Sam Smith, 2011 -
What a populist rebellion might look like
Sam Smith, 2011 - The media tells you about the Tea Party, but not that, according to a recent
poll, an equal number of Americans have similar positive feelings about
socialism. Part of the reason is the deep conservative bias of the mass media,
but it is also because progressives and liberals have not done a good job of
promoting specific policies that people will appreciate and the establishment
will fear.
Further, progressives and liberals have done a rotten job of reaching out beyond their own natural constituency to find the new supporters that change will require. They have been increasingly content - often quite smugly so - to remain in their nest attacking the right but failing to offer a decent alternative. In other words, they have forgotten the importance and skill of organizing.
Finally, as liberals have become more upscale they have drifted right in their political view, particularly demonstrated by growing indifference to the economic policies and philosophy that once defined them. The right has exploited this shift by distracting a logical constituency away from its own economic and social interests towards such matters as gay marriage and abortion.
But things do change. And since the bipartisan right - i.e. the GOP and Obama - are clearly failing at getting the country back on its economic feet, it's worth considering that how a populist rebellion might turn things around.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Repeal the upscale tax cuts provided in the GOP-Obama tax package. This alone would eliminate the need for Obama's deficit proposal for the next two years. Yes, it would be class warfare, but until the upper classes start behaving themselves, go for it.
- Press for the indictment of those criminally responsible for the foreclosure disaster. Fifty states are doing it and the feds should do it, too.
- Start a drive for a constitutional amendment for an elected Attorney General. 43 states have them and it's a major reason they're going after the banks now.
- Join the drive for a constitutional amendment to deny corporation the status of a human person in political matters.
- Oppose all deficit reduction programs aimed against lower and mid income Americans such as the cut in heating fuel assistance.
- Allow the government to become co-owners of troubled mortgages, just as they became co-owner of GM.
- Replace the high speed rail program with transportation and other public works programs that help ordinary citizens rather than the business class.
- Support instant runoff voting to increase the influence of the rightfully discontented in our nation.
- Pursue a strongly localist politics aimed at bringing decisions down to the lowest practical level. We need local democracy as well as local lettuce.
- Support public campaign financing.
- Get banks out of financially risky and speculative activities by restoring key provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act.
- Support cooperatives and worker-owned businesses.
- Establish state banks as in North Dakota.
- Start selective boycotts, probably the single most effective and underused organizing tool left in our increasingly oppressive society. The boycotts should be carefully chosen and include easy alternatives (e.g. Coke vs. Pepsi)
- End usury, starting with the prohibition of two digit interest rates on credit cards.
- Strong support for small businesses and strong regulation of large corporations.
- Increase taxes on business outsourcing to foreign countries. For example, over half of Americans support a tax on foreign customer service calls.
- End offshore tax havens
- Protect Social Security and Medicare
- Prevent employers from taking a tax deduction, loss, or credit if they downsize or cease operations in the U.S. and subsequently expand or reopen overseas
- Single payer health care
There are, of course, other important things we need to do like end the drug war and dismantle our failed empire with its huge military costs. But the list above is centered on one goal: doing the most for the most in ways that an ordinary citizen can understand and which involve the wallet, the shortest path to a voters' heart.
If progressives strongly pursue policies of economic populism, they will discover millions of new allies. If they continue to fail to do so, they can expect little but the continued collapse of their country.
Further, progressives and liberals have done a rotten job of reaching out beyond their own natural constituency to find the new supporters that change will require. They have been increasingly content - often quite smugly so - to remain in their nest attacking the right but failing to offer a decent alternative. In other words, they have forgotten the importance and skill of organizing.
Finally, as liberals have become more upscale they have drifted right in their political view, particularly demonstrated by growing indifference to the economic policies and philosophy that once defined them. The right has exploited this shift by distracting a logical constituency away from its own economic and social interests towards such matters as gay marriage and abortion.
But things do change. And since the bipartisan right - i.e. the GOP and Obama - are clearly failing at getting the country back on its economic feet, it's worth considering that how a populist rebellion might turn things around.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Repeal the upscale tax cuts provided in the GOP-Obama tax package. This alone would eliminate the need for Obama's deficit proposal for the next two years. Yes, it would be class warfare, but until the upper classes start behaving themselves, go for it.
- Press for the indictment of those criminally responsible for the foreclosure disaster. Fifty states are doing it and the feds should do it, too.
- Start a drive for a constitutional amendment for an elected Attorney General. 43 states have them and it's a major reason they're going after the banks now.
- Join the drive for a constitutional amendment to deny corporation the status of a human person in political matters.
- Oppose all deficit reduction programs aimed against lower and mid income Americans such as the cut in heating fuel assistance.
- Allow the government to become co-owners of troubled mortgages, just as they became co-owner of GM.
- Replace the high speed rail program with transportation and other public works programs that help ordinary citizens rather than the business class.
- Support instant runoff voting to increase the influence of the rightfully discontented in our nation.
- Pursue a strongly localist politics aimed at bringing decisions down to the lowest practical level. We need local democracy as well as local lettuce.
- Support public campaign financing.
- Get banks out of financially risky and speculative activities by restoring key provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act.
- Support cooperatives and worker-owned businesses.
- Establish state banks as in North Dakota.
- Start selective boycotts, probably the single most effective and underused organizing tool left in our increasingly oppressive society. The boycotts should be carefully chosen and include easy alternatives (e.g. Coke vs. Pepsi)
- End usury, starting with the prohibition of two digit interest rates on credit cards.
- Strong support for small businesses and strong regulation of large corporations.
- Increase taxes on business outsourcing to foreign countries. For example, over half of Americans support a tax on foreign customer service calls.
- End offshore tax havens
- Protect Social Security and Medicare
- Prevent employers from taking a tax deduction, loss, or credit if they downsize or cease operations in the U.S. and subsequently expand or reopen overseas
- Single payer health care
There are, of course, other important things we need to do like end the drug war and dismantle our failed empire with its huge military costs. But the list above is centered on one goal: doing the most for the most in ways that an ordinary citizen can understand and which involve the wallet, the shortest path to a voters' heart.
If progressives strongly pursue policies of economic populism, they will discover millions of new allies. If they continue to fail to do so, they can expect little but the continued collapse of their country.
4 comments:
I added all these points to the Bernie Sanders page requesting Democratic Party Platform suggestions....
https://go.berniesanders.com/page/s/Democratic-party-platform?source=em160623-full
Cheers, Tom
Your suggestions are good, Sam, but ignore the elephant(s) in the living room -- free trade, and regressive taxation on the poor and working class, both supported by Democrats.
Tear up all free trade agreements and bring back stiff tariffs on value-added goods.
Pass a constitutional amendment banning regressive taxes and fees. Bye-bye FICA, bye-bye sales tax, bye-bye regressive property taxes.
The original Tea Party movement and Occupy Wall Street had a LOT in common...and still do.
To my mind, a single matter is at hand the resolution of which would mean the resolution of all that is illegitimately contradictory in our unsustainable socio-economic system: the abandonment of a monetary system that guarantees "free enterprise" to no one other than the usurious bankers who rely on anonymous, treasurable currencies... Silvio Gesell's Natural Economic Order and Charles Eisenstein's Sacred Economics reveal the simplicity of the solutions at hand, if they were instrumentable at all at this point in view of the extent of the lies, destruction and hidden realities of the so-called democratic, free enterprise, system. What we refer to as FREE ENTERPRISE WITHOUT CAPITALISM. Socialism for the rich is what the Federal Reserve emporium is instrumenting through its ever present agents, such as their Clinton cohorts...
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