OurFuture.org Blogs: David Sirota

Obama Convention Speech Makes Economic Populism Central Thrust of Election '08

David Sirota — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:08:13 -0400

If his convention speech tonight is any indication, Barack Obama has (finally) signaled that progressive economic populism is going to be the central thrust of Democrats campaign in the stretch run of the 2008 election.

The speech is probably the most populist national speech Obama has given.

Here are the key snippets:

"We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look after a sick kid without losing her job - an economy that honors the dignity of work...

Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it...

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road...

I will make certain those [health care] companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most...

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses..."

This is strong stuff - the kind of thing I was talking about when I wrote a newspaper column back in June entitled "Countering Race With Class." That column said the only way for Obama to counter the GOP's cultural populism is with a full-throated economic populist message.

For a while now, I have wondered why it has taken him this long to get back to this same economic language that he used in the Democratic primary. It probably is a mix of factors: The Wall Streeters whispering in his ear, Democrats' typical (self-defeating) move to the right in general elections, and the virulent free-market fundamentalism that the New York Times says he embraced at the University of Chicago.

But now, he has to win an election - and he knows that Democrats have won red-states like Ohio not by pretending to be Royalist Republicans, but by being economic populists and tapping into the uprising that I described in my new book (in fact, Obama himself invoked uprising language explicitly tonight, saying, "Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up

.")

That his newfound courage is partially rooted in election opportunism doesn't negate its value. If he continues with this kind of posture, he not only will win the election, but will create a mandate that helps force an Obama administration to fulfill the economic promises it is making. And that more than anything would, indeed, mean real change.

Convention Dispatch: Dinner with the Ruling Class, Lunch In the Police State

David Sirota — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:44:56 -0400

As the world waits to hear Barack Obama's message of change tonight at Invesco Field, I am still marveling at how I got to eat dinner last night with the American ruling class. Well, OK, not with, but near -- and the experience was one of those "more things change, more things stay the same" moments that make it hard to hear Obama's soothing bromides -- and that led me to opt out of the final night of the convention.

Following Bill Clinton's speech at the Pepsi Center, I headed over to Elway's to have dinner with my friend Bill Hillsman, the iconoclastic media consultant who I got to know on Ned Lamont's campaign. We were later joined by Working Families Party executive director Dan Cantor and a few other progressives, and our conversation inevitably ended up focusing on whether Barack Obama would really push the kind of change he is promising.

That's when the ruling class showed up.

Over the course of about 10 minutes, a few Obama advisers trickled into the restaurant, followed by a flood of some of the biggest sharks that swim in the murky delta where money and Democratic politics meet. Among others, Bob Rubin (Citigroup chair), Larry Summers (former Treasury Secretary), Jim Johnson (political rainmaker) and Laura Tyson (former Clinton economic adviser) filed in and sat down at a long dinner table - clearly some kind of economic pow-wow with Obama officials, leavened with other political celebrities like former-vice-president-turned-corporate-board-member Walter Mondale and journalist Al Hunt.

I tried to capture the room in the picture at right. In the foreground you can see a goofy Hillsman posing as a bandit (left) and a grinning Cantor, and in the background, you can see those Ruling Class suits kibbutzing in the background (the tiny gray head above Hillsman's head is Rubin's). The whole scene really summed up the strange oxymoronic forces that collide at conventions like this. Here we were, progressive grassroots activists plotting how to pressure Obama to fulfill his populist promises on issues like trade and corporate power. And right next to us was a dinner party whereby the American Ruling Class feasted on the Obama campaign's innards.

Yes, in some persistent ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

While my newspaper column tomorrow looks at some of the positive aspects of conventions, this dark conniving has been happening all over Denver this week, too. And unlike dinner last night, most of the worst kind of influence peddling happens in total secret at invitation-only parties like AT&T's - the one that feted conservative Democratic lawmakers who recently granted that company legal immunity in the whole warrantless wiretapping scandal.

Perhaps most troubling has been the involvement of government security agencies in trying to repress those protesting and reporting on the corruption. During a walk through downtown at lunch today, the police were (as they have been all week) patrolling the street in full riot gear.

While I understand the need for security at events like this, the visual expression of force - the billy clubs, armor, helmets, and military-style patrols -- are clearly designed to intimidate anyone from raising any kind of uncomfortable questions in any kind of public way. And that intimidation includes jailing reporters.

ABC News reports that just yesterday, "Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel." ABC caught the whole thing on tape - and it perfectly captures the obscene use of Denver's municipal government to trample the First Amendment and cover-up brazen corruption.

Denver's municipal government has, in effect, used the need for enhanced security as a rationalization to declare a kind of marshal law over the whole city -- a marshal law enforced by taxpayer-funded security forces whose mission is to serve the public, yet which has too often been deployed this week to crush the public and serve the private Big Money interests that still run the Democratic Party.

As a Denver taxpayer and voter, I am frankly embarrassed for my city, and for its political leaders. Nearly everyone I have talked to in my reporting during this convention has told me how disgusted they are at the city's authoritarian response to what is supposed to be a celebration of democracy.

Between the scene at dinner last night and the constant sound of marching boots that continue to thrum through the Denver police state this week, I opted to bail out on Invesco and head home to my quiet residential neighborhood, where I'm confident that the event telecast will -- as it always does -- filter out all the real-life ugliness and substantive issues that this election and this convention is supposed to be about. Maybe that's a cop out -- like dropping some Soma in a Brave New World.

But then, at least for the final night, I'd rather remember this event for its truly valuable moments that brought together organizers and progressive movement builders, than for its moments that show the ugliest impulses of money, incumbency, and authoritarianism that still eat away at the Democratic Party.

The Rise of 'The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party'

David Sirota — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:04:42 -0400

On Monday morning during a CNN discussion from the floor of the Democratic convention in Denver, I told anchor John Roberts that despite the personality tiff between the Obama and Clinton people, and despite some blemishes on Joe Biden's record, one thing is undebatable: The progressive wing of the Democratic Party—the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, as Paul Wellstone famously called it—has finally defeated the corporate wing of the party. (You can watch the clip at right.)

On the morning after Ted Kennedy's electrifying convention speech, the Wall Street Journal's headline reiterates this point with a striking headline: "Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table.". The story takes a deeper look at the remarkable rise of progressives - a rise that was so powerfully woven into the fabric of this convention by Ted Kennedy's emotional speech last night.

As someone who has fought the trench war against corporate front groups like the Democratic Leadership Council way back when it was considered uncouth, I can tell you that I have never seen the party so ideologically unified. After years of watching the Washington Democratic Party Establishment attack economic populists and antiwar activists, progressives have come back. The turnaround can be explained by two factors: George W. Bush and the 2008 Democratic primary.

In so aggressively overreaching on so many issues, Bush has been America's polarizer-in-chief to the point that the center of public opinion has tectonically shifted in a progressive direction. Today, polls show broad consensus support for the major tenets of a progressive agenda: namely, universal government-sponsored health care, trade policy reform, a re-regulation of Wall Street, and an end to the Iraq War.

Within the Democratic Party, Bush's extremism has galvanized progressives to reassert themselves after years of watching Clintonism run "over the dead bodies" of kitchen table priorities, as American Express's CEO famously praised Bill Clinton for doing. And, as the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza and I agreed last night on Minnesota Public Radio, recent election results have only bolstered progressives' arguments. Instead of listening to corporate front groups who wrap corruption in the language of "moderation" and political "expertise," progressives point to 2006 candidates who won some of the toughest swing districts and states with full-throated populist campaigns. They make the convincing argument that in forcing the Democratic Party to be more progressive, activists are not only helping to accelerate the pace of policy change, but also helping Democrats win elections.

By the time the 2008 Democratic presidential primary hit, progressives had laid the groundwork for a full takeover of the party. Because labor, environmental, antiwar and other grassroots groups had set the stage so effectively, the competition between John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama became a competition to show who was a more full-throated progressive. The heat of that supercharged battle ended up burning off the corporate naysayers and unifying the party.

Of course, the work still continues, as money remains a persistent and powerful force. For all his populist rhetoric, Obama still surrounds himself not with the grassroots organizers that he brags about starting his career around, but instead with a mix of Wall Street profiteers and Ivory Tower elites like Cass Sunstein, who wrap their free market fundamentalism in the argot of academia. That means remembering this specific passage in the Wall Street Journal's article:

David Sirota, a liberal analyst and author with the Campaign for America's Future, which bills itself as "the strategy center for the progressive movement," expresses particular concern about whether Sen. Obama will attack corporate interests on behalf of the working class. "If we are serious about developing the tactics and strategies to bring about real change after the election, we have to first know if Barack Obama is even with us," he wrote a few days ago on the Campaign for America's Future Web site. Mr. Sirota expressed particular qualms about the candidate's choice of economic advisers who support free-trade agreements and hail from the investment-banking world.

At the convention last night, a video showed a young Kennedy thundering away at a podium, slamming his fist down demanding universal health care. The video's grainy quality and the senator's then-black hair was haunting. It reminded the audience of how long fights over health care—and all other progressive causes—have been going on, and how little we've moved forward. it was a subtle message that reminded us that enough is enough, and that we don't want to look back on this moment, and wonder why—again—we did not move forward. Twenty years from now we don't want to be ruefully watching at a grainy video of a young Barack Obama insisting he's going to reform our trade policy so as to revive the American job base—and know that he was never forced to fulfill those promises.

Thankfully, the millions of rank-and-file citizens who comprise the Democratic Party have finally answered the age-old question: Which side are you on? And they have answered it by siding with America's progressive majority, suggesting that a progressive pressure system will indeed follow Obama into office, if he is elected. That is critical, because Obama hasn't yet decisively answered the same question of which side he is on. It will be up to the newly invigorated Democratic wing of the Democratic Party to make sure he listens to the public—not the Establishment job-seekers now flocking to his inner circle—when he answers that question.

Convention Eve: Kaine's Geography Lesson, The People Party's HQ & Connective Tissue

David Sirota — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:08:55 -0400

I'm just home from the first unofficial day of the convention (officially, the event starts tomorrow). I'll give you a blow-by-blow of my day, and some random thoughts in between. This is the first convention I will be going to in any real way (though I was at the 1996 convention for two nights, I was only a college student) - so it should be an eye-opening - or maybe eye-closing - experience, especially with it in my hometown.

My morning started out watching the Sunday talk shows from by bed. When I hit Fox News, I stopped because I saw my governor Bill Ritter on the panel. That's when I heard the other panelist, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine trumpet the Biden VP nomination as a help for Democrats in Virginia, saying "Joe comes from a state, Delaware, that borders Virginia." When I heard this, I felt a synapse in my brain fire - one that hadn't fired since 4th grade geography, and that remembered something about Virginia not bordering Delaware.

But Kaine then repeated the assertion again. So I checked a map, and indeed, Virginia does not border Delaware. Not to (nit)pick on Kaine - he seems like a really decent guy - but the borders of one's state seem like something a governor should know, especially when referencing a question (ie. Biden's viability in his swing state) that he probably knows (or should know) he's going to get - and it suggests he may have needed some polishing had Obama selected him for VP.

At about noon, I trekked down to the Sheraton - and specifically to its basement - to pick up my media credential for the week. The U.S. House press gallery is coordinating the credentialing for the media, and they were actually quite helpful. I also got a convention gift bag, stocked with corporate and interest group gifts. The lanyard for my credential, in fact, is sponsored by Qwest.

Out on the 16th Street walking mall, I strode down to the convention area alongside an antiwar protest. Though there were only probably 300 or so protesters, the police were out in force, dressed in full riot gear. The protesters, while loud, were actually quite disciplined, respectful and on message. I was impressed.

At about 2pm, I arrived at The Big Tent - the headquarters for bloggers and new media at the convention. The Big Tent is really something special. A few weeks ago, it was a parking lot outside the Tattered Cover bookstore. Now, thanks to ProgressNow, DailyKos and the Alliance for a Sustainable Colorado, it is a huge, two story space, with full wireless Internet access and all sorts of necessities - not for the Big Media, but for The Rest of Us. At a convention whose sponsorship and symbols happily promotes The Money Party, the Big Tent is the place for The People Party - and that's basically how I described it when me, Markos and Bobby Clark officially opened the Big Tent at a press conference right at the entrance.

On the second floor of the Big Tent, I was part of the Media Consortium's Live from Main Street townhall meeting, which you can watch here. The room was packed with people, as activists from all walks of the progressive movement discussed how progressives can seize this election as an opportunity for change.

I was on a panel with Jay Fawcett, the former congressional candidate who runs the Western Strategy Center, and Andre Banks of Color of Change - it was a vigorous discussion, to say the least, and one that focused not simply on applauding the Democratic Party, but on challenging it to be the best party possible. Andre made the best point of the discussion, noting that as the country gets more and more frustrated with the economic crisis, the war in Iraq, and the dysfunction of both parties in Washington, the progressive movement has to continue building tools (like Color of Change) for people to feel like they have a chance to wield real power. He's absolutely right - simply "getting our message out" isn't enough. Polls show progressives have won on the issues - now we have to make people feel like getting involved can make a difference - and part of that means making sure the Democratic Party's actions don't demoralize people.

My night ended with a drop by at SEIU's reception at Tamayo - one of the best Mexican restaurants in Denver. I caught up with a bunch of friends, including Anna Burger, who I recently suggested as a VP candidate. I told her I was disappointed she wasn't picked, but glad she got a major convention speaking role. More generally, the event was a good example of some new bridges being built. Not only were there union leaders and state legislators, but also prominent bloggers like my buddy Glenn Greenwald, Christy Smith, Jane Hamsher and Dave Niewert. The personal relationships and connections being constructed across the typical progressive silos suggests that some of the essential connective tissue of a movement is starting to grow.

Now I'm home, after a dinner of veggie burgers at my brother's place (he lives across the street from me). After 3 months on the road for my book tour, it's great to be able to come home - especially since I am lucky enough to live in a quiet, middle-class oasis a bit removed from the downtown hullaballoo.

I'm going to need that quiet tonight because I need a good night's rest: I'm getting up at 4am for a 5:50am MST (7:50am EST) live interview with CNN on the floor of the convention hall. It's about the Biden nomination, and I plan to give my unvarnished opinion from a progressive perspective - both what's great about Biden's nomination from a progressive perspective, and what's not so great about it from a progressive perspective (anyone expecting me to serve as a partisan shill in the media should look to someone else - that ain't what I'm about - I'm about holding both parties feet to the fire). Then I'll be on Jay Marvin's radio show at AM760 (which you can stream at www.AM760.net). Tune in - see you tomorrow.

What Does Presidentialism Look Like?

David Sirota — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:32:12 -0400

I've gotten some email today about my column in the Denver Post about the concept of "presidentialism" - ie. the obsession with presidential election politics to the exclusion of all else. People are asking me whether presidentialism is as pronounced as Vanderbilt professor Dana Nelson's new book makes it out to be - and what it looks like in practice. To answer those queries, I present to you this graphic, juxtaposing two pages of the Denver Post, where my column runs every week:

As you can see on the left, most of the entire front page is taken up with presidentialism - specifically, speculation about who one candidate might choose for vice-president - an office that has almost zero power or impact on ordinary people's lives. Now take a look at the right side where there's an image of page 7A. Right, you see it there if you squint hard enough - a tiny AP story headlined " U.S., Iraq Negotiate Gradual Pullout" about a potential end to the war in Iraq, wedged next to a Dillard's ad.

Mind you, I'm not at all trying to pick on the Post (in fact, the paper's coverage of serious issues like energy and water has been far better than most, and you could argue that with the Democratic convention coming to Denver, the paper has a reason to focus on the presidential hullabaloo - and also, in this same paper, they ran my column questioning presidentialism). This is merely a mundane example of a much broader phenomenon that all of us are part of. I checked around other media today and found that many major dailies (for instance, Boston Globe, Detroit News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Columbus Dispatch and Columbia State) made little or no mention of the potential end to the longest and most expensive war in American history among others, but carried stories about the latest presidential gossip.

But as I said in my column, the media is just as much a reflection of presidentialism as a manufacturer of it in our culture. Politics has been celebrified to the point where everyone from bloggers to activists to regular voting citizens see the American Idol quality of a presidential campaign as more important than the actual issues that campaign is supposed to be about. We are left to believe that the only thing that matters in American democracy is the White House horse race - and what a travesty that line of thinking really is.

The Conquest of Presidentialism

David Sirota — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 10:18:41 -0400

If the Founding Fathers could see us all now, they would be appalled. As America has been trained to treat the presidency as a royal throne, we have stomped all over the very anti-royalist revolution that brought this nation into being. As I show in my weekly newspaper column today, the presidential-palooza that has come to dominate every media instrument - TV, radio, newspapers, blogs, email - has suffocated the most fundamental tenets of Jeffersonian democracy.

Living here in Denver, the tragedy of all this is on display in full relief. As huge tax and energy fights roil the Rocky Mountain West, we are about to have the entire presidential-focused political Establishment from D.C. swoop in here, turning the city into a carnival of White House obsession. While I'm excited for the fun of it all, I'm also dreading it - both because I moved out to Denver, in part, to get away from the D.C. culture, but more importantly, because the convention exemplifies the true rot of our democracy.

The reason the presidential race gets almost all of the attention - and every other level of government gets none - is because we have come to believe democracy is a quadrennial vote for president, and that's it. As I say in the column, that has happened over time, thanks to the decline of journalism and evisceration of social movements. And no one is faultless - we are all part of the problem.

The first step to fixing the problem, of course, is acknowledging the problem. If we as progressives look honestly at ourselves, we will realize that we have contributed in very intense ways to the deification and starfucker-ism that is destroying our democracy. Groups like Moveon.org, the major progressive blogs, and the new "progressive" infrastructure in D.C. has fanned the flames of what Vanderbilt professor Dana Nelson calls "presidentialism" - the worship of the presidency and federal politics to the exclusion of all else.

Of course, there are beacons of light in all this. Democracy for America is about true local democracy. Their DFA-Link program, for example, is designed to help individuals in local communities connect with each other and organize around issues (and I can tell you from working with them for the last few months, they - not Moveon - are the future, if there is a future, of Internet organizing). The Bus Project, as another example, is working hard at true grassroots organizing far way from the spectacle of presidential politics. And the state-focused blogs that cover local and state politics are starting to build some shreds of democratic infrastructure.

But sadly, those examples are few and far between. Most progressive resources - whether from big Democracy Alliance donors, or small donors - goes straight into the presidential wasteland. The big donors are looking for Lincoln Bedroom access, the small donors are looking to be involved in the only arena that the media says is important. As they tell themselves each time around that they are participating in "the most important election in American history," many of the most important decisions are already being made in the shadows at the state, local and municipal levels. And as we all know, when decisions are made in the shadows without public attention, they are usually made to solidify the status quo.

The column keys off two upcoming books that I strongly suggest you read. One is Professor Nelson's "Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People." The other is John R. MacArthur's "You Can't Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America."

You can read the full column at the San Francsico Chronicle, Denver Post, Ft. Collins Coloradoan, Lewiston Sun-Journal, Alternet, TruthDig, Credo Action or Creators' website.

The column relies on grassroots support, so if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site. Thanks, as always, for your ongoing readership and help contacting local editors. This column couldn't be what it is without your help.

TRADE REPORT: GOP Cites America's Richest County As Proof Economy Doing Well

David Sirota — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:34:21 -0400

In this week's edition of The Trade Report, Barack Obama visits Virginia to discuss how unfair globalization policies have hurt rural areas of that state - and the Republican Party responds by citing the wealthiest county in America as proof everything is swell. Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a debate over NAFTA could turn one of the most contested congressional races in the country - all while corporate front groups in Washington desperately try to claim that NAFTA is the best way to stop Al Qaeda (no kidding).

MUST READS: NYT SAYS EXTREMISTS ARE “CENTRISTS”; TRADE ACTIVIST FORCES DEMS’ HAND

The New York Times Magazine this week publishes an article by David Leonhardt attempting to explain Barack Obama’s fundamental economic ideology. To echo Philip Seymour Hoffman in Almost Famous, “it’s a think-piece about a mid-level band struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom.” And, indeed, many of its passages should make Wall Streeters wet themselves. Within the first nine paragraphs, for instance, Leonhardt bills Citigroup Chairman Bob Rubin the “center,” despite his deregulatory and pro-NAFTA policies lying far outside the center of American public opinion. That said, the article provides some interesting insights into what Obama will – and will not – do as president.

Meanwhile, the Madison Capital Times’ John Nichols reports on the successful effort to amend the Democratic Party platform to acknowledge its complicity in rigging America’s trade policy. Read the full story here.

WHITE HOUSE '08 - GOP CITES RICHEST COUNTY IN AMERICA AS PROOF ECONOMY IS GREAT

The Roanoke Times reports that as Barack Obama convened a discussion about unfair trade policies in economically ravaged regions of Virginia, the national Republican Party countered by citing Fairfax County as proof the economy is doing just fine. "It doesn't take a lot of courage to go to Martinsville and talk about trade," said U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R) said in a Tuesday conference call arranged by McCain's campaign. "What would be courageous is to come to Fairfax County, where you have 362 foreign-owned companies and tens of thousands of employees with foreign-owned firms...and take the same stand up here."

Besides the tone deafness of holding up foreign-owned firms as proof of a solid domestic economy, Davis forgot to mention that according to Forbes magazine, Fairfax County has long been the wealthiest county in the United States - a place where the median (the median!) household income is over $100,000 a year. The county is home to many of the millionaire corporate lobbyists that have been instrumental in the passage of rigged trade deals. Davis citing Fairfax County today as proof that trade policies are working for the vast majority of the country would be like Herbert Hoover citing the Rockefeller family as proof that the economy was working for most Americans during the Great Depression.

TRUMKA: "IT WILL DO LITTLE GOOD IF NEXT DEM ALLOWS WALL STREET TO TAKE COMMAND"

Bloomberg News reports that AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka is turning up the heat on economic issues in advance of the stretch run of the presidential campaign. In a powerpoint presentation slamming Citigroup Chairman Robert Rubin's deregulatory, pro-NAFTA agenda, Trumka said, "It will do us little good if, when the next Democrat moves into the White House, Wall Street takes command of our country's economic policy.''

Trumka has the winds of public opinion at his back. Over the last year, polls have consistently shown the vast majority of Americans want America's trade policies reformed. The problem - as it always is in politics - is money.

As reported last week, Obama's campaign is quietly courting the same CEOs that oppose trade policy reform. While there are certainly huge differences on trade between Obama and McCain's stated positions, the two campaigns are both being advised by top executives from UBS, one of the largest investment banks in the world. Indeed, the McCain campaign continues to solicit advice from UBS vice-chairman Phil Gramm, while the Obama campaign has long been shaped by Gramm's UBS boss, Robert Wolf. That kind of Wall Street influence will likely make a fair trade agenda much more difficult in 2009.

CONGRESS '08: TRADE TAKES CENTER STAGE IN MARQUIS RACE

NBC News reports that a debate over unfair trade policies is taking center stage in one of the hottest congressional races in the nation. Democratic candidate Eric Massa is hammering Rep. Randy Kuhl (R) for supporting NAFTA and CAFTA in an upstate New York congressional district that has seen its job base crushed by those pacts. As Public Citizen has already reported, the 2006 congressional elections pivoted on Democratic challengers running populist campaigns on trade. 2008 looks like it is shaping up the same way.

DLC: WHEN THE GOING GETS ROUGH, START FEARMONGERING

Ripping a page straight out of George W. Bush's playbook, the Democratic Leadership Council this week attempted to justify its corporate sponsors' trade agenda by writing a Wall Street Journal op-ed insisting that NAFTA-style trade deals fight Islamic terrorism. Yes - you read that right, and the DLC wasn't joking. They really want America to believe that passing trade deals that are unpopular both here and abroad is the way to stop Al Qaeda.

In fact, the BBC's landmark 2008 poll undercuts the DLC's fact-free rhetoric with hard data. The survey of international opinion shows widespread unease with the United States' trade and globalization policies - and that unease is particularly acute in the Middle East, where the DLC claims that NAFTA-style policies will stop terrorism.

Which Side Are We On?

David Sirota — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:16:57 -0400

The question of how progressives can seize the so-called "Obama Moment," as my colleague Bob Borosage calls it, is an important one—and it is critical that the question be asked right now—before the election, rather than after. (This will be the central focus of my questions to Michael Moore in the Meet the Bloggers discussion this Friday).

Though the media's horse race coverage and the Left and Right echo chambers' "win-at-all-cost" psychology would have us believe that elections are ends unto themselves, our Founders envisioned them as means to ends —instruments by which the people's will is debated, politicians are pressured, and a mandate is crafted.

Luckily for progressives, America has aligned with us on economic issues, ready to sculpt a populist election mandate. As a new poll by the Drum Major Institute shows, the center of American public opinion is far different from the center of opinion in Washington and Wall Street that says "centrism" and "moderation" is continuing the kleptocratic financial and trade policies championed by the Goldman Sachs twins, Bob Rubin and Henry Paulson. Unlike the Royalist Right, progressives don't have to manipulate the public with the kind of faux populism that packages, say, tax cuts for billionaires as a supposed panacea for the working class. We can offer the real thing: a real populist agenda for higher wages, fairer trade policies, universal health care, a better regulated financial system and a strengthened social safety net —and we can do that knowing the vast majority of America is with us.

But before we can assess an "Obama Moment" we have to know if this is an actual "moment," or whether this is a mirage, like the one when Bill Clinton promised to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement, and then rammed it through Congress "over the dead bodies" of the progressive movement.

If we are serious about developing the tactics and strategies to bring about real change after the election, we have to first know if Barack Obama is even with us. That is the great unknown at this theoretically transformative "moment." The question that the Illinois senator still hasn't convincingly answered is that age-old question haunting all economic issues: Which side are you on?

When I interviewed Obama two years ago for The Nation magazine, he seemed to yearn for an elusive Third Way on most major economic issues—a middle-ground that can somehow simultaneously satisfy the insatiably greedy corporate profiteers that populate Washington, D.C. and the vast majority of Americans who live outside the Beltway and are getting eaten alive. This likely stems from Obama's disposition as a conciliator and bridge-builder who eschews challenging economic power. Then again, it conflicts with his much-touted history as a supposed Saul Alinsky-style community organizer. (Alinsky was, ahem, no shrinking violet.)

And so while Obama indeed has a website full of nice policy proposals, Bob is right: He has yet to really take a side in what is (and always will be) a binary confrontation between capital and labor—a confrontation that capital has been winning for most of the last generation, as evidenced by declining wages, eroding health care benefits and raided pension funds. In fact, a candid examination of Obama's campaign suggests that when the senator does give us a glimpse of his answer to the "which side are you on" question, he is telling us he's not on the vast majority's side.

For example, back in July, the media had a field day berating John McCain's top economic adviser, Phil Gramm, after his comments blaming the middle-class for the recession. Progressives (rightly) used the moment to point out the outrage of McCain ever appointing a top executive at a major investment bank like Gramm as his top economic adviser. Yet, almost no one bothered to question why Obama long ago appointed Gramm's boss, Robert Wolf, as his own top economic adviser.

Similarly, Obama's first major announcement after securing the Democratic nomination was his decision to hire Jason Furman as a full-time economic adviser. Furman's claim to fame is serving as the apprentice to Rubin (the man who jammed NAFTA down America's throat), and defending Wal-Mart's wage and union-crushing economic model. Furman quickly packed Obama's economic team with other Wall Street titans and neoliberal extremists, all but ignoring progressive voices from esteemed institutions like the Economic Policy Institute.

Even now, as Obama knows his major challenge is to win working-class constituencies, Bloomberg News reports that his campaign is "tilting towards Rubinomics" while the Wall Street Journal documents his campaign aides aggressively "trying to wrap themselves in business's embrace by wooing some of the best-known chief executives."

What this all means is that the messy, disorganized and all-too-deferential circus of progressive institutions—from labor unions, to D.C. think tanks, to grassroots groups, to the Netroots—has to move beyond Partisan War Syndrome, and into a movement posture. We must get out of thinking that the cure-all is the election, and realize that while elections are important, constant—and often confrontational—pressure against both parties has always been the only force that makes real progress. Whoever is president—whether it is Obama, the economic progressive; Obama the Wall Street sycophant, or McCain, the Bush clone—that transpartisan movement pressure will be the deciding factor between "change" and "more of the same."

Of course, the propaganda telling us to look only through red and blue lenses—to think only in caveman-ish Obama Good, McCain Bad terms—is powerful. You can't turn on a television, listen to a radio, or read a blog (except for maybe CAF's!) without a superheated—and often fact-free—partisan screed searing your face off.

But the process of maturing from Partisan War Syndrome to movement psychology should—theoretically—be aided by The Who's iconic song "Won't Get Fooled Again" ringing in our ears. On many issues in the 1990s (from welfare to Wall Street regulation to trade issues), the new boss—Clinton—was the same as the old boss, and the results of being fooled still scar our economy today. Though many younger people's sense of political history stretches only back to the outrageous Clinton impeachment, it is undeniable that the reactionary economic policies that are crushing our country were uninterruptedly carried out from Reagan/Bush through Clinton to the present—and getting fooled again this time around could take our economy over a cliff we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

Can progressives mature? It is a tough to know—and it brings up uncomfortable queries that ask progressives a version of the same question we must ask Obama: Which side are WE on?

For instance, can truly progressive groups in Washington match the powerful corporate front groups and faux "centrist" think tanks that get so much attention? Will labor leaders pining for recognition in elite D.C. revert to their quadriennial "thank you, sir, may I have another" attitude when it comes to presidential candidates' footsie with Wall Street? Or will they start making real demands on these candidates, White House Christmas lists be damned, knowing that these candidates are, after all, benefiting from the blood, sweat, tears (and dues) of unionized janitors, truck drivers and teachers? And will much-vaunted Internet-based "grassroots" organizations continue serving only as partisan mouthpieces, or will they actually start organizing pressure against both parties?

How we answer these questions about ourselves—not the whims of Barack Obama or of the same Democratic "strategists" who have destroyed the Democratic Party—will decide whether this is, indeed, an "Obama Moment" that sees real change forced into legislative reality, or whether this election is merely a televised fiddler recital as America burns.

Labor Challenges Obama's Rubinomics

David Sirota — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:18:50 -0400

From Bloomberg News:

Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka delivers a slap at former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in a slide show exhorting union members to back Democrat Barack Obama for president.

Blaming unfettered global trade and inadequate government regulation for lost manufacturing jobs and a staggering economy, Trumka's presentation cautions that "it will do us little good if, when the next Democrat moves into the White House, Wall Street takes command of our country's economic policy.''

It is definitely good news that unions are speaking up, though not for the reason Washington conventional-wisdom parrot Charlie Cook says:

In the end, the competition for influence between laborites and Rubinites may actually prove politically helpful, says Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "What you need is two loud voices in the room to keep Obama down the middle, which is where he needs to be to get elected,'' Cook says.

This suggests that Rubinomics and its embrace of NAFTA-style trade policies has a mass political constituency, and that by echoing Rubinomic themes, a candidate appeals to that constituency. But polls - which Charlie Cook is paid to read - show exactly the opposite. No, there are not throngs of Americans clamoring for more of their jobs to be outsourced. Contrary to Cook's silliness, while up to Bob Rubin may make Obama friends among Washington and Wall Street elites, it doesn't help him win votes in places like Ohio, and doesn't move him into the political center - it helps him lose places like Ohio by moving him out of the center.

Buh Bayh?

David Sirota — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:21:58 -0400

In the last week, the national media has ramped up its speculation that Indiana senator Evan Bayh is going to be named to the vice-presidential ticket by Barack Obama. Mind you, this is all speculation - this is what our national media now substitutes for actual reporting. What's worse, the same media hasn't really looked at who Bayh is, what he would represent, and why there is a growing backlash to the prospect of him being Obama's runningmate. So I did that in my newspaper column today.

I'll let you read the column for the rundown of what I think Bayh would do to the Democratic Party should he be nominated. What I want to explore here is the concept that he's a "safe" pick - because that's the underlying rationale for selecting him.

The traditional definition of "safe" in vice-presidential politics is someone without any secret skeletons in their closet. The Tom Eagleton disaster in 1972 made this the number-one priority for Democrats for the last generation, explaining truly unimpressive picks like Lloyd Bensten and Joe Lieberman.

The problem with this definition of "safe" is that it creates a separate danger - namely, the nomination of someone who demoralizes (or at least fails to energize) voters, and also refuses to put the heat on the opposing ticket. Think Lieberman i 2000 - a DLCer who demoralized the progressive base and spent the vice-presidential debates telling the country how great Dick Cheney is.

The true definition of a "safe" pick is someone who 1) has a respectable history of service or of winning elections 2) will energize key constituencies and 3) will go on the offense against the opposing ticket. If a potential candidate like Bayh is only #1, but not #2 and #3, then he's unsafe, because he hurts the ticket's chances of winning.

Obviously, it's not productive to show why one candidate would be terrible without offering up some ideas for possible runningmates. You can see my personal suggestions in this earlier column.

To read this week's full column, go to The San Francisco Chronicle, The Denver Post, The Ft. Collins Coloradoan, The Lewiston Sun-Journal, In These Times, TruthDig, Credo Action or Creators Syndicate.