Financiers that break from the corruption of gluttonous greed can become the conscience of a sector that seems to have no conscience. Let’s hope their courage is contagious and others follow their lead.  We need a revolt from inside big finance that will help radically transform finance from greed to generosity, from gluttony to moderation and from selfishness to community benevolence.

A thorough examination of the corruption of big finance came in a recent shareholder letter from Robert Wilmers, the Chairman and CEO of M&T Bank. He laments that “it is difficult, for one who has spent more than a generation in the field, to recall a time when banking as a profession has been publicly held in such persistently low esteem” noting that polls show “only a quarter of the American public expressed confidence in the integrity of bankers.”  He recognizes that this is something big finance has brought on itself: “Since 2002, the six largest banks have been hit by at least 207 separate fines, sanctions or legal awards totaling $47.8 billion. None of these banks had fewer than 22 infractions; in fact, one had 39 across seven countries, on three different continents.

And, he highlights the salary disparity between bankers and other Americans reminding us that this is a recent development.  Just a few generations ago “the average compensation in the financial services industry was exactly the same as the average income of a non-farm U.S. worker.”  But today:

At a time when the American economy is stuck in the doldrums and so many are unemployed or under-employed, the average compensation for the chief executives of four of the six largest banks in 2010 was $17.3 million – more than 262 times that of the average American worker . . . it is hardly surprising that the public would judge the banking industry harshly – and view Wall Street’s executives and their intentions with skepticism.

How did the finance industry change into this corrupt mass?  Wilmers points to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, a law “prudently erected in the wake of the Depression, kept investment banks apart from traditional banks.”  When banks were credible members of the community they “saw public service as part of their obligation” and “played a clear, if limited, role in the economy: to gather savings and to finance industry and commerce. Trading and speculation were nowhere included.”

But, in the 1970s and 80s he describes banking moving away from investing in things they knew as they began investing in areas where they “possessed little knowledge.” This created high risks, so much so that a 1993 study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that had “banks truly recognized all the losses inherent in their books in 1984, one major bank would have been insolvent and seven others dangerously close.”

Rather than reducing risk, they sought quick profit by creating “investments they did not understand – and, indeed it seems nobody really understood. In the process, they contorted the overall American economy.”  The repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 married investment banks with traditional banks.  Rather than sound investment Wall Street bet on “increasingly opaque financial instruments, built on algorithms rather than underwriting.” This sowed “the seeds of crisis and embodied a broader change that, in important and unfortunate ways, continues today”

Wilmers describes a bigger, systemic problem, “not only bankers but their regulators, not only investors but those paid to advise them, not only private finance but its government-sponsored kin.” The result – “the decimation of public trust in once-respected institutions and their leaders.”  The economic collapse “was orchestrated by so many who should have, instead, been sounding the alarm.”

Unfortunately, “the Wall Street banks continue to fight against regulation that would limit their capacity to trade for their own accounts – while enjoying the backing of deposit insurance – and thus seek to keep in place a system which puts taxpayers at high risk. In 2011, the six largest banks spent $31.5 million on lobbying activities. All told, the six firms employed 234 registered lobbyists.”

Wilmers urges us “to distinguish between Wall Street banks who, in my view, were central to the financial crisis and continue to distort our economy, and Main Street banks who were often victims of the crisis.”  Many activists do see the difference between Wall Street and community banks and credit unions; and therefore, have engaged in the “move your money” campaign.

A second example of divisions in the banking sector comes from the Federal Reserve Board of Dallas which released a report from its chief researcher, Harvey Rosenblum , “Why We Must End Too Big To Fail Now,” cites statistics showing that the five largest U.S. banks hold 52% of all bank assets.  The report points out that “American workers and taxpayers want a broad-based recovery that restores confidence. . . The road back to prosperity will require reform of the financial sector. In particular, a new roadmap must find ways around the potential hazards posed by the financial institutions that the government not all that long ago deemed ‘too big to fail.’” In an introduction to the report, Dallas Fed President Richard W. Fisher calls for “downsizing” these megabanks because the continuing cloud of ‘too big to fail’ hanging over the economy is simply too costly.

Rosenblum, like Wilmers, sees that Americans have lost faith in capitalism as a result of Wall Street’s greed: “Diverse groups ranging from the Occupy Wall Street movement to the Tea Party argue that government-assisted bailouts of reckless financial institutions are sociologically and politically offensive. From an economic perspective, these bailouts are certainly harmful to the efficient workings of the market.” He blames the big banks for the lackluster “recovery” writing that the too-big-to-fail banks “remain a hindrance to full economic recovery.”

In the report, Rosenblaum states that the financial crisis arose because of “failures of the banking, regulatory and political systems.” But, he warns “focusing on faceless institutions glosses over the fundamental fact that human beings, with all their flaws, frailties and foibles, were behind the tumultuous events that few saw coming and that quickly spiraled out of control.”  As the regulatory and political systems failed, the rule of law was not enforced, when this occurs “incentives often turn perverse, and self-interest can turn malevolent. . . Greed led innovative legal minds to push the boundaries of financial integrity. . .”

Rosenblaum sees the too big to fail financial banks, not community banks, as the “primary reason” for the weak recovery: “Many of the biggest banks have sputtered . . . in contrast, the nation’s smaller banks are in somewhat better shape . . . most didn’t make big bets on mortgage-backed securities, derivatives and other highly risky assets whose value imploded.” He concludes: “an economy relatively free from financial crises—won’t be reached until we have the fortitude to break up the giant banks.”

The most highly publicized division among financiers was in mid-March when Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith publicly resigned, with a pointed letter  in the New York Times.  The letter described a “toxic and destructive environment” in Goldman where the entire staff from senior partners to associates, pursued nothing but ever-more sophisticated means of “ripping their clients off.”  At the center of  Smith’s critique is the massive derivatives market, where he was a central player.

What may have been most interesting about the public resignation letter was so many commentators saying – ho hum, Goldman rips off its clients, big surprise.  Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich broadened the discussion describing the history of Goldman rip-offs going back to the 1920s and broadening the rip-off mentality to all of Wall Street’s big banks, not just Goldman. Reich describes this as a problem of “endemic abuse of power and trust.”  This culture of corruption led to “the junk-bond and insider trading scandals of the 1980s, the dot-com scams of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Wall-Street enablers of Enron and other corporate looters, and the wild excesses that led to the crash of 2008.”

What do these emerging cracks mean to people in the United States who want to see radical transformation of finance, democratization of the economy and a participatory democracy where people have real power?  It means, we are seeing the weakening of the pillars that hold the power structure in place – a critical step to people having the power to demand change.

Steve Chrismer, an engineer working with Occupy, describes this in engineering terms; how with the right frequency we can insert our fist, even our arm between rocks:

Did you know that it is possible to insert yourself between rocks that are vibrating at just the right frequency?  When looking for the optimum vibration frequency I increased the frequency by single digits from 0 Hz.  When resonance occurred the situation changed dramatically and as the rocks became ‘fluid’ I was able to insert my hand and then my whole arm into the rocks.  If you went slow enough the rocks flowed around you, not noticing your presence, and did not resist: go too recklessly fast and the rocks would resist.

This is where Occupy is as a movement: only 6 months old and we are already noticing the weakness of solid walls. To weaken the pillars of power requires that we study these cracks so that we can provide the needed energy to open them non-violently and allow us all to pass through.

Occupy needs to drive wedges through these cracks.  Protests of executive salaries, stopping foreclosures and evictions through Occupy Our Homes, highlighting the failure to loan to small businesses and the hiding of profits offshore to avoid paying taxes, pressuring banks for their investments in private prisons, dirty fuel, for-profit health care and other negative corporate interests need to escalate as we build pressure to break up the Too Big to Fail Banks.  At the same time, we need to build a new finance system which includes developing public banks at the state and city level and building community banks and credit unions by moving our money from the big banks.  Time banks that record volunteer time which is traded for unpaid labor at the community level will avoid the banking system altogether. Expanding the fissures by the combination of protest and building the new economy will result in a finance system that serves the public interest, not private gain.

No doubt many others inside big finance feel the same as those who have spoken out. The courage of the few may embolden more to expose the corrupt practices and unsafe risks that are being taken; and to speak about real solutions to the financial crisis. Up until now, those who see the corruption may have felt alone but now they know they are not, and they can join with others seeking to stop the exploitation of people and the planet.

The more we speak about the fraud and corruption of Wall Street, the more we will empower those in big finance who are questioning the current paradigm. The more we protest at banks and financial institutions, exposing the truth about unethical foreclosures, concentrated wealth and ties to industries that harm people and the planet. the more reasons those inside will have to change their behavior. Using creative conflict and nonviolent tactics, we can draw more people to the movement for social and economic justice and provide a safe place for them to speak the truth of much-needed transformation.

As the Washington Post reports, the mandate was a Republican idea that originated with conservatives: “The tale begins in the late 1980s, when conservative economists such as Mark Pauly, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of business, were searching for ways to counter liberal calls for government-sponsored universal health coverage. Pauly then proposed a mandate requiring everyone to obtain this minimum coverage, thus guarding against free-riders…Health policy analysts at the conservative Heritage Foundation, led by Stuart Butler, picked up the idea and began developing it for lawmakers in Congress. The Heritage Foundation worked with then-Gov. Mitt Romney (R) to pass Massachusetts’ 2006 health reform law, which required all Bay State citizens to purchase coverage.”

Someone from the Heritage Foundation came up to us, wanting to take a photo of our sign. I asked him – does the Heritage Foundation oppose the mandate? He said “yes.” I told him that the idea came out of the Heritage Foundation. He looked confused, mumbled an unclear answer “not since 2006” and walked away.

Of course, Democrats opposed this Republican idea. They saw it for what it is: a massive giveaway to the insurance industry that will lead to their entrenchment and continued domination of heath care. The idea was used by Republicans to oppose the Clinton health plan. Of course, the Clinton’s opposed it. But, by the 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton supported the mandate (by then the insurance industry was a big financial backer of hers), but candidate Barack Obama opposed it. One of his campaign advertisements said: “What’s she not telling you about her health-care plan? It forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can’t afford it, and you pay a penalty if you don’t.”

So, while I was out there watching groups like the National Organization for Women, who supports single payer favoring this pro-insurance law, as part of a coalition of Democratic Party aligned groups, I thought, what if President McCain had passed this law. My conclusion, we’d have the same people out here protesting, they’d just reverse sides. This was really not about healthcare, it was about Obama vs. the Republicans in this 2012 election year.

The people protesting followed their leader’s orders, said the chants they were told to say, and held the signs they were given to hold, but they were confused. When we talked to people on both sides the partisan confusion was evident.

My colleague, Margaret Flowers, asked two women carrying an Americans for Prosperity sign (a group opposed to Obama’s law) whether they were on Medicare. They said “yes.” “Do you like it?” Again, “yes.” “Do you know Medicare is a government program?” A confused look. “Do you know the Republicans want to end Medicare, make it into private insurance?” “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You probably support Obama”; and they started to walk away. “No, we oppose ObamaCare,” the women stopped and listened again, “We think everyone should have Medicare. Don’t you think it would be a good idea if every American could have the Medicare you have and like?” “Hmm, yes” then, more confusion in their faces.

Then, talking to the Democrats showed equal partisan confusion. I explained: “We oppose the Obama mandate because we want to end insurance control of health care. We support single payer, Medicare for all?” Response: “So do I.” I asked: “Single payer ends insurance, and Obama’s law entrenches insurance more deeply in control of health care, aren’t those opposites?” Response, obviously not understanding what ‘opposite’ means: “It’s a step in the right direction.” I ask: “How can it be a step in the right direction when it is going in the opposite direction?” No longer able to say it is the right direction, spouts another talking point: “This is the best we can get, we can build on this.” Me, trying to figure out what the Democrat thinks there is to build on, asks: “But, if we want to end insurance domination, how do we build on a law that is based on insurance?” Unable to explain it, the Democrat answers: “We can’t get what we want.” I say: “Of course, not, if people like you and organizations like yours who support single payer, spend their time advocating for the insurance industry, we can’t get what we want. But, if people who support single payer work for it we could.” Answer: “But, we have to re-elect President Obama.”

Partisan confusion reigned.

And, sadly partisan confusion dominates our airwaves as well. Of course, the right wing radio continues to attack Obama and confusingly calls a market-based, insurance-dominated health law socialism. But, sadly the “liberal” media sends out equal partisan confusion. We were able to go into Radio Row, where all the liberal radio outlets were interviewing “experts” on health care. The talking points, like in the conversation, were repeated and repeated. When one radio host wanted to interview me, really debate me since he was a Democratic apologist, I sat down. An organizer in the room asked the host to speak with her. She came back and told me I had to leave. This was private property and only people allowed to be here were allowed to be here. I explained I was invited by a station to be interviewed. She explained: “I tell them who to interview. The stations have slots and we fill them.” I asked: “Do you mean only people who support Obama can be interviewed.” She explained “The Republicans do it to.”

So, partisan confusion reigns and it permeates the airwaves leaving many people confused. We need to clear the FOG (Forces Of Greed) and get the truth on the air.

Despite all this supermajorities of Americans have consistently supported single payer, whether inaccurately called socialism or correctly described as “Medicare for all” 60% or more support it. Why? For the same reason that the great salesman President Obama and his superb marketing team have been unable to sell forced purchase of health insurance: Every family, business whether large or small; and every doctor or other health care provider have suffered insurance abuse. Two thirds of those who go bankrupt from a health problem have health insurance. The American experience is that health insurance is expensive, provides inadequate coverage and tries to avoid paying for health care. We all know this. So, no matter what the politicians say – Americans do not trust the health insurance industry.

But, one thing the two parties in Washington agree on – they will protect health insurance at all costs. After-all, they are a great source of campaign contributions – as the two politicians responsible for forcing Americans to buy insurance, President Obama and Mitt Romney, well know.

We support health care reform but oppose the insurance mandate.  Merely removing two words from existing law will achieve the President’s stated goals of universal, affordable and guaranteed health care.  By removing the words “over 65” from the Medicare law, every American will have health care based on a proven public health care model that has been in existence since 1965.  This will control costs and immediately provide health care to everyone in the United States.

Forcing Americans to buy insurance is both unconstitutional and bad policy.  Even the most favorable estimates of the Affordable Care Act predict that tens of millions of Americans will not have health insurance when it is fully implemented in 2019. The number of employers offering health benefits will decline under the ACA pushing employees into the individual insurance market where coverage is skimpier and more expensive.  The cost of premiums continues to rise and insurance coverage continues to shrink, putting patients at risk of personal bankruptcy when they suffer a serious accident or illness.

The United States already spends enough to provide health care to all.  As the amicus brief states:

Studies conducted by the nonpartisan General Accounting Office and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office have consistently concluded that if a national single payer system were implemented in the United States, administrative cost-savings alone would be enough to guarantee universal coverage without increasing overall healthcare spending.

In addition, improved Medicare for all will slow the growth in the cost of health care. The cost of health care under Medicare is growing more slowly than private insurance-based health care, despite the fact that it deals with America’s elderly and disabled populations, groups that generally need more health care services.  Unlike private insurance, under Medicare the increased cost is not due to administrative costs and bureaucracy. Medicare’s administrative costs have been consistently about 2% while private insurance is 16% administrative costs.

Instead, the ACA builds and expands the system of private insurance. This system is among the least efficient of any healthcare system currently operating in developed nations.  The brief states:  “In 2009, 28 healthcare expenditures accounted for 17.4 percent of GDP in the United States, compared with only 9.6 percent in the average OECD [The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] nation” and “measured per capita, healthcare expenditures in the United States ‘are by far the highest among OECD countries.’”

Medicare provides health services that people like, as the brief points out:  “In addition to achieving universal coverage for Americans aged 65 and older and maintaining consistently low administrative costs, Medicare is also highly rated by senior citizens who are its primary beneficiaries – 51 percent of whom give their health insurance an ‘excellent” rating.’”

If the US Congress had considered an evidence-based approach to health reform instead of writing a bill that funnels more wealth to insurance companies that deny and restrict care, it would have been a no brainer to adopt improved Medicare for all. All the data points to a single payer system as the only way to accomplish universal health care and control health care costs.

It is also bad precedent to allow the federal government to mandate all Americans buy a corporate product.  This takes corporate welfare to new levels of extreme.  If this is upheld, will a future president facing an economic crisis require Americans to buy cars made in the USA – of course, with a government subsidy?  Or, will the pension crisis in the United States be ‘solved’ by setting up a pension exchange of JP Morgan, Bank of America, Well Fargo, Chase and Citibank and require Americans to buy a federally subsidized pension from Wall Street?

Finally, an improved Medicare for all system will give everyone in the United States the greatest control of their own healthcare.  The insurance industry will be removed from between doctors and patients.  Doctors will not have to convince an insurance, profit-minded, bureaucrat to pay for a treatment.  And, people will no longer be threatened with increased premiums, decreased coverage and financial ruin caused by an insurance industry that puts profits before people.

We filed the amicus brief because forcing people to purchase a flawed product, private health insurance, is not necessary and will not achieve the goals of universal, guaranteed and affordable health care. There is a health care model in the US already that will achieve these goals – that’s improved Medicare for all. Medicare for all is constitutional and simple to attain – just drop a few words from existing law and we will be on the path to joining the rest of the civilized world when it comes to health care.

In fact, just before the pretrial motions were heard the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez completed a 14 month investigation and published a lengthy report on torture and otherwise abusive punishment. He wrote: “The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence.”

Further, Mendez concluded that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture.

The motions hearing had some twilight zone moments. The prosecutors were missing court orders and rulings as well as motions and documents filed by the defense up until March 11 because in the strange world of the “land of the free’ when the word “WikiLeaks” appeared in an email, the document was blocked. The government finally figured out that they were missing filings, now every day the prosecutors check their spam box at 10 AM to see what the censors have hidden. Unlike other federal employees in the land of constitutionally protected free speech, they read the word “WikiLeaks,” what will be the impact!?

Taking a lesson from the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, America’s top two military commanders have already pronounced Manning guilty. Almost a year ago, President Obama, the commander-in-chief, pronounced Manning guilty saying “He broke the law.” Just recently the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, echoed that finding of guilt before trial saying “He did break the law.” Dempsey’s comment was published in Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the Department of Defense. It seems like the military is doing all they can to let everyone who serves on the jury know their career is over if Manning is found not guilty.

This openly violates Article 37 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice which forbids “Unlawfully Influencing Action of Court.” This is a heavily litigated area because the command structure of the military makes higher ranking officers very powerful over their subordinates. In 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Services issued a unanimous decision that affirmed the power of the military judge to dismiss charges and specifications with prejudice in the face of unlawful command influence, United States v. Gore, 60 M.J. 178 (2004).

Manning’s attorney, David Coombs raised the issue of unlawful command influence in the Article 32 hearing, when he sought testimony from President Obama and other high government officials, writing: “The relevancy of these witnesses should be obvious. Each of these witnesses has provided statements that contradict those given by the OCA [Original Classification Authority] witnesses regarding the alleged damage caused by the unauthorized disclosures. Additionally, each of these witnesses is relevant in order to inquire into the issues of unlawful command influence and unlawful pretrial punishment in violation of Articles 13 and 37 of the UCMJ.” [Emphasis added.]

It is unclear how Judge Col. Denise Lind will minimize the impact of command influence in the Manning case. She can tell the jurors to ignore the Commander-in-Chief and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs statements that Manning “broke the law,” but will that just make matters worse?

But this is not the end of the mess the government has created making a fair trial seemingly impossible. Coombs pushed the government hard on their denial of discovery. The government said there were 3 million pages of documents related to the trial. Coombs has gotten a very tiny fraction of those. The argument in court over discovery was about disclosure of materials related to the Apache helicopter attack known as the Collateral Murder Video, the damage assessment reports done by five federal agencies on how the documents impacted national security, computer forensic images that could show what software was installed or downloaded, and video from the Quantico Marine Brig where Manning was held in solitary.

The damage assessments are particularly important to both the underlying offenses as well as sentencing. Regarding the underlying charge, Manning’s most serious charge is aiding the enemy, who the government disclosed in court was al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula. The damage assessments would surely describe whether and how al Queda was aided by the released documents.

Since October 2010 Coombs has been asking for the damage assessments. The State and Justice Departments claim not to have finalized their assessment (Will they ever? Will they before the Manning trial?). The Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency have completed their assessments, but they are classified. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has completed their assessment but it has not been made available. Coombs pointed out that leaks and statements by top officials like Secretary Clinton and former Secretary Gates indicate there was no significant damage from the release.

The government says that if they are ordered to produce the materials they will have to go to the Original Classification Authority to review them and that this could take up to 60 days to complete. Coombs was surprised that this had not already been done. And, the government claimed that any documents ordered released would be reviewed for relevancy, they said it could be that one paragraph is relevant out of 100 page document where the remainder will be redacted. It is evident that discovery will be an ongoing battle as the prosecution seems intent on hiding information from the defense. When I practiced law and the government opened their files and showed everything, I realized there was not much evidence on my side, but when the government hid documents it almost always would mean — they had something that could lose their case.

After arguing the discovery motion for an hour, where he repeatedly criticized the government lawyers for not understanding their responsibilities under the discovery rules, Coombs heightened the argument by filing a motion to dismiss because of the government’s failure to provide discovery. He argued that he did not know how this could be fixed; comparing it to baking a cake and 45 minutes into the baking realizing you forgot to put in the eggs.

Coombs also sought a Bill of Particulars, seeking more specificity of the facts the government intends to prove. Coombs specifically wanted to know whether the prosecution alleged that Manning had hacked into the SIPRnet, or stolen a password, or simply used the access he already had. Judge Lind interjected herself, asking an Alice in Wonderland-Queen like question: “Does the government have to prove how he did it?” Coombs responded that this type of specificity is what the Bill of Particulars was designed for, explaining, “I don’t want a trial by ambush.”

It is not only the defense that is not being given information, but the media and public are also being kept in the dark. The government is even hiding court filings from the media. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sent a letter signed by 46 media outlets urging the military to adopt at least the same level of media access as extended to trials at Guantanamo Bay, amazingly those terrorist trials provide more information to the media than the trial of Private Bradley Manning.

From pretrial abuse through prosecutors not living up to discovery obligations and commanders declaring Manning guilty it seems like the government is trying to send a message — blow the whistle on war crimes and we will incarcerate and torture you, prosecute you in a kangaroo court and put you away for life. It is almost a “we can do anything we want to you” message to troops that if they let the truth be known, they will be severely punished regardless of the law.

The case is once again reminiscent of the prosecution of Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers and faced up to 115 years’ incarceration. During the trial it came out that the White House had broken into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office and the judge ordered those documents released to the defense. John Ehrlichman twice met with the judge during the trial and offered him the directorship of the FBI. The FBI also taped numerous conversations involving Ellsberg and did not disclose this in discovery. After a four month trial, just as the case was going to a jury the judge dismissed all charges after the government claimed it had lost records of wiretapping against Ellsberg. Judge Byrne dismissed the case ruling: “The totality of the circumstances … offend a sense of justice. The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case. ”

The bizarre and unfair behavior of the government in the prosecution of Bradley Manning likewise offends a sense of justice and has incurably infected the possibility of a fair trial and a just result. Short of outright dismissal it is hard to see how justice can be done.

The Occupy Movement has shown itself to be very pro-labor, as can be seen in the outline of Occupy Washington, DC’s position statement: Worker’s Rights and Jobs.  But, we are not in lockstep with union leadership. Indeed, perhaps the most important difference is we are independent of the two political parties, while most unions are closely tied to the Democratic Party – and have been closely tied to the Democrats throughout the decline of the union movement.

One task of the Occupy Movement will be to pressure both parties to end restrictions on the rights of worker’s to organize. Many see the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 as the foundational step to union decline.  The law, which passed with majority votes from both parties to override a presidential veto, limited the rights of workers to organize, support each other, and made it difficult to start new unions. In addition, lack of enforcement of laws that protect unions from plant closings weakened union power. Race to the bottom corporate strategies seeking lower wages in states not friendly to unions, and now leaving a country to go to developing countries for cheap, virtual slave labor has been a key to weakening workers.  Policies can be developed to protect workers, but there is no backbone in the Democratic Party to do so, and the Republican Party is hostile to unions.

No doubt new approaches and new militancy is going to be required for the labor movement to be revived.  Merely managing the shrinkage of union members is a strategy for failure. Not challenging laws that block union organizing ensures union failure. Staying allied with a corporate-funded Democratic Party that has stood by while unions declined is a sure way to the end of labor power.  A break from the past fifty years is needed to deal with globalization, change to an information and a service worker-dominated country from a manufacturing country.  These are all very challenging tasks for labor leadership.

The Occupy Movement could be a critical ingredient in the revival of unions.  Unions had been an essential weight balancing against the power of concentrated wealth.  With the decline of unions we have seen wages for Americans peak in 1973, the minimum wage losing one-third of its value since its peak in 1968 and workers having a smaller and smaller percentage of the GDP.  The weakening of labor has been a key ingredient to the increasing concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the 1%.

Yesterday we saw an example of how the Occupy Movement, working with labor, can achieve victories for workers.  West coast longshoremen seem to have resolved an important multi-year labor dispute, with the help of the Occupy Movement. In “Showdown Averted,”  after describing the valiant militancy of longshoreman, Ben Schreiner writes:

. . . one cannot overlook the impact the Occupy movement also had in bringing pressure to bear on EGT.  For example, the December Occupy-led West Coast port shutdown, called in solidarity with Local 21, succeeded in shutting down port terminals in Oakland, Portland, and Seattle.

Moreover, a solidarity caravan set to ferry both ILWU rank and file and occupiers from Seattle to Oakland in an attempt to block EGT’s looming attempt to begin operations at its terminal had raised the specter of thousands of protesters converging on the Port of Longview.  In fact, fearing a potential mass protest, EGT had resorted to calling on the US Coast Guard to safeguard its vessel and terminal.

Undoubtedly, such a combination of pressure coming from both the union and the greater community factored heavily into EGT’s calculus to return to the bargaining table.

It is not just the Occupy Movement that was key to this seeming success, longshoreman militancy was also key, Schreiner writes:

On two separate occasions, for instance, ILWU Local 21 and their supporters blocked trains from reaching EGT’s scab facility.  And back in September, longshoremen stormed the EGT terminal, allegedly dumping grain from an idle train car.

“Of course, such militancy has also extracted a heavy toll.  To date, the union faces more than $300,000 from numerous fines and federal injunctions.  The longshoremen and their families, meanwhile, have been subject to 75 arrests, 200 citations, and various other means of police intimidation and harassment.

The uniting of union militancy with Americans in revolt seems to have turned this conflict into a victory for workers.

Before claiming victory, the details of the settlement will have to be released and approved by the workers, but even so, this example shows how the Occupy Movement — united with labor — can protect worker’s rights.  This is an example we can build on to weaken corporate power and strengthen worker power as part of our efforts to shift power to the people.

The occupations of public space have already done a great deal to lift the veil of lies.  People are now more aware than ever that the wealth divide is caused by a rigged economic system of crony capitalism and that we can create a fair economy that works for all Americans.  We are also aware that many of our fellow citizens are ready to take action – extreme action of sleeping outside in the cold in a public park.  And we also now know that we have the power to shift the debate and force the economic and political elites to listen to us. In just a few months we have made a difference.

Occupying public space involves a lot of resources and energy that could be spent educating, organizing and mobilizing people in much greater numbers.  There is a lot to do to end corporate rule and the challenges of occupying public space can divert our attention and resources from other responsibilities we have as a movement.

When we were organizing the Occupation of Washington, DC – before the occupation of Wall Street began – we were in conversation with movements around the world.  The Spanish Indignados told us that an occupation should last no more than two weeks.  After that it becomes a diversion from the political objectives.  The occupation begins to spend its time dealing with poverty, homelessness, inadequately treated mental illness and addiction – this has been experienced by occupies across the country.

Occupying for a short time accomplishes many of the objectives of holding public space – the political dialogue is affected, people are mobilized and all see that fellow citizens can effectively challenge the corporate state.  Staying for a lengthy period continues to deepen these goals but the impacts are more limited and the costs get higher.

What to do next?  The Occupy Movement needs to bring participatory democracy to communities.  Occupiers should develop an aggressive organizing plan for their city.  Divide the city and appoint people to be responsible for different areas of the city.  Depending on how many people you have make these areas as small as possible.  Develop plans for house-to-house campaigns where you knock on doors, provide literature, ask what you can do to make their lives better.  Do they need snow removed?  Clothes?  If so, get the occupy team to fulfill their needs, find used clothes, clean their yard – whatever you can do to help.  This shows community and builds relationships.

Plan a march through the different communities in the city.  Make it a spectacle. Have a marching band.  Don’t have one – reach out to local school bands. Organize them.  Create floats, images and signs.  Display yourselves and your message.  Hand out literature as you march. Let people know what the occupy stands for, that they should join us in building a better world for them and their families.

Plan public General Assemblies in communities across the city.  Teach people the General Assembly process, the hand signals, how to stack speakers, how to listen and reach consensus.  Learn the local issues.  Solve local problems.  Again, build a community that works together to solve problems.

Let people know about the National Occupation of Washington DC (NOW DC), the American Spring beginning on March 30th.  Organize people to come, share rides, hire buses, walk, ride a bike – get people to the nation’s capital to show the united force of the people against the rule of money.  This will be an opportunity to display our solidarity and demand that the people, not money, rule.

How rapidly a movement makes progress is hard to predict. It is never a constant upswing of growth and progress. We may be in for a sprint, or more likely, a marathon with hurdles. If you are hoping for a sprint, note that the deep corruption of the government and the economy has left both weaker than is publicly acknowledged. It may be a hollowed out shell ready to fall.

But this may also take years to accomplish.  Take the timeline of the Civil Rights movement: in 1955 Rosa Parks sits in the front of the bus, not until five years later in 1960, do the lunch counter sit-ins begin. Not until three years later in 1963 does Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lead a march on Washington for the “I have a Dream” speech. No doubt the time between Rosa Parks and the lunch counter sit-ins and Civil Rights Act passing in 1964 seemed slow to those involved.  Looking back it was rapid, transformational change.  In fact, the movement grew in fits and starts and had roots decades of activity before the 1950s.  In those times of seeming lull, work was being done to educate and organize people that led to the big spurts of progress.

Older movements, when communication was slower, have taken even longer. The women’s suffrage movement held its first convention in 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY.  Twenty years later, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. In 1913, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns formed the National Women’s Party to work for a constitutional amendment to give women the vote. Finally, in 1919 the federal woman’s suffrage amendment, originally written by Susan B. Anthony and introduced in Congress in 1878, was passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, sent to the states for ratification and signed into law one year later.

With mass media, and especially the new democratized media of social networks, the Internet, anonymous leaks and independent media, it is very likely the end of the rule of money will come more quickly.  If we focus on our goal, act with intention and use our energy and resources wisely victory will come sooner.

Our challenge to corporate power has roots.  The Project on Corporations Law and Democracy was founded in 1995.  In 1999 the protests against the World Trade Organization occurred in Seattle. In 2000, long-time crusader against corporate power, Ralph Nader, ran his first full presidential campaign and continues to challenge corporatism.  This decade has been called the “Great Turning,” which Joanna Macy has defined as “the shift from the Industrial Growth Society to a life-sustaining civilization.” “America Beyond Capitalism” by Gar Alperovitz, just printed its second edition, five years after the first, documenting the evolution of the developing democratized economy. These are some of the foundations on which the Occupy Movement is building as the unfairness and insecurity of corporate capitalism becomes evident to all. Our roots are deeper than the few months of our existence.

The elites are foolish to think they will stop this movement by closing occupations.  The Occupy Movement will evolve in new and unpredictable ways that will make the elites wish for the days of mere public encampments. The 1% should know they will be held accountable. The people have found their voice and will not be silenced. The era of the rule of money is nearing its end.

Please do not misunderstand my criticisms of MoveOn and other organizations in this article as criticism of the many good people in these organizations. We have some people from MoveOn and other groups working with us at Occupy Washington, DC.  It is the leadership of these groups that misdirects people into the Democratic Party, supporting Democratic candidates and weak and often counter-productive Democratic Party positions.  We welcome MoveOn members to the Occupy Movement, but we do not want their leadership misdirecting the movement into the Democratic Party which is dominated by Wall Street and other big business interests.

Many occupiers are growing increasingly concerned about the attempted co-option of the Occupy Movement by Democratic Party operatives.  I focused on Van Jones because he has been appearing in the media talking like he is occupying somewhere.  I don’t think he is sleeping in a tent in any Occupy, but he sure gets a lot of attention from the corporate media as if he were an occupier. The corporate media seems to want to anoint him as the leader of the Occupy Movement. And his Rebuild the Dream website makes it look like it was the Occupy the Highway Movement, even though no one from Rebuild walked the 220 mile journey from New York to Washington, DC.

But I am equally concerned about groups like SEIU – a union that has already endorsed President Obama – and has been described by Glenn Greenwald as attempting to co-opt the Occupy Movement. Also of concern is Campaign for America’s Future which holds annual conferences that seek to spotlight Democratic candidates and get people to spend their time and resources electing Democrats.  If their strategy is to elect Democrats that is fine, just do it somewhere else.  The Occupy Movement is the opposite – we are independent of the two parties. We see the system as corrupt and working to elect people in that system as joining the corruption rather than stopping it.

Regarding MoveOn, which has done mailing after mailing using the Occupy Movement, it consistently supports the Democratic Party and undermines progressive causes. They started as an advocacy group for the Democratic Party and have remained such. It began seeking to end the impeachment of President Clinton for lying under oath about sexual harassment.  They work hard to keep liberals and progressives inside the Democratic Party so that they will not form an independent movement to hold Obama and the Democratic Party, as well as Republicans, accountable.  MoveOn refuses to acknowledge their constant betrayals of the people by the Democratic Party.

Using non-profit front groups to undermine progressive movements is consistent with the tactics of the Democratic Party. In return for big funding from Democratic Party donors these groups are told what they can do and say by Democratic Party operatives. During the health care reform debate MoveOn was part of a coalition called Health Care for America Now.  The name of the coalition was eerily similar to the long-established single payer advocacy group, Health Care Now.  But rather than advocating for an end to insurance-dominated health care as single payer would do, the well-funded Health Care for America Now (spending at least $50 million to support ObamaCare) advocated for the Obama health law, which is a more deeply entrenched insurance industry domination of health care.  A law that even forces Americans, for the first time in history, to buy a corporate product and in this case a seriously flawed product.

Rebuild the Dream, a MoveOn Project, continues to undermine real health care reform by using the new language of the single payer – “Improved Medicare for All” – in their issue demands. But, Rebuild waters down this demand to protect the insurance industry.  When you read the details rather than a real improved Medicare for All system that eliminates health insurance they merely advocate that people be offered the opportunity to buy Medicare as another insurance policy.  Their last paragraph makes all the arguments for single payer, but then pulls back to merely offering Medicare as one insurance option. Their language is essentially the public option using single payer language. No doubt the vast majority of MoveOn and Rebuild the Dream members support single payer (two-thirds of Americans do) and real progressive change, but Van Jones’s Rebuild uses similarities in rhetoric to fool them and keep progressives inside the Democratic Party rather than developing the kind of unified independent movement that is needed to push for real change. We need to challenge the insurance industry, not work with Democrats who take millions in donations from them.

MoveOn did this to the peace movement in 2007 after an anti-Iraq War vote gave the Democrats control of the House of Representatives.  The anti-war movement was in full force pressuring members of Congress.  The Democratic leadership put forward a bill to end funding for the war unless “benchmarks” were met and allowed war funding for four big exceptions that would allow the war to continue, such as fighting terrorism, protecting American interests, and training the Iraq military.  Twenty peace groups united to oppose the Democratic plan to continue war funding.  Every vote was needed by the corporate-Democratic Party leadership to continue war funding.  At the last minute, MoveOn came out in support of the weak Democratic plan and provided cover to Democrats, relieved constituent pressure, and allowed the war funding to continue.

Not surprisingly, there is confusion among liberals and progressives who support the common agenda of ending the wars, economic justice and environmental protection.  We’re sometimes asked if Rebuild the Dream is part of Occupy Washington, DC.  The answer is an unequivocal NO. Occupy Washington, DC is an independent movement that will hold the system, big business and both parties accountable for corporatism and militarism.  And we will not go away or be absorbed by MoveOn, Rebuild the Dream and its Democratic Party allies.  We are critics of the machine, the corrupt, dysfunctional system, which the Democratic Party has always been and continues to be part of.  We welcome Dream supporters. We would even welcome the leadership.  All they need to do is renounce the Democratic Party and President Obama.

MoveOn and Rebuild the Dream can prove us wrong if they come forward with a non-partisan statement saying they will fight against any elected official, of any party, in any office, who has not lived up to the anti-militarism and anti-corporatist agenda, especially the president.

Until that statement is made Democratic Party operatives and their allied groups should back off the Occupy Movement.  You have a different strategy – working inside the Democratic Party, working inside the limits of the corrupt machine while we want to transform American politics.

Get out of our way.

The former Obama administration official, who received a golden parachute at Princeton and the Democratic think tank Center for American Progress when he left the administration, is doing what Democrats always do—see the energy of an independent movement, race to the front, then lead it down a dead end and essentially destroy it. Jones is doing the dirty work of a Democratic operative and while he and other Dem front groups pretend to support Occupiers, their real mission is to co-opt it.

Glenn Greenwald says in a recent blog, “White House-aligned groups such as the Center for American Progress have made explicity clear that they are going to try to convert OWS into a vote-producing arm for the Obama 2012 campaign.”

Before he ran to the front of the Occupy Movement, Jones’ Rebuild the Dream had been saying that its first task was to elect Democrats. Now he is claiming there will be 2000 “99% candidates” in 2012. These Democrats will be re-branded as part of the 99% movement. Democrats will now be re-labeled and marketed as part of the 99% movement. Republican operatives did the same thing to the Tea Party.  Tea Party candidates, who often used to be corporate “Club for Growth” candidates, ran in the Republican Party.  See, e.g. Senator Pat Toomey – before and after.

Jones is urging the Occupy Movement to “mature” and move on to an electoral phase. This would only make us a sterile part of the very problem we oppose. The electoral system is a corrupt mirage where only corporate-approved candidates are allowed to be considered seriously. At Occupy Washington, DC, we recognize that putting our time, energy and resources into elections will not produce the change we want to see. What we need to do right now is build a dynamic movement supported by independent media that stands in stark contrast to both corporate-bought-and-paid-for parties.

Democratic operatives want to steal the energy of the Occupy Movement because they do not have any of their own.  These Dem front groups operate within the confines of the two corrupt parties and their agenda is limited by what big business interests say is politically realistic. Rebuild the Dream is more of the same that has been seen over and over from groups like MoveOn and Campaign for America’s Future – elect Democrats is their mantra.  It is their only program.  And, it is bankrupt.

Democrats need to derail and co-opt the Occupy Movement because it calls attention to what’s really happening. The American people need a real jobs bill, not one that is merely a political tactic for an election year. We also need a truly progressive tax system—one that taxes wealth more and workers less. The poorest Americans pay taxes on necessities like food and clothing, so why is it that neither party urges a tax on the purchase of stocks, bonds and derivatives—a tax that could raise $800 billion over a decade? And finally, we need an end to the wars and militarism maintained and expanded by both parties, bringing huge profits to the arms industry and immense suffering to millions.

The Occupy Movement is not part of either corporate-dominated party and Van Jones is not our leader. It is corporate rule we oppose. The Obama administration and the Democrats as well as the Republicans maintain the rule of Wall Street. Occupiers have organized an independent movement that challenges the rule of the 1% and their Republican and Democratic lackeys. Bought and paid for with millions of dollars from Wall Street, the health insurance industry and big energy interests, Obama and the Democrats are part of the problem, not the solution.

When we started planning the occupation of Freedom Plaza six months ago, our goal was to create a place where the ignored voices of the American people could be heard. They are starting to be heard thanks to occupations all over the country.  If it is not clear to the economic and political elites, this is the beginning of an American revolt.

Before considering occupation, we tried other avenues: elections, lobbying, petitioning, email campaigns, telephone campaigns, marches, rallies – but they were ineffective.  The country continued going in the direction of concentrated wealth, rather than where super-majorities of Americans wanted to go.

The occupation of Freedom Plaza in downtown Washington, DC and occupations around the country display our message of anger at the unfairness of the economy, the expanding war quagmires and the corruption of government that result in the people’s urgent necessities being ignored in favor of more wealth for the top 1%.

I don’t like sleeping in a tent in Freedom Plaza.  But we see no other way to get our voices heard. We are occupying Freedom Plaza because Americans have been kept out of the political process.  Money rules elections and lobbying, while the 99% are ignored.

We occupy Washington, DC because it is where big business money combines with campaign laws that corrupt government so that it does not respond to the people. Washington, DC is corporate occupied territory with 18,000 professional lobbyists, most of who work for business interests pushing the agenda of concentrated wealth.

The great health care reform “triumph” of the Obama administration highlighted how out of touch government is with the people.  For more than a decade Americans have simply wanted improved Medicare and for all and removal of the unnecessary insurance industry.  Instead, President Obama and the Democratic leadership pushed “reform” that further entrenched the insurance industry with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual tax subsidies and forcing Americans to purchase flawed insurance.  They kept single payer out of the debate because Medicare for all compared with insurance-based health care is less expensive, covers everybody and improves the quality of health care.

The response to the financial crisis was also inadequate. People from Wall Street responsible for the collapse were put in key positions in the administration.  Congress was unable to pass a real stimulus early in the Obama era.  Instead a weak, partial stimulus was passed that may have slowed the economic collapse but missed the opportunity to turn things around.  The financial reform was inadequate as it failed to break up the big banks, bring back Glass-Steagall or adequately regulate derivatives.  Last week Citibank got off easy with a $285 million fine for the sale of a billion dollars in fraudulent mortgage derivatives but this was only one of many corrupt Citibank deals, the rest will not even be investigated. Once again, obvious and necessary steps were impossible due to corporate power.

Occupying public space is an opportunity to discuss political taboos.  As the war drum against Iran began to beat Freedom Plaza held an Iran night with Persian food, music, dancing and discussion.  We discussed why war on Iran was wrong, as well as the problems in the U.S. relationships with Saudi Arabia and Israel.  And, we mentioned a reality almost never heard in U.S. media or politics – U.S. Empire. While the military will not say how many bases and outposts it has the most thorough review estimates more than 1,100 around the world and now a new empire of drones.  The British Empire had 37 bases at its peak and the Romans had 36. The U.S. Empire is a secret to most Americans only discussed as a euphemism –policeman of the world. This false description hides the real facts of exploitation and domination. This taboo needs to be broken so Americans can debate whether empire is good for the nation and the world.

The Occupy Movement is being driven by economic insecurity.  Almost all Americans feel it that is why we are all part of the 99%. The economic insecurity is not because of lack of resources, but because political elites consistently send money to economic elites through tax breaks and giveaways resulting in the wealthiest 400 Americans having the wealth of 154 million of us, yet paying 17.4% in federal taxes while working Americans pay 25% to 30%.  The tax structure needs to be restructured so wealth is taxed more than work, purchases of stocks, bonds and derivatives are taxed (we pay taxes on purchase food, clothing and shelter) and a truly progressive income tax is put in place. It is this unfairness at a time of economic fear that is driving the Occupy Movement.

A warning to the elites: occupations are only the beginning.  This movement is in its early stage and is going to grow in ways that are hard to imagine right now.  We know that decades of the expansion of corporate power will not be undone with one occupation.  Plans are being made by some of us to move “Beyond Occupation” to the next steps of building a movement that represents all Americans – youth burdened with college loans and lousy jobs, seniors stuck in poverty retirement with their Social Security and Medicare threatened, the middle class who worked their whole lives and are now part of the long-term unemployed, live in homes with underwater mortgages and fear foreclosure and, of course, the poor, homeless and mentally ill whose mistreatment has become more obvious as the public space we occupy draws them to us for food and housing.

A message for the elites: THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING. LISTEN TO US NOW OR THE PRICE OF CHANGE WILL GET MORE EXPENSIVE FOR YOU: What do we seek?  We seek an end to corporate rule and shifting power to the people.

The movements united on four issues including (details on each point are contained in the letter below):

1. Both the people of the United States and Egypt require real democracy so that the views of the people are represented.

2. End US foreign policy positions which undermine the Egyptian democracy movement as well as the character and reputation of the United States.

3. Both countries need to end the wealth divide in order to provide for the necessities of the people and to create new sustainable economies for the 21st Century.

4. Both countries need to respect human rights, which involves an end to torture, a method for systematic documentation of human rights abuses, and mechanisms to ensure accountability for those responsible for human rights abuses.

Solidarity actions in Freedom Plaza and Tahrir Square are being called for on October 6th. On October 8th the Real Democracy Now Movement is holding a solidarity rally in Brussels, Belgium with the October2011 Movement. On October 15th the October2011 Movement and the United National Anti-War Committee are calling for demonstrations throughout the United States, as well this will be a global day of action.

People from around the world are welcome to sign on to the Solidarity Statement. They can do so at october2011.org where they can also sign-up to join the encampment on Freedom Plaza.

The signers include democracy activists, lawyers, health professionals, academics, economic justice advocates, students, religious leaders, climate change and environmental activists. Among those signing from the United States are core organizers of the October2011 movement and signatories who will be participating in the encampment of Freedom Plaza which begins on October 6, 2011. Some of the Arab signers include:

Asmaa Mahfouz is a member of Egypt’s Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution and a co-founder of the April 6 Movement. Her January 2011 video is widely reputed to have driven thousands of individuals to Tahrir Square in protest against Mubarak’s regime. She also recently made headlines after domestic and international outcry led to the Egyptian military dropping charges against her for purported insults made against them.

Alaa Abd El Fattah is a prominent Egyptian blogger who runs the popular blog aggregator, www.omraneya.net (formerly www.manalaa.net). He is a software developer and democracy activist who has survived jail-time and persecution from the Mubarak regime.

Ruby Amatulla is an international businesswoman who is currently the Executive Director of Muslims for Peace, Justice, and Progress. She was formerly a member of the American Muslim Iraq Peace Initiative.

Dr. Yahia Mahran is a lawyer who works with Egyptian lawyers’ unions. He is a member of the technical bureau at the Secretariat of the Council of the People, and he was an original supporter of the Egyptian revolution.

Abdallah Helmy is a founding member of the Revolution Youth Union in Egypt. He has been quoted in multiple international media outlets and blogs regarding the role of technology in promoting the Egyptian revolution.

Amin Mahmoud is the Washington DC-area coordinator for the Egyptian Association for Change-USA. He has organized and participated in international solidarity protests in support of the Egyptian revolution.

Ehsan Yahia is an Egyptian nurse who is an assistant lecturer at Cairo University. She has worked with multiple Egyptian protest groups in Tahrir Square since the onset of the revolution.

Iman Mosharafa is an Egyptian-American who instructs students at City University in New York and LaGuardia Community College. She has a PhD in media from Cairo University.

A Statement of Solidarity between Egyptian Revolutionaries and the October2011.org Movement

While our nations face many different challenges and remain thousands of miles and cultures apart, we find that we share many of the same concerns within our respective countries. As we recognize that our destinies are intertwined, we wish to highlight the similarities and goals we share in common. We suspect that others from around the world would also join us in supporting this statement.

1. Both the people of the United States and Egypt require real democracy so that the views of the people are represented.

Currently, desires for free and fair elections have not been achieved according to the level of popular demand in both nations.

Under the regime of Hosni Mubarak, this falsehood was evident to the world and to Egyptians, even though Mubarak and the US government labeled Egypt a democracy. Ballots were consistently rigged, opposition candidates were routinely jailed, and parliamentary candidates were happily bribed. Many regarded Hosni Mubarak as a manifestation of the arrogant Pharaoh himself. While his demise brought great relief and celebration to all Egyptians, many are worried about Egypt’s current transitional process towards parliamentary elections. Reformist political parties have not had adequate time to prepare or fundraise for elections. Requests from nonpartisan international monitors to oversee upcoming elections have been summarily denied. In addition, many are skeptical about the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ agenda, as the transition to a civil, non-military government is occurring much more slowly than many Egyptians would desire.

The United States also faces similar challenges to democracy from special interests. While some say that the United States is the greatest democracy on Earth, American elections are actually dominated by the wealth of economic elites and concentrated corporate power, as money manipulates votes through concentrated corporate media. The Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation controlled by the two major parties and corporate interests, prevents third-party and independent candidates from debating issues before the American public. Presented with the choice of only two corporate approved candidates, only half of the American public bothers to register to vote, and only approximately half of registered voters bother to vote. In essence, US democracy has become a manipulative system in which voters choose from two corporate-approved candidates within a rigged election system.

The people of both movements call for real democracy in which all eligible voters are automatically registered, in which barriers are removed for candidates to run for office, in which debates are open to all ballot-approved candidates, in which elections maintain public funding in order to check the tide of private handouts, in which voting systems are transparent with public observation and participation in all aspects of the counting of the vote, and in which media organizations provide sufficient free airtime for candidates to present their views to the public. Elections should be held on holidays to make voting easier without conflicting with the demands of work.

2. End US foreign policy positions which undermine the Egyptian democracy movement as well as the character and reputation of the United States.

The people of both movements call for an end to hegemonic foreign policy positions among US policymakers. It is time for the United States to join the global community of nations as a partner rather than a predator, as a collaborative multi-lateralist rather than as an American exceptionalist.

The United States has the largest empire in global history, with more than 1,100 military bases and outposts around the world. America has supported military rule in Egypt, and attempted to put in power Mubarak’s carefully groomed heir Omar Suleiman despite his record of participation in torture and other crimes. It now supports the military government much more extensively than other infrastructural components of the nation, spending approximately $1.2 billion per year. Even USAID funds to Egypt have strings attached, as 85% of USAID Egyptian funds since January 25 went to US organizations, with only a small fraction going to civil society organizations in Egypt.

US diplomatic and developmental policies in nations such as Egypt, as well as military actions in nations such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are ventures of destruction, death and chaos for the people of those countries; and undermine the rule of law and democracy around the world. These actions have resulted in the deaths of millions of people, the creation of millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, and the internment of thousands of prisoners who are often tortured and held without charges. Rather than collaboratively assisting in the development of authentic democracy around the world, the United States has too often hindered democratic efforts in many regions of the world for many decades.

The United States needs to work more collaboratively with nations such as Egypt and to stop leveraging its economic power to bribe other countries, to force them to follow US wishes, or to threaten them with unwarranted military action. In order to permit accountability for its actions, the United States should also join the International Criminal Court.

3. Both countries need to end the wealth divide in order to provide for the necessities of the people and to create new sustainable economies for the 21st Century.

Both Egypt and the United States suffer from a broad wealth divides that has lead to widespread poverty and economic stagnation. In each country, it is not a lack of wealth but the distribution of wealth that creates widespread suffering. The economic power of the wealthiest sectors of both countries engender corruption through bribery, campaign donations, and a wide range of forms of payment for special privileges. When policies begin to eliminate the wealth divide, we will take the first steps towards ending crony-dominated economies held in place by corrupt oligarchic governments in both nations.

One of the most important steps towards reducing economic injustices involves provision of adequate human services. Quality health care should be available to all people in both countries, as is mandated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. High-quality education from pre-school through graduate school should remain free, equitable, and available to all. Basic needs for income should be met by ensuring robust employment opportunities in both countries, as well as the right to affordable housing, food, health care, transportation, and retirement security. Horrible statistics such as the existence of three million street children in Egypt and over 44 million poverty stricken people in the United States should remain unacceptable across the board. In addition, wealth needs to promote ecologically sustainable economies that utilize clean energy at a viable level. Both Cairo and Los Angeles residents understand the horrors of pollution! If we want 21st century economies, we need to work from a 21stcentury perspective regarding the barriers to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness around the world.

4. Both countries need to respect human rights, this involves an end to torture, a method for systematic documentation of human rights abuses, and mechanisms to ensure accountability for those responsible for human rights abuses.

Both Egypt and the United States suffer from decades of human rights abuses, which include suppression of free speech, illegal detention, secret rendition, and torture on the part of both nations. Even in the post-Mubarak era, free speech protests in Tahrir Square have been repeatedly shut down, freedom of the press has been repeatedly muzzled, and bloggers and activists have been repeatedly detained, tried, and sentenced to prison for mere infractions such as criticism of the military on blogs. (And that’s just the post-Mubarak era.)

Compare this with the United States, where rates of imprisonment are higher than those in any other nation, especially for minorities and those of lower socioeconomic status. Prison conditions are often inhumane in both nations and increasingly privatized in the United States, with few resources dedicated to rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

Human rights should be respected according to the articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A full documentation of human rights violations should occur in both countries so that these practices are ended, and so that those responsible are held accountable regardless of the demands or interests of the current individuals in power. As examples of mechanisms to work towards achievement of these goals, the United States should join the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the Egyptian military should end trials of civilians before military courts.

Tim brought out the corruption of leases of public lands by the Bureau of Land Management, an agency with an ugly history of corruption, and how in this bidding the oil companies expected to get the land at the cost of pennies on the dollar. For the lands Tim did not bid on the average price was $12 an acre, for the one’s he did bid on they were $125. That number rose to the higher levels because oil companies knew that even at the higher price they would make tremendous profits. These public land leases occur for a wide range of corporations and are another example of massive corporate welfare that robs the American people of their public resources, while causing tremendous environmental damage and funneling wealth to the wealthiest 1%.

The connection between corporations and government was highlighted to Tim early in this prosecution. One day before he was indicted the Associated Press called to tell him he would be indicted. The AP reporter had known about it for weeks because an oil and gas industry lobbyist had told him. Evidently the prosecutor’s office was keeping his colleagues in the corporate world well informed about their plans to punish DeChristopher for spoiling the illegal lease auction.

Tim also brings out the twisted nature of the rule of law in a government corrupted by corporatism, saying: “The rule of law is dependent upon a government that is willing to abide by the law. Disrespect for the rule of law begins when the government believes itself and its corporate sponsors to be above the law.” The rule of law is twisted by government often working hand in glove with corporate interests in foreign and domestic policy. When Judge Benson ruled early in the trial that Tim could not show the jury how his actions prevented a greater harm; i.e., preventing an illegal auction and preventing environmental destruction, the judge essentially ruled that the violation of the rule of law by the government in cahoots with the oil companies was not something the jury should know about. Tim told the judge at sentencing: “I agree with the founding fathers that juries should be the conscience of the community and a defense against legislative tyranny.” The judge did not want the jury to have that power.

On civil disobedience Tim said: “the rule of law was created through acts of civil disobedience. Since those bedrock acts of civil disobedience by our founding fathers, the rule of law in this country has continued to grow closer to our shared higher moral code through the civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice. The authority of the government exists to the degree that the rule of law reflects the higher moral code of the citizens, and throughout American history, it has been civil disobedience that has bound them together.” Civil disobedience has always challenged the unjust status quo – whether it was slavery, Jim Crow, women not voting or the crony capitalism Americans confront today.

Finally, Tim makes the important point that making an example of him with a harsh punishment will backfire as the history of political prisoners show. His sentence will not stop others who are standing up for a sustainable future. He says “those who are inspired to follow my actions are those who understand that we are on a path toward catastrophic consequences of climate change . . . they know we are running out of time to turn things around . . . [and] the people who are committed to fighting for a livable future will not be discouraged or intimidated by anything that happens here today.”

And Tim displays his courage and conviction telling the judge: “I will continue to confront the system that threatens our future. Given the destruction of our democratic institutions that once gave citizens access to power, my future will likely involve civil disobedience. Nothing that happens here today will change that. I don’t mean that in any sort of disrespectful way at all, but you don’t have that authority. You have authority over my life, but not my principles. Those are mine alone.”

This brief summary does not do full justice to the words of Tim DeChristopher. His ethical approach to challenging unjust laws and corporate-government actions should inspire all of us to Stand with Tim – by standing against corporatism that is destroying the nation and planet. Join us here in stopping the machine and creating a better world.

• Read the entire statement by Tim DeChristopher at Peaceful Uprising

We think we have no power when in fact we have more than enough power. Right now, we have a big enough movement to win this battle; we just need to start acting like it.

— Tim DeChristopher

The government knows DeChristopher is right and wants to make sure that we do not start acting with the immense power we have.  They want to deter us by putting DeChristopher in prison for a long time.  What they do not realize is that if they do so they will get the opposite response.  Injustice will bring greater unity, greater anger and greater resolve to seek justice.  DeChristopher realizes this.  When I wrote to him and asked what the October2011.org Movement could do to help him he responded that the message should be “Join Tim DeChristopher.”  It was not about advocating for a lesser sentence but about acting in solidarity.  Tim has it right – if we act in unity for economic and environmental justice, and ending corporatism and militarism, we can transform this country and put it on the right track.

DeChristopher acted decisively to stop immediate and irrevocable harm.  He registered as a bidder and falsely bid to prevent the leasing of land to oil and gas corporations. He acted to stop the immediate harm, not just the devastating environmental harm of carbon fuels and their extraction, but the harm the Bush Administration was causing by breaking its own regulations and violating the law by illegally rushing the leases to sale in an effort to get the land in the hands of the oil and gas companies. In fact, after DeChristopher acted these leases were found to be illegal.

DeChristopher stopped an illegal auction. He now faces up to ten years in federal prison and a $750,000 fine for doing so. The leases were cancelled by Interior Secretary Salazar who reviewed the land in three categories: parcels appropriate for future auction since they are surrounded by existing oil development, those never appropriate for future auction because of their wilderness value, and those requiring further consideration to determine the appropriateness of drilling. After the review the Interior Department found that only 29 of the 116 parcels up for auction were legal.

Are the public officials who violated the law and regulations by scheduling an illegal auction being prosecuted?  Does anyone see the absurdity of prosecuting DeChristopher for stopping an illegal action and how that prosecutorial farce will be made worse if DeChristopher is sent to prison?  The government ironically claims in its sentencing memorandum “The rule of law is the bedrock of our civilized society, not acts of ‘civil disobedience.’” Yet, in this case civil disobedience actually ensured the rule of law.

To make matters worse, the judge did not allow DeChristopher to present a necessity defense.  Such a defense would have put the lease auction on trial.  It would have showed that DeChristopher was acting to prevent an imminent harm that nothing else could have stopped.  A lawsuit had already been filed against the auction but it was not until after DeChristopher thwarted the lease auction that the lawsuit, along with the Interior Department’s review, stopped the leases.  If DeChristopher had been allowed to present this defense, bring forward experts to testify and his lawyers allowed to argue the necessity defense, and just one juror agreed, DeChristopher would not have been found guilty.  The judge avoided that problem by not allowing DeChristopher to present the defense he wanted.

What can we do to support Tim DeChristopher, to stand in unity with him? Peaceful Uprising, the organization he works with, suggests that we demonstrate our support at court houses around the country on the day of sentencing, next Tuesday, July 26th.  They ask that we show our “joy and resolve becoming outrage and love” and that our movement will not be “intimidated, deterred or delayed.”  You can register your event here, and when you hold it take a photograph and share it with Peaceful Uprising.

The October2011.org Movement is urging all of those who support our call to challenge corporatism and militarism in Washington, DC this October to join in support of Tim DeChristopher by responding to the Peaceful Uprising call.  Unity and confidence that together we can make a difference is where we gain our strength.   That is the message of Tim DeChristopher and it is the message of the October2011.org Movement.

For too long Americans who oppose wars have felt powerless to stop the war machine. Not since the early part of the 20th Century has there been a strong anti-war movement that Americans from across the political spectrum could participate in. The Come Home America letter shows the beginning of such a broad-based movement.

No matter where you are on the political spectrum you will find people with your political philosophy. Signers include advisers to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton; former presidential candidates of the Libertarian, Socialist and Green Parties as well as an independent, Ralph Nader.  Representatives of think tanks have all signed on.

To challenge U.S. militarism all Americans who oppose war need to become active. The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned of in his final speech to the nation has become deeply embedded.  The security budget (military, intelligence and homeland security) makes up 66% of discretionary federal spending and both parties agree that even this bloated, wasteful budget, at a time of massive deficit spending, cannot be cut.

The budget choices Congress is making, putting the military and security state before the needs of the people, reducing the debt and cleaning up the degraded environment puts a stark choice before the American people.  Everyone should now see war spending affects all of us. The U.S. spends $2,000 per person on the military, so a family of 5 is spending $10,000 per year on war.

In recent Congressional votes the potential of a right-left alliance to stop wars has been seen.  On June 13, 2011 the House of Representatives passed the Sherman Amendment to the military appropriations bill by a vote of 248-163. The vote to end funding of the Libyan War enjoyed strong bipartisan support, with roughly equal majorities from both parties. Earlier in the month, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced a bill demanding an end to the war in Libya. The threat of passage forced House Speaker John Boehner to offer a watered-down, but still critical alternative bill.  Again, the power of cross-partisan opposition to war was shown.

In the senate a cross partisan anti-war alliance is beginning to show.  This July 4th Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Tom Udall (D, NM) wrote a column in The New York Times urging an end to the Afghanistan War. They conclude: “It is not too late to change course in what has become the longest American war in history. In light of our considerable national needs, both security and domestic, we urge the president to bring our troops home at last.”

These recent events show challenging militarism may not be as hopeless as some imagine, but that to be effective the anti-war movement needs to be a politically independent movement that reflects the views of all Americans who oppose war, not just one side of the political spectrum.  A 2011 Reuters/Ipsos poll shows a majority of Americans prefer cutting military spending to reduce the deficit rather than taking money from Social Security and health programs. We must build an anti-war movement that challenges people from both parties who oppose us, while giving support to anti-war elected officials no matter what their party.

The letter describes a perfect storm of events that make this a good time to challenge weapons and war spending. At the top of the list is the faltering economy which can no longer sustain spending as much as the whole world combined on the military. The long-term debt like the short term deficit is in large part caused by war.  As deficits increase and Americans face austerity budgets, support for war spending will continue to decrease.

The limits of war have become evident. The most powerful military in world history cannot defeat people who seek to protect their country from foreign domination. Wasn’t this the lesson  from our own American Revolution?  More and more Americans see how the U.S. military operates through Wikileaks disclosures, the Abu Gharib photos and the thousands of kill squad photos of soldiers posing with dead Afghanis. These are not easy realities to face, but they are realities that explain how war undermines U.S. national security, creating more enemies daily.

The rule of law is consistently violated in U.S. wars, particularly Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution, which specifically states that Congress has the authority to declare war, not the president.  James Madison described this as the most important Constitutional provision but it is routinely ignored. President Obama has taken the nation to war in Libya and spending $1 billion on the Libyan attack without a congressional appropriation. Madison and other founders would be calling for President Obama’s impeachment over this unconstitutional act of war.  Tactics used in recent wars, including torture and widespread abuse of prisoners, further undermine the rule of law. We see alleged whistle blower, Bradley Manning, treated brutally before trial while the crimes exposed by Wikileaks go uninvestigated and unpunished.

More Americans see war is undermining U.S. national and economic security.  The growth of stateless terrorism will not abate as long as the United States continues waging wars which commonly feature torture, midnight raids on families and the killing of innocent civilians.  The mass scale suffering war brings is something Americans can no longer close their eyes to but must honestly face and mobilize to end.

Americans of all political viewpoints are encouraged to join this new American anti-war movement.  The first step is to sign on to the letter. It is a list that will be growing longer in the days ahead. 

We chose the name Come Home America because it is a unifying theme that brings all Americans together. While popularized by George McGovern in his 1972 presidential candidacy, the words ring true today:

From secrecy and deception in high places; come home, America. From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation; come home, America. From the entrenchment of special privileges in tax favoritism; from the waste of idle lands to the joy of useful labor; from the prejudice based on race and sex; from the loneliness of the aging poor and the despair of the neglected sick — come home, America. Come home to the affirmation that we have a dream. Come home to the conviction that we can move our country forward. Come home to the belief that we can seek a newer world, and let us be joyful in that homecoming, for this ‘is your land, this land is my land — from California to New York island, from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters — this land was made for you and me.’

The phrase has its founding in the historic speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. opposing the Vietnam War. He called on Americans to unite against the violence our nation was spreading through war:

It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to come back home. Come home, America … I call on Washington today. I call on every man and woman of good will all over America today. I call on the young men of America who must make a choice today to take a stand on this issue.

The letter concludes, citing our founding president:

George Washington urged Americans to ‘cultivate peace and harmony with all’ and to ‘avoid overgrown military establishments,” which are “hostile to republican liberty.’ It is time for Americans to reject fear and militarism and embrace the highest, noblest aspirations of our heritage. It is time to come home, America.

(2) Require Contractors to Report Contributions

The 2012 presidential election promises to have the most anonymous campaign donations in U.S. history. Unless the Obama administration acts, unknown corporate and wealthy interests will fund massive advertising campaigns against and for candidates but the voters will not know who they are or their real agenda. The Obama administration can prevent this further corruption of U.S. democracy by taking two steps, neither of which requires action by Congress.

Step One: Enforce Existing Laws

In the 2010 mid-term elections we saw the evolution of a new form of campaign funding that violated the disclosure requirements of the Federal Election Campaign Law (FECA) by illegally using non-profit organizations to hide campaign donations.

The new approach was masterminded by Karl Rove and former Republican Party leaders through American Crossroads GPS. They created a non-profit organization under 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code – organizations that are not supposed to be primarily involved in elections – and used it to raise tens of millions in anonymous donations. In total, nearly $150 million was spent by these (c)(4) groups leaving voters in the dark as to the personal interests of the donors. We can expect that amount to more than double in 2012 if existing laws are not enforced. Indeed Rove has announced his group alone intends to raise $120 million for 2012.

While the Citizen’s United decision allowed unlimited donations by corporations and individuals, it did not allow anonymous donations. The federal election law requires that donors be identified. In order to do an end-around this requirement some political operatives have set up non-profit organizations to hide donor identities. This not only violates FECA but IRS regulations as well. The Department of Justice has the authority to enforce criminal violations of FECA even without action by the Federal Election Commission.

The Obama administration can end these illegal secret donations by announcing an investigation of organizations that took this approach in 2010. The DOJ should appoint a special prosecutor to remove the issue from partisan politics, subpoena documents and witnesses before a grand jury. Such an investigation should also put donors on notice: if a donor knows that the purpose of the non-profit is to avoid campaign finance disclosure requirements than they can also face criminal prosecution. Donors who wanted to keep their names out of campaign finance reports will want to keep their names off of grand jury subpoenas and certainly out of an indictment.

A coalition of advocacy groups have come together as Campaign Accountability Watch, to fight back against Rove and others, such as the Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads GPS and American Future Fund, to make sure that they do not violate campaign finance laws in the upcoming election as they have done in the past. Last week Campaign Accountability Watch sent letters to 40 U.S. Attorneys along with more than 12 thousand signatures of citizens urging prosecution of these organizations for illegally using non-profit front groups to violate FECA during the 2010 elections. Our simple request to U.S. Attorneys, the Department of Justice and the Obama administration: enforce existing law.

Last November I got a telephone call “Hello this is Special Agent … of the FBI.” They were responding to complaints we filed against the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads GPS. We had a lengthy meeting with the FBI shortly after that when we reviewed the public information available that made a prima facie case against the electoral practices of these organizations. Campaign Accountability Watch has been communicating with FBI investigators on using the criminal provisions of FECA to prosecute these wrongdoers since then and as recently as a month ago the investigation was continuing. The campaign has also filed complaints with the Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and organizations have filed an FEC complaint last October. To stem the coming flood of anonymous campaign spending it is time to enforce the law.

Step Two: Require Contractors to Disclose Political Contributions

President Obama is considering an executive order that would require companies bidding for federal contracts to disclose all of its federal political spending over $5,000 for the previous two years which they now keep secret, including money spent indirectly through third party organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. The proposed transparency order would create one central database on the website data.gov that would list the political activities of government contractors and their affiliates and officers.

The reaction to the executive order highlights the need for it. The Chamber of Commerce has been apoplectic over the executive order, making arguments that are absurd on their face. They have been lobbying former Chamber board member, William Daley, who is Obama’s chief of staff. They claim transparency will lead to corruption in government contracting when just the opposite is true. Politics and procurement are already linked as politicians already know who their donors are; this transparency order will make money less powerful, not more powerful. If the public knows which corporations donated to which candidates or other electoral efforts it levels the playing field. Favoritism to donors will be seen as corruption of the process. Rather than creating a spoils system for government contractors, transparency will expose it and end it.

The real issue for the Chamber is personal – their corporate donors who get federal contracts will be exposed and they will lose millions in donations for their electoral efforts. The public will learn how many of the Chamber of Commerce’s 300,000 corporate members are government contractors; watchdog groups will be able to discover whether the Chamber has lobbied for laws that benefit their donors. Is the Chamber a public interest group advocating for laws that are good for business; or really an organization for hire by corporations who want the Chamber to do their bidding and get them government contracts? The fact that the Chamber is so aggressively fighting disclosure of donors’ identities emphasizes the importance of Obama signing the transparency order.

More than two dozen Republican senators including House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy and the chairmen of 19 House committees signed letters to the president arguing that the order would inject political favoritism into the contracting process. When I used to practice law, when the other side hid information, I knew I was on the right track. If corporations and their allies in Congress oppose this executive order it shows they have something to hide, making it even more important for Obama to put the order in place.

Good government groups and the media have been very supportive of the proposal:

- The New York Times editorialized: “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an accomplished conduit for secret donors, is crying foul about the proposed executive order. But clearly the measure is needed to combat pay-to-play campaign abuses…. Now is not the time for him to flinch before noisy threats from the chamber and other deep-pocketed players.”

- The New Republic wrote: “The key now is for the White House and the regulatory agencies to ignore the threats from Congress and elsewhere, and move ahead with their efforts. After all, the sentiments of the 92 percent of the public that favors transparency, and the eight justices on the Supreme Court that have endorsed it, should outweigh the objections of the reborn anti-disclosure cabal.”

- And, the MetroWest Daily News pointed to Republican hypocrisy and common sense writing: “Not long ago, Republicans argued that campaign contributions shouldn’t be limited but, instead, should be publicly disclosed, leaving it up to voters to decide if a candidate had been unduly influenced. Now they not only demand that special interests be allowed to make unlimited contributions to get their favorite candidates elected, but they also want those contributions to be kept secret…. People who sell goods and services to the government shouldn’t be able to influence government decisions through secret donations of large piles of cash to elect favored politicians.”

Both unions and business would be subject to the law if they seek federal government contracts. Federal agencies spent about $535 billion in fiscal 2010 on government contracts. In fact more than 138,000 corporations would fall under the order including many Fortune 500 companies, military contractors, unions and others who do business with the federal government.

President Obama has it in his power to bring significant transparency to federal elections. Congressional opposition is irrelevant to the signing of executive orders and the enforcement of existing laws. People have the right to know who is funding campaign activities so voters know their business before the government. People also have the right to know whether corporations are being favored for government contracts because of their political donations. And, campaign disclosure laws need to be enforced to be effective. Transparency is essential to reducing the corruption of politics. It is time for the Obama administration to act.

Lawyers representing every leading law school in the United States have written an open letter to President Obama criticizing the conditions of Manning. Among the law professors is Lawrence Tribe who was President Obama’s law professor at Harvard and served in his administration until recently. The letter, Private Manning’s Humiliation, raises questions about President Obama saying: “President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency.”

Col. Ann Wright (ret) who served 29 years in the military noted that “President Obama could end the treatment of Manning with one phone call. As Commander-In-Chief he is responsible for the actions of the Marines at Quantico. Certainly he understands the constitutional right to be convicted before punished and that the condition of Manning violates protection from cruel and unusual punishment.”

The UN Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez reprimanded the United States for blocking an official visit with Manning to investigate his treatment. The UN torture investigator has been reviewing Manning’s case since December but the United States will not allow a private meeting with no tape recording. The military has also refused a U.S. Congressman’s request for an official visit to Manning, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, as well as a visit from Amnesty International.

Daniel Ellsberg, a veteran who graduated from Quantico and is noted for leaking the Pentagon Papers commented: “It seems likely that the Pentagon’s refusal to allow Amnesty International and the UN Rapporteur on Torture to hold unmonitored discussion with Bradley Manning (as the UN mandate demands) reflects well-founded fear that such experts on abusive conditions and torture could conclude that Manning’s treatment is not only ‘ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid’ — as State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley was forced to resign for saying– but criminal.”

This comes at a time when the U.S. and China are challenging each other on human rights. China issued a lengthy report regarding human rights violations in the United States this week. As PJ Crowley, former Assistant Secretary of State said when he resigned the Manning case would be an embarrassment to the U.S. internationally, highlighting “the broader, even strategic impact of discreet actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership. The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values.”

Around the world there is growing anger at the treatment of Manning. Five hundred thousand people have sent letters to President Obama urging him to “immediately end the torture, isolation and public humiliation of Bradley Manning.” The petition was put out by Azaaz.org and is addressed to President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates.

“A half million people have taken a stand in support of Bradley Manning. It’s certainly a challenge to President Obama to get on the right side of history here and finally put an end to the extreme and illegal pre-trial punishment,” said Jeff Paterson, a veteran speaking on behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network. “After he ends the mistreatment of Manning, he could then ensure that Bradley receives the fair and public trial that is guaranteed under the Constitution.”

*****

Call the White House and tell President Obama end the torture of Bradley Manning: Comments: 202-456-1111. Switchboard: 202-456-1414

Americans are recognizing the link between the military-industrial complex and the Wall Street oligarchs—a connection that goes back to the beginning of the modern U.S. empire. Banks have always profited from war because the debt created by banks results in ongoing war profit for big finance; and because wars have been used to open countries to U.S. corporate and banking interests. Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, wrote: “the large banking interests were deeply interested in the world war because of the wide opportunities for large profits.”

Many historians now recognize that a hidden history for U.S. entry into World War I was to protect U.S. investors. U.S. commercial interests had invested heavily in European allies before the war: “By 1915, American neutrality was being criticized as bankers and merchants began to loan money and offer credits to the warring parties, although the Central Powers received far less. Between 1915 and April 1917, the Allies received 85 times the amount loaned to Germany.” The total dollars loaned to all Allied borrowers during this period was $2,581,300,000.  The bankers saw that if Germany won, their loans to European allies would not be repaid. The leading U.S. banker of the era, J.P. Morgan and his associates, did everything they could to push the United States into the war on the side of England and France. Morgan said: “We agreed that we should do all that was lawfully in our power to help the Allies win the war as soon as possible.” President Woodrow Wilson, who campaigned saying he would keep the United States out of war, seems to have entered the war to protect U.S. banks’ investments in Europe.

The most decorated Marine in history, Smedley Butler, described fighting for U.S. banks in many of the wars he fought in.  He said:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

In Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins describes how World Bank and IMF loans are used to generate profits for U.S. business and saddle countries with huge debts that allow the United States to control them.  It is not surprising that former civilian military leaders like Robert McNamara and Paul Wolfowitz went on to head the World Bank. These nations’ debt to international banks ensures they are controlled by the United States, which pressures them into joining the “coalition of the willing” that helped invade Iraq or allowing U.S. military bases on their land.  If countries refuse to “honor” their debts, the CIA or Department of Defense enforces U.S. political will through coups or military action.

Tarak Kauff, Veteran For Peace activist and organizer, stated:

There are trillions for wars and occupations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Libya, billions yearly to support Israel’s occupation and oppression of Palestine, again trillions in bailouts to make those at the top of the economic food chain even more powerful, but relative pennies for our children’s education, adequate health care, infrastructure, housing and other necessities of Americans. Yet big corporate banks are thriving and, like Bank of America, pay no taxes. But you do, and I do, and working people all across this country pay taxes.  I ask, what are we paying for and into whose pockets is it going? The wealth of this country is disappearing down the tubes into the stuffed pockets of the financial/military/industrial oligarchs. Americans are being bled dry while people of the world are literally bleeding and dying from U.S.-made weapons and warfare. Do we not see the connection?

More and more people are indeed seeing the connection between corporate banksterism and militarism; they are seeing how uncontrolled spending on war is resulting in austerity at home. In a recent interview, Cornel West brought the issues of the wealth divide, Wall Street and militarism together. Prof. West also spoke about Obama, calling him “a cagey neoliberal at home and a liberal neoconservative abroad” who expanded the wars and military while re-enforcing the existing Wall Street-dominated power structure at home, a president who has abandoned the poor and working class and is becoming” a pawn of big finance and a puppet of big business.” See the interview with Professor West here.

Join us April 15 in Union SquarePark at 11:00 a.m. for the Sounds of Resistance concert and protest.

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

– Soldiers Oath

On March 20th, Americans, in a vet led assembly, gathered to support PFC Bradley Manning who is accused of leaking documents to WikiLeaks and who has been held in solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Base for 7 months. We worked successfully with the Prince William County Police for a safe and peaceful event, but one aspect of the event was in dispute – a veteran led flower laying ceremony.

It seemed like something that should not have been controversial – a ceremony to remember the war dead at a replica of the Iwo Jima Monument. The monument is open to the public every day of the year, but the Marines insisted on closing it to prevent a flower laying ceremony by veterans. We wanted to remember the war dead and emphasize that transparency saves lives as deception has been the basis of so many wars.

The Iwo Jima Memorial, also known as the U. S. Marine Corps War Memorial, is dedicated to all personnel of the Marines who have died defending the United States since 1775. The saying “Uncommon Valor Was a Common Virtue” is on the memorial and refers to the strength of mind and spirit that was shown by Marines in World War II who encountered danger with firmness. Bradley Manning, if he is guilty of what he is accused, has shown uncommon valor by sharing documents that show crimes and other misdeeds by the U.S. military and State Department. The inhumane treatment he is receiving is proof of the courage he has shown.

I wrote two memoranda to Colonel Daniel J. Choike, the Quantico Base Commander prior to March 20th. In them I explained our intent, the constitutional rights we were exercising and offered to find a way to exercise our rights safely. I concluded both memos saying “We ask you to please work with us in good faith and dignity to make this event work as it should under the Constitution, statutes and laws we all honor and respect. I stand ready and willing to work with you or your representatives, to make this work appropriately, and may be contacted for this purpose at any time, day or night, in furtherance of that goal.” We received no response from the Marine Command. The one time I called the Marines, I was told the monument is open every day of the year but would be closed because of our presence.

On the morning of the assembly, the Prince William police offered a compromise: we could send five people to the monument to lay flowers on the memorial. While some among the Bradley Manning supporters were unhappy with this compromise, we decided to accept it in order to have a peaceful event that allowed us to show our respect for those who have died in war. In the end, the police allowed six people to approach the monument with flowers.

Among the six were two who had been awarded the Purple Heart, one from World War II and the other from Iraq. Jay Wenk, an army veteran received the Purple Heart when he was a member of the 90th Infantry Division, part of Patton’s 3rd Army in Germany. His company got into a firefight in a heavily wooded area, a grenade fragment clipped his right shin, and the medic cleaned and bandaged it. The next morning after sleeping outside Wenk was in great pain, he’d contracted pneumonia and pleurisy. He was sent to a hospital west of the Rhine and rejoined his detail three weeks later. Most of his comrades had been killed while he was away when they were caught in the open by two German planes.

Zack Choate served as a scout with the Army’s 10th Mountain Division in southern Baghdad. He received a Purple Heart after being wounded by a roadside bomb in October 2006. He was riding in his vehicle on a combat patrol when a roadside bomb detonated, ejecting him from the gunner’s turret. After returning to the U.S. for treatment, he was awarded the Purple Heart. He was also diagnosed with PTSD. Out of a sense of “guilt” and other institutional pressures, he returned for a second tour.

Others in the flower laying group included: Retired Colonel Ann Wright who had a 29 year career in the U.S. military and also served 16 years in the Foreign Service. She served as Deputy Chief of Mission of US Embassies in Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Afghanistan and resigned in 2003 when the Iraq War began. There was also retired Marine Captain David C. MacMichael, the former commander of Headquarters Company at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia, a counter-insurgency expert in South-East Asia for four years who went to the CIA after his military career. Daniel Ellsberg left Harvard in 1954 to join the Marines and graduated first in a class of almost 1,100 lieutenants at the Marine School in Quantico. He served as a platoon leader and company commander in the Marine 2nd Infantry Division. In 1959 he began work at RAND, a private military think tank. He served in the Pentagon and reported the Gulf of Tonkin incident to Secretary Robert McNamara. He then served two years in Vietnam as a civilian working for General Lansdale. Ellsberg is most known for leaking the Pentagon Papers which undermined the rationale for the Vietnam War. The final member of the group was Elaine Brower, the mother of a Marine recently returned from his third deployment, 1 in Afghanistan and 2 in Iraq. She is an activist against the war with the National Steering Committee of World Can’t Wait and a member of Military Families Speak Out.

As the flower laying delegation approached the monument they were told to stop at a police barrier 20 feet from the memorial. The memorial was too far away to even throw the flowers on to it. The delegation was disappointed. Jay Wenk told me that “when we came up to the barriers and were told to put our flowers on the ground, that we could go no further because ‘that’s Federal land’ I felt shocked, angry and despairing of what our government is.” Zach Choate said he “was furious and hurt” Ann Wright decided to sit down on the road in protest, Daniel Ellsberg joined her. Then people came out from behind the police barricade and into the streets.

Police showed how much force they were willing to use to prevent vets from laying flowers on a war memorial. Riot police started to march down the hill. Dressed like Imperial Guards in Star Wars, 30 of them stood shoulder-to-shoulder covering the width of a four-lane road carrying large shields, wearing black helmets with plastic over their face in most cases only the eyes could be seen and many of them were covered by sun glasses, body armor covering their chest and arms, knee pads, shin guards and heavy boots. Behind them were an equal number of riot police without shields but similarly dressed. There were about a dozen SWAT team troops with large assault rifles, wearing green military-like clothing and also helmets with masks that hid their faces. There were eight police on horseback, the horses also wearing riot gear covering their face with plastic and the police troops riding them were wearing helmets and riot gear as well. They were accompanied by police with police dogs, two buses and an armored vehicle. There were numerous other police from Prince William County, Manassas and Quantico.

Five different police forces were involved in responding to the flower laying threat. Quite a show of paramilitary force to stop a flower laying ceremony by five vets and a military mom!

There was no violence from the peace protesters who had all pledged to be non-violent at the event. Some of the protesters were treated roughly by the paramilitary police.

What was the root cause of this expensive and unnecessary show of force? The Marine Command insisting that vets could not lay flowers at a public war memorial. Did they forget their oath? Perhaps the most important part of the U.S. Constitution is the First Amendment which protects Freedom of Speech, Assembly and Petitioning the government. The language is clear: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech . . .; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Rather than defending the Constitution, the actions of the Quantico Marine Command are undermining critical constitutional guarantees and violating the soldier’s oath.

As a result of the events on the 20th, 32 people have been arrested. Daniel Ellsberg said when the magistrate told him the charge was “unlawful assembly” he thought: “Unlawful assembly? I thought of that as a pre-Revolutionary charge: ‘Disperse, ye rabble! Go to your homes!’ I was under the belief that the First Amendment—protecting the right ‘peaceably to assemble to petition for redress of grievances’ was supposed to ‘change all that.’ Could there be a clearer description of what we were doing—right at the immediate site of one of the grievances? Granted, we were in a highway: but the State Police had blocked off that road themselves, for the period of our assembly: we weren’t even ‘disrupting traffic.’”

Now, it goes to the Prince William Courts. It will be an opportunity for the courts to enforce and protect the most basic constitutional rights of Americans, or an opportunity to turn those guarantees into a farce. Let’s hope the courts side with the people and the Constitution or the shock troops at Quantico could become a model seen in other parts of the country.

On April 15 in Union Square Park in New York City at 11:00 AM we are holding a “Sounds of Resistance Concert” and protest against the big corporate banks that have undermined the U.S. economy and displaced families from their homes. Big Finance has taken more than a trillion from the Department of Treasury and Federal Reserve to pay for their casino gambling on Wall Street but they are still forcing people out of their homes, not lending to small businesses and choking the economy.

The concert will feature political hip-hop/rock powerhouse Junkyard Empire with special guests Broadcast Live and Sketch the Cataclysm. Chris Hedges will speak about the growing culture of resistance. Other performers and speakers are invited.

The protest will include a picket of the Union Square Bank of America – a major culprit in the great rip off of the American taxpayer.

This concert and protest are part of the effort to build the urgently needed movement to shift power to the people and away from concentrated capital interests.

Our demands:

Stop Foreclosures: The last two years saw record foreclosures with one out of seven houses in the U.S. behind in their mortgage payments.  A total of 3.8 million foreclosure filings and actual bank repossessions topped 2.8 million in 2010, a 2% increase over 2009 and a 23% increase over 2008. This record is likely to be broken in 2011. The housing market is so bad that now there are reports of banks walking away from houses in foreclosure, leaving problems in communities.

Pay Fair Share of Taxes: Big banks are not paying taxes, while reaping tax payer bailouts. Bank of America did not pay any federal income taxes in 2010. The largest bank in America didn’t pay federal income taxes in 2009 either. If Bank of America paid their fair share of taxes, planned cuts of $1.7 billion in early childhood education (Head Start & Title 1) would not be needed. Bank of America avoids paying taxes by using subsidiaries in offshore tax havens. To eliminate their taxes, they reinvest proceeds overseas, instead of bringing the dollars home, thereby undermining the U.S. economy and avoiding federal taxes. Big Finance, like Bank of America, contributes to record deficits that are resulting in massive cuts to basic services in federal and state governments.

Break Up the Big Corporate Banks: If banks are “too big to fail”, then they are too big.  They dominate the economy and the political system. Ten huge banks now control 60% of the economy. They ensure concentration of capital and concentration of political power. Because of the federal government’s protection of the big banks, small and moderate sized banks cannot compete.  Failure to break up big corporate banks ensures their dominance of the economy and the government.  As Senator Dick Durbin said about the banks controlling the senate, in a moment of honest frustration, “they own the place.” It is time for the people to take back ownership of government and politics.

It is urgent that Americans organize, and stand up to the concentrated political/economic power and greed of the financial elite.  Join us on April 15 to be part of a people-powered movement that reins in the power of concentrated corporatism and builds the power of all Americans. Get involved now as we take the steps needed to build a movement that cannot be stopped.

Join us in New York City on April 15, 2011 at 11:00 in Union Square Park.

Regardless of how you felt about the original no fly zone, how you feel about the Gaddafi regime or the armed rebels fighting it, we should all recognize that the United States, United Kingdom and France are going further than a no fly zone and are intervening in a civil war for their own reasons that have nothing to do with defending democracy or other humanitarian goals.  Already we are seeing evidence of the broader mission beyond a no fly zone and beyond what President Obama said would be a few days with no troops on the ground.

While in Egypt this week Secretary Gates hinted that the war in Libya may be open-ended.

There is confusion about the goals in Libya.  Does it include removal of Gaddafi as President Obama and Secretary Clinton have said? Putting in place a democracy?  Reaching those goals is beyond the UN mandate and will get the U.S. into another quagmire.

While President Obama promised no troops on the ground in Libya, there are reports that there are already 2,000 marines on the ground in Libya.

Special Forces are developing a role in Libya.  Even before the UN resolution there were reports of U.S. “advisors” on the ground in Libya in early March and Special Forces fighting with rebels in late February, a month before the mandate.

The U.S. is planning on sending National Guard troops to Libya. Is a longer war planned than has been admitted?

It is becoming more evident that this is a foreign intervention into a civil war and we’ve had enough experience with that to know that it will not end well. And there is strong evidence that if this is not already one, it will become a civil war because of foreign intervention.

Due to the expansion of the attack beyond a no fly zone, which the Arab League originally called for, the Arab League now opposes the intervention because it is not a legitimate “no fly zone.” As the Arab League president said, “What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians.”

The “hidden agenda” of oil is rearing its ugly head again.  Would the U.S. be in Libya if it produced asparagus?  Why isn’t the U.S. opposing dictators in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia? Now that the Libyan Air Force has been made unable to fight, what is the purpose of the ongoing bombardment?

And how many civilians will the U.S. kill to save civilians from being killed?  Already there are reports of widespread civilian deaths as well as mistaken civilian deaths. Secretary Gates’ denial of civilian deaths are hard to believe when nearly 200 missiles have been launched into Libya.

The Libyan attack raises a persistent issue in U.S. foreign policy.  The U.S. trained the Libyan military and provided them with weapons, including $15 million in arms sales in FY 2009 alone.  Now the U.S. military is destroying that same military and the weapons the U.S. sold them.  Should the U.S., the largest arms merchant in the world which sells nearly 70% of all weapons, be selling weapons to despots, dictators and royalists who do not have the support of their people?  Doesn’t this ensure rebellions seeking democracy will be met with lethal force and the U.S. may need to intervene for “humanitarian” reasons? President Obama has produced record arms sales, in particular the largest arms sale in history to one country with $60 billion n sales to Saudi Arabia, another unpopular regime among its people.

Finally, the Constitutional issue of unilateral military attacks on countries that are not a threat to the United States was violated by the attack on Libya and needs to be faced up to.  When he was running for office, candidate Obama correctly said: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”  James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution wrote in 1795 that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which put the power to declare war and fund war in the hands of the legislature, was the most important clause of the constitution.

The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies. A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.

The founders had seen monarchs unilaterally declare war resulting in mass deaths and economic ruin.  Indeed, the U.S. with an already fragile economy and stretched thin military, faces those risks with the Libyan war.  Already the U.S. has used more than 150 Tomahawk Cruise missiles against Libya, each one costing $1.5 million.  On the first day the U.S. spent an estimated $100 million on the Libyan attack.  And people are estimating that the U.S. will spend $1 billion in Libya in a very short time.  This will all be borrowed money and comes at a time when austerity measures are being put in place by state and federal governments cutting basic services.

Please call President Obama and give him your thoughts about Libya.  Tell him to avoid mission creep and another military quagmire.  The White House switchboard is 202-456-1414.

Premiums are rising and coverage is shrinking. A new norm is taking hold in America: ‘Unaffordable underinsurance.’  This month, the number of waivers granted to the Obama health law broke 1,000 protecting inadequate insurance plans. The expansion of health insurance to the uninsured is becoming a mirage. The Obama administration has told states they could reduce the number of people covered by Medicaid as well as reduce the services provided.  And the centerpiece of the law is under court challenge – the mandate is the first time ever the federal government has forced Americans to buy a corporate product, private health insurance – is heading to a close Supreme Court decision.

The New Norm: ‘Unaffordable Underinsurance’

To make insurance premiums affordable, the quality of insurance will need to be reduced so there is less coverage and more out-of-pocket costs, as Don McCanne, MD, Senior Health Policy Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program writes:  “’Unaffordable underinsurance’ is rapidly becoming the new standard in the United States.”  The trend in health insurance is rising premiums and shrinking coverage for many Americans who get their coverage at work as well as on the individual insurance market.

Premiums have been increasing with reports ranging from 20% to 60% increases for many Americans and businesses. Further, the law may decrease employment-based insurance by 3 million people by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation. This,  combined with high unemployment and underemployment, will push people into the individual insurance market. The individual market is particularly at risk for increased premiums which is of growing importance because of high unemployment.  Blue Shield of California decided this month to withdraw a major hike in the face of public outcry.  This proposed 30%-35% increase would have been the third rate hike since October, the three increases would have raised rates by 59% to 87% for 200,000 policy holders.  While some hope the Obama health law will slow premium hikes, Claudia Fegan, MD of Physicians for a National Health Program writes under the Obama health law “sudden premium hikes are still possible and, in my opinion, quite likely under the new law.”

Underinsurance, requiring Americans to pay more of the cost of health care, may become the norm because of the 2010 law. The new law will hasten the current trend toward underinsurance as plans where patients pay an average of 40% of their health care bills qualify to fulfill the employers’ obligations to provide coverage rather than pay an assessment. Massachusetts, the model on which the Obama reforms are based, recently found that medical bankruptcies have not decreased with the new law.  The lesson – it is not just health insurance, but the quality of the insurance that matters. After deriding merely adequate insurance as “Cadillac Plans,” the Obama administration is showing support for high deductibility plans with large out-of-pocket costs that do not provide financial or health security.

One promise of the Obama health plan was that millions of underinsured would get decent insurance coverage because the “reform” required minimum levels of insurance.  But waivers to the requirements of the 2010 law are being widely granted, resulting in millions of Americans continuing to have inadequate health coverage.  Waivers allowing poor quality insurance affect 2.6 million people and are being granted rapidly to businesses, unions, insurance companies as well as states who cannot meet the Obama law requirements.

The administration says the purpose of the waivers is to avoid disruption in the insurance market; in clearer language it is to prevent employers from dropping coverage and insurance companies from leaving markets.  The requirement for a waiver is relatively simple; the applicant must show HHS “a significant increase in premiums or a decrease in access to benefits.” Ninety-four percent of requests for waivers have been granted, the largest area where waivers have been denied has been for unions.  Republicans have asked HHS for in-depth details about every waiver decision and request.

The major area of waivers are so-called mini-med plans. These are limited medical plans which provide workers with as little as $2,000 in health care coverage. The Obama health care law requires $750,000 minimum coverage in 2011. The mini-med plans do not provide security in the event of serious illness or accident. The vast majority of these waivers are for employment-based health coverage. Some of the initial waivers went to fast food chains like McDonalds and Jack-in-the-Box.  Unions, insurance companies and state governments have also received waivers. Four states have received waivers, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee.  Waivers are set to disappear in 2014, when people will be required to purchase insurance with tax payer subsidies – assuming that Obama health law survives and that low-paid workers can afford insurance even with a subsidy.

Expanded Numbers of Americans with Insurance Becoming a Mirage

The two largest areas of expansion, Medicaid and the insurance mandate, are in jeopardy.  States are cutting the number of people covered by Medicaid and reducing health coverage.  The insurance mandate is under constitutional attack. And there is little evidence that people are taking advantage of programs that provide coverage for those with pre-existing illness.

The area with the biggest immediate impact on reduced coverage is the roll backs of Medicaid. Medicaid was projected to be the largest area of expansion of medical care under the Obama health care plan, covering 16 million more people, making up half the projected increase in additional Americans covered with some type of insurance under the Obama law. That is now becoming a mirage.

HHS Secretary Sebelius wrote the 50 states letting them know benefits could be cut, poor people could be required to pay a higher share of costs and that federal law allows states to reduce people covered by Medicaid.  Medicaid is health care for the poor and is jointly funded by federal and state governments. Medicaid currently covers 53 million poor children, poor pregnant women and disabled and extremely poor adults. Individuals must make less than $14,500 to be included in Medicaid.

More than half the states want permission to remove hundreds of thousands of people from Medicaid. Arizona alone is planning to reduce Medicaid coverage by 250,000 people and the Obama administration has indicated it will not oppose this reduction in coverage.  In Wisconsin, where Governor Walker has proposed deep cuts to Badgercare (which includes Medicaid and other programs) up to 350,000 could lose health care coverage.  Rather than an increase in the number of people covered, the nation is on a path to reduce total people covered.

Other states, like New York, Hawaii and California which are led by Democratic governors, are cutting benefits of Medicaid programs that already provide insufficient coverage.  Medicaid is often one of the largest expenses of a state but because the cost is shared with the federal government it is also a large source of revenue. As a result it takes more than $2 of Medicaid cuts to save a state $1.  When Medicaid is cut the economy is weakened and revenues reduced as for every dollar cut, health care jobs are lost. Cutting health care for the poor and disabled continues the downward economic spiral – the race to the bottom.

When it comes to people taking advantage of expected benefits of the health care law, thus far only 12,000 people have enrolled in the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan despite an aggressive marketing effort.  The Medicare actuary, Rick Foster, told The Hill the low enrollment is a “surprise,” given that “millions” are eligible for the coverage. The Medicare actuary had conservatively predicted the new pools would enroll 375,000 people by the end of 2010, but that projection has not been met because the insurance is too expensive for most people who need it.

Better results might be being seen for young adults.  Approximately 13.2 million 18-29 year olds are without insurance, 30% of that population.  Under the health care law these youth can stay covered under the parents’ health insurance.  There are no hard numbers for how many have taken advantage of this, but the Obama administration estimates it could be as many as 1.2 million. As we see with the pre-existing illness option, predictions are one thing and reality is very likely another.  Covering each dependent will cost about $3,380 in 2011, so it is difficult to predict how many families can afford that cost in these difficult economic times when unemployment and underemployment are up and incomes are down.

The Obama health care law may decrease employment-based insurance by 3 million people by 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation. One estimate made by the CBO is that 8–9 million people currently covered under an employer plan would lose employer coverage because firms would choose to no longer offer coverage. They assume this would be balanced in part by those getting coverage on the exchange.

The other area where increased coverage was promised is the mandate forcing Americans to buy insurance.  The mandate is hotly contested in the courts with 27 states challenging the law and over 20 lawsuits filed it. The courts have split 3-2 in favor of the mandate thus far.  In the two decisions finding the mandate unconstitutional, a Virginia judge threw out only the mandate, while a Florida judge found the mandate so intertwined with the rest of the law that he would stop the whole law. The decisions have been issued along partisan lines, with three district judges appointed by Bill Clinton upholding the law; and two district judges — one appointed by Ronald Reagan and the other by George W. Bush — finding it unconstitutional.  The U.S. Supreme court has five Republican appointed justices and four appointed by Democrats.  It is generally viewed as four on the center-left, four on the right and Justice Kennedy as the swing vote.  The vote on the Supreme Court will be a close one.

The health care law faces a congressional challenge, especially from the Republican controlled House of Representatives which has already voted to repeal the law, but more importantly, promises to use the power of the purse to not fund its implementation.

Single Payer Rising: Why Not Just Improve and Expand Medicare to All?

The imploding health care law is creating an opening which may require a re-consideration of health care reform within the next five years.  Americans consistently favor simply expanding and improving Medicare to cover all Americans.  Terry Dougherty, director of MassHealth, from a state which the model for the Obama law is in place, is reaching the obvious conclusion:  “I like the market, but the more and more I stay in it, the more and more I think that maybe a single payer would be better.”  He notes that unlike the insurance industry government costs less, with much lower administrative costs and “We don’t build big buildings. We don’t have high salaries. We don’t have a lot of marketing.”

The low cost of publicly funded health care is consistent with the experience of America’s single payer system – Medicare. The administrative cost of running the Medicare program has remained under 2%. But the bureaucracy of trying to control the insurance industry is already growing rapidly. The growth of the federal insurance bureaucracy, the federal office that regulates private insurance along with other important duties under the Obama health law, already has 252 employees and a budget of $93 million for 2012 budget requested by the White House.

While the single payer movement is growing stronger through groups like Health Care Now and Physicians for a National Health Program, the insurance industry is also getting stronger.  Not only will they receive hundreds of millions in new annual tax payer subsidies but they are taking over other parts of health care.  Kaiser Health News reports “Insurers have moved into technology, health-care delivery, physician management, workplace wellness, financial services and overseas ventures.” The Obama law is spurring the cancer of health insurance to spread throughout health care.

At the state level Vermont is striving toward single payer.  Governor Shumlin, his technical advisers and Vermonters support a single payer program, and are considering a bill that reduces the number of funding sources and if federal waivers are granted, which Obama reportedly supports, it will evolve into a single payer program.  The current version of the bill falls short of the goals of advocates who want health care treated as a human right as well as of physicians who seek a single payer program.

The “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act,” H.R. 676, a bill that sets up a single payer system has been introduced. It would provide health care to all and give consumers the most choice, provide strong health coverage as well as save money for government, business and individuals. Unlike the Obama law, improved Medicare for all would also be easier to implement.  Medicare transitioned Americans over 65 from private insurance to Medicare within a year and did so without computers.

The failing Obama reforms shows that the obvious must be faced: confront the health insurance industry which makes coverage of all Americans unaffordable. President Obama knew before running for president that single payer was the solution, but after receiving $20 million in donations from the insurance industry refused to let the only real solution, improved Medicare for all, be considered.  It is time to put in place a single payer health care program that ensures that all U.S. residents have quality health care at less cost than they currently pay.