Saturday Afternoon*

*Grace Slick

CORRECTION: This is a big one that only confirms the view that Americans have no idea about the discrepancy of wealth in the country. Yesterday I wrote that 84% of the country's wealth was in the hands of 20% of the people. The real number is 84% in the hands of the top 10%! No wonder Americans prefer Sweden.

On Tax Cuts--It seems that the Blue Dog Democrats are pleading with Nancy Pelosi to go home rather than vote on the tax bill. What's interesting is that these Blue Dogs are the most vulnerable this year. Whatever the House looks like post-election, it will be more polarized, not less.

While I made it clear my view on what the Democrats should do on tax cuts, I have to say that the issue itself avoids the larger question on tax reform in general. For the past 20 years, we have lost the policy shaping dimension of our tax code. That is the way it shapes economic decisions that foster the development of the country. Some of this is re-appearing in Obama's tax credits for Research and Development as well as the ability of small businesses to write off capital equipment in a year. Also closing tax loopholes to companies who export jobs overseas. But the more philosophical issues should be developed more fully. The Republican view is simply to whack at all taxes and disavow government's ability to foster more sustainable development.

Does anyone really believe that with the historically record profits Exxon makes that it could not fund the development of an entire alternative energy sector by itself? The oil industry knows the long-term prospects for oil exploration and plan decades in advance. Collectively, they could form a consortium to basically assist weening America away from oil dependence. You dismiss this. But the percentage of alternative energy use will not dramatically decrease oil consumption in the short-term and in fact would buffer the oil companies' own future profitability. As a country, we have absolutely no choice but to try and accelerate the shift to other forms of energy. You would think a real capitalist with money to burn would by trying to corner the market in this area also. I'm not saying that's a great idea having Exxon Solar control the next energy economy but certainly tax reform and other incentive could force Big Oil to diversify. As of now the native solar, thermal energy and wind energy sectors are starved of capital. Luckily,the stimulus package provided billions in start-up funds for such projects but the overall effect on our energy consumption in the near-term is only about 6%.

The media and the Washington nomenklatura are hung up on the number $250,000, which for Washington and other metropolitan areas seems low, even though it is five times the average income of the American family. This hesitation I believe leads to the resistance of many Democrats in the House and the Senate to give full-throated support to Obama's tax plan. Perssonally, you could save alot of grief by lifting this number to $500,000. The real targets for increased income are the very wealthy.

About Gingrich and Romney's attack on Obama's value system, didn't we hear the wonders from the last three Presidents about the global economy? Isn't it in our competitive advantage to have a President that looks like the rest of the world and talks in a language that is understandable to the rest of planet earth?

I get a strong sense that progressives and the Left, which I do not completely link together,are deeply demoralized. But why? President Obama won the election by organizing a vast grassroots campaign that beat the Democratic establishment and the Republican establishment. However, progressives only endorsed him "conditionally" if you recall the manifesto published by the Nation and signed by leading members of the Left. We know there was opposition to his plans on Afghanistan and even at that early stage his views on Healthcare Reform and elements of gay rights. What did progressives think would happen if you beat two establishments, have to face the defense establishment and go up against the financial establishment? They fight back because they are always used to winning and won't accept any challenge to their dominance of the American society.

What we have in the 2010 mid-terms is an experiment in whether the interest of billionaires and corporations get better bang for their buck by just buying out candidates or sticking to spending billions on lobbying. The Roberts court decision on Citizens United opened the floodgates for a corporate--even foreign--takeover of our political system once and for all. This has been very ably detailed over the past week with investigative reports by Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow. The most fun was the expose of what Republicans mean by small business--Bechtel, probably Cargill, the Chicago Tribune and others, who are S corporations. Under the Pledge, these companies would receive a 20% tax break. And Rachel Maddow has been on the case about astro-turfing for the past year showing that major corporate and private financial interests tried to create an Obama movement of their own--called the Tea Parties.

This all has led to some dire belief that change isn't possible. Which is exactly the effect these people want to cultivate. They want you amateurs out of the "business" of politics. This year will be the first time they pull all the stunts we have seen over the past year. This is an experiment for them in which methods work and which fail. The Republican Party itself has been privatized basically dismissing its traditional organizational structures for a more private, corporate based operation like Karl Rove's billionaire club. This goes even further with the campaign tactics that avoid all debate, interviews with anyone but the tamest of Fox news personalities, and the secrecy around donors. Even though they are without ideas, the Republican Party has transformed its structure and will give it a trial run this year.

Progressives are probably the greatest believers in capitalism and the power of money I've seen. We have seen hundreds of billions of dollars wasted in the Iraq War that did not produce results. We have seen hundreds of billions go up in smoke because of the captains of industry. And we will see Meg Whitman out and out try to buy California with over $120 million of her own money but she is failing as of now, losing to a man who has spend $5.69 and used to sleep on the floor. What I see in this campaign is enormous wastes of money and manpower through all these corporate frontgroups and parallel and duplicative structures the GOP and its veterans have created to buy this election. For every effective dollar spent, there will be another $10-20 wasted. The reason is simple--if you privatize politics, you create alternative profit centers, removed from your donor base. Karl Rove is getting a cut of the money he raises as are all the other operatives in the field. In other words, all these groups, while trying to influence politics, are created to make money for their leading operatives. Ultimately, the results for them do not matter.

Progressives and the Left have to come to grips with the challenge of driving this money out of politics. These secretive donors like the Koch brothers hate exposure. Have you ever seen a photo of the owner of Cargill company? These billionaires have a phalanx of lawyers and their our PR specialists trying to keep people away from them. Progressives should just try and get in their face and make them publicly defend their actions. The only reason they are funneling $100s of millions into elections is because they feel comfortable right now doing it. But having known several of another generation's wealthy political practitioners, they are highly skeptical about the political results. And they must be taught that not only will their activism expose them and their business interests to scrutiny and protest but also will be counter-productive. That is why progressives need to coordinate more their actions ,combining investigative reporting with their own legal resources, to ferret these people out and publicize their actions.
The sooner this happens the better the long-term results. Besides, examining how these groups spend their funds and waste them, would wise up their donors that they too are being fleeced, not just the voter.

In the 1970s, it was interesting to view this community's reactions to the Radical Left. The Left made strategic blunder after blunder, alienating traditional liberals and people who would share some of their own critiques of American society. But one overwhelming impression I had as I talked to the very wealthy and long-time establishment figures was how scared these people were of the Radical Left's actions. It reminds me of how the Right wants to make Americans scared of everything from the New Black Panthers, illegal immigrants, gays and Muslims. Polling suggests that progressives are more infuenced by positive messages and refrain from fear talks. But progressives don't understand that the donors of their adversaries are people very readily scared and rendered impotent by exposure, publicity, and ridicule. These people will not openly defend themselves. And they are as a class scared to death of anything that smacks of class warfare.

This makes understandable their own fixations about the 1960s and 1970s. They believe through their Tea Parties, they are creating their own "movement" like the Left in this country. That is what the Koch Brothers believe. That's why this foolish fixation on Saul Alinsky. It's time the Left and progressives wake up and play jujitsu with them. Otherwise, short of getting campaign finance reform passed, these people will have an open field.

Another thing is that the American people are not with them. Today's AP piece shows that Americans are against Obama's healthcare reform---because it did not go far enough! If you break down the bill in its component parts, large majorities support each part. On ending tax cuts for the wealthy, roughly 60% in swing states favor ending them.

In efforts abroad, people like myself and progressives cooperated in building the civil society movements, which we all thought would bring greater freedom to their people. Luckily, in many cases such as the Czech Republic and other places, the results were remarkable. It's time that progressives regain their confidence in this idea and regain their belief in our own civil society and its ability to withstand the current and vigorous assault on our institutions and democracy.

There was a reason Vaclav Havel chose the word anti-politics to describe his Velvet revolution. Governments are limited in what they can and can not do. If you believe in democracy, then you know the power is with the people, who need to be informed, organized and mobilized.In the past year and a half, I'm convinced that progressives would have been better off putting pressure on the banks and the private sector to behave more responsibly. The flaw of many of the Obama initiatives was that it presumed banks that had been bailed out by the taxpayer would begin to act in the public interest--which is still profitable--and that Wall Street would take a more humbler view of its role in our society. Instead, the recklessness continued and these monied interests doubled-down on their behavior. In part, this is because very few people in this class paid any severe price for their awesome, mind-boogling mistakes. Now they are acting to finish the country off--to complete the looting of the previous eight years.

On Social Security--I posted many blogs on why there is no problem with social security. I would suggest the Democrats run ads on Social Security--Just informing Americans that the trust says that Social Security will pay out 100% of the benefits through 2036 and even after that it will pay out benefits. And all we need to do is tweak it. Anyone telling you anything different is lying. End of story. Just run such an ad against Pat Toomey, the knuckle-head in Alaska and the John Bircher in Nevada.

If the Democrats retain the Senate, which seems likely, I would implore the next Majority Leader to make Republicans really filibuster laws with continuous C-Span coverage so that the American people will get the full effect of obstructionism. After one such telethon, I suspect you would see this threat diminish. Democrats are arguing that Republicans are obstructionists. All true but the general effect nearing election time is that Democrats had the majority and could govern, couldn't get it done. As I've said, the accusation against the House is very unfair since the last Congress passed more legislation than any in my lifetime.

A Gallup poll released this past week shows American approval of Congress at record lows, approximately at the level of George W. Bush when he left office. About one-third of democrats approve of Congress,only 16% of independents, and only 8% of Republicans. Given the 24/7 news cycle and the nature of news these days,it's not surprising, despite solid achievements. This is depressing voter enthusiasm but it's still unclear how that cuts. The President has an approval rating 25 points above Congress, double any public Republican, and the democrats in Congress still have about a 10 point lead over the Republicans. So far, I have not seen any poll that indicates whether the American public would see a Republican Congress as any improvement.