Notes from the Left Coast

Drummond Pike’s Blog

Just traveling back to SFO this morning after a great meeting of the Tides Canada Board in Vancouver. Wow. They are doing great! We helped establish our northern sister organization about 8 years ago under some not insignificant pressure from our friend Carol Newell and her sidekick Joel Solomon at the Endswell Foundation – an active funder of the British Columbia environmental community. As they have on and off and now on again made a commitment to spending out their endowment (truly the highest minded stewardship in my view), they wanted to leave an institutional legacy that supported progressive philanthropy and initiatives in the region to which they are so committed. And, boy, have they delivered. The founding ED, now CEO, Tim Dramin, has done a great job putting the organization on the map and developing a parallel to Tides Center – of which there are NO parallels in the entire country. But programmatically, they are rocking.

Here are some highlights:
• Tides Canada has been at the center of an incredible effort that brought together timber companies, First Nations leaders, environmentalists, US funders and, most remarkably, the Provincial Government in a joint effort to preserve the Great Bear Rainforest – 25% of the world’s remaining temperate rainforest is now permanently preserved while simultaneously a $120 million fund has been committed to support sustainable businesses in First Nations communities. Amazing stuff for an 8 year old institution.

• They have hired their first President to run things day-to-day who was the leading organizer of the Great Bear effort. Ross McMillan hails from Tofino on the west coast of BC, but now is in Vancouver helping to keep up with this rapidly growing enterprise.

• A recent draft strategic plan indicates Tides Canada will be aggressively launching into areas of social justice, climate change, and social finance. There was a long discussion at the Board Meeting about the critical state of low and moderate income housing in all of Canada’s major cities. Vancouver especially, it seems, has seen rental housing replaced by highrise condos that are largely held as investments and unoccupied. Lots to sort through on this issues, for sure.

On top of all this, CEO Tim Draimin is leading a policy initiative to establish program sponsorship and development - done up there by Sage Centre, a parallel to Tides Center - as an accepted and well developed way of doing business. No mean feat, I can assure you, given the complexities of the Canadian tax system.

All in all, I’d say our northern sister organization is in GREAT shape and continuing its innovative ways. Check them out!

Vancouver Skyline

Originally uploaded by Drummond Pike

while the US wallows in subprime chaos, Canada is rocking out with a huge construction boom, a strong currency, and SOCIALIZED medicine. As they say up here, "…go figure…." (Has the President ever
been to Canada?)

Yesterday morning’s NY Times editorial on the embarrassing revelations that the National Security Council deliberated on the specific “harsh interrogation methods” (that were to be applied in specific cases) reminded me of Michael Kieschnick’s blog a week ago. Provocatively entitled, “Which Torture Method did Cheney Prefer?” it got me thinking.

My response? Simple: dogs. Big, barking, threatening dogs straining at their leashes wanting to sink their teeth into kneeling, naked, blind-folded prisoners. Yes, I’m quite sure of it. Cheney is a hunter guy. He even shoots guns, as his friend Harry Whittington can attest (they say all the birdshot was successfully removed). So, it’s my guess that Cheney made sure they used dogs to “harshly” interrogate those poor souls.

Just how is it that this guy, multiply deferred from the Vietnam draft as a student and then as an expecting parent, ends up as America’s chief of revenge? For isn’t that really what this torture stuff is all about? Getting “them” back for the 9/11 attack?

If we as a people have come down so far on the ladder of civilization that revenge motivates policy, we have fallen far indeed. The corruption of our principals is exceeded only by the corruption of our politics. It is truly time for change.

I read this morning that the Honorable Tom Tancredo, Representative to Congress from Colorado’s 6th District, has found His Holiness the Pope wanting with regard to his sympathetic, supportive stance regarding immigrants. From today’s NY Times:

Accusing the pope of “faith-based marketing,” Mr. Tancredo said Benedict’s comments welcoming immigrants “may have less to do with spreading the Gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the Church.” Mr. Tancredo, a former Catholic who now attends an evangelical Christian church, said it was not in the pope’s “job description to engage in American politics.”

Representative Tancredo is but the most recent example of the remarkable American trait of generational amnesia. All four of his grandparents immigrated to the US from Italy, part of some 4 million Italians who arrived here between 1880 and 1920. As a third generation American, Mr. Tancredo has adopted another uniquely American trait – “we got here first, so you stay away.” A quick review of the history of American Immigration Law reveals repeated exclusions of immigrants based largely on race: Chinese, Japanese, South Asians, and Filipinos all can claim their own special Congressionally approved bans, each in place for years before repeal. The racial underpinnings of our evolving immigration laws will confound any remaining skeptics of the concept of structural racism. Race has clearly been the basis of immigration policy over and over again, and especially so during the period that Mr. Tancredo’s grandparents were making their way to the US.

What’s intriguing about the son of a son of an immigrant becoming the Chief Immigrant Baiter among right wing politicians who collectively seem intent on blaming Spanish-speaking immigrants for every ill, is that it so clearly reflects an element of self-hatred. When Italians came in droves to the big cities of America a century ago, they were termed “Birds of Paradise” arriving to earn some money and return home, just as many, if not most, of our current undocumented workers wish to do (and have done for decades). The irony, of course, is that the conservative response to date, dampened only by the change in Congressional majorities two years ago, has been to erect barriers that prevent transit across the borders, thus effectively trapping these “remittance workers” here indefinitely when they used to return home seasonally.

As a Californian, the issue of immigration imbues both current and historical politics. This state, originally a part of Mexico, has inarguably been built on the labor of its immigrants. What few recall in the current debate, is that California is the only state in the nation that attempted to prevent immigration from other states. In 1937, California enacted the so-called “Anti-Okie Law” which was not overturned until 1941. It’s purpose? – stem the tide of Okies, Arkies, ‘Texicans’, and other predominantly white refugees from the famed Dust Bowl of the thirties in the mid-west. Just as Mexican and Central American migrant laborers do today, they largely came west to pick crops and scrape out a meager living, having suffered through one of the worst environmental calamities to afflict modern America. Okies were demonized more than Arabs are today throughout the media, that is until John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath was made into one of Hollywood’s greatest films.

There is no suitable response to Tancredo’s critique of the Pope other than to quietly say that freedom in America means that even really stupid, rude, wrong things get said at times. That the sayer is a Member of Congress ought to be deeply embarrassing to those Coloradans living in the 6th District, just south of Denver. It surely is to me.

It’s an incredible spring day in NYC today, and I’m reflecting on our latest marker: more Americans have died in Iraq than died on 9/11. One wonders if our misguided taste for revenge has run its course, since how else does one explain what we’ve done?

Arrived today to spring in NYC. Blossoms on the trees, people soaking up the sun. Why do I keep thinking about Guantanamo? Probably because I watched an old Democracy Now podcast about this kid held there since he was 15. I wonder what his spring is like.

Also of interest:

Gitmo: The New Rules of War Documentary Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrcO_l9iELg

Have you ever wondered why the only thing we ever hear about is tax relief? When was the last time you can remember anyone advocating tax increases? Such is the stuff of political suicide in our “borrow now, pay later” politics. Remember Bush 1 and his famous “read my lips” statement?

So, I’ve been curious about how we got here for a long time. The fact of the matter is that we are living on borrowed time, if history is any measure. A fascinating chart on TruthandPolitics.org’s site shows the variation in our “maximum effective” tax rates for upper income taxpayers. During the two World Wars, people paid some serious taxes (77% and then 94% respectively). During Vietnam, the rate moved back up to the 77% level after having fallen steadily through the 50’s and early 60’s. Where are we now? 35%, at least until Bush 2’s tax cuts are termed out in 2010. And what do we have cooking? The most expensive war since Vietnam and a pending debate on national health insurance for all.

If the federal government was a business, it would have been abandoned in the free market ages ago as a failed enterprise.

An interesting comparison can be made to countries that have national health coverage: Canada – mid-40% (federal and province); Australia – 45%; New Zealand – 46%; and Austria – 50% (as are many European countries). Oh, and they have only a fraction of the military costs that we do.

So….when is one of these candidates running for President going to break the taboo, and return us to Kansas (from this Oz-like place we’ve been living in for the past 3 decades)?

This is Tides’ own fabulous Fennel Doyle who has introduced me to “mo blogging” - now that was a new one to me. Turns out that it refers to mobile blogging that one can do from one’s cell phone. Hence the picture of my personal guide to this realm which then was emailed to a previously established address that automatically posted it to my blog. Web 2.0 is here!!

Anyway, I’ll try to use it now and then to see how it goes. One can imagine blogging from a meeting or a demonstration as you were in the middle of it. Too much…..

Have you ever met Ms. American Express? Or, Mr. Exxon? No, neither have I, but the odd thing is that under the law, they are, roughly speaking, the same as any normal sentient person. This is the result not of a Supreme Court decision, but rather a Supreme Court Reporter’s description of a decided case – a statement without precedential value – that has been disputed ever since. That the reporter was a retired railroad executive and the plaintiffs were rail companies in the late 1800’s, seems to have been left in the dust of history. The rail companies, you see, were trying to reinterpret the 14th Amendment that was passed shortly after the end of the Civil War; its purpose was to address the history of slavery in the south by precluding a state’s right to pass any law that “abridge[d] the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…” In short, if held to be a legal “person,” a corporation could argue that a state couldn’t individually regulate its affairs; only the federal government could. In any event, by chicanery or innocent error, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad became the means that turned corporations into legal “people.”

There is more than a modicum of irony in this, since many of the rail corporations that benefitted from the 1886 decision, and they did so handsomely, also readily embraced the Jim Crow laws of the post Civil War period that continued the subjugation of most ex-slaves and their progeny for a hundred years. I doubt they ever made the connection between their economic advantage and the use of the Amendment intended to ensure freedoms to those freed by the passage of the 13th Amendment banning slavery.

What inspired this line of thought? I read in today’s NY Times that over recent years, the US Justice department has been signing dozens of “deferred prosecution agreements.” These have them paying fines, opening themselves to ‘outside monitors,’ and otherwise not admitting responsibility. Many of these agreements are secret, to boot, so we don’t even know about them. Now, that’s what I call having your cake and eating it, too, because I don’t think real people get anywhere near that kind of a break. No, we seem perfectly content to lock real people up or – at the very least – have them plead guilty to a lesser charge. Criminal cases don’t have “settlement agreement” options…unless you are a corporate “legal person.”

Think of all the money we could save if we allowed people indicted for crimes to have “deferred prosecution agreements.” None of those Enron guys would have gone to jail – they’d just have bought themselves out of the jam just like Monsanto evidently did. In the Times article, they described Monsanto’s deed: knowingly bribing an Indonesian official in return for looser regulations for those using their modified crop strains. The company knew about and approved the bribe (not some maverick executive, to be clear), but they never faced criminal charges of the kind that drove Authur Anderson out of business. Ah, the new era of “free market capitalism” seems to have been given a new meaning for “free.”

Evidently the current administration’s perspective is that free market corporations ought to have a permanent “get out of jail free” card. Any idea where I can get one of those?

Oh, one more thing. Remember John Ashcroft, our former Attorney General who oversaw the Justice Department? Well his firm just got a $50 million deal to monitor a “deferred prosecution agreement” between Justice and a medical services company. Sweet, huh? Just kinda makes one want to go into public service….and then jump into the greenback-lined “post-prosecutorial era.”

I learned recently that the folks at American Idol had decided to launch their own charity called “Idol Gives Back” to replace the infrastructure that we’d help put in place with Charity Projects Entertainment Fund on whose Board I sit. CPEF was formed last year after Fox and Idol had agreed with the incredibly talented Comic Relief folks from the UK to experiment with creating an on-air fundraising effort similar to the extraordinary “Red Nose Day” that has raised tens of millions in the UK for the benefit of groups working to alleviate poverty and to address the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

Comic Relief’s super CEO, Kevin Cahill, had sparked the idea of bringing a media savvy, mission focused charitable initiative to the US. On their way to LA, they’d stopped through SF to meet with us to see if Tides could help with the idea. Skipping down to LA after, they’d managed their way into the inner sanctum of American Idol and got their buy in. But it was on an unbelievable fast track and everyone scrambled to bring whatever they had to the table. Comic Relief provided all the know how, the films from the field that are so essential, and the infrastructure to make sure the money was well-used. They organized the phone banks, on-line giving portal, and all the rest. AI worked the concept into their final week’s competition. It was a collaborative effort, for sure.

The results we all know. Expecting maybe $10 to $20 million, they raised over $70 million for a pre-determined group of major charities like Save the Children, the Global Fund, and others. Desperate for skilled staff, Tides recommended three extraordinary consultants to help shape and evaluate the burgeoning grants. Karie Brown, Allison Barlow, and Anne Moses came together on very short notice to carefully structure $7.5 million grants to the US groups and to assist on the African grants. From the NY Times, yesterday:

Overall officials at the nine charities that received the money said they were pleased with the efforts of the “Idol Gives Back” charity, particularly with officials’ rigor in vetting potential uses of the money.

“Sometimes celebrity or entertainment-industry-based charities might not be the most sophisticated organizations in distributing the money they raise,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, the president and a co-founder, with the musician Paul Simon, of the Children’s Health Fund. “But the ‘American Idol’ group got up to speed more rapidly than I’ve ever seen before. And they did a tremendous amount of investigation and due diligence among the organizations that could be potential recipients.”

So what did Fox do for this year’s event? They stiff-armed their partners, organized their own charity named after the event, and will be going it on their own. One can imagine that once they saw how much money was involved, they decided they wanted to control the action. Understandable in most circumstances, but it follows a narrative that has been often repeated in Hollywood where effective grantmaking often gives way to other considerations.
Among the first decisions for the “new” Idol Gives Back: to replace UNICEF and America’s Second Harvest with Brad Pitt’s glitzy “Make It Right” project focused on rebuilding the Lower Ninth. Hmmm.

When you google “Make it right” you get news stories about Bush’s original quote that they were going to “make it right” when asked about the abysmal failure of FEMA. When you google “Make It Right Campaign” you are given pages of Hollywood star sites, but nothing about MIR except links to Brad Pitt’s interviews announcing it. So what is it?
Announced last year with great fanfare, MIR has one of the sweetest websites you can imagine, and they’ve recruited notable “green stars” like Bill McDonough & Associates to their “core team.” More than a dozen architectural firms are listed as well. Progress to date? You tell me. I can’t find a press mention of any houses built or families helped. Is it real? Time will tell, but without the kind of rigor last year’s Idol grants program had, it’s anyone’s guess.
PS: you can find their site by googling “make it right New Orleans”. Who knew?