The State of Opportunity

Community, Opportunity, and the Republican Convention

As promised, here’s our analysis of Opportunity  and Community language at work in the Republican National Convention speeches. An overall analysis of the speeches shows somewhat of a struggle between a Community Values form of Opportunity—in which we’re all in it together, and benefit from ensuring that everyone has the tools to succeed—and a free-market form of opportunity in which everyone is free to compete on the existing playing field but, ultimately, you’re on your own. And in almost all of the excerpts, the notion of Community is an individual, person-to-person form of mutual responsibility, paired with a criticism of government.

McCain:

“We're going to change that. We're going to recover the people's trust by standing up again for the values Americans admire. The party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan is going to get back to basics.  We believe everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential from the boy whose descendants arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers. We're all God's children and we're all Americans.

We believe in low taxes, spending discipline and open markets. We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor.  We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don't legislate from the bench. We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities.

We believe in a government that unleashes the creativity and initiative of Americans. Government that doesn't make your choices for you, but works to make sure you have more choices to make for yourself.”

….

“Education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained. But what is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.

When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice and their children will have that opportunity.”

“Fight with me. Fight with me.
Fight for what's right for our country.
Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.
Fight for our children's future.
Fight for justice and opportunity for all.
Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.
Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.
Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history”

 Sarah Palin

 “We met in high school, and two decades and five children later he's still my guy. My mom and dad both worked at the elementary school in our small town.  And among the many things I owe them is one simple lesson: that this is America, and every woman can walk through every door of opportunity.”

 Mitt Romney

“The American people have always been the source of our nation's strength, and they always will be.  We strengthen our people and our economy when we preserve and promote opportunity. Opportunity is what lets hope become reality.  Opportunity expands when there's excellence and choice in education, when taxes are lowered, when every citizen has affordable, portable health insurance, and when constitutional freedoms are preserved.

Opportunity rises when children are raised in homes and schools that are free from pornography, and promiscuity, and drugs, where there are homes that are blessed with family values and the presence of a mom and a dad.

America -- America cannot long lead the family of nations if we fail the family here at home.  You see, liberals would replace opportunity with dependency on government largesse. They grow government and raise taxes to put more people on Medicaid, to take work requirements out of welfare, and to grow the ranks of those who pay no taxes at all.

Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity. It's time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is.  You know, it's time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big Brother.”

 Cindy McCain

“But I have also seen the resilience of the American people. I've heard stirring stories of neighbor helping neighbor, of cities on one end of the country offering help to fellow citizens on the other.  Despite our challenges our hearts are still alive with hope and belief in our individual ability to make things right if only the federal government would get itself under control and out of our way.

So tonight is also about renewing our commitment to one another.  Because this campaign is not about us. It's about our special and exceptional country.  And this convention celebrates a special and exceptional Republican Party ... the hand we feel on our shoulder belongs to Abraham Lincoln.

From its very birth, our party has been grounded in the notion of service, community and self-reliance ... and it's all tempered by a uniquely American faith in — and compassion for — each other's neighbors.  A helping hand and friendly support has always been our way. It's no surprise that Americans are the most generous people in history.

That generosity of spirit is in our national DNA. It's our way of doing things. It's how we view the world.  I was taught Americans can look at the world and ask either: What do other countries think of us ... or we can look at ourselves and ask: What would our forefathers make of us and what will our children say of us? That's a big challenge. In living up to it, we know the security and prosperity of our nation is about a lot more than just politics.  It also depends on personal commitment, a sense of history and a clear view of the future.”

Joe Lieberman

“We meet tonight in the wake of a terrible storm that has hit the Gulf Coast but that hurts all of us, because we are all members of our larger American family.At times like this, we set aside all that divides us, and we come together to help our fellow citizens in need.  What matters is certainly not whether we are Democrats or Republicans, but that we are all Americans. 

The truth is, it shouldn't take a hurricane to bring us together like this.Every day, across our country, millions of our fellow citizens are facing huge problems. They are worried about their homes, their jobs, and their businesses; they are worried about the outrageous cost of gas and of health insurance; and they are worried about the threats from our enemies abroad.

But when they look to Washington, all too often they do not see their leaders coming together to tackle these problems.  Instead they see Democrats and Republicans fighting each other, rather than fighting for the American people.Our Founding Fathers foresaw the danger of this kind of senseless partisanship. George Washington himself — in his farewell address to our country — warned that the "spirit of party" is "the worst enemy" of our democracy and "enfeebles" our government's ability to do its job.”

Shifting the Political Debate

A year and a half ago, The Opportunity Agenda embarked on an ambitious effort to elevate social justice values, problems, and solutions in the 2008 presidential election cycle.  In particular, we sought to make two crucial ideals, Opportunity and Community, front and center in public and political discourse around the campaign.  Opportunity is the idea that everyone should have a fair chance to achieve his or her full potential; it is an idea inextricably linked with the American Dream.  Community is the notion that we share a sense of responsibility for each other; that we’re all in it together and strongest when we leave no one behind.  Community values are the essence of our national motto, e pluribus unum, “from many, one.”

The Opportunity Agenda has promoted those values across social issues, from education to living wages to the integration of immigrants to health care to family farming, identifying the practical solutions that uphold our core ideals.  We have worked in collaboration with hundreds of social justice leaders, organizations, and everyday folks, and in a particularly strong partnership with the Center for Community Change and its network around community values.

Our effort has included research on American values, public opinion, framing, and media discourse; communications tools and training for hundreds of advocates, organizers, faith, and political leaders around the country; outreach to mainstream and ethnic media; new media advocacy, from blogs to YouTube, to MySpace and Facebook; and message support to the Heartland Presidential Forum: Community Values in Action, co-sponsored by the Center for Community Change in Des Moines, Iowa, ahead of the caucuses.

Our effort is strictly non-partisan and does not embrace any candidate or either party.  We believe that a long-term campaign to move hearts, minds, and policy must cross partisan boundaries. 

Last week, as the Democratic National Convention came to a close, we were able to see real progress in moving the political discourse.  Opportunity and Community were very much “in the house” at the Democratic convention.  Indeed, the theme of the convention—renewing America’s promise—had deep roots in the narratives of Opportunity and Community.  We’ll be analyzing the Republican convention at the end of this week.

At an important part of the convention speech, Obama combined the values of opportunity and community: “Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.  That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper.” 

This linkage of opportunity and community was carried by numerous speakers earlier in the week.  In his keynote, former Virginia Governor Mark Warner explained, “We believe that everyone should have an opportunity to get ahead, and with success comes a responsibility to make sure others can follow. I think we are blessed to be Americans. But with that blessing comes an obligation to our neighbors and our common good.”  Warner continued, “So you give every child the tools they need to succeed. That means quality schools, access to health care, safe neighborhoods. Not just because it's the right thing to do, of course it is; but because if those kids do better, we all do better. You can be soft-hearted or hard-headed—both are going to lead you to the same place. We're all in this together. That's what this party believes. That's what this nation believes.”

Senator Clinton similarly brought our two core ideals together in her speech to the convention: “You know, America is still around after 232 years because we have risen to every challenge in every new time, changing to be faithful to our values of equal opportunity for all and the common good. And I know what that can mean for every man, woman, and child in America.”

In addition to promoting the values that we must strive toward as a nation, The Opportunity Agenda, CCC, and our partners named the failed ideas and attitudes that we must overcome.   We explained in talking points and in trainings for organizers and advocates in Iowa and around the country that, too often, politicians have told the American people “You’re on your own.”  They have engaged in a politics of isolation and division instead of taking on our common challenges.

Last December, the eventual Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, echoed that narrative from the stage at the Heartland Presidential Forum.  Senator Obama said “it is important for America that we realize responsibilities not just for ourselves, but for each other.  That we’re not in this on our own.  And we’ve had an administration over the last seven years that tells us that ‘you’re on your own.’  We’ve had businesses that say, ‘what’s in it for me?’ instead of ‘what’s in it for us?’ And, as a consequence, America has been weaker and the American Dream has been slipping away.” 

Eight months later, in his acceptance speech at the convention, Obama echoed that theme, as he has many times since Iowa: “In Washington, they call this the ‘Ownership Society,’” Obama said, “but what it really means is that you're on your own. Out of work? Tough luck, you're on your own. No health care? The market will fix it. You're on your own. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, even if you don't have boots. You are on your own.”  Well, it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States.”

Linguist George Lakoff, appearing on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show over the weekend, commented on the framing of the convention.

The shift in political discourse is encouraging, and represents a stark change from the 2004 convention cycle.  But it will be up to all of us to make them real; to let both parties know that these values matter, and that they are more than rhetoric.  They correspond to concrete policy priorities, like guaranteed affordable health care for all, a pathway to citizenship for America’s immigrants, living wages and fair labor protections, investment in schools and college access, and a criminal justice system that promotes prevention and rehabilitation.  Changing the political discourse is an important start.  But it’s just a start.

Next week, we’ll report on values and the Republican convention.

Not Just a Bill

A surreal debate is playing out on Capitol Hill over a proposed expansion of the GI Bill of Rights.    Bi-partisan coalitions in the House and Senate want to increase college support under the law to give a new, promising start to veterans who’ve served at least three years in the military.  President Bush and John McCain oppose the bill, ostensibly on the ground that it would motivate too many soldiers to seek college over re-enlistment.  But the Congressional Budget Office estimates that an augmented GI Bill would increase the number of new recruits by about the same amount that it would coax out of the armed forces. 

So what’s really going on?  The GI Bill is not just a bill.  Through its values, its language, its history and impact, it embodies a profoundly progressive vision of opportunity, linked to a populist form of patriotism.  That combination is especially threatening to the conservative elite.

First, it’s a “bill of rights”—a phrase and idea that derive from our most cherished constitutional foundation.  The bill conveys not benefits or privileges, but rights that veterans hold by virtue of their service to our country.

Second, it’s an economic bill of rights, tied to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vision of a “Second Bill of Rights” for all Americans that included not only “the right to a good education,” but also “the right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation; the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;…the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; the right of every family to a decent home;…the right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; [and] the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment….”

That vision connects us to internationally-recognized economic and social human rights, embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that recognizes a similar range of economic and social rights, as well as civil and political rights like the right to freedom of speech and religion.  While the United States, led by Eleanor Roosevelt, helped to craft and elevate the Universal Declaration at the end of World War II, presidential administrations of both parties have largely opposed the notion of economic and social human rights since the start of the Cold War.  Polling by The Opportunity Agenda shows that large majorities of Americans, however, recognize and support the economic rights that the Roosevelts worked to advance.

Fourth, the history and impact of the original GI Bill of Rights demonstrate how expanding opportunity advances our national interests and the common good.  The GI Bill helped an entire generation of Americans—and America itself—to take a giant leap toward shared prosperity.  It instigated a wave of ingenuity, innovation, entrepreneurship, productivity, and mobility from which our country continues to benefit sixty years later.

Finally, expanding the Bill of Rights today will make plain the connection between those progressive ideals and the men and women now serving in our military—a connection that conservatives have successfully undermined (often with progressive assistance) since the days of the Vietnam War.

The original GI Bill of Rights was almost defeated by Southern conservative lawmakers, Democrats, who opposed higher education and economic mobility for returning African-American veterans.  Today, conservatives’ objections may be expressed differently, but they rest on similarly ideological grounds.  Today, as in 1944, the GI Bill is not just a bill.

Lifting the Curtain

Last week I got on the B train from Brooklyn to Manhattan at 5:30 am.  It was early for me, but the train was packed with regulars.  They were not Wall Street titans or corporate moguls.  Not lawyers or accountants.  The train was filled with low-income folks, overwhelmingly people of color, on their way to work.  Many were going to, or even returning from, the first of several jobs that they do every day to make ends meet and support their families.

And so, it was especially jarring to open the paper and read Hillary Clinton’s words in an interview with USA Today:

"There was just an AP article posted,” Clinton said, “that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how the, you know, whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

Upon reflection, I realized that what was remarkable about Clinton’s comments was that she had explicitly made the connection between white Americans and “hard working Americans.”  Politicians from both parties have been making the connection implicitly in voters’ minds for decades, but rarely has a major politician lifted the curtain on that troubling narrative.

Throughout the 1980s, Ronald Reagan told the story of the "Chicago welfare queen" who had 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, and collected benefits for "four nonexisting deceased husbands," fleecing taxpayers out of "over $150,000."  The story turned out to be untrue, but Reagan kept telling it.  Just as important, Reagan’s audience understood the mythical Welfare Queen to be an African-American single mother, even though most women on welfare in the 1980s where white, and even though this particular woman did not actually exist.  Reagan was tapping a longstanding stereotype and understood that he did not have to—and shouldn’t—make the racial connection explicitly.

A decade later, when Bill Clinton touted rewarding Americans who “work hard and play by the rules,” and “ending welfare as we know it,” the subtext of poor people of color was also in the background.  Who, exactly, were the people who were not working hard and breaking the rules?  The phrase tapped the sub-conscious—and inaccurate—script that millions of Americans carried in their heads.

What’s remarkable about Hillary Clinton’s comment is that she actually made explicit what Reagan and Bill Clinton had kept below the surface: the stereotype that people of color are lazy and dependent on “big government.”

Unfortunately, many progressive organizations and leaders continue to use the “hardworking Americans” and “playing by the rules” narratives, perhaps unaware of what that triggers in their audiences, or how it is experienced by many people of color. 

It’s time to move to a narrative that honors hard work, perseverance, and honesty without playing on racial stereotypes and division.  We can start by breaking the predominant frame and showing, as well as telling, the real story of America’s working poor, including the low-income people of color who work hard every day.

Framing Government

The cover of U.S. News and World Report this week declares in bold letters: “BIG GOVERNMENT.  It’s back—no matter who wins.”  Inside, James Pethokoukis writes that “whether you pull the lever (or fill in the oval touch screen) for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or even John McCain in November, you’re probably going to end up in 2009 with a push for Big Government of the sort not seen in a generation.  More taxes.  More regulation.  More spending.”

But rather than proving that a jump in the size of government is imminent, the article itself shows that media outlets are still ready to buy into the tired, conservative framing of government from decades past.
The Big Government label was never about the cost, size, or reach of government.  If it were, then “Limited Government Conservatives” should have been howling from the start about the whopping price tag of the Iraq war, the growing number of border agents, warrantless surveillance, and federal intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.  To be sure, some libertarian conservatives did oppose those developments, but few would argue that they qualify as big government.

No, Limited Government and Big Government are not about cost, size, or reach, but, rather, about what government should do and who should pay for it.  And, along with “tax and spend,” they are among the conservative movement’s most successful narratives about their vision for America and those who disagree.

But what’s our narrative?  How should we be talking about a positive role for government that respects human rights, keeps us safe, and protects opportunity for all?  Research by the Frameworks Institute, Demos, and Public Knowledge, as well as The Opportunity Agenda’s research and experience in the field, provide some promising principles.

Government represents a shared investment in systems that serve the common good.  Those systems include the system of levees that should have protected the people of New Orleans against Hurricane Katrina, but for our failure to invest in them.  They include the system of childhood immunization that has wiped out dangerous childhood diseases.  Our system of civil rights laws, that has expanded opportunity to include more and more Americans.  Even our interstate highway system, that connects us as a single, prosperous nation.  None of these national strides forward could have been accomplished through individual efforts alone—we could only accomplish them together, through investment in government.

Taxes, by the same token, represent a similar shared investment, an investment in the future as well as the present.  Shortchanging that investment now is irresponsible, because it weakens our society for us today, and for our kids and grandkids in future generations.

But where’s the snappy progressive analog to “Big Government” and “Limited Government”?  What future president do we expect to declare “the era of disinvestment-in-our-shared-responsibility-to-serve-the-common-good is dead”?

We and our partners have been experimenting with some possibilities, including:
•    “Responsible Government” vs. “Irresponsible Government” and
•    “Community Values” vs. the “On Your Own” mentality.

Here’s a link to Barack Obama trying out the Community Values/On Your Own formulation at the Heartland Presidential Forum: Community Values in Action organized by the Center for Community Change last December in Des Moines.

The “Responsible Government” phrase can also encompass a government that abides by the Constitution, respects human rights, and is a good global neighbor.

We’d like to know what you think about these narratives, and if you’re using your own phrases that work.  Post a comment!

A Debate on Housing, Live from the New Orleans City Council

• Louisiana news station WDSU is offering a live video feed from the New Orleans City Council meeting on the impending demolition of public housing.  In addition to those speaking at the meeting, hundreds of people are standing outside City Hall in protest of the lack of affordable housing in the region since the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina two years ago. Present-day inequities in New Orleans are often framed with respect to human rights; the demand for affordable housing is just one aspect of ensuring that residents have the social and economic security needed to provide for their families with dignity.

• Bloggernista has reported that Congress has lifted a nine-year ban on using public funding to support needle exchange programs in Washington, DC.  Despite the fact that syringe exchange programs have proven effective in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS, this ban had held firm while the capital city has the developed the highest rate of HIV infection in the nation, a true modern epidemic noted for its immense racial disparities.

• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog reposted an Associated Press article entitled 'State supreme court rules counties are liable for inmates' care,' including conditions that existed prior to imprisonment. It's great to see a court ruling in favor of the responsibility of the community to provide a basis level of health care for those in custody without other options -- this is a good step towards the recognition that all Americans deserve access to health care.
  

Justices voted 8-0 on Tuesday in favor of HCA Health Services of Oklahoma, the parent company of OU Medical Center. The hospital sued Oklahoma County commissioners and Sheriff John Whetsel over $2.2 million in medical payments for treating prisoners in the jail from February 2003 through September 2006.

The county's argument was that much of the expense was to treat conditions that predated the prisoners' arrests, Justice Marian Opala wrote in the court opinion.

• The DMI Blog analyzed a recent New York Times editorial on Arizona's new law intended to crack down on undocumented immigrants, offering praise for what it refers to as an 'example of smart immigration policy.' Author Suman Raghunathan expounds:

I am, in fact, waxing poetic on a stellar editorial in yesterday’s  Times.  This gem of a piece outlines in plain, centrist-liberal-speak why going after employers who employ undocumented immigrants instead of enforcing existing labor law makes for poor immigration policy.

What’s more, Arizona’s law (and believe me, there are many more in the works across the country) will do nothing to address our nation’s desperate need for smart and fair policies that welcome immigrant contributions into our economy. Worse yet, it does nothing to bring undocumented workers out of the shadows with a legalization program to level the playing field on wages and labor conditions for all workers – documented and undocumented, green card holders and US citizens.

Meanwhile, the Presidential election campaigns continue to work themselves into a fevered state, trying to say as little as possible on immigration policy (pick a party, any party) while sounding tough on undocumented immigrants (again, pick a punching bag, any punching bag). 

Here’s to hoping those high-falutin’ political operatives take a page from the Times’ editorial board’s playbook when they think about immigration. 

Americans Care Deeply About Human Rights

• In honor of Human Rights Day, The Nation published a piece by Alan Jenkins entitled "Our Inalienable Human Rights."  Alan begins:

Today is International Human Rights Day, celebrated across the world to mark the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948. While the topic of human rights is frequently in the news, mainstream media coverage of human rights invariably describes violations in faraway lands: censorship in China, repression in Myanmar. Social injustice in our country, when it enters the public discourse, is almost never discussed in terms of fundamental human rights.

But a new national poll conducted by The Opportunity Agenda and sponsored by The Nation reveals that Americans care deeply about human rights here at home. They see human rights as crucial to who we are as a country, and they worry that we are not living up to those principles in our national policies and practices.

• The various CERD "shadow reports" released yesterday on racial disparities in the US have received attention in the press and in the blogosphere.  The Opportunity Agenda collaborated on the report submitted by the US Human Rights Network, which was picked up by Reuters in a story on Yahoo! News as well as the Dead Racists Society blog. Additionally, the ACLU's report has been discussed on Immigration News Daily and the Human Rights Weblog.

• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog wrote about yesterday's Supreme Court decision on crack sentencing. The ruling, which is a victory for criminal and racial justice, allows for judges to use their discretion in imposing shorter prison sentences than the previously mandatory five-year minimum. The Our Rights, Our Future blog explains how the sentencing guidelines on crack have targeted black communities:
  

"The crack cocaine and powdered cocaine disparity is outrageous: the law sets a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence for trafficking in 5 grams of crack cocaine or 100 times as much cocaine powder.  The effect on communities of color is disastrous because 85 percent of those punished for crack crimes in federal court are African American."

• Finally, in immigration news, the Texas border town of Laredo will be setting up its annual rest stop for migrants going to Mexico for the holidays.  According to a Star-Telegram article, this year's assistance is especially important given changes in federal regulations on January 31st which will require all Americans re-entering the country to carry proof of citizenship.

"Every year, roughly 90,000 immigrants pass through Laredo on their way home for the holidays, some coming from as far as the Midwest or California. For the last 10 years, the city convention and visitor's bureau has opened a rest stop with the Mexican General Consulate to help travelers ensure they have the right documents and to help check goods headed to Mexico to quicken entry at the border port."

The US Promises to Rehabilitate Prisoners, but Continues to Confine Them at Higher Rates

• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog has posted a New York Times article stating that nearly "one in every 31 adults in the United States was in prison, in jail or on supervised release at the end of last year."  The article continues with the findings of a new Department of Justice report:

An estimated 2.38 million people were incarcerated in state and federal facilities, an increase of 2.8 percent over 2005, while a record 5 million people were on parole or probation, an increase of 1.8 percent. Immigration detention facilities had the greatest growth rate last year. The number of people held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities grew 43 percent, to 14,482 from 10,104.

The data reflect deep racial disparities in the nation’s correctional institutions, with a record 905,600 African-American inmates in prisons and state and local jails. In several states, incarceration rates for blacks were more than 10 times the rate of whites. In Iowa, for example, blacks were imprisoned at 13.6 times the rate of whites, according to an analysis of the data by the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group.

These statistics of mass incarceration and racial disparities highlight the fact that our government policies are failing to offer a second chance to citizens and immigrants alike.  Instead of spending millions of dollars to confine millions of people, we should invest in their personal development. In human rights law, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides that “the penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation” -- and the United States has pledged to uphold the values in this United Nations treaty.

• Over at The Huffington Post, Mike Garibaldi Frick has posted an interview with street artist and free speech activist Robert Lederman.  Lederman "was arrested over 40 times by the Rudy Giuliani administration for exercising his free speech and sued the city of New York to strike down permit requirements for artists in public spaces." The post discusses the way government restrictions on public spaces interfere with our constitutional rights -- and human rights -- to self-expression, a cornerstone of our democracy.

Though American democracy promotes "freedom of expression," regular citizens are effectively blocked from creative and free speech public space uses unless they have considerable financial or political influence.

Opposition groups, nascent movements, students, artists and all citizens need safe, free public space in which to communicate and develop. Planned events, spontaneous gatherings and ongoing meeting places that are autonomous from entrenched government and corporate interests are vital to a free public speech. The health and well-being of a true democracy requires free access to open public forums.

The post also includes a YouTube video of the interview with Lederman:

• MigraMatters has done a series of posts on the framing of the immigration debate. In "Illegal" is Never a Noun, blogger Duke1676 features a piece by Eric Haas of The Rockridge Institute called Losing Our Minds Over Immigration as well as an opinion by Roberto Lovato of New America Media entitled Anti-Immigrant Rage Dehumanizes the Undocumented. 

• Most recently, Migra Matters posted The Democrats' New Immigration Strategy...Sort Of.   Duke1676 makes a valid point about the uselessness of criticizing the Republican stance without offering another vision of immigration reform:

The Democratic Party finally released what appears to be their official strategy/talking points intended to counter the Republican immigration wedge.

The strategy in essence revolves around a few key concepts:

• The Republicans are using the immigration issue for political gain


• The Republicans had plenty of time to fix immigration and didn't


• The Republicans have been unable to secure the border


• The Republicans are using fear and bigotry to scapegoat immigrants


• The scapegoating isn't working

Of course there's one glaring omission in this strategy …. there isn't any sort of a alternative plan proposed.

Nowhere is there a word about what in fact the Democrats are going to do about immigration. Not even the usual vague call for "comprehensive reform that secures our border while providing a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants." And you can just forget about specifics.

In the absence of this vision, Migra Matters proposes its own strategies:

There have to be other, more complex, and comprehensive ways of controlling immigration:

• Things like adjusting free trade agreements so they don't foster poverty in sender nations.

• Things like working with foreign governments in sender nations to ensure that they not only respect human rights, but worker rights and economic justice.

• Things like examining and reforming our immigration codes to make them more practical, fair, and reflective of economic realities.

• Things like fixing our immigration bureaucracy so it can efficiently and humanely process the flow of immigrants in a timely and effective manner.

And these are but just a few of the things that should be talked about. There are many, many more.

 

Heartland Forum Highlights Support for Community Values

• As mentioned previously, this Saturday saw the Heartland Presidential Forum in Des Moines, Iowa, an opportunity to talk with candidates about 'real issues facing real people in our communities' with attention to our values and policies of interconnection. You can watch a webcast of the forum on the Center for Community Change's Movement Vision Lab blog. Additionally, The Huffington Post linked to a Des Moines Register article on the event, and Adam Bink over at Open Left liveblogged summaries of statements made by each of the participating candidates: Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, and Kucinich.

• The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog has reposted a Texas Observer article about the challenges faced in the expansion of drug courts in Texas.  While courts geared towards rehabilitation and redemption (rather than simply inflicting prison time) are much more effective than traditional courts in helping people overcome addiction, court practices vary widely according to the judge on the stand.

"Bennett and Leon Grizzard are the two judges who oversee Travis County's drug diversion court. They steer addicts into a court-supervised treatment program instead of prison. In the past decade, drug courts like the one in Travis County have successfully handled nonviolent defendants with drug and alcohol addictions—if success is defined as increasing public safety at the least cost to the taxpayer. People who complete drug-court programs rarely tumble back into substance abuse. According to four drug-court judges surveyed, about 10 percent of program graduates commit new crimes—a recidivism rate roughly one-fifth that of traditional probation routines. That means drug courts can ease the strain on overcrowded prisons and save taxpayer money. A study of the Dallas drug court by Southern Methodist University showed that every government dollar spent on diversion courts saved taxpayers more than $9.

Though criminal justice reform groups have advocated drug courts for years, Texas until recently lagged behind the rest of the country.

...

But as drug courts become more widespread, it appears that—like the narcotics they were created to fight—the courts can be abused. State and federal governments have instituted few regulations and set up no oversight. Judges have wide latitude to decide people's fates. In the hands of the right judges, the drug court model performs marvelously. Other judges appear to have trouble reconciling their punitive role with this new therapeutic one. The U.S. Department of Justice designed a set of guidelines and best practices—but they're the criminal justice equivalent of blueprints without building codes. The guidelines suggest that judges receive ongoing training and partner with treatment programs and community groups.

Because drug courts grow mostly from the local level, there is little standardization. Texas law broadly defines a drug court, but places hardly any restrictions on what judges can do. There is no oversight specifically for the drug courts. A recent case in Houston demonstrates the potential risks behind the courts' expansion. Judge K. Michael Mayes of Montgomery County is facing a federal lawsuit by a defendant who claims his treatment in Mayes' drug court was arbitrary and violated his rights to due process."

• Firedoglake has written a post on a bill under consideration in the Senate known as the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.  This Democratically-authored legislation, which has already passed the House by a large margin, has many progressives questioning its vague definition of 'ideologically-based violence,' arguing that this law would be a step towards a fascist state in which citizens can by prosecuted for 'thought crimes.' We must remember that democracy in America is dependent upon our ability to raise our voices, on our rights to free speech and fair elections.  Any law that seeks to contradict our capacity to participate fully in our communities is a violation of our human rights.

• In a related story, the Latina Lista blog has been the subject of a recent spam attack, bad enough that the site's commenting feature has temporarily been disabled.  Offering "Anything and Everything from a Latina Perspective," the blog often discusses issues of immigration, American history and culture.

Framing the Immigration Debate

• The ImmigrationProf Blog has revisited a 2006 essay by George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson about the language we use when discussing immigration.  Here's the abstract on the Rockridge Institute's website:

"Framing is at the center of the recent immigration debate. Simply framing it as about “immigration” has shaped its politics, defining what count as “problems” and constraining the debate to a narrow set of issues. The language is telling. The linguistic framing is remarkable: frames for illegal immigrant, illegal alien, illegals, undocumented workers, undocumented immigrants, guest workers, temporary workers, amnesty, and border security. These linguistic expressions are anything but neutral. Each framing defines the problem in its own way, and hence constrains the solutions needed to address that problem. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we will analyze the framing used in the public debate. Second, we suggest some alternative framing to highlight important concerns left out of the current debate. Our point is to show that the relevant issues go far beyond what is being discussed, and that acceptance of the current framing impoverishes the discussion."

• In other immigration news, Burger King is under fire for its refusal to join McDonald's and Taco Bell in an agreement to pay historically-underpaid migrant workers in Florida an extra penny per pound of tomatoes picked. Also, a federal court in Canada ruled in favor of a lawsuit challenging the Safe Third Country Agreement, which had designated the US as a "safe third country" for asylum-seekers, meaning "if they make it to the U.S. before entering Canada can be returned there."  The court found that "the United States fails to comply with Convention on Torture or Article 33 of the Refugee Convention and [therefore] the U.S./Canada safe third country agreement was flawed as there was no ongoing meaningful review mechanism."

• The DMI Blog points to this week's New York Times coverage of the successes of a re-entry program in Brooklyn which offers counseling, drug testing, and work and training programs to former inmates.  Re-entry programs not only support the value of redemption, or the right to a second chance, but they are also effective in helping people reintegrate into the community and remain there.  According to a recent study of the comAlert program,

"ComAlert graduates are less likely be re-arrested after leaving prison and much more likely to be employed than either program dropouts or members of the control group. Participants who complete the Doe Fund work-training component do even better. They have an employment rate of about 90 percent, somewhat higher than the ComAlert graduates generally and several times higher than the control group."

• Finally, Jack and Jill Politics offers further analysis of inequities in Wednesday's CNN/YouTube Republican debate, as compared with its Democratic counterpart:

Of 34 total questions aired, 24 were from white men (including 2 cartoon versions) in the GOP debate. That's 71%. For the Dem debate, counting was a little more challenging since one video aired combined video submissions from several people. Still I'd estimate 22 of 38 questions aired were from white men (I did not count the snowman as white because snow does not have an ethnicity) or 58%.

Further, there were 8 questions shown that featured African-Americans during the Democratic debate and a measly 2 in the GOP debate. Hmm.

Also, strikingly -- astonishingly, no questions whatsoever during the GOP debate on:

Healthcare in America
Katrina
Climate Change or Environment
Darfur
Iraq Troop Withdrawal
Afghanistan and Pakistan -- Resurgence of the Taliban
Racial Profiling
Voting Machines and Voting Rights
The Failure to Capture Osama bin Laden