Progressive Populist November 1996

[repo...@eden.com]

___________________________________________________________
THE PROGRESSIVE POPULIST:
A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN WAY
November 1996 -- Volume 2, Number 11
___________________________________________________________

EDITORIAL:
The next campaign

Being of the Irish persuasion, I naturally am attracted to lost causes,
like the idea of democracy. Still my response to the recent election was:
What were we thinking?
The only reasonable answer that I could come up with was that the
American voter opted for entertainment value in pitting the Republican
105th Congress against repentant Democrat Bill Clinton.
Either that, or theyąre hoping to advance the career of Vice President
Al Gore after Clintonąs impeachment.
Progressives can be pleased with the re-election of senators Tom
Harkin, Paul Wellstone, Max Baucus, Carl Levin, John Kerry and Jay
Rockefeller and the promotion to the Senate of Tim Johnson in South
Dakota, Dick Durbin in Illinois, Jack Reed in Rhode Island, Bob Torricelli
in New Jersey, Mary Landrieu in Louisiana and Max Cleland in Georgia, but
with Republicans posting a net gain of two the Senate likely will be even
more hostile to progressive causes.
Progressive forces, led by the AFL-CIO, managed to sidetrack Newt
Gingrichąs revolution and forced Republicans to back off plans to cut
Medicare and Social Security to pay for tax breaks for the rich. Congress
even approved a modest increase in the minimum wage.
While battered-but-unbowed Republicans are now considering ways to
further restrict labor unions from engaging in political activity, the $35
million the AFL-CIO spent was a small fraction of the contributions by
corporate executives and their PACs that went overwhelmingly to
Republicans and conservative Democrats. łThereąs no way that corporate
America can be outspent by any other entity. That will never be overcome,˛
said Ira Arlook, national director of Citizen Action.
He sees the answer as public financing. An initiative approved by
voters in Maine could become a model: It limits campaign contributions
from individuals, corporations and PACs to $500 for gubernatorial
candidates and $250 for state House and Senate candidates. It also
provides public funding for candidates who agree to limit their spending,
refuse private contributions and shorten their campaign seasons.
The money is expected to come from cutting the operating budgets of the
legislative and executive branches and doubling lobbyistsą registration
fees (to $400).
łWeąre never going to be in a position where the individual and the
corporations are not in a position to express their position,˛ Arlook
said. łBut public funding would make sure that good candidates who are not
wealthy can be viable candidates.˛

For all the talk about two-thirds of the American people wanting an
alternative party, they must have been among the 51% of eligible voters
who stayed home. Ross Perot got 7.8 million votes, or 8.5% of the total,
to earn the Reform Party a place on the ballot and public funding in the
next election. Ralph Nader got 580,627, 0.6% of the total, followed by
Libertarian Harry Browneąs 470,818, Taxpayer Partyąs Howard Phillipsą
178,779, Natural Law Partyąs John Hagelinąs 110,194 and more than a dozen
other declared candidates.
After the election, Nader said, łThe Greens have much to be proud of
this fall. They themselves have broadened the deepened their roots in
communities throughout this country. ... The Green Party numbers, while
much smaller than those received by the Democratic, Republican and Reform
Party, are good first national steps by the emerging young party toward
strengthening our democracy and will form a substantial foundation for
future Green campaigns.˛
The Greens had some successes in local races, gaining the majority on
the City Council of Arcata, in northern California. Michael Feinstein won
a City Council seat in Santa Monica, and two Greens won City Council seats
in Berkeley. Overall, Greens won 6 out of 7 local races in California.
Nationwide, Green Party members hold local office in 12 states, including
school board, city council, and county commission seats.
New Party members and supported candidates won 16 of 23 races,
including an at-large race for the Little Rock, Ark., City Council, a seat
on the county board for Little Rock and the school board for Prince
Georgeąs County, Md. Chicago is sending the first New Party member to
Congress, as Danny Davis, who ran as a Democrat, won an overwhelming 85%
victory. New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate
seat from Chicago.
The New Party also helped Carolyn McCarthy knock off freshman
Republican Dan Frisa in a closely watched U.S. House seat in Long Island.
Tom DiNapoli, the most progressive State Assemblyman on Long Island,
handily won re-election as a Democratic Party/New Party fusion candidate.
Progressive Milwaukee members affiliated with the New Party won a seat in
the state Assembly and two seats in the state Senate.
San Francisco voters by 56-44 percent rejected a preference voting
initiative as a competing initiative to resume single-member,
winner-take-all district elections for the Board of Supervisors was
approved by 57%. But advocates of proportional representation were
heartened by the re-election of Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney, a black
congresswoman who was targeted for defeat by Republicans in a redrawn
suburban Atlanta district. She won a second term with 58% of the vote. She
views proportional representation as a way to allow minorities to be
represented and maintain the spirit of the Voting Rights Act without
gerrymandering districts.

Bruce Colburn, secretary-treasurer of the Milwaukee Labor Council, member
of the New Party-affiliated Progressive Milwaukee and president of
Wisconsin Citizen Action, and Joel Rogers, chairman of the New Party,
wrote of the possibility of building a new progressive populist coalition
in łWhatąs Next: Beyond the Election˛ in the Nov. 18 issue of The Nation.
The core Democratic idea of using public power to build a genuinely
democratic society has all but vanished as a practical political ideal, in
their analysis. In addition to the deep changes in the structure of the
economy, organizational rivalries within progressive ranks, tactical
mistakes and failures of leadership, they write, łthe most important
reason is also the most obvious: As a movement, we are not serious players
in the electoral game.˛
Progressives have allowed themselves to be defined at the left wing of
the liberal/conservative axis, they write. But łthe liberal/conservative
axis itself misses the real conflict in politics today ‹ which is not so
much a battle between left and right as between bottom and top ‹ between
those favoring stronger democracy and corporate accountability (the
majority) and those opposed to both (the tiny rich minority and their
apologists). This fight is the one we should declare as our own. Taking
sides with the majority, we should wage the Śdemocrat versus
anti-democratą and Śworker-consumer-citizen versus irresponsible corporate
powerą struggle. It will be an exceptionally nasty fight, but this is one
we can win.˛
Colburn and Rogers propose this progressive program:
ś Reform tax and industrial policy to close off the Ślow roadą on
industrial restructuring and promote high-wage/low-waste domestic
investment and business organization.
ś Revitalize metropolitan economies as model regions of advanced production.
ś Build high-speed trains ‹ łcapital and labor intensive, theyąre good
for the earth and people like them.˛
ś Make equal opportunity real by declaring a łBill of Rights for
Americaąs Children,˛ providing everybody with a łstarting even˛ package of
day care, health insurance, parental income allowances, recreation and
advanced, high-quality education.
ś Declare America a łlifelong learning society,˛ fundamentally
reforming public education, replacing local property taxes with more
general revenues, imposing high standards on teachers and students and
provide links to work for those who donąt go on to college. Also ensure
lifelong learning opportunities for adults.
ś Restore government accountability, beginning with public funding of
campaigns.
ś Strengthen the organizing rights of workers, consumers and
communities, while explicitly assigning them a greater role in devising
and administering łpublic˛ programs for economic upgrading and community
renewal.
ś Provide single-payer health insurance.
ś Simplify and integrate our tax system to tax both private and social
income on a progressive basis.
ś Declare the budgetary łpeace dividend.˛
ś Declare an łenvironmental dividend˛ in energy and other savings that
application of current technologies would permit.
ś Forge a new internationalism centered on łleveling up˛ international
worker rights and wages, rather than the leveling down associated with
GATT.
We like most of that program but would also strengthen anti-trust
legislation to help small businesses compete with corporate chain stores.
We also would gear agricultural policy to promote small, family-based
farms and sustainable economic development in rural areas. And we would
require accountability from the media conglomerates that use public
airwaves.
A progressive electoral alliance could include the AFL-CIO and its
member unions, citizen advocacy groups such as ACORN, Citizen Action,
Public Citizen and the Public Interest Research Groups, political parties
such as the Green Party, Labor Party and New Party, civil rights
organizations such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational
Fund, the NAACP and NOW and environmental groups such as the Sierra Club
and the League of Conservation Voters.
If progressives want to build a populist movement for the 1998
election, when 16 GOP and 18 Democratic seats will be up for grabs in the
Senate, they had better start working now to build a national network that
can recruit progressive candidates and raise funds and organize people to
elect them.
The populist Alliance, holding its organizational convention the
weekend of November 21 near Kerrville, Texas, hopes to develop into a
forum for progressive populist movement. For information on the Alliance,
call 617-491-4221. For the New Party call 1-800-200-1294. For the Labor
Party call 202-234-5190. For the Green Party call 607-756-4211. For
Democrats 2000, which promotes progressive populists in the Democratic
Party, call 202-626-5620.
Progressives should consider whether to take back the Democratic Party
or take over the Reform Party. Since the Reformers are on the ballot in
every state and have a guarantee of public funding in the next
presidential race, somebody is bound to take it over. And if you canąt
take the Reform Party away from Ross Perot, you surely canąt take the
Democratic Party away from the Fortune 500.
‹ Jim Cullen
________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS, November 1996:

EDITORIALS:
The next campaign
JIM HIGHTOWER:
XXX-ported Jobs;
The Pentagon's MOB Boondoggle;
Phone Company Scams;
GE Wants You in Debt;
Foreign Favors;
Clinton/Dole Trade Advisors;
Recycling Works
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Thanks to our friends
RURAL ROUTES: Agribusiness's Happy Thanksgiving Meal, by A.V. Krebs.
REPORT: 'Greed, Simple Greed': Supermarket to the world pleads guilty to
price fixing, by A.V. Krebs.
FEATURE: Striking Back: Teamsters enlist consumers in their protracted
fight, by Hank Kalet. Also Teamsters battle over trusteeships.
LABOR TALK/Harry Kelber: German Workers and Us
FEATURE: A River Comes Clean, by William Bole.
OBSERVATIONS: Suiting up: The silly furor over school uniforms, by Joan
Zwagerman.
REPORT: Perot takes the low road, reaches 8.5%, by Mark Spencer. Also, Who
owns the Reform Party?
WORK IN PROGRESS/AFL-CIO: Sweet victory.
WASHINGTON REPORT/UAW: Unions warn Wall Street.
TED RALL: Radical Surgery: A Case for Socialized Medicine.
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas: Thresholds of Pain.
FEATURE: Michael Moore: Working class clown, by Bill Leuders.
KEVIN CLARKE: Where have all the burgers gone?
DONELLA MEADOWS: What the American people really want.
COVER STORY: Progressives: Quit whining, start organizing, by Jim Cullen.
JIM WALLIS: A Great National Sin
FREE LANCE: NAFTA loses support
RANDOLPH HOLHUT: Michael Tomasky's Remedies for Reviving the Left.
JESSE JACKSON: The Arc of History.
IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST/Ralph Nader: Corporate Hypocrisy.
EULOGY/James Flansburg: Harold Hughes had a true faith in democracy.
MADE IN THE USA/Joel D. Joseph: Stuffed Shirt: A Justice's Misplaced Loyalties
MEDIA BEAT/Norman Solomon: Big win for 'Centrists'
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW/Sam Smith: Global Scorecard.
BUSINESS ETHICS/Marjorie Kelly: Employees surrender all rights at the
company door.
FEATURE: Burgeoning home health care industry, small worker-owned firms
show the way, by Linda R. Prout. Also, Home health company helps women
move from welfare to work.
DAVID MORRIS: Who Controls the Air Waves?
FEATURE: Public apathy toward elections mounting, by Christine Stavem.
PETER MONTAGUE: The invisible government.
BOOK REVIEW/David Hoelscher: Sounds like a good theory, review of 'They
Only Look Dead," by E.J. Dionne Jr.
LATINO SPECTRUM / Roberto Rodriguez and Patrisia Gonzales: Putting a Hole
in the Constitution.
HAL CROWTHER: Legend of Maiden Rock.
CHARLES LEVENDOSKY: Immigration Politics Deports the Heart of America.
J PAUL LEIGH: The Balkanization of America.
MOLLY IVINS:
Suggestions for the bipartisans;
If only we had more John Bryants;
A few questions we might ask ourselves.
EUGENE J. McCARTHY: Musings on post-modern politics.
_____________________________________________________________
To subscribe to the PROGRESSIVE POPULIST, send a check for $18 for one
year (12 monthly issues) to the PROGRESSIVE POPULIST, P.O. Box 150517,
Austin, TX 78715-0517. Free samples are available. United States residents
please note whether you prefer the Email version or a newsprint version.
Readers outside the United States may subscribe at the same rates as
domestic subscribers for the email version. Just send us a check for $18
in U.S. currency. (We also can take VISA and Mastercard.) Foreign, group,
bulk and advertising rates for the newsprint version are available on
request.

The PROGRESSIVE POPULIST, entire contents copyrighted 1996, is published
monthly by Ampersand Publishing Company, 220 W. Railroad St., Storm Lake,
Iowa, 50588. Permission is granted to republish or retransmit the above
information as long as the Progressive Populist is credited.