Tag Archives: citizens united

It is No Mystery: The Real Reason Conservatives Keep Winning

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By Joe Brewer, Cognitive Policy Works

“Have you ever wondered why it is that Progressives repeatedly lose ground in American politics? We almost always have the facts on our side. The experts agree with us. Hell, a lot of us are the experts. And yet history clearly shows that Conservatives have the best political game in town. They dominate political discourse, establishing which frames shape the most important issues of the day. Their values associated with rugged individualism, mass consumption, and a contempt for civil society are blasted at the American public through massive media outlets that they have acquired and built up over the last several decades. And when the global economy melts down as a direct result of their economic and fiscal policies, who gets blamed? In a word, liberals.

What’s going on here? Why is it that Conservatives are so good at winning and Progressives produce a lackluster resistance at best? The answer comes from a fundamental insight from evolutionary biology. Stated simply, it goes like this:

When two groups compete, the one with the most social cohesion wins in the long run.

This insight arises from research on group selection that reveals how social animals capable of working as a team readily out compete those individuals who must struggle on their own. The astute observer will already note the profound irony here — a political group whose ideology elevates the individual over the group (Conservatives) has managed to cultivate more group cohesion than the political group whose ideology blends community well-being with that of the individual. I’ll come back to this irony in a moment.

Progressives are easily kept on the defensive through the age-old strategy of Divide and Conquer

A fantastic overview of group selection can be found in E.O. Wilson’s groundbreaking new book,The Social Conquest of Earth, which builds a powerful argument for how humanity’s social nature enabled us to dominate every ecosystem we have entered in our 2 million year history.*

The argument goes something like this:

  1. Throughout history, a tiny number of species have developed a capability known as eusociality — advanced social organization comprised of large numbers of individuals with differentiated roles including members that span more than one generation.
  2. Most eusocial species discovered in the fossil record are the social insects — ants, bees, termites, and wasps. Every one of these species has been so successful at thriving that their bodies contained more than half of the biomass in the ecosystems where they lived, meaning that they completely dominated the niches populated by them. This pattern continues up to the present.
  3. Humans are the only eusocial species to have the additional properties of strong emotional bonds between group members and advanced cognitive abilities that enable us to form coherent gestalts of meaning — especially the capacity for shared cultural narratives and tribal identities — which have enabled us to out-compete and dominate less socially adept animals in every ecosystem we have entered.
  4. The key strategy underlying this pattern is that well-organized groups, which elevate the needs of the whole over those of individuals, are more successful at acquiring resources and consolidating power than those individuals or groups that are less organized.

Sound familiar? In American politics, we see the top-down authoritarian worldview of Conservatives enabling them to fall in line and take marching orders. They form strong loyalty bonds through religious affiliation, old money networks, and various social clubs that give them an immense capacity for social cohesion.

And what about Progressives? We are divided into issue silos, unable to form lasting coalitions that bond us together under the same ideological flag, and easily kept on the defensive through the age-old strategy of Divide and Conquer. We have difficulty trusting each other and our funders are unable or unwilling to invest in talent for talent’s sake — they always need to monitor the outcomes of their giving and almost never fund the operational needs of our advocacy organizations.

This is the real reason why we lose. It isn’t that their ideas are better. The difference is entirely in the execution. They set the agendas and we react to them, plain and simple. So what can we do about this dire situation? Again, the answer is easy to state:

Progressives need to engage in a values-based strategy that builds trust across the issue silos. We need to focus on building communities of shared identity that bind us together.

Building trust across organizations requires a three-pronged approach. First, we have to know our own values so that we can articulated them with authenticity and authority. Secondly, we must make these values explicit and engage in the practice of radical transparency to leave no questions about where we stand and what we care about. And third, we’ve got to seek out those who resonate with these values at the core level of their personal identity. It is upon this foundation that we can engage in the vital work of building trust.

There was once a time when I engaged in values-based strategies as a frame analyst, working with George Lakoff at his think tank, the Rockridge Institute. It was a telling experience that we were unable to break through the professional divisions of pollsters, bloggers, public intellectuals, elected officials, and all of the other categories that routinely divide us. We also repeatedly found that each issue group clung to its own ground, unwilling to share power with those progressives who were motivated by something other than their pet cause. And worst of all, we observed how a small cohort of elite players would sabotage up-and-coming progressive talent in order to preserve the fiefdoms they had built. All told, it was an ugly situation.

I learned a great deal about progressive politics during that turbulent period of time in 2007 and 2008, and even more while running my consulting company in the years since. It’s a sad state of affairs that even after the major hit we took from the combined effects of disaster capitalism in the financial meltdown and the enactment of Citizens United that has crippled what remains of the integrity in our electoral system, that we are still so feebly organized today. Even more so, considering the great strides that have been made after a global progressive movement appeared from outside of politics in the garbs of the Arab Spring and Occupy,

The challenges to be overcome in the world hinge absolutely on our ability to come together as a species on the world stage. As I write these words, leaders from across the globe are meeting to discuss what they are willing to do about the ecological crisis at Rio+20. Two decades after agreements were made about the need to tackle human-caused climate disruption, we still don’t have a governance structure in place that enables to work together to protect the planetary commons upon which all life depends.

Again, the fundamental issue is trust. We have yet to endow our international institutions with the power of citizen sovereignty that transplants and augments the sovereignty of nations. We are unable to trust our neighbors on the other side of the fence to act in our collective interest for the preservation of our future as a sacred responsibility for our children and grandchildren.

It’s time for Progressives to claim our power and transform the political and economic systems

On a positive note, there are clear trends toward increasing empathy and the sharing of trust throughout history. Jeremy Rifkin documents the tale with an inspiring breadth of scope in his work,The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. We are more capable of seeing ourselves in the other — be they women, diverse ethnicities, LGBT communities, or non-human life — than ever before. Our capacity for cultivating shared identity, and the social cohesion it enables, is stronger than ever before in the history of civilization. We have more tools and knowledge about collaboration and conflict resolution right now than ever before, and new insights are revealed daily in the global quest for knowledge about the human condition through the various sciences and scholarly efforts of our educational institutions.

So we can take the shared values — which are deeply progressive — that resonated with hundreds of millions through Occupy and activate them for our collective good. Now is the time to turn the tide and win the cultural war for our collective future. Outdated notions of authoritarian rule by oligarchs and chieftains no longer apply to our digitally connected, globally conscious world that we live in today.

Now is the time for Progressives to claim our power and transform the political and economic systems that stand in our way. And the ultimate source of our power will be found in the levels of trust we create.

*Some may draw the line closer to 200,000 years, since that’s how far back we have evidence of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. I am allowing for a deeper historic range that includes the evolutionary period that produced the incredible explosion in cognitive ability, which depended heavily on our ability to form social groups in order to survive and thrive across the northern African continent in previous millennia.”

Joe Brewer is founder and director of Cognitive Policy Works, an educational and research center devoted to the application of cognitive and behavioral sciences to politics. He is a former fellow of the Rockridge Institute, a think tank founded by George Lakoff to analyze political discourse for the progressive movement.

Emphasis Mine

http://www.alternet.org/story/156084/it_is_no_mystery%3A_the_real_reason_conservatives_keep_winning

The Wisconsin Blues

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From: RSN

By: George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling, Common Dreams

“The Wisconsin recall vote should be put in a larger context. What happened in Wisconsin started well before Scott Walker became governor and will continue as long as progressives let it continue. The general issues transcend unions, teachers, pensions, deficits, and even wealthy conservatives and Citizens United.

Where progressives argued policy - the right to collective bargaining and the importance of public education – conservatives argued morality from their perspective, and many working people who shared their moral views voted with them and against their own interests. Why? Because morality is central to identity, and hence trumps policy.

Progressive morality fits a nurturant family: parents are equal, the values are empathy, responsibility for oneself and others, and cooperation. That is taught to children. Parents protect and empower their children, and listen to them. Authority comes through an ethic of excellence and living by what you say, rather than by enforcing rules.

Correspondingly in politics, democracy begins with citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly both for oneself and others. The mechanism by which this is achieved is The Public, through which the government provides resources that make private life and private enterprise possible: roads, bridges and sewers, public education, a justice system, clean water and air, pure food, systems for information, energy and transportation, and protection both for and from the corporate world. No one makes it on his or her own. Private life and private enterprise are not possible without The Public. Freedom does not exist without The Public.

Conservative morality fits the family of the strict father, who is the ultimate authority, defines right and wrong, and rules through punishment. Self-discipline to follow rules and avoid punishment makes one moral, which makes it a matter of individual responsibility alone. You are responsible for yourself and not anyone else, and no one else is responsible for you.

In conservative politics, democracy is seen as providing the maximal liberty to seek one’s self-interest without being responsible for the interests of others. The best people are those who are disciplined enough to be successful. Lack of success implies lack of discipline and character, which means you deserve your poverty. From this perspective, The Public is immoral, taking away incentives for greater discipline and personal success, and even standing in the way of maximizing private success. The truth that The Private depends upon The Public is hidden from this perspective. The Public is to be minimized or eliminated. To conservatives, it’s a moral issue.

These conservative ideas at the moral level have been pushed since Ronald Reagan via an extensive communication system of think tanks, framing specialists, training institutes, booking agencies and media, funded by wealthy conservatives. Wealthy progressives have not funded progressive communication in the same way to bring progressive moral values into everyday public discourse. The result is that conservatives have managed to get their moral frames to dominate public discourse on virtually every issue.

In Wisconsin, much if not most progressive messaging fed conservative morality centered around individual, not social, responsibility. Unions were presented as serving self-interest – the self-interests of working people. Pensions were not presented as delayed earnings for work already done, but as “benefits” given for free as a result of union bargaining power. “Bargaining” means trying to get the best deal for your own self-interest. “Collective” denies individual responsibility. The right wing use of “union thugs” suggests gangs and the underworld – an immoral use of force. Strikes, to conservatives, are a form of blackmail. Strikebreaking, like the strict father’s requirement to punish rebellious children, is seen as a moral necessity. The successful corporate managers, being successful, are seen as moral. And since many working men have a strict father morality both at home an in their working life, they can be led to support conservative moral positions, even against their own financial interests.

What about K-12 teachers? They are mostly women, and nurturers. They accepted delayed earnings as pensions, taking less pay as salary – provided their positions were secure, that is, they had tenure. In both their nurturance and their centrality to The Public, they constitute a threat to the dominance of conservative morality. Conservatives don’t want nurturers teaching their children to be loyal to the “nanny state.”

The truth that The Public is necessary for the Private was not repeated over and over, but it needed to be at the center of the Wisconsin debate. Unions needed to be seen as serving The Public, because they promote better wages, working conditions, and pensions generally, not just for their members. The central role of teachers as working hard to maintain The Public, and hence The Private, also needed to be at the center of the debate. These can only be possible if the general basis of the need for The Public is focused on every day.

Scott Walker was just carrying out general conservative moral policies, taking the next step along a well-worn path.

What progressives need to do is clear. To people who have mixed values – partly progressive, partly conservative – talk progressive values in progressive language, thus strengthening progressive moral views in their brains. Never move to the right thinking you’ll get more cooperation that way.

Start telling deep truths out loud all day every day: Democracy is about citizens caring about each other. The Public is necessary for The Private. Pensions are delayed earnings for work already done; eliminating them is theft. Unions protect workers from corporate exploitation – low salaries, no job security, managerial threats, and inhumane working conditions. Public schools are essential to opportunity, and not just financially: they provide the opportunity to make the most of students’ skills and interests. They are also essential to democracy, since democracy requires an educated citizenry at large, as well as trained professionals in every community. Without education of the public, there can be no freedom.

At issue is the future of progressive morality, democracy, freedom, and every aspect of the Public – and hence the viability of private life and private enterprise in America on a mass scale. The conservative goal is to impose rule by conservative morality on the entire country, and beyond. Eliminating unions and public education are just steps along the way. Only progressive moral force can stop them.

The Little Blue Book is a guide to how to express your moral views and how to reveal hidden truths that undermine conservative claims. And it explains why this has to be done constantly, not just during election campaigns. It is the cumulative effect that matters, as conservatives well know.”

Emphasis Mine

see:http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/11880-focus-the-wisconsin-blues

Overturning Obamacare Would Make Roberts Court Most Activist, Partisan in Modern History

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From:HuffPost

By: Robert Creamer

“Time was, not long ago, when the right wing railed against the overreach of unelected judges with lifetime appointments who tried to usurp the power of Congress and impose their own vision of society.

That was before the Roberts Court. In fact, it turns out, many extreme conservatives didn’t give a rat’s left foot about the overreach of unelected judges. They simply wanted judges who would impose their vision of society on the rest of us.

Justices Roberts and Kennedy will likely be the deciding votes on the question of whether the individual responsibility provision of the Affordable Care Act passes constitutional muster. But they will also decide whether the Roberts Court goes down as the most activist, partisan court in modern history.

Up to now the Court’s decision in the Citizens United case allowing corporations and billionaires to make virtually unlimited contributions to political candidates and “Super Pacs” stood out as its most glaring beacon of judicial activism. Citizens United reversed a century of legal precedent to reach a result that gives corporations the political rights of people, and distributes the right of free political expression in proportion to one’s control of wealth. Not exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind.

It was, of course, exactly what the far Right had in mind. Extreme conservative voices found themselves strangely silent in the face of the Supreme Court’s willingness to substitute its judgment for that of elected Members of Congress and to upend the bi-partisan McCain-Feingold law that had been passed to regulate federal elections.

But if the Court rejects the individual responsibility provisions in the Affordable Care Act, that will take the cake.

In fact, when Congress passed Obamacare there were very few serious constitutional scholars who questioned the constitutionality of this provision.

There is no question whatsoever, that government in America has the right to require our citizens to pay for public goods or for services that we decide can best be provided through government.

Clearly, government can tax homeowners to provide the community with fire protection, for example. You might not need fire protection for years — or decades — or ever — but government can decide that you have to pay into the fire protection district because if your house catches fire, it could affect the entire community.

But, says the right wing, government can’t require an individual to purchase a product from a privatecompany they may not want or “need.”

Now I personally believe that it would make much more sense to expand Medicare to all Americans, and maintain one, efficient government-run insurance system that covers everyone — and cuts out the need to pay huge profits to Wall Street and the big bonuses to insurance company CEO’s.

But some years ago, conservative Republicans like Mitt Romney proposed providing universal health care coverage by requiring everyone to buy insurance from private insurance companies that are regulated through state-based exchanges.

When Romney was Governor of Massachusetts he got the state legislature to pass this kind of system — Romneycare — which has been functioning in the state for many years and whose constitutionality has never been questioned by the Supreme Court.

There is no question that the government can require parents to pay private pharmaceutical companies for their kids’ vaccinations before they enter school – and it can also require them to attend school — because both issues affect the welfare of the entire community.

And there is no question as to the the constitutionality of the many state laws that require anyone who drives a car to purchase private car insurance.

But, you say, the difference is that you don’t have to drive a car — you can simply decide not to get a drivers license if you want to avoid buying private car insurance.

True. But the need for health care is not elective. Last time I looked, everyone ultimately dies. I don’t care how healthy you are, everyone inevitably has some health problem in their lives. The question is not whether you will need health care, the question is how you will pay for it when you do.

And in this respect, health care is entirely different than virtually any other commodity.

First, it is not entirely subject to the normal laws of economic activity. People can’t determine how sick they can afford to be, or which diseases fit into the family budget. You don’t come home one day and say: “Gee honey I just got a raise, now I can have cancer!” Health care needs are not elective purchases like cars or TV’s.

And when it comes to health care, there is often little relationship between cost and value. A ten-dollar vaccine can add decades to your life, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of intensive care can add weeks or days.

But most important, while we might not agree that every American is entitled to a Cadillac (or in the case of Mitt Romney, two Cadillac’s), we do agree — as a society — that everyone is entitled to the best health care that is available no matter their wealth or station in life. We don’t believe that anyone should be left as roadkill after a traffic accident because he or she can’t pay for health care.

That being the case, someone can be young and healthy and vibrant one minute, and in need of massive, costly health care services the next.

The individual responsibility provisions of the Affordable Care Act simply says that everyone be required to pay — at a level they can afford -- for the fact that society won’t leave them by the side of the road to die after an accident — or when they are struck by cancer or a heart attack. It recognizes that in America everyone actually does participate in a form of health insurance system, whether they pay for it or not. It says that young, healthy people should not be allowed to be “free riders” in the system, until the moment they become sick or injured.

The fact is that in the current system, 40 million Americans are not formally part of health insurance plan — most because they can’t afford it without the kind of subsidies provided in the Affordable Care Act. Of course some are also uninsured because they think they are “immortal.” But being uninsured often means that you don’t go to the doctor because you can’t afford checkups or preventive care. It often means that you only go to the emergency room of a hospital or a neighborhood clinic when you already need costly health care interventions that would have been unnecessary had you had the security of a formal health insurance plan.

That costs all of us money, and because they often wait too long, it costs many of our fellow citizens their health and often their lives. What’s more, it places many American families one illness away from financial ruin.

And it could lead us all to financial ruin. The crazy-quilt way we pay for our health care in America has resulted in skyrocketing health care costs that include expenditures for administration and overhead that are far greater than in any other country on earth. These costs put our products and companies at a huge competitive disadvantage with our competitors abroad. That’s because we were the only industrial country in the world that did not provide universal health care to its citizens — until we passed Obamacare.

Well, you say, the states may have the legal right to require Americans to buy private insurance, but not the Federal Government.

Does anyone doubt that the massive health care industry is engaged in interstate commerce?

Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce is explicitly granted by the Constitution. That power has been interpreted expansively and has a long established history, fortified by scores of rulings by previous Supreme Courts.

If the current Supreme Court holds that the federal government has no right to structure the national health care market place, it will be reversing years of precedent. It will brand itself as a band of judicial activists who substitute the will of unelected judges for that of the representative body of Congress.

If the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act, it will not be protecting a minority’s right to refrain from buying health care. That is not possible, since everyone ultimately needs health care. If it takes that extraordinary step, it will simply be substituting its own political philosophy for that of Congress. Just as it did with Bush v. Gore, it will once again be turning the Supreme Court into an instrument of brazen partisanship.”

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partnersand a Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer

Emphasis Mine

see:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/overturning-obamacare-wou_b_1385448.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

Action! ACLU Conference July 30-31 Columbus

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Reporting from ACTION! – a Conference for Civil Libertarians.
Friday 30 July 2010.
Reception, welcome addresses from Chris Link and Susan Becker: grapes, gripes, recognition, reunion, conversation, and canopies.
Saturday 31 July 2010.
Opening Plenary by Ethan Nadelmann: Drug policy reform.
“Absent harm to others, it is no one else’s concern what I put in my body.”

He is a very dynamic, wake us up in the AM speaker,  who is dedicated to his cause: End the Failed War on Drugs.
drugpolicy.org
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Session: “Let’s talk about Choice ” – Louise Melling.
A woman has a right to have a child on her own terms: if women have control over having children, they may participate more fully in all other aspects of life.
She is attractive, charming, energetic, and informative – good session, which motivated me to stay on message for Choice.
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Session: Mecca Meets Main Street: The changing face of religious liberty -Richard Saphire, Zeinab, and Jennifer Nimer.
Discussion of the religion clauses of the first amendment: Establishment, and Free expression, in the context of the growing number of Islamics in the USA, and how we can accommodate their particular needs.
Credible, well organized and informative speakers.
N.B.: The absence of Separation of Church and State – which has been so insipid in the past three Republican administrations – has impacted us in: AIDS treatment; GLBT rights; Reproductive Choice; stem cell, and all scientific, research; gender parity; respect for all belief (or not) systems; international standing; and perhaps was complicit in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
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Amy Goodman – Luncheon Keynote Speaker.  Update on WikiLeaks – a secure platform for whistle blowers – reporting the truth on violence in Iraq, and on the suppression of reporting of the demonstrations at the 2008 GOP Convention.
Covering Power rather than Covering For Power.

Another dynamic and motivating speaker.
democracynow.org
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Session: Technology and Privacy –  Craig Jaquith, Katherine Hunt Federle, and Jackie Ford.
Current issues on modern technology and old legal issues.  Issues of who owns what, and privacy expectations: well organized, well delivered, entertaining, and informative.
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Sessions: Citizens United – Scott Greenwood, Daniel P. Tokaji, and Terri Enns.
A high point of the conference, featuring two gifted young lawyers, covering one of the key  decisions of the current Supreme Court.
Scott Greenwood – who has consistently been named among the best lawyers in America for 15 years – argued in favor of the decision, and Daniel Tokaji – an associate professor of Law at OSU – is a noted civil rights and election lawyer who argued against the decision.
Scott:
The Case was the Federal Elections Commission vs. Citizens United, on a ‘documentary’ which was a ‘hit job’ on Hillary Clinton.  Scott said it was a victory for Free Speech, and did not authorize donations for corporations.  He observed that corporations wield influence through lobbying and bundled donations, and that in the twenty first century, radio, TV, and print are not the only media.  (The Obama campaign depended on the Internet.)  Post Citizens, there are many different proposals.
Daniel:
Stated that this was not a victory for Free Speech, but was an out lier.  Can rich and poor compete as equals?  Is money speech? Is equality a  Constitutional value?  He observed that the wealth gap has created a donor class, and that politics – like business – does not function well when unregulated.
A knowledgeable, well informed member of the audience asked about the issue of ‘Corporate Person hood’. Both men replied enthusiastically. Daniel stating that speech rights are the larger issue, and Scott that this is an 800 lb gorilla in the room.  An issue is: did this expand the power of non-people?
There is not a fixed amount of free speech; money for candidates is to effect policy, not merely the outcome of the election; and the question of corporate honesty is at hand.
N.B.: If only public money could be used for elections, this would not be an issue.
Another Viewpoint:
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A worthwhile, valuable, expansive experience.
Charles Pervo 1 August 2010 CE.