Category: Politics

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Politics Tagged with , , ,

It’s rare to have Democrats and Republicans in Congress agreeing on much of anything these days—but both parties were strong in their condemnation of Goldman Sachs and its apparent willingness to give advice to its investors that directly contradicted its own predictions, to bet on those predictions, and perhaps cause the economic collapse of 2008. From McCaskill (D-MO) to Ensign (R-NV), Senators called Goldman Sachs some pretty nasty names.

And the casino analogies are appropriate, except that in a casino, as Senator Ensign pointed out, the rules don’t change during the round of play. Goldman kept changing the rules. It was very profitable for them, but a disaster for the economy.

And yet, this whole coterie of Goldman Sachs executives went on and on about their lack of regret (never mind remorse). It’ll be a long time before I trust them to give ME any investment advice!

One thing I don’t see anyone else picking up on is the possible implication of Former Goldman CEO/former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. Here’s an excerpt from the link above (it goes backward, from bottom to top):

12:56: McCaskill: Tourre, do you typically let people like Paulson pick the assets that go into a security they’re betting against?

Tourre: In every synthetic buyer situation, the buyer has to be involved. There are always suggestions from the interested party.

12:53: McCaskill: What’s clear here (from all these emails) is that there wasn’t a great deal of confidence in this “Timberwolf” but the sales people were being pushed to move it.

12:51: McCaskill is reading from emails…

12:42: What’s Paulson doing in the room with the guy picking the assets? Was IKB there? Weren’t they going to be a better to?

Tourre: At what time?

McCaskill: At the time Paulson and ACA met.

Tourre: No, we didn’t know they would be a part of the deal then.

McCaskill: Well, why wouldn’t you tell IKB that Paulson, who they were betting against, was in the room when the deal was being created? That just seems weird to me.

12:42: What about ABACUS?

Tourre: Goldman and Paulson selected ACA.

I don’t think we’ve heard the whole story yet. It promised to be verrrrry interesting.

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By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Networking, Politics, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , , , ,

The convergence of social media and progressive causes is very exciting to me; I see enormous potential to leverage social media for social change. Even as far back as 2000, I used social media as an essential building block of a successful local activist campaign (in fact, I discuss this in my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet,co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson).

I think one of the huge mistakes Obama made was to let go of the massive organizing via social media during the campaign—a piece of the campaign that may well have given him the edge both in the primaries and in the general election, and certainly a big part of mobilizing the youth vote. Actively using those tools in two-way communication would have helped energize his base, counterweighted the Tea Baggers, and provided momentum to implement the deep change he was elected to provide. In the months between the election and inauguration, Obama put out a groundbreaking initiative to get input from us. But that fizzled quickly, and I for one never got a sense that anyone was actually reading the feedback.

Yet it’s so clear that social media can be a force for social change! We’ve seen it in so many parts of the public discourse!

  • The metamorphosis of MoveOn from a narrow group created out of President Clinton’s impeachment to a major organization channeling progressive votes and dollars
  • Howard Dean’s early power in the 2004 primaries
  • wide condemnation of Iran’s repression last summer
  • Creating sustainability for economic change agents such as Kiva.org

    • Although they are brilliant organizers, Obama, Axelrod, and the rest of his team missed this opportunity. They saw social media as a very effective way to reach new audiences, but not a way to build organizations focused on real change…and not as a method of communication from the people to the honchos.

    Not too late to change this! If they build out their own networks, really listen to feedback, and piggyback on people with large viral followings (such as Rachel Maddow), this could still be a major influencing factor in maintaining Democratic control in the 2010 elections.

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    By Posted on Posted in Diversity, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , ,

    Finally, a decades-overdue move to allow hospitalized patients to choose who should be allowed in to see them! President Obama issued a presidential directive Thursday night making federal funding contingent on nondiscrimination in visitation, and providing much greater respect for patients’ wishes in carrying out healthcare decisions.

    This is a victory not only for gays and lesbians, but for anyone who “chooses their family” through means other than legal marriage, including many elderly, or those with common-law companions.

    The above link includes a video interview with a woman who broke into tears, remembering that she was barred from visiting her dying female partner, and who said she felt like she’d failed her partner of 17 years, because she wasn’t there to hold her hand.

    Obama is to be commended for this. It should have been done by FDR, or Kennedy, or Johnson, or even Clinton.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics Tagged with ,

    The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance.

    I am old enough to remember when the nomination of Robert Bork was rejected because he was so much a creature of the Radical Right. Yet, the Bush presidencies have left us with four justices who are equally far to the right and totally out of step with mainstream American thought: Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, and Alito. They are pushing a dangerous agenda in favor of corporate steamrollering, against legitimate government controls on issues like the environment, and appallingly backward on minority rights. The so-called centrists on the court are what we used to think of as solidly conservative.

    The shifts from the likes of the moderate conservative O’Connor and the steadfast progressive Thurgood Marshall to Chief Justice Roberts and Clarence Thomas and their allies have been a radical veering off course. It’s time to get back on course and have a Court that stands for the fundamental values on which this great country was founded.

    These four dangerous radicals must be held in check by a progressive caucus that goes beyond Ginsburg and Sotomayor and can build coalitions with Breyer and Kennedy. Sonya Sotomayor has shown signs of being an outstanding Justice, and I’d like to see Obama appoint someone else with similar values and similar judicial excellence.

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Politics Tagged with , , ,

    The latest sellout of progressives by the Obama administration is on the energy front. The plan announced in his speech today opens huge areas on the east coast and Alaska (click here for a map).

    Even Nancy Pelosi is disgusted.

    Here’s an open letter to Barack Obama, which I give permission to be reposted, circulated, reprinted, as long as the attribution remains intact.

    President Obama, what happened to the bold young senator who understood that our future is not with fossil fuels, and not with nuclear? Our future, if we are to have a future, is in lowering our carbon footprint far beyond the puny standards you set out in Copenhagen, to the shock of a whole world willing to go much deeper. Our future is not in any way reliant on nuclear power…but it is very much aligned with protecting our environmental heritage, something to which you’ve dealt yet another crippling blow today.

    On issue after issue, you disappoint. You sold us out on health care, on militarism, on controlling Wall Street, and now again you’ve sold us out on yet another energy issue (at least the third one).

    President Obama, do NOT take our votes for granted. I wrote months ago that we would “have your” back if you pushed for the progressive agenda, the change you promised to bring. By the same token, we will desert you if you continue to desert us. Do you really want to align yourself with Sarah “Drill, Baby, Drill” Palin?

    Sometimes, the lesser of evils, is still too evil to support. I do not believe you’re an evil man, but your policies, while not based in the malice and trickery of your predecessor, are getting too evil for me to go along with them.

    Shel Horowitz is the primary author (with Jay Levinson) of Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet

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    By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Ethics: General, General Commentary, Politics, propaganda Tagged with , ,

    I’ve long wondered why the people who so strenuously object to socialized medicine have no problem with other socialized services, such as police and fire protection (on the government monopoly model) and education (the “public option”/private competition model). This bit of satire makes the point better than I could. I was hoping to be able to attribute it (it came anonymously as an e-mail) but on a quick Google, I found that it’s a very popular text, but couldn’t locate a source.

    I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

    I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

    I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

    I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

    I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

    * Social Security

    * Medicare/Medicaid

    * State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)

    * Police, Fire, and Emergency Services

    * US Postal Service

    * Roads and Highways

    * Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)

    * The US Railway System

    * Public Subways and Metro Systems

    * Public Bus and Lightrail Systems

    * Rest Areas on Highways

    * Sidewalks

    * All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)

    * Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)

    * Public and State Universities and Colleges

    * Public Primary and Secondary Schools

    * Sesame Street

    * Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children

    * Public Museums

    * Libraries

    * Public Parks and Beaches

    * State and National Parks

    * Public Zoos

    * Unemployment Insurance

    * Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services

    * Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)

    * Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)

    * Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)

    * Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD’s ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking

    * Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies

    * Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies

    If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

    I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

    I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:

    * Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History

    * The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments

    * The government-operated Statue of Liberty

    * The Grand Canyon

    * The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials

    * The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery

    * All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC

    I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

    I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.

    I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.

    I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.

    Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

    Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.

    SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.

    _____________ _________________________

    Signed Printed Name/Town and State

    Spread it around!

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Ethics: General, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , ,

    I got a call tonight from a survey company asking me questions about my views on various candidates for Massachusetts Governor, and then about various energy alternatives, and then the obvious real purpose: questions about my views on the large-scale wood-burning biomass projects proposed around the state (including three locations fairly close to me: Russell, Greenfield, and even densely populated Springfield), and a proposed bill to count only solar, wind and hydro as Green projects, excluding nukes and biofuels.

    I think this gets an “award” for the most biased survey I’ve ever taken. First, the questioner determined that I was strongly opposed to the biomass plants—which are very bad on carbon footprint, not only from the burning of wood but also the massive deforestation and the huge amount of truck traffic they will generate. Wood is, indeed, a renewable resource. But it sure isn’t a clean one!

    Then he asked questions like

  • Would it change your vote if you knew that although the Sierra Club and [I think] the Massachusetts Medical Society support the bill, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, and AFL-CIO oppose this bill? [Very clever of them to throw in the environmental groups on the other side; my suspicions were not yet aroused. Later, I Googled and could find no such endorsement from UCS, although their research is cited by another group, here]
  • Would it change your vote if you knew that wood-biofuel plants are carbon neutral? [absolutely NOT true!]
  • Would it change your vote if you knew that Massachusetts has more forested land now than it did 100 years ago?

    • After these three biased questions that were clearly tilted toward counting me as an opponent of the bill, I stopped the guy and said I thought this was a survey, and not a blatant attempt to feed misinformation to me in an attempt to change my opinion. He said, “hey, I’m just reading the questions!” I said I understood that, but I didn’t appreciate being manipulated like this, and I ended the interview. My caller ID told me he had a 609 area code (New Jersey), incidentally.

    I am totally sure this so-called survey will be used to trumpet the citizens of Massachusetts’ supposed stance in favor of biofuels and against the proposed law. While the law’s definitions could be sharpened, I actually feel that eliminating nuclear power and large-scale wood-burning biomass plants from being counted in the progress toward a Green economy is a GOOD thing. And I’ll be directing my friends who are active in the anti-biofuel campaigns to this blog, so they can see exactly what their opponents are up to—sleazy and easily discredited “surveys” like this.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

    Yesterday, conservative commentator George Will called Barack Obama a “timid progressive.”

    Will is an interesting writer. He’s far more thoughtful and articulate than the bloviators who dominate the talk channels, and he will criticize both the Right and the Left as he sees fit. I’ve often said that one of my secret fantasies is to be “a George Will of the Left.”

    And I’d agree with him about Obama’s timidity. Obama talks a big, bold line, but when it comes to action, his moves are for the most part tiny little reforms, and even those don’t get pushed very hard for the most part. Obama was pretty progressive a few years ago, but his term in the Senate and his desire to be President seemed to have cooled his ardor. By the time he was elected, I figured he was a mainstream liberal, somewhere to the right of Ted Kennedy but well to the left of any recent occupant of the Oval Office.

    Still, although my expectations for Obama’s presidency were pretty low, they haven’t even come close to being reached. On the timidity factor, he’s drowning the hopes of his mandate in the bathtub of timidity. I appreciate Obama’s conciliatory approach—but there’s a difference he doesn’t understand between trying to make common cause with the other side and walking away when it’s obvious the other side doesn’t care, doesn’t want to be engaged, and will do everything in its power to sabotage you.

    Why do I say Obama’s not progressive anymore?
    This is what a progressive agenda would have looked like:

  • Health care: Medicare for All, a one-paragraph or at most one-page unamendable document that would have galvanized support, been hard to attack, and would have passed easily, months ago, with none of the backroom dealing that gave so much leverage to people like Ben Nelson and Olympia Snowe.
  • Foreign policy: Rapid withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan (three to six months). Strong condemnation of the Iraq venture as an illegal war waged under utterly false pretenses. Immediate halt on torture, rapid closing of Guantanamo, some sort of legal proceedings (perhaps a Nelson Mandela-style Commission on Truth and Reconciliation) to hold the Bush administration accountable for the rogue state we had become. An indelible message to Israel that its actions in Gaza were unacceptable and would have consequences for US support, insistence on a settlement freeze, and pressure on the Palestinian Authority to both crack down on terrorists and to negotiate in good faith.
  • Domestic policy: Consequences and safeguards around the Wall Street bailout that held the banks and brokerage firms accountable and prevented large bonuses going to executives of failing companies. Economic measures in addition to TARP that addressed working-class and middle-class Americans, especially in the areas of foreclosure and Main Street business help. A Marshall Plan-size effort to move off oil/coal and replace fossil fuels with true renewables (nuclear emphatically doesn’t count).

    • Energy is one area where Obama did make a start, at least. The appointment of Van Jones and the attention to Green jobs were laudable, but Jones was quickly kicked out under pressure from the Right, and the momentum for Green jobs withered.

    Timidity: George Will Was Right
    The other big problem was that not only did his agenda lack real progressive substance for the most part, but he hasn’t been willing to use his considerable persuasive powers to retain his support base and pressure Congress. Nor is he able to simply hold the Democratic Party together long enough to move change forward. The lack of 60 reliable votes in the Senate is a red herring; during the few months he had the supermajority, the Democrats still couldn’t get much done. Look at the GW Bush administration, which never head anything like 60 votes, whose election legitimacy was never certain, and which generated significant public opposition to many of its policies. Bush was still was able to ram through all kinds of things, many of which the country has lived to regret.

    From a marketing and PR point of view, Obama could have taken a leaf from Franklin Roosevelt’s book: When Roosevelt couldn’t get things through Congress, he turned to the people; he appealed directly to voters. He used Republican intransigence to build up pressure, and then at election time, was able to replace some of the obstacles. For the last year, Obama has totally blown the opportunity to blame the mess both on the past administration and on the unwillingness of Republicans to let him through to make the change he promised during the campaign. If he had used different strategy, 2010 should have seen a sweeping housecleaning in the House and Senate and a vast Democratic majority in place for the next two years. Instead, I think Obama’s cushion will be a lot thinner, and he’ll have even less room to work. The result will be a one-term presidency with meager accomplishments, and probably another round of Republican aggression.

    The last Democrat who was willing to use some muscle to move his agenda forward (an agenda that was not at all popular in large sections of the country) was Lyndon Johnson. From his grave, LBJ must be wondering why Obama is afraid to lead.

    Of course, the Left hasn’t had Obama’s back. We’ve given the streets to the tea partiers, where we should have been out there putting pressure on of our own (for example, not letting a health care bill move forward that doesn’t even have a public option, let alone single-payer/Medicare for All), and marshaling support for the few progressive initiatives.

    Obama has eight more months to change the dynamic. Eight months in which he needs to start being very public about why change is not emanating through Congress. Eight months to appeal to the American people for support, and to get winnable candidates in place to challenge the intransigents. I wish him luck.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics, Protests and Crackdowns

    Oy, a few more like this and we’re really in trouble:

  • Death toll in Haiti climbed above 200,000, millions more injured and/or homeless.
  • Supreme Court removed restrictions on corporate campaign contributions, and this could have severe consequences for our democracy (I particularly like Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s commentary on this).
  • Not that they were using it anyway, but the Democrats not only lost their supermajority without passing very much important legislation, but they managed to lose it in my own state of Massachusetts. Since the Republicans have made very plain their policy of dragging almost every initiative into the swamp-of-no-return, this could cripple the already fading hopes that we’d make some progress, or at least back away from the tyrannical policies of the GWB-coup administration.
  • The renegade coup government in Honduras ran out the clock to the end of its predecessor Manuel Zelaya’s legitimate term, and Zelaya is leaving for exile as a private citizen. This makes at least three right-wing national coups that have succeeded in the Western Hemisphere in the first decade of the 21st century: Honduras, Haiti, and the non-military, non-violent election theft by GWB in the US.
  • Despite the popularity of outgoing President Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s newly elected president is a right-winger with some possible ties to the brutal Pinochet coup government of the 1970s

    At least there are bright spots in my own life, including the release this week of my eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson).

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    By Posted on Posted in Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Politics, propaganda Tagged with , , , ,

    Following Martha Coakley’s loss in Massachusetts, Obama will no doubt get a lot of advice to move to the center, to compromise more, to give up any hope for the progressive agenda he was elected to deliver.

    But that advice is totally wrong-headed! If he wants to be remembered as anything other than an ineffectual one-term president, he and his weak-kneed party need to seize the debate, push the agenda, and present themselves once more as the party of change. Maybe they should even go back to Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativsim” and pin that label on the GOP.

    It is unconscionable that even the last few months when they’ve had their precious 60-vote supermajority, they’ve kowtowed to the right and let the party of intransigence frame and control the debate, and the votes. Now that they’ve lost that cushion, they’ve got only one hope of staying viable. Here’s the briefest outline:

  • Stop running crappy candidates! The Dems lost two governorships and for goodness sake Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat because they keep running candidates who don’t stand for anything, do little campaigning, and expect their money and connections to carry them to victory. Did they learn nothing from the John Kerry debacle? Or from Dukakis in 1988? I live in Massachusetts and can tell you that Coakley ran a terrible campaign.
  • Be the framers of the debate. Show the people how you proposed the change Obama ran on, and over and over again, the Republicans, the party of the failed policies of the past, have blocked your way no matter how many bipartisan overtures you make. Build momentum in the streets as well as in the boardrooms. Show that these Republicans, and the Blue Dog Democrats who vote with them, are blocking the way. Then mount effective campaigns by effective progressive candidates to get them OUT in November.
  • Refuse to tolerate the shenanigans of people like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson. The Republicans managed to get a lot of their agenda through with a very close majority during the Bush years, because they held together. Make it clear that the party will support primary challenges(and general election challenges) from the Left.
  • Play hardball. When Nelson, Lieberman and Snowe threatened the health bill unless it dropped all its substance, the party’s progressive stalwarts should have been out there shouting very publicly that dropping the public option meant dropping THEIR vote. Even Bernie Sanders wasn’t willing to go there.

    THIS strategy will result in one year writing good laws that won’t get passed, throwing the bums out, consolidating power, and having an amazing third and fourth year. Franklin Roosevelt used this strategy successfully in his first term, showed the public that he wanted to make real change, and swept back into office not just for a second term but for a third and a fourth.

    Obama, as a former community organizer, knows how to do this. He did it effectively in his campaign. He did it in the first weeks of his administration, and built a culture of hope. And then he started back-door dealing, chipping away at the agenda, providing giveaways to Wall Street, maintaining the worst aspects of the Bush foreign policy…is it any wonder his constituency feels deserted and abandoned? And that hope crashed and burned, leaving people bitter, angry, and unmotivated to vote for weak-kneed scoundrels–which is how they are perceiving the Democrats.

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