“Cynical Political Posturing”: Don’t Let The Right Wing Co-Opt Dr. King’s Progressive Vision
Washington, D.C. is gearing up for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I will be among thousands of Americans gathering on the national mall this weekend to remember those marchers and to rededicate ourselves to their demand that the country make good on its promises of equality and opportunity for all.
The fact that politicians from across the political spectrum want to associate themselves with King is a big change. Fifty years ago, he was reviled as a Communist sympathizer trying to undermine what some said was God’s design that the races live separately. March organizer Bayard Rustin was denounced by segregationist Strom Thurmond on the floor of the Senate for being a communist, draft-dodger, and homosexual. This year, Rustin will be posthumously awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
So it is a reflection of social progress that so many conservative Republican lawmakers and right-wing leaders try to wrap themselves in the moral authority of the civil rights movement. But it’s also a reflection of cynical political posturing.
Right-wing leaders are fond of rhetorically embracing King’s dream for an America in which children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Unfortunately, they often use the quote to justify their opposition to any policies that are designed to address the ongoing effects of racial discrimination.
Right-wing politicians shouldn’t be allowed to get away with pretending to share King’s moral high ground simply because legally mandated segregation is now unthinkable in America. There was so much more to King’s — and the movement’s — vision.
King was an advocate for government intervention in the economy to address poverty and economic inequality. He was a supporter of Planned Parenthood and women’s right to choose. He endorsed the 1960s Supreme Court decisions on church-state separation that Religious Right leaders denounce as attacks on faith and freedom. One of his most valued advisors, Bayard Rustin, was an openly gay man at a time when it was far more personally and politically dangerous to be so.
How many Republican leaders today will embrace that Martin Luther King?
It is true that a strong majority of congressional Republicans voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. It is true that many of our civil rights advances were made with bipartisan support. But today many Republican leaders at the state level are pushing unfair voting laws that could keep millions of people away from the polls. And many not only cheered the Supreme Court’s recent decision gutting the Voting Rights Act but moved immediately to put new voting restrictions in place.
Today’s Republican leaders are also captive to the anti-government ideology fomented by the Tea Party and its right-wing backers. Let’s remember that the official name of the event we are commemorating is the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Among the marchers’ demands were a higher minimum wage and a “massive federal program” to provide unemployed people with decent-paying jobs. Sounds like socialism!
Today’s right-wing leaders say it’s wrong to even pay attention to economic inequality. To Rick Santorum, just using the term “middle class” is Marxist.
We must not allow this historic anniversary to become a moment that perpetuates an ersatz, sanitized, co-opted version of King and the movement he led. Let’s instead reclaim King’s broadly progressive vision — for ourselves and for the history books.
By: Michael B. Keegan, The Huffington Post, August 23, 2013
“Martin Luther King’s Unfinished Business”: We All Have To Realize That Our Destinies Are Tied Together
On Aug. 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. led a March on Washington that focused in part on economic equality.
“The Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,” King said that day.
Fifty years later, the income and wealth gap for minorities is still wide and troubling. The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to the Pew Research Center.
And the Great Recession didn’t help an already bad situation. The average net worth of households in the upper 7 percent of the wealth distribution chain increased 28 percent during the first two years of the recovery from the downturn, compared with a 4 percent drop for households in the lower 93 percent, according to Pew’s analysis of data from the Census Bureau.
Another Pew report found that the decline in housing prices had a much greater impact on the net worth of minorities relative to that of whites, because housing assumes a larger share of their portfolios.
The Urban Institute’s Opportunity and Ownership Project recently issued a report that similarly examined the chasm that separates the haves and the have-nots.
In 2010, the average income for whites was twice that of blacks and Hispanics, $89,000 compared with $46,000. Whites on average had six times the wealth of blacks and Hispanics, $632,000 compared with $103,000, according to the Urban Institute.
But it’s the wealth gap that the authors of the report rightly focus on. Over the past 30 years, Americans in the top 20 percent saw their average wealth increase by nearly 120 percent, while families with wealth figures in the middle quintile saw growth of only 13 percent. The folks in the bottom 20 percent saw their net worth drop below zero, meaning their debts exceeded their assets.
“When it comes to economic gaps between whites and communities of color in the United States, income inequality tells part of the story,” the authors of the institute’s report wrote. “But let’s not forget about wealth. Wealth isn’t just money in the bank, it’s insurance against tough times, tuition to get a better education and a better job, savings to retire on, and a springboard into the middle class. In short, wealth translates into opportunity.”
The great wealth gap helps explain “why many middle-income blacks and Hispanics haven’t seen much improvement in their relative economic status and, in fact, are at greater risk of sliding backwards,” the report says.
Poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics seriously exceed the national average, according to the National Poverty Center. In 2010, 27.4 percent of blacks and 26.6 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared with 9.9 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12.1 percent of Asians. About 38 percent of black children and 35 percent of Hispanic children live in poverty, compared with about 12 percent of white children.
“In hindsight, the organizers of the march were correct: Achieving rights without fully obtaining the resources to actualize them is only a partial victory. In this 50th anniversary year of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, we can best pay tribute to the march and all that it stood for by recommitting to achieving its unfinished goals,” wrote Algernon Austin, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy. The institute has issued a series of reports examining what it would take to achieve each of the goals of the 1963 March on Washington. Go to www.unfinishedmarch.com to read the essays.
The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson has also stressed the need to “revive the movement to address this unfinished agenda.”
In looking at other economic measures, Jackson wrote in a recent Chicago Sun-Times commentary that African Americans are twice as likely to be unemployed as are whites. Affordable housing is still an issue, as is adequate public transportation that would help people get to jobs.
“We cannot afford to write off a majority of the next generation and still prosper as a great nation,” Jackson wrote.
When I write about the economic state of minorities, I brace myself for the racist, vitriolic comments that follow. Highlighting economic inequalities isn’t about asking for handouts. It’s about finding ways to give people a hand up so that they can become self-sufficient. When the financial lives of the less fortunate are lifted, we all are lifted.
As King said in his “I Have a Dream” speech that summer day 50 years ago, we all have to realize that our destinies are tied together. “We cannot walk alone,” he said.
By: Michele Singletary, Columnist, The Washington Post, August 13, 2013
“Debunking The Myth”: Doable, Efficient, And Necessary, A Higher Minimum Wage Will Not Reduce Jobs
As fast-food workers strike across the nation, progressives must separate fact from fiction in order to secure a living minimum wage.
Fast-food workers are going on strike from New York to Seattle to demand higher wages, highlighting the never-ending controversy over the consequences of raising the minimum wage. Many news stories seem to suggest that economists have decided a higher minimum wage will cause job loss. However, with more analysis, we undercover the truth: there is no clear link between a higher minimum wage and reduced employment.
John Schmitt, a Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, reported in February 2013 that multiple meta-studies (studies that use statistical techniques to analyze a large number of separate studies) found that for both older and current studies alike, there is no statistical significance in the effect of an increased minimum wage. Put plainly, if the effect is not statistically significant, then there is no proven effect— increases in the minimum wage do not cause job loss.
Accordingly, a few weeks ago, over 100 economists at organizations ranging from the Center for American Progress to Boston University signed a petition in support of increasing the minimum wage. They present current research from well-established organizations such as the National Bureau of Economic Research that shows there are no negative employment effects from minimum wage increases. This includes the most comprehensive data available, based on the increasingly accurate testing that has occurred as more and more states increase minimum wage levels. Even more importantly, this recent series of studies uses cutting-edge econometric techniques to control for extraneous variables such as economic downturns and geographic effects. When economists do that, they find that minimum wage increases do not reduce employment.
Logically, this makes a lot of sense. A higher minimum wage is a win-win situation economically: Employees have more money to be consumers and are more productive, while businesses wind up reducing costs in the long run, since they won’t have to spend as much money hiring and training new workers (by analyzing data from five separate studies, economists representing the Political Economy Research Institute found that McDonald’s could easily make up for the costs of a higher minimum wage with a mere five-cent price increase on Big Macs). It’s just as Henry Ford realized—when he paid his workers more, they became part of his customer base, making his company even more profitable. Increasing the customer base and expanding customer pockets helps stimulate the entire economy, badly needed in the current recession.
So if we have no evidence linking high wages to job loss, our next question is: Are higher wages needed as a poverty reduction tool?
Currently, the 2013 federal poverty guidelines stipulate $23,550 for a family of four as poverty level. A $7.25 minimum wage currently nets the protesting fast-food workers $15,080 a year if the workers are lucky enough to work 40 hours a week. In a typical household with two parents and two children, parents who make $7.25 an hour earn far below the living wage of $13.55, according to an MIT wage calculator. The numbers become even starker when you separate out true living expenses: food, medical care, housing, transportation, and other needed expenses add up to a required $37,540 annual income before taxes, which is notably different from the poverty guidelines that the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services set. Even if the two parents worked 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, they would only earn $30,160 in total, significantly below the resources they need to live. Moreover, these estimates are only for a typical nuclear family. The struggle that single-income families, large families, or families living in high-cost cities go through is exponentially higher.
The buying power of the minimum wage has steadily been waning due to the effects of inflation for the past 40 years. When prices increase, a worker’s paycheck buys less and less. To put it in perspective, we look to another brief by John Schmitt: If minimum wage had continued to match productivity growth, it would have been $21.72 per hour in 2012. If we only adjust for the cost of living, a minimum wage pegged to inflation would be $10.52.
A huge bulk of evidence makes the case that increasing the minimum wage is a doable, efficient, and necessary change for the economy. This change needs to happen now. We as Americans have a moral obligation to make sure that other Americans who are working hard to support themselves and their families are able to make a living.
By: Emily Chong, The National Memo, August 8, 2013
“Blessed Are The Rich”: Charles Koch Is Such A Clueless Visionary
One thing I’ve come to value in the last couple of years is the altruism and keen economic insights of the fourth-richest man in America: Charles Koch.
Even though Koch was raised rich and has now amassed a personal fortune of about $34 billion, he recently gave us a deeper sense of his true worth, measured not in dollars, but in values.
“We want to do a better job of raising up the disadvantaged and the poorest in this country,” he declared. Excellent thought — FDR couldn’t have put it better! Noting that a big problem for the poor is that the Powers That Be “keep throwing obstacles in their way,” Koch cut to the chase, saying, “We’ve got to clear those out.”
Yes, Charlie, I’m with you! Clear out such barriers as the offshoring of middle-class jobs, union busting, poorly funded schools and the lack of affordable health care, housing and child care.
But, alas, that’s not at all what Koch had in mind as obstacles to be cleared out. Rather, he proposes to “help” poor people by eliminating — ready? — “the minimum wage.” Why? Because, explains this clueless son-of-the-rich, having a wage floor “reduces the mobility of labor.”
In case you don’t dwell in the plutocratic, narcissistic, Ayn Randian fantasyland where the Kochs hang out, “labor mobility” is right-wing psychobabble for social Darwinism. Remove all remnants of America’s economic safety net, they coldly theorize (while wallowing in their nests of luxury), and the poor will be “freed” to become billionaires.
As Charles puts it, if the disadvantaged had no protections in the workplace and no government programs to ameliorate their poverty, they would then have to scramble just to live, thus freeing them from reliance on society’s helping hand. Freeing them to do what? Well, Koch says, they could then “start a business … drive a taxicab … become a hairdresser.”
What a visionary he is! Where you and I might see people trapped in debilitating poverty, Charles sees a Brave New World of billionaire hairdressers!
But he’s not the only 1-percenter having utopian visions for hard-hit Americans. For example, I can’t begin to tell you how grateful America’s homeless people are going to be once they hear about Andy Kessler, who has been thinking long and hard about their plight, selflessly seeking ways to eradicate intractable poverty.
Kessler is a former hedge-fund whiz, which means he was in the business of making … well, money. Beaucoup bundles of it. But having seen his 16-year-old son volunteer at a homeless center, he was motivated to develop a plan to solve homelessness — and here it is: Stop dishing out soup to those people, and shut down all those damn shelters!
The homeless problem, he recently wrote in an op-ed piece for The Wall Street Journal, stems from “all this volunteering and charitable giving” by do-gooders like his son. Homeless folks ought to be working, he lectured, but they’re not, “because someone is feeding, clothing and, in effect, bathing them.”
Golly, Andy, I recall that Jesus said something about our Godly duty to feed and clothe the needy — and even to wash the feet of the poor.
But apparently, Jesus just didn’t grasp the essence of true morality. “Blessed are the rich!” is Kessler’s spiritual mantra. “Where does money come from … to help the unfortunate?” he asked. And yea, I say unto thee, the Holy Hedge-Funder answered his own deep question: It comes from “someone (who) worked productively and created wealth.”
Thus, he sagely concluded, the answer to poverty, to truly helping the poor, is not to pamper the takers, but to provide more tax breaks for the makers of wealth (like him) — the ones who produce “good old-fashioned economic growth.”
Wow, what a role model this guy is for America’s youth — including that misguided boy of his! Wouldn’t you like to buy Andy and Charles for what they’re worth … and sell them for what they think they’re worth? That would fund a whole lot of homeless programs.
By: Jim Hightower, the National Memo, July 24, 2013
“The Stench Of Sulfur”: It’s Time To Call A Satan A Satan
I do not lead a partisan organization, but I do lead a faith-rooted organization that has a long history of speaking out on matters of public concern.
Here is why speaking out rather bluntly at this time seems necessary to me: Unless I have misread or misheard the news lately, the GOP majority in the House of Representatives holds roughly these positions on key issues:
Immigration Reform: No bill, or else a bill with no path to citizenship.
Farm Bill: Subsidies for fat-cat Agribusiness operators but no renewal of food assistance for the urban poor—which has long been the traditional rural-urban tradeoff in enacting compromise farm bills.
Student Debt: Let the financial markets decide, and we are not concerned with the actual devastating burden laid upon the future workforce. (In fairness, here the Wall Street Democrats are also a big problem.)
Universal Health Care: Hell no! Just repeal the damned thing!! If it is implemented it might actually allow poor “takers” to live a little bit longer than is convenient for us “makers,” who no longer require a large low-wage labor force—in the United States, that is.
Women’s Health: Whatever can you mean? You must mean infanticide??
Religious Liberty/First Amendment: We believe that any employer’s “religious convictions” should trump all civil rights and equal right protections under established law. Do we need to remind you that the Constitution was written by Christians and for Christians in particular?
Energy/Climate: I’m not that hot—are you? We in the One Percent will manage to stay cool by any means necessary as the rest of you suffer.
Regulation More Broadly: You can catch up with our death-and-debt-dealing corporate friends AFTER the damage is done, OK? That’s the American Way.
That’s the House Republicans. And on the Senate side:
Presidential Appointments: It is our firm intention to thwart and destroy this president; effectively nullifying his power to make appointments forms a central part of that effort. (Please go ahead and do that Google search on earlier nullification fun times in US history.)
If I am misrepresenting these positions, by all means call me on it. But if I describe them accurately, don’t we have a responsibility to say that these positions have the sulfurous stench of Satan about them?
Not in precisely those words, perhaps. But we have many valid ways—and many long-accepted homiletical, liturgical, and hermeneutical means—to get the primary point across. And to repeat, these are ways and means that do not cross red lines for 501(c)3 charitable or religious organizations.
The IRS language for what “charitable” means is worth reviewing:
The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged…eliminating prejudice and discrimination; [and] defending human and civil rights secured by law.
The radical Republicans in Washington and in many statehouses want to further punish and distress the poor; they want to enshrine prejudice and discrimination; they want to shred human and civil rights that are currently secured by law.
We not only have the freedom to say that; we have a responsibility to say it.
By: Peter Laarman, Religion Dispatches, July 12, 2013
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