The 31st of May, and what a day in the bizarre world of modern America. A second crane crashed down to the street in NYC. A military judge in the Guantanamo trials was summarily dismissed after publicly expressing frustration that the military prosecutors weren’t sharing information with the defense. Is this a “show trial” or what?? The Obamacans and Clintonistas are slugging it out at the DNC Rules Committee over whether to seat delegations from Michigan and Florida where state parties knowingly scheduled their primaries earlier than the rules allowed. So the Rules Committee will decide whether their rules were really rules? And the rules shouldn’t be followed because….Hillary would lose? And then, yesterday, a Field Poll in California showed that if the elections were held today in CA, then Obama would win over Hillary and over McCain in the general. And a new report suggests that the world is experiencing more extreme weather than at any time since we have been recording such things. Oh, and GM is finding that people just aren’t snapping up those huge SUV’s that have been retooled (at a cost of $4k per) as “hybrids” thus increasing their mileage from 14 to 20 mpg. Now, there’s a shock.
So the real question I have this morning is “what in the world will progressives do if things really change next year?” In many ways, I don’t think we have a clue. We haven’t been in a position to drive policy for so many years, I think we have forgotten what matters. This recent experience watching the political machinations in Washington over the once-every-five-years Farm Bill does not give one comfort. For years, progressives on both sides of the aisle have been arguing that farm subsidies no longer provide a safety net for family farmers, as originally intended, but basically act as corporate welfare enriching the already large, successful agri-business enterprises.
So here comes President Bush saying that it is time to severely limit subsidies, especially because we are experiencing record commodity prices. And what did our progressive leaders in the Congress do? They decided that the status quo was just fine, not wanting to jeopardize recent wins in some rural areas. Wow. Makes you want to work really hard to make sure progressives win…..so they can continue the status quo? I think we still have some work to do. This whole “change” thing better be more than a slogan.
I’ve spent part of each of the past two weeks in DC - first for a Board Retreat of Island Press, and today for a meeting of the irrepressible Environmental Working Group. In both cases, these terrific organizations are dealing with complicated change. Island has to deal with the changing nature of the publishing worlds and the challenging economics of publishing books. IP, by the way, is one of the leading publishers of environmental subject matter in the country and have frequently published books that have directly led to policy changes and the like. Gretchen Daily’s Nature’s Services has literally shifted thinking about the economic role our natural systems play in our system. Alter them at our peril is one lesson you can derive. And Apollo’s Fire is helping people really understand the potential economic boom that can be fueled by agressively attempting to deal with climate change in our urban environments. Really good stuff.
In the picture above, you see Ken Cook, founder of the Environmental Working Group and his sidekick, Richard Wiles, who have built one of the most impressive environmental research and advocacy organizations in the country. Ken is holding forth on the prospects for their “Kids Safe Chemicals Act” idea which would change the way acceptable chemical burdens are measured. Kids just don’t do as well as adults in their ability to manage toxic accumulations, yet our regulatory system measures only adults. Crazy.
EWG also recently had a huge “win” when reports finally confirmed their long held argument that endocrine disrupters (now there’s a mouthful) can be toxic in even small amounts. There is a call in California to ban the use of one - bisphenyl A - which has made EWG the object of, how does one say….the close attention of the chemical industry. The industry’s association, by the way, changed their name to American Chemistry Council to sound less corporate. Needless to say, they don’t like the idea that groups like EWG publicize that humans are bio-accumulating toxics in our systems at quite a clip. Have you seen Ken’s remarkable “10 Americans” presentation? You won’t come away unchanged.
Also of interest:
http://www.youtube.com/user/EnvironmentalWG
Day One, Democracy Alliance Meeting, Carlsbad, CA:
I’m not sure why, but I have always enjoyed helping organizations that attract donors to strategic, progressive funding. For many years, Tides has supplied staffing as the Threshold Foundation has evolved into a vibrant community of some 300 donors interested in both personal exploration and support of progressive change in the communities and regions within which they live. More recently, I was able to join in the launching of the Democracy Alliance - a network of some 100 substantial donors to progressive causes that came together to share both the development of, and support for, a progressive infrastructure to rival that which the right has constructed over the last three decades.
Tonight marks the third anniversary of the DA - its seventh gathering of folks each of which is committed to six figure giving to help some 30 plus groups that have been identified as part of the core portfolio. They all work in one of four areas: leadership, civic participation, ideas, and media. Fantastic initiatives and organizations have been supported since the outset: America Votes, which helps non-partisan voter groups coordinate registration and GOTV efforts; Women’s Voices, Women Vote (a former Tides Center project) that targets unmarried women; Center for Progressive Leadership, that trains and encourages emerging progressive leaders; Center for American Progress, a comprehensive think tank generating policy ideas; the Kirwan Institute at Ohio State that focuses on structural racism; and Catalist, a new for-profit venture (and Tides Foundation grantee) that has built and makes available to non-profits a voter file resource that helps groups target disenfranchised communities.
Day 2: today we heard a great talk by Paul Begala on the need for progressives to come together once the primary is settled. In the meantime, independent voices need to focus on the policy differences that are already apparent between conservatives and progressives. The similarity between Sen. McCain’s positions and those of the current administration, and their disdain for progressive alternatives, is starkly apparent in the current debate. Given public sentiment, with over 2/3rds of Americans believing the country is headed in the wrong direction, progressive alternatives on health care, retirement, security, climate change, and a host of other issues ought to be gaining some real traction.
More later from La Costa…..dp