What an embarrassment our national government is.
Mired in the sickening muck of corrupt corporate money and right-wing
ideology, our so-called leaders continue to divert our public treasury and
our nation’s unlimited potential for good into war, into the pockets
of the super-rich, into the self-serving whims of greedheaded corporate
executives, into a rising police state, into the careless desecration of
nature . . . into waste. Then why am I laughing, why am I almost giddy with
optimism about where we’re heading? You might say,
“That’s an easy question, Hightower; you’re either stupid
or insane.” Indeed, I know a few leaders of progressive groups based
in Washington, D.C., who have been drained of all optimism. Looking at the
national scene, they share Woody Allen’s despairing observation:
“We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter
hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let’s hope we have
the wisdom to make the right choice.” Luckily, however, my work is not based in Washington,
and my frequent travels allow me to be in touch with a grassroots America
that’s unabashedly progressive and on the move. Yes, Washington is
ignoring our country’s real needs and squandering our democratic
promise, but out beyond the Beltway (and below the radar of the powers that
be) are folks, groups, coalitions, and even elected leaders who are taking
action at the state and local levels to build an America based on our
historic ideals of fairness, justice, and equal opportunity for all. I have great hope, because grassroots people are so
much stronger, more resilient, more creative, and more American than the
gooberheads at the top, and they’ll not long be held down or held
back. There is a ferment for change in our land today and
undeniable movement toward it. We should take heart in our people’s
history, which is the long story of ordinary folks agitating, organizing,
and mobilizing for a little more justice. Progress often gets diverted or dammed up by the
avaricious powers, but it ultimately finds another outlet. I can give my
own testimonial to this dynamic. As I was coming of political age in
segregated Texas in the 1960s, recalcitrant state and local officials were
blocking progress, so all of us involved in the civil-rights movement
looked to Washington as the channel for producing progressive action, and
we made progress. Likewise, in the 1970s, it was through the national
government that we opened channels for progress on women’s rights,
worker safety, environmental protections, etc. By the 1980s, however, moneyed interests were locking
down both parties in Washington, and progressives were largely stymied. But
not for long — a trickle of action soon began coming out of cities
and states across the country. I was one of those trickles. Having been
elected Texas agriculture commissioner in ’82, I, through my office,
became a source of action for small farmers, organic production, pesticide
regulation, direct marketing, rural development, renewable energy, and
more. Since then, with corporate and right-wing interests
seizing all three branches of the national government and with the
Democratic leadership either co-opted or inept, the flow of progressive
energy has moved steadily out of Washington and (like water finding a new
course) into grassroots organizing. In the past decade, these feisty
groups, using street actions, ballot initiatives, lawsuits, the Internet,
media exposés, local elections, radio, potluck suppers, festivals,
satire, and every other tool at their disposal have become a powerful force
on a wide range of issues, and they are changing American politics from the
ground up. Let’s take stock of some of the progress being made. Wage wars For years, Washington and Wall Street have been
prosecuting a war
on American wages, using everything from monetary policy to immigration
policy in their constant effort to push workers’ pay down. The most visible of these efforts is the obscene
sight of fat-cat CEOs and well-paid Congress critters conspiring to keep
our country’s wage floor stuck at the subpoverty level of $5.15 an
hour (about $10,500 a year). As John Edwards, the former U.S. senator from
North Carolina, says, “It’s a moral disgrace,” yet,
despite support for boosting the minimum wage from 86 percent of Americans
(including the chairman of Wal-Mart, who wails that these poverty workers
can’t afford to shop at his stores), corporate lobbyists have kept
hourly pay nailed down at $5.15 for nearly a decade. Washington won’t
budge, so there’s nothing we can do, right? Wrong. Led by ACORN, the
innovative community-organizing group, a broad coalition of wage-increase
advocates has shifted the battlefield to the cities, counties, and states,
putting forth a concept called the “living wage.” The idea is that corporations getting contracts,
subsidies, or other benefits from local governments should not get away
with poverty pay. Pushing local ordinances or ballot measures, the
living-wage coalitions propose pay scales that increase the minimum above
the region’s poverty level, with most proposals requiring some
health-care benefits and many indexing pay levels to inflation. Well, you
might think, that’s a nice proposition, but people are way too
conservative to go for it. Wrong. In fact, when put before voters,
living-wage initiatives typically win by more than two-thirds of the vote.
A telling case is Florida. In 2004, a modest
initiative was on the ballot proposing to raise the state’s minimum
wage by a buck, to $6.15 an hour. U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s presidential
campaign studiously avoided supporting this measure, fearing that voters in
this red state were so conservative that being associated with a wage hike
would hurt Kerry’s chances. So much for political genius — 72
percent of Floridians approved the pay increase! Kerry, on the other hand,
got only 47 percent of the vote. For these living-wage battles, coalitions have been
forged among workers, poor people, women, churchgoers, small-business
owners, neighborhood groups, civil-rights advocates and even some
conservative business leaders who either see it as a moral issue or
understand that higher pay means more spending and a stronger local
economy. That’s a pretty stout coalition! Although they have received
little national media coverage, these combined efforts are achieving
stunning successes all across the country. More than 130 cities, counties,
and states have already enacted some form of the living wage. These victories are coming not just in the liberal
outposts of, say, New York City and San Francisco but also in such places
as Dayton, Ohio ($9.30 per hour, with benefits); Palm Beach, Fla. ($9.73,
with benefits); Louisville, Ky. ($10.20, indexed to inflation); Pima
County, Ariz. ($8.35, with benefits, indexed); Bozeman, Mont. ($9.73, with
benefits); Rochester, N.Y., ($9.43, with benefits, indexed); Corvallis,
Ore. ($9, indexed); the Richmond, Va., school district ($8.77, with
benefits); and the Central Arkansas Library System ($9, with benefits,
indexed). Clean elections What a scream it was to watch George W. Bush, Tom
DeLay, and some 60 other top elected officials rush out to throw tens of
thousands of dollars at various charities. These were campaign funds they
had previously taken from superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. Until Jan. 2, 2006
none of these politicians had been even slightly squeamish about banking
Abramoff’s checks. But on that day, the GOP’s leading
influence-peddler pleaded guilty to three counts of money corruption
involving his lobbying operation. As part of his plea deal, Abramoff agreed
to tell all to federal prosecutors about his money-for-favors relationships
in Washington . . . and to testify against his former political cohorts. When the lead prosecutor declared that the corruption
“is very extensive,” that did it. Suddenly our stalwart leaders
were spontaneously struck with the need to offer up loads of cash to
charity — as if such a showy gesture could remove the indelible green
stain that contaminates them and our national capital. Of course, giving
back a few bucks doesn’t alter the culture of corruption (notice, for
example, that although Bush grandly donated $6,000 of his Abramoff money to
charity, he refused to give away as much as $200,000 that Jack had raised
for his ’04 run). Sheesh. The spreading Abramoff scandal, combined with
DeLay’s Texas indictments for money laundering, the Duke Cunningham
bribery conviction, and the relentless pursuit of corporate dollars by
practically all of our top political leaders shows that we no longer have
elections — we have auctions. Can’t something be done? It can
be . . . and is — but not in Washington. Once again, the action is in
the countryside. In the past decade, eight states and 14 cities have passed
“clean election” laws to end the money chase in their political
races, and eight other states and at least one major city are moving toward
passage of such laws this year. The key component of clean elections is to provide
the alternative of public financing for the campaigns of all candidates who
agree not to accept money from corporations or other favor-seeking
interests. This means that people running for mayor, governor, the
legislature, a judgeship, or whatever don’t have to spend the bulk of
their campaign time in corporate suites or at the watering holes of
lobbyists — and, if elected, they owe absolutely nothing to the
moneyed powers! It also means that regular people (schoolteachers, factory
workers, nurses, farmers, cabdrivers . . . ) can run for office, for they
could qualify for a level of public funding that would make them
competitive with a lobbyist-financed candidate. It gives us a meaningful
tool for reclaiming our democracy. Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut now have
public-financing laws for all of their state offices, from governor to
corporation commissioner. Vermont and Massachusetts have also approved
statewide systems but have not yet implemented them. In addition, North
Carolina has approved public funding for its judicial races, New Mexico has
done so for candidates seeking to be on its Public Regulation Commission,
and New Jersey has approved a pilot project for public financing in four
legislative districts. Cities are on the move, too. Portland, Ore., will
have the clean-election alternative for all of its city races this year. In
2005, 69 percent of Albuquerque’s voters said yes to a charter
amendment providing public funds for its mayoral and City Council
candidates. Another 12 cities have put partial systems in place, and Los
Angeles is structuring a plan for full public financing. Most important, the clean-election system works. In
Maine, the state AARP, AFL-CIO, Common Cause, the Council of Senior
Citizens, the Dirigo Alliance, the League of Women Voters, Peace Action,
the People’s Alliance, and others joined hands in 1996 to pass an
initiative creating the nation’s first public-financing program. When
the program was first implemented in 2000, half of the state’s
senators and 30 percent of house members were elected without taking a dime
in special-interest money, and the program has grown more successful with
each election. Today 83 percent of Maine’s Senate and 77 percent of
its House are made up of legislators who ran “clean.” The result is that Maine’s state government is
able to reflect the people’s will. In 2003, for example, Maine became
the first state to pass a bill providing health care for all of its people.
As a state legislator says, “There is just no way this bill would
ever have seen the light of day under business-as-usual politics dominated
by private campaign contributions. Instead, we took on the big
pharmaceutical and insurance companies and adopted a health-care plan that
serves the people rather than special interests.” Now the incumbent Democratic governor and two of his
three Republican challengers have taken the clean pledge for this
year’s election. Last year the state fixed a loophole in its law by
requiring that in the last 21 days of an election, all attack ads or other
campaign material put out by so-called independent groups must disclose the
source behind the ad. In addition, the state will provide public matching
funds for the candidates who are attacked so that they can respond. There’s similar success elsewhere. In Arizona,
for example, 58 percent of the House, a fourth of the Senate, and 10 of 11
statewide officials (including the governor) are clean. The grassroots
coalition that passed Arizona’s public-financing system in a 1998
ballot initiative has also remained vigilant, beating back seven court
challenges and repeated efforts by corporate interests to repeal the law. Again, there’s no need to wait on Washington
for electoral reform when you can make it happen in your own city, county,
school district, state, or any other jurisdiction you choose to tackle. Reefer medicine Isn’t being horribly sick punishment enough
without having the FBI, DEA, and other police agents busting down your door
to throw you in jail? Unfortunately, the federal government’s
crackpot drug war has turned cops into drug thugs as they pursue an insane,
inhumane, ideologically driven policy of cracking down on seriously sick
people who use doctor-prescribed marijuana to treat the chronic pain and
nausea of cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, polio, and other harsh
illnesses. Two years ago, nine armed members of a Drug
Enforcement Agency task force raided Don Nord’s home in Hayden,
Colo., arresting Nord and seizing his three marijuana plants. Nord is no
drug dealer — he’s a disabled, wheelchair-bound 57-year-old man
battling kidney cancer, diabetes, lung disease, and other problems. He was
not toking on reefer for a joy ride but, rather, using the marijuana under
a doctor’s supervision as a medical necessity. Meet Suzanne Pfeil. She is paralyzed by postpolio
syndrome and was under the care of WAMM, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for
Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, Calif. In 2002, she was awakened by five
DEA agents pointing automatic rifles at her head. WAMM is a noncommercial
medical co-op that, with the blessing of local officials, maintained a
marijuana garden at its hospice to treat its 225 members, 85 percent of
whom were terminally ill. In the early hours of Sept. 5, the DEA burst in.
They terrified the patients, charged two with violating federal drug law,
ripped up the co-op’s garden, handcuffed WAMM’s two founders,
and took them to jail. This was too much even for the archconservative
editors of the Orange County Register, who called DEA’s actions “an unwarranted and
extreme operation against sick people . . . . Such cruel raids suggest that
a law that can be used to terrorize sick people is in need of
reconsideration.” But Washington — under Democratic
administrations as well as Republican — has done nothing to stop the
stupidity, instead continuing to sanction such extremism in the name of
looking tough in the drug war. Last year on June 15, for example, Congress
voted 264-161 against allowing the ill to use this proven treatment. Luckily, there’s sanity among grassroots folks.
Polls constantly show overwhelming support for laws to let the sick use
doctor-prescribed marijuana. The latest Gallup survey shows 78 percent of
Americans backing such common sense. Lest you think that’s a lot of
blue-state, smoke-induced, ex-hippie sentiment talking, independent polls
in the deep red states of Alabama and Texas register 3-to-1 margins in
favor of medical marijuana, including 67 percent support among Texas
Republicans. More significantly, when given a chance, people are
voting their convictions. Led by the Marijuana Policy Project, coalitions
of doctors, nurses, and patients have come together to raise common sense
to high places. Defying the furious fulminations and fervid opposition of
assorted drug czars from Washington, voters in 11 states and numerous
cities have already approved the medical use of marijuana by compelling
margins. Let’s do a brief roll call: In 2004, while Bush was easily winning the majority
of Montana voters, those same people approved by a 2-to-1 margin a
medical-marijuana initiative that the White House had adamantly opposed. In
2003, Gov. Robert Ehrlich of Maryland became the first Republican head of
state to sign medical marijuana into law. This came in the face of
ferocious campaigning by the White House drug czar to get Ehrlich to veto
the bill. Flexing his ignorance, the czar told Marylanders that marijuana
was “medicinal crack.” This year, Rhode Island became the 11th common-sense
state when more than three-fifths of legislators voted to override the
Republican governor’s veto of a bill to protect medical-marijuana
patients from arrest. The bill had passed 30-0 in the Senate, 52-10 in the
House. In Michigan, cities are taking the initiative. In the past two
years, Detroit approved marijuana use by a 60-40 vote, Ann Arbor by 74-26,
Ferndale by 61-39, and Traverse City by 63-37. The power is ours. On big issue after big issue — such as
dramatically cutting the greenhouse gases that cause global warming,
declaring energy independence with a crash program of renewable energy and
conservation, bringing the troops home from Bush’s war of lies in
Iraq, and giving Americans relief from the price-gouging of drug companies
— Washington has become the enemy. But rather than wring our hands about that, we can
roll up our sleeves and join hands with the grassroots groups that are
taking action on these problems and making progress. Congress and
presidential candidates are too corrupted or too cowardly to lead our
country back to its democratic ideals. We have to lead ourselves —
and there is opportunity for you to be part of the renewal right where you
live.
This article appears in Mar 16-22, 2006.
