John Nichols

Vets Challenging Wall Street Are, Again, Met With Violence & Disrespect

John Nichols on October 26, 2011 - 10:43pm ET

U.S. Marines swear an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."

After Scott Olsen swore that oath in 2006, he served two tours of duty in Iraq before being discharged in 2010.

Olsen survived Iraq. But he was seriously wounded Tuesday when he joined an Oakland, California, protest against the removal of the Occupy Wall Street-inspired encampment in that Bay Area city. The clashes between activists and the Oakland Police turned violent late Tuesday, during what the San Francisco Chronicle described as "a protracted street confrontation between protesters and police officers, who set off tear gas and used shotguns to fire projectiles designed to inflict pain but not kill."

The precise number of injuries is unclear. But Oakland's Highland Hospital confirmed Wednesday that Olsen, 24, was in serious condition.

Olsen, who now works as a system administrator for a software firm, had joined the Oakland protests with fellow members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, an advocacy group that has long sought to draw attention to issues of homelessness and unemployment among Americans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Keith Shannon, who deployed with Olsen to Iraq, “Scott was marching with the 99% because he felt corporations and banks had too much control over our government, and that they weren’t being held accountable for their role in the economic downturn, which caused so many people to lose their jobs and their homes.”

IVAW's reports from the scene -- along with agonizing video footage that features cries of "medic!" -- suggest that Olsen "sustained a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a police projectile while peacefully participating in an Occupy Oakland march."

The video footage of appears to show Olsen lying wounded when a police officer what looks to be a tear gas canister at protesters who are trying to help the former Marine.

IVAW, which is demanding that Oakland Mayor Jean Quan investigate the incident and allow peaceful protests to continue, featured a statement on its website Wednesday night that read: "It's ironic that days after Obama's announcement of the end of the Iraq War, Scott faced a veritable war zone in the streets of Oakland last night. He and other protesters were surrounded by explosions and smoke (tear gas) going off around him as people nearby carried him injured while yelling for a medic. This disturbing video of the incident shows how veterans are now fighting a war at home."

In fact, it's not so ironic. Returning veterans who have sought to exercise their rights at home have, at many points in American history, been the victims of violence -- especially when they have made demands of Wall Street. When a "Bonus Army" consisting of thousands of World War I veterans camped near the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1932 -- demanding payment of bonuses they had been promised for their service, and that they needed to survive in those Depression Days -- they were attacked first by the police and then by the U.S. Army,

Two veterans were killed. One of them, Eric Carlson, was from Oakland, California.

The revulsion at the attacks on the veterans in 1932 would eventually lead to a decision by the Congress of $2 billion to pay immediate bonuses to the World War I veterans.

Retired Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, a two-time recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, joined the Bonus Army at its encampment and supported its demands. Bulter is today remembered for his epic denunciation of the military-industrial complex: "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

But after the attack on the Bonus Army, he issued an even blunter declaration, announcing in 1933 that: "I believe in... taking Wall St. by the throat and shaking it up."

Today's Occupy Wall Street protests are, perhaps, less aggressive than those that came before. But the veterans who join today's protests are being met with the same violence -- and disrespect -- that the Bonus Army experienced.

"I think it is a sad state of affairs when a Marine can't assemble peacefully in the streets without getting injured," says Jose Sanchez, the executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Major General Smedley Butler would surely agree.

Occupy Wall Street and the Pope Agree: It's Time to Tax Speculators

John Nichols on October 26, 2011 - 10:34am ET

The Catholic Church has for many years raised objections to the patterns of globalization, concentration of wealth and economic equality that have encouraged the massive redistribution of wealth upward that has made the rich richer, the poor poorer and the middle class more vulnerable than at any time in generations.

And, now, as the Occupy Wall Street movement raises the issue of economic inequality, the church is stepping up with a proposal to begin to address the extreme injustice of a system that taxes working people for necessities but allows speculators to avoid even the most basic responsibilities.

On the eve of the G-20 leaders, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace has endorsed a series of reforms to the global economic financial and monetary systems that features as its centerpiece the development of a financial transactions tax.

From the note on financial reform from the Pontifical Council:

Specific attention should be paid to the reform of the international monetary system and, in particular, the commitment to create some form of global monetary management, something that is already implicit in the Statutes of the International Monetary Fund. It is obvious that to some extent this is equivalent to putting the existing exchange systems up for discussion in order to find effective means of coordination and supervision. This process must also involve the emerging and developing countries in defining the stages of a gradual adaptation of the existing instruments.In fact, one can see an emerging requirement for a body that will carry out the functions of a kind of “central world bank” that regulates the flow and system of monetary exchanges similar to the national central banks. The underlying logic of peace, coordination and common vision which led to the Bretton Woods Agreements needs to be dusted off in order to provide adequate answers to the current questions. On the regional level, this process could begin by strengthening the existing institutions, such as the European Central Bank. However, this would require not only a reflection on the economic and financial level, but also and first of all on the political level, so as to create the set of public institutions that will guarantee the unity and consistency of the common decisions.

These measures ought to be conceived of as some of the first steps in view of a public Authority with universal jurisdiction; as a first stage in a longer effort by the global community to steer its institutions towards achieving the common good. Other stages will have to follow in which the dynamics familiar to us may become more marked, but they may also be accompanied by changes which would be useless to try to predict today. In this process, the primacy of the spiritual and of ethics needs to be restored and, with them, the primacy of politics—which is responsible for the common good—over the economy and finance. These latter need to be brought back within the boundaries of their real vocation and function, including their social function, in consideration of their obvious responsibilities to society, in order to nourish markets and financial institutions which are really at the service of the person, which are capable of responding to the needs of the common good and universal brotherhood, and which transcend all forms of economist stagnation and performative mercantilism.

On the basis of this sort of ethical approach, it seems advisable to reflect, for example, on: a) taxation measures on financial transactions through fair but modulated rates with charges proportionate to the complexity of the operations, especially those made on the “secondary” market. Such taxation would be very useful in promoting global development and sustainability according to the principles of social justice and solidarity. It could also contribute to the creation of a world reserve fund to support the economies of the countries hit by crisis as well as the recovery of their monetary and financial system…

The G-20 gathering in Cannes November 3 and 4 is expected to discuss a financial speculation tax, with strong encouragement from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel—who says, “We must ensure that financial market actors share in the costs of fighting the crisis. I will push for this until it happens, at least in Europe, even better worldwide.

Sarkozy and Merkel have work to do; there is opposition within the G-20 even to an exceptionally modest 0.1-percent speculation tax. That opposition is coming from the United States and Canada, in particular. But there will also be pressure for the tax from outside the G-20, as unions from around the world rally at Cannes to agitate for the proposal.

The culture-jammers at Adbusters, who issued the “Occupy Wall Street” call, are calling on activists worldwide to rally October 29 for a “Robin Hood Tax” on all financial transactions and currency trades. National People’s Action (NPA), which refers to the financial transactions tax as a “take from the rich and give to the poor” initiative, is urging Americans to join October 29 rallies to “Rise Up and Fight for the Robin Hood Tax.”

Arguing that “Wall Street and Big Banks must pay their share for our economic recovery,” NPA says that a financial speculation tax “would tax short term and often speculative activity—the sort of thing that helped create the crisis—and generate billions of dollars of revenue. For ordinary investors, the cost would barely be noticeable, but for Wall Street traders’ activities, it is estimated that such a tax could generate up to $150 billion a year.”

US unions, especially National Nurses United (NNU), are in the thick of the initiative. NNU has been working closely with international unions to encourage global campaigning on behalf of the tax. But it is also working domestically to promote a US version

On Thursday, Congressman Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, and US Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, both long-time supporters of taxes on speculators, will introduce legislation that would impose a modest tax—less than the 0.1-percent tax proposed in Europe—on financial transactions. The Harkin-DeFazio proposal, though small in scope and narrowly focused on specific types of transactions, would raise tens of billions of dollars that could be used to address budget shortfalls and domestic needs.

The Harkin-DeFazio plan would, as well, place a bit of the tax burden on those most able to pay.

“This is an absolutely essential step to address the 99 percent problem,” said Damon Silvers, director of policy at the AFL-CIO, referring to the Occupy Wall Street claim that the movement represents the 99 percent of Americans whose economic prospects are limited by the 1 percent who control most of the nation’s wealth.

“The financial sector in the United States and worldwide is profoundly undertaxed,” Silvers said. “Inherently, any tax on the financial system is a progressive tax.”

The linkage between the Occupy Wall Street agitation and the push for a financial transactions tax is being made by several groups that were early and enthusiastic supporters of the protest movement.

National Nurses United, which has launched a “Tax Wall Street” campaign, will rally on the doorstep of the US Treasury Department November 3, calling on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Obama administration “to end lobbying efforts at home and abroad against a Wall Street tax.”

“It is long past time for Secretary Geithner and President Obama to get on board with other world leaders in supporting this common sense approach to raise badly needed revenues to help fund the critical programs we need to revive the US and other global economies,” says NNU executive director RoseAnn DeMoro.

Along with the NNU; the AFL-CIO; the Service Employees union; the Amertican Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the National Education Association; Demos; Rebuild the Dream; National Peoples Action; and Americans for Financial Reform are signing on with BanksterUSA’s petition to members of Congress with a simple message:

The deficit issue that we face today was in large part created by the world financial crisis, a crisis caused by Wall Street speculation. Now it’s time to call upon Wall Street to start paying its fair share to help us out of the hole they dug.

A small tax on financial market transactions has the potential to raise significant revenue and simultaneously limit reckless short-term speculation that can threaten financial stability. We are writing to ask you to support such a tax, and to request that it be part of any new budget plan.

Financial transaction taxes have a long track record both in the United States and globally. The United States had a transfer tax from 1914 to 1966. The UK levies a transaction tax on stock transfers and has done so for many years. The European Union is on the verge of approving a small transaction tax, including ten cents per $100 on stock transactions. The tiny transaction tax they are working on is estimated to raise over $70 billion annually. A similar transaction tax in the United States would raise even more money, as our financial markets are larger.

We join over 1,000 economists who recently signed an open letter advocating a financial speculation tax as “tethnically feasible” and “morally right.”

Technically feasible.

Morally right.

And necessary if we are ever going to get serious about raising the revenues that are needed—from the people who need to pay.

Karl Rove's 2011 Election Priority: Busting Public-Sector Unions in Ohio

John Nichols on October 25, 2011 - 3:15pm ET

Mitt Romney swept into Ohio Tuesday to talk about how much he agrees with Republican Governor John Kasich’s aggressive approach to budget issues. He even visited a call center where Republicans were trying to stir up support for Kasich’s signature initiative: a sweeping assault on labor rights so controversial that it faces a “citizen veto” in a November 8 statewide vote.

But, with new polling showing that Ohioans are overwhelmingly opposed to Kasich’s law (a fresh Quinnipiac University poll has voters favoring the repeal of the anti-labor law by a 57–32 margin), Romney blurred the message. Instead of the expected encourargement of a “yes” vote to keep the law on the votes, Romney praised Kasicg and then waffled on the referendum—saying he’s leave the issue up to the voters. It was a messy moment in a messy campaign.

So what the heck was Romney doing in Ohio? Why was the Republican presidential contender veering off his own campaign trail to spend time in a state that won’t hold its presidential primary until June of 2012? And why was he struggling to play all sides of the labor fight?

What’s happening in Ohio this fall is about more than Ohio.

The vote on Kasich’s anti-labor law—which was scheduled after 1.3 million Ohioans signed petitions supporting a repeal effort—is a key contest in the “Karl Rove” primary. Rove has not endorsed a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. But he’s pretty obviously leaning toward Romney—just ask the recently affronted Herman Cain. Romney wants to be where Rove says to go; he also wants Kasich’s endorsement, as part of a strategy that seeks to reprise the game plan Rove constructed for George W. Bush in 2000, which counted on the backing of Republican governors to help secure the GOP nod.

Rove has for months been indicating that Republicans had better put Ohio on their schedules this fall if they want support next fall.

Since March, when Governor Kasich and his legislative allies moved to strip away the collective-bargaining rights of Ohio’s state, county and municipal employees, as well as teachers—and to render their unions politically dysfunctional—Rove has led the cheering section.

The former White House political czar, who promises he that groups he controls will spend $250 million nationally in the upcoming election cycle, has:

§ set up a Government Union Reform Action Center to coordinate anti-labor work in states such as Ohio and Wisconsin

§ written columns for the Wall Street Journal about the Ohio and Wisconsin fights

§ appeared frequently on Fox News to talk up the importance of what Kasich—an old political ally—has done

§ launched a cable advertising campaign attacking the unions that have fought Kasich and the Democrats who have aligned with them

§ made Ohio a regular stop on his speaking and political consulting schedule, visiting as recently as late September.

Why the fascination?

Rove has always been obsessed with breaking up and breaking down public-employee unions. On the list of the issues that his heavily funded group Crossroads GPS ranks as top priorities, the highest-ranking specific fight is against organized labor in the states. “It’s time,” declares the message from Rove’s Government Union Reform Action Center, “government stood up for American taxpayers, not the unionized bureaucrat elite.”

Ohio’s November 8 referendum vote has become mission-critical for the people who pull the strings in the national Republican Party, and the network of conservative groups that has powered the party’s surge since the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling allowed for unlimited corporate donations to supposedly “independent” organizations.

Rove has made no secret of his determination to protect Kasich and the anti-labor law that was enacted in March despite mass demonstrations by unions and their allies. The Ohio law is actually more draconian in its efforts to diminish the role of unions in the workplace and in political campaigns than the measure that was enacted at the behest of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and that excited Rove. “Both sets of reforms give local and state governments flexibility to deal with budget shortfalls and looming deficits, rein in unfunded pension liabilities, return control of personnel policies to elected officials, and end counterproductive workplace practices demanded by unions,” chirped Rove in March. “Yet all in all, labor law experts consider Ohio’s new law stronger, broader and more wide-ranging than Wisconsin’s.”

Rove didn’t just talk up the Ohio labor law change. He put his money where his mouth was.

In March, Rove’s Crossroads GPS group launched a $750,000 cable television advertising campaign that demanded to know, “Why are Democrats shutting down state capitols to protect a system that pays unionized government workers 42% more than non-union workers?”

That was a false claim; an Economic Policy Institute study found that public employees were actually under-compensated in comparison with their private-sector counterparts.

The advertising Rove aired in March attacked not just public-employee unions but President Obama, claiming that he was aiding unions that—through their political activities—pose “a threat to democracy.”

It was an absurd charge.

But Rove wasn’t worried about truth or falsehood.

The political strategist was putting his marker down, identifying the Ohio fight as central to the Republican and conservative causes.

He hasn’t backed off. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the shadowy group that was set up to preserve Kasich’s anti-labor law—Building a Better Ohio—expects to spend as much as $20 million on this fall’s campaign. And it is Building a Better Ohio that has been a Rove-style campaign to confuse Ohio voters, and to demonize public employees and their unions.

Building a Better Ohio is running a big-budget campaig. And so are other groups, such as Make Ohio Great—which is backed by Republican operatives and donors around the country—and Liz Cheney’s Alliance for America’s Future, which are playing big in a campaign that will see the same level of spending as a hotly contested gubernatorial or US Senate contest. In fact, the tens of millions spent in Ohio will rival what was spent to win the state in recent presidential elections.

How much of that money is coming from Rove and the billionaire CEOs and hedge-fund mangers associated with his American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS groups? Building a Better Ohio isn’t saying. The group was established as a nonprofit 501(c)4 organization, so that it doesn’t have to reveal its donor list.

The same goes for Make Ohio Great, Cheney’s Alliance for America’s Future and other groups that are backing Kasich’s position.

But no one imagines that Rove—whose Crossroads groups were big players in Ohio in 2010, who promises that they will be even bigger players in 2012 and who has been so outspoken in his support for Kasich’s anti-labor initiative—has been sitting on the sidelines.

Thousands of Ohioans have signed petitions asking Building a Better Ohio to reveal the sources of its funding. “The voters of Ohio—while deciding on which side of Issue 2 they will fall—need to know who is finding the distortions Building a Better Ohio is running other television sets. They deserve to see the list of corporate-backed allies supporting the anti-worker referendum as they make their decision on November 8th,” reads the petition. “The very integrity of our democracy relies on such principles of transparency.”

True enough. But Karl Rove, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS are not about transparency. Nor is there any indication that Building a Better Ohio will open its books.

Still, the Rove connection is on display this week.

With his criticisms of Rick Perry and Herman Cain, Rove has left little doubt of his leanings in the Republican presidential race. (Rove claims to “have no personal favorite” in the race, but Cain says Rove’s helping Rpmney as part of “a deliberate attempt to damage me because I am not, quote unquote, the establishment choice.”)

As for Romney, he has made no secret of the fact that he would like to enjoy the support of Rove and the network of political organizations that Rove says will spend $250 million in the 2012 election cycle.

So it won’t come as any surprise that Romney’s visiting Cincinnati Tuesday to pump up Republican campaigners for a a “yes” vote on Issue 2—even as the wishy-washy candidate tries to have things both ways by avoiding an express endorsement of Building a Better Ohio’s campaign.

As bumbling as it was, Romney’s was an orchestrated visit, organized and encouraged by the Republican establishment and the corporate infrastructure that sustains it.

Karl Rove has let every Republican know that he is all about Ohio. The question is whether his money and manipulations will succeed in saving an anti-labor law that Rove has been hailing since March—and that has become the top priority of the conservative movement in this year’s election cycle.

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Why is George Bush Wading Into Denver's Education Debate on the Eve of Critical School Board Elections?

John Nichols on October 24, 2011 - 3:18pm ET

Former President George W. Bush, whose administration once made a big deal about its diplomatic engagement with Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, won’t talk about the recent unfortunate turn of events for the strongman. And don’t try to get Bush started on any of those pesky questions about jobs and the economy that his administration ran into the ground. He’s not talking.

But if you want to talk about how the schools in Denver, Colorado, should be run, Bush’s has got plenty to say.

“I’m out of politics… but I still have a great passion about educational excellence,” Bush announced when he showed up in Denver last Thursday.

But the scheduling of Bush’s visit to the city’s “Get Smart Schools” program couldn’t have been more political. Indeed, advocates for public education in what has become the most intense school board election in the country are bluntly suggesting that Bush’s visit was “politically timed.”

Appearing in Colorado’s largest city barely ten days before the most hotly contested school board elections in the the community’s history, Bush talked up an education agenda being advanced by so-called school “reformers,” who have been backed by wealthy oil barons and national conservative groups that want to see Denver experiment with school charter, school choice and privatization schemes. And he did so with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock at his side.

Hancock, a Democrat, has waded into the Denver School Board competition, endorsing candidates favored by the out-of-town special interests and suggesting that if things didn’t go they way he may reverse his previous position and press for mayoral control of Denver schools.

Emily Sirota, a Denver school board candidate who has campaigned on behalf of maintaining strong public schools—and assuring that those schools are run by elected representatives of the people, rather than outside interests or powerful politicians—has been countering Hancock. “I agree with Mayor Hancock that the current school board is overly divisive and dysfunctional. In fact, that’s exactly why I’m running for school board—to finally put an end to the bickering and refocus our schools on the needs of our kids,” says Sirota. “However, the mayor only added to the current divisiveness and dysfunction when he needlessly inserted himself into the school board election. Additionally, he’s now making matters even worse with his suggestion that he may be open to trying to disband the elected school board unless his handpicked slate of candidates is successful in buying the upcoming election. Voters aren’t interested in that kind of extortion. That’s not a way to forge consensus and refocus DPS on the needs of our kids, which should be our top priority.”

When Bush showed up and appeared with the mayor, Sirota pushed back even harder, suggesting that the mayor was wrong for “praising the No Child Left Behind Act during President George W. Bush’s politically timed visit to Denver today.”

“Mayor Hancock has rightly decried divisiveness and dysfunction in our education system—but standing with George W. Bush during an election-timed visit is not the way to start fixing that problem, nor are his comments today promoting the failed No Child Left Behind policy that has so harmed our schools,” said Sirota. “No Child Left Behind is one of the most destructive education policies enacted in the last 10 years. Our mayor’s behavior today only draws unnecessary lines in the sand, while needlessly undermining the important work of Senator Bennet, who is working to finally reform No Child Left Behind. If there’s any good news out of President Bush’s visit to Denver, it is that Superintendent [Tom] Boasberg, unlike our Mayor, had the guts to speak out against No Child Left Behind. His statements suggest that he recognizes that we need to couple accountability with a reinvestment in our schools.”

The November 1 Denver School Board election has already attracted more than $600,000 in campaign donations, with much of the money coming in the form of $10,000 and $25,000 checks to candidates backed by groups that favor the school choice, charter school and privatization schemes. Sirota is running one of three races in the city. She’s being massively outspent, yet is generally seen as running a competitive race.

If Sirota wins, the likelihood is that control of the School Board will flip from the so-called “reformers” to a pro–public education majority.

Why all the attention to the Denver race? In fact, special-interest groups are pouring money into school board an state board of education races across the country this year. But the Denver race is critical, as it could shift the direction of one of the nation’s largest urban school districts and send powerful signals regarding the direction of public education nationally.

(John Nichols and Robert McChesney, co-founders of the media reform group Free Press, wrote the groundbreaking examination of the collision of big money and bad media, “The Money & Media Election Complex,” for The Nation. Their examination of the damage done to democracy by the billionaire-dollar campaigns and the decline of journalism, Dollarocracy, will be published next year by Nation Books.)

Big Money, Bad Media, Secret Agendas: Welcome to America's Wildest School Board Race

John Nichols on October 21, 2011 - 5:54pm ET

School board elections are supposed to be quintessential America contests. Moms and Main Street small-business owners and retired teachers campaign by knocking on doors, writing letters to the editor and debating at elementary schools. Then friends and neighbors troop to the polls and make their choices.

But what happens when all the pathologies of national politics—over-the-top spending by wealthy elites and corporate interests, partisan consultants jetting in to shape big-lie messaging, media outlets that cover spin rather than substance—are visited on a local school board contest?

Emily Sirota is finding out.

The mom of 10-month-old Isaac, Sirota’s a social worker and community organizer with a degree from the University of Denver and a history of working in the community. She’s running for a seat representing southeast Denver on the city’s school board in one of three school board contests that the city’s voters will decide November 1.

If Sirota wins, her election would in all likelihood shift control of the nonpartisan board, which is currently split 4–3 in favor of so-called “reformers,” who critics describe as “the forces trying to charter-ize, voucher-ize and privatize public schools.”

Sirota makes no secret of her desire to turn the board that runs one of the nation’s largest urban schools systems toward a more clearly defined position in favor of funding local schools, paying teachers and school staff a fair wage and working to close achievement gaps that have developed along racial and economic lines.

In simplest terms, she’s a pro–public education candidate—like school board candidates in Denver and communities across the country generally tended to be before big money and a broken media system began warping our politics not just in Washington but right down to the grassroots.

“I believe high quality public education is the cornerstone of strong and healthy communities,” says Sirota. “I want our schools to challenge and nourish all of our children, providing them with the most optimal educational conditions to grow and become life-long learners.”

Not exactly a radical position.

But Sirota, who crafted education policy as an aide to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, raises smart questions about so-called “school choice” and “charter school” initiatives that can—when they are designed by special-interest groups—divert funding and attention from neighborhood schools. And she is blunt in her opposition to using public money to pay for voucher programs.

“I believe we need to invest more in our public school system, not less—and, as a candidate for Denver Public School Board in the upcoming 2011 elections, I believe we need new Denver School Board members who are crystal clear in their opposition to vouchers,” says Sirota. “Make no mistake about it: my longtime opposition to vouchers has always been driven by the cold hard data. In other words, it comes in response to what we know vouchers will do to our community, and what they have already done to other communities.”

That kind of talk does not go down well with national groups that are promoting the school-choice, school-vouchers, school-privatization agenda.

Suddenly, Sirota finds facing not just a more conservative opponent but a full frontal assault from regional and national forces seeking to radically remake our education system.

When financial reports were filed for the three Denver School Board races that will be on the November 1 ballot, they revealed that more than $600,000 had flowed into the competition. And that number is expected to skyrocket as voting day approaches.

Sirota’s opponent (former investment banker Anne Rowe, who now owns a publishing concern) secured a 3-1 fund-raising advantage. Rowe did this not so much by attracting support from within the district but by filling a $176,320 campaign treasury with money from big donors who, in several cases, have ties to groups that promote charter schools an vouchers. Sirota’s opponent received a $25,000 check from oil-industry CEO Henry Gordon, an $11,000 check from from healthcare industry CEO Kent Thiry, a $10,000 check from former Colorado GOP chair Bruce Benson and $10,000 from financial executive Scott Reiman.

Big donors Gordon and Reiman are board members of the Alliance for Choice in Education, which promotes private school vouchers.

Tens of thousands of additional dollars have come to the aid of Sirota’s opponent via the deceptively dubbed Stand for Children group, which campaigns for charter schools. (Stand for Children Colorado's spokeswoman says the group works "100% on behalf of public education," but the group Parents United for Reponsible Education has described Stand for Children as having been "hijacked by the corporate school 'reformers.'")

Stand for Children-Colorado has formally endorsed Rowe, as has the group “Democrats for Education Reform” (DFER). “DFER’s endgame has little to do with learning and everything to do with marginalizing public-sector unionized workers and bringing down the cost of taxes for social programs,” notes the United Federation of Teachers, which has long tracked the group funded by conservative hedge-fund managers. “It’s about creating new business and investment opportunities in areas that are still publicly run and serving as a pre-emptive strike against any hope for private-sector union renewal.”

The big-money interests are taking advantage of a loophole in Colorado election law, which imposes donation limits on every Colorado race—from contests for local posts to statewide positions—except local school-board campaigns. Colorado state Representative Beth McCann, a Democrat who is seeking to close the loophole, says: “School board races, especially in Denver, have become very polarizing,” McCann said. “It creates the potential for it to be about whoever can get the most money. It’s what we were trying to avoid.”

But McCann’s fix has yet to be implemented. And the whole infrastructure of donation and spending limits, not just in Colorado but nationally, is threatened by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.

So Sirota is on her own in the fight with the big money.

In contrast to the big money from outside the district, and in some cases outside Denver, Sirota has collected $57,962, with substantial support coming from teachers, school employees and their allies in the community. Sirota’s gotten some money from out-of-town family and friends. But the disproportionality, and the intent of the big donors to influence the policy of a local school board, is obvious.

Or maybe not.

In the none-too-distant past, if millionaires and national political players swept into a community to try and buy a seat on the school board, that would have been big news.

But in Denver, most of the media coverage is treating this year’s school board races as a balanced contest between “reformers” and “opponents of reform.”

Much of the media imagines the Denver Classroom Teachers Association and the Denver Federation Paraprofessional and Nutrition Service Employees (DFPNSE) -- unions that represent school district employees -- as the serious special-interest player in the race while the big-donors and the out-of-state “think tanks” and “advocacy groups” that have jumped into the race are generously portrayed as do-gooders.

The vapid nature of the coverage is not surprising. Denver lost one of its two daily newspapers, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Rocky Mountain News, in February 2009, as a wave of closures and cutbacks swept the country. Those closures and cutbacks created the greatest void when it comes to coverage of local government and school board affairs. And Denver has clearly suffered, as the void has been filled by advertising, spin and “news” websites funded by grants from conservative foundations or sponsored by groups such as the Colorado League for Charter Schools.

When Sirota’s husband, progressive author and commentator David Sirota (whom I have known and respected since his days as as aide to Congressman David Obey, D-Wisconsin), raised questions on his radio show about the big-money donors in the school board races, he was ridiculed in the local press.

David Sirota observed with regard to the $10,000 and $25,000 checks: “That kind of money doesn’t go into a school board because they want to help the children.…” Those words earned Sirota a rebuke from the city’s most prominent media outlet, the Denver Post.

Under the headline, “David Sirota’s Loopy Take on a School Election,” Post columnist Vincent Carroll wrote: “Sirota’s performance on his show today was nonetheless shocking for his refusal to credit wealthy donors with any genuine interest in the welfare of children or in improving urban education. Their involvement, apparently, is totally cynical.”

Carroll dismissed as “preposterous” David Sirota’s suggestion that, with massive infusions of money from donors closely tied to groups that favor vouchers and privatization, Denver might be witnessing “part of a movement of the rich to try to destroy our public institutions.”

Preposterous? Hundreds of thousands of Americans are in the streets, as part of the Occupy Wall Street and 99 Percent movements, to suggest that this precisely the sort of pay-to-play politics that frightens Americans.

To his credit, Carroll (an able writer who I have read since his days with the Rocky Mountain News) attached a response from David Sirota to his online column. Carroll acknowledged that he was unaware of the details that Sirota shared regarding the push for vouchers and privatization in Denver. Yet, Carroll concluded, “I remain unimpressed with the idea that a donor’s link to a group that supports broad school choice necessarily means that person is working on behalf of vouchers in Denver.”

So much for skepticism about the motivations of wealthy political donors—at least in Denver.

Those of us who fret about the collapse of the news media’s watchdog role, and about the overwhelming influence of big money on all of our politics, from presidential races to school-board contests, will be excused, however, if we worry about what’s happening in Denver.

Nonpartisan school board races are supposed to be about grassroots politics and human-level connections made at the doors between candidates and voters. The pattern that is developing in Denver—and that can be found on display in too many other communities across the country—threatens to collapse that connection, under the weight of big-money, consultant-driven campaigning and media that confuse skepticism with stenography.

(John Nichols and Robert McChesney, co-founders of the media reform group Free Press, wrote the groundbreaking examination of the collision of big money and bad media, "The Money & Media Election Complex," for The Nation. Their examination of the damage done to democracy by the billionaire-dollar campaigns and the decline of journalism, Dollarocracy, will be published next year by Nation Books.)

Replace Biden on 2012 Ticket? No, VP's Populism is Obama's Best Hope

John Nichols on October 20, 2011 - 12:44pm ET

The 2012 presidential election is, as too many Republican debates to count have reminded us, barely a year away. And President Obama is still wrestling with some nasty poll numbers. A majority of Americans contacted for a new AP-GfK survey say the president does not deserve to be reelected, while only 46 percent favor a second term.

Sounds dismal for the president.

But it doesn't necessarily have to be, if Obama and his aides keep their wits about them and take a few more signals from the one member of the administration who seems to "get it": Vice President Joe Biden.

Presidential elections are not about who "deserves" to win or lose. They are choices between the candidates whose names actually end up on the ballot. While Americans may not think Obama deserves election in 2012, they remain convinced that his potential Republican foes are less deserving. Obama beats Mitt Romney 48-45, percent margin, Herman Cain 49-42 and Rick Perry 51-42 percent.

Those numbers, and similar figures from battleground states, suggest that Obama can win in 2012. But the disquiet of Americans with his presidency, and with the prospect of reelecting him, has plenty of Democratic strategists talking about what the president needs to do to strengthen his position going into the 2012 competition.

One recurrent themes is a suggestion that the president might improve his prospects by picking a new vice president: perhaps Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, perhaps New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, perhaps someone from a must-win state like Florida or Colorado, or a must-win constituency. Pundits and pontificators have been spinning out a steady stream of "Vice President Clinton" and "Vice President Cuomo" columns in recent weeks. A Huffington Post headline on Thursday read: "Replacing Joe Biden: Time for President Obama to Bite the Bullet?"

But any move to replace Vice President Joe Biden would be an act of political malpractice.

The vice president's boisterous advocacy of late for the administration's $35 billion plan to help keep firefighters, police officers, nurses and teachers on the job in tough economic times confirms his necessity—and his value to an administration that still too frequently struggles to find its voice.

Demanding Senate action on the measure that is designed to save the jobs of 400,000 teachers and tens of thousands of first responders—and to maintain vital services in communities across the country—Biden declared: “Real people—real people—will get real relief right now."

Biden pulled no punches. Anticipating Friday's expected Senate vote on the measure, he painted the choice in stark terms: public safety versus benefits for billionaires, public education versus tax breaks for millionaires.

“This is an emergency,” Biden told a crowd of firefighters at the Capitol. “I say to the American people: Watch your senator. Watch him or her choose. Are you going to put 400,000 school teachers back in classrooms? Are you going to put 18,000 cops back in the street and 7,000 firefighters back in the firehouses? Or are you going to save people with average incomes of $1 million a one-half of 1 percent increase in tax on every dollar they make over a million?”

This is how the vice president rolls. He's not a perfect player on every issue. He can go over the top, or stumble into a gaffe. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh love to attack him. But that's only because Biden's the one member of the administration who consistently uses the sort of economic populist language that scares them.

They know that, unlike too many members of the administration, Biden actually "gets it."

When Obama brought Larry Summers and Tim Geithner into the White House to counsel him of economics, Biden went the other direction altogether. He hired Jared Bernstein, a savvy critic of free trade deals such as NAFTA who has served as director of the Living Standards Program of the progressive Economic Policy Institute, to serve as his Chief Economist and Economic Policy Adviser. It was with prodding from Biden that Bernstein was named executive director of the White House Middle Class Working Families Task Force, which came up with some of the best ideas for tackling joblessness and the economic downturn.

Obama did not listen enough to Bernstein, or Biden. As the new Ron Suskind book, Confidence Men, reveals, the president was under the influence of Treasury Secretary Geithner and National Economic Council Director Summers—a position that harmed the country and Obama's political prospects.

As the administration has begun in recent months to move toward a more populist stance regarding joblessness and the economy, the vice president has led the way.

On Labor Day, Biden went to Cincinnati, Ohio, and delivered the single most powerful speech by any of the top Democrats who showed up for Labor Day rallies, parades and picnics across the country.

What distinguished Biden's speech from the others by prominent partisans was that there was nothing timid about it. This was a rip-roaring populist pronouncement.

Biden got it. He took a side. No apologies. No soft messaging.

This was a pro-labor message from a pro-labor vice president.

“The battles labor won over the years not only raised the standards of labor but for everyone,” declared Biden, as thousands of union members cheered. “The other side has declared war on labor’s house and it’s about time we stand up. Understand it for what it is.... They’re reopening fights we thought we settled fifty years ago.”

Condemning Republicans for launching what he described as an anti-worker "onslaught," the vice president shouted: “The middle class is under attack, but labor is under the most direct assault in a generation!"

Without organized labor, Biden said, the fight for working America is lost.

“You are the only non-governmental power that has the power and the capacity to stop this onslaught,” he told the union members. “Without you there, there is no restraint."

That was good stuff. And it got better this week.

Campaigning in Pennsylvania Tuesday, Biden ripped conservative commentators and politicians who suggest the the teacher and first-responder measure—which gets needed funding to state and local governments across the country—is a "temporary" fix.

“There’s nothing temporary about kindergarten being eliminated because it has an effect in that child the rest of their life,” said the vice president. “There is nothing temporary about the child that gets 20 percent less attention in the early years of class because class size has increased by 20 to 30 percent. There is nothing temporary about the life saved in a home invasion or a robbery because a squad car is able to get there in five minutes and not in 30 minutes. There’s nothing temporary about that for real, live people.”

The Fox commentators were horrified. "Biden Loses It In Philadelphia," their report declared.

Actually, Biden's found it.

Biden is not just right on the issues, he is right on message.

If Obama is going to secure battleground states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, it is Biden he is going to have to rely on. The vice president's appeal to working-class voters, especially blue-collar industrial workers and public employees, is well established. And he's worked the turf, maintaining a steady schedule that has taken him to Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—a state the administration has otherwise neglected in this year of labor turmoil. With the recall campaign against Governor Scott Walker scheduled to begin in less than a month, Biden just announced that he will be in Milwaukee.

Biden belongs in Milwaukee, in Columbus, in Flint and in Pittsburgh. And he belongs on the 2012 ticket—bringing a measure of economic populism to a presidential campaign and a party that cannot afford any longer to practice the politics of timidity.

King Versus the Tea Party: From the Poor People's Campaign to Occupy

John Nichols on October 19, 2011 - 4:00pm ET

Tea Party Congressman Allen West did not approve of President Obama’s suggestion, made at the dedication of the Washington memorial honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that Dr. King would have sympathized with the “Occupy Wall Street” protests of this moment.

“If he were alive today, I believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there,” the president told the crowd at the dedication of the memorial. “Those with power and privilege will often decry any call for change as divisive. They’ll say any challenge to the existing arrangements are unwise and destabilizing. Dr. King understood that peace without justice was no peace at all.”

Those words drew strenuous objections from Florida Congressman West, who like a lot of conservative Republicans has been arguing of late that right-wing movements such as the Tea Party are virtuous and patriotic, while objecting to any positive portrayals of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests or the “99 Percent” phenomenon that has swept the country in recent weeks.

Asked about “Occupy Wall Street,” Congressman West declared this week: “Martin Luther King Jr. would not have backed these types of protesters.”

Dr. King’s history, and his own words, say otherwise.

Dr. King, always a believer in nonviolent civil disobedience, spent his last months organizing the national Poor People’s Campaign, which sought to bring low-income Americans from all racial and ethnic backgrounds to Washington to focus on poverty; dramatize the pressing need for jobs, income, healthcare and housing; and raise fundamental questions about the gap between rich and poor in America.

“America is at a crossroads of history, and it is critically important for us as a nation and a society to choose a new path and move upon it with resolution and courage.… In this age of technological wizardry and political immorality, the poor are demanding that the basic needs of people be met as the first priority of our domestic program,” Dr. King declared, in launching the campaign that sought to proposed to bring the poor to Washington, march to the offices of federal agencies and camp out until action was taken to address economic inequality and injustice.

That sounds an awfully lot like Occupy Wall Street.

But, of course, West objects: “First of all, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a focus, a message. He was divinely inspired. I don’t know what the inspiration is for these individuals.”

Later, in an interview with a conservative publication, the Republican congressman from Florida suggests an inspiration: opposition to capitalism, at least as it is currently practice in America.

Claiming that “unemployment has nothing to do with Wall Street,” West charged that the Occupy movement is really a left-wing assault on the existing economic order. “We’re starting to really see the face of who liberal progressives are,” warned West. “I think there is a danger in the people on Capitol Hill starting to embrace this movement.”

So where did Dr. King stand with regard to the existing economic order? And to left-wing challenges to it?

The Poor People’s Campaign was conceived and organized by leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during gatherings at Frogmore, South Carolina. The Frogmore gatherings were turning points in the transition from civil rights activism to economic justice activism, where colleagues remember Dr. King explaining: “You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry.… Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong…with capitalism.… There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

In the last decade of his life, Dr. King worked closely with the nation’s leading socialists. The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was organized by A. Philip Randolph, one of the most prominent members of the Socialist Party. In an essay titled, “The Bravest Man I Ever Knew,” King hailed Norman Thomas, the six-time Socialist Party presidential candidate, with a recollection of how, “during our historic March on Washington in the summer of 1963, when 250,000 Negro and white Americans joined together in an outpouring of fellowship and brotherly cooperation for a world of freedom and equality, a little Negro boy listened at the Washington Monument to an eloquent orator. Turning to his father, he asked: ‘Who is that man?’ Came the inevitable answer: ‘That’s Norman Thomas; he was with us before any other white folks were.’ ”

In the period after the March on Washington, Dr. King, Randolph and Thomas worked together to promote the groundbreaking “Freedom Budget,” which proposed:

1. the abolition of poverty
2. guaranteed full employment
3. full production and high economic growth
4. adequate minimum wages
5. farm income parity
6. guaranteed incomes for all unable to work
7. a decent home for every American family
8. modern health services for all
9. full educational opportunity for all.
10. updated (and expanded) Social Security and welfare programs.
11. equitable tax and money policies

It was the fight for the Freedom Budget, which began with White House meetings but eventually moved to the streets, that led Dr. King to propose an intervention in the status-quo politics of the late 1960s: the Poor People’s Campaign.

In arguing for the the long march to Washington and ongoing protests by the poor and working people, King declared: “Timid supplication for justice will not solve the problem. We have got to confront the power structure massively.”

Despite Congressman West’s attempt to suggest otherwise, that sounds an awfully lot like the language of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and the “99 Percent” campaign it has generated.

(John Nichols is the author of The “S” Word: A Short History of an American Tradition… Socialism (Verso), which includes a lengthy examination of the relationship between A. Philip Randolph and Dr. King, and the fight for the Freedom Budget.)

How Liz Cheney Is Funding the War on Labor Rights in Ohio

John Nichols on October 18, 2011 - 9:44am ET

Dick Cheney was once a union man—after flunking out of Yale, the future vice president worked as an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers lineman in Wyoming—but now his daughter is leading the fight to destroy unions in America.

The essential battle for organized labor in America this fall is in the state of Ohio, where voters will go to the polls in just three weeks to decide whether to overturn anti-labor legislation that Governor John Kasich and a Republican-controlled legislature forced on the state last spring.

If the anti-labor law is upheld, Kasich will be thanking Liz Cheney. The daughter of the former vice president has—along with former White House political czar Karl Rove—taken a leading role among the out-of-state groups that are raising money and implementing media campaigns to support the law.

Heavy spending by a group Cheney heads, in combination with spending by other corporate-allied national groups, offers Kasich the only hope he’s got for winning a fight that is turning uglier by the day. And don’t doubt for a moment that Dick Cheney’s a part of this push; Liz Cheney has throughout her adult life worked closely with her father (she helped him prepare and promote his autobiography) and Liz’s sister, Mary Cheney, says: “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any daylight at all between Liz’s and my father’s views. It’s not because she’s been indoctrinated. It’s because he’s right.”

Reasonable people might debate whether “he’s right.” But there’s no doubt that the Cheneys are playing hardball in Ohio.

In so doing, they are positioning Liz Cheney as a major mover on the political right—since the state-based fights in Wisconsin and Ohio are major concerns of the corporations that fund conservative causes.

After the anti-labor law was enacted earlier this year, Ohioans reacted with passionate opposition to the gutting of collective bargaining rights for public employees. They were frightened by the threat the law posed to the ability of unions to advocate for firefighters, police officers, teachers and other public employees in the workplace, and to the prospect that weakened unions would be unable to counter corporate spin at election time. More than 1.3 million Ohioans signed petitions to put a veto referendum on the ballot. And polls from last summer indicated that likely voters were overwhelming opposed to Kasich’s law.

Now, however, the fight over Issue 2, the referendum on whether to keep the anti-labor legislation on the books, is getting closer. Polls still show that most voters intend to cast “No on 2” ballots, indicating their rejection of the law and their desire that Ohio again respect collective bargaining rights. But the margin has narrowed in recent weeks, thanks to the millions of dollars being spent by corporate interests to try to save the law and, in so doing, to shore up Kasich’s diminished political fortunes.

Acknowledged spending in Ohio by groups on both sides of the issue has already topped $3 million and, with three weeks to go before November 8, the big-money moment is yet to come. “We are spending a significant amount of money on the airwaves,” Melissa Fazekas, the spokeswoman for the labor-backed We Are Ohio campaign said last week. “But we do think we’ll be outspent at the end of the day.”

That’s a safe bet, as national corporate and conservative groups are rushing to defend Kasich and his anti-union policies. The Columbus Dispatch suggests that overall spending by groups that back the anti-labor law could easily top $20 million.

Liz Cheney’s Alliance for America’s Future is one of the most aggressive of the out-of-state special interest groups that have elbowed their way into the referendum fight. Cheney’s group is part of a shadowy network of campaign organizations in which Dick’s daughter serves as a principle operative. Another is called the “Partnership for America’s Future,” and in 2010, Cheney headed a group called “Send Harry Packing,” which targeted Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada. Some of the organizations are 527s, which means they must disclose contributions; others are 501(c)(4) organizations, which means they do not have to disclose the identities of donors. They trade money back and forth, and according to Public Citizen’s Taylor Lincoln: “The Partnership for America’s Future—whose principals include Mary Cheney, daughter of the former vice president—registered as a 527, just as American Crossroads initially did. But it simply reports that it receives all of its money from the Alliance for America’s Future. The ‘Alliance’ is registered as a 501(c)(4)—enabling it and the groups to which it funnels money to operate under the cloak of secrecy.”

How much Cheney’s groups will spend in Ohio remains to be seen. But there is no question that they deal in big money. In 2010, Cheney told CBS News that her groups were budgeted to spend between $12 million and $15 million.

With a track record of backing Republicans 100 percent of the time, Cheney’s groups are hyper-partisan, and they have frequently gotten in trouble for stretching the truth to score political points.

That’s certainly been the case in Ohio.

Cheney’s group began last month to flood Ohio with deceptive mailings that claim “voting yes on Issue 2 will give our communities the ability to get spending under control without raising taxes.”

A mailing that just went out statewide declared: “We just can’t afford to pay 100 percent of government employee benefits too.”

“In this tough economy,” the mailing continues, “it’s just not fair to ask taxpayers to pay even more for salaries and benefits for government employees.” Voting yes on Issue 2, it says, “means that government employees will make modest contributions to their benefits” by paying “at least 15 percent toward their health insurance coverage” and “just 10 percent toward their own retirement.”

A Cleveland Plain Dealer PolitiFact Ohio review of the mailing concluded that it was “problematic” because the piece “leaves out important details needed to put the statement in context.” Ultimately, the analysis concluded that the Cheney mailing rated “Half True” on its “Truth-O-Meter.”

But it’s worse than that.

The real lie is one of omission. What the Cheney mailings don’t say is that the law undermines basic labor rights, eliminates effective collective bargaining and encourages communities to balance budgets on the backs of firefighters, police officers and teachers. Nor does Cheney mention that the cuts will undermine public services and public education at a time when Ohio cities have been rocked by factory closings and rising unemployment.

Of course, Liz Cheney is not concerned about the harm done to Ohioans and their communities by Kasich’s law.

Cheney lives in northern Virginia, and she sends her kids to one of the most elite private schools in the country. She’s weighing her political options, having already been talked up as a potential US Senate candidate.

Every campaign starts somewhere, however, and Liz Cheney has decided to wade into electoral politics as a champion of corporations who is willing to fund the drive to eliminate collective bargaining rights and wipe out trade unions.

Why Cornel West Was Arrested in Memory of Martin Luther King Jr., in Support of Occupy Movement

John Nichols on October 17, 2011 - 10:37am ET

On the day that President Obama and others celebrated the memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the dedication of Washington’s King memorial, Dr. Cornel West was a few blocks away—celebrating King with activism on behalf of economic justice and the “Occupy” movement.

After attending the dedication of the King memorial, West joined a “Stop the Machine! Create a New World!” protest march.

On the steps of the US Supreme Court, with fellow activists, he called out the High Court for making decisions that allow corporations to dominate the economic life and the politics of the nation.

“We want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the Supreme Court decisions,” West declared. “We want to send a lesson to ourselves, to our loved ones, our families, our communities, our nation and the world, that out of deep love for working and poor people that we are willing to put whatever it takes (on the line)—even if we get arrested today—and say we will not allow this day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s memorial to go by without somebody going to jail. Because Martin King would be here right with us, willing to throw down out of deep love.”

Then, the author of Race Matters, Democracy Matters and other groundbreaking books written in the King tradition sat down on the steps of the court with at least eighteen protesters.

“We are here to bear witness, in solidarity with the Occupy movement all around the world because we love poor people, we love working people, and we want Martin Luther King Jr. to smile from the grave that we haven’t forgotten,” said West.

Moments later, West was cuffed by the police and led into the court building as a crowd chanted: “We’re with you, Dr. West!” and “We won’t forget!”

Budgeting for the 99 Percent

John Nichols on October 15, 2011 - 1:59pm ET

America is not broke. But America does have broken priorities.

Americans are waking up to this reality. That’s why they are occupying Wall Street, that’s why they are protesting in Madison, Columbus, Lansing and other state capitals, that’s why thousands marched Saturday in Washington and other cities on behalf of “Jobs and Justice.”

“We are in the midst of a major economic crisis. Millions of Americans are jobless, our schools and infrastructure are under-resourced, our kids are being denied real educational opportunities and their futures are at risk. It’s no wonder that people are frustrated,” says American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, a featured speaker at the Washington rally that honored the social and economic justice legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. while highlighting the ongoing nature of the civil rights icon’s struggle. “The march and rally are about hitting the streets and taking concrete action to change our nation to once again become the place where everyone has a shot at the American dream.”

The people get it, and unions and activist groups such as Progressive Democrats of America have been stepping up this weekend with dozens of events to the highlight the the issues from coast to coast.

But will Congress?

The answer will come, at least in part from the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which in coming weeks will have to decide whether to maintain the broken priorities that created the current mess—or to reject them and get the country on track toward fiscal stabiliy and economic renewal.

If the bipartisan committee perpetuates the austerity agenda that is being demanded by the Republcans and conservative Democrats—and too frequently references as a touchstone by President Obama—the United States will find itself in a worst-case scenatio that combines burdensome debts and stalled growth.

That does not have to be the case.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is proposing a comprehensive plan to get the nation’s fiscal house in order while as the same time stabilizing the circumstance of social programs and spurring job growth. The CPC plan outlines $7 trillion in savings for the federal government and, just as critically, is proposes a new set of priorities that creates jobs, stabilizes communities and strengthens the social-safety net.

“It’s way past time to talk big or think big— it’s time to govern big and do what needs doing,” says CPC co-chair Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Arizona. “The American people are sick and tired of feeling too few in the government are responsive to their needs. While Republicans dither about cutting corporate taxes and dismantling Medicare, people are losing their homes, losing their jobs and losing their savings through no fault of their own. As a government, we need to look at ourselves and offer the country solutions that match the scope of the problems we face. Anything less is a waste of time.”

The CPC plan combines smart economics with a sound set of priorities.

How so?

It starts by finding the money the United States needs now—not just to balance budgets but to make the right investments for the future:

Step One: Allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire and scrap irresponsible estate tax changes, saving $3.95 trillion over the next decade.

Step One: Engineer a responsible end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving $1.6 trillion.

Step Two: Enact a “Fairness in Taxation Act,” creating a millionaire tax that generates $872.5 billion.

Step Three: Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, saving $157.9 billion.

The CPC plan outlines numerous other proposals for raising revenues—including a financial transactions tax on speculators dealing in “exotic financial products”—and for using the savigs to assure the long-term stability of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Perhaps most importantly, however, the CPC plan recognizes the importance of job creation as a deficit-reduction tool. “While Republican politicians are busy slashing good paying American jobs from our economy, the Progressive Caucus continues to put job creation first with serious proposals to rebuild America,” says CPC Co-Chair Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota. “The most effective way to reduce the deficit is to put America back to work. Creating good jobs, making sure that everyone pays their fair share and protecting Social Security Medicare and Medicaid, are the best ways to ensure that all Americans are put on the path to prosperity, not just the wealthiest one percent.”

To that end, the caucus suggests that the supercommittee should include a job-creation component in its recommendations. To do that, the CPC recommends focusing on five initiatives:

1. Make it in America Again
“We must begin with a strategy to revive manufacturing in the United States. This requires developing something every other industrial nation has—a national plan for manufacturing. When people see the words ‘Made in America’ they know that they are getting the highest quality manufactured goods money can buy. We need a policy that reopens our factories and lets Americans do what they do best: produce the highest quality products in the world.”

2. Rebuild America
“With the cost of borrowing near zero, the construction industry flat on its back, and America’s decrepit infrastructure not only a competitive burden, but a threat to lives and safety, there is no better time to launch a major initiative to rebuild America. Create a national investment bank to leverage private capital and ensure that major projects are determined by merit, not by political muscle. Rebuild our half century old roads, bridges, locks and dams, while spurring creation of the roads of the future by connecting and empowering our country with fiber optic cable.”

3. Jobs for the Next Generation
“There is no shortage of work to be done in America and no shortage of workers to do it. One in four teenagers are officially unemployed, including nearly half of young African Americans and Latinos. We are witnessing a generation of crushed hopes, and we are squandering the talent of young Americans. Destructive cuts in public education threaten America’s economic success and we are now falling behind. We must increase federal support for hiring teachers as a catalyst for job creation and immediate and future economic development. We must invest in the finest public education and job training in the world, education is no longer a guarantee of work. Let us make the guarantee of a good American job real for every young person. We should provide direct employment in the public sector and incentives for hiring in the non-profit sector and private sector. In addition, the caucus supports a ‘Train me and pay me’ program which would give stipends to workers and young people who are enrolled in job training programs.”

4. Lead the Green Industrial Revolution
A centerpiece of our economic strategy must be to create good jobs now by capturing the lead in the industrial revolution that is sweeping the world—starting with clean energy, electric cars, and efficient appliances. We need to invest in research and innovation so that America remains on the cutting edge of global technologies. Provide investment incentives to companies to create jobs here at home. Build a modern smart grid that can deliver efficiency and clean energy.”

5. Not Just Jobs— Good Jobs
“American workers want good American jobs, not poverty level wages without benefits that make it impossible to support a family or save for the future. We can start by making sure that middle-class Americans are free to organize and have a voice and a seat at the table again. If corporations can join together to hire an army of lobbyists, working Americans must come together and use their strength in numbers to protect the rights of middle class Americans. We must ensure that businesses obey our labor laws and reward those that create good paying American jobs that protect our rights to equal opportunity and equal pay. Programs like TANF ECF have been proven to put people to work. While, we work on building these good jobs, we must ensure the long-term unemployed receive the full assistance and services they need so they can continue contributing to the economy.”

The supercommittee will, undoubtedly explore, and potentially embrace, a lot of bad ideas.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus has come up with the right response to all of them: America is not broke. But it does need to fix some broken priorities.

“With the supercommittee, the Republicans have manufactured yet another budget crisis,” says CPC Budget Task Force Chair Michael Honda, D-California. “We can ‘go big’ and address our budget deficits by allowing the unpaid-for Bush tax cuts to expire and ending our unpaid-for wars on schedule. Anyone who says we need to cut education, cut the social safety net, cut Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare or provide more tax cuts to the rich, is pushing a political agenda, not sound fiscal policy.”