Jeff Blum

As this election season winds down, I am amazed at all of the smart, hard, creative work that was done to make democracy work in our nation. Many of us have labored for many years in the vineyards of chipping away and playing defense and fighting against intolerance and oppression and elitism.  This upcoming year will be, I think, a great turning point when we begin to revive our democracy and make progressive values again defining, leading forces in our nation’s civic life.

Being in Missouri and Colorado this week has re-affirmed my deep respect and admiration for people who join together at election time to make a change.  People like Adam, a young organizer in Fort Collins who is running this entire operation here, deploying people onto doors, phones and at polling places. Like Angie in Greeley, who has managed a large operation in the low-income Latino/a community there, despite having lost her voice days ago.  (Angie blew the whistle on County Clerk-inspired Latino voter suppression that became a cause célèbre in the New York Times.)  Like Tahira, who trained me for canvassing Sunday in Denver – and sometimes canvasses with her three-year-old when she can’t find a sitter – but hasn’t missed a day’s work for the entire project.

Driving around Fort Collins, I was also inspired by the overwhelming presence of volunteers on street corners waving Obama signs, and something clicked for me. All year we’ve wondered aloud whether white people would vote for a black candidate. Certainly some did not, but I believe what we witnessed is the stunning movement for change that is sweeping the country.

I believe millions of people – especially young, but not at all only – are trying to make a statement about the America we want to be, a powerful break from the worst parts of the past of a nation built on racial slavery and, more recently, enamored of its unique role in the world to the point of becoming, under this Administration but not for the first time, the world’s bully.

I think one powerful element of what people are saying is about race and about equalizing the roles of all people in this world – a statement that explicitly claims the multi-racial nature of our society, that says it’s time to turn the page toward a future that treats everyone respectfully, regardless of race or nationality.  That, to me, will hopefully be one of the lasting, profound impacts of this election. Paired with the reinvigoration of our democracy, and before any new policies that we will all fight madly for become law, that’s a wonderful delayed start to this new millennium.

I hope you have all enjoyed and been enriched by your participation in this great democratic endeavor. I look forward to these next chapters in the lives of our organizations and our movement and our national community.

Jeff Blum
Executive Director, USAction

On November 5th, I watched Congressman John Lewis giving his reaction to President-elect Barack Obama’s amazing victory. He said that he was jumping up and down, saying “Hallelujah”. And then he wept.

I had the same reaction – and I imagine many of you did also. Later that night, as the giddiness receded, Obama stood up and gave the speech of this new generation:

“I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctors bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.”

Obama’s next words channeled the greatness of Dr. Martin Luther King, echoing the daily bread of our organization:

“The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.”

This is USAction’s agenda. This is what we fight for every day. This is what we are ready to address – starting now - with the President-elect, with the new Congress, and most importantly, with you. We have already have plans begun planning our campaigns around quality, affordable health care for all, economic recovery legislation, a clean energy economy and responsibly ending the war in Iraq.

Today, I have more hope than I have had in decades of public service. Hope in the American people, hope in our future, and a renewed energy to take on the challenges facing us today. Today, I am ready to make my mark on this moment of history.

New campaign ad urges young people to talk to their grandparents about politics. There are issues in this election that does not just affect you, but affects the life, health, and economic security of your family members.

So watch the video, then turn off the computer and “Tell your granny“.

For weeks USAction and a growing number of the nation’s most respected economists have called for greater financial regulation and government oversight of financial institutions as a result of the Wall Street collapse and $700 billion government bailout package.

Today, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan admitted under pressure that free-wheeling ideology championed by fiscal conservatives is at least partly responsible for the “credit tsunami” that has pushed this country into a recession.

But in a tense exchange with Rep. Henry Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Mr. Greenspan conceded a more serious flaw in his own philosophy that unfettered free markets sit at the root of a superior economy.

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Mr. Greenspan said.

Questioned by Rep. Waxman, Greenspan said he was “shocked” that the economic philosophy he has championed for the past 40 years has completely failed.

Alan Charney, USAction program director, wholeheartedly agreed. “Reality has proven that the laissez-faire free market philosophy just does not work in the long term,” Charney said. “At a minimum, there must be strict government oversight and regulations of our financial institutions to get this economy moving again.”

“We appreciate Greenspan’s sincerity and realize it is not easy for someone to admit that his view of how the economy works has a serious flaw,” Charney added. “That is why it is time for us to embrace the idea that we need bold, new economic policies to keep things from going from bad to worse. We certainly can’t keep doing what we have been doing.”

Check out these two videos of speakers at Georgia Rural Urban Summit’s September 26th protest and press conference in front of Cigna, Aetna, and Kaiser Permanente in Atlanta. First is Cathy McClure, a supporter of HCAN who a few years ago took the initiative to found VoteHealthCare.org, speaking about her family’s terrible experiences with insurance companies.

Next check out State Rep. Roberta Abdul-Salaam speaking passionately about the need for affordable, quality health care for all Americans. We need more like her!

If you’re in Atlanta, come to our next action. Sign up at

We don’t think America is better off. According to recent statistics, unemployment, inflation and gas prices are up 50% from 8 years ago. Manufacturing levels, real wages and property values are down significantly. Our financial institutions are destabilizing before our very eyes and the quality of our health care system continues to decline.

The overwhelming majority of people know that our nation is definitely on the wrong track and we need a change.

Now that we’ve bailed out the banks, it is time to provide relief for millions of Americans and get our economy back on track. Congress must pass a comprehensive economic recovery package which includes four key aspects:

• Bankruptcy Protection: Allowing responsible people to stay in their homes.
• Aid to State and Local Governments: Offsetting drastic cuts in vital services and massive layoffs.
• Relief for struggling families: Supporting those hit hardest by the recession by extending unemployment insurance and temporarily increasing food stamps.
• Public Investments in Infrastructure and Clean Energy: Ensuring safety on our nations roads, bridges and trains while creating hundreds of thousands of new “green” jobs.

As Congress continues next week with hearings to develop a well-crafted economic recovery package news reports state that the package could be as large as $300-$400 billion. What do you think? What else should be in it and how large?

This is the first news article that I’ve read that has made me understand just how bad the economy is, and just how likely things are to get worse if radical changes are not made…. like…. NOW! Normally copying articles verbatim is strictly a “no-no” in the blogosphere, but what this guy is saying in a CNN editorial is much to serious to mince words or rephrase.

Barry Eichengreen is Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Commentary: Is this the start of another Great Depression?

Barry Eichengreen

Every time the economy and stock market turn down, financial historians get predictable calls from reporters. Could this be the start of another Great Depression? Could “it” possibly happen again? My stock answer has always been no.

The Great Depression resulted from a series of economic and financial shocks — the end of a housing bubble in 1926 and the end of a high-tech bubble in 1929 — but also from truly breathtaking neglect and incompetence on the part of policymakers.

The first thing that made the Great Depression great, of course, was the Fed’s failure to act. It basically stood by as the banking system and the economy collapsed around it. This time, in contrast, the Fed can hardly be criticized for inaction. Not only has it cut rates, but it has rolled out one new unprecedented initiative after another.

Unfortunately, it has reacted more than acted. First, it provided funds to the commercial banks. Then, it targeted broker-dealers. Now, it is desperately propping up the commercial paper market. All the while however, the problem has been infecting new parts of the financial system.

U.S. Treasury bill rates have essentially fallen to zero, and the Fed’s policy interest rates are only slightly above that level. Central banks are out of ammunition. This is no longer a problem they can solve by themselves.

G7 leaders, when they meet in Washington at the end of this week, need to explain exactly how they will address this aspect of the problem. They need to commit money to recapitalizing their banking systems — now, and not next week.

My recommendation would be to abandon the idea of reverse auctions for toxic assets and instead use the $700 billion of the recently passed rescue plan for bank recapitalization. Although the Great Depression started in 1929, it took until 1933 for American leaders to grasp this nettle and recapitalize the banks. We can’t afford to wait for years this time around.

A final thing that made the Great Depression such a catastrophe was that some of the worst shocks occurred right before the 1932 presidential election. There then followed an extended interregnum between the election and inauguration of the new president when no one was in charge.

The economy was allowed to spiral downward. It was this disaster that led us to amend the constitution to shorten the time between presidential election and inauguration from 4 to 2½ months. The implication is clear. The two presidential candidates should be assembling their financial SWAT teams now. Paulson should promise that they will be invited into his office on November 5.

This problem cannot wait until Inauguration Day.

Below you will find an article about the raid on ACORN’s Nevada office along with their organization’s statement. I assume ACORN’s statement to be true because they claim to hold paper evidence to back up their case. This raid is an attempt disenfranchise voters — we may think this doesn’t happen anymore but conservatives often engage in voter disenfranchisement tactics. The only difference between now and 40 years ago is that the right cannot blatantly tell the poor and people-of-color people they can’t vote. Instead they find other means to bog organizations down with legal battles that won’t be resolved (usually in voters’ favor) until after the elections!

ACORN Office Raid Linked to U.S. Attorney Firings Scandal
M.S. Bellows, Jr.
Posted October 7, 2008 | 03:49 PM (EST)

ACORN Statement: Nevada Secretary of State ‘Stunt’ Serves No Useful Purpose
Last update: 8:56 p.m. EDT Oct. 7, 2008

The following three shows/articles provide a comprehensive, explicit and clear overview of how we got to this point in the credit crisis.

60 Minutes
Length: 12 min
A Look at Wall Street’s Shadow Market: How Some Arcane Wall Street Financial Instruments Magnified Economic Crisis

This American Life
Length: 1 hr, organized into four acts (If you are strapped for time just listen to the conclusion, it’s helpful to watch the 60 Minutes article first for background)
Another Frightening Show About the Economy

The Hill
Length: 2 pages
With bailout passed, lobbyists look to get in the game

What do you do when the house of cards you built start tumbling down on you and the entire country starts defecting “en masse” from your political ideology? Well, if you’re a republican, you blame the victim.

Recently, conservatives have begun attacking progressive housing advocates like ACORN and CRA, blaming it for the recent financial crisis and suggesting that the law forced lenders to make irresponsible loans to underserved communities. They actually want the public to believe that it was poor and working class people - and not Wall Street fatcats - who caused the massive $700 billion bailout passed by Congress last week!

Talk about class warfare.

First of all, I can’t imagine that every poor and working class man, woman and child in this country owns anything close to $700 billion in assets. That would be akin to blaming a kindergardner for his parent’s running up his parent’s credit card. Even if the child did get a few outfits from his parents spending spree, who was responsible for signing the receipt? Who determined the interest rate charges? And who decided how much - and how often - to spend?

Most analysts agree, adjustable rate mortgages on overvalued homes (that rapidly depreciated when the housing market bubble burts) is responsible for this financial crisis, not loans on the modestly priced homes in urban neighborhoods.

I guess I should be encouraged that neocons are in full-fledged panic mode and are resorting to the most ridiculous of arguments to shore up its eroding political base, however, as Media Matters reports, mainstream media seems to be tripping over themselves to give credence to this ridiculous blaming the victim:

· The Politico’s Daniel Libit uncritically repeated New Gingrich’s claim that Democrats wanted “provisions to provide money” to ACORN in the bailout bill despite his colleague Ryan Grim’s having noted earlier that ACORN was not specifically directed any funds (9/30/08).

· On Fox & Friends, Steve Doocy said there was a “story” out there that Democrats wanted to give ACORN “20 percent of those almost trillion dollars.” Guest Ken Blackwell called it a “classic payoff” (10/01/08).

· In a Washington Times column, Mona Charon wrote that Democrats “managed to find time to slip language into the bailout legislation that would provide a dandy little slush fund for ACORN” (10/01/08).

· On Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs claimed that ACORN would “reap hundreds of millions of dollars” from the bailout bill (9/29/08).

· Michael Savage, on his nationally syndicated radio show, said we didn’t need the latest version of the bailout bill because “they put in money for La Raza and ACORN” (9/29/08).

· Rush Limbaugh claimed that ACORN “forc[ed] banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in ‘subprime’ loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers” (9/29/08).

· A New York Post editorial accused ACORN of using “intimidation tactics” and “public charges of racism” to extract “hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America’s financial institutions” (9/29/08).

· An American Spectator article claimed that after the CRA came into effect, ACORN got into the “shakedown business” and accused them of demanding more government spending on social programs, a higher minimum wage, and gun control (9/29/08).