to 7 per cent of the GDP in each of 1981 and 82 (or the equivalent of $680 billion per year (!) in today’s dollars), in the face of a much less severe recession. In addition, the Obama administration must press Congress to implement a major anti-foreclosure program (similar to FDR’s Home Loan Corporation), as the income stream from homeowner payments on refinanced, affordable mortgages should significantly increase the value of the toxic assets of “securitized mortgages.” The Bush administration’s failure to protect the foreclosed (particularly those who could pay a reasonable renegotiated mortgage rate on a readjusted home value) explains in large measure its utter inability to improve the balance sheets of major financial institutions.
The stimulus package should include major government funding of job-training in the inner cities (in green technologies, for example) and of opportunities for both GIs and displaced workers to return to university as full-time students (and for women on TANF to fulfill their ‘workfare’ requirements through secondary and higher education pursuits). While affluent suburbs provide their residents superb public education and public services, federal cutbacks in aid to states and municipalities has worsened the life opportunities of inner city residents. With all but seven states’ budgets in the red, cuts in social services and public-sector layoffs will devastate already hard-hit communities. .
The inefficient and inequitable United States health care system cries out for replacement by a universal and cost-efficient alternative. If private insurance administrative and advertising costs of 25 per cent on the health care dollar could be reduced to Medicaid and Medicare’s three per cent administrative overhead, both universal and affordable coverage would be achieved.. Even securing “opt-out” provisions from the Obama’s ‘pay or play’ system of private insurance would be an improvement. Such ‘opt-outs’ would allow states to create their own single-payer systems, and enable Medicare or the federal employees health plan to market to employers as a lower-cost alternative to private group plans.
]Looking at the revenue side[
But how to pay for all this? The Obama administration should reverse not only the Bush tax cuts, but also the Reagan cuts in marginal rates on high-income earners, which would each return some $300 billion in revenues to the national treasury. In addition, abolishing the preferential 15 per cent tax rate on hedge fund and private equity managers’ earnings could garner another $100 billion in annual revenues. Truly ending the war in Iraq should save $100 billion per annum; a 1/3 cutback in United States military bases abroad and an end to Cold War era plans to build a next generation of fighters and an anti-ballistic missile defense could save $216 billion in federal revenue per year.
The military budget is hideously oversized for a nation that claims armaments are necessary for defense, and not defense of empire. One fights terrorism by intelligence and espionage cooperation among states and via a multilateral diplomatic strategy that provides hope for the billions who still live under authoritarian governments and in extreme poverty. Obama’s call to send more United States troops to Afghanistan ignores the lessons of the Soviet experience: that foreign military presence only elevates the forces of Islamic fundamentalism into national resistance fighters.
When the ponzi scheme of “securitized mortgages” collapsed with the end of the irrational run-up in housing prices, the federal government had to bail out Bear Stearns, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and then AIG. American capitalism has “privatized” gain, but “socialized” risk. Yet if risk is to be “socialized” then so should investments. The Obama administration should not only demand equity shares in the banks and corporations that are bailed out by the public treasury, but should also require that consumer, worker, and government representatives be added to the board of directors of corporations receiving government aid. And the administration must stick to the goal of re-regulating the finance industry so that it serves the interest of the productive economy and not those of run-amok speculators.
A “new New Deal” would have to restructure international economic institutions so that they raise-up international labor, living, human rights, and environmental standards. In large part Obama owes his victory in the key battleground states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Pennsylvania to the efforts of one of the few integrated institutions in the United States – the American labor movement. Restoring the right to organize unions (a right that no longer exists in practice in the United States) is a key policy component in the battle against economic inequality. Given the massive corporate and media offensive already launched against the Employee Free Choice Act, Obama will have to place the entire prestige of his presidency behind the legislation. He must use the bully pulpit to explain to the American public that NLRB elections are not “free” – not when the time lag between petitioning and the election works in managements’ favor, allowing management to intimidate workers, require them to attend anti-union meetings and leaves management free to fire pro-union workers with impunity.
]What’s next for the democratic Left?[
An Obama presidential victory by no means guarantees the bold policy initiatives necessary to restore equity with growth to the United States economy. His campaign did not advocate major defense cuts, progressive tax reform, and significant expansion of public provision. But FDR did not campaign on bold solutions in 1932. It was pressure from below that forced FDR’s hand. Similarly, Obama’s victory may provide space for social movements to agitate in favor of economic justice and a democratic foreign policy. Let us hope that as a president who understands the process of social change, Obama will realize that those demanding the most from his administration are those who can best help him succeed in office.
Obama, a supreme pragmatist , will respond to the balance of social forces that press upon his administration, or ignore them in the absense of pressure. Thus, the work of DSA, YDS and the rest of the democratic Left has just begun. We must join with our allies in the labor movement, communities of color, the feminist, and gay and lesbian and immigrants rights groups to advance the transformative social and economic policies outlined above and in DSA’s Economic Justice Agenda (see www.dsausa.org) . And we should begin to gear up to defend progressive House and Senate gains made in the 2006 and 2008 elections and replace Republicans and conservative Democratic officials at every level of government. To do this, DSA and YDS must not only build more capacity on the ground, but also build working relations with such groups as Progressive Democrats of America as well as trade unions and communityorganizations active in progressive electoral politics.
What will be the unique “value-added” of DSA and YDS in these broad coalition efforts to press the Obama administration from the left? As all crucial economic justice reforms – universal national health care, EFCA,public investment in green technology and inner city infrastructure – involve state action to limit the prerogatives of corporate capital, the right will charge these reforms as being “socialist.” DSA’s role is to educate the American public as to the historic role of socialist-inspired reforms in rendering capitalist societies less capitalist and more democratic. Until more average Americans say “what’s wrong with socialism” even a less exceptional and more humane American mixed economy will remain a utopian dream.

Joseph M. Schwartz , a national vice chair of Democratic Socialists of America, teaches politics at Temple University. His most recent book is The Future of Democratic Equality: Rebuilding Social Solidarity in a Fragmented America (Routledge, 2008). Parts of this article is revised from “Memo to Obama,” which will appear in the January-February issue of Tikkun magazine.

Economic crisis and state budgets ; increasing democracy

Strengthening Progressive State Power Should Be Priority for D.C. Leaders
Monday, November 18, 2008
Increasing-Democracy


BY Nathan Newman
Strengthening Progressive State Power Should Be Priority for D.C. Leaders

With conservatives losing the presidency and democrats controlling congress, we are likely to see a significant redeployment of conservative political energy into the states. There are still 33 state governments where Republicans control either a governorship or a legislative chamber, and other state political bodies are still controlled by conservative Democrats.

We are already seeing rightwing forces shift to state level policy campaigns. In fact, multiple conservative commentators have begun to openly discuss that the states will be their key target in the next few years. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and considered one of the key intellectual leaders of the neoconservatives, recently wrote that conservative resurgence will start in the states: any "comeback will surely be successful practical governance at the state level." Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for the first President Bush, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "I believe renewal and reform will come from the states" and "the new emerging Republicans are likely to come in the end from the states."

One example of this renewed focus on local politics is the recently launched " American Solutions" organization, started by Newt Gingrich. The organization's goal is to mobilize the "513,000 elected officials in America, from school board to city council to county commission to state legislature." Gingrich is in many ways returning to his original path in rising to power as Speaker of the House of Representatives, which began with his leadership of GOPAC - an organization dedicated to training state leaders and winning control of state governments - and successfully fueled rightwing power across the country.

With the recent loss of federal power, we will no doubt see conservative leaders at the state level launching local attacks on immigration, gay rights and other issues as a wedge to win local power and to undermine support for federal progressive policy in the media.

Progressive leaders nationally and locally need to take this conservative focus on local politics seriously. Progressives need to be proactive and build a "collaborative federalism" that reinforces progressive policy not just in D.C. but in statehouses across the nation. This Dispatch details why state policy will remain central to national policy debates, how New Deal and Great Society progressive leaders made strengthening progressive power in the states a central focus of their work, and what a progressive collaborative federalism policy would entail for the incoming President and Congress.


States Will Remain Central to Policy in New Era



As we described last year in our Why States Matter Dispatch, most pundits and analysts underestimate the dominant role states have played and continue to play in much of domestic policy.


States' Dominance of Domestic Spending: In total, states spend over $2 trillion each year on a range of programs - almost three times the dollar amount of non-social security domestic programs administered at the federal level (see chart to the left). Critical programs like Medicaid, worker's compensation, public schools, unemployment insurance, most of our criminal justice system, and most aid to the poor are administered not from D.C. but in the states. For example, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio and South Carolina have insolvent unemployment insurance funds and will have to borrow money from the federal government because due to increased unemployment numbers, more money is going out than is coming in from business taxes.

The public employees who actually do government work day-to-day, such as school teachers, cops and program case workers, are overwhelmingly employed at the state and local level. State and local governments employ 18.6 million people - over nine times as many as the federal government - which employs just over two million public employees.

Regulatory Power at the State Level: As we described in our 2006 report, Governing the Nation from the Statehouses, conservative leaders have long understood that even without control in Washington, D.C., states have key regulatory power over the economy and society beyond their budgets and spending power:
Contracts and Corporate Accountability: Through state law and liability rules, the states regulate trillions of dollars of commerce in the economy. State courts reported 17 million civil cases in 2003, including contract, tort and real property disputes.
Criminal Justice: While there were 170,535 federal prisoners in 2004, this is dwarfed by the 1.9 million prisoners in state and local prisons and jails.
Public Pension Funds: While D.C. is debating whether to take equity stakes in private companies, state public pension funds control well over $2 trillion in financial assets.
Employment Rights: While the media focus remains on the application of federal civil rights or labor laws, these only protect employment relative to a baseline of job protections determined by state law.
Conservatives understand the power that states wield and progressives, especially those in D.C., need to take it seriously as they formulate policy.


Strengthening Progressive Power in the States Central to New Deal and Great Society Goals





In some cases, as described in our 2006 Governing the Nation from the Statehouses report, state regulatory power has been used for rightwing purposes, while in others it has strengthened long-term progressive goals. As progressives in D.C. assess their priorities, they should recognize that one of their longest enduring legacies would be to strengthen progressive power in the states, a legacy that will last if or when progressive dominance at the federal level might yield in the future to conservative opposition.

New Deal and Great Society Strengthened Collaborative Federalism: Despite some conservative myth-making, the period before the New Deal was not some heyday of "state rights" and decentralized power in America. In fact, the federal courts rather ruthlessly struck down state law after state law as overridden by federal power under the Constitution or by existing federal statutes.

David Walker in his book The Rebirth of Federalism describes how under the New Deal, instead of perpetual conflict between federal and state powers, the nation saw the rise of a cooperative federalism where federal and state governments shared many responsibilities in a collaborative system. The New Deal Supreme Court not only expanded regulatory authority for the federal government, it specifically empowered states to act in areas like the minimum wage and child labor, and was far more willing to allow states to regulate in areas where the federal government was also taking action. Additionally, despite an increased proportion of spending by the federal government, the majority of domestic spending remained at the state and local level. And as highlighted above, much of this increased federal spending was devoted to direct aid to the states, deepening the collaborative nature of spending in more and more functions of government.

Even as New Deal strength ebbed in the 1950s, this increased power exercised in the states allowed new progressive coalitions to emerge in multiple states, enacting civil rights laws, electoral reforms and other progressive policies that would presage the rise of the Great Society in the 1960s.

In turn, a large focus of the Great Society was on strengthening the tools for progressive governance in the states. Grant-in-aid programs from D.C. to the states increased 68% in real dollars between 1964 and 1968, with a fairer distribution of dollars that reflected the population of each region receiving aid. On the legal front, civil rights laws and the "one person, one vote" decision expanded grassroots democratic power and strengthened progressive mobilization in states across the country.

By the 1970s, reformed state governments were increasingly seen as drivers of innovation in policy, with progressive consumer, environmental and workers' rights movements flourishing at the state level even after the Reagan era began. While federal commitments to social justice would recede with Reagan's election, states could still take advantage of ongoing federal grant programs embodied in Great Society policies such as Medicaid to promote progressive innovation at the state level.


Battles Over State Policy Critical in Shaping Progressive Comeback Nationally



It is worth considering that the present national comeback of progressives in D.C. was built on successful state campaigns made possible by the legacy of past progressive eras that strengthened the power of progressives at the state level:
State campaigns for the minimum wage became a key arena for progressives to emphasize fair wages as a "values" issue that can rally supporters. The rise in the federal minimum wage rate was driven by state after state leading the way in raising their own minimum wage. And even when the federal rate rises to $7.25 per hour next year, eleven states plus the District of Columbia, covering 26% of the U.S. population, will still have a minimum wage rate higher than the federal level.
Similarly, universal health care was put back on the national agenda after demonstrated state-level successes, such as the Illinois AllKids program to provide health coverage to all children and debates on more comprehensive coverage programs in states from Massachusetts to the proposed Healthy Wisconsin initiative.
And while federal legislators were gridlocked on debates over climate change, states in New England have already started a "cap-and-trade" auction to limit climate change emissions with other state regions beginning to join them.
These examples all served to contrast the potency of progressive problem-solving versus conservative federal inaction on critical issues as we approached the 2008 election. While there is now great hope for escaping the perpetual political gridlock at the federal level, the states will continue to serve as incubators of new policies and a check on future inaction at the national level long into the future.

Danger of federal preemption: Despite their "states' rights" rhetoric, conservatives at the federal level have increasingly recognized this emerging progressive power in the states and have sought to limit or flat-out block state authority to protect consumers, workers or the environment at the state level. A 2006 Congressional report found that the U.S. House and Senate voted 57 times in the previous five years to preempt state laws, limiting state action on air pollution, contaminated food and Internet "spam."

Even without new federal laws, industries have used executive branch regulations to strike down state consumer protections. As we detailed in 2007, the effects of such federal preemption can be profound. As predatory lending expanded across the country, states sought to enact laws to limit such abusive subprime mortgage practices, only to see many of those laws blocked by federal courts based on Bush administration claims they were preempted by federal law. Preemption arguably cost the U.S. economy the trillions of dollars lost in a subprime meltdown that might have been prevented if states had been allowed to lead on a crisis they recognized far earlier than federal officials.

Reversing this rising tide of preemption of state policy should be a priority for incoming federal officials.


What the Feds Can Do to Strengthen Collaborative Federalism





State leaders and advocates need to reinforce the message that any new era of progressive governance in America needs to focus not just on immediate solutions to problems we face, however crucial they are, but also on strengthening the power of communities and states to solve problems in the future in a progressive manner. Elements of such a federal program would include:
A revitalization of revenue sharing, including a stimulus funding critical state initiatives: With states reeling from lost revenue due to the escalating recession, it is critical for federal officials to recognize the key role of states in funding essential programs, from education to transportation to health care to public safety, and that a key progressive federal goal must be bolstering the revenue of states. Any immediate stimulus will fail if expanded federal funding is just counterbalanced by spending cuts at the state level, so aid to the states should be part of a balanced economic rescue package. Beyond that, the federal government should systematically restore federal revenue sharing in order to bolster funding for priorities shared by all states, allowing consistent federal revenues to complement local revenue sources that wax and wane based on local economic conditions. Additional federal revenue sharing is especially critical in addressing the problem of unfunded federal mandates.
Structuring federal policies to promote innovation at the state and local level: Health care, education, public safety, labor rights, consumer protection, civil rights and a host of other programs inherently involve collaboration between officials and institutions at both the federal and state level. We need to move away from the situation we saw when states were trying to expand health care coverage for children and their parents under the framework of the SCHIP program only to see federal policy limit both funding and flexibility of states in implementing policy. Instead, new federal legislation and regulations should be informed by what has worked in the states and strengthen the ability of state and local governments to innovate in achieving new policy goals promoted at the federal level. Progressive federal policy should ideally provide both adequate funding and a level playing field of regulation within which states and municipalities can customize implementation to serve the particular needs of their communities.
Limiting preemption of state and local policy: One critical change progressives should make at the federal level is an end to the increasingly routine preemption of state and local policy. Congress has passed dozens of laws this past decade which have restricted the ability of state governments to protect consumer safety, defend labor rights, or stop corporate abuses. This is on top of President Bush and increasingly conservative courts reinterpreting previously enacted laws to shut down progressive state policies, most notably the gutting of predatory lending laws that protect against abuses in the mortgage industry. Progressive federal leaders should commit to promoting federal policy that acts as a floor for regulation, while allowing states and local governments to provide additional consumer, health, environmental and labor protections on behalf of working families. Both the president and congress should explicitly limit preemption to cases where state and local laws conflict with federal law, not just to where states have enacted policy in an area related to federal policy.
This new collaborative federalism compact needs to involve more systematic consultation with state leaders and locally-based organizations on federal legislation affecting state and local powers. Especially in a time when we need all institutions working together to revive the national economy, creating a new collaborative federalism needs to be a priority to sustain any new progressive era.

Resources



William Kristol, Weekly Standard - "Beyond Doom & Gloom: On the governors, Sarah Palin, and challenges ahead"
Progressive States Network - Governing the Nation from the Statehouses
Progressive States Network - Why States Matter
David Walker - The Rebirth of Federalism
Progressive States Network - Predatory Lending Bubble: How the Feds Preempted State Law
U.S. House, Minority Staff of Government Reform Committee - " Congressional Preemption of State Laws and Regulations"

Two Futures: part two

At present there is not a political agreement to make the necessary investments to bring about substantial school reform. The U.S. government and your state government will not make the necessary investments to improve education, nor to improve health care or to rebuild the economic infrastructure until we stop investing over 850 Billion dollars in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and whichever military intervention follows.
The conservative/ media emphasis on accountability for schools is a distortion. We know which schools need improvement, and we know how to improve them. Teachers can pursue democratic opportunity with instruction in multicultural education, critical thinking, cooperative learning, improved reading and language skills, and empowerment. Teachers and parents together face a political choice. Shall we continue to call for high standards without providing the necessary resources for all schools to have a reasonable chance to attain such standards? Shall we continue to punish schools and their staffs for low test scores, even when we know that the tests are poor instruments for measuring learning and that their construction guarantees the failure of many students? Is increased competition and privatization the answer for schools when it has not been the answer in other sectors of our society, particularly for low income and diverse people?
The problem is to provide the resources, including well prepared teachers with adequate support, needed to make the current schools successful. We face a choice between providing high-quality schools only for the middle and upper classes, and underfunded, understaffed schools for the poor. Or, we can also choose to work together to improve schools that are presently failing.
See the prior post.