Progressives

Tea Party vs. Two Party

mfinbh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:10:29 -0500

The American two-party system is fracturing, as both sides are struggling with immense war debt, a crippled manufacturing base, and a Federal Reserve that is devaluating the currency in order to prop up financial institutions that gambled trillions and lost; their bets became our losses as they were “covered by the house”. Progressives have been decrying the centrist wishy-washiness of so many Democrats for years, and there was an outspoken expectation that once the Democrats were in power, new, more liberal parties could emerge to challenge the old-guard Democrats to veer left or be shown the door. The surprise is that the right beat them to it (and here's why that's fine...)

The Republican Party is imploding: many laughed as ½ term Gov. Sarah Palin walked away from her job in Alaska because she felt she could be more effective from outside government. Crazy? Foxy? Blithering idiot? None – and all – of the above; because La Palin has become the camera-ready face of the far right, and in the shallow world of contemporary media politics, that is about all it takes to grab attention (substance be damned).

Thus, the off-year special election in the 23rd congressional district of New York has given us a glimpse of the breakup of the Republican Party, as many of that party’s stalwarts have defected – following the Twittering Palin – to the Conservative Party, which has abandoned its longstanding tradition of simply endorsing the Republican, instead pushing a fairly conventional Republican out of the race. These conservatives mean business, and although they narrowly lost this race, don’t think for a minute that they won’t continue to pursue and fine-tune this method, forcing an ever purer version of the right’s hardcore ideology, previously reserved not for government, but for am talk radio.

Democrats should take no glee in the mess on the right, unless they play it right. It should be seen as a warning bell, because mainstream Democrats will be facing an enormous primary season push to the left in the coming month (with eleven months to go before the midterm elections). This week, MoveOn raised $2 million in pledges in one day to force the hand of the Democratic Party:

(from MoveOn solicitation letter 11/03/09)
"You tell us how much you'd give. Then, we make sure the media, Senate leadership, and conservative Democrats know just how many of us are willing to support a challenge against anyone who blocks reform. Hopefully, none of them actually do it, and health care gets an up-or-down vote.

But if the nightmare scenario happens, we'll encourage viable primary challengers to come forward, and if they do, make sure all of us who've pledged have a chance to support them. In other words, potential primary challengers will know there's a huge group of Americans who are ready to help. And conservative members of the Democratic Caucus will too."

This is an important move for the left, because there is an expressed intent to actively work within the Democratic Party, and that’s the key here. The effect of this effort won’t be the same in every district, and the Democratic Party could begin to rupture just as the Republicans have begun to do.

Where does it lead? Of course both sides would like to inject more ideological purity into their representation, but when there are four or six competing parties or factions, history has shown us that too often the worst hard-liners will win out.

Our currency is being devalued by a Federal Reserve using its power to prop up only the wealthiest investors (most of whom have moved their wealth out of this nation’s currency into high risk international trades), while millions more are going bankrupt and being put out of their homes and their jobs by the very institutions that were saved by the government (homes lost to foreclosure, jobs by the seized flow of credit that is killing small and mid-size companies). Many of the homeless and jobless now marching to the beat of Palin and her media tea party brigade find comfort in hate and scapegoating, worshiping a message of racial, ideological or even sexual purity.

We must heed history’s warnings. Millions of angry unemployed and displaced conservatives, given the direction of a charismatic leader (in today’s environment, probably from the media world), well-armed and hungry for power, can start a civil war. The contemporary American version would take the form of civil unrest and massive, coordinated riots, straining the resources of government authority.

There is activism and there is anarchy. Activism is the only civil approach. Let the Republicans fracture into two parties, but it is critical that liberals fix – and maintain – the Democratic Party, and thus retain a majority that can advance a progressive agenda. We must not allow a party schism to occur in the Democratic Party.

Please Join the conversation at http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24771

E-Democracy Also Threatens Conservative Rule in Washington DC

Bob Fertik — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:51:25 -0400

Powered by the Internet, e-Democracy is threatening conservative power in Iran. But it's also threatening conservative power in Washington DC, even if the media isn't covering the story.

In Iran, citizens are confronting police in the streets to protest a stolen election. Despite Iran's government-controlled media, this rebellion is visible to the world through digital photos and videos which are being uploaded and forwarded through Facebook, Twitter, and other global networks.

In the U.S., citizens are also using the Internet to rebel against conservative rule. But it's a quieter rebellion that is being ignored by the world's media, despite its past successes.

This rebellion began in 2002 as massive street protests against George Bush's planned invasion of Iraq. Because e-Democracy was in its infancy, Bush was able to ignore those protests and start a disastrous war. So progressives got smarter and created the "blogosphere" and the "netroots." These high-tech anti-war forces powered Howard Dean's insurgency in 2004, the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006, and the election of President Obama in 2008.

This week, this anti-war rebellion is making a quiet but dramatic effort to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. While anti-war Democrats in Congress are a minority, just 39 House Democrats can block the President's latest funding request by joining with 178 Republicans who oppose IMF funds in the same bill. 34 Democrats will vote no, and 35 more may join them. A defeat in the House would send shockwaves through Washington's conservative power structure.

There is also a rebellion against the powerful health insurance industry. Activists are demanding a real alternative - single payer - which is anathema to conservatives in Washington, even Democrats. Nevertheless, e-Democracy activists have enlisted the support of 83 House Democrats, which may be enough to win a "public option" as a first step towards single-payer.

In the short term, the prospects for e-Democracy activists in Iran are uncertain, and so are the prospects for e-Democracy activists in the U.S. But in the long term, "people-power" will inevitably succeed, as long as the Internet remains free of government control.

Who Speaks for Progressives? Nominations Welcome

Bob Fertik — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:47:59 -0400

This week, Gallup tried to identify the Republican spokesperson. Among Republicans, it was a tie between Rush and Newt at 10% each.

Obviously the Democratic spokesperson is President Obama. But who speaks for progressives? This is an important question, because President Obama has been "captured" by the conservative establishment on key issues like bailouts for Big Banks, the wars in Iraq and AfPak, accountability for torture, and corporate control of health care. Who best articulates the progressive alternative to the establishment on these issues? Here are some possibilities:

Howard Dean
Sen. Russ Feingold
Amy Goodman (Pacifica)
Al Gore
Thom Hartmann (Air America)
Arianna Huffington
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Paul Krugman
Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Rachel Maddow
Keith Olbermann
Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation)
Rep. Maxine Waters

(I've left out some champions of the Left like Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky because they don't try to build bridges to the much larger Democratic majority.)

Who would you choose?

Confronting Two Big Lies: A Strategy for Democratic Revival

dlindorff — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:54:43 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

If Democrats want to come out of this economic crisis with a
powerful mandate to continue running the country, they need to bag the
nonsensical talk of “bi-partisanship” and tackle two big lies that have
been stymieing progressives for decades.

The first lie is that the only solution to the nation’s deepening
health care crisis, which now has over 42 million people—roughly one in
seven Americans—living without any health insurance or ready access to
medical care, is a combination of limitations on treatment and
continued reliance on the private health insurance industry.

The second lie is that Social Security, the single most important
economic “safety net” under the lives of America’s elderly, its
disabled, and children who lose a wage-earning parent, is headed for
“bankruptcy” and needs to have its already skimpy benefits cut back.

Let’s start with healthcare. The single biggest problem with health
care in America is that because it is run largely as a profit-making
venture, fully 20 percent of every healthcare dollar has to go towards
paperwork to take care of both the billing, and the monitoring of those
who do the billing, to make sure providers and insurers are not bilking
the system and/or the patients. Another significant percentage of each
healthcare dollar, despite all that paperwork, is wasted by fraud that
goes undetected—either in the form of unnecessary treatments and
medications, or simple billing fraud.

Just one example of this: Most hospitals, built with federal
assistance under the Hill-Burton funding program, are required to
provide a certain amount of free care to indigent patients who do not
qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, but who also have no assets. But as
anyone who has gone to a hospital emergency room without an insurance
card knows, when the bill comes for such treatment, it can easily top
$2000 for just a quick exam by a nurse practitioner and a dose of
aspirin. Why? Because the hospitals want these absurdly inflated
charges to count against their “uncompensated care” obligation. They
know that poor patients are never going to pay these bills, so they
later just shift them into their “free care” column. Insurers like Blue
Cross or state Medicare programs don’t reimburse them at anywhere near
those inflated rates, but that’s not the point.

In any event, where the big lie comes into play is in the
politicians’ refusal to consider simply making Medicare, the healthcare
program for the elderly, universal, which would effectively move the US
to a Canadian-style health system, with a few tweaks. Sure, making the
government the single insurer of all Americans would mean higher taxes,
but any honest accounting of this shift would have to consider how much
we ordinary middle-class and working-class Americans are paying now for
health care. For those who have employer-funded health plans, they are
typically paying anything from 20% to 100% of the premiums, or a
portion for themselves and 100% for other family members. These
payments can run into hundreds of dollars a month or even more. But
really, the sums being paid by the employer have to be added into the
cost too, because that is money that otherwise the employer could be
paying out in wages. For many working families, we could be talking
about as much as $10,000 a year or even more just for insurance
coverage. And of course, these plans don’t cover everything. There are
co-pays and deductibles that come out of the workers’ incomes, and that
can total several thousand dollars a year. The politicians neglect to
point out that by putting everyone on Medicare, all those costs are
eliminated.

Furthermore, by making the government the “single-payer” insurer,
the public’s bargaining power over private doctors and hospitals is
enormously enhanced, allowing us, as the government, to bargain for
lower rates for office visits, exams, and hospital stays and
procedures. Choice of physician is actually expanded, because no doctor
would be allowed to refuse to accept Medicare as payment in full, and
there would be no other option for doctors to receive payment.

There is a reason why the percentage of Gross Domestic Product
devoted to health care in the US is roughly 50% higher (and in some
cases two times higher) than in any of the countries with socialized
medicine, like Canada, Britain, France, Germany or Japan. There is also
a reason why the health statistics—life expectancy, infant mortality,
survival rates from various medical conditions, etc.—are higher in
those countries than in the US.--and are higher even in much poorer
countries that also have public health care systems. (There is also a
reason why socialized medical programs have survived in all those
countries even during periods when governments have been in the hands
of conservatives—the public would rebel if any effort were made to
eliminate them.)

As for Social Security, I always have to laugh when I hear
conservatives intone about the threat that Social Security will be
technically insolvent in 2041. These are, recall, the same people who a
year ago didn’t have a clue that the economy was about to go into a
death spiral. And we’re supposed to believe in their prognostications
about the state of a program whose fortunes are very closely linked to
economic growth models, not five years out or ten years out, but 32
years out. (The 2041 doomsday deadline is based upon a very
conservative estimate for annual average economic growth over the
intervening three decades.)

Just as an exercise, try to think back to 1977 for a minute. If you
are in your 20s or 30s, you are excused, since you cannot think back
that far. Let’s see: Jimmy Carter was president, oil was being
rationed, the Vietnam War had only just ended, songs like the Eagles’
“Hotel California,” Manfred Mann’s “Blinded by the Light,” Bob Seeger’s
“Night Moves” and the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” were topping
the charts, and the biggest existential threat to mankind was nuclear
war between the US and the USSR, which back then was still a country.

What will America and the world be like in another 32 years? You
can bet that it will be as far removed from anything you can imagine as
today is from what we were imagining back in 1977.

There are many things that should worry us a hell of a lot more
about that distant future a generation hence than the financial
condition of the Social Security Trust Fund. Just take the crisis of
global climate change. In 2041, scientists are pretty certain that
there will be no polar icecap in the summer. Now that is big—it has
never happened in the history of mankind on this planet, and we know it
is a change that will have profound impacts on climate all around the
globe, many of them terrifying. But are any of those people who are all
bent out of shape over the future of Social Security frantically
calling for action to deal with climate change? No. In fact, oddly, the
very people who get so worked up about the imagined crisis 30 years
from now in a government program are the ones most likely to be
unconcerned about climate change.

The big lie here is that Social Security is not some kind of
savings account, where you get back what you put in, with accumulated
interest. Social Security is a promise, by the government, and more
broadly—this being still a democracy of sorts—by the public, to provide
a basic income for retirees and the disabled. And the fulfillment of
that promise at any given time is going to depend upon the political
calculus of who wants to pay for that promise. I would argue that the
system is largely self-correcting. That is, when the demands on the
system are greatest, because of a larger number of retirees collecting
benefits relative to working adults who are paying taxes into the
system, those who are receiving assistance have a relatively greater
political clout, because of their increased numbers. The Baby Boom
population, which is the proximate cause of concerns about Social
Security funds “running out” will also be the most powerful senior
lobby in history when they (we, actually, as I am about to turn 60
myself!) are receiving Social Security benefits. With twice the voting
strength of the already powerful senior lobby today, Baby Boomer
retirees will be in a position to demand, and to get, decent retirement
benefits, even if that means higher taxes on current workers and
employers.

Nor does that imply a “generational war”—another boogeyman raised
by conservatives. The younger working generation, by and large, will be
the children and grandchildren of the Boomer retirees, and many if not
most of them will be enthusiastically supporting their older relatives’
demands for better benefits. Just ask yourself, when have you ever
heard a child complaining about the size of her or his parents’ Social
Security check? And yet even today, current benefits are at least
partially funded by current workers’ payroll deductions.

The point here is that progressives should resist any effort to
lend credence to conservative calls for cutbacks in Social Security and
Medicare. Any calls by Democrats, including President Barack Obama, for
“bi-partisan” commissions to study Medicare and Social Security are
simply cave-ins to ideologically motivated right-wing politicians and
their corporate backers, who want to destroy two of the most important
public-benefit programs run by the federal government. Democrats need
to mount a “Hands Off Social Security and Medicare!” campaign to put
themselves squarely in defense of these programs.

There is an urgent need to fundamentally change the way health care
is run in the US, and the way forward is to expand Medicare to cover
everyone. No longer will healthcare be primarily funded by employers,
who are able to use that benefit as a way of holding workers hostage to
their jobs (and discouraging them from going out on strike). No longer
will we have one in seven Americans unable to see a doctor. No longer
will we have staffs of medical personnel working at insurance companies
with the sole responsibility of denying needed care to insured people.
Longer term, we will find that as the grotesque profits are taken out
of the system, the type of person who is attracted to the medical
profession will change, from money-hungry entrepreneurs to people who
are motivated by a desire to do good and to serve mankind.

Creating a national health system will not happen through
bi-partisan compromise. Nor will the Social Security system be defended
by compromising with those who have been committed to its destruction
since the day it was established back in the New Deal. These are things
that Democrats need to do in the face of Republican opposition. They
are the bedrock progressive programs on which a lasting progressive
American political system can be built.
___________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback edition). His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net

The Price of Right

davidswanson — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:17:27 -0400

By David Swanson

I just read an interesting new book by Alicia Morgan called "The Price of Right: How the Conservative Agenda Has Failed America (and Always Will)" -- a timely message right now, but let's hope it does not remain so always.

If you read a lot of progressive political books, this one may seem a bit repetitive. Chapter One retells a Thom Hartmann theory about liberals as hunters and conservatives as farmers. Chapter Two is the early development of advertising techniques. Chapter Three is George Lakoff, Chapter Four Frank Luntz, Chapter Five the Christian Right, Chapter Six the neocons, Chapter Seven authoritarians, Chapter Eight voodoo economics and the bankruptcy bill, Chapter Nine single-payer health coverage, Chapter Ten corporate trade, and Chapter Eleven corporate media. Chapter Twelve is a very timely essay on corporate bailouts and John McCain, and Chapter 13 a pep talk in support of doing something about the whole rotten stinking mess we're in.

Chapter One was the only topic I hadn't already read several times, so it sucked me in. I imagine most readers will find some other chapters new and some old. But the list of topics doesn't tell the whole story. Morgan does a terrific job of fitting the pieces together and painting a picture that has the potential to reach a lot of people. The early chapters are the most welcoming to readers of any political perspective. This is a book that might open some eyes. I recommend reading it and then giving it to a Republican.

The benefit of reading Chapter One and then surveying all the topics in the remaining chapters is the perspective provided of viewing our political divide in the United States as one between people highly susceptible to fear, and people who are able to set their fears aside.

"As liberals," Morgan writes, "we should be aware that the ability to push aside fear when necessary is one of our strengths. We should utilize this strength more than we do."

This means that while the minority fearful farmer types may admire the Democrats in Congress for funding wars they claim to oppose, trashing the Fourth Amendment they claim to uphold, permitting torture they claim to condemn, and stealing a trillion dollars from our grandchildren to help out some billionaire bankers in their hour of need, there is actually a majority of non-fearful hunter types who are disgusted by such cowardice and complicity in imbecilic fear-mongering. (See Chapter Eleven for why Congress Members refuse to believe this is true.)

I think there is a major weakness in Morgan's book, however, in that she does not attempt solutions for the problems she surveys. Had she done so, she might have been compelled to face more seriously the question of how much of the authoritarian personality she describes is the creation of our culture rather than genes. Clearly authoritarianism rises and retreats. And it rises together with religion.

"Now there's nothing wrong with people of faith. I am a liberal Christian myself," writes Morgan after documenting major -- if not catastrophic -- problems with "faith" and offering no explanation whatsoever of how there is "nothing wrong" with it. Where do people learn authoritarianism if not in the house of their "Lord"?

"To criticize our government is not to hate America," Morgan writes, denouncing such claims by those on the right. Yet, two sentences later, she is accusing her own political opponents of being "un-American" and "un-Christian."

Several chapters after her anti-war chapter, Morgan declares John McCain "an American hero, one who bravely refused to be released from a Vietnam prison camp," never mentioning that he was only there because he had been bombing civilians during a war of aggression, that he simply wasn't a very skilled pilot, and that he now supports the torture of other human beings despite having been through it himself.

These reversals by Morgan suggest to me that we cannot read (and write) the lessons of progressive thinkers enough. These lessons are not chanted repeatedly on the television news the way the myths they oppose are. Consequently, they have not yet really sunk in.

Obama, don't follow McCain into the mud

mr_twist — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:02:14 -0400

Please help unite
Obama supporters in rejecting McCain’s
negative campaign style. We must clean up politics if things are ever to get
better. We have a chance to be so much more than the same old attack politics,
but Obama must hear the voices of his supporters on this.

Please read the message to Obama on the following blog and
help spread it to others.

http://manyhands.blogspot.com/

Senator Barack Obama,

I realize that you have already endured
much since the start of your campaign for the presidency. Along with
the grueling schedules, lack of sleep, and time away from your family,
you have had to deal with being the target of racial slurs, hateful jokes, untrue attacks on your faith, and even slander against your loved ones. All of us who support your bid for president and many of those who do not condemn such unethical political trash.

I call upon you to recognize in these difficult times that the Obama campaign belongs to its supporters. It belongs to all of us. We want to support what we have seen in you. Maybe it was something we read in one of your books, a rousing speech
you made at a huge rally, or a small commitment you expressed in a more
personal setting. Regardless, we all found something to believe in that
we share. We found a hope for something better in the potential that
you contain and in what we have seen from your best moments. Do not
forget this. Even when you falter you must still be committed to the
steady course of something new, something positive, and something which
makes you capable of inspiring and leading millions.

This needs
to be said in light of McCain deciding recently that there is only one
way for him to defeat you: by drawing you into his mud. Unable to rally
the enthusiasm and hope that you stir in people McCain has decided
instead to take the low road and lash out
at you for inspiring so many to believe in and work for change in their
country. These are McCain's politics, do not let them become yours. Our
country does not need a second McCain campaign, we need something
different, something new, and something better.

I am not asking you to be soft and avoid holding people accountable, asking tough questions, or defending yourself from lies.
I am asking you to not be drawn into the negative campaigning that your
opponent so wishes to see you engage in. There is a difference between
hard politics and dirty politics. Do not become a mudslinger instead of
a "hope monger". Many of us want something different and you are our
best hope for that. Please Sen. Obama, do not walk into the politics of
anger and spite.

--- One of your inspired supporters

Breakfast @ Bill's Restaurant 4/12 10 AM -12 PM (BYOB buy your own breakfast)

aa0697 — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:53:42 -0400

Some folks are getting together on Saturday 4/12 for breakfast/lunch at Bill's Restaurant in Montgomery, Illinois on the corner of Montgomery Rd & Union to meet other Democrats in Aurora Township, catch up on local political news, opportunities and friendly discussions. Come and meet other Democrats that are concerned about the war, healthcare, immigration and the economy. We have a lot of races coming up in November and we can't count on taking Congress and the White House with out getting to know each other and sharing a meal. Very causal and informal, no commitment to be there at the very beginning and stay to the end. You should come and bring a friend!! (byob - buy your own breakfast)

Breakfast at Bill's (byob)
702 Montgomery Road
Montgomery, IL
630-898-5264
4/12 from 10 AM- 12 PM

I hope to see you over eggs and hashbrowns!!!!

Obama and Progressive Change

dlindorff — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:57:07 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

I don’t want to overstate the case for Barack Obama, who has been fairly circumspect about his intentions if elected. While saying he is against the Iraq War, he has not acted very forcefully to help bring it to an end. And he certainly has not called for any downsizing of America’s bloated military budget or any end to its imperialist foreign policy—absolutely essential if there is to be any progressive change of consequence in the US.

That said, those who believe that the Democratic Party is firmly in the hands of a malignant and self-serving corporate and political elite have to explain why “their” candidate, Hillary Clinton, seems to be sinking.

Meanwhile, it must be acknowledged that the Obama phenomenon is a real thing. That is to say, whatever his personal politics, his candidacy is genuinely igniting a wave of passionate support across the nation among people—particularly the young, and more recently African Americans—who had for years been ignored by, and consequently disinterested in the political process.

It might be that this is all the result of the magic of charisma, a winning smile and a good turn of phrase. But even so, it would be a mistake for the jaded left, myself included, to dismiss this phenomenon as meaningless, and to ignore it or its potential.

Indeed, I want to suggest here that Obama may at this point have the proverbial tiger by the tail, in that his clarion calls for “hope” and for “change” may be stirring up hopes and expectations for those very things in a way that will not easily be denied should he succeed. (In this he does resemble Jack Kennedy, whose own politics tended to be conservative and Establishment, but whose rhetoric helped stir a generation to political idealism, and may have contributed to the era of '60s activism.)

I would also suggest that while Sen. Obama may well be part of the party Establishment—with a record as a safe backer of the status quo—if he succeeds in winning the nomination, and especially if he goes on and wins the White House, it will be because he has aroused a huge pool of voters in this country who had until now been cynically staying away from politics. It will be because he has transcended the racial divide that has stymied real political change for so long.

And the forces that are propelling him toward the nomination, and toward the White House, are forces that will not easily be denied if they succeed.

That is to say, a President Barack Obama, whatever his own political beliefs (and we don’t really know much about the man), could well find himself, thanks to the movement that puts him in power, freed from the shackles of the Democratic Leadership Council and the army of advisors of stasis and corporatism that cling to most Democratic political figures like barnacles to a rotting pier.

For this to happen, Obama will first have to reach out beyond his current base of support, to rank-and-rile workers—both unionized and non-union--to Latinos and other minority groups, and to older Americans. He’ll have to reach out, that is, to the groups that have thus far still been backing Hillary Clinton and the party Establishment. He need not win all those groups over to his side—in fact it would be better if he didn’t. He needs only to win over the disaffected within those groups—the people who recognize that they have been betrayed by the two parties and by the System.

Should this happen—and it probably will have to happen for this first serious black candidate for the presidency to successfully beat back the Clintonians and the DLC, who will try to kill off his candidacy before the convention—Obama will have been, perhaps in spite of himself, or perhaps because there is in him still some spark of insurgency, transformed into a real agent of progressive change.

None of this means that a President Obama would be a new Franklin Roosevelt. The pressures on any president to “cool it” and play the game of supporting the big moneyed interests that have been undermining and hollowing out America for decades are enormous. But certainly an alternative reality is also possible—namely that an aroused and newly empowered bloc of voters, in bringing a black politician to the pinnacle of power in America, could tip the balance and free that new president from outside of the White Establishment to follow his better instincts. (Franklin Roosevelt himself, remember, was no Franklin Roosevelt when he ran for office; the movement that installed him in office made him into the transformative New Deal figure he became.)

Progressives cannot be naive about this. Even if I’m right, for a Barack Obama administration to become the dawn of a genuine progressive era, it would demand tremendous organizing and continuous political campaigning after Election Day. There will surely be a serious effort by the political Establishment—both on Wall Street and inside the Beltway—to rein in both a new president and the forces that put him there. And Obama himself—clearly no visceral radical--will need to be convinced that the path to a second term lies through heeding his populist base, not through reaching accommodation with the sclerotic old guard.

That is a call-to-arms, though, not a reason to ignore this possibility.

What I’m suggesting here is that Barack Obama’s campaign, by its very rhetoric of change, may be creating something bigger than Barack Obama, and that Barack Obama may never have intended: a powerful constituency for real change.
________________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006, and now available in paperback edition). His work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Who Says College Students Shouldn't Vote Where They Live?

dlindorff — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 17:33:35 -0500

Excuse me, but I have to vent here.

Having grown up in a college town (Storrs, CT, home of UConn), and then having attended college in two cities that were not my hometown, in both of which places I voted in local elections (Middletown, CT and New York City), I want to take issue with the candidates, like Hillary Clinton, and the people in the Democratic Party leadership in Iowa, who are claiming it's somehow untoward for a candidate, like Barak Obama in this case, to urge students who are from out of town or , god forbid, out of state to vote in the Iowa caucuses. Officials in other states have made the same kind of complaint.

Students, in case these people haven't noticed, are full-fledged citizens with full rights.

If they are attending university, they are residing in that state and that community where their school is for at least nine months, and in many cases, if they get summer jobs there, for the full 12 months. They're there as long as many non-student residents, many of whom leave for vacations in the summer too (and many of whom may work out of state much of the year). As in-state residents, theses students have many of the same concerns as any other resident: decent funding for education, good roads, public safety, environmental protection, etc.

They also have specific issues related to their being students at the university, especially when it's a state school like, say, the University of Iowa--for example the out-of-state tuition rate, the amount of money provided by the state to support higher education in the state, the level of faculty salaries, etc.--and they have every reason, and every right, to be politically active in defending those things.

Historically, communities have fought against letting students register to vote locally, claiming that they are "outsiders." Fortunately the courts have upheld the right of everyone to vote where they live, including students. To criticize Obama for urging students to register and participate in Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses is the height of hypocrisy.

What Democratic leaders and local people in university communities don't like about students is that they tend to be more liberal and more independent than the average voter, and to be smarter about seeing through hype and tripe.

That's why the Clinton campaign, at least behind the scenes, has been encouraging criticism of Obama's get-out-the-out-of-state-student vote effort, and why the state's party establishment, which is aligned with Clinton, is also grumbling about it (Obama has proved particularly popular among students).

Let me say that I'm not an Obama supporter myself; I think Dennis Kucinich is clearly the best candidate in this race. But I do smell a rat in this attack on student voters. (Students, by the way, have also been big backers Kucinich in the Democratic, and Ron Paul in the Republican presidential campaigns nationally.)

The truth is, students, regardless of whether they are from in-state or out-of-state, should be encouraged not just to vote in the Iowa caucuses, but to take control of the communities where they are in the majority. In communities where they have done so--Berkeley, CA, Boulder, CO, Ithaca, NY, Burlington, VT, Santa Cruz, CA and Madison, WI, come to mind--they have helped local progressive forces to offer creative new models of local government, and to develop innovative ideas with regard to transportation, environmental protection, and public education, that typical communities have typically shied away from.

We need more, not less, of this kind of community activism.

So don't take any crap, students! You have the right to vote where you live. Use it, and make something of it.

How to Get On the Ballot as a Kucinich Delegate

Trainer12 — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:58:07 -0500

How to Get on the Ballot as a Kucinich Delegate in PA

Get a permission form from PADEMS.com fill it out and send to Dennis Kucinich’s Campaign Headquarters in Cleveland to get his permission to run. The State Committee in Harrisburg, PA needs to have this by Jan. 8, 2008 in order for you to run.
Obtain the Nomination Petition and start gathering the minimum of 250 registered Democratic Party voters in your Congressional District starting Jan. 24, 2008 and ending on Feb. 12, 2008. Each nomination petition contains 50 signatures. You must print on both sides of the 8 ½ by 14 sheet of paper. This will be available at the Bureau of Elections (Department of State) Website. http://www.dos.state.pa.us/elections/site/default.asp. You may also request a hard copy via snail mail from them. The State Dem Organizer at the meeting on Sept. 7th told us to gather 500 to survive any challenges. Be sure you have a voter file list to be sure that the person signing puts in their voter precinct address and not their postal address, that they are a registered Democrat and that they sign it the way they signed it when they registered to vote. Voter files are available from the Party, the County and the State. I learned this the hard way when circulating nomination petitions for Chuck Pennacchio to get him on the ballot.
Each Nomination Petition must be notarized by Notary Public. This costs anywhere from $8.00 to $15.00 a sheet. I found a notary public at work who does it for $5.00. My insurance agent did my nomination petition for committee person for free. He is a Democrat and it was only one sheet. I needed 15 and I had 50 signatures.
Submit you 250 + notarized petitions in Harrisburg, PA to the Bureau of Elections in the North Office Building at the Capitol Complex Second Floor on Feb. 13, 2008 and pay a $25.00 fee to get on the ballot. This fee can be waived if you get special permission from the PA Dems in Harrisburg, PA http://www.dos.state.pa.us/elections/site/default.asp
On April 22, 2008 the tentative date for the Primary, you must receive at least 15% of registered Democratic voters, voting in the Democratic Primary voting for you for the candidate that you are pledged to in order to go to Denver, CO August 24-28, 2008.
If you win, don’t make your own reservations for hotel or airfare. The DNC does that. They get a group rate and want all the Delegates herded and their whereabouts known at all times.

2008 DNC Convention Delegate Selection is here!PA DEMOCRATIC PARTY ANNOUNCES DELEGATE SELECTION TRAININGS IN ANTICIPATION OF 2008 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

DISTRICT	DATE/TIME	LOCATION	ADDRESS
6	12/1, 10 a.m.	IBEW Local 743	20 Morgan Dr., Reading
17	12/5, 7 p.m.	AFSCME Council 13	4031 Executive Park Dr., Harrisburg
12	12/8, 10 a.m.	Blair/Bedford Central Labor	302 Wopsononick Ave., Altoona
9	12/8, 1:30 p.m.	USWA Local 2635	422 Main St., Johnstown
8	12/8, 2 p.m.	Bucks County Free Library	150 S. Pine St., Doylestown
3	12/10, 6:30 p.m.	Meadville City Hall	984 Water St., Meadville
10	12/11, 6:30 p.m.	Holiday Inn	100 Pine St., Williamsport
15	12/11, 7 p.m.	Van A. Bittner Hall	53 E. Lehigh St., Bethlehem
13	12/12, 6:30 p.m.	AFSCME Council 88	3031 Walton Rd., Plymouth Meeting
18	12/12, 6:30 p.m.	Canonsburg Boro Building	68 East Pike St., Canonsburg
4	12/13, 6:30 p.m.	IBEW Local 712	217 Sassafras Lane, Beaver
5	12/13, 6:30 p.m.	Schlow Centre Region Library	211 S. Allen St., State College
1	12/14, 5 p.m.	Philadelphia City Committee	1421 Walnut St., Philadelphia
16	12/16, 7 p.m.	Lancaster Democratic Committee	53 N. Duke St., Lancaster
14	12/17, 6:30 p.m.	IBEW Local 5	5 Hot Metal St., Pittsubrgh
11	12/20, 7 p.m.	McEntee Keller Labor Center	1258 O'Neill Highway, Dunmore