Where Do We Go From Here? A Progressive Roadmap for 2009 and Beyond

I think we've all awoken from our coma of joy. We elected a progressive president. We took the House and the Senate by storm, increasing our numbers. In states like Michigan, we've approved Stem Cell research and made positive changes to the state supreme court. Colorado and South Dakota defeated sweeping anti-choice measures. We lost the Prop 8 battle, but we're organizing for the future.

In other words--yes, we did.

But now reality is sinking in. Round about the time the Christmas music started playing loud enough for anyone to hear in stores, progressives everywhere perked up and realized that electing these people and approving these measures is a good start, but not the end of the road. It didn't matter who we elected, come November 6, 2008 we all had to start focusing on the nitty-gritty details.

So where do we go from here? What policies do we support? What legislation do we push forward? What tactics will put the issues in the best light?

There is so much to do and relatively so little time. We must focus our priorities to ensure sweeping changes for the better and not stagnation, or worse change in the wrong direction. We have a chance to make things better for the present and the future.

Here's what we need to do to ensure that "Yes we did" is echoed by "Yes we will":

The Seven First Term Working Goals for Women and Progressives

1. Pass the Freedom of Choice Act
The FOCA is a legislative measure intended to codify t what Roe v. Wade achieved in the 70s. The Act will ensure that state laws cannot escape the Constitutional protection of privacy found by the courts and provide a safeguard for a woman's right to chose. The legal nuts and bolts of the FOCA is this--if it is enacted, anti-choice groups will have to do more than just appoint conservative activist judges; they will have to show that a duly enacted law of Congress is somehow unconstitutional. This is much harder than showing an already sympathetic judge that the past precedent of the Supreme Court was wrong. Therefore the FOCA is needed to ensure choice as a national policy, just not a regional right.

2. Create a national health care plan.
The one thing that we must achieve in the first term is a blue print for national health care. This is crucial to the survival of our country and our society. Too many people are going day-to-day, not knowing whether they'll have to chose food and shelter or treatment and prescriptions. This is an unrealistic choice for our citizens to have to make. The lack of a national health care plan puts our nation at risk and creates a third-world society inside of a first-world nation. The haves and the have-nots are pushed further apart, creating class-warfare. For progressives, this health care dilemma comes at such a trecherous time when our country is leaning over the edge of a giant abyss called "depression." What we truly need is a single-payer health care system, like the one promoted by Physicians for a National Health Care Program. What Obama proposed during the election would be a great concession, but a single-payer program is what's needed to ensure equality in health care.

This isn't just a socialized-medecine issue, this is a trade issue. When countries like China are proposing to ensure their billion-plus population and world leaders like England already have a system to ensure all, it is absurd that we intend to lead the world into the 21st century without having a plan ourselves. It's worse than the blind leading the blind--it's the blind attempting to lead the sighted with a cliff ahead. It threatens our position as a world power and diminishes our status in the eyes of the world.

With an economy so abysmal, the government should stop giving handouts to corporations and focus on the very people who move the system forward on a daily basis.

3. Stop unaccountable corporate bailouts
Every day since September 15, 2008 brings news of a new government idea to help their friends on Wall Street. Sure there's rhetoric about Main Street needing help too, but since the bailout was formally enacted, what has Congress done to ensure that Wall Street is playing by the rules (and there are rules to be played by) and that Main Street is receiving the help it needs? The answer is "nothing."

Corporate bailouts can be important when they affect the lives of everyday America. To let the whole banking system fail would have been catastrophic, but to allow individual banks to take chunks of money with no promise to repay it and no strings attached is like handing a heroine addict a syringe. Meanwhile, the whole impatus behind the bailout--to ensure credit is flowing freely--is going untouched. Credit is stagnant as ever and business and individuals alike are finding it hard to make ends meet where they used to be able to make a profit.

Not all bailouts are bad. An auto industry bailout would provide security for hundreds of thousands of jobs for average citizens on Main Street. In fact, it is the only proposal over the past two months that has anything at all to do with the working man and woman (soon to be the unemployed man and woman). Yet Congress is hesitant to help the auto industry out, presumably because they aren't as influencial on Capitol Hill as the banking and financial industries.

If we are going to move forward and fix the economy, we must engage in sweeping measures that protect the sanctity of a hard day's work and discourage handouts to those who have the means to help themselves. If the financial institutions were single mothers, they wouldn't have received a dime.

4. Pass the Employee Free Choice Act
In the years following the Depression, what the New Deal focused on wasn't the sanctity of a mortgage-based-derivative, it was the ability of the worker to bargain for his or her own wages and set his or her own terms and conditions of employment, just like the big wigs at the top are allowed to do. Collective bargaining and unions created a generation of wealth for America, that allowed more people than ever to own homes, send kids to college, and retire in peace and tranquility. People blame unions for so many things because big business has made them the enemy...and big business controls the mind set of America.

Nevertheless, I think that we could all agree on one thing--people should not be fired for trying to organize a union. Well, at least I thought that until I started working in labor law. Turns out that we don't all agree on that, and employers would rather fire someone for thinking about unionizing than engage in fair practices for their employees. And the current law is not enough protection. This is why we need the Employee Free Choice Act. The EFCA ensures workers protection when they seek to unionize and allows first-time contracts the same protections offered to ongoing contracts. It's a simple law that could lead to great things.

We got the weekend and the forty-hour work week from unionized labor's first hurrah--just imagine what we can get from the next.

5. Create a plan for responsible global engagement
On Day 1 of his administration, President Bush enacted a global gag rule, forcing global aid to cease to provide family planning information. This was a striking move for his first day and it sent a clear message to many--Bush idiology was going to rule the day, not diplomacy or common sense. Since then we have watched as our towers crumbled and our nation sought after the wrong people for the wrong reasons. We called on the world to change, while we engaged in politics that were exclusionary and dangerous.

On Day 1 of Obama's administration, we need to set the tone for a more dynamic world view. We need to negotiate. We need to allow common sense to run through all of our policies. We need to recognize that not every nation wants a democracy. We need to appreciate our differences and learn to build on them. This is more lofty of a goal than practical of one, but it is a necessary goal, nonetheless.

It might be hard to see how progressives can help. But we can. We can support programs that foster worldwide understanding. We can support legislators who engage in dynamic world politics and work to eradicate those who favor a more dogmatic approach. We can support funding for programs throughout the world that allow us to be seen as the nation of opportunity we can be, and not the stagnant stalwarts we've become. We can do our part.

6. Advocate for more women and people of color on the bench and to appointed positions
I know this one seems out of place with the lofty ideals cited above and to some it may seem to whisper of quotas--but if you've read my stuff before, you know that I'm not about supporting women for no reason but their gender or the color of their skin. However, it is sad that this day in age we have a lack of representation from females and persons of color.

There is a huge gap to be filled here for women. Of the 179 federal bench positions available, only 48 of those are held by women. This is astaggeringly low 26% compared to the 51% majority women hold in the population. Only 33 women have ever held a cabinent level position in the history of the U.S. This is horrendously low considering there are 19 current cabinent-level positions available.

People of color aren't looking much better. Sure we have a president-elect who is a minority, but the federal bench is predominately white. According to the last census, of the 58,355 state and federal judges on the bench, 48,530 of them are white--a staggering 82%. The fact that we don't keep better statistics on this is telling.

Obama has the chance to make a real change here and public support is key. We need to lift up those qualified candidates and make the federal system a more diverse body. The composition of our federal government should reflect the people, and right now it only reflects a certain type of person that it has reflected for far too long.
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There is so much to do, and so many things to explore. Our opportunities are endless, if we allow them to be. Progressives need to take this next month and relax, because we have a long road ahead of us until we get to the great society we all envision. It's going to take a tremendous amount of work and we'll have arguments along the way, but if we keep key priorities at heart, we'll achieve more than we ever thought imaginable.

The struggle is not over. It has only just begun.

Students Take On The Election: SG's Beginnings

I always love these student-perspective stories about elections because it allows me to talk about one of my favorite political stories.

In second grade (and yes that gives my age up for better or worse), it was the 1988 presidential elections. Then Vice President, George H.W. Bush (sadly what would turn out to be the non-complete fuck-up Bush) was running against then-governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis. Dukakis had a snowball's chance in Hell of winning, but that didn't dissuade true Democrats, like Dad Grace, from supporting him. Even if Dukakis himself wasn't a winner, there was no way in hell Dad Grace was voting to extend the Reagan era trickle down economics that hurt so many along the way.

The week of the election, in an effort to educate our young minds about the electoral process and voting (though I don't think I understood the Electoral College quite yet), the school had a mock-election pitting the real candidates against one another in a contest to win the affection of suburban white kids in Michigan. Our ballots were hardly secret, instead we entered our vote with a student teacher who sat at the end of the hall all day with an old Comodore 64-style computer.

When it came my turn to cast my ballot, I clearly wasn't voting for Bush. That type of blashpemy in the Grace Household would call for execution. Furthermore, what Dad Grace taught me about politics seemed to hold true--you should always vote for the person who believed in the everyday working person and not the guy who believed in big business. It seemed fairly simple to me.

I handed my ballot over to the student teacher and he reviewed it. "You're voting for Dukakis?" he asked in a very condescending tone.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, only one other person has voted for him so far." (Did I mention I grew up in one of the reddest areas of a blue state ever to exist?)

"Okay...so what?"

"Well, don't you want to vote for the winner?"

I stood there and thought about it for a moment. Then I smiled.

"No, I want to vote for the Democrat."

And, thus, my political future began...

What's on deck for today?

Yesterday was just nuts. Clay Aiken came out of the closet. Laura Bush said Sarah Palin doesn't have sufficient foreign policy experience (you know, like her husband had). And John McCain out did them all by suspending his campaign to take care of his friends in big business.

What a day. We'll miss you September 24, 2008.

SG at the Ballot Box: A Six-Week Series

I've done some arithmetic of my own today. There are six available full weeks left before the election. What do I mean by "six available full weeks"? Well, I mean this, my dear friend...there are six weeks available for my next project: SG at the Ballot Box. (I'd like to have a kickass graphic here, but I don't.)

For the next six weeks, me and my trained staff of monkeys will be bringing you news and opinions about the election (mostly my opinions). In order to do that in an organized fashion, I've developped topics for each week--six in total (see how this is coming together)--so that we can discuss these issues one by one. Sure they're all interconnected, but let's really dig deep.

So here's what's on deck for the next six weeks:

Week 1, September 22 through September 28, 2008 Education

Week 2, September 29 through October 5, 2008 Healthcare

Week 3, October 6 through October 12, 2008 Foreign Policy and Foreign Relations

Week 4, October 13 through October 19, 2008 The American Worker--Unions, Workers Rights and Wages
Week 5, October 20 through October 26, 2008 The Hot Topics--Race, Gender, Gays, Reproductive Rights and Guns

Week 6, October 27 through November 2, 2008 Innovation and Personality--Who Do We Need To Lead

I am going to start actively seeking guest bloggers on these topics--whether you agree with me or not--to fodder debate. Let's really talk about these issues and shed some light on some dark places. If you want to contribute, e-mail me at onlybaggage@gmail.com.

It's amazing what I'll agree with to try to end a conversation...and what I won't

I went to a meeting for work yesterday where there were a number of retired plant workers. One of them was either fascinated with me or just wanted to talk in general and after asking a few questions about the topic of the meeting, he plowed into some controversial topics.

We'll call him Joe.

Joe: My kids aren't doing well, they're not following the Lord's path.
SG: Really? That's too bad.
Joe: It is, because you know we need him in our lives to guide us.
SG: Yep.
Joe: And they're just messing their lives up...adultery and such.
SG: That's too bad.
Joe: It is. This country is going crazy.
SG: Yep.
Joe: It's just like last year with all of those crazy things going on...what was that...oh yeah gay marriage.
SG: Huh?
Joe: Yeah, gay marriage. And we had some good Christian lawyers at the Christian Defense League [or some other crazy thing] help us out and they defeated that.
SG: Yeah...
Joe: It's just mad. We need some new leadership.
SG: Yes, we do.
Joe: We need good Christian leadership.
SG: Sure (checking her absent watch)...yeah.
Joe: We need a good Christian man.
SG: Huh?
Joe: I'll never vote for a woman for president.
SG: Alright, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one.
Joe: Well, women rule by emotions--men rule by reason.
SG: I can tell you for a fact that that statement is not true.
Joe: Well, I don't like Hillary.
SG: No one said you had to.
(at this point I think to myself--(1) Hillary is not all women, and (2) even if she was, she's the last person that would be perceived as ruling by emotions--the woman is calculating as fuck)
Joe: A good Christian man...yep, that's what we need.
SG: Well, it's been nice talking to you.

Why is it that every person I meet feels that I'm a good ear for their crazy talk?

Not Firing on All Cylinders

Apparently, John McCain's team all called it a day early this morning.

Their resignation letters probably looked a bit like this:

Dear John--
Sorry to have to let you know, dude, but your campaign is sinking like a boulder in fresh water. I'd love to stick around, but I've got long-term goals that don't include a massive primary loss and early pull-out. I like you as a friend and all, but it's just not working. It is you--not me. You were cool like 8 years ago, dude. Now you're just some washed up Yes-Man for Georgie Boy. It might be time to re-think retirement.

Peace out,
JoeyCampaign Staffer

P.S.--I took some yard signs to use as kindling in my next bonfire.

Your money's on the dresser, baby. I'm done wit' you.

In yet another non-surprising yet brazen move by GWB, he has again refused to produce certain aides for testimony in front of congress relating to the Great Attorney Firing of 2007.

What is with this guy? I mean, I'd like to chalk it up to disagreeing but I'm really beginning to believe that the guy has a major Napoleon-complex. I'd love to be surprised by this, but I'm not. I'm just standing in awe (not in a good way) of the whole thing wondering how in the hell we got to this point. Honestly, how far can a president push the envelope without the whole thing falling to pieces?

Benedict Lieberman?

Sen. Joe Lieberman, now an "independent" said today that he's not ruling out supporting a Republican for the White House bid in 2008. Yes, the same Joe Lieberman who was once the Democratic Party's candidate for Vice President. That one.

He said, today,

"I'm going to chose whichever candidate that I think will do the best job for our country, regardless of the party affiliation of that candidate," the Connecticut senator told reporters in the state capital Hartford.

The above is basically a cop-out. I'm all for people investigating the options and the candidates, but honestly, Joe...you're just doing this for attention. In fact, you really only do things for that sole purpose. Otherwise, if you were true to values, you wouldn't flop like a fat kid in a pool on a warm summer day.

Further, he said

"I'm not going to get involved until after both parties have their presumptive nominees and, frankly, to see if there is a strong independent candidate," he said.

Oooooh. An independent candidate. Like him maybe?

Going on...

"There's a lot on the line both in terms of the terrorist threat that we face but also all the things here at home that seem broken: our health-care system, our education system, the environmental problems we have," he said.

Oh...right. Those pesky environmental, economic, educational and health-related problems. That sounds like a list of problems best solved, historically by the Republican party. Oh wait. That's the opposite of the truth.

I'm so sick of this guy who basically didn't get his way with the Democratic Party and was not supported in his own presidential bid (as a Democrat) or his fourth bid for the senate (as a Democrat) because of his ardent and ill-advised support of GWB and the Iraq war. Now he basically thumbed his nose at the party that supported him all of these years and is elected as an independent...fine. But when he spouts off like this it makes me so angry...cut the games, Joe. You aren't cool anymore.

Ironically enough I got that picture above from a conservative website. It's still funny though.

I'm sorry, but "independent" is usually another way to cop-out.

My thoughts exactly, Al.

Al Gore has fallen out of love with politics.

I know exactly how you feel sometimes.

Flip a table and don't say I didn't tell you so...

Scooter Libby has had his sentence commuted.

I know I'm shocked.

I'm so angry right now I could scream. I mean, does the law mean nothing to this man? And by this man, I mean GWB, because this is outrageous.

OUTRAGEOUS.

Typical Republican

So John McCain can't raise enough moulah to be competitive. And what does he do in response to his lack of support and charisma? That's right--he downsizes his campaign. Next thing you know he'll be outsourcing his canvassing calls to India.

The campaign staff and leadership is taking full blame for this, but at the same time so many of their workers (approximately 80-100) will be axed. In fact, they aren't even denying this is a cataclysmic oversight on their part:

Nelson said the campaign made "incorrect assumptions" about its fundraising ability.

And here's another winner...

"At one point, we believed that we would raise over $100 million during this calendar year, and we constructed a campaign that was based on that assumption," Nelson said. That, he said, proved to be wrong.

A HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS??!?!? Were they all smoking crack when that came up? Seriously...were they sitting around getting wasted off their asses on crack and alcohol when that figure was thrown out. I've made more astute bowel movements than that.

This article gets the real problem, though, which is:

Six months before primary voting begins, McCain is struggling for some semblance of momentum.

No shit, Sherlock. Maybe (and this is just a "hypothetical") people think little of his "Straight Talk Express" ever since he caved in and sat on GWB's lap during the Iraq debates or even a few months back when he touted Iraq's security. Maybe hoes is tired of hearing his whacked out crap just to have it flounder when it comes to actually getting stuff done.

Thanks for nothing

This little diddy by the Roberts-led Supreme Court caught my eye yesterday. Basically it limits the amount of time in which a plaintiff can bring an equal employment claim.

Here's the gist of the situation:

The decision came in a case involving a supervisor at a Goodyear Tire plant in Gadsden, Ala., the only woman among 16 men at the same management level, who was paid less than any of her colleagues, including those with less seniority. She learned that fact late in a career of nearly 20 years — too late, according to the Supreme Court’s majority.

The problem with this ruling is this: if you can't show a pattern and practice, you can't make a case. But if you wait too long in order to establish a pattern and practice, or if you aren't aware of the situation because your employer covered up the facts, then you are screwed. Basically it's a golden ticket for bad boy employers.

And by the way, what about the EEOC's opinion on all of this?

Under its longstanding interpretation of the statute, the commission actively supported the plaintiff, Lilly M. Ledbetter, in the lower courts. But after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case last June, the Bush administration disavowed the agency’s position and filed a brief on the side of the employer.

That's right, my friends--the Bush administration took a giant leap away from justice and decided to undermine the EEOC's administrative expertise. Great! Good for them!

Again, my girl and Skia Font Inc. Board Member Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg read her opinion from the bench. I'd like to know the actual stats on how often this is done, but homegirl has done this twice in the past few months--she's fighting mad.

In a vigorous dissenting opinion that she read from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others.

So another day goes by, and another door for battered employees is shut. It's a sad state of affairs and it keeps getting worse. The rights of the worker have been so diminished that they are almost non-existent.

And yet people keep voting Republican--especially poor or working class white folk afraid of people with darker skin, boys who like boys, or free-thinking feminists--notwithstanding the fact that the rights they had and thought they were protecting have eroded ever-so-steadily with the battering of the tide.

And they now walk the streets

This article from freep.com details how the Detroit bus drivers have walked off the job because of a lack of security on the busses, which lead one driver to be assaulted just last night. Apparently the City Council is fighting mad.

"I think it's irresponsible," said Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins, who voted in favor of the contract the first time it failed to pass. "I voted for the sheriffs to do it, but I will not be intimidated. I think it is illegal and wrong. There is a way to lobby."

She would probably be right had the bus drivers not been already lobbying forever on this issue. And guess who came out as the voice of reason? One Martha Reeves (yes, that Martha Reeves of "and the Vandellas" fame).

Councilwoman Martha Reeves was the only member pushing for a vote today, saying that the safety of the drivers, residents and schoolchildren is at stake.

No crap. Maybe it's time to do something? The vote should take place today for the sake of the city, the bus drivers, the bus riders and the economic well-being of the area in general. People need the busses to get to school and work.

The best quote of the article though, comes from this guy, 19 year old Darius Milton:

"Awww, man. For real?" he queried. "I'm just out here trying to get a job and now I have no way to get downtown. It's a pain in the butt. But I guess I can understand because I've seen a couple drivers get slapped and one who got robbed."