Too Long ; Didn’t Read was Too Long; and you Didn’t Read it?: Don’t do anything stupid and #occupyportland could be the start of an American Revolution.

TL;DR: Getting arrested is a tactic and should not be used without a coordinated reason. Getting arrested without a greater purpose makes the movement look worse in the media, as the two arrested people who were tagging a police car did. You could be arrested for anything illegal you are doing, if the police decided to arrest you. If you are breaking the law within the camp, you are not working in the best interests of #occupyportland. We have better things to discuss, like institution building, outreach and organizing.

Official #occupyportland bumper sticker proposal: ‘Put An Angry Bird On It.”

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I heard that the #OccupyPortland protests could use some advice about being arrested, just in case it happens. The only reason I am telling this story is because I want you to learn from my mistakes. As you read through this piece it will become less about me and more about #occupyportland. If you’re bored, skip ahead.

The New York Police Department arrested me on February 15, 2003 in New York City during the worldwide protest against the War in Iraq. Estimates reached 36 million worldwide participants in this day of outrage. Looking back, we were right. It is eight years later, we invaded Iraq (shocker!) and in retrospect the anti-war demonstrators were right, it was a bad decision on our government’s part. I got arrested on purpose. I stepped into the street because I knew I was right, even then. My arrest was a simultaneous sit-in with two close friends (my affinity group), we went to jail together and got out separately.

The experience of getting arrested went like this: My friends and I were on a block where (apparently) a riot had broken out, after the march. I only say this because very rapidly, riot police were present. You under-estimate the capacity of the Police to deploy vast resources to tamp out protest. They appeared in an instant, blocked off the sidewalk at both ends and then told us to disperse.

If police tell you to disperse, they mean “…or we are going to arrest you.” The threat is implied in the fact that an officer is giving you an order. Demonstration over. Speech: free… enough. The law allows you to leave, unless the police make this impossible through erecting barriers around the area they’re telling you to exit. Police have employed this tactic many times, forcing marches and demonstrations to end by driving them into large cages. The recent mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge fit this description.

The police were about to perform a mass-arrest. Saying “disperse” is just a polite way for them to cover their own asses. You’re practically already under arrest if you see riot cops and hear “disperse.”

Getting arrested is not as bad as you have heard. But you will hate it if it happens to you, and you don’t want it to happen to you if it’s possible to avoid it. On the positive side I will say this: when I was in jail, I was a raucous boy. They separated a male friend and I from our female friend. He and I did chants, I did tai chi in my cell, I climbed the bars and hollered like a monkey. I sang “This Little Light Of Mine” probably a million times, until I totally lost my voice and made the guards laugh when I spoke because I sounded like a teenager. I ate a shitty cheese sandwich because the vegetarian option was a baloney and cheese sandwich with the baloney removed. A guy in one holding cell let me have the end of his cigarette. I was transferred between ten cells, buses, holdings cells and rooms and waited for a long, long time, often standing. A young kid, maybe 14, in another holding cell was probably about to receive a felony, and he was crying. It took forever to eventually see a judge, receive my sentence for disorderly conduct, and walk out the front door of the courthouse. At one point, I needed to get my lawyer’s phone number off my arm, and I stepped over my hands while wearing riot cuffs (they were loose, but I made it look to the police like I was a super-hero or something). End of the delusional fairy-tale story where jail is fun and awesome.

All that happened because I’m a crazy person, but jail is hell. I don’t want to talk about being in jail anymore. Nobody should ever aspire toward going to jail. When I saw the sky for the first time after the scant 26 hours I spent in lock-up, I cried because I realized what being “free” means. I ate at Subway in Chinatown right after my release and it was the best fucking sandwich I’d eaten in my life. Judge me all you want for it.

If the walls the Portland Marathon is building for us are not actually the walls of a cage, and the Police and Mayor of Portland really will stand with the 99%, then we can actually do something significant for ourselves, our city, state and country. The point to a nationwide #occupytogether movement is there are not enough police resources in America to arrest the 99%. The 99% truly does (based solely on income) include most police, and maybe even Portland’s Mayor. Not Bloomberg, obviously. But Adams, maybe. Someone should look up Sam Adams’ tax returns. Bloomberg is the 1% for certain. Adams so far is doing what the 99% in #occupyportland need done for this occupation to be successful. He has allied himself in so many ways with our movement.

We are right, #occupyportland, about economic injustice and corruption. #occupywallstreet is the kind of movement that needs to remain on the ground in occupation until we make a permanent change in the way our government operates. Sustaining this movement is important enough that avoiding arrests and maintaining a good public image are critical to our success. #occupyportland have successfully occupied a public park for two days, City Hall and the Police Department are behind us totally, or claiming to be, and the Portland Marathon is going to build us walls.

The police could arrest you while you are reading this. Make no mistake, the Police have the power to detain and arrest you if you are participating in #occupyportland’s encampment. The Mayor miraculously granted you immunity from a long-standing camping ban, but that doesn’t mean he can’t miraculously un-grant you that power. Especially if you are stupid enough to be smoking pot or drinking alcohol in public. There is nothing revolutionary about getting fucked up in public, especially in Portland, where it happens all the time. Many of the people expressing anti-police sentiment are doing so out of paranoia, and the problem could resolve itself if we proposed reasserting the value of security through legality, which was stated in other words as a value in the days before the protests at other general assembly meetings and which we should clearly communicate to people as they join our movement. Within the camp, security is more important than inebriation. Preventing police involvement and UNPLANNED ARRESTS is critical. People are bringing their children and their parents and their favorite cops to the #occupyportland camp. If this movement remains peaceful and law-abiding it seems increasingly unlikely that mass arrests will occur.

Assuming the police and the marathon are telling the truth.

We are nowhere near a “direct action” stage in the process. Arrests are not yet planned.

I was an Anarchist when I decided to step into the street. The Iraq war still happened. I didn’t think ahead, I made a brash decision to step into the street, and I don’t regret it. But it was stupid. I do think ahead now. I’m a reformer, of one stripe or another depending upon my day. What is important is that we talk about policy, not politics and not polarized thinking. Not “us versus them” but “all of us, for all of us, by all of us.” The 1% should simply be ignored while we reorder society and government for the 99% around them, without their say.

In a protest, getting arrested can be a tactic. It should be reserved for something meaningful.

So don’t do anything stupid, okay?

There is a tiny nation of Government by the People growing in many cities. It may one day turn into a People’s Movement, united as US Citizens (can we please stop saying “Americans” like we own the whole hemisphere?) as a fourth branch of the United States Government. That’s incredibly wishful thinking. We are nowhere near that stage in the process. Consider it something to look forward to.

Right now, the movement on the ground in all these cities is nascent. It is new. It is raw. Energies are high. Portland heard a shout-out from a friend in New York, via cell-phone bull-horn daisy-chain. It was simultaneously inspiring to hear our sister-city protesting on Wall Street, and infuriating to sit through another city’s on-the-ground report during a meeting about #occupyportland’s general assembly consensuses. Anarchists and Socialists and Democrats and Republicans are all getting in HEATED DISCUSSIONS ABOUT A NEW PROCESS. What does this prove? That the anarchists are turning into reformers. The socialists are learning how to hate the system, and teaching the anarchists to make clear demands of a process they don’t entirely trust. The Republicans and Democrats are both shocked (shocked!) that they agree on being the 99%. We all want to work with each other to build.

The anarchists in the group should decide if they are against the current government, or if they are against all organization. Institutions can only be built upon trust, understanding, and respect for the space and needs of all other people. That is why general assembly is frustrating but necessary. It prevents the collective from making a brash decision, even at the expense of forcing a slow grind that frustrates the revolutionary in each of us. If anarchists can become reformers, they allow the general assembly to reach consensus, and learn to trust the process and the rest of the crowd. We are in the struggle for economic and social justice for the 99%, and against government corruption by the 1%, together. If any anarchist is not willing to become a part of an organization of the type that #occupyportland is establishing, or that #occupywallstreet has established and maintained for a damn month, then that anarchist should stop using the resources and time of #occupywallstreet and #occupyportland general assembly. Something tells me that the anarchists might believe in economic and social justice, and in these movements see the capacity to get them done, to perhaps change the government. For an anarchist, getting some kind of control over the corrupt, unjust government would probably feel good.

In closing, here are a few ideas I think people should bring up during General Assembly (I can’t attend Saturday. I will keep coming back, cheering and occupying, and eventually speaking up if I am worried the movement has lost its way) :

Proposal #1) That in order to aid the general assembly voting process, #occupyportland begins an official registration and head-count. We need our own number of how many people are in attendance / with us, not a media estimate, and we need to know who we are working with in general assembly. Everyone should get a number, so we can keep track of everyone involved. After a day of registration, we require registration in order to vote. People should be able to register at the information booth during the booth’s open hours. If instead of saying “MIC CHECK” you just announce your number and name, and it is repeated, the crowd could instantly identify you if they had access to an electronic copy of the official document. This would facilitate trust and networking. Google Docs? OccupyPortland.Org?

2) The members of the crowd who are in opposite political parties should buddy up. Out yourself as who you usually vote for, or who you are pulling for right now if you’re a registered independent, or out yourself as a non-voter. Buddy up and work on some demands that the two of you can propose to BOTH local and national political parties (Republicans and Democrats) AT ONCE. Make a pledge that you expect your elected representative (no matter the party) to do _fill-in-the-blank_. It will bring you together, and it will start the ball rolling on creating a better government, by getting people together to think critically about elected representation.

3) Official bumper sticker for #occupyportland: “Put An Angry Bird On It.”

That’s enough for now. Go revolutionize.

I’ll admit that I clicked on Mitt Romney’s “Promoted” twitter account. As I said in my last post, if you pay enough money you can get your name out there. So much so that a guy like me might even dedicate some of his time to talking about you, in a blog that he runs for fun when he’s not at work.

His twitter feed is of course full of the usual platitudes, thanking think tanks and spreading videos where business-owners sound suspiciously like Fox News Anchors and conservative radio hosts.

From MittRomney.com:

The foundations of our nation’s strength are a love of liberty and a pioneering spirit of innovation and creativity. These values—inherited from our Founders and embodied by all who came to our shores seeking opportunity—have made the United States the most powerful nation in the history of the world. But today, under President Obama’s leadership, Washington is smothering these values at home and sapping our influence abroad. The federal government has grown too large. And President Obama has presided over one of the worst economies in modern history—millions of jobs have been lost, record numbers of Americans are in danger of losing their homes, and personal bankruptcies have skyrocketed. He has failed the American people.

I was under the impression that the foundation of America’s strength was her HUGE MUSCLES, BRO. From the very first sentence I’m compelled to punch a woman in the face. Aren’t you?

But seriously, in translation: “shout-out to the Tea Party: I dig your tri-corner hat, and I don’t think corporations should pay taxes. Also shout out to Hispanics, who I will need in order to win. President Obama is a murderer and a traitor, and he’s the President right now and DOESN’T EVERYTHING SUCK RIGHT NOW? It’s his fault.”

Do you trust Mitt Romney? I sure do. (Government employment is down under President Obama, as states and now the mighty Federal government all slash budgets)

I decided to read Mitt Romney’s economic plan, “Believe in America,” on a lark, because he’s probably going to be the GOP nominee or at least right now I could handle it. I can’t handle the idea of Bachmann or Perry on television so much as a Presidential candidate is, but sometimes Republicans like to put people front and center just because they’re annoying and offensive (Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Ayn Rand). I’m watching the race closely, as you should be if you’re American and you want any respect from me.

From the foreward (by R. Glenn Hubbard, whom I’ll get to in a minute…)

In the first conversation I had with Governor Mitt Romney in the post-crisis period, he asked me why policymakers were not more focused on the seeds of the crisis and on the need to build a foundation for long-term growth.

…

Entrepreneurs and business, and the innovation they produce, have transformed society through economic growth. At the end of the twentieth century, management thinker Peter Drucker looked back and wrote that underneath all the epochal events of that century were important social transformations linked to business. Business not only spurred transformations through innovation, it also created the material basis for social change. It created wealth that allowed society to adjust to the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, as it had during the profound changes of the 1760s and the 1860s.

Before I embarrass R. Glenn Hubbard ad hominem: I had to read this second paragraph twice to understand it. The first time through, it sounds like he’s saying America was built by economic growth, which is a forehead-slapper of an obvious statement, since economic growth includes (drumroll) CONSTRUCTION. The second time, though, I realized why I was so bothered: Hubbard is crediting business with the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement. Not the people involved, the Revolutionaries, business.

Have you ever seen the movie “Inside Job”? It’s not about 9/11, so don’t discount it. I think the title evokes too much controversial imagery, but it’s worth seeing in spite of the immediate reaction you have upon hearing about another conspiracy movie. It’s about the financial collapse of 2008, which the Department of Justice also believes was an inside job. In the movie, filmmaker Charles Ferguson interviews people in the financial world, and in the world of economics, including R. Glenn Hubbard. From Wikipedia: “In the interview, Ferguson asks Hubbard to enumerate the firms from whom he receives outside income as an advisory board member in the context of possible conflict of interest. Hubbard, hitherto cooperative, declines to answer and threatens to end the interview.” (emphasis mine)

Mitt Romney chose to have the foreword to his economic plan written by a Columbia Professor of Finance and Economics who refuses to answer questions about his financial backers, who may very well be one of the perpetrators of the mortgage-backed securities fraud on the American taxpayer. You should watch the movie just for this scene, as it’s priceless.

In the introduction to “Believe In America,” Romney makes clear what his views are. Obama’s stimulus failed to keep the unemployment rate below 10%. Obama’s policies are a “drag” on growth. Obama has “thrown wrenches” into the economy (see, told you he was a traitor!). And in Romney’s own words one of those wrenches is “the vast expansion of costly and cumbersome regulation of sectors of the economy, ranging from energy to finance to health care.”

I wonder how Mitt romney could afford to be the first person ever promoted on twitter?Opensecrets knows:

“From this table, you can get a flavor of which are the top industries giving to this politician.”
1 Securities & Investment $2,339,588
2 Retired $1,719,752
3 Real Estate $1,023,575
4 Lawyers/Law Firms $868,740
5 Misc Finance $644,700
6 Business Services $613,450
7 Misc Business $331,800
8 Health Professionals $292,050
9 Commercial Banks $264,000
10 Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $223,101
11 Oil & Gas $185,000
12 General Contractors $183,300
13 Insurance $182,133
14 Accountants $177,401

Hey Mitt: the financial crisis your boy Hubbard’s friends caused is pretty fresh in my memory. So is the fight over health care reform, and the Question Time eight-hour TV event where your party embarrassed itself running away from its own reform ideas. I can still remember the sight of thousands and thousands of gallons of crude oil pumping into the Gulf of Mexico.

Anyone who says this country is over-regulated need look no further than the swindles perpetrated daily on the unsuspecting public. The American people are being robbed by ATM swipe fees and outrageous interest rates and ballooning mortgage payments, they’re being charged an arm and a leg, through the nose, for the privilege of health, and they’re being poisoned slowly by an energy industry with no line-item expense to account for human destruction.

If the government had paid the salaries of a few hundred well-placed regulators, every year, for the last century, it would have cost nowhere near the total of the TARP bailout the last Republican President signed. I won’t even bother explaining the personal mandate because Mitt Romney signed a personal mandate in his own state, and the Affordable Care Act is projected to lower costs and increase care, once fully implemented. And it’s a fiscally conservative position to insist that the nation not be running on a finite, poisonous fuel that depletes the most precious resource we have: the livability of Planet Earth.

The rest of the plan is just garbage, though I haven’t finished reading it, but here’s one more choice selection from early in my journey through the mind of Mitt:

In 2007, with the housing bubble deflating, the United States entered what has turned out to be one of the deepest and most enduring economic contractions in its history. As we approach the fourth year of Barack Obama’s presidency, the disastrous effects are with us still.

Notice anything missing in that sentence? Since Mitt’s so busy blaming the current President for the current state of the economy… does that mean he blames the last President for the recession that started in 2007? Blasphemy!

More later.

Everyone hates us. When America goes to the playground it kicks all the other kids’ balls. Right out of their hands.

It’s true. Europe especially can’t stand us, when we’re not around, Spain looks at Finland and is like “we may be different. but we are not Americans,” then rides off on a bull. The British call us “those awful Americans.” I feel like we prevent the whole world from having civil wars, just by creating such a bad example.

Hey Sudan? Americans are over here debating the right to build a mosque. Does that do anything for you? No? You’re still gonna cut off your sister’s clit? Sudan, look, Americans -just- got a national health plan. Last January. Seriously, Sudan, stop it. America can at least be racist as hell without killing or torturing people. Yeah they stopped doing that about 40 years ago. Now they just go on television and insinuate that times were better back when slavery existed, because everyone paid a far lower tax rate. Crazy right? Put down that razorblade, Sudan, and pick up this television.

America has never stopped killing people out of racism, it just doesn’t take place on our own soil anymore. Hey there, impoverished slave farmer: the man who owns you is a dick, so we’re going to blow up your sister’s wedding.

When America goes to the United Nations, it can veto anything that happens. And it uses its veto WAY MORE than any other country. Imagine if this were going on in here, and then the doors bust open and someone yells “STOP IT!” That’s America at the United Nations. And that’s the sad thing is we invented the United Nations. After we almost ripped the globe in half with nuclear weapons, I think we owed it to everyone to create a United Nations. The function of the United Nations is to stop wars. That’s why it exists. Nobody ever says it out loud. The UN should put that in their name. I’m going down to New York to attend the United Nations Whose Job It Is To Stop Wars. It just sounds better. “United Nations” sounds like a group therapy session for alcoholic American States. Hi my name is Oregon, and I have a problem. I can’t stop sampling my regions.

Before it was called the UN, there was a League of Nations. Which is way way way way cool. That’s Max Headroom cool. That’s dogs going to college. That’s how cool that is. League of Nations is Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. League of nations is such a cool name, Paris Hilton changed her name to League of Hobags. League of Nations is a cool G.D. name. I would never say God in the same sentence as the LON’s proper name. I do this out of respect for the League of Nations, not God. Damnit.

League of Nations sounds like a superheroes guild. Nobody ever calls a group a League anymore. Where is my League of Black Friends at? That’s some futuristic black slang.

League of Nations forgive me for I have sinned. I have taken Germany in vein. I cooked some black-tar Germany and shot it.

But anyways, the United Nations is supposed to be stopping wars, so I’ll from now on be referring to it as the United Nations Whose Job it Is To Stop War, the UNWJIITSW. And then we can all say UNwjiitsw. It will become an international word for peace. Imagine, if you were having an international peace conference and one country busted down the doors and yelled “STOP IT!” Unjii… STOP IT!

I like the idea, however, of America busting down a door. Maine is like the head of a dog and it would look particularly vicious if its Florida was all stomping on the floor at the UN like “I AM THE AMERICA. STOP PEACE.”

Australia is like “What the hell is wrong with that Guy? Okay everybody, pack it up, we’ll be here next year and try again.” Australia is shaped like Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Now that’s a really stupid name.

And of course what would the largest arms manufacturer in the world have to do with a peace conference? We have so many weapons, we get to go to the United Nations and tell other countries they’re not allowed to invent weapons. It’s like going to a knife fight with a gun. All the greasers are like “hey man, geeze, why not put that down?” “I was just gonna cut you, man, come on, be cool.”

America telling you not to produce weapons is like somebody telling you that you have a booger on your nose, while that person is literally dripping with boogers.

I understand that all the poor farmers in our country are afraid that they’re gonna be the first to go, and that seems likely considering the respect that heads of state have for each other. There’s something about being one of the people paid to act like they’re in charge of everything, you gain an unusual respect for the palatial homes of even your most bitter rivals. I mean, who doesn’t want a nice golden mosque? Who cares who it belongs to, we’re trying to kill poor farmers and crap houses, we wanna keep those golden mosques for when we build condos over there next decade.

It always seems like the nations are a few steps ahead.

A group of conservatives got together and tried to save conservatism in America. The Mount Vernon Statement is proof, conservatives still don’t get it. First and foremost, guys, “The Declaration of Independence” might be a “founding document,” but we don’t govern based off of it. We govern based off of the Constitution. The Constitution restricts the government from establishing a religion and never mentions God. So half of your proposals are out on their face.

Signatories and why history has discredited them.

Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan

If you need me to explain why Reagan failed, you shouldn’t be reading this blog. Start here and work forward.

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America

“We are the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization with a rich 30-year history of helping our members across the country bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy.”

Edwin Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation

The Heritage Foundation is Powell Memo progeny: “The Heritage Foundation is the nation’s most broadly supported public policy research institute, with more than 580,000 individual, foundation and corporate donors. Heritage, founded in February 1973, has a staff of 244 and an expense budget of $61 million.”

Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council

“Family Research Council (FRC) was founded in 1983 as an organization dedicated to the promotion of marriage and family and the sanctity of human life in national policy.”

Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy

“The Council for National Policy is a secretive forum that was formed in 1981 by Tim LaHaye as a networking tool for leading US conservative political leaders, financiers and religious right activist leaders.“

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center

“Leaders of America’s conservative movement have long believed that within the national news media a strident liberal bias existed that influenced the public’s understanding of critical issues.” – Because reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator

Because there’s no conflict of interest here, selling people the story you’re involved in.

David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union

“We believe that capitalism is the only economic system of our time that is compatible with political liberty.” – this, from the oldest conservative lobbying group in America.

David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society

“Law schools and the legal profession are currently strongly dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology” – “…it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.” – So they believe the Judiciary is the Legislature, then.

T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy adviser to President Reagan

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform

“ATR was founded in 1985 by Grover Norquist at the request of President Reagan.” More Powell Memo money-shuffling. Paid to get paid by ripping everyone off. Advocates of a national flat tax, which is also called “regressive” when economists talk about it. Poor people paying an equal percentage as the rich? Absurd. Every penny means more to the poor. Norquist was implicated in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government

“The time is ripe for an independent, nonpartisan political movement that fights for hardworking taxpayers against the special interests that continually push for big government nationwide.” Oh, so an independent group that advocates exactly what Republicans always say? This appears to be a project of the Cato Institute, also Powell progeny, and is spawning further sub-projects and groups to obscure its activities. They’re planning a “NetRight Nation,” attempting to co-opt the highly-successful Netroots Nation for progressive bloggers.

Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness

“The armed forces should not be used for political purposes or social experiments that needlessly elevate risks, detract from readiness, or degrade American cultural values.” AKA No gays in the military. They work full time on this issue.

Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com (websites have chairmen?)

“That’s why ConservativeHQ.com focuses on the real threat to conservative victory: Big-Government Republicans.” So anyone who votes yes on anything while a black man is President: get out of the party.

Kenneth Blackwell, Coalition for a Conservative Majority

“…co-founded in November 2007 by indicted former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and former Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell to ‘help conservatives better convey their message to voters and take back control of Congress.’” – This is the Tom Delay of… the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal! DING DING DING! And Blackwell: “Blackwell gained national prominence for his dual roles as Chief Elections Official of Ohio and honorary co-chair of the “Committee to re-elect George W. Bush” during the 2004 election.”

Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

“Social Security Reform — to achieve financial independence, not dependence” – they want to gut Social Security. They work full-time on this.

Kathryn J. Lopez, National Review

Another website selling access to the story of its’ own Kathryn Lopez signing the Mount Vernon Statement.

So chew on those for a while. This is the platform that they’re secretly pushing, behind all the flowery language of their “statement.” They’re just saying what they’ve always said: they don’t support a woman’s privacy rights, they don’t think gays are people, and they’re pretty much not into government, but want to control government. Government is not fine, but we are fine governors. More Patriotic Christianity.

US citizens should be free of government encroachment and protected from other citizens and nations. This is a classical philosophical idea called “liberal democracy.” It was highly influential in our founding documents. The opposite of a liberal society is a totalitarian one. One often-cited form of totalitarianism is fascism, the unification of the state with big business. Corporatism is one form of an opposite to liberalism. The corporatists have Trojan horsed the word “liberal” to mean “anti-capitalist,” when the word itself actually means “anti-totalitarian.” It is a dangerous situation for our democracy to sit, when many “good Americans” have been convinced that “liberal” means “communist.”

When he was President, Ronald Reagan made countless attacks on “that old liberalism.” He wasn’t referring to liberal democracy, however, but rather to the “old liberalism” inherited from the days of President Eisenhower, a Republican who used taxpayer dollars to build the interstate highway system. Eisenhower and his ilk were too progressive. The “liberal” Republicans were cast out of the party. The policies that Reagan enacted, from removing the solar panels President Jimmy Carter had on the White House roof, to slashing of corporate tax rates, seem to be exactly what the corporations most vital to the funding of US elections would want. He was attacking the idea that government should protect its people, in the name of “laissez-faire” capitalism, “let the buyer beware.”

In 1971, Lewis F. Powell (a wealthy corporate lawyer) sent the “Powell memo” to the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This memo is often cited as the inspiration for the creation of various right-wing think tanks and media outlets. Before 1971, there was no Heritage Foundation, no Cato Institute, no Manhattan Institute. The memo placed particular emphasis on creating lasting institutions that would sway long-term public opinion and elect business-friendly leaders. In 1980, Reagan became President.

Reagan derided government, apparently not realizing he was the most important government official on the planet. Reagan said government should “get out of the way.” Powell wrote in 1971 “the American economic system is under broad attack.” He blames leftists like the New Left and communists, unsurpisingly, but then goes on to detail how “from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians” the attacks are increasing. An alarming statistic for Powell: “A recent poll of students on 12 representative campuses reported that: ‘Almost half the students favored socialization of basic U.S. industries.’ “

A story getting a lot of traction among US progressives today is about the Bank of North Dakota. The only state in the union with a state bank, N.D. has the lowest unemployment rate of any state in the nation at 4.4%, which is above “full employment” in econo-speak. This bank was founded by a socialist organizer and has existed since WWI, and is in part responsible for keeping the money of North Dakotans safe from Wall Street excess.

So the question to Mr. Reagan is: if the government is protecting its people, should it get out of the way and let them defend themselves? Should North Dakota privatize its socialist bank, possibly its only line of defense in the 2008 financial-derivatives, CDS-subprime mortgage bust? Should troops pull out of Afghanistan and instead We the People can simply take up arms against al Qaeda?

Since the era of Reagan, we have heard an attack on “liberalism.” It is not progressivism that is the problem, to these conservatives. The problem is anything that businesses don’t want, the majority of the populace and their desires be damned. This is fascism, and the GOP has fully embraced the idea. The Democrats pay it lip service and often bend to its will.

A Mar 5, 2006 Citigroup memo entitled “Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Get Richer” explains minutely that the problem is one of democracy. Under the section called “Risks” (that their plan for government by the rich, for the rich will fail), the author asserts “Whilst the rich are getting a greater share of the wealth, and the poor a lesser share, political enfranchisement remains as was – one person, one vote.” There are fewer businesses and fewer winners than there are poor people, the losers, and as long as poor people are allowed to vote they will skim wealth from the ultrarich. It isn’t socialism, it’s democracy. It scares the totalitarians, the corporatists, to death.

The way forward, for Liberal Progressives, is to insist on a secure society. Social Security isn’t just about retirement: it’s about clean air and water, renewable energy, mass transit, police, fire and doctors guaranteed to every citizen, leaders who respect international law (and reduce our number of enemies as a result), and lifelong economic security, not just after 65 or when you’re disabled. While we all seem to agree that people with special needs deserve the assistance of the government, we’ve been arguing for decades at the prospect of helping a person who doesn’t have any particularly special needs, an average person. It’s time to realize the benefit to the society as a whole when we provide a safety net for everyone. In boom times the safety net is funded, and on rainy days the safety net is there for anyone who needs it. It’s not socialism, it’s liberal democracy. The only people opposed to “Liberalism” are the “Totalitarians,” left or right.