Monday, April 27, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
The GOP: Divorced from Reality
L.A. Times -- OpinionThe Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.
By Bill Maher April 24, 2009
If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.
The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because ... well, nobody knows. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Even though they're not quite sure what "it" is. But they know they're fed up with "it," and that "it" has got to stop.
The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because ... well, nobody knows. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Even though they're not quite sure what "it" is. But they know they're fed up with "it," and that "it" has got to stop.
Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law.
And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.
Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?
It's sad what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they're the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.
The GOP base is convinced that Obama is going to raise their taxes, which he just lowered. But, you say, "Bill, that's just the fringe of the Republican Party." No, it's not. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that ... Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I'm not sure exactly what Perry's independent nation would look like, but I'm pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned Parenthood. And I would have to totally rethink my position on a border fence.
I know. It's not about what Obama's done. It's what he's planning.
But you can't be sick and tired of something someone might do.
Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota recently said she fears that Obama will build "reeducation" camps to indoctrinate young people. But Obama hasn't made any moves toward taking anyone's guns, and with money as tight as it is, the last thing the president wants to do is run a camp where he has to shelter and feed a bunch of fat, angry white people.
Look, I get it, "real America." After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You've come home to find your things out on the front lawn -- or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You're not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.
That's what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him -- obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.
But it's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new. And it's a black guy.
The healthy thing to do is to just get past it and learn to cherish the memories. You'll always have New Orleans and Abu Ghraib.
And if today's conservatives are insulted by this, because they feel they're better than the people who have the microphone in their party, then I say to them what I would say to moderate Muslims: Denounce your radicals. To paraphrase George W. Bush, either you're with them or you're embarrassed by them.
The thing that you people out of power have to remember is that the people in power are not secretly plotting against you. They don't need to. They already beat you in public.
Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."
Ecuador’s Correa at Trinidad Summit: Not Likely to Be His Last Presidential Trip
* Rafael Correa travels to Trinidad and Tobago this weekend along with several of his colleagues*The economic climate is precarious as Ecuador continues to refuse to join ALBA or relent on Colombia
*Following widespread support in the 2008 referendum, Correa appears poised to continue vast social and economic reforms after his likely reelection bid
Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, will be joined by fellow leaders Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and newly-elected Mauricio Funes of El Salvador at the Summit of the Americas this weekend. The left-leaning brigade will head to the Trinidad forum with significant clout, which will likely assist Correa’s prospects in Ecuador’s upcoming elections. The outcome of the Ecuadorian presidential and legislative elections, set to take place on April 26, will most likely determine whether Latin America’s left-leaning political shift will prevail in the Andean region, or if it was just an ephemeral initiative now destined to burn off. The incumbent quasi-populist leader, Rafael Correa, is expected to be reelected by an even larger margin due to his widespread social and economic reforms.
The effective restructuring of his country’s political workings and quality of rule, in general, has been well received. Even though the approval of the new constitution in September 2008 created opportunities for various openings for change in Ecuador, the political and economic climate in the small Andean nation remains tense, even by Latin American standards. Running against the popular current leader of Ecuador are no strangers to the battle for presidency. They include ousted ex-president Lucio Gutiérrez, and Alvaro Noboa, currently on his fourth bid for the presidency.
Past Presidential Punch-out
This is not the first time Noboa and Correa contend for the presidency. In the 2006 presidential elections each candidate respectively used all of their available electoral snake oil to snare at least 40 percent of the vote plus at least a 10 point advantage over one’s closest opponent. But, in the first round of elections, Noboa won 26.83 percent of the vote, while Correa was only able to attract 22.84 percent. While nearly all elections in Ecuador metaphorically draw blood because they tend to be vehemently-fought contests, the 2006 ballot came at a particularly discordant time in the nation’s modern political history. In the ten-year period leading up to the 2006 election, seven different presidents had assumed office in Quito, three of whom had later been forced out of office by irate street scenes.
During the period leading up to the second round run-off, both candidates resorted to bombastic attacks against the opposing person. Noboa, considered to be Ecuador’s richest national, resorted to a series of diatribes aimed at Correa, many of which attempted to portray his opponent as a puppet of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. “They have pursued the most immoral and dirty campaign against me in an effort to link me with communism, terrorism, and Chavismo,” contended Correa. Much to the dismay of left-leaning Latin American leaders, the magnate even went so far as to accuse Chávez of covertly funding Correa’s campaign.
Indeed, Chávez and Correa share a tight bond, but after having suffered humbling losses while attempting to aid political movements in Mexico and Peru, Chávez remained uncharacteristically silent during Correa’s campaign. That is, until Chávez pursued his own onslaught against the rightist Noboa. “There are also strange things going on [in Ecuador],” asserted the Venezuelan leader. “A gentleman who is the richest man in Ecuador; the king of bananas, who exploits children and puts them to work, who doesn’t pay them loans, suddenly appears in first place in the first electoral round.” Such back-and-forth criticism continued until Noboa was stunningly defeated in the second round, losing to Correa by 57.07 percent to 42.96 percent of the total number of votes.
Ecuador Refuses ALBA In June 2008, Correa announced that Ecuador would not join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a “socially-oriented” regional trade bloc. The basis of this coalition stands in stark contrast to its U.S.-backed counterpart, the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which, according to Teresa Arreaza of Venezuelanalysis, is “based on the logic of deregulated profit maximization.”
A report by aporrea.org stated that Ecuador decided instead to pursue its integration efforts by means of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). According to telegrafo.com, in the same year that Ecuador decided not to join ALBA, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) promised a credit line of $150 million to Quito, guaranteeing Correa’s decision to be ultimately dependent on U.S. funding. An agreement to join ALBA would have almost certainly jeopardized the allocation of such transactions. To this day, Correa maintains that Ecuador will become a member of ALBA only after Venezuela rejoins the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), making it likely that Ecuador’s refusal to join ALBA was a coercive strategy to have Venezuela induced to rejoin CAN. Chávez refused to have Venezuela remain a CAN member, which he meant as a snub to Washington for the Bush administration’s anti-Venezuela policies and its free trade agreements (FTAs) brokered with both Peru and Colombia.
Political Environment
On September 28, 2008, nearly 65 percent of Ecuadorians supported a constitutional referendum that, among other things, would allow the reigning Correa to stand for two more terms. The new constitution, the 20th since Ecuador achieved independence, also greatly reduced the power of the country’s military and Congress, two institutions repeatedly responsible for aiding in prematurely terminating presidential terms in the decade leading up to Correa’s first term in office.
The new constitution, aimed at alleviating the plight of Ecuador’s poor, who make up 38 percent of the nation’s total population, attracted overwhelming support as a result of proposed social programs that guaranteed free education and additional spending on health care. Programs aimed at increasing development and economic growth included the distribution of free seeds for crops, micro-loans with relatively low interest rates, and building materials for new home owners. Among its 444 articles, the new constitution also included increased governmental control over monetary policy, handing over control to Correa rather than the Central Bank. State control was also increased when it came to oil policy, which was a significant position to take, due to the fact that 45 percent of Ecuador’s annual budget comes from oil revenues.
Correa had stated that he would resign if the constitutional referendum was not passed, but its sweeping victory will allow him to potentially remain in power until 2017. The tighter grip on the economy, as well as the reduced power of the legislative and judicial branches, is consonant with trends prevalent throughout the belt of left-leaning Andean nations. However, Correa claims that his newly acquired power will help him consolidate the citizen’s revolution. The fear that Correa was changing the constitution in order to stay in power indefinitely was modulated by the inclusion of a clause that allows Congress to censure and impeach the president, given that it had sufficient public support behind it. Nevertheless, the new constitution allocates more power to Correa while concurrently weakening Congress, thus making it harder for Ecuadorians to oust him if they become disillusioned by his leadership.
The referendum’s passage was yet another vital blow against the United States’ once tight hold on the region. Today, Ecuador remains part of the group of Latin American nations to have fallen under the current “domino effect” that is characterized by the election of populist, leftist leaders, like Correa, throughout South and part of Central America. However, Correa’s Ecuador remains unique among left-leaning South American nations because, unlike the nationalization strategies being pursued by Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Correa has not moved to nationalize the telecommunications or electricity industry. Despite the fact that he has attempted to renegotiate mining contracts, the mining industry has not been nationalized. Nevertheless, Washington is known to feel it still has some cause for concern. Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, met with Correa in 2008 to discuss Russia’s willingness to aid Ecuador in nuclear energy projects, potentially claiming another Moscow ally that is too close for the State Department’s comfort. And, as if meeting with an increasingly anti-American Russia is not enough, Correa has pledged to kill free trade talks with the United States, while simultaneously furthering bilateral agreements with Venezuela. Moreover, Correa’s aim to detach Ecuador from American connections includes the freezing of his country’s foreign debt payments and statements that the dollar should be abandoned as the official currency of Ecuador.
The El Salvador Connection
Fears of the “dominos falling” in Latin America have been further exacerbated by Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) figure, Mauricio Funes’ rise to power. After the falling domino’s dust settled, the United States was left with a feeling of apprehension concerning El Salvador’s eventual direction. A series of rightist leaders in El Salvador had made the country one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America and its sudden lean to the left became a major setback to U.S. preeminence in the region.
The loss of a key pro-Washington government in Latin America has made the Ecuadorian election that much more important. The current fight for the presidency in Ecuador will be examined closely, as a Noboa victory will give the United States a much needed pro- American figure in power in the region. Correa, having stated that he will not renew the lease on Manta Air Base — the only such U.S. outpost in South America — differs greatly from Noboa, whose platform includes an emphasis on orthodox private sector planning, including attracting foreign investment and building up tourism.
Border Dispute with ColombiaCorrea’s disapproval of any form of U.S. intervention in the region was further acknowledged when he claimed that Colombia had breached its borders in complicity with the United States. On March 1, 2008, Raúl Reyes, a rebel leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was killed by the Colombian military after it made an incursion on Ecuadorian territory.
Colombia had erroneously claimed they killed the rebel leader as the result of an air strike launched from within its own territory and that it was, in fact, an act of self defense on Bogotá’s part. Colombian soldiers then, according to this doctored version, crossed into Ecuador in order to confirm Raúl Reyes’ death. Correa, heatedly criticizing President Álvaro Uribe’s breach of Ecuadorian sovereignty, claimed that the fighting in fact took place within Ecuadorian territory and that the Colombian president had violated Ecuador’s autonomy due to pressure from the United States. The angered leader was then joined by Chávez, who stated that if the same situation had occurred in Venezuela, it undoubtedly would have been understood as an act of war. Uribe fired back by producing evidence that allegedly linked Chávez and Correa to the FARC.
According to “evidence” found on a laptop computer belonging to the late Raúl Reyes, Chávez had paid the FARC $300 million in exchange for the release of hostages that they held. The laptop also included information alleging that Correa received campaign contributions from the Colombian guerrilla group during his 2006 presidential campaign.
In a call for the OAS to act against Venezuela and Ecuador during the border dispute, Uribe stated, “Members of the Permanent Council and citizens of the hemisphere, let there be no doubt that the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela were negotiating with narco-terrorists, the proofs are in your hands.” Maria Isabel Salvador, Ecuador’s representative to the OAS attempted to refute the claims, calling Uribe’s evidence “alleged proofs,” pointing out that the computer recovered was “strangely intact” after a bombing attack that killed the FARC leader and others.
The allegations brought forth over the border incident, which Correa dismisses as a joke, could become a major decision factor for undecided Ecuadorian voters. Although Colombia violated Ecuadorian sovereignty by sending troops across the Colombian-Ecuadorian border to allegedly recover Reyes’ body, their allegations that Ecuador was in league with the FARC proposes a new obstacle in Correa’s fight to shed his popular label as being Chávez’ puppet. Latin News reports that despite having been in power since 2006, a Cedatos Poll, taken before the official campaign began, found that 44 percent of Ecuadorians were still undecided, and even Chávez’ silence in this election may not spare Correa from being somehow linked to the Venezuelan leader.
The border dispute had severe implications on Andean integration and cooperation efforts. In a hearing prepared by the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the dispute was said to have had lasting, negative consequences, breaking down the cooperation between South American countries in combating guerrilla groups, such as the FARC, and containing the drug problem. The House Subcommittee also reported that there would be an escalation in the militarization of border regions. In May 2008, two months after the border conflict had broken down, Ecuador announced its purchase of three Russian helicopters, which among other military type purchases from Brazil and Chile, would help reinforce the border with Colombia. Correa, if elected, will follow through with additional steps to secure the border. On March 24, 2009, General Fabián Varela, Ecuador’s Chief of the Joint Commander of the Armed Forces, stated that the aforementioned Manta Air Base, an important U.S. military site in the drug war, will be used as a center for its operations pertaining to the Colombian border when the U.S. lease expires in November 2009.
According to his campaign website, Noboa is running on a strong anti-corruption platform and has a professed interest in foreign investment. He currently has only 15 percent of the vote, having fallen to third place behind Lucio Gutiérrez (2003-2005), an April 6, 2009 final opinion poll found. It is unlikely that Noboa will gain much ground before the April 26 vote. Noboa’s U.S.-like vision of Ecuador seems to be losing to Correa’s promise of autonomy and social welfare, awarding the current Ecuadorian president 57 percent of the vote. Already, it seems Correa is set for a clean and decisive victory as he is ahead by 10 percent over his nearest opponent, and above the 40 percent mark needed to win the election in the first round. Correa’s victory now seems eminent, but news that Noboa’s Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional and Gutierrez’ Sociedad Patriótica are carrying on talks of possibly forming an electoral alliance in order to win a majority of seats in Congress could effectively handicap Correa’s presidential prerogatives.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associates Billy Lemus and David Rosenblum Felson April 16th, 2009 Word Count: 2500
Ecuador’s Correa at Trinidad Summit: Not Likely to Be His Last Presidential Trip
Rafael Correa travels to Trinidad and Tobago this weekend along with several of his colleagues
The economic climate is precarious as Ecuador continues to refuse to join ALBA or relent on Colombia
Following widespread support in the 2008 referendum, Correa appears poised to continue vast social and economic reforms after his likely reelection bid
Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, will be joined by fellow leaders Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and newly-elected Mauricio Funes of El Salvador at the Summit of the Americas this weekend. The left-leaning brigade will head to the Trinidad forum with significant clout, which will likely assist Correa’s prospects in Ecuador’s upcoming elections. The outcome of the Ecuadorian presidential and legislative elections, set to take place on April 26, will most likely determine whether Latin America’s left-leaning political shift will prevail in the Andean region, or if it was just an ephemeral initiative now destined to burn off. The incumbent quasi-populist leader, Rafael Correa, is expected to be reelected by an even larger margin due to his widespread social and economic reforms.
The effective restructuring of his country’s political workings and quality of rule, in general, has been well received. Even though the approval of the new constitution in September 2008 created opportunities for various openings for change in Ecuador, the political and economic climate in the small Andean nation remains tense, even by Latin American standards. Running against the popular current leader of Ecuador are no strangers to the battle for presidency. They include ousted ex-president Lucio Gutiérrez, and Alvaro Noboa, currently on his fourth bid for the presidency.
Past Presidential Punch-outThis is not the first time Noboa and Correa contend for the presidency. In the 2006 presidential elections each candidate respectively used all of their available electoral snake oil to snare at least 40 percent of the vote plus at least a 10 point advantage over one’s closest opponent. But, in the first round of elections, Noboa won 26.83 percent of the vote, while Correa was only able to attract 22.84 percent. While nearly all elections in Ecuador metaphorically draw blood because they tend to be vehemently-fought contests, the 2006 ballot came at a particularly discordant time in the nation’s modern political history. In the ten-year period leading up to the 2006 election, seven different presidents had assumed office in Quito, three of whom had later been forced out of office by irate street scenes.
During the period leading up to the second round run-off, both candidates resorted to bombastic attacks against the opposing person. Noboa, considered to be Ecuador’s richest national, resorted to a series of diatribes aimed at Correa, many of which attempted to portray his opponent as a puppet of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. “They have pursued the most immoral and dirty campaign against me in an effort to link me with communism, terrorism, and Chavismo,” contended Correa. Much to the dismay of left-leaning Latin American leaders, the magnate even went so far as to accuse Chávez of covertly funding Correa’s campaign.
Indeed, Chávez and Correa share a tight bond, but after having suffered humbling losses while attempting to aid political movements in Mexico and Peru, Chávez remained uncharacteristically silent during Correa’s campaign. That is, until Chávez pursued his own onslaught against the rightist Noboa. “There are also strange things going on [in Ecuador],” asserted the Venezuelan leader. “A gentleman who is the richest man in Ecuador; the king of bananas, who exploits children and puts them to work, who doesn’t pay them loans, suddenly appears in first place in the first electoral round.” Such back-and-forth criticism continued until Noboa was stunningly defeated in the second round, losing to Correa by 57.07 percent to 42.96 percent of the total number of votes.
Ecuador Refuses ALBA In June 2008, Correa announced that Ecuador would not join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a “socially-oriented” regional trade bloc. The basis of this coalition stands in stark contrast to its U.S.-backed counterpart, the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which, according to Teresa Arreaza of Venezuelanalysis, is “based on the logic of deregulated profit maximization.”
A report by aporrea.org stated that Ecuador decided instead to pursue its integration efforts by means of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). According to telegrafo.com, in the same year that Ecuador decided not to join ALBA, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) promised a credit line of $150 million to Quito, guaranteeing Correa’s decision to be ultimately dependent on U.S. funding. An agreement to join ALBA would have almost certainly jeopardized the allocation of such transactions. To this day, Correa maintains that Ecuador will become a member of ALBA only after Venezuela rejoins the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), making it likely that Ecuador’s refusal to join ALBA was a coercive strategy to have Venezuela induced to rejoin CAN. Chávez refused to have Venezuela remain a CAN member, which he meant as a snub to Washington for the Bush administration’s anti-Venezuela policies and its free trade agreements (FTAs) brokered with both Peru and Colombia.
Political EnvironmentOn September 28, 2008, nearly 65 percent of Ecuadorians supported a constitutional referendum that, among other things, would allow the reigning Correa to stand for two more terms. The new constitution, the 20th since Ecuador achieved independence, also greatly reduced the power of the country’s military and Congress, two institutions repeatedly responsible for aiding in prematurely terminating presidential terms in the decade leading up to Correa’s first term in office.
The new constitution, aimed at alleviating the plight of Ecuador’s poor, who make up 38 percent of the nation’s total population, attracted overwhelming support as a result of proposed social programs that guaranteed free education and additional spending on health care. Programs aimed at increasing development and economic growth included the distribution of free seeds for crops, micro-loans with relatively low interest rates, and building materials for new home owners. Among its 444 articles, the new constitution also included increased governmental control over monetary policy, handing over control to Correa rather than the Central Bank. State control was also increased when it came to oil policy, which was a significant position to take, due to the fact that 45 percent of Ecuador’s annual budget comes from oil revenues.
Correa had stated that he would resign if the constitutional referendum was not passed, but its sweeping victory will allow him to potentially remain in power until 2017. The tighter grip on the economy, as well as the reduced power of the legislative and judicial branches, is consonant with trends prevalent throughout the belt of left-leaning Andean nations. However, Correa claims that his newly acquired power will help him consolidate the citizen’s revolution. The fear that Correa was changing the constitution in order to stay in power indefinitely was modulated by the inclusion of a clause that allows Congress to censure and impeach the president, given that it had sufficient public support behind it. Nevertheless, the new constitution allocates more power to Correa while concurrently weakening Congress, thus making it harder for Ecuadorians to oust him if they become disillusioned by his leadership.
The referendum’s passage was yet another vital blow against the United States’ once tight hold on the region. Today, Ecuador remains part of the group of Latin American nations to have fallen under the current “domino effect” that is characterized by the election of populist, leftist leaders, like Correa, throughout South and part of Central America. However, Correa’s Ecuador remains unique among left-leaning South American nations because, unlike the nationalization strategies being pursued by Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Correa has not moved to nationalize the telecommunications or electricity industry. Despite the fact that he has attempted to renegotiate mining contracts, the mining industry has not been nationalized. Nevertheless, Washington is known to feel it still has some cause for concern. Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, met with Correa in 2008 to discuss Russia’s willingness to aid Ecuador in nuclear energy projects, potentially claiming another Moscow ally that is too close for the State Department’s comfort. And, as if meeting with an increasingly anti-American Russia is not enough, Correa has pledged to kill free trade talks with the United States, while simultaneously furthering bilateral agreements with Venezuela. Moreover, Correa’s aim to detach Ecuador from American connections includes the freezing of his country’s foreign debt payments and statements that the dollar should be abandoned as the official currency of Ecuador.
The El Salvador ConnectionFears of the “dominos falling” in Latin America have been further exacerbated by Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) figure, Mauricio Funes’ rise to power. After the falling domino’s dust settled, the United States was left with a feeling of apprehension concerning El Salvador’s eventual direction. A series of rightist leaders in El Salvador had made the country one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America and its sudden lean to the left became a major setback to U.S. preeminence in the region.
The loss of a key pro-Washington government in Latin America has made the Ecuadorian election that much more important. The current fight for the presidency in Ecuador will be examined closely, as a Noboa victory will give the United States a much needed pro- American figure in power in the region. Correa, having stated that he will not renew the lease on Manta Air Base — the only such U.S. outpost in South America — differs greatly from Noboa, whose platform includes an emphasis on orthodox private sector planning, including attracting foreign investment and building up tourism.
Border Dispute with ColombiaCorrea’s disapproval of any form of U.S. intervention in the region was further acknowledged when he claimed that Colombia had breached its borders in complicity with the United States. On March 1, 2008, Raúl Reyes, a rebel leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was killed by the Colombian military after it made an incursion on Ecuadorian territory.
Colombia had erroneously claimed they killed the rebel leader as the result of an air strike launched from within its own territory and that it was, in fact, an act of self defense on Bogotá’s part. Colombian soldiers then, according to this doctored version, crossed into Ecuador in order to confirm Raúl Reyes’ death. Correa, heatedly criticizing President Álvaro Uribe’s breach of Ecuadorian sovereignty, claimed that the fighting in fact took place within Ecuadorian territory and that the Colombian president had violated Ecuador’s autonomy due to pressure from the United States. The angered leader was then joined by Chávez, who stated that if the same situation had occurred in Venezuela, it undoubtedly would have been understood as an act of war. Uribe fired back by producing evidence that allegedly linked Chávez and Correa to the FARC.
According to “evidence” found on a laptop computer belonging to the late Raúl Reyes, Chávez had paid the FARC $300 million in exchange for the release of hostages that they held. The laptop also included information alleging that Correa received campaign contributions from the Colombian guerrilla group during his 2006 presidential campaign.
In a call for the OAS to act against Venezuela and Ecuador during the border dispute, Uribe stated, “Members of the Permanent Council and citizens of the hemisphere, let there be no doubt that the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela were negotiating with narco-terrorists, the proofs are in your hands.” Maria Isabel Salvador, Ecuador’s representative to the OAS attempted to refute the claims, calling Uribe’s evidence “alleged proofs,” pointing out that the computer recovered was “strangely intact” after a bombing attack that killed the FARC leader and others.
The allegations brought forth over the border incident, which Correa dismisses as a joke, could become a major decision factor for undecided Ecuadorian voters. Although Colombia violated Ecuadorian sovereignty by sending troops across the Colombian-Ecuadorian border to allegedly recover Reyes’ body, their allegations that Ecuador was in league with the FARC proposes a new obstacle in Correa’s fight to shed his popular label as being Chávez’ puppet. Latin News reports that despite having been in power since 2006, a Cedatos Poll, taken before the official campaign began, found that 44 percent of Ecuadorians were still undecided, and even Chávez’ silence in this election may not spare Correa from being somehow linked to the Venezuelan leader.
The border dispute had severe implications on Andean integration and cooperation efforts. In a hearing prepared by the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the dispute was said to have had lasting, negative consequences, breaking down the cooperation between South American countries in combating guerrilla groups, such as the FARC, and containing the drug problem. The House Subcommittee also reported that there would be an escalation in the militarization of border regions. In May 2008, two months after the border conflict had broken down, Ecuador announced its purchase of three Russian helicopters, which among other military type purchases from Brazil and Chile, would help reinforce the border with Colombia. Correa, if elected, will follow through with additional steps to secure the border. On March 24, 2009, General Fabián Varela, Ecuador’s Chief of the Joint Commander of the Armed Forces, stated that the aforementioned Manta Air Base, an important U.S. military site in the drug war, will be used as a center for its operations pertaining to the Colombian border when the U.S. lease expires in November 2009.
According to his campaign website, Noboa is running on a strong anti-corruption platform and has a professed interest in foreign investment. He currently has only 15 percent of the vote, having fallen to third place behind Lucio Gutiérrez (2003-2005), an April 6, 2009 final opinion poll found. It is unlikely that Noboa will gain much ground before the April 26 vote. Noboa’s U.S.-like vision of Ecuador seems to be losing to Correa’s promise of autonomy and social welfare, awarding the current Ecuadorian president 57 percent of the vote. Already, it seems Correa is set for a clean and decisive victory as he is ahead by 10 percent over his nearest opponent, and above the 40 percent mark needed to win the election in the first round. Correa’s victory now seems eminent, but news that Noboa’s Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional and Gutierrez’ Sociedad Patriótica are carrying on talks of possibly forming an electoral alliance in order to win a majority of seats in Congress could effectively handicap Correa’s presidential prerogatives.This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associates Billy Lemus and David Rosenblum Felson April 16th, 2009 Word Count: 2500
The economic climate is precarious as Ecuador continues to refuse to join ALBA or relent on Colombia
Following widespread support in the 2008 referendum, Correa appears poised to continue vast social and economic reforms after his likely reelection bid
Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, will be joined by fellow leaders Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Evo Morales of Bolivia, and newly-elected Mauricio Funes of El Salvador at the Summit of the Americas this weekend. The left-leaning brigade will head to the Trinidad forum with significant clout, which will likely assist Correa’s prospects in Ecuador’s upcoming elections. The outcome of the Ecuadorian presidential and legislative elections, set to take place on April 26, will most likely determine whether Latin America’s left-leaning political shift will prevail in the Andean region, or if it was just an ephemeral initiative now destined to burn off. The incumbent quasi-populist leader, Rafael Correa, is expected to be reelected by an even larger margin due to his widespread social and economic reforms.
The effective restructuring of his country’s political workings and quality of rule, in general, has been well received. Even though the approval of the new constitution in September 2008 created opportunities for various openings for change in Ecuador, the political and economic climate in the small Andean nation remains tense, even by Latin American standards. Running against the popular current leader of Ecuador are no strangers to the battle for presidency. They include ousted ex-president Lucio Gutiérrez, and Alvaro Noboa, currently on his fourth bid for the presidency.
Past Presidential Punch-outThis is not the first time Noboa and Correa contend for the presidency. In the 2006 presidential elections each candidate respectively used all of their available electoral snake oil to snare at least 40 percent of the vote plus at least a 10 point advantage over one’s closest opponent. But, in the first round of elections, Noboa won 26.83 percent of the vote, while Correa was only able to attract 22.84 percent. While nearly all elections in Ecuador metaphorically draw blood because they tend to be vehemently-fought contests, the 2006 ballot came at a particularly discordant time in the nation’s modern political history. In the ten-year period leading up to the 2006 election, seven different presidents had assumed office in Quito, three of whom had later been forced out of office by irate street scenes.
During the period leading up to the second round run-off, both candidates resorted to bombastic attacks against the opposing person. Noboa, considered to be Ecuador’s richest national, resorted to a series of diatribes aimed at Correa, many of which attempted to portray his opponent as a puppet of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. “They have pursued the most immoral and dirty campaign against me in an effort to link me with communism, terrorism, and Chavismo,” contended Correa. Much to the dismay of left-leaning Latin American leaders, the magnate even went so far as to accuse Chávez of covertly funding Correa’s campaign.
Indeed, Chávez and Correa share a tight bond, but after having suffered humbling losses while attempting to aid political movements in Mexico and Peru, Chávez remained uncharacteristically silent during Correa’s campaign. That is, until Chávez pursued his own onslaught against the rightist Noboa. “There are also strange things going on [in Ecuador],” asserted the Venezuelan leader. “A gentleman who is the richest man in Ecuador; the king of bananas, who exploits children and puts them to work, who doesn’t pay them loans, suddenly appears in first place in the first electoral round.” Such back-and-forth criticism continued until Noboa was stunningly defeated in the second round, losing to Correa by 57.07 percent to 42.96 percent of the total number of votes.
Ecuador Refuses ALBA In June 2008, Correa announced that Ecuador would not join the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a “socially-oriented” regional trade bloc. The basis of this coalition stands in stark contrast to its U.S.-backed counterpart, the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), which, according to Teresa Arreaza of Venezuelanalysis, is “based on the logic of deregulated profit maximization.”
A report by aporrea.org stated that Ecuador decided instead to pursue its integration efforts by means of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). According to telegrafo.com, in the same year that Ecuador decided not to join ALBA, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) promised a credit line of $150 million to Quito, guaranteeing Correa’s decision to be ultimately dependent on U.S. funding. An agreement to join ALBA would have almost certainly jeopardized the allocation of such transactions. To this day, Correa maintains that Ecuador will become a member of ALBA only after Venezuela rejoins the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), making it likely that Ecuador’s refusal to join ALBA was a coercive strategy to have Venezuela induced to rejoin CAN. Chávez refused to have Venezuela remain a CAN member, which he meant as a snub to Washington for the Bush administration’s anti-Venezuela policies and its free trade agreements (FTAs) brokered with both Peru and Colombia.
Political EnvironmentOn September 28, 2008, nearly 65 percent of Ecuadorians supported a constitutional referendum that, among other things, would allow the reigning Correa to stand for two more terms. The new constitution, the 20th since Ecuador achieved independence, also greatly reduced the power of the country’s military and Congress, two institutions repeatedly responsible for aiding in prematurely terminating presidential terms in the decade leading up to Correa’s first term in office.
The new constitution, aimed at alleviating the plight of Ecuador’s poor, who make up 38 percent of the nation’s total population, attracted overwhelming support as a result of proposed social programs that guaranteed free education and additional spending on health care. Programs aimed at increasing development and economic growth included the distribution of free seeds for crops, micro-loans with relatively low interest rates, and building materials for new home owners. Among its 444 articles, the new constitution also included increased governmental control over monetary policy, handing over control to Correa rather than the Central Bank. State control was also increased when it came to oil policy, which was a significant position to take, due to the fact that 45 percent of Ecuador’s annual budget comes from oil revenues.
Correa had stated that he would resign if the constitutional referendum was not passed, but its sweeping victory will allow him to potentially remain in power until 2017. The tighter grip on the economy, as well as the reduced power of the legislative and judicial branches, is consonant with trends prevalent throughout the belt of left-leaning Andean nations. However, Correa claims that his newly acquired power will help him consolidate the citizen’s revolution. The fear that Correa was changing the constitution in order to stay in power indefinitely was modulated by the inclusion of a clause that allows Congress to censure and impeach the president, given that it had sufficient public support behind it. Nevertheless, the new constitution allocates more power to Correa while concurrently weakening Congress, thus making it harder for Ecuadorians to oust him if they become disillusioned by his leadership.
The referendum’s passage was yet another vital blow against the United States’ once tight hold on the region. Today, Ecuador remains part of the group of Latin American nations to have fallen under the current “domino effect” that is characterized by the election of populist, leftist leaders, like Correa, throughout South and part of Central America. However, Correa’s Ecuador remains unique among left-leaning South American nations because, unlike the nationalization strategies being pursued by Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Correa has not moved to nationalize the telecommunications or electricity industry. Despite the fact that he has attempted to renegotiate mining contracts, the mining industry has not been nationalized. Nevertheless, Washington is known to feel it still has some cause for concern. Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, met with Correa in 2008 to discuss Russia’s willingness to aid Ecuador in nuclear energy projects, potentially claiming another Moscow ally that is too close for the State Department’s comfort. And, as if meeting with an increasingly anti-American Russia is not enough, Correa has pledged to kill free trade talks with the United States, while simultaneously furthering bilateral agreements with Venezuela. Moreover, Correa’s aim to detach Ecuador from American connections includes the freezing of his country’s foreign debt payments and statements that the dollar should be abandoned as the official currency of Ecuador.
The El Salvador ConnectionFears of the “dominos falling” in Latin America have been further exacerbated by Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) figure, Mauricio Funes’ rise to power. After the falling domino’s dust settled, the United States was left with a feeling of apprehension concerning El Salvador’s eventual direction. A series of rightist leaders in El Salvador had made the country one of Washington’s closest allies in Latin America and its sudden lean to the left became a major setback to U.S. preeminence in the region.
The loss of a key pro-Washington government in Latin America has made the Ecuadorian election that much more important. The current fight for the presidency in Ecuador will be examined closely, as a Noboa victory will give the United States a much needed pro- American figure in power in the region. Correa, having stated that he will not renew the lease on Manta Air Base — the only such U.S. outpost in South America — differs greatly from Noboa, whose platform includes an emphasis on orthodox private sector planning, including attracting foreign investment and building up tourism.
Border Dispute with ColombiaCorrea’s disapproval of any form of U.S. intervention in the region was further acknowledged when he claimed that Colombia had breached its borders in complicity with the United States. On March 1, 2008, Raúl Reyes, a rebel leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was killed by the Colombian military after it made an incursion on Ecuadorian territory.
Colombia had erroneously claimed they killed the rebel leader as the result of an air strike launched from within its own territory and that it was, in fact, an act of self defense on Bogotá’s part. Colombian soldiers then, according to this doctored version, crossed into Ecuador in order to confirm Raúl Reyes’ death. Correa, heatedly criticizing President Álvaro Uribe’s breach of Ecuadorian sovereignty, claimed that the fighting in fact took place within Ecuadorian territory and that the Colombian president had violated Ecuador’s autonomy due to pressure from the United States. The angered leader was then joined by Chávez, who stated that if the same situation had occurred in Venezuela, it undoubtedly would have been understood as an act of war. Uribe fired back by producing evidence that allegedly linked Chávez and Correa to the FARC.
According to “evidence” found on a laptop computer belonging to the late Raúl Reyes, Chávez had paid the FARC $300 million in exchange for the release of hostages that they held. The laptop also included information alleging that Correa received campaign contributions from the Colombian guerrilla group during his 2006 presidential campaign.
In a call for the OAS to act against Venezuela and Ecuador during the border dispute, Uribe stated, “Members of the Permanent Council and citizens of the hemisphere, let there be no doubt that the governments of Ecuador and Venezuela were negotiating with narco-terrorists, the proofs are in your hands.” Maria Isabel Salvador, Ecuador’s representative to the OAS attempted to refute the claims, calling Uribe’s evidence “alleged proofs,” pointing out that the computer recovered was “strangely intact” after a bombing attack that killed the FARC leader and others.
The allegations brought forth over the border incident, which Correa dismisses as a joke, could become a major decision factor for undecided Ecuadorian voters. Although Colombia violated Ecuadorian sovereignty by sending troops across the Colombian-Ecuadorian border to allegedly recover Reyes’ body, their allegations that Ecuador was in league with the FARC proposes a new obstacle in Correa’s fight to shed his popular label as being Chávez’ puppet. Latin News reports that despite having been in power since 2006, a Cedatos Poll, taken before the official campaign began, found that 44 percent of Ecuadorians were still undecided, and even Chávez’ silence in this election may not spare Correa from being somehow linked to the Venezuelan leader.
The border dispute had severe implications on Andean integration and cooperation efforts. In a hearing prepared by the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the dispute was said to have had lasting, negative consequences, breaking down the cooperation between South American countries in combating guerrilla groups, such as the FARC, and containing the drug problem. The House Subcommittee also reported that there would be an escalation in the militarization of border regions. In May 2008, two months after the border conflict had broken down, Ecuador announced its purchase of three Russian helicopters, which among other military type purchases from Brazil and Chile, would help reinforce the border with Colombia. Correa, if elected, will follow through with additional steps to secure the border. On March 24, 2009, General Fabián Varela, Ecuador’s Chief of the Joint Commander of the Armed Forces, stated that the aforementioned Manta Air Base, an important U.S. military site in the drug war, will be used as a center for its operations pertaining to the Colombian border when the U.S. lease expires in November 2009.
According to his campaign website, Noboa is running on a strong anti-corruption platform and has a professed interest in foreign investment. He currently has only 15 percent of the vote, having fallen to third place behind Lucio Gutiérrez (2003-2005), an April 6, 2009 final opinion poll found. It is unlikely that Noboa will gain much ground before the April 26 vote. Noboa’s U.S.-like vision of Ecuador seems to be losing to Correa’s promise of autonomy and social welfare, awarding the current Ecuadorian president 57 percent of the vote. Already, it seems Correa is set for a clean and decisive victory as he is ahead by 10 percent over his nearest opponent, and above the 40 percent mark needed to win the election in the first round. Correa’s victory now seems eminent, but news that Noboa’s Partido Renovador Institucional Acción Nacional and Gutierrez’ Sociedad Patriótica are carrying on talks of possibly forming an electoral alliance in order to win a majority of seats in Congress could effectively handicap Correa’s presidential prerogatives.This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associates Billy Lemus and David Rosenblum Felson April 16th, 2009 Word Count: 2500
Farmworkers and the Employee Free Choice Act
Farm Worker Employee Free Choice Act Passes the California Senate
by David M. Greenwald
Editor
California Progress Report
On Thursday the California Senate approved legislation that would make it easier for farm workers to organize and help enforce workplace laws.
The bill sponsored by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) the California Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers, mirrors the federal Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would also make it easier for workers to organize a union by allowing the “card check” method of organizing.
Steinberg’s bill will permit farm workers to form a union by submitting a petition to the Agriculture Labor Relations Board accompanied by representation cards signed by a majority of the bargaining unit. The legislation is sponsored by the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).
“California has workplace laws on the books, but those laws aren’t being applied in the fields,” Steinberg said. “Farm workers only want to protect themselves from heat related illness and death, ensure they have clean drinking water and give themselves the ability to make a living wage. This bill is designed so they can fairly choose whether they want union organization or not.”
“For far too long, farm workers have labored in one of the most difficult industries without a system to ensure their safety or employee representation,” said Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo). “Unfortunately, current federal and state labor laws either exempt farm workers or are unevenly applied to the agricultural industry. These workers need and deserve protection from heat related illness and death, contaminated drinking water, and unfair wages. I am proud to stand with the United Farm Workers to finally put an end to the injustices within this industry.”
Senators, on a vote of 23-14, approved Senate Bill 789 that also would allow organizers to collect the signatures of a majority of farm workers on state-issued cards to establish a bargaining unit. The secret ballot would still be an option.
The bill next goes to the Assembly. Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar proposal in 2007. Republican lawmakers cited similar objections this time around.
"It creates a card-check system ripe with opportunities for union organizers to coerce, intimidate and threaten workers to join a union," said Senate minority leader Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta).
But for many workers, they are fighting for basic protections that unions would provide.
“Senator Steinberg recognizes that state government has not enforced the laws on clean drinking water, shade, minimum wages, child labor, and pesticide safety for farm workers,” said Arturo S. Rodriguez, president of UFW. “His legislation will give farm workers the ability to help the state enforce those laws. Farmers and farm workers have different needs. The Legislature and the Governor have an opportunity this year meet those needs.”
Posted on April 24, 2009
by David M. Greenwald
Editor
California Progress Report
On Thursday the California Senate approved legislation that would make it easier for farm workers to organize and help enforce workplace laws.
The bill sponsored by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) the California Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers, mirrors the federal Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would also make it easier for workers to organize a union by allowing the “card check” method of organizing.
Steinberg’s bill will permit farm workers to form a union by submitting a petition to the Agriculture Labor Relations Board accompanied by representation cards signed by a majority of the bargaining unit. The legislation is sponsored by the United Farm Workers of America (UFW).
“California has workplace laws on the books, but those laws aren’t being applied in the fields,” Steinberg said. “Farm workers only want to protect themselves from heat related illness and death, ensure they have clean drinking water and give themselves the ability to make a living wage. This bill is designed so they can fairly choose whether they want union organization or not.”
“For far too long, farm workers have labored in one of the most difficult industries without a system to ensure their safety or employee representation,” said Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo). “Unfortunately, current federal and state labor laws either exempt farm workers or are unevenly applied to the agricultural industry. These workers need and deserve protection from heat related illness and death, contaminated drinking water, and unfair wages. I am proud to stand with the United Farm Workers to finally put an end to the injustices within this industry.”
Senators, on a vote of 23-14, approved Senate Bill 789 that also would allow organizers to collect the signatures of a majority of farm workers on state-issued cards to establish a bargaining unit. The secret ballot would still be an option.
The bill next goes to the Assembly. Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a similar proposal in 2007. Republican lawmakers cited similar objections this time around.
"It creates a card-check system ripe with opportunities for union organizers to coerce, intimidate and threaten workers to join a union," said Senate minority leader Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta).
But for many workers, they are fighting for basic protections that unions would provide.
“Senator Steinberg recognizes that state government has not enforced the laws on clean drinking water, shade, minimum wages, child labor, and pesticide safety for farm workers,” said Arturo S. Rodriguez, president of UFW. “His legislation will give farm workers the ability to help the state enforce those laws. Farmers and farm workers have different needs. The Legislature and the Governor have an opportunity this year meet those needs.”
Posted on April 24, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Is the U.S. moving toward socialism?
Announcement:Is the U.S. Moving Toward Socialism?
Dr. Duane E. Campbell. Chair- Sacramento
Democratic Socialists of America
Electoral Committee. Sacramento Progressive Alliance.
3 PM. Friday. April 24, 2009. Hind Auditorium.
CSU-Sacramento. In the University Union.
Sponsored by the Renaissance Society.
Free and open to the public. Discussion will follow.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Fake Tea Bag protest !
Fake Teabaggers Are Anti-Spend, Anti-Government: Real Populists Want to Stop Banks from Plundering America
By Mark Ames and Yasha Levine and Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet
Posted on April 15, 2009, Printed on April 15, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/136688/
This afternoon, groups of angry conservatives will gather on street corners and in parks across the country to protest.
They will carry signs and deliver speeches expressing outrage over the Democrats' stimulus bill, over entitlements, over budget pork, over taxes. They will dump boxes of tea on the ground and wear three-cornered hats. The leading lights of the Republican Party will be on hand to cheer them on.
But as with so much on the right, these apparent displays of populist rage are not what they will seem.
Six weeks ago, two of us (Mark Ames and Yasha Levine) published an investigation exposing the nascent "Tea Party" protest movement for what it really is: a carefully planned AstroTurf (or "fake grassroots") lobby campaign hatched and orchestrated by the conservative advocacy organization FreedomWorks. Within days, pieces of the scam had crumbled, exposing a small group of right-wing think tanks and shady nonprofits at its core.
The Tea Party movement was born on Feb. 19 with a now-famous rant by second-string CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli, who called for a "Chicago Tea Party" in protest of President Barack Obama's plans to help distressed American homeowners. Santelli’s call blazed through the blogosphere, greased along by a number of FreedomWorks-funded blogs, propelling him to the status of a 21st century Samuel Adams — a leader and symbol of disenfranchised Americans suffering under big-government oppression and mismanagement of the economy.
That same day, a nationwide "Tea Party" protest movement mysteriously materialized on the Internet. A whole ring of Web sites came online within hours of Santelli's rant, like sleeper-cell blogs waiting for the trigger to act, all claiming to have been inspired by Santelli's allegedly impromptu outburst.
At first glance, the sites appeared to be unconnected and unplanned. But many were suspiciously well designed and strangely on point with their "nonpartisan" and "grassroots" statements. It was as if all of them were reading from the same script. The Web sites heavily linked to each other, spreading their mission with help of Facebook and Twitter feeds. FreedomWorks, as if picking up on rumblings coming from the depths of the conservative netroots, linked to them, too.
But as our investigation showed, the key players in the Tea Party Web ring were no amateurs, but rather experienced Republican operatives with deep connections to FreedomWorks and other fake grassroots campaigns pushing pro-big-business interests.
FreedomWorks has a long history of using such campaigns. Founded in 2004 by Dick Armey, the former Republican House Majority Leader and lobbyist from Texas, and publishing titan Steve Forbes, FreedomWorks represented the consolidation and rebranding of two older think tanks, Citizens for a Sound Economy, founded by the notorious Koch family, and Empower America, a powerful lobbying firm that has battled health care reform and minimum-wage bills while championing deregulation, corporate tax cuts and whatever else their corporate clients desire.
The idea was to bring these two dinosaurs into the Internet age so they could compete with the newly created MoveOn.org.
FreedomWorks got caught AstroTurfing their sponsors' agendas almost as soon as the group was formed. In 2005, when President George W. Bush was trying to get the public to go along with his plans for handing Social Security over to Wall Street bankers, the New York Times revealed that a "regular single mom" paraded by Bush's White House in its PR campaign was in fact FreedomWorks' Iowa state director.
Last year, the the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks’ role in sponsoring AngryRenter.com, a site designed to imitate an amateur blog with a plutocrat’s agenda: to shoot down a $300 billion bill meant to help distressed American homeowners. Freedomworks and its clients understood that if the superwealthy Republicans who opposed the bill were fronting the campaign, it wouldn’t fly with regular Americans buckling under the housing crisis, so they set up Angryrenter.com to give the impression that millions of ordinary Americans were the ones opposing it. The bill passed, but AngryRenter.com served as a warm-up exercise for the Tea Party movement.
Freedomworks and its clients understood that if the super-wealthy Republicans who opposed the bill were fronting the campaign, it wouldn't fly with regular Americans buckling under the housing crisis, so they set up Angryrenter.com to give the impression that millions of ordinary Americans were the ones opposing it. The bill passed, but AngryRenter.com served as a warm-up exercise for the Tea Party movement.
The Tea Party improved on the AngryRenter.com model by diversifying its AstroTurf assets. Rather than put all its efforts into one vulnerable strategic entity, FreedomWorks distributed its campaign across a network of smaller, seemingly independent blogs and sites. If one was outed as a fake, the rest of the machine could deny affiliation and survive.
But what reeked of AstroTurfing on the Internet also reeked on the street, when protests hit over 30 cities across the country on Feb. 27.
In Santa Monica, Calif., the crowd was no bigger than the kind that mills around taco trucks at lunch hour. Other locations reported the same pathetic tally. In Cobb County, Ga., which should have been teeming with outraged freedom-loving, small-government activists, turnout was only marginally better.
It was clear that this grassroots movement was meant as a TV-only event. In the following days, as our article generated controversy about who really backed the Tea Party, FreedomWorks came clean and admitted to staging the whole thing. Santelli, the movement's own larger-than-life hero, published a lawyer-crafted statement on CNBC's site renouncing his role in the rebellion and throwing himself at the feet of Obama.
It was a crushing and humiliating blow to see the movement's leader buckle so quickly, as if Adams had rushed to King George's palace, three-pointed-hat in hand, and threw himself at the monarch's mercy. To add to the humiliation, Santelli's appearance on the Daily Show was canceled, and his employer, CNBC, soon became the laughingstock of the American network TV world.
The Tea Party movement seemed like it was dead in the water. But what seemed to be another failed FreedomWorks project came back one month later with a vengeance.
FreedomWorks is now running the show completely out in the open, coordinating a vast and confusing army of Web sites, selling Tea Party merchandise (with proceeds going straight into FreedomWorks' coffers) and tapping Republican celebrities for speaker slots. Fox News will provide around-the-clock, coast-to-coast coverage of today's Tea Party event. (The network's newest star, Glenn Beck, will hold a $500-a-plate fundraiser for the cause before zooming over to a tea party scheduled to take place at the Alamo in San Antonio.) Last week, Newt Gingrich, former Georgia congressman and Speaker of the House, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced they'll keynote tea parties of their own in Texas and New York.
The Tea Parties have gone large — and they've gone populist. Today's Tea Parties are sure to dwarf the duds of February. Somehow, a movement that was exposed as a fraud has persevered and morphed into something that is channeling and redirecting legitimate concerns about Obama's handling of the financial crisis.
To understand what the Tea Parties are really about, timeline is everything. The Tea Parties were never about the little guy's fight against big government or Wall Street. FreedomWorks did not uncork Santelli while the government was bailing out the banks. The FreedomWorks machine was idle while Citibank and GE pocketed their billions. (The latter, incidentally, a big donor to FreedomWorks).
Freedomworks kicked off its anti-tax, anti-spending movement only when the government announced it would give money to regular Americans to help avoid a wave of housing foreclosures.
How did the right-wing get people behind its absurd and unpopular economic platform of tax cuts, deregulation, status-quo health care, slashed entitlements and leaving homeowners to the wolves?
Enter the AIG-bonus scandal and a steady trickle of news about the mismanagement of the bailout billions and the corrupt backroom cronyism that has guided the whole process, from the Henry Paulson era straight into the Larry Summers/Tim Geithner era. These developments, all under liberal Democratic governance, enraged a lot of people and muddied the waters of outrage — and policy.
The AIG-bonus scandal put a handle on the irresponsible government policies that the Tea Party movement was supposedly rallying against. What could be more irresponsible than allowing financial executives that got America into this mess to walk away with multi-million dollar bonuses lifted from taxpayer money? The same people who cost millions of Americans their jobs and homes were taking what was left of the kitty to ensure that they could maintain their mansions-and-yachts lifestyles.
Somehow, the Right twists this issue by getting people to focus their rage on the government and not the banker. The problem is the Left has been subdued, to put it mildly, in channeling rage at the bankers, in part because Obama's economic team is the bankers and so far serves the bankers in programs that are corrupt, opaque and infuriating.
The Left should have been there to claim this genuine outrage from the very beginning. But it was late to the game. Until a new initiative called A New Way Forward began picking up steam a few weeks ago, a lot of people outraged by Obama's economic policies had only one place to go: their local FreedomWorks Tea Party.
Luckily, and not a moment too soon, this is no longer the case.
It is hard to imagine more different origins from the FreedomWorks creation than those of A New Way Forward. The seed for the initiative was planted on the ratty couch in a 19th century farmhouse on a western Massachusetts apple orchard. It was there that 29-year-old Tiffiniy Cheng sat one night watching Bill Moyers Journal with her 86-year-old landlord. Moyers' guest that night was MIT professor and former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson.
A fierce critic of Obama's handling of the crisis, Johnson explained on the show that there were plenty of roads not being taken, all of which led to nationalization and strict new antitrust laws.
By Mark Ames and Yasha Levine and Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet
Posted on April 15, 2009, Printed on April 15, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/136688/
This afternoon, groups of angry conservatives will gather on street corners and in parks across the country to protest.
They will carry signs and deliver speeches expressing outrage over the Democrats' stimulus bill, over entitlements, over budget pork, over taxes. They will dump boxes of tea on the ground and wear three-cornered hats. The leading lights of the Republican Party will be on hand to cheer them on.
But as with so much on the right, these apparent displays of populist rage are not what they will seem.
Six weeks ago, two of us (Mark Ames and Yasha Levine) published an investigation exposing the nascent "Tea Party" protest movement for what it really is: a carefully planned AstroTurf (or "fake grassroots") lobby campaign hatched and orchestrated by the conservative advocacy organization FreedomWorks. Within days, pieces of the scam had crumbled, exposing a small group of right-wing think tanks and shady nonprofits at its core.
The Tea Party movement was born on Feb. 19 with a now-famous rant by second-string CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli, who called for a "Chicago Tea Party" in protest of President Barack Obama's plans to help distressed American homeowners. Santelli’s call blazed through the blogosphere, greased along by a number of FreedomWorks-funded blogs, propelling him to the status of a 21st century Samuel Adams — a leader and symbol of disenfranchised Americans suffering under big-government oppression and mismanagement of the economy.
That same day, a nationwide "Tea Party" protest movement mysteriously materialized on the Internet. A whole ring of Web sites came online within hours of Santelli's rant, like sleeper-cell blogs waiting for the trigger to act, all claiming to have been inspired by Santelli's allegedly impromptu outburst.
At first glance, the sites appeared to be unconnected and unplanned. But many were suspiciously well designed and strangely on point with their "nonpartisan" and "grassroots" statements. It was as if all of them were reading from the same script. The Web sites heavily linked to each other, spreading their mission with help of Facebook and Twitter feeds. FreedomWorks, as if picking up on rumblings coming from the depths of the conservative netroots, linked to them, too.
But as our investigation showed, the key players in the Tea Party Web ring were no amateurs, but rather experienced Republican operatives with deep connections to FreedomWorks and other fake grassroots campaigns pushing pro-big-business interests.
FreedomWorks has a long history of using such campaigns. Founded in 2004 by Dick Armey, the former Republican House Majority Leader and lobbyist from Texas, and publishing titan Steve Forbes, FreedomWorks represented the consolidation and rebranding of two older think tanks, Citizens for a Sound Economy, founded by the notorious Koch family, and Empower America, a powerful lobbying firm that has battled health care reform and minimum-wage bills while championing deregulation, corporate tax cuts and whatever else their corporate clients desire.
The idea was to bring these two dinosaurs into the Internet age so they could compete with the newly created MoveOn.org.
FreedomWorks got caught AstroTurfing their sponsors' agendas almost as soon as the group was formed. In 2005, when President George W. Bush was trying to get the public to go along with his plans for handing Social Security over to Wall Street bankers, the New York Times revealed that a "regular single mom" paraded by Bush's White House in its PR campaign was in fact FreedomWorks' Iowa state director.
Last year, the the Wall Street Journal exposed FreedomWorks’ role in sponsoring AngryRenter.com, a site designed to imitate an amateur blog with a plutocrat’s agenda: to shoot down a $300 billion bill meant to help distressed American homeowners. Freedomworks and its clients understood that if the superwealthy Republicans who opposed the bill were fronting the campaign, it wouldn’t fly with regular Americans buckling under the housing crisis, so they set up Angryrenter.com to give the impression that millions of ordinary Americans were the ones opposing it. The bill passed, but AngryRenter.com served as a warm-up exercise for the Tea Party movement.
Freedomworks and its clients understood that if the super-wealthy Republicans who opposed the bill were fronting the campaign, it wouldn't fly with regular Americans buckling under the housing crisis, so they set up Angryrenter.com to give the impression that millions of ordinary Americans were the ones opposing it. The bill passed, but AngryRenter.com served as a warm-up exercise for the Tea Party movement.
The Tea Party improved on the AngryRenter.com model by diversifying its AstroTurf assets. Rather than put all its efforts into one vulnerable strategic entity, FreedomWorks distributed its campaign across a network of smaller, seemingly independent blogs and sites. If one was outed as a fake, the rest of the machine could deny affiliation and survive.
But what reeked of AstroTurfing on the Internet also reeked on the street, when protests hit over 30 cities across the country on Feb. 27.
In Santa Monica, Calif., the crowd was no bigger than the kind that mills around taco trucks at lunch hour. Other locations reported the same pathetic tally. In Cobb County, Ga., which should have been teeming with outraged freedom-loving, small-government activists, turnout was only marginally better.
It was clear that this grassroots movement was meant as a TV-only event. In the following days, as our article generated controversy about who really backed the Tea Party, FreedomWorks came clean and admitted to staging the whole thing. Santelli, the movement's own larger-than-life hero, published a lawyer-crafted statement on CNBC's site renouncing his role in the rebellion and throwing himself at the feet of Obama.
It was a crushing and humiliating blow to see the movement's leader buckle so quickly, as if Adams had rushed to King George's palace, three-pointed-hat in hand, and threw himself at the monarch's mercy. To add to the humiliation, Santelli's appearance on the Daily Show was canceled, and his employer, CNBC, soon became the laughingstock of the American network TV world.
The Tea Party movement seemed like it was dead in the water. But what seemed to be another failed FreedomWorks project came back one month later with a vengeance.
FreedomWorks is now running the show completely out in the open, coordinating a vast and confusing army of Web sites, selling Tea Party merchandise (with proceeds going straight into FreedomWorks' coffers) and tapping Republican celebrities for speaker slots. Fox News will provide around-the-clock, coast-to-coast coverage of today's Tea Party event. (The network's newest star, Glenn Beck, will hold a $500-a-plate fundraiser for the cause before zooming over to a tea party scheduled to take place at the Alamo in San Antonio.) Last week, Newt Gingrich, former Georgia congressman and Speaker of the House, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced they'll keynote tea parties of their own in Texas and New York.
The Tea Parties have gone large — and they've gone populist. Today's Tea Parties are sure to dwarf the duds of February. Somehow, a movement that was exposed as a fraud has persevered and morphed into something that is channeling and redirecting legitimate concerns about Obama's handling of the financial crisis.
To understand what the Tea Parties are really about, timeline is everything. The Tea Parties were never about the little guy's fight against big government or Wall Street. FreedomWorks did not uncork Santelli while the government was bailing out the banks. The FreedomWorks machine was idle while Citibank and GE pocketed their billions. (The latter, incidentally, a big donor to FreedomWorks).
Freedomworks kicked off its anti-tax, anti-spending movement only when the government announced it would give money to regular Americans to help avoid a wave of housing foreclosures.
How did the right-wing get people behind its absurd and unpopular economic platform of tax cuts, deregulation, status-quo health care, slashed entitlements and leaving homeowners to the wolves?
Enter the AIG-bonus scandal and a steady trickle of news about the mismanagement of the bailout billions and the corrupt backroom cronyism that has guided the whole process, from the Henry Paulson era straight into the Larry Summers/Tim Geithner era. These developments, all under liberal Democratic governance, enraged a lot of people and muddied the waters of outrage — and policy.
The AIG-bonus scandal put a handle on the irresponsible government policies that the Tea Party movement was supposedly rallying against. What could be more irresponsible than allowing financial executives that got America into this mess to walk away with multi-million dollar bonuses lifted from taxpayer money? The same people who cost millions of Americans their jobs and homes were taking what was left of the kitty to ensure that they could maintain their mansions-and-yachts lifestyles.
Somehow, the Right twists this issue by getting people to focus their rage on the government and not the banker. The problem is the Left has been subdued, to put it mildly, in channeling rage at the bankers, in part because Obama's economic team is the bankers and so far serves the bankers in programs that are corrupt, opaque and infuriating.
The Left should have been there to claim this genuine outrage from the very beginning. But it was late to the game. Until a new initiative called A New Way Forward began picking up steam a few weeks ago, a lot of people outraged by Obama's economic policies had only one place to go: their local FreedomWorks Tea Party.
Luckily, and not a moment too soon, this is no longer the case.
It is hard to imagine more different origins from the FreedomWorks creation than those of A New Way Forward. The seed for the initiative was planted on the ratty couch in a 19th century farmhouse on a western Massachusetts apple orchard. It was there that 29-year-old Tiffiniy Cheng sat one night watching Bill Moyers Journal with her 86-year-old landlord. Moyers' guest that night was MIT professor and former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson.
A fierce critic of Obama's handling of the crisis, Johnson explained on the show that there were plenty of roads not being taken, all of which led to nationalization and strict new antitrust laws.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Global Power Elite
The Sacramento Bee has a column today , April 12, 10 Tough Political Calls Obama has to make, by David Rothkopf , author of Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making.
He frames one of his questions as follows,
“will he (Obama) be willing to increase taxes on the middle-class taxpayers – or exacerbate class tensions by continuing to place all the burden on the most affluent Americans?”
What a preposterous statement.
We are in an economic crisis directed by Rothkopf’s Global Power Elite. In the U.S. after over three decades of stagnant wages for working people, the banking and corporate elite have received over $700 billion in taxpayers’ money.
These are class tensions. The rich, with the assistance of the Federal Reserve, have looted the banks and causing severe unemployment and economic recession. This is class conflict- and the rich are winning.
Although Rothkopf’s essay uses a frame to support the views of the Power Elite, the questions which he proposes are correct.
The fundamental questions are will the policies of the new Obama Administration side with the interests of the vast majority of the people- over 80% of the electorate, or will the Administration side with the Global Power Elite?
Dr. Duane E. Campbell
Democracy and Education Institute
www.democracyeducationinstitute.org/
He frames one of his questions as follows,
“will he (Obama) be willing to increase taxes on the middle-class taxpayers – or exacerbate class tensions by continuing to place all the burden on the most affluent Americans?”
What a preposterous statement.
We are in an economic crisis directed by Rothkopf’s Global Power Elite. In the U.S. after over three decades of stagnant wages for working people, the banking and corporate elite have received over $700 billion in taxpayers’ money.
These are class tensions. The rich, with the assistance of the Federal Reserve, have looted the banks and causing severe unemployment and economic recession. This is class conflict- and the rich are winning.
Although Rothkopf’s essay uses a frame to support the views of the Power Elite, the questions which he proposes are correct.
The fundamental questions are will the policies of the new Obama Administration side with the interests of the vast majority of the people- over 80% of the electorate, or will the Administration side with the Global Power Elite?
Dr. Duane E. Campbell
Democracy and Education Institute
www.democracyeducationinstitute.org/
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Do-It-Yourself Governance
by Elizabeth Sanders, In These Times[Caption: Many consider President Franklin Roosevelt the architect of the New Deal. But the real credit ought to go to the people who pulled him leftward.]
Without new social movements, there will be no new New Deal.
While most accounts of the New Deal recovery efforts emphasize short-term jobs programs, we should remember the long-term contributions of education, family security and infrastructure.
When Barack Obama began to run for his party’s nomination two years ago, he could not have seen himself as the next Franklin Roosevelt, the founder of a new Democratic “regime” (to use Yale political science professor Stephen Skowronek’s term). More likely, Obama anticipated that, should he ultimately win the presidency, he would be what Skowronek labels a “pre-emptive” president, one who manages to be elected when his party does not dominate political philosophy or policy expectations, or have a sure place in the voters’ hearts.
Recall that despite George W. Bush’s dismal approval ratings, Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) were running neck and neck in the polls from mid-August through early September. Without the financial crisis, Obama may not have been assured electoral victory, much less a definitive Democratic sweep.
If Obama perceived his presidency as a Clintonian “pre-emption”—another round of triangulating that meant accepting the essential premises of the Reagan Revolution, assumed to still be strong despite the previous administration’s abject failures—that would explain the ambiguity of his campaign appeals to “hope” and “change,” minus a clear repudiation of Republicanism.
Obama seemed intent on reassuring the public that he was not a liberal Democrat, not a partisan of Rooseveltian regulation, taxation and big government. Even after his electoral victory, the reassurance game continued. The transition team and designated economic advisers represented a spectrum from former Clinton officials rightward.
His grassroots supporters grimaced as architects of financial deregulation—including the many proteges of former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin (and Rubin himself), and the bete noire of President Carter’s defeat, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker—were designated as Obama’s economic advisers. No economists like Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman or Robert Reich grace the administration’s economic team. Furthermore, the administration chose a military officer and a Republican defense secretary to run its foreign policy, with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton hardly a dove herself.
The realm of realignment?
In 1933, Roosevelt’s break with the old regime seemed more sure and sharp. He did not bring the laissez-faire enthusiasts who created the Wall Street debacle onto a stage full of flags as a symbol of his commitment not to rock the boat. Roosevelt’s “Brain Trust” was made up of college professors, not Wall Street operatives. Roosevelt was not shy about using the tax code as a mechanism for redistribution of wealth.
Six weeks into his presidency, however, Obama appears to be warming to the Roosevelt role. A new regime “reconstructor” (in Skowronek’s theory of presidential challenge and limitation) enjoys an unusual window of opportunity. The old regime is discredited. Clearly its policies, philosophy and institutions have failed disastrously. The public is ready to try something new. The opposition sputters and can think of no alternatives beyond its old nostrums (as demonstrated by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s GOP rebuttal to Obama’s speech on Feb. 24).
Obama’s speech was exhilarating in the manner of Roosevelt’s speeches. He exuded confidence in a new path, repudiation of the old, and specificity in the foci of the programs he would sponsor to get the country moving again.
“[T]hough we are living through difficult and uncertain times,” Obama said, “tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”
Does this mean, then, that American politics is again in the realm of realignment, of the generational sea change associated with the elections of Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan? There is a good possibility, but it rests on two conditions that are not at all certain to occur:
The first is a confident experimentation in the White House—in league with Congress—that leads, ultimately, to success. The second is the mobilization of social movements.
For the first to occur, it would mean that within two years (at least by the time of the midterm elections that have always signaled realignment), the economy would need to experience definite improvement.
New regimes bury their failed predecessors through the reconstruction of memory, the invention of a persuasive narrative that paints the old regime’s failures in the darkest hues, the new regime’s successes in the brightest contrasts. Conservatives have been relatively successful in painting the New Deal as a failure. As the story is told (and economics majors on campuses across the nation can recite it in unison), the New Deal did not bring the country out of the Depression; only World War II did that.
One of the first easy tasks of the Democratic Party should be to set the record straight. Whether one consults the figures in Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, or the graphs on Wikipedia’s New Deal entry, the undeniable facts are that after 1933, employment, manufacturing output, per capita income and gross domestic product all headed sharply up (except for the dip in 1937 when FDR, once re-elected, briefly abandoned his own stimulus program).
Economic historian Elliot Rosen, no more eager than Friedman to credit the New Deal’s recovery programs with emergence from the Depression, nevertheless provides a persuasive empirical disputation of the canard it was only World War II that buried the Depression. Rosen focuses instead on the creation of physical and human infrastructure that laid the foundation for post-war technological advances. While most accounts of the New Deal recovery efforts emphasize the short-term employment programs, it is well to remember the long-term contribution of education, family security and the infrastructure of roads, bridges, schools and electric lines to economic growth.
Just as important, the New Deal’s regulatory structure contributed to steady economic growth, before Reagan began in earnest to dismantle it through neoliberal appointments and lax enforcement. In his reconstruction effort, Obama will have the assistance of Congress, as did Roosevelt in his first two terms. In fact, it was Congress that compelled FDR to leave the gold standard, overcome the crippling currency deflation policies of the Federal Reserve Board, regulate banks and securities trading, invest in public power and rural electrification and create a new system of labor relations.
The most successful and lasting of New Deal economic experiments, usually portrayed as inside-the-White-House phenomena, were actually rooted in the demands and expertise of congressional progressives from both parties.
It takes a Congress
In his diary, New Deal Interior Secretary Harold Ickes tells the story of a mid-May, 1935, visit to the White House from a group of congressional movers and shakers, anxious about the waning energy and lack of direction in the White House.
At the time, banking reform, securities regulation and the Home Owners Loan Corporation were helping to stabilize the financial system, and public works job programs offered employment to millions.
But Roosevelt’s corporatist National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) experiment was sputtering, even before the Supreme Court struck it down in late May, and his other centerpiece, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was helping mostly the largest farmers. Struggling middle-class Americans, their modest savings nearly exhausted, were tuning in their radios to flamboyant critics of the administration’s timidity, like Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin. Roosevelt seemed out of ideas.
But Congress was not. It had a labor relations bill, an anti-monopoly bill, pacifist bills to control the munitions trade. And Congress was increasingly drawn to simple, direct solutions to the poverty of the elderly and World War I veterans—programs that would simply mail out government checks and replace the “trickle down” strategy of the NIRA and AAA with a bottom up anti-depression strategy. If the administration would not act, Congress would.
Congress unfurled its flag by passing (again) a Veterans’ Bonus bill, and it almost succeeded in overriding Roosevelt’s veto in the early summer of 1935. If the president would not act more aggressively, Congress would enact its own “shadow” New Deal program.
Finally, the president did act. In 1935, he called Congress back into session in the summer to pass the remarkable spate of legislation we know as the “second New Deal.” It brought forth a five-part Social Security Act, a National Labor Relations Act, a greatly expanded Works Progress Administration, a Holding Company Act that broke up utility monopolies, an act to control the export of weapons, a restructuring of the Federal Reserve System, and a bill to raise taxes on the rich. It was an amazing production, and it cinched Roosevelt’s re-election.
This, then, is the essential condition for pulling a president off the center-right, and toward the needs and demands of ordinary Americans: If the president flags, Congress must be active, and ready to come up with its own programs for recovery.
Calling all social movements
But to get Congress to act, something else is needed: dynamic social movements. It is clear that Congress in the 1930s was responding to at least six organized and energetic movements.
Maverick Sen. Huey Long’s (D-La.) Share Our Wealth program had the fantastic but wildly popular proposal that government simply give every American family a check in the mail annually—about $3,000—so that all families could own a home, car, radio and other life essentials. Then there was the Townsend movement to give every person 65 or older a monthly check for $200, on the simple condition that they spend it all before the month was out.
In the same vein, the Veterans’ Bonus movement demanded that World War I veterans, a large group of whom had twice marched on and camped out in Washington, D.C., be paid their promised bonuses early. The American Federation of Labor and the much more active and inclusive unions that created the Committee for Industrial Organization demanded a national legal framework to facilitate unionization.
Radio priest Father Coughlin, though increasingly unstable, was a fierce critic of both the conservatism and the power-centralizing tendencies of the early New Deal, and his followers, centered among Midwestern Catholic workers and lower middle classes, might be loosely called a “movement.”
Finally, peace groups were extremely active in communicating information about the causes and prevention of war, and lobbying Congress to investigate war profiteering in the First World War and to pass measures for disarmament negotiations, control of the munitions trade and more drastic war prevention measures.
Below the national level, the movement led by Upton Sinclair to End Poverty in California (EPIC) championed its own solutions for the Depression that were far more radical than Roosevelt’s.
These movements pulled Congress and the president to the left. They deserve much credit for the New Deal’s successes in reversing the Depression spiral and creating lasting institutions for financial stability, economic growth and economic security.
If Obama’s conservative economic advisers are to formulate programs of benefit to Main Street rather than Wall Street, it will take movement activism to propel them in that direction, and to counter the inevitable attacks from the right—while at the same time educating the public with information, argument and a framework that resonates with widely shared American values.
Throughout our history, it has been social movements (defined as organized and sustained collective action by people outside formal centers of power to press their grievances on the state) that have made public officials accountable and broadly responsive.
Without the abolition movement, President Lincoln would have resisted freeing the slaves, and Congress might not have tried to secure their citizenship rights in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.
In fact, the well-heeled fellows who drafted the Constitution at Philadelphia in 1787 would not have combined that limited text with the Bill of Rights that established essential democratic freedoms had it not been for that first national social movement, the Anti-Federalists.
President Woodrow Wilson would not have supported a women’s suffrage amendment had the movement not reached a threshold size that made its block of votes attractive for Wilson’s very close reelection contest in 1916.
And farmer and labor movements of that period pressed Congress and the president for an outpouring of legislation that came to be called the Progressive Era. Following the 1930s, social movements gave us landmark civil rights laws, women’s rights, environmental protection and, finally, an end to the Vietnam War.
Presidents come in all shapes and sizes, from the bumbling to the inspired to the tortured souls who do great harm. But the temptations to mask a minimally responsive program in grand rhetoric, to throw in their lot with the wealthy who fund their campaigns and control so many resources, or to abandon domestic policy struggles for the short term empowerment and rally effect of war making — these are institutional pathologies that will tempt even the most angelic of presidents.
Which is to say, if we want a new New Deal, we have to do it ourselves.
Elizabeth Sanders, a professor of government at Cornell University, has published articles on American political development, economic regulation, social movements and presidential politics. She is the author of Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers, and the American State, 1877-1917 (University of Chicago Press, 1999).
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Bring an End to 'Triple Evils’ by Abandoning War
[Note: Leslie Cagan serves as the National Coordinator of our parent group, United for Peace & Justice]Caption: At the United Nations building in New York, King speaks at a Vietnam War protest in 1967. "We are criminals in that war, King said in 1968." (Associated Press)
Published on Sunday, April 5, 2009 by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
by Kevin Martin and Leslie Cagan
Saturday marked the tragic anniversary of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., but also the anniversary of his “Beyond Vietnam” speech one year earlier. In that 1967 speech at the historic Riverside Church in New York City, one of the most inspiring anti-war speeches ever delivered, King decried the “triple evils” plaguing our country — “racism, extreme materialism and militarism.”
Were he alive, we believe King would urge President Obama to use his political and rhetorical skills to call on our people to cure these ills still so prevalent in our society. A first step would be ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq and, instead of sending an additional 21,000 troops, begin bringing home the troops in Afghanistan.
And we humbly suspect that King would have been with us Saturday in Manhattan when we and other peace advocates marched to Wall Street to call for an end to war and corporate bailouts and for investing in our communities and human needs, environmental restoration and a green economy for all. Or as King so concisely phrased it, to “rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.”
Most of the people of this country, and around the world, want Obama to succeed. However, his escalation of the war in Afghanistan, as well as the ongoing occupation of Iraq, threaten to make a shambles of his domestic economic agenda, as well as his presidency, as the Vietnam War did to President Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.
Haven’t we had enough of war? We need to devote all of our energy and attention to addressing the global economic and climate crises, and to improving education, housing and health care in this country, not squandering $12 billion per month on the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just as King said in 1967 about the Vietnamese people, the people of Afghanistan (and Iraq) today must see the U.S. as “strange liberators.” Unsurprisingly, the people of Afghanistan oppose an escalation of U.S. troops. An ABC News poll at the end of 2008 found that only 18 percent of Afghans support an increase in the U.S. military presence.
As to fighting terrorism, a RAND Corp. study released last year found that only 7 percent of terrorist organizations end their terrorist activities because they are defeated by the use of military force. Sending more troops is not the way to combat the dangers of terrorism.
Obama’s announcement of his Afghanistan and Pakistan policy did include some positive initiatives, including increased support for regional diplomacy and economic aid to the two countries. Those should be the cornerstones of U.S. policy aimed at helping to end the strife in a desperately impoverished country that has known little respite from war in decades. We also need an overall foreign policy based on building real security through international cooperation and human rights.
More war is still not the answer, and until fundamental changes are made in U.S. foreign policy —- an end to blank-check support for Israel, an end to U.S. occupation and military bases in Arab lands, an end to threats to Iran, an end to the chimera of the “global war on terror” (or whatever they call it now), an end to hypocrisy on nuclear proliferation, and concrete steps to address legitimate grievances in the Arab and Muslim world —- whatever we do in Afghanistan or Pakistan, short of a massive occupation that would be immoral and we can’t afford, is doomed to failure.
The president’s domestic economic agenda —- investing in resolving pressing problems on jobs, health care, education, housing and climate change —- is put at grave risk by our exorbitant (possibly over $3 trillion) and seemingly endless wars. We can’t afford to forgo the crucial investments we need to make our communities stronger. We simply can’t afford more war.
King observed in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech that the country’s commitment to a serious program of investment in human needs in the mid-1960s was “broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war.”
Can we afford to look back in 40 years and say the same thing about Obama’s domestic program and his presidency?
King’s words still ring, chillingly, across four decades, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Please join with us in calling for peace with justice, rather than an escalation of war. Join us in recognizing and acting on King’s “fierce urgency of now” as we “rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.”
© 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kevin Martin is executive director of Peace Action and the Peace Action Education Fund.
Leslie Cagan is national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Economic aristocrats and the President
Economic Adviser to the Aristocracy
Read More: Banks, Barack Obama, Economy, Hedge Funds, Honorariums, Larry Summers, Lawrence Summers, Obama Economic Advisers, Wall Street, Business News
The lately published list of the honorariums received by Lawrence Summers for lectures delivered in 2008--at firms like J.P. Morgan, McKinsey and Company, Goldman Sachs (twice), Citigroup (twice), Lehman Brothers (twice), American Express, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Skagen Funds (twice)--shows the practical meaning of an aristocratic class. The amounts received by Summers from these banks and brokerage houses and consulting firms covered a range from $59,400 per lecture (Skagen) to $135,000 (McKinsey). Other outfits paid still more.
Summers also received a salary of $5.2 million in 2008 from the hedge fund D.E. Shaw after having brought substantial pressure to institute to a radical policy of deregulation that affords an unparalleled species of financial protection to hedge funds.
The point about such a private counselor who becomes a public servant is not that he is corrupt. He need not be. Rather, he is predictable within the world he knows and believes in, which is the world that honors him. He does not have to be told what to do. When he thinks of the American family, these banks and investment groups, and the too-big-to-fail insurance colossus, are in fact his extended family. They are the people he talks to and jokes with and eats with, the people he thinks of in his spare time. They are the people he knows.
One sees in the recent career of Summers--and not least, in his ascent to the position of economic adviser to President Obama--how subtle, consistent, and pervasive are the means by which an aristocracy perpetuates itself. How it doles out its rewards to maintain its power. How it buys the talents and shapes the careers it needs, so that even a general crisis brings only a second layer of bribed servants, and the medicine is administered by doctors whose judgment is bought and paid for. One sees, too, what drove the rage against such a class in earlier times--the feeling that its power is a monstrous imposition; the fear that no cry or protest will ever penetrate from outside the closed circle.
David BromwichProfessor of Literature at Yale
Read More: Banks, Barack Obama, Economy, Hedge Funds, Honorariums, Larry Summers, Lawrence Summers, Obama Economic Advisers, Wall Street, Business News
The lately published list of the honorariums received by Lawrence Summers for lectures delivered in 2008--at firms like J.P. Morgan, McKinsey and Company, Goldman Sachs (twice), Citigroup (twice), Lehman Brothers (twice), American Express, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Skagen Funds (twice)--shows the practical meaning of an aristocratic class. The amounts received by Summers from these banks and brokerage houses and consulting firms covered a range from $59,400 per lecture (Skagen) to $135,000 (McKinsey). Other outfits paid still more.
Summers also received a salary of $5.2 million in 2008 from the hedge fund D.E. Shaw after having brought substantial pressure to institute to a radical policy of deregulation that affords an unparalleled species of financial protection to hedge funds.
The point about such a private counselor who becomes a public servant is not that he is corrupt. He need not be. Rather, he is predictable within the world he knows and believes in, which is the world that honors him. He does not have to be told what to do. When he thinks of the American family, these banks and investment groups, and the too-big-to-fail insurance colossus, are in fact his extended family. They are the people he talks to and jokes with and eats with, the people he thinks of in his spare time. They are the people he knows.
One sees in the recent career of Summers--and not least, in his ascent to the position of economic adviser to President Obama--how subtle, consistent, and pervasive are the means by which an aristocracy perpetuates itself. How it doles out its rewards to maintain its power. How it buys the talents and shapes the careers it needs, so that even a general crisis brings only a second layer of bribed servants, and the medicine is administered by doctors whose judgment is bought and paid for. One sees, too, what drove the rage against such a class in earlier times--the feeling that its power is a monstrous imposition; the fear that no cry or protest will ever penetrate from outside the closed circle.
David BromwichProfessor of Literature at Yale
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