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In public squares across the country, Occupy protesters honor Rev. Martin Luther King’s memory on this holiday devoted to him. Their tribute is more meaningful and enduring than the granite monument that President Obama dedicated to Rev. King in Washington, D.C. last year.

That’s because the Occupiers are pressing for a cause – economic justice – that Rev. King had embraced in the months before his assassination in 1968. And they’re pursuing it with the technique he advocated – nonviolent protest.

Rev. King’s final crusade, his Poor People’s Campaign, and the Occupiers’ championing the nation’s 99 percent are remarkable in their similarities. It’s tragic that in the 44 years since Rev. King launched his campaign for an economic Bill of Rights that the nation’s poor and middle class have lurched backward instead of forward. It’s hopeful, however, that a whole new generation of idealists has taken up the dream of economic justice.

In the year before Rev. King was gunned down, he persuaded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to join him in a movement devoted to securing for all citizens the basic needs that would enable them to pursue the American Dream, to pursue happiness. He believed every able-bodied person should have access to a job with a living wage. And he believed every American should have decent housing and affordable health care. Without economic security, he said, no man is free.

Rev. King’s dream has its roots in the progressive movement, containing key elements of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposed Economic Bill of Rights. Roosevelt, the beloved president who gave the country Social Security, pushed the Economic Bill of Rights in the waning days of the war. (more…)

Fifty years of my life I spent earning a living in various physical labor intense work, sometimes two even three jobs. I was a boomer who with only a high school equivalent was able to eke out a living. I ate the dirt of the earth to save a little money and buy a little house to live in for the rest of my life .I suffered broken bones and crippling injuries and lived in poverty many years of my life.

For 50 years I paid into Social Security while working with the belief the government was doing the right thing. As I aged and became proficient at my labor, I was able to raise the standard of living for my family and paid higher levels of my income into Social Security.

I am now 64, maimed and crippled for the rest of my life. My bones are weary and I am unable to do the heavy labor anymore

Now, my social Security is 60 percent of my monthly income, and I receive a small pension from 15 years of back breaking work in a steel mill.

The Social Security I paid my whole working life is now coming back to me, and I thank God that our government held to the Constitutional value of “‘promote the general welfare.” I was one of the uneducated masses that worked for the good of the country and family and community and did not understand the need for such a great social justice entitlement. Now, I understand, and the U.S. government under President Franklin D. Roosevelt got something right.

Not one person I have talked to has thought cuts to Social Security is the right way to go.  Social Security is not the problem. Sixty percent of our GDP goes to the military. That is what needs to be cut. Stop the wars and let’s put the warriors to work.

William Krebes
Hobart, Ind.
Retired Steelworker, Local 1014, U.S. Steel Gary Works

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Harvey J. Kaye

By Harvey Kaye
Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

This past Saturday, April 2, Florida Republicans launched a six-months-long, seven-city “Greatest Generation Tour” in Pensacola’s Veterans Memorial Park. Declaring their intention to recognize and honor the patriotic sacrifices and achievements of those who served the country in World War II—and noting that more than 1,000 of those veterans are passing away each day—state GOP spokesperson Don Salter stated that “we need to show our appreciation before it’s too late.”

Nice words—spoken, I am sure, with the utmost sincerity. And yet I seriously doubt that the Sunshine State Republicans will—or even can—properly recognize and honor the achievements of those whom we have come to call the “Greatest Generation.” It’s not simply that previous celebrations and commemorations have repeatedly failed to fully appreciate what those then-young Americans actually accomplished. It’s also that Republican conservatives—no, let’s face it, reactionaries—essentially have placed the memory and legacy of those who confronted the horrors of the Great Depression and the second World War under siege.

Over and over again, Americans, both right and left, have failed to properly acknowledge how much the men and women of the 1930s and 1940s actually accomplished. Against historical expectations, in the face of powerful opposition, and despite their own terrible faults and failings, those Americans not only rescued the nation from economic destruction, defended it against political tyranny, and turned it into the strongest and most prosperous country on earth, but at the very same time made it freer, more equal and more democratic than ever before. Arguably the most progressive generation in U.S. history, they not only rejected the easy temptations of authoritarianism and isolationism and responded with courage and determination to Franklin Roosevelt’s democratic New Deal and vision of the Four Freedoms. They also subjected big business to public account and regulation, empowered the federal government to address the needs of working people, organized labor unions, fought for their rights, reconstituted the “We” in “We the People,” established a Social Security system expanded the nation’s public infrastructure, improved the environment, and—having imbued themselves with fresh democratic convictions, hopes, and aspirations—went on to fight and defeat Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. (more…)

Robert Borosage

By Robert L. Borosage
Co-Director Campaign for America’s Future

How does America dig out of the hole we are in? Surely the focus must be on first principles, how do we recreate an economy that works for working people? With the right talking about a return to the principles of the Constitution, it is worth remembering how Americans thought about first principles coming out of the last great economic calamity.

Today is the 67th anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s historic 1944 State of the Union address that put forth an Economic Bill of Rights for all Americans. (Michael Moore presented to modern audiences in his Capitalism: A Love Story)

Roosevelt spoke as the Great War was drawing to a close. Attention was turning to the transition to peace, with widespread fears about whether the economy would revert to the depression that only the mobilization for war brought to an end. An entire nation had mobilized and sacrificed for war, what would peacetime bring?

Roosevelt argued that the sacrifices made in war demanded a strategy not only for “a lasting peace,” but for “an American standard of living higher than ever before known” — and one that was as widely shared as the wartime sacrifices were:

We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people — whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth — is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure. (more…)

Mike Hall

By Mike Hall
AFL-CIO Senior Writer

After President Obama finished delivering his speech to the AFL-CIO Executive Council this week, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka had this question for the president:

“We’re going into a congressional election three months from today, and I think it’s fair to say that workers’ hopes for congressional action to protect workers’ rights and to create jobs have been frustrated by a Republican minority that has filibustered every matter in front of them, every single thing that’s been good for us.

I just want to ask you, what advice do you have for workers as the election approaches, particularly for workers who are trying to organize to have a voice on the job?”

We couldn’t have answered any better. Take a look at Obama’s response: (more…)

Leo W. Gerard

 By Leo W. Gerard
International President

In the title tune to the 1934 musical “Anything Goes,” Cole Porter says “times have changed,” since the stock market crashed in 1929, but the super rich, like John D. Rockefeller Jr., “still can hoard enough money to let Max Gordon produce his shows.”

The lyrics also tease FDR because Eleanor advertised a mattress from a venerable company:  “Missus R., with all her trimmin’s, can broadcast a bed from Simmons, ‘cause Franklin knows, Anything Goes.”

That 133-year-old company, which employs members of my union, the United Steelworkers (USW), will file for bankruptcy soon. Then it will be auctioned to yet another private equity firm – the seventh such sale in little more than 20 years.

Repeatedly, new owners stuck their greedy hands under the mattress and pulled out money. Each time, that hurt the company and the workers. The firm is $1.3 billion in debt now – eight times what it was when the private equity companies started passing Simmons around like a cheap date. And a quarter of its workforce – 1,000 people – is laid off.

This is Anything Goes capitalism. It destroys companies. And it destroys workers’ lives. But it sure does work for the private equity firms. They made around $750 million in profits from the now-indebted and bankrupt Simmons.

It’s time to flip the mattress on that failed economic philosophy. Time to end the days of Anything Goes, just like FDR did. Time to regulate private equity before it ruins more American manufacturing.

Too often private equity firms buy manufacturers, borrow against their assets, pull out that money as “dividends,” and run off without regard to the future of the company or its workers. It’s smoking instant cash gratification in a crack pipe. Here is how Robert Hellyer, a former Simmons president who worked under several of the private equity buyers, explained it to the New York Times, “From my experience, none of the private equity firms were building a brand for the future. . .Plus, the mind-set was, since the money was practically free, why not leverage the company to the maximum?”

It’s morally wrong. It’s economically wrong. It’s gotta stop.

Bankrupting viable companies – the way the private equity firms did Simmons – for the profit of a few and the pain of the most should be banned.  The New York Times, writing about the Simmons case, noted:

“A disproportionate number of the companies that were acquired during that frenzy are now struggling with the enormous debts. More than half the roughly 220 companies that have defaulted on their debt in some form this year were either owned at one time or are still controlled by private equity firms, according to analysts at Standard & Poor’s.”

The current owners of Simmons, the ones who put the company even further into debt, Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston, will leave the mattress firm mired in bankruptcy while walking away about $77 million richer. Clearly, Anything Goes for them. All profit; no consequences.

Not so for Simmons bond holders, who stand to lose more than $575 million in the bankruptcy; the workers, who confront losing their livelihoods, and the company itself as it struggles to survive under an extraordinary debt burden. 

Scott A. Schoen, Simmons co-president, whined to the New York Times that the mattress downturn was “unprecedented and unforeseeable.”

On the other hand, as the Times noted of the private equity takeovers, “Many of these deals, cut in good times, left little or no margin for error – let alone for the Great Recession.”  Maybe Mr. Schoen could have shown a better business plan.

Then, again, it wasn’t about business planning. It was all about raiding the company for its assets and shipping out, like a Viking invader.

Before the likes of Thomas H. Lee and partners showed up on the scene, Noble Rogers, 50, worked happily for Simmons, mostly at the Mapleton, Ga., plant. President of the USW local, he loved Simmons because the company cared for its workers, providing a pension, and when workers retired, giving them a bonus of $20 for each year and a mattress set.

“There were picnics, March of Dimes walks, Christmas parties, and we always had Halloween parties. It was really a family-oriented company,” Rogers told the New York Times.

Then in 2003 came Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston, the latest private equity firm extracting more money from Simmons.

In the spring of 2008, Simmons laid off the entire night shift of Rogers’ plant. A few months later, on Sept. 18, Simmons officials announced they were closing the factory altogether. 

Rogers negotiated with Simmons for the traditional gift of $20 for each year worked and the mattress set for those eligible for retirement. Simmons rebuffed him. But then, that was to be expected. Simmons – under Thomas H. Lee – had stopped the parties and picnics.

The USW has worked with legitimate private equity firms that bought struggling manufacturers, set them on a path to profitability, and moved on to the next money-making acquisition.

That is completely different from buying a company to function as nothing more than a leach, engorging on its assets until huge debts are amassed, then carelessly disengaging to snare a hapless new victim.

Anything Goes capitalism is something that must go.

David Sirota

 

Author of “The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populists Revolt”

When they write their retrospectives about the era that ended with the 2008 election, economic historians will undoubtedly credit George W. Bush with almost single-handedly moving the country to embrace extremist conservatism. It’s a simple storyline: Cowboy president drives bewildered American herd over laissez-faire cliff. What such reductionism will ignore, though, is what we must remember now: namely, that Congress also played a decisive role in the stampede.

As former House Republican leader Tom DeLay said, he and his colleagues deliberately started “every policy initiative from as far to the political right” as possible, so as to shift “the center farther to the right.” The formula emulated Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fabled admonishment to allies: “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”

Of course, that triumph was the country’s loss, as Republican policies thrust the political center off a conservative precipice and America into an economic freefall. And as we plummet, we are desperately groping for a lifeline.

If we are lucky and we end up snagging one that saves us – a huge if – it will be one that is strong enough to snap the center back from the conservative brink. This super-durable bungee cord must have the force of law, meaning it will be woven by Democratic legislators now exerting as much pressure on President Obama’s left as congressional Republicans focused on President Bush’s right.

When, for instance, Obama hedged on his promise to revoke $226 billion worth of Bush’s upper-income tax cuts, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, pushed him to fulfill the pledge and put the money into programs that better guarantee job creation.

When Obama initially offered up a stimulus bill filled with discredited business tax breaks, Democratic senators forced him to back off. Reps. David Obey, D-Wis., and Jim Oberstar, D-Minn., then argued that the president’s proposed infrastructure investments were too small to boost the economy. That led House Democrats to increase Obama’s spending targets.

As stimulus negotiations continued, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., tried to add provisions letting courts renegotiate banks’ primary-residence mortgages so as to prevent more foreclosures. It’s a commonsense proposal: Judges already have the power to renegotiate vacation-home mortgages, and the New York Federal Reserve Bank says existing bankruptcy laws are exacerbating the foreclosure crisis. While Obama opposed the initiative out of fear that banking industry opposition might slow the underlying stimulus bill, Conyers’ effort ultimately made the president commit to supporting the reforms in future legislation.

Then there was the progressive reaction to Obama’s demand for more financial bailout money. Turning a routine committee hearing into a modern-day incarnation of the Great Depression’s Pecora Commission, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., upbraided a Federal Reserve official for refusing to disclose which banks are receiving taxpayer dollars. The spectacle was one of many that whipped the House into passing a bill attaching strings to the funds. Obama responded by committing to enact some of the restrictions by fiat.

At once complementary and adversarial, this intragovernmental squabbling probably makes the conflict-averse Obama uncomfortable. But the “make him do it” dynamic could finally bring the center of Washington’s political debate closer to the progressive center of American public opinion. Even more important, it is precisely what will help the new president avert an economic disaster.

David Sirota is the best-selling author of the books “Hostile Takeover” (2006) and “The Uprising” (2008).

Leo W. Gerard

By Leo W. Gerard

International President

Within hours of Barack Obama’s election, naysayers chastened caution. Don’t go too far, they inveighed. Build trust slowly with restrained, moderate, and gradual actions, they admonished.

In other words: Start with piddling plans.

Basically, they want to abort hope — kill it before it has a chance.

That is all wrong after an election in which it’s believed that a higher percentage of Americans voted than at any time in the past 40 years; a win that brought tears to the eyes of even hardened reporters; a result that drew joyful citizens into streets across the country to celebrate, a balloting that swept even larger majorities of Democrats into the U.S. House and Senate.

This moment during which the nation is suffering great economic peril pleads for political valor. This moment screams for boldness.

Troubled times demand greatness. Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that. He’s the reason U.S. presidents are judged by the sum of their accomplishments in their first 100 days in office.

When FDR was inaugurated in 1933, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. He didn’t waste time tinkering. After 100 days, he’d given the country the Emergency Banking Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Federal Emergency Relief Act and the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Obama may not inherit a Great Depression, but he’ll take the oath during an intense recession. Look at the news that arrived the same week as his election: unemployment rose to 6.5 percent after 10 straight months of jobs losses totaling more than 1.2 million; the stock market dropped 1,000 points in 48 hours after the worst October showing in two decades; auto makers travelled to Capitol Hill begging like hobos for handouts to stave off bankruptcy, two dozen major retailers revealed sales declines, most double digit, and the New York Times reported hospitals strained as they register fewer paying patients and increasing charity cases.

These problems won’t be solved with timidity. In his first press conference after the election, Obama said resolving the economic crisis is his top priority. He said, in fact, “I will confront the economic crisis head on.” No weak-heartedness suggested there.

He said a new president can restore confidence and advance an agenda for the middle class. That is exactly what FDR did with the combination of legislation and fireside chats.

During this brief press conference, Obama got it right, emphasizing aid to the middle class. He said it is essential to pass a rescue plan that would create jobs and extend unemployment benefits. He wants aid to state and local governments so they don’t increase taxes or furlough workers.

The federal government should help both small businesses and the huge auto industry, which provides jobs directly and indirectly through its suppliers.

The $700 billion bailout must be reviewed, he said, to ensure that it is stabilizing markets, that it’s not unduly rewarding the Wall Street risk-takers who caused the crisis, and that it’s helping families avoid foreclosure.

In addition, he said it’s essential to implement policies to grow the middle class such as investing in clean energy technology, resolving the nation’s health insurance dilemma, and providing tax relief for working families.

These are the correct priorities. And his plans are audacious. Which means he needs our help.

He called for bi-partisan cooperation in accomplishing these goals. But he’ll need more than that. He will need the kind of support he got in those weeks just before Election Day.

All of those who voted for him, all of those who want to keep hope alive, and all of those who want real change must demand both houses of Congress and both political parties work with Obama to accomplish it. Those who believe in real change must make it clear that they won’t stand by and allow courageous action to be reduced to faint-hearted baby steps.

On election night, Obama told the crowd in Chicago that the victory was theirs: “I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me.”

Then he warned of what is ahead:

“You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.”

With more than 10,000 volunteers across the country, the United Steelworkers campaigned hard to help get Obama on that Chicago stage to make that speech. We will back him as he works to fulfill his promises of what is a New Deal for the new century. And we urge every American who wants real change to join us to ensure his success, the nation’s success.

By David Sirota
Author of “The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt”

“What do we do now?”

That’s the question Bill McKay ponders in the classic movie “The Candidate” after he wins office promising “a better way.” America will now ask Democrats the same haunting query following the historic election.

These are heady times for the party of Jefferson, Roosevelt and now Obama. Only a few years ago, Democrats were almost relegated to permanent minority status by a Mission Accomplished sign and a flight suit. But since President Bush’s 2004 re-election, they gained at least 50 House seats, 12 Senate seats, seven state legislatures and seven governorships. As Republicans used “socialism” attacks to make the national campaign race a referendum on conservatism, Democrats also registered their biggest presidential triumph since 1964.

So, while the President-elect talks of forming a bipartisan cabinet, his victory wasn’t the public’s cry for milquetoast government-by-blue-ribbon-commission. As the Center for Community Change’s Deepak Bhargava says, Obama’s win was an ideological mandate presenting “an opening for transformational, progressive change.”

Maximizing this opportunity relies on Democrats understanding the parable from Spiderman comics – the one about great power coming with “great responsibility.” In politics, that latter phrase is a euphemism for high expectations.

What the party gains in strength it loses in a Republican scapegoat that previously justified inaction. On huge issues — whether re-regulating Wall Street, reforming trade, solving the health care emergency, or ending the Iraq War — America envisages enormous progress in the months ahead, and Democrats will have no one to blame for failure but themselves. After all, with over 340 electoral votes, President Obama cannot credibly claim he lacks the political capital to legislatively steamroll a humiliated GOP and its remaining senators. The same goes for Democrats everywhere. Meeting expectations requires championing far-reaching — even radical — initiatives.

That was always ‘08′s theme. Amid lipsticked pigs, Joe the Plumber and Super Bowl-sized candidate events, the election became a choice between continued conservative rule and a progressive agenda as far-reaching as the current crises. And as a defeated John McCain said, “The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.”

To meet the challenge, Democrats have to abandon their worst habits.

They must, for instance, acknowledge their progressive mandate, rather than denying it like Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) did on Tuesday. “This is not a mandate for a political party or an ideology,” he fearfully told reporters.

They should also retire the Innocent Bystander Fable — the myth about being powerless onlookers. Democrats first cited this fable as reason the Iraq War continued during their congressional majority — expecting the country to forget that Congress can halt war funding. Today, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says “there’s not much we can do” to amend the sputtering bank bailout. In 2009, such mendacity will metastasize from banal dishonesty into grist for scathing comedy-show punch lines.

 Democrats need to discard other lies, too — especially those about Bill Clinton. To hear pundits tell it, Clinton’s first-term pitfalls underscore why the next administration should avoid “governing in a way that is, or seems, skewed to the left,” as the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus most recently asserted. History, of course, proves the opposite. Recounting Clinton’s early years to Politico.com, a lobbyist correctly noted that the new president didn’t move left — he pushed conservative policies like NAFTA, thereby demoralizing his base and helping Republicans take Congress.

Obama rose on a promise to eschew those triangulations — and he won because America realized invertebracy and sail trimming will not solve problems. Voters rejected Clinton-style incrementalism in the primary, then scorned conservatism in the general election, meaning Democrats’ best response to Bill McKay’s “what do we do now?” question is a two-word answer: Go big.

That is not merely the better way — it is the only way.

David Sirota is a columnist, fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future and board member of the Progressive States Network — both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is atwww.credoaction.com/sirota.

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