Where are the cameras at this year’s town meetings?

April 25, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on Where are the cameras at this year’s town meetings?

Two years ago, the Koch Brothers and their big business allies paid a bundle to get Tea Party members out to congressional town hall meetings to shout down any resasonable discusson on health reform. The media were all over it, running footage of the confrontations and the weeping I-want-my-country-back women.

This year, Progressives are coming out in force to confront Republican members of Congress about budget cuts, Medicare “reform” and the attempts to repeal, defund or otherwise cripple reform, but you won’t see a whole lot of coverage. Maybe part of the reason is that Progressives seem to be less violent and screechy in their confrontations.

Progressives also tend to have real questions to ask, like those posed to GOP Rep. Jim Renacci from Ohio.

According to a report by Daily Kos, a questioner asked why Republicans don’t come up with an alternative plan before they repeal the current law.

Renacci replied with a non-answer: “Remember, it was the American people what sent us down there…”

I have a feeling the American people what sent them down there weren’t counting on such deep cuts to the social safety net alongside deep tax cuts for the wealthiest.

I don’t recall seeing anything about the confrontation in the “mainstream” media that was so happy to cover the Tea Party.

However, you will see conservatives claiming these people are being organized by unions and other “liberal” groups as they claim the opposition to health reform two years ago was spontaneous.

Our local paper here in Asheville wrote a story about one of the traveling groups, and the reporter failed to ask who paid for the bus and why people who obviously were on Medicare were holding placards that said, “Keep your government hands off my health care!” The reporter didn’t ask where the bus riders came from or where they were going. The reporter never spoke to anyone with an opposing point of view, and whoever edited the story didn’t see anything wrong with this one-sided piece with no real questions asked.

That’s par for the course in this country now. Our “free” press is free to cover the right, and free to ignore the middle and the left.

Gambling with our money

April 22, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on Gambling with our money

OK, let’s say your friend comes to you and begs to borrow $500. He’s got a system that’s sure to beat the house. He’s always been a good friend, so you trust him enough to lend him the money.

He gambles and loses every penny, so he comes to you and demands $1,000 because it’s your fault he lost. You weren’t wise enough with your money, he says, and he forces that $1,000 out of you through the court.

Now you’re really hurting, so you ask for help and your now former friend laughs at you and says he needs more. He goes to the government and gets millions and you have to pay higher taxes so the government can get it back. At the same time, the government cuts off any assistance you were getting, and your employer cuts back on your health care and other benefits.

This is what the banks and Wall Street have done to us.

They took out homes as collateral and gambled away the money we were paying in mortgage payments. When the bottom fell out, they demanded our homes back and then pleaded poverty to the federal government, which bailed them out.

There were no payments to working Americans; in fact, before the government would agree to bail out General Motors, it made the workers make concessions, like cuts to their pay and benefits, for the sins of their management.

What’s worse is that no one has gone to jail for this theft. The wealthy bankers who casued this mess have had their taxes reduced while the rest of us are paying a higher percentage of our dwindling salaries.

They have destroyed private-sector unions and now are working on killing the public-sector unions. They took down ACORN, one of the most effective community-organizing groups ever.

They want is in disarray because that makes us less effective in fighting against them.

But there is some hope. Recall groups in Wisconsin are doing well. People are waking up and understanding that these budget cuts are a sham designed to move more wealth to the top, and they’re getting angry.

The banks and Wall Street haven’t changed the way they do business. Everything that brought us to disaster is still being done.

It’s our money, and we have to break their gambling habit.

Do they really believe their own spin?

April 21, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on Do they really believe their own spin?

I was in Raleigh this week to testify before the NC House Insurance Committee against the insurance exchange bill, but I figured while I was there I could visit my state representative, Tim Moffitt, a Republican. I had e-mailed him last week to tell him the 39,000 people who just lost their unemployment benefits aren’t going to blame Gov. Bev Perdue for their loss.

I know he reads my e-mails and he usually responds, and I appreciate that, and I appreciate that me makes time to see me when I’m in town. Naturally, we started the visit with a discussion of unemployment benefits.

He went into an explanation of how unemployment insurance is funded and how much it costs businesses. He mentioned that he hasn’t drawn a paycheck from his own business in awhile and is living off savings.

Well, most of the 39,000 who just lost their unemployment benefits don’t have much money to dip into. They’re screwed. But he thinks the agencies and people in the state need to know what the budget will look like so they can plan, and that the move to connect unemployment benefits to the Republic budget proposal was appropriate.

That’s the party line on this: What if the budget negotiations drag on and on? Don’t agencies and businesses that receive state money deserve to know what they’re getting so they can plan? Of course people aren’t going to blame the Republicans for the veto of a jobless benefits extension.

Well, Tim, you and your fellow Republican lawmakers need to listen. The NC Issues Poll, conducted by the NC Justice Center, shows that people in the state overwhelmingly blame the Republican majority, not the governor, for the cutoff of unemployment benefits. The poll showed that 65 percent of North Carolinians support the governor, and they want the Legislature to vote on a 20-week extension by itself.

Rather than cutting taxes and laying off hundreds of teachers’ aides, 66 percent of those polled want to see the aides kept on in our schools; 57 percent want to save the funding for the state’s university system; 61 percent want to make sure students in community colleges stay eligible for low-interest student loans and 84 percent do not want to allow interest rates on consumer loans to be raised.

Republicans ignore all this at their own peril. People across the country are seeing the truth about what the party is doing to the middle class, and they’re not happy. Four recall campaigns in Wisconsin have gathered the signatures they need to hold elections. People in other states will follow.

Remember what Krushchev said …

April 18, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on Remember what Krushchev said …

By Pulitzer Prize-winnning cartoonist Matt Davies. Read more at http://davies.lohudblogs.com/

Back in the late 1950s, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev said the Communists wouldn’t have to invade the United States because it would take itself down from the inside.

I imagine he thought it would come sooner, but that day isn’t far off. With the Tea Party threatening not to allow the debt ceiling to be raised, our creditors are getting a little scared.

Financial ratings firm Standard & Poor’s moved the nation’s outlook from positive to negative, causing Treasury Bonds to fall this morning because our creditors are worried that the government has no long-term fiscal policy.

Both President Obama and the Tea Party-backed Republicans in Congress have plans to reduce the deficit by up to $4 trillion over the next decade, but they’re nothing alike, and the Republicans have shown their unwillingness to negotiate on anything.

Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan cuts everything but the military, and it pretty much strangles Medicare. It also preserves the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while shredding the safety net that protects our most vulnerable people from catastrophe.

Their games can only result in skittish creditors and increased interest rates, which will cost us more and more.

After the announcement, the Dow Jones industrial average was 230.53 points, or 1.87 percent lower, while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index declined 23.45 points, or 1.78 percent. The technology heavy Nasdaq lost 55.81 points, or 2 percent.

That doesn’t sound too severe, perhaps, but the announcement is serious. Our leaders have to come together to address these financial problems, and cutting off aid to the poor while letting the wealthy cruise isn’t the answer.

We’re still not creating jobs (Where are the jobs you promised, Mr. Boehner?), and people are exhausting their unemployment benefits every week.

Things are only going to get worse until we have some good-faith negotiations about the budget and about jobs.

39,000 hostages in North Carolina

April 17, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on 39,000 hostages in North Carolina

As of yesterday, 39,000 North Carolinians were cut off from unemployment benefits because the GOP-led legislature here tied extension of benefits to their disastrous budget.

The Republican majority agreed to extend jobless benefits ONLY if Gov. Bev Perdue would agree to their budget proposal, which isn’t even finished yet.

Most of the unemployed rely on those benefits to put food on the table. The average payout is $300 per week, and without it, people have nowhere to turn. Few have managed to put away enough savings to see them through until the economy turns around for those of us who have to work for a living.

There’s no excuse for this behavior; the budget should be debated on its own, not tied to the economic survival of 39,000 people who are victims of the economic ruin Wall Street perpetuated upon the country.

Other states have passed the technical language needed to continue benefits for up to 99 weeks, but not North Carolina. Our legislature takes the cynical approach, hoping people will blame the governor for vetoing the extension to unemployment.

I wrote to my representative, Republican Tim Moffitt, and told him I will remember this come Election Day, and I won’t blame Bev Perdue; I’ll blame the Republicans who held 39,000 people hostage.

We have to be the reasonable ones

April 14, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on We have to be the reasonable ones

Obama was calm and reasonable Wednesday as he explained why he won't accept more tax cuts for the wealthy.

Recently, my son told me he was worried about my stress levels after seeing a photo of me appearing to be screaming at someone. As it turns out, I was leading a chant at a rally and I had to shout at the top of my lungs to be heard by the hundreds of people there.

But it left me wondering how many pictures of an angry-looking me are out there.

Talking to a group of friends who also are community/nonprofit leaders the other day, I was offered one strong piece of advice: You have to have a cool head. You can’t look like the angry, frustrated one. You have to be the one who makes sense.

“Remember President Obama’s reaction when Joe Wilson shouted ‘You lie!’ in the middle of the State of the Union speech?” one of them asked me.

Of course. The president gave Wilson a dirty look and continued on with his speech. Wilson looked like an ass to most of the country. Had Obama engaged him, he would have brought himself down to the level of Wilson’s behavior. Instead he looked, well, presidential.

Anger and vitriol aren’t the best way to get a point across. When you’re the one who’s being reasonable, the other guy tends to just seem angry and/or mean.

The president did it again Tuedsay in his budget speech, when he said he wouldn’t agree to any more tax cuts for the rich while asking the middle and working classes to pay more. He was critical of the budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, head of the House Budget Committee.

“There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” Mr. Obama said. “There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. And this is not a vision of the America I know.”

There was no anger, just the promise that he will negotiate when his opponents agree to negotiate in good faith.

Ryan was furious and it showed; members of the Tea Party issued nasty statements, one of them saying they’ll hold bayonets at the backs of the Republicans to strengthen their spines.

What we Progressives need to do is agree to disagree with some people and get on to doing the constructive work that needs to be done. If they want to scream and call us names, that’s fine. We can give them a dirty look and get on with our business.

Everybody loses

April 13, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on Everybody loses

NC House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, released details of the proposed state budget on Tuesday evening.

If the North Carolina budget released by the GOP-led House last night were to become law, everyone would suffer. Here’s just a few of the cuts:

  • $2 billion in total cuts, including reductions in teen pregnancy prevention programs and adoption assistance and the elimination of a successful prison alternative program that actually saves the state money.
  • A 15 percent cut to the university system, which its leaders say would be devastating.
  • 8.8 percent cuts to schools that would include all teachers’ assistants in second-and third-grade classrooms, cuts to other administration and maintenance staffs and transportation. This is on top of a $304 million discretionary reduction built into the budget. That means the real size of the cut to public schools is 13.2 percent, nearly $1 billion.
  • The Smart Start pre-kindergarten program would lose about $37 million; More at Four would be cut by $30 million, losing space for more than 2,600 children.
  • Funding for senior centers would be reduced by 47 percent.
  • Community health grants would be cut by 23 percent. 
  • The state Department of Health and Human Services would have to cut its budget by almost 11 percent.
  • Mental health services would lose $37 million at a time when the US Justice Department is investigating its lack of ability to care for people.
  • Cuts to reimbursement rates for physicians in the state’s health insurance program for low-income children.
  • $58 million in increased court fees.
  • Less funding for domestic violence services.
  • Laying off 40 members of the State Capitol Police force.

That’s just some of the bad news. Greg Borom, who does advocacy with Children First/Communities in Schools of Buncombe County, ticked off some of the cuts this morning.

“Anything you care about in health, education or children’s services is at risk,” he said.

“There isn’t a classroom in the state that would be left untouched by the GOP’s job-killing budget,” Senate Minority Leader Martin Nesbitt said in a statement to WRAL in Raleigh. “From preschools to elementary schools to community colleges and universities, this proposal jeopardizes the very future of our state.”

Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, said lawmakers need to “stop trying to please the tea party.”

There’s been no talk about raising revenues. It seems not to matter if people would die in the streets because of these cuts — and be assured, some will.

It’s a cruel and punative budget proposal. The people who put together this budget obviously care nothing for the people of North Carolina.

One outraged citizen at a time

April 11, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on One outraged citizen at a time

I’ve been feeling pretty hopeless lately, what with the successes of the right wing in strangling unions, reducing federal programs for people in need, cutting Pell Grants and other programs that help get people through college, sabotaging health reform …

They’re getting away with murder, even though most of the American people don’t want the things the right is doing. Most of us want Medicare left alone; we don’t want to see Social Security privatized, and we certainly don’t want to see Donald Trump as president.

This is a man who lives like a billionaire using other people’s money. He’s been broke for years, but his investors keep pumping money in so they won’t lose everything. He is everything those on the right say they hate about the government, but they seem to love him because he started an “investigation” into President Obama’s birth certificate.

The investigation that really needs to be going on is the one into the judicial election in Wisconsin, where several thousand votes suddenly appeared on the private laptop computer of a GOP operative who has worked for the candidate who will make decisions in favor of Gov. Scott Walker’s immoral cuts to workers rights.

Meanwhile, the government nearly shut down last week as the religious right in the house tried to insert language into the bill that would de-fund Planned Parenthood because they don’t want government money going to any organization that offers abortions, even though not one penny of government funding goes to abortion. Planned Parenthood has to be able to prove that, so where each dollar goes is carefully tracked. Planned Parenthood has never been accused of using government money for anything other than what it was intended for — well, except for people who have no proof of anything to support their false accusations.

Americans want to see the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share of taxes, but government doesn’t care and continues to slash health and mental health programs, jobs programs and infrastructure repair (which really does create jobs).

Yeah, there’s plenty to be upset about if you’re an average American.

What we need to do is take this outrage we all feel and turn it into action. One outraged citizen at a time, we can come together and fight the incursions on our rights. We can decide whether we want to be a nation in community or a land of greedy, I-got-mine-get-your-own bastards.

The March 7/14 issue of The Nation contained an exceprt from the Stéphane Hessel’s book, Indignez-vous!, that I found absolutely inspiring.

Hessel, 93, was a member of the French Resistance during World War II. While Nazi sympathizers ran the “official” government, Hessel and others were with the government-in-exile, battling seemingly insurmountable odds to defeat the Nazis.

Hessel believes our outrage must take a positive form because anger only fuels more anger.

“We must realize that violence turns its back on hope. We have to choose hope over violence—choose the hope of nonviolence. That is the path we must learn to follow. The oppressors no less than the oppressed have to negotiate to remove the oppression: that is what will eliminate terrorist violence. That is why we cannot let too much hate accumulate.”

My late son, Mike, believed the same thing. Days before he died, he asked me to “play the dead-kid card” in a positive way, to try and use the energy of my grief to create positive outcomes.

We can put a stop to this if we’re willing to work together in positive ways to educate voters, then get them to the polls. If we need to help people get photo IDs, then let’s do it. If we see irregularities, we need to report them.

We need to be LOUD, but we have to keep our message free of violent rhetoric.

We can do this, one energized, outraged citizen at a time.

This “speaking truth to power” thing is really catching on.

April 10, 2011 a world of progress, progressive living Comments Off on This “speaking truth to power” thing is really catching on.

Speaking Truth to Power EventSeveral years ago, after being set afire by Michael Moore’s movie Fahrenheit 911 and subsequently launching the blog that was the precursor to A world of Progress, two things became immediately apparent to me:

1. Speaking truth to power is one of those things that often seems incredibly pointless, especially when you do it alone from behind a computer screen.

2. Taking any action to speak truth to power (no matter how insignificant it may feel at the time) helps to align thought with the heart and that in itself makes you feel better.

Today, I find myself  listening more and talking less, but I do want to take a few minutes of your time to share these links to the Speaking Truth to Power series presented by Wave Enterprises that I attended last night in Asheville, NC and hopefully inspire you to check out this organization that is working to bring the voices of war Veterans turned peace activists to a town near you. I was also fortunate to attend the after party and have the opportunity to speak with the event organizers and meet the vets on the panel as well as Mr. McGovern and Mr. Porter. The event itself was inspiring, but getting the opportunity to speak with them one on one was truly a wonderful gift. I invited their social media and marketing specialist, Tamara, to tell us about her adventures in organizing and promoting this great event here for our readers. Hopefully she will have the time to give us a backstage glimpse at their efforts in bringing this vision to life in other cities across the country.

From the press release (modified by me to include additional info and live links):

Emcee, Lesley Groetsch, co-host of Local Edge Radio Mon-Fri at 3pm eastern time on 880 the Revolution.

Keynote speakers Gareth Porter, investigative journalist and historian (huff-po, alter-net, IPN, Truth-out…etc…) who specializes in US national security policy and Ray McGovern, former US Army Intelligence Officer, 27 year CIA veteran and analyst (also a contributor to many of your favorite news outlets).

Veterans for Peace ( I had a “duh” moment when I realized I hadn’t joined this organization as yet.)

In addition, US veterans Conor Curran, Brock McIntosh, Mike Prysner and Josh Steiber (veteran of the Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” company) will share their personal stories and thoughts of the true costs of a permanent state of war.

Special thanks to all the event sponsors and endorsements: (if you are looking for ways to get involved in dismantling the permanent war state, here is a list you can start with!)
NC Peace Action

Veterans For Peace

FOR (Fellowship of Reconciliation)

MarchForward.org

Peace of the Action

Peacetown Asheville

Vietnam Veterans Against the War

WarIsACrime.org

Is adult behavior too much to ask?

April 7, 2011 a world of progress Comments Off on Is adult behavior too much to ask?

All I’d like to ask is that Republocans in Congress act like adults. Yes, they have the majority in the House, but Democrats still have the Senate and the White House.

Oh, and I’d like to see Democrats stand up for the people who elected them instead of cowering and simpering that they’re trying to reason with the Republicans.

Democrats have made compromises and the Republicans have refused to budge. So the Democrats made more compromises and the Republicans refused to go along. So Democrats offered pretty much everything the GOP asked for in the budget and they budged — farther to the right.

They want a government shutdown so they can blame Democrats. They might want to recall that this has been done before, and they didn’t benefit. In fact, they lost the public relations battle.

Of course, the Right pretty much owns the media now so it’s harder to get the truth out.

Already, Republicans and their big media allies have managed to villify the unemployed as lazy and unambitious even though there eight unemployed people for every job opening.

And working people, who only want to get by while the wealthiest 2 percent are making more money than ever? Portrayed as greedy, money-grubbing bastards.

But the poor big banks and investors. Why, the government wants to regulate them to death.

Why do so many Americans believe this crap?

But people will notice when government services go away. Who you gonna call when your tax refund doesn’t get issued? How about when that campground you planned to visit on your vacation is closed? And what do you tell the tens of thousands of government employees and their families who depend on a paycheck? Those are real jobs too, you know.

The Republicans are acting like playground bullies and the Democrats are cowering. I’ve lived through some interesting and scary times, but nothing like this.

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