Citizen

I'm back in Raleigh and collecting my thoughts about the Democratic National Convention for an Indy story next week. My logistics in Charlotte were tricky and didn't leave time for blogging after Monday morning.

• blurry photo by Bob Geary
• My vantage point Tuesday at the Time Warner Arena. Fortunately, I could watch on the big screen too.

For six hours Tuesday, 5-11 p.m., I listened to speeches. Good speeches. Some great speeches. And a few speeches that moved me like nothing I've heard in politics for I don't know how many years.

For the first time since maybe Ted Kennedy in 1980, Democrats spoke from the heart, without a lot of weasel words or hedging. They just laid it out there, what they're for. If you agree, they want your vote. If you don't, they hope you'll come around, but they're ready to go on anyway. I loved Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's line (and speech): It's time for Democrats to grow a backbone. Yes, and they're doing it.

I'll try to convey what this experience was for me when I sit down to write for paper. And I'll try to convey what it felt like for the delegates in Charlotte, and for thousands of other Democrats who were there as well, because I have to say, the sense in Charlotte was that the Democratic Party was finally, wonderfully, baring its soul.

And then, of course, last night it was Elizabeth Warren, who's a heroine in the party, and the great and powerful Bubba, Bill Clinton, for whom all is forgiven or forgotten — even the Republicans (I watched a little TV this morning) don't seem to remember that they impeached him. Clinton just ripped the Republican Party to shreds, as only a man who's been through hell and emerged stronger for it could've done.

When I woke up this morning, I jotted down the elements of what I want to say, without any clear idea of how I'm going to say it. Now that I'm able to sit at a desk with a computer and wifi and it's quiet (wow, this convention was seriously noisy), I can type it up.

What was it about this 46th Democratic National Convention? It was —

1. Women. They were front and center. They were stars. They are the party. Not represented at the party; no, at this convention, women were the Democratic Party as much as men were. I mentioned Warren. Lilly Ledbetter killed. Michelle Obama killed. But it wasn't just a few gender representatives. Women were in leadership roles, supporting roles, they were equal, and women's health issues weren't just brought up, they were fundamental.

2. Abortion. The A-word was used. Frequently. If women have a right to abort a pregnancy, then the word must be said — not choice, not reproductive rights, not any of the euphemisms employed throughout my adult life. No, the medical procedure is called an abortion. It's legal, and as NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan said so powerfully Tuesday night, women are entitled to a safe abortion with dignity if they want one.

3. Gays. Gay rights and LGBT Democrats were, like women, given the kind of prominence and embraced by the party in a way that would've seemed like a dream four years ago. I teared up worse than John Boehner.

4. Latinos. A DREAM teamer, undocumented and unafraid, spoke to the convention. The keynoter was a Latino. The convention chairman was a Latino. And, as with women and gays, the list goes on. Democrats didn't "target" the Latino vote. Democrats ARE the Latino vote, and the gay vote and the women's vote. And the education vote. (Can the Republican Party really win with only white male voters? Maybe in 2012. But never again.)

5. Public Education. We can't have a great economy without a great education system, and if it's to be a great system for all, it must be a public system. The point was made so repeatedly, and so well. And it was made by example: Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx; Newark Mayor Cory Booker; San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. And I'm not remembering half the folks who got up and said, my mother worked with a mop ... without a good education in a public school, I'd have a mop too.

6. Public investment. The point that a strong private sector rests on a strong public foundation of schools, roads, research, and all the other public systems that contribute to the common good shouldn't have to be made. But in light of the Republicans' "I built it by my own self" mentality, it did need to be made, and it was, with — again — so many great examples of enterprises started by people who had help from the rest of us. Pay it forward, from generation to generation. That used to be a Republican ideal.

7. Diversity. An old word. It once meant black ... African-American. It still does in the Republican Party, where the handful of African-Americans willing to say they're in the GOP are trotted out at convention time. At this Democratic convention, so many of the stars were (are) of color that their color didn't register with me right away . Deval Patrick, Foxx, Booker, and Michelle Obama all gave speeches that rated in the top 10, and that's a high bar given that Ted Strickland, Lilly Ledbetter, Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Keenan and Bill Clinton gave blockbusters. Democratic leaders are black, brown, white, gay, straight, old, young, men, women — really.

8. Obamacare. Health care for all Americans is important. It's crucial. With education, it's the mark of a civilized society. Obamacare's kind of clunky, a framework for progress as much as it is a program. But it is universal. And the days of pre-existing conditions are behind us — and I think that's the case regardless who wins the presidential election. Universal health care's time has come.

9. Cooperation. Clinton hit it this idea so beautifully; listen to him in the first half of his speech last night, before he decimated the Republicans for their deceitful campaign and their refusal to cooperate or compromise about anything. I learned a long time ago (yes, I worked for business then), stuff gets done when you put partnerships together. True then. True now.

10. I don't have a 10. I wish campaign finance reform, an end to the idiocy of Citizens United, and an all-out assault on greed and the amorality of corporate socialism (!) could've made the list. But aside from Elizabeth Warren, the idea that corporations aren't people and don't live, love or take care of each other like people do wasn't brought up nearly enough, or nearly strongly enough. Nor did peace make the list.

And then there's Jobs. 8 percent unemployment. Tens of millions unemployed or underemployed, with wage rates falling so that even full-tme workers have trouble feeding their families.

The convention so far has been about who Democrats are, what's in their hearts and what they want for our country and the world.

But only Barack Obama can lay out a second-term plan for putting America back to work and back at the helm of world peace, prosperity and humanity. Which I hope he will tonight. I'll be watching in Raleigh.

The Democratic National Convention doesn't kick off officially until tomorrow. But the all-but-official start day is today, Labor Day, as thousands of delegates, media types, activists and interested citizens pour into Charlotte.

I was here yesterday for the March on Wall Street South, a demonstration and march by about 1,000 of our progressive friends from around the country, some (most?) but not all of whom will be voting for Obama in November and prefer the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, though in a lot of cases not by much. I'll be writing about it for the Indy this week. Short preview: The American political system is corrupt to the core (was the dominant theme) ... dominated by the wealthy and corporate cash ... and beholden to corporate interests whose time horizon for the planet is, make money now, leave the worries about despoiling to whoever's left behind when they sail off to the Cayman Islands on their yachts.

Today, though, I caught up with MaryBe McMillan, secretary-treasurer of the North Carolina AFL-CIO, who will be one of the speakers later on at CarolinaFest. (Featured performer: James Taylor.) McMillan is a standout in the labor movement. When I asked her what she'd like the world to be thinking about on Labor Day, she was off and running.

Americans should stop thinking about working people as a "cost" to be minimized, McMillan said. We need to recognize labor as a valuable asset — an asset whose health is vital to the health of the American middle-class.

"Workers are tired of being second-class citizens," she said. "The real message we’re trying to convey is that if anybody built this country, it’s the American worker. We built it, and we deserve a fair share of the fruits of our labor. We are the job creators."

Perfect. The Republicans have erected a fictional story about Barack Obama's "You didn't built that" remark — Obama was saying that business owners certainly built their businesses, but they didn't built the roads and schools and strong public systems that allow a business to flourish in America — they didn't built THAT.

But wait. McMillan wants it understood that the business owner had help from labor — THEY built the schools and the roads and, indeed, THEY helped build the business as the owner's employees.

What's organized labor's number-one objective? I asked.

McMillan said it's the same as everyone else's: Get the country working again. "We want to see more good jobs created, and see this economy get back on track. And to do that, workers have to be the centerpiece. You have to have good jobs, not Walmart jobs. Jobs that pay good wages."

Beyond that, federal labor laws needed to be updated so that workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively are strengthened. Right now, McMillan said, the union-busters have too much clout.

The whole point, McMillan said, is that the economy will stand or fall on the ability of working people to earn a living wage and contribute both as people who build things and as consumers who buy them.

"Instead of politicians saying what’s good for business is good for everybody, they should be saying that what’s good for workers is good for business. Because when workers do well, we all do well," she said.

The Democratic Party needs to make the case, she went on:

" ... and it’s a strong case to be made, that workers not only make the products and provide the services we depend on, we’re the consumers who shop at stores, we’re the taxpayers who provide the revenue, we’re the job creators.

And it’s important to see how the world of work connects all of us. I teach your kids, you fix my car; you build my house, I shop at your store. It really is workers who should be at the center of our economy and of our economic thinking. Instead of trickle-down, let’s build the economy from the bottom up. Not on the backs of the workers, but in partnership with them."

One more point, since I brought up the fact that so many of the marchers yesterday were grudging at best about Obama and the Democrats. McMillan said they're forgetting about the success of Obama's stimulus measures and the Affordable Care Act, which guarantees every American access to health care at a reasonable cost.

McMillan continued:

I don’t understand saying there’s no difference between the two parties. I can understand the frustration with both parties that they haven’t done enough to talk about workers' rights and to promote the workers’ right to organize and collectively bargain.

But you can look at the platforms and see clearly which party supports unions and workers, and which one stands for the rich and the elite.

It's a rule of old-school journalism that you are never the story. I'm going to violate it today to say that when the Indy is sold, my role will be changing. I'll be writing a column for the paper rather than, as now, doing the job of staff writer. What's the difference? I don't have a simple answer. If I did, I'd be — well, a columnist!

Seriously, I've had the luxury at the Indy of writing in whatever style suited me or, better, best suited the material. I've done some straight news reporting, a lot of opinionated reporting, some columns and essays, and thousands of blog posts. The subjects have ranged from war and peace to Tony Tata to my nephew Branch, who used to think I was Santa Claus because I have a beard and presented myself as able to assist with his Christmas list. (Time marches on, though, and little Branch is now a star on his high school football team.)

The difference in my style(s) results from sometimes thinking I know what's going on, but other times knowing that I don't — that I don't know enough (yet) about a subject to state a firm conclusion.

In that vein, my desire to write in a column voice is about wanting to say what I know, and what I think is important, after almost 40 years in the media, politics, public relations and just generally paying attention. I'm still a learner, I hope. And I won't stop looking for the people with dreams and the organizations trying to bring more justice and equity to the world. That's the fun of writing for the Indy. On the other hand, there are some things about which I'm not open-minded. For example, Mitt Romney.

Now there's a column.

***

p.s. about this Citizen blog. It's always been a work in progress. I'm not sure what its future is. As with everything about the sale of the Indy and indyweek.com, it's TBD with my editor, Lisa Sorg, and the new owners when they hit town.

In some form or fashion, though, I will remain an interested citizen of Raleigh.

The town hall meeting in Raleigh Monday evening was informative and polite. All of the more than 100 people who packed into Quail Ridge Books & Music were able to express themselves on a topic of high public significance.

Now imagine that each of us at the meeting, while retaining our power to vote at election time, would not be allowed to speak in this town-hall setting without paying for the privilege.

With limited time, only a few slots would be offered, and they’d be reserved for the highest bidders—not necessarily the richest among us, but obviously nobody struggling to make ends meet would be rising to their feet.

And this would be like no-limit poker. There’d be no ceiling on the bids. Indeed, if someone wanted to buy all the slots—and could outbid everyone else—he (or she) would be the only speaker.

• photo by Bob Geary
• Love this pic.

(h/t Press Millen for explaining this so clearly.)

SpeechNow.org is why we have SuperPACs. Citizens United is why there's no law limiting SuperPACs or any other form of political spending ("expression") by the rich.

Whether this is, as Raleigh attorney Press Millen said, an "appalling" outcome as a matter of public policy is, I suppose, a matter of opinion. (My opinion? Appalling.)

But I would assert it as a fact, not opinion, that political spending can be regulated as a matter of law, and that the Supreme Court's doctrine that it can't is —

— let me think of a polite word apropos of our town hall —

Crap.

John Samples, a staff member at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, is not bothered by Citizens United or its progeny. On the contrary, Samples told us Monday, C.U. "was a good decision." Why? Because it protected freedom of speech. If you let Congress regulate speech, Samples argued, nothing good can come of it. (Samples was in Raleigh for a gig earlier in the day with the John Locke Foundation.)

Samples talked for quite a while. But what he said can be boiled down to this:

* Money is speech.
* Speech must be unlimited under the First Amendment.
* Therefore, the rich must be allowed to spend unlimited sums of money on politics.

Oh, and he said one more thing:

* Corporations are people, and they must be allowed unlimited political spending too.

Corporations, moreover, are not merely "artificial people" — the corporation bring a legal artifice to protect actual people from liability for their company's actions. No, Samples said. They are "natural people."

And these natural people, Samples said, should be allowed to spend their own money and any money over which they have agency for purposes of political expression. In short, corporate CEOs should be allowed to treat their companies' money as if it were their own.

Now, as you may imagine, the 100-plus folks at Quail Ridge Books included many of the progressive persuasion, and as they listened to this — politely — a few did murmur some polite objections.

I'd have thought Samples, since he does this sort of a thing for a living — he's listed as "director of Cato's Center for Representative Government, which come to think of it is a pretty ironic position — would've welcomed a bit of back-and-forth. Instead, he literally brushed aside such comments with a dismissive wave, restating whatever he'd just asserted as if it had been handed down to Moses.

Or the Koch Brothers.

(For background on the ties between Cato and the Kochs, see this piece by Simon Johnson of M.I.T.; also, this followup from The New York Times.

I don't think I'm being unfair to Mr. Samples when I say that he sees nothing wrong and everything right with the rich controlling American politics; all else — what little there is to his so-called analysis — flows back from the conclusion he's been paid to reach.

Back in the real world, Press Millen suggested that in time Citizens United., like the Plessy case of old, will be known by its fruits. Plessy, decided in 1896, was the Supreme Court ruling that there was nothing objectionable about "separate but equal" treatment of the races, a decision oblivious (at best) to the facts of white supremacy.

The fruits of C.U. are only starting to be seen, Millen said, but the 2012 elections are marked already by far more spending in the presidential election on negative ads by supposedly independent groups and SuperPACs.

The Supreme Court struck down McCain-Feingold with no empirical analysis whatsoever about its central premise, which is that unlimited spending by the rich, corporations and interest groups can and does lead to political corruption, Millen argued.

Unleashed by the Court, Millen went on, the rich — with the multi-billionaire Koch Brothers at the front — are smashing President Obama with a fury. But Obama, as the White House incumbent, does have the fundraising juice to fight back. (Samples said it was a good thing that SuperPACs and the rich were keeping Mitt Romney competitive, because otherwise Romney would be overwhelmed by the fact that Obama's contributors far out-number Romney's — insert your own response about democracy here.)

Millen's worries about C.U., he said, are more about down-ballot races in which a six- or seven-figure expenditure on one side can bury a candidate who has no such benefactor(s) on the other side. Millen pointed to the efforts of Massey Coal's Don Blankenship to buy a West Virginia Supreme Court race in 2008.

Yes, that Massey Coal.

This, too, became a Supreme Court case in 2009. When you read about it, consider that Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority decision in Citizens United, also wrote for the majority in Caperton v. Massey Coal — with Kennedy apparently deciding that the problem of corruption in politics attaches to the office-holder (the Supreme Court justice in the W.Va case) but not to the corporation which did the corrupting. Any other conclusion would make what Kennedy wrote in C.U. absurd.

But aren't bribes two-way?

Well, the corruption in politics is everywhere you look — Wall Street, Enron, Blackwater, do I need to go on? — and it's all traceable to people taking money from people they shouldn't to do things they oughtn't. Things that, if they're not illegal, should be except that the folks taking the money — and the ones giving it to them — don't want them to be illegal.

So let's circle back and consider whether there's a way to respect the First Amendment while limiting campaign contributions and corruption.

Of course there is:

1) Limit individual contributions to candidates and party committees; require disclosure of contributors' names over a set amount (say, $100).

2) Permit unlimited spending by people expressing their own political views, but distinguish this real form of "independent expenditure" from the fake form that reliably ends with a call to — "Tell Congressman Smith" what a swell egg she is ... or what a miserable excuse he is for a human being.

3) Limit spending by individuals in support of a particular party or candidate — the fake kind of "independent expenditure" discussed in No. 2 — in the same way as direct contributions to them are limited. Require disclosure.

4) Contributions to organizations using the money for real issues advocacy need not be disclosed by name. The reason for allowing donors to remain anonymous was made clear in the civil rights era, when those willing to help the NAACP and other rights groups were doing so at some peril given the unpopularity of ideas like equality.

5) Bar corporations from spending money in support of particular parties or candidates. Continue to allow management to organize a PAC and collect money via voluntary contributions —in limited amounts, as the law now provides — from employees and others. But keep the CEOs' hands out of the till when it comes to their substituting their own political judgments for those of their employees, shareholders and customers.

On this last point, by what possible right does Jim Rogers, CEO (once again) of Duke Energy, spend the money I pay Duke for electricity on contributions to candidates or political committees I don't support — but he does?

Ditto the CEOs of any of the hundreds of companies I either buy from or own a tiny piece of via the mutual funds in my portfolio. I have not given my political proxy to them. Bad enough I'm forced to give them a management proxy in the form of my vote for a slate of corporate directors running unopposed.

Unions aren't permitted to spend their members' money on political campaign without a member's assent. (If you doubt this statement, you haven't read the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Knox v. Service Employees, decided in June, 2012.*) Why are corporations given more power over their customers' money than a union is over a member's dues?

Notice that no one's freedom of speech or political expression has been limited in any way by this 5-step approach. If I want to buy a full-page ad in every newspaper in the country, and 30-minute infomercials on every TV channel, to tell you why taxes on the rich are too low — I can go ahead and do so. (When I get the bills, I may be a little short :)

The only thing I'm limited in doing is spending money in support of a political party or candidacy. I can still do it. I just can't spend at levels far, far above what my fellow citizens are able to afford.

To allow the rich to make unlimited political contributions is of a piece (I started to say no different, but it's a little different) than giving a weighted ballot to voters when they enter the polls based on their net worth.

Mr. Sample and I both stands for representative government. But representative of what? He seems comfortable with a government that is, without question, more and more representative of the wealthy and corporate interests. I'd rather have a government representative of citizens — of people.

All the people.

* From Justice Alito's decision for the majority in that, you guessed it, 5-4 ruling against the Service Employees:

But a “[u]nion should not be permitted to exact a service fee from nonmembers without first establishing a procedure which will avoid the risk that their funds will be used, even temporarily, to finance ideological activities unrelated to collective bargaining.”

And in response, the AFL-CIO said, in part —

we are disturbed but not surprised that the conservative majority places special burdens on public sector unions in their efforts to represent working people’s economic interests through the legislative process that the Court does not apply to corporations when they spend shareholder money on politics.

Price controls? I thought the Republican term for that was death panels?

Still, at the risk of seeming to ask for intellectual coherence from politicians who'll say anything to get elected and have no principles whatsoever, I submit this story from the Los Angeles Times about Mitt Romney's admiration for the way Israel handles health care:

Romney praised Israel for spending just 8% of its gross domestic product on healthcare while still remaining a "pretty healthy nation."

"We spend 18% of our GDP on healthcare," he said of the U.S. "Ten percentage points more. That gap, that 10% cost, let me compare that with the size of our military. Our military budget is 4%. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of GDP. We have to find ways, not just to provide healthcare to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our healthcare costs."

So how does Israel do it?

The country created a national healthcare system in 1995, mostly funded through payroll and general tax revenue. The government provides all citizens with health insurance. Everyone is required to have it.

People in Israel pick from one of four competing, nonprofit plans, which can't turn anyone away because of preexisting conditions. Israel also heavily regulates its healthcare system to control costs.

Not.

I have never made a big point, or any point, about not eating at Chick-fil-A. The company is anti-gay. OK, it's a free country.

And I don't have to buy their products. Also, a free-country thing.

***

But since, between the company and Mike Huckabee, it's now Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, when everybody who appreciates how anti-gay they are is supposed to show it by eating their stuff, I will take the occasion to say:

I don't appreciate Chick-fil-A. And I don't eat there.

Not saying you shouldn't.

To each his own.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells the Huffington Post that his Democrats are in pretty good shape to hold the Senate in the fall elections. In Hawaii, Montana, Wisconsin and Massachusetts, the Democratic candidates have pulled ahead, Reid says.

And then he added—

"We feel comfortable in the Senate," [Reid] said. "Where the problem is, is this: Because of the Citizens United decision, Karl Rove and the Republicans are looking forward to a breakfast the day after the election. They are going to assemble 17 angry old white men for breakfast, some of them will slobber in their food, some will have scrambled eggs, some will have oatmeal, their teeth are gone. But these 17 angry old white men will say, 'Hey, we just bought America. Wasn't so bad. We still have a whole lot of money left.'"

"So that's the only problem we have with our candidates," Reid said.

That, and there are more than 17 of them, Harry.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, survived the Supreme Court today by the narrowest of margins. In fact, five justices out of nine found that Congress does not have the power to mandate health-insurance coverage under the Commerce Clause. However, four justices said it does have that power, and Chief Justice Roberts made it five in favor by declaring that Obamacare is a tax measure, not (strictly) an effort to regulate commerce, and is constitutional on that basis.

Here's a link to the decision and the various opinions if you care to dive in.

***

And the reactions are, uh, mixed. Here's two, one from the progressive N.C. Justice Center saluting the decision, and the second from The Heartland Institute, which denounces it in terms you might want to reserve for a military takeover of the government — if, that is, the takeover is announced.

From the N.C. Justice Center:

Supreme Court upheld one of the greatest expansions of health care security in U.S. history

RALEIGH (June 28, 2012) — Today the U.S. Supreme Court upheld one of the greatest expansions of health care security in the nation’s history. The Affordable Care Act, passed by our elected representatives after extensive debate, will extend health insurance to 32 million Americans. It is now important to redouble our efforts to educate seniors and young people and small businesses about the benefits of health reform.

We also must move forward with full implementation in North Carolina in a way that best protects the interests of consumers. North Carolina’s economy as a whole – including our state’s hospitals, doctors, small businesses, and local employers – will benefit greatly from a new influx of Medicaid funds from the federal government. By investing in the health of our population we will contain the long-term growth in health care costs.

This endorsement of health reform by our nation’s highest court shows that Congress operated well within its constitutional authority in requiring that Americans who can afford insurance purchase a policy. The worst practices of the insurance industry – denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions, charging women more than men for the same policy, dropping coverage when someone gets sick – will soon be relegated to the rubbish heap of history.

The time when everyone – young and old, rich and poor – will have access to decent health services is near. As a consumer advocacy organization that has worked for more than 20 years to expand quality, affordable health care to all North Carolinians, we are elated by this decision.

And from The Heartland Institute's Maureen Martin:

“Today’s decision will go down in infamy. It marks the moment when we all lost our freedom because the Supreme Court drew a road map to guide those dedicated to imposing a totalitarian, statist government on the American people.

“The majority opinion on the individual mandate, authored by Chief Justice Roberts, held that, so long as failure to comply with a government directive is penalized by something ‘reasonably’ called a tax, Congress can force Americans to buy anything. It can force Americans to do something, indeed anything, like eat broccoli. It can force Americans not to do something, like not be obese. Or even not sing the Star Spangled Banner. All of this would be lawful under this ruling today.

“There is no limit on the evil coming, unless we amend our Constitution. A dark day for America, indeed.”

Major news in Obama immigration policy: DREAMers won’t be deported -ow.ly/bBpoN #ncga #ncpol #ncdreamteam
— NC Policy Watch (@NCPolicyWatch) June 15, 2012