Gluing the Pieces A memo to the millionaires BY DAN CAROL In a remarkable display of moral courage and unbridled optimism, gaggles of progressive millionaires are meeting this month in various venues across America. Their goal: to fix the Democratic Party. What follows is a fawning note filled with brilliant advice that you can send along with your applications for funding your favorite group or cause. Dear (insert millionaire or billionaire's nickname here): Honestly, I don't know why it is that you want to spend so much of your dough to save us Democrats and Progressives — but thanks. Really. Your heart is in the right place. Now to the tricky part: making sure your money also makes it to the right place. Here is some unsolicited advice on that. Diversify your play: States make a president. We live in a confusing time where the old era of political party identification is giving way to a disaggregated thunderdome of cause-based politics, distributed democracy, MoveOns, house parties and DIY (Do It Yourself politics). We all know we are less than the sum of our parts — so what big pieces do we need to glue together first? It's pretty simple really — think states. Until the rules change in the electoral college, the fact is, ya gotta win states to win the presidency, let alone all the key governorships up next year. They are the prize; they are the coin of the realm. In 2006 and beyond, we will win elections when and where we can create effective, multi-group state issue networks that bring Progressives and Democrats to the polls. Issue-wise, it might be health care, it might be education, it might be some other local concern, driven by a national player like SEIU, the PIRGs, Sierra, you name it. The organizing center of that network might be the state Democratic party, or a new party like Working Families Party in New York, or a home-grown organizing effort like The Oregon Bus Project. So _______, are you investing in smart recipes and experiments to create state voter participation networks? Or not? If not, I respectively suggest you re-think the scale of that investment and diversify your bet. What about the perfect message? Uh ... guess what? There isn't one bumper sticker or billboard that will motivate all of our 60 million troops, all at once. Trust us, this has been tried. But, we've got lots of inspiring core beliefs to share, from faith and tolerance in our hearts, to starting gate equality and a dignified retirement, to clean energy Apollo jobs that stay at home, to girls' education and citizen diplomacy abroad. Whatever we call the New American Dream, we just need to speak from the gut and articulate hope and a can-do spirit — and echo it all via the new, collaborative platform for media, entertainment and activism now taking shape. We also need to micro-target, organize and motivate different audiences, in different places, at different paces. This iterative approach can work, especially if we mimic the right on one score: patience. Newt Gingrich, Eddie Mahe, Paul Weyrich and other top conservatives didn't look for one single slogan to win power in an instant or an election cycle but for solid message, organizing and execution over many years. The best campaigns bubbled up from states and ballot initiatives, like California's Prop 13 which spawned the anti-tax movement, not down. So let's copy that. Hedge your bet: Feed the fertilizer fund. Listen _______, many well-meaning progressive donors have talked about "building for the long-term" — before blowing it all on short-sighted schemes. But collaboration talk is cheap; it's time to lay it on the line, doncha think? Does anyone really think they have "the one answer" on message or organizing in an era when Jesse Jackson is hanging out with the Schiavo parents? So why not hedge your bets a bit by investing a percentage of your passion play in a "fertilizer fund" dedicated to proven, boring, infrastructure-building efforts we know we'll need? Hey _______, I'm willing to make the pledge if you are! So before we create another new group, or a new cable channel, or launch another new full-page ad campaign in The New York Times, let's leave behind a little money to seed success for the long haul. Rich dudes, big groups, everyone should pay in — I'm suggesting 3, 5 or maybe 10 percent of the new money raised moving forward. We know what we need (list matching, voter files, election protection, echo chamber infrastructure), and what works (living wage, boots on the ground, a growing farm team of state and local candidates through great groups like Wellstone Action). Let's get it done. Dan Carol is a Democratic political strategist and a founding partner of CTSG (www.ctsg.com),a progressive consulting firm based in Eugene, and Washington, D.C. Got a good idea to send along to the millionaires? Post it at www.kumbayadammit.com/blog.cfm       Taxed to Death For the few and the Pentagon BY BRIAN BOGART "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it." Thomas Paine penned this in 1776 with gunfire sounding from every direction. Writing to soldier and civilian alike, he admonished Americans to participate in the new republic, warning that control in the hands of the few will ultimately destroy all freedoms. Americans have long benefited from such visionary thinking. In a time of great crisis, our Founding Fathers focused on the big picture and passed along stern warnings to be diligent in keeping watch over those who represent us. These days, our focus is limited to chronic myopia. We have relegated our responsibility to monitor leadership to a news media that has impenetrable strategic partnerships with our leaders. Nearly 400 million Americans receive news from a mere six organizations. Case in point: While attention was on Terri Schiavo's condition, the Pentagon dropped a bombshell of a National Defense Strategy and a handful of newspapers reported it. Paine also wrote, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." Clearly, these are words by an individual and to individuals willing to accept responsibility so that tomorrow might be better. Where is our sense of responsibility today? The permanent war economy we have is worlds away from what our founders fought to create. Those who sacrificed themselves so long ago would have been mortified that their beloved America would one day become an international tyrant seeking dominion by force over weaker countries. Just after World War II, a decision came, devoid of the knowledge or consent of the American people, to adopt a military-based economy. That decision effectively transformed our country from one guided by people of conscience to one guided by greed. Power wielders, sitting in circles of secretive subterfuge, justified their decision by the Cold War. Yet the vast majority of Americans still have no clue that this deadbeat decision — an irresponsible act of a powerful few — handed us a permanent war economy that enthroned military corporations as the primary recipients of our taxes. What the public receives from this Pentagon system are leftovers, trickle-down dollars for our needs. In a people-based system using such vast sums, public transportation would be free, health care would be free, schools would be fully functional and free through college, jobs would be abundant, retirement would be a reward, and oil, a military necessity, would not be an obsession. With the end of the Cold War, the threat that justified a permanent war economy vanished; other excuses for supporting a military-based economy had to be found. So, in 1992, members of a new circle of secret subterfuge, right-wing extremists, began drafting the National Security Strategy of 2002 and the just-released National Defense Strategy (NDS). Both documents cite the events of 9/11 as the strategic motivation for maintaining a permanent war economy. The NDS pointedly threatens those who use "judicial processes" and emphasizes a determination to "protect freedom" by "demonstrating our resolve" through military force. Thus, countries that suffer the impact of our corporate excesses cannot appeal to the brand of fairness conceived by our founders and are subject to a demonstration of a gravely different brand of resolve.   For the few, it is exceedingly profitable to deploy a robot army around the world, a stated Pentagon objective. But where does the graceful vision of our Founding Fathers fit into this equation? After all, it was our current president who said, "I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the Ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, 'We do it this way; so should you.' We trust freedom." The idea of America as a country operated by its citizens is an inviting and uniting concept. If we are hated today, it is not for the freedoms that were bought with the blood and sweat of our forebears, but for the impact of our excesses from a lack of popular control. Americans, as well as people around the world, would benefit tremendously by knowing the vigor, both philosophical and personal, that led to the rise of participatory government. Trusting and participating in the legacy of the wisdom of our Founders would be far more intelligent and more profitable — in human and financial terms — than continuing as fodder for a perpetually expanding military regime. If we the people fail to do so, we may as well rewrite the Declaration of Independence to read, "a government of, by, and for the few and the Pentagon." As Americans, we need to rediscover our roots, rededicate ourselves and free ourselves from this deadly system, because a country that spends for permanent war condemns itself to permanent war. That kind of strategy taxes much more than our finances: It taxes us out of existence. Brian Bogart is the first graduate student in Peace Studies at the UO. He will present a talk on the Pentagon's National Defense Strategy at 4 pm Friday, April 15 in 127 Chiles Hall (across from UO Bookstore).
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