The Joes and Janes of America need their own press conference. Obama should stand before them to declare that if Bush institutes the "industry-by-industry" toxics regulation, he will move as swiftly as Bush did in 2001 to kill it. It would be a strong sign that his White House will be one where the working stiff is not stiffed.
I want to know who in the Obama administration will be listening to the young girl on the South Side of Chicago whose future is constrained by a lousy public school, and the factory worker in Toledo whose family’s future has been trampled by unrestrained corporate greed and unfair trade policies.
All the evidence is that the next administration will be competent and smart as hell. Now I’d like to know for whom they plan to deliver.
The conclusion of two parallel op eds today, the first by Derrick Jackson, the second by Bob Herbert.
Both are correct. Read them. Then if you want come below the fold and read me.
If you are here, you should now already have read both the Jackson and the Herbert.
If you have not yet done so, shame on you.
PLEASE, go back. Read them. That is the important thing.
Thanks. Now I have a few thoughts.
My thoughts are not original. Perhaps they are not even all that important.
Barack Obama was not elected by the "wizards" of Wall Street. The heads of chemical companies and other businesses heavily reliant of chemicals did not provide the bulk of his campaign funding. If any of them were weeping at 11 PM EST on November 4 when the election was called, it almost certainly was not for joy at the historic nation of this election.
Yet again, let me quote Hubert Horatio Humphrey:
The moral test of government is how it treats those who
are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight
of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the
needy and the handicapped.
And let me point out that Humphrey said those words at the dedication of the Hubert H. Humphrey building in our nationa's Capital city, which houses the Department of Health and Human Services. That building was dedicated on a date that has a connection - it was on November 4, 1977.
We are in a deep hole. It is not just our economy at the macro level. It is the lives of ordinary Americans. And the first thing we need to do is stop digging, especially in the lives of ordinary Americans. The proportion of our population that is in the shadows of life should not be being increased. Absent economic assistance for all ordinary folks, however, we will see an increase. Allow deregulation of chemicals and the sick and the handicapped and those no longer able to work will grow, and I do not want to hear any sarcastic remarks that perhaps then we will not have so many in the twilight of life because they will already have died. Although that might be possible.
Perhaps this administration needs to revisit he idea that corporations have the protection due to persons.
Perhaps we need to go back to SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PAC. R. CO.,118 U.S. 394 (1886). From that link I quote the following:
According to the official case record, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of arguement in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that
The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.
The court reporter duly entered into the summary record of the Court's findings that
"The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteen Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. "
Thus it was that a two-sentence assertion by a single judge elevated corporations to the status of persons under the law, prepared the way for the rise of global corporate rule, and thereby changed the course of history.
Perhaps I do not clearly remember my history, but in the U. S. the establishment of corporations was originally for purposes that had at least some public works purposes - canals, soon after railroads. And while the broadening of the purposes of corporations is not something that needs to be addressed, because they do provide clear economic benefits to the larger society, how they are regulated is now a matter of crisis.
It is not just financials. Businesses of all categories have used their influence over the law and rule-making processes to walk away from pension obligations. They have used their economic power to protect themselves from paying legitimate taxes for governmental services as a condition of locating in a community. They have consistently opposed laws and regulations that would be to the benefit of their employees, their customers, the communities in which they are located. They have certainly not assumed the responsibilities of good citizens.
Perhaps it is too much to hope for immediate reversal of the legal doctrine first espoused in the Santa Clara case. But certainly we can - and should - express our hope, even our desire, that the change we were promised will include a series of new relationships with government.
A relationship where corporate interests of any kind do not have undue influence over the government, in the selection of officials by election or through appointment, in the making of legislation and rules and regulation with the force of law.
A relationship where the idea of equal justice under the law means ordinary folks have a voice in the processes aforementioned, where their needs and interests are considered as important as the profits and stability of corporate entities.
Where the idea of person is focused primarily on sentient human beings, those capable of citizenship under the Constitution - it might be nice if those who believe in so-called original intent could show how the idea of person under the 5th Amendment could ever have been intended in the minds of Madison and others in the first Congress to have applied to anything than human beings between birth and death.
If we are to continue to hope, audaciously or otherwise, that hope must include movement towards different ways of structuring our economy:
so that corporations are not beyond regulation through their economic power, their ability to move jobs and resources across borders with no restrictions by the government
so that those who benefit from the protections and support of our government - corporate entities and wealthy individuals - pay their fair share for the benefits we provide them
so that our economy reflects not merely the interests of those who seek to maximize their profits, but those whose labor and purchases are the real economic engine of this nation - after all, isn't that why our current president told us we had to go shopping?
so that our economy is not merely focused on the quarterly profit statement and the immediate purchase, but reflects thinking about the future of our children and grandchildren and our natural world, without whose benefit we would not have lives worth living
Lincoln at Gettysburg provides the words that should guide our reshaping o our economy as well as our government. The words are simple:
that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Those who are overwhelmed by debt are not free. Those with preexisting conditions who cannot change jobs without losing their health insurance are not free. Those whose lives are dictated by powerful organizations whose economic and political power overwhelm their ability to influence the government to address their needs are not free.
Please note - look at Lincoln and then remember the Santa Clara case. Lincoln uses the word people, and somehow I do not think he meant Goldman Sachs or General Motors in addressing government of, by and for the people.
The Constitution was not established by "we the corporations." If you have forgotten, is begins "We the People of the United States" and after listing all the reasons why that Preamble concludes "do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
So let's put the beginning and end of the Preamble together. We would then read:
We the People of the United State do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
It is ours. We should reclaim it for our benefit. That is part of why we elected Barack Obama. We, the ordinary and not so ordinary People. We who still have hope and those who need to be reminded of the audacity of that hope.
That starts with helping the ordinary worker. As both Derrick Jackson and Bob Herbert wrote.
That's where it starts. For if we forget the ordinary folk, our goverment is no longer of "We the People."
Thank you for reading.
Peace.