November’s election results showed strong support for progressive values, which are now being attacked in the debate about the so-called “fiscal cliff.” A better name for it would be the “grand disconnect” because, in signaling its willingness to make cuts to essential services, Congress shows that it has already forgotten the message voters sent in November.

The good news is that, across the country, the same grassroots energy that helped deliver record turnout among low-income people, especially low-income minorities, is being turned to fighting for an economy that works for everyone.

Politically, the disconnect is obvious. This past election was a referendum on the right-wing austerity policies put forth by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, and the outcome was clear: voters rejected the austerity economic agenda of the right. Exit polls showed about half of voters still blame President George W. Bush and his tax cuts for the wealthy for our current economic problems.

The president and Democrats in Congress are anxious to brandish their deficit-cutting credentials, while Republicans are eager to use the current showdown to slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs they have long sought to undermine.

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Much of the grand bargain talk is also based on a grand delusion that our main problem in this country is the deficit. It’s not. The main problem is a lack of bold investments to create the kind of policies we need to get people back to work – a solution which would address our fiscal balance sheet far more effectively than slashing essential services that help people.

Austerity measures do not work. Just look across the ocean to Europe, where austerity measures have led to serious hardship in countries like Spain and Greece.

Changing the conversation

To challenge the grand delusion that austerity will somehow help our economy, a broad coalition of civil rights, labor, community, environmental, consumer rights, and other advocates, including the Center for Community Change, where I serve as Executive Director, are committed to changing the conversation in America from cuts to jobs.

Our coalition’s demand is simple: We want an agenda that can build real prosperity for all Americans. America needs quality jobs that pay living wages and are accessible to people looking for work right now. Public investments should be used to create millions of jobs and lay the groundwork for a stronger economic future.

Our campaign, called Jobs Not Cuts, includes five pillars:

1. Creating millions of jobs to restart the economy. This must include steps to spur private investment and create targeted investments in infrastructure and education that will strengthen the economy and create quality jobs.
2. Requiring the wealthiest and corporations to pay their fair share. This should start with ending tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent. While a wide range of programs have been cut in recent years, the very wealthy and corporations have so far not been required to contribute a penny in additional revenues toward deficit reduction.
3. No cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits. Millions of seniors, children, people with disabilities, and others depend on these vital programs and they must not be cut. They are a cornerstone of our nation’s health care and retirement systems and a promise made to future generations.
4. No cuts to vital services for low-income people. We should not allow the fiscal burden to be shifted to poor and working families who have already borne a disproportionate share of the nation’s economic pain in recent years.
5. Stopping the sequester. According to the Budget Control Act of 2011, if Congress and the president cannot agree on budget cuts, then forced reductions called “sequestration” will begin on January 2, 2013. We believe that sequestration harms the fragile recovery of our economy and will result in a substantial loss of jobs in both the public and private sectors. These cuts will damage vital services that are needed to promote health, development, and economic security for people and communities nationwide.

Our work is just beginning

One great lesson of Obama’s first term was that we made progress when we pushed, and we stalled out when we waited and watched. The LGBT and immigrant-rights movements challenged both Republicans and Democrats and achieved significant policy wins. Health care reform would never have made it over the finish line without relentless grassroots pressure on moderate Democrats. Only robust campaigns operating independently of both parties have a chance at putting economic justice on the agenda.

4 Ways to Leap the “Fiscal Cliff” to a Better U.S.A.
Sarah van Gelder finds four ways to balance the books while protecting our health and financial security.

The problems we face are deep enough that there will be no quick fix. The most important question for progressives is how to build a movement for economic justice—a people’s movement that can topple the elite austerity consensus and overcome the massive money and energized conservative movement on the other side.

The real crises facing the country are barely being discussed inside the Beltway, and rarely are the solutions proposed commensurate with the problems at hand: More than 106 million people—one in three Americans—are facing material hardship, defined as living under 200 percent of the poverty line; 20 million are living in extreme poverty; 12.5 million are officially unemployed; and wages and working conditions are in decline for a majority of Americans.

A new framework for shared prosperity endorsed by a broad swath of labor, community, and civil rights groups spells out an alternative to austerity with the capacity to address these crises—but only an organized constituency can give such ideas life.

Deepak Bhargava wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Deepak is executive director of the Center for Community Change, a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to develop the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low-income people of color, to change the policies and institutions that affect their lives.

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The votes are in and President Obama has a second term with a virtual guarantee that he will again face a gridlocked Congress. So what is a president to do?

Governor Romney and a good many pundits are calling for him to reach out to the same Republican opponents who made a pact after his first term election to do everything in their power to assure the failure of his presidency—and persistently voted as a solid bloc to fulfill that promise. 

Some suggest it may be different in President Obama’s second term because he will not be running again. They forget President Clinton’s second term, when his impeachment on the flimsiest of grounds became the top priority of congressional Republicans.

When Senator Obama won the election that put him in the White House, I wrote a national address I hoped he might deliver as president outlining policies for a new economy equal to the challenges of the 21st century. Since he did not choose to deliver it during his first term, I was thinking I might dust it off and put forth a similar proposal for his second term.

Reading it now, I realize that most of what I proposed requires congressional action that will never happen so long as congress remains captive to my-way-or-the-highway extremists. President Obama will have his hands full simply getting a budget bill through Congress that is adequate to keep the country running and avoid a financial default. If he succeeds in this, it will be a heroic accomplishment.

America's Deficit Attention Disorder
Money is the least of our problems. It’s time to pay attention to the real deficits that are killing us.

That said, there is critical need to move the nation forward to address urgent questions mostly or totally absent from the political debates of this now-past election cycle—including climate change, extreme inequality, and the corruption of our political and electoral processes. Realistically, the next congress is not going to move us forward on any of these issues, no matter what President Obama does.

Any progress on these matters at the federal level will depend on using the considerable powers of the administrative branch of government—and President Obama should give high priority to doing so. That said, I do believe that most Americans are fed up with the scorched-earth politics of ideological extremists with deep-pocket sponsors.

There is a need and opportunity for President Obama to reach across political lines to launch a national conversation that involves all Americans, irrespective of political affiliation, interested in addressing the three defining challenges of a 21st^-century world:

1. Balancing human consumption with the generative capacity of Earth’s biosphere while;
2. Providing every person with the opportunity for a healthy, secure, and meaningful life; and
3. Achieving true democracy in which every person’s voice counts.

This conversation has the potential to force a realignment of both of America’s major political parties and might well lead, over time, to a significant restructuring of America’s political institutions to create effective space for a far greater range of voices.

A second-term President Obama can afford to take the lead in engaging such a conversation specifically because he will never again be campaigning for re-election. It could be his most significant legacy for America and for the world. 

David Korten is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of theNew Economy Working Group, president of thePeople-Centered Development Forum, and a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). His books include Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth , The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, and the international best sellerWhen Corporations Rule the World. He blogs at http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/david-kortens-blog

 Interested?

Okay, folks. Elections are exciting, but now the really hard work begins. We need to turn victories won into something real that works for people and the planet. With a divided Congress, we’re unlikely to see big legislative leaps. Rather, we will see complicated bills. And we’ll see lots of new rules in the executive branch. For both, the devil is in the details. And the angels, too.

It may be boring, but as citizens it’s our job to pay attention to the details. It’s our job to apply pressure where it will move us toward shared prosperity, ecological balance, and deep democracy. Here are five things I’ll be watching for.

Tax code reform. Did you catch it? In Obama’s acceptance speech he laid out three agenda items. Tax code reform was the first. Our tax code is the DNA of our economy. It determines where the money goes: who gets rich and who gets shafted. We’ll need trusted organizations like Citizens for Tax Justice and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that can follow the complicated details. Then we need to pay attention to where we need to rally.

Obamacare implementation. Repeal of Obamacare is now off the table, which moves implementation to center stage. Watch for the development of “health insurance exchanges”—one-stop shops for health insurance that are supposed to increase transparency and competition. The law says that by 2014 every state must have these in place. Some states have said they’ll defy the law, while others like Washington are moving forward rapidly. We need to make sure these exchanges are done and done right.

Fossil fuels. In his Rolling Stone article, Bill McKibben did the math. The oil in the soil and the coal in the hole (and tar and gas too) are worth trillions. That’s trillions betting on burning up the planet. We won’t get big laws to change this “terrifying math.” But lots of small ones can tip the balance, things like raising fuel efficiency standards, removing fossil fuel subsidies, implementing pollution regulations, investing in renewables, retrofitting, and stopping the pipelines, coal trains, and fracking in our communities. We’re in the fight of our lives on this one. We have a president who dared to mention in his acceptance speech that we have a “warming planet.” There is much that we can do locally and that we can press for nationally and globally. This epic struggle takes a people’s movement that just won’t quit.

Clean elections. The flood of money that soaked this election was obscene. Many of the candidates and issues backed by the biggest money actually lost, but the indebtedness of our system to big funders remains. Look for ways to bring on tough campaign finance rules (momentum is building for a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United), stop the suppression of the votes of the poor and minorities, and end having secretaries of state who are partisan. Who would trust a referee committed to making sure one team wins? Move to Amend, Public Citizen, Common Cause, Color of Change, and Free Speech for People are trusted sources on these issues.

Wall Street. Yeah, it’s really complicated. But here’s a simple guideline. For anything that touches Wall Street, pay attention to what the new Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, says. Whether it’s mortgages, or taxes, or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or derivatives regulation, Warren understands the system and is a truth teller.

Our job is to make the change we want. We’ve got lots to do in the days and years ahead.

Fran Korten wrote this article for YES! Magazine , a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Fran is publisher of YES! Magazine.

Photo by spirit of america / Shutterstock.com

At summer’s end, Barack Obama’s campaign has already aired tens of millions of dollars worth of advertisements. You don’t have to believe their promises to think that his re-election would be preferable from a social movement standpoint to the coronation of Mitt Romney, one of Wall Street’s own. In fact, you don’t need to believe that the president will be a friend to social justice causes at all.

You can hope for Obama’s re-election for a more counter-intuitive reason: namely, that he will make a better adversary.

While this proposition may sound strange, the crux of the argument is simple. Progressive movements are stronger when they can take on centrists or liberals than when pitted against elected conservatives.

Let’s review the recent history. In 2008, after suffering two successive Bush administrations, it was easy to feel that some fresh air could do wonders for politics in the United States. Expectations soared. People could have felt good just knowing that their votes kept Sarah Palin from being one cardiac failure away from command of 5,100 nuclear warheads. But instead, they began to see something more in the youthful Senator Obama. They started to look to him as someone who would do the work of social movements for them.

This delusion was not merely domestic. How foolishly premature was the Norwegian Committee’s move to award Obama the Nobel Peace Prize? The 2009 citation praised Obama’s ‘extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples’ at a time when the new president had barely finished decorating his Oval Office desk. Its predictions for US leadership in arms control felt touchingly naïve, even before Obama distinguished himself as the world’s leading drone strike enthusiast. Perhaps to keep Rosa Luxemburg spinning in her grave, Fox News pundits insistently paint Democrats like Obama and Hillary Clinton as radical socialists. This is fantasy. Given the US’s constrained two-party system, there’s no true progressive contending in this election. So the real question is, under which administration will social justice activists do better?

When Republicans have taken office at the state level in recent years, eager to deliver on vows to decimate unions, slash the social safety net, or curtail reproductive freedoms, it has forced labour, feminist and community organizations into overwhelmingly reactive campaigns. Win or lose, these groups end up drained from having to defend basic rights and social benefits.

In contrast, when Democrats become the powerbrokers who need to be pressured, the imagination of social movements expands. It was under Obama, not Bush, that tents appeared on Wall Street and the itch to Occupy spread. The major Civil Rights battles of the 1960s were fought, and landmark gains won, when the Kennedy and Johnson administrations were targets of activist demands. Mass uprisings in Seattle and beyond took aim at Bill Clinton’s affinity for corporate globalization.

Could mobilizations like these have happened under Republicans? The Reagan era witnessed solidarity to end Central American death squads, ACT UP bridge blockades highlighting the emerging AIDS epidemic, and demonstrations against nuclear arms that filled New York’s Central Park. But these efforts—like protests against the Bush doctrine of “preventative war”—often carried a sense of doomsday and desperation. They were defined by the horrors they opposed.

The global justice protests of the late Clinton era and the Occupy uprisings under Obama were different, notable for their unabashed confidence that the victims of “free market” avarice might dare transform our political and economic system. There was, to borrow a book title, an ‘audacity of hope’. But it was not based on wishes for what an electoral candidate might do. It was based in the living power of collective action.

With Republicans in the White House, the temptation is to look to Democrats as saviors. With Democrats in office, we learn a different lesson—and an important one. We learn to save ourselves.

Mark Engler is a senior analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus and author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books, 2008). He can be reached via the website DemocracyUprising.com.

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Farmers and eaters around the country and the world are watching the November 6 election with a very important question at the forefront of their minds: Will California’s Proposition 37—requiring labeling of GMOs—pass?

Sixty-one countries already require such labeling. But here in the U.S., GMOs took off in the 1990s with no public debate, and today they're in most processed foods, making Americans the world’s GMO guinea pigs.

We know it’s easy to get sunk by "information overload" and agribusiness advertising. So far the largest GMO maker, Monsanto, and other industry giants have plowed at least $35 million into killing Prop 37.

To help us think straight, we’ve prepared seven points—backed by peer-reviewed studies, a physicians’ 10-year investigation, and UN data—to consider and share with your friends. Here’s what they reveal:

1. GMOs have never undergone standard testing or regulation for human safety.

And now that they’re in 70 percent of processed foods, it’s extremely difficult for scientists to isolate their health risks.[i]

2. But we know that GMOs have proven harmful in animal studies.

A 2009 review of 19 studies found mammals fed GM corn or soy developed “liver and kidney problems” that could mark the “onset of chronic diseases.”[ii] Most were 90-day studies. In a new two-year study, rats fed genetically modified (GM) corn developed 2-3 times more tumors—some bigger than a quarter of their total body weight—and these tumors appeared much earlier than in rats fed non-GM corn. Among scientists, the study has its defenders and critics, but even the critics underscore that we need more long-term studies.

3. And the most widely used GMOs are paired with an herbicide linked to serious reproductive problems and disease.

GM crops Roundup Ready soy & corn are treated with the herbicide glyphosate. A physicians’ study found people exposed to glyphosate had increased risk of miscarriages, birth defects, cancer, and neurological problems in children. Neurologists report that herbicides, especially glyphosoate, "have been recognized as the main environmental factor associated with ... Parkinson"s disease." [iii]

4. The consequences of GMO technology are inherently unpredictable.

Inserting a single gene can result in multiple, unintended DNA changes and mutations. “Unintended effects are common in all cases where GE [genetic engineering] techniques are used,” warn scientists . One such environmental consequence—genetic contamination of other plants—is already documented. Note that unlike food, once released into the environment, seeds can’t be “recalled”![iv]

5. GMO-makers intimidate and silence farmers and scientists.

GMO corporations use patents and intellectual property rights to sue farmers, block research, and threaten investigators. “For a decade,” protested Scientific American editors in 2009, GMO companies “have explicitly forbidden the use of the seeds for any independent research,” so “it is impossible to verify that genetically modified crops perform as advertised.”[v]

6. GMOs undermine our food security.

Within the biotechnology market, Monsanto alone controls 90 percent of GE crops worldwide. And Monsanto is one of three GMO companies, including DuPont and Syngenta, that control 70 percent of the global seed market, reinforcing monopoly power over our food. GMO seeds are costly and must be purchased every year, so they worsen farmers’ indebtedness, dependency, and vulnerability to hunger.[vi]

7. GMOs aren't needed in the first place, so why would we take on risks and harms?

Studies show that safe, sustainable farming practices applied worldwide could increase our food supply as much as 50 percent. And keep in mind that the world’s already producing 2,800 calories for every person on earth every day—more than enough. And that’s just with what’s left over: Half the world’s grain goes not to people directly but to feed, fuel, and other purposes. Plus, one-third of all food is wasted. So the urgent question isn’t about “more” anyway. It is, how can all of the world’s people gain the power to secure healthy food? And a good start is knowing what’s in our food.[vii]

Just Label It: Let Us Know It's GMO
Video: Wouldn’t it be nice if they had to tell you what’s in your food?

Shopping in the know (not GMO)

• Avoid processed foods! It’s a simple way to reduce exposure to the four most common GM ingredients: non-organic forms of soy, canola, cottonseed, and corn, including high-fructose corn syrup.
  
• Look for the voluntary “non-GMO” label.
• Buy “certified organic,” which ensures that no GMO ingredients were used. 
• Visit www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com for a list of thousands of GMO products and brands.

See below for full citations

Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Frances is author of the legendary best seller Diet for a Small Planet, and many other books. She is co-founder of the Small Planet Institute and is a contributing editor for YES! Magazine. This article draws on material from her latest book, Eco-Mind, Nation Books, 2011.

Anna is the author of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and co-author of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen and Hope’s Edge. She is a founding principal of the Small Planet Institute.

To sort more food myths from facts, visit the new Food MythBusters: the Real Story About What We Eat website at FoodMyths.Org.

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Will it happen again? On November 6, we may see voters waiting in long lines, only to find they’re not on the voter rolls or because they now need to show ID to vote. In a new twist, some people may refrain from voting because they think they need ID, even when they actually don’t.

If you’re worried that we will wake up November 7 to find election procedures in question, read on.

The staff at YES! Magazine has researched the recommendations of voting integrity advocates and offers 12 ways you can protect your own vote—and the fairness of the system. Please forward this checklist to others to help make our election system work.

Before Election Day

1. Check your registration. Even if you think you're registered, you might not be. Check online at www.CanIVote.org. Or call your local election officials (find their contact information at the Overseas Vote Foundation).

2. Find out where your polling place is and check the opening and closing times. Polling places can change. If you wait until the last minute, you can always track down your polling place by calling 1-866-OURVOTE or texting “vote” to 69866.

3. Mail with care. If you’re voting by mail, check carefully where you need to sign, how to seal the envelope, and how to mark the ballot. Note that some ballots weigh more than an ounce and require extra postage.

4. Vote early. If you encounter problems, you'll have time to sort them out and may be able to help others.

5. Find out whether your state requires ID to vote, and what kind. You can find a state-by-state guide with details about your state’s requirements at www.866ourvote.org/state.

6. Find out who’s in charge. Make a phone list of your county and state election officials—it may save valuable time on Election Day if you need to get registration verification or other information.

On Election Day

7. Be sure to bring whatever ID your state may require. It’s always a good idea to take along some form of government-issued identification, such as your driver's license. You may not need it, but it's best to have it.

8. Bring your cell phone, if you have one. If you encounter or observe any problems, call a hotline immediately (see point #11).

9. Ask for a paper ballot. If you don't want to use a machine, see if your polling place can provide a paper ballot. Some states, such as California, require polling places to have these available on request. If machines aren't working or there are other problems, ask for an emergency ballot (although they may not be available everywhere).

10. Verify your vote. If you’re voting on an electronic voting machine, check the review screen to make sure it reflects your vote. If the machine produces a paper record (27 states require one), read it carefully to make sure it correctly reflects your vote. If it is incorrect, speak to a polling attendant. Don’t leave until you’re sure your vote has been properly recorded.

11. Document and report. If you encounter or observe difficulties such as excessive lines, voter harassment, or malfunctioning machines, be sure to take pictures and write down the details. Get all the facts you can—location, names, and specific problem.

We recommend two nationwide networks where you can report problems. One is 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683), which will have volunteer lawyers in many locations standing by to provide assistance. The other is 1-866 MY VOTE-1 (1-866-698-6831), which will record your problem by voicemail, then forward your call to your local board of elections. Both will enter the information you provide into a database, then use that information to support challenges to problem elections, as well as demands for reform in the future.

Into the future

12. Work for fair, transparent elections. Voice your questions about voting machines, voter suppression, and election problems promptly. Keep the issue in front of your election officials. If we want clean, trustworthy elections in 2014, we have to start working on it now.

Want more information? Here are three websites from the leading edge on voting issues.

• www.866ourvote.org
• www.verifiedvoting.org
• www.ourvotelive.org

Fran Korten, Doug Pibel, and Paul  Mozur wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. We'd also like to thank the staff at Demos, who helped us with some last-minute updates.

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If you came away from the Obama-Romney debates wondering where the discussion was on issues like climate change, student debt, and the drone war in Pakistan, last night’s debate between third-party candidates may have been just what you were looking for.

The debate questions were submitted by viewers via social media and read by moderator Larry King. They targeted issues missing from the Obama-Romney debates, like the war on drugs, student debt, and a military appropriations bill that allows the government to detain U.S. citizens without charge.

The four participating candidates filled in areas of the political spectrum both to the left and to the right of Obama and Romney: the Green Party’s Jill Stein, a former medical doctor; the Justice Party’s Rocky Anderson, the former mayor of Salt Lake City; the Constitution Party’s Virgil Goode, a former Virginia congressman; and the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson, the former Governor of New Mexico.

Beneath the candidates’ passion and polish, a fatalism about electability surfaced from time to time, giving viewers a window into the difficulty third-party candidates face in attracting attention from the media and pretty much everyone else. Early in the debate, when King made a procedural error and forgot to have the candidates deliver their opening statements, Mr. Anderson responded by saying, “More people are here to listen to you than to listen to us.”

Despite the exclusion of these candidates from most of the discussion around this election, they had lots of refreshing things to say. Here are three of the top issues the candidates discussed last night.

1. Student debt and its effect on the economy

While Rocky Anderson joined her in supporting tuition-free college education, Stein gave the clearest and most logical explanation for why Americans might consider providing this benefit. “Throughout the twentieth century, we provided a high school education because it was necessary,” she argued. “But a high school education won’t cut it anymore. So now a college degree is necessary, too.”

Stein also offered an unusual insight into the plight of new graduates. More than once, she compared young people just out of school to “indentured servants,” whose creativity and ability to contribute to the economy is hampered by excessive debt.

2. Term limits for members of the Senate and Congress

The drawling Virgil Goode’s arch conservative positions often set him apart from the other candidates gathered Tuesday. On the war on drugs, for example, Goode dissented while the other three advocated legalizing marijuana.

However, when asked how they would amend the U.S. Constitution, if given a chance to pass a single amendment to it, both Goode and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson named the implementation of term limits in the Senate and Congress.

Such a policy change would encourage politicians to “do the right thing,” said the Libertarian Johnson, “as opposed to doing whatever it takes to get elected and re-elected.”

Given that it’s a top priority for these candidates and an issue that could bridge political divides among the grassroots of the left and right, maybe we should be discussing term limits more often.

3. Should the government be able to detain U.S. citizens without charge?

If you had watched only the third-party debates, you would have come away thinking that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was the talk of the nation. The Act, signed by President Barack Obama in December of 2011, grants the president the right to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial.

Groups like the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights went into overdrive trying to fight the NDAA, but in the end it was quietly signed into law. In September, a federal judge ruled the offending sections of the NDAA unconstitutional, but the justice department requested a stay and got one, just four days later.

That means that, for now, the government retains the right to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens. All four third-party candidates denounced this situation and said they’d have vetoed the NDAA if they’d been president.

Moments of unity on apparently off-limits topics such as this one showed how these candidates’ voices would have changed the prime-time debates, had they been included.

The debates would have been a different spectacle indeed if Barack Obama and Mitt Romney—both of whom support the NDAA—had been outnumbered by third-party candidates from across the political spectrum who universally oppose it.

At the same time, that probably goes a long way toward explaining why these candidates have been excluded. Cheers to the nonprofit group Free and Equal for giving Americans to chance to hear their views and to consider supporting them on November 6.

James Trimarco wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. James is web editor at YES!

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The final presidential debate tonight will focus on foreign policy. Among the topics sure to come up: the war in Afghanistan, the conflict between Israel and Iran, the changing landscape in the Middle East and new terrorist threats, and the rise of China on the world stage.

What is less clear is whether the moderator, Bob Schieffer, will press the candidates on one national security threat that has yet be addressed: climate change.

The Defense Department in a 2010 report called climate change a prominent military vulnerability and an “accelerant of instability and conflict.” The report identifies climate change and energy as two key issues that “will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment.” The report notes that:

“climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.”

Thus far, both the debate moderators and candidates have been skirting around the issue, discussing energy issues repeatedly without mention of climate change. This prompted Chris Hayes of MSNBC to compare the silence on climate change during the energy portion of the debate to “discussing smoking without discussing cancer.”

And town hall moderator Candy Crowley, during CNN’s post-debate coverage, explained that time constraints prevented her from getting to climate change, saying, “I had that question for all of you climate change people. We just, you know, again, we knew that the economy was still the main thing so you knew you kind of wanted to go with the economy.”

Broad consensus on security risks of climate change

Dismissing the effect that climate change has our economy is one thing, but excluding climate change from a debate on foreign policy, effectively ignores U.S. military planners’ warnings that climate change poses massive threats to global security. Ignoring it does an enormous disservice to Americans and all those “climate change people,” such as:

• Navy Secretary Ray Mabus: “Our responsibilities, our concerns, have to be tied into the effects of climate change.” 
• Angela Merkel, Chancellor of U.S.-allied Germany: “A failure to take action against climate change will have dreadful consequences for the whole world.”
• Nobel Prize-winning chemist Mario Molina: “It’s important that people are doing more than just hearing about global warming. People may be feeling it, experiencing the impact on food prices, getting a glimpse of what everyday life may be like in the future, unless we as a society take action.”

But so far, instead of heeding the pleas of our own military, world leaders, and leading scientists, we’ve had to watch our presidential candidates vie for the hand of the fossil fuel industry to see who gets to be the next Mr. Coal. The energy-focused portions of the previous debates have been like watching a bad episode of the Bachelorette.

Where do the candidates stand on climate?

The good news is, it’s not too late to call the wedding off. The final debate offers a chance for the candidates to renounce this destructive relationship and address how they are going to use their position as a global leader to reduce the levels of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere and manage the already clear and present climate-change threats.

Take Action!
Sign Public Citizen’s petition urging Bob Schieffer to ask the presidential candidates to tell us their plans to address climate change.

That opportunity will present itself only if the moderator joins the world and military leaders and acknowledges climate change as a national security threat.

In addition to the 2010 report, an October 2011 report by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense’s Defense Science Board task force warns that failure to anticipate and mitigate these changes in climate patterns, “increases the threat of more failed states with the instabilities and potential for conflict inherent in such failures.”

Recent events like the droughts that affected almost 61 percent of the lower 48 states this summer, the raging wildfires in the northwest, and new government data show that the Arctic sea ice could disappear by the end of this decade clearly demonstrate the domestic challenges we face as a result of unmitigated climate change.

Addressing these issues is going to take a global effort with strong leadership from the president of the United States and the American people deserve to know where each of the candidates stand on this issue.

Allison Fisher is Outreach Director for Public Citizen’s Energy Program. She is an expert in engaging and organizing communities to challenge dirty energy sources at the local and state level

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Beavan chronicled his experiences on the “No Impact Man” blog, which became widely popular online. The experiment led to a movie, a book, and a national movement (including the “No Impact Week” collaboration between YES! Magazine and The No Impact Project).

“A few people said I was ‘too stupid to know that one person can’t make a difference,’” Colin wrote about the experience.

This year, Beavan made a departure from his focus on lifestyle-based activism—he is running for Congress on the Green Party ticket in New York’s Eighth Congressional District. YES! Magazine spoke with Beavan about his latest effort to prove that it’s possible to make a difference—this time by tackling the political process.

Madeline Ostrander: What led to your decision to run for political office?

Colin Beavan: I believe that we are in a dire emergency for the climate, for the economy, and for our quality of life. And all of those things are connected. They’re all based on the use of fossil fuels to power a corporation-based economy, and it’s dangerously close to collapse.

What we need to do is replace the system, not just make adjustments to it. But in the political realm what they’re talking about is all the old, well-worn social issues, like who should we tax. In other words, we are talking about exactly the same things we’ve been talking about for the last 50 years and completely ignoring the big problems. My campaign is doing something different.

Ostrander: Why did you choose to run for a congressional seat rather than a local or state position?

Beavan: Things like restructuring the economy, breaking down the mega-corporations, and getting off of fossil fuels need to be done on a national level. And honestly, I am stronger on national issues than I am on local issues at this stage.

Ostrander: Can you tell me a little bit about your district and the people you’re representing?

Beavan: It’s New York’s eighth congressional district. It has a totally weird shape. It starts in one part of Brooklyn then goes around to another part of Brooklyn, then into Queens, then out to Coney Island.

It’s been slammed by the economic downturn. And I’m arguing that many of the social problems that exist in these neighborhoods are the result of this screwed-up economic system. The current paradigm is that the corporations suck the wealth out of communities, and then elected representatives go to Washington to beg the corporations for campaign money. What we need to do instead is start investing in local communities and businesses to make the communities themselves resilient.

Ostrander: Do you worry at all about a Ralph Nader phenomenon—dividing the left in your district?

Beavan: In my district? No. My district votes something like 70 percent Democratic so there is no way a Republican is going to win. The front-running Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, has collected campaign donations from Wall Street law firms and Wall Street banks. It’s important to give voters an alternative to that kind of candidate.

I think we have to be a little careful about worrying too much about the Ralph Nader phenomenon. We have to be willing to take some risks, or we’ll never make any change.

Honestly, if we as progressives had thought about whether No Impact Man was going to work as a media phenomenon and take us where we wanted to go, we would never have done it—because I got so much criticism from progressives when I launched the project. We have to try things at the margins, or we just won’t get anywhere.

Ostrander: Can you talk about the key pieces of your platform?

Beavan: One is that the current United States two-party system is failing to address the emergencies of climate, the economy, and the coming end of oil, because both Republicans and Democrats are funded by corporations. So we need to find alternative ways of funding our democracy. There should be no corporate money in politics. Elections should be publicly funded.

Two, move away from a consumption-based economy. Consumption can no longer serve as the foundation of our economy, in large part because we’re running out of resources, including oil, to keep it going. We need to base our policies on something like national happiness rather than GDP.

Three, climate change will increasingly and dramatically affect poor communities that can’t afford to insulate themselves—think of more events like Hurricane Katrina. We should tax fossil-fuel use by rich corporations, instead of the incomes of the middle classes.

Next, jobs could be created by moving away from a fossil-fuel-based economy. We need massive increases in mass transit, a high-speed rail network, energy-efficiency measures, and renewable energy investment. All of that will create plenty of jobs. Much of that money can come from slashing the military budget by half—which we won’t need if we’re not fighting for oil.

Finally, government investment—in the form of stimulus and other subsidies—should be made in small, local businesses with strong ties to communities. The growth in those local economies will make for more jobs, reduce social strife, and make them resilient in the face of economic collapse and climate change.

These are not positions that most other politicians are running on.

Ostrander: You’re running against somebody with a lot more money and political party support than you. What’s your strategy for reaching voters?

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Beavan: I’m talking to people. I have weekly campaign meetings, which are open to everybody, where volunteers can show up. The two campaign managers think about what tasks need to be done before we talk to people at the meetings. The tasks are assigned by show of hands, and we ask questions like “Who can do this?” and “Who can print some fliers on a photocopier?” By the way, we’re only using paper recovered from the waste stream. So that means that our fliers are free. So that’s saving us a lot of money.

So, just the very idea that a campaign can be run by the people, for the people instead of by the corporations, for the corporations to me means that we’re already winning, regardless of what happens on Election Day.

Ostrander: So part of the goal of running—in addition trying to win the congressional seat—is to influence public dialog about the elections process?

Beavan: Yes, our campaign comes into this with three non-electoral goals. One is to bring a conversation about system change to a community that doesn’t get to have that conversation. Ethnic minorities, like the ones in my district, are the ones most at risk from climate change, and they deserve to be included.

The second is citizen engagement, which has always been a part of my work. We have an all-volunteer campaign. For most of them, when they come with me to a debate, it’s their first time doing something like that.

The last non-electoral goal is to use what profile I’ve built to model the idea of a citizen occupation of politics on a local, national, and international level. The professional politicians are no longer being professional, so it’s time for citizens to go in.

Madeline Ostrander wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Madeline is senior editor at YES!

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Like many of us here at YES!, medical doctor Jill Stein has been frustrated by the narrowness of this year's campaign for president of the United States. Crucial issues such as climate change, poverty, and the cost of war are completely left out of the conversation.

No one tackles this problem as directly as Stein, who is running for president on the Green Party ticket. On Tuesday, she and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, were arrested while attempting to enter the debate hall at Hofstra University in an effort to join President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney in debate.

While Stein was unable to gain access to the stage, her campaign has already achieved a great deal. She and Honkala will appear on 85 percent of ballots nationwide this November, and she has qualified for a federal matching grant to support her campaign.

Think what you will about whether it makes sense to vote for Stein, she and Honkala are doing everything they can to widen the range of issues this election is about. So when she was visiting Seattle recently, YES! Executive Editor Sarah van Gelder asked her to describe both the stances she's taking and the strategy she thinks can change the country.

Sarah van Gelder: Was there a particular moment when you knew you were going to run for president?

Jill Stein: First, the president put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block, as part of the debt ceiling crisis. He then went on to propose a budget that went far beyond the $2 trillion mandated for budget cutting. It was becoming clear that the social infrastructure of the country was really up for grabs between Democrats and Republicans.

I was one of many people who got religion about the national Green party at that point. I had not previously been active at the national level. Consistent with our grassroots democracy concepts, I had only been active at the local and, at most, the state level.

SVG: Did your background as a medical doctor play a role in your decision?

JS: I got involved in this as a mother and medical doctor watching an epidemic of chronic diseases descend on our younger generation that didn’t even used to exist. To me, that is such a serious warning sign. Another thing that mobilized me was learning that breast milk had become contaminated with industrial pollutants.

So I got mobilized to work on those issues. And I spent five or 10 years thinking "Oh, if only our legislators knew!" But I gradually realized that we can’t solve healthcare without addressing the underlying political problems. I now describe my medical specialty as “political medicine” because it's the mother of all illnesses. We've got to fix this one if we want to fix everything else.

SVG: What do you hope to accomplish?

JS: There is a movement out there that's alive and kicking in things like Occupy, eviction blockades, and Bank of America protests. That movement deserves a voice in this election and a choice at the polls that is not already bought and paid for by Wall Street.

What’s more, we’re building a national party. I have a clear concept of how this would work because we piloted this at the state level. We built a strong state party out of a dysfunctional fringe party in Massachusetts by running campaigns that brought in a whole new generation of activists. And they've allowed us to begin to have contested elections. Once you start having contested elections, you start discovering the people who are suited for the job and have the skill set. So this is about building the structure of the party, which we are going to need for the long haul.

SVG: How concerned are you about the “Nader Effect,” the idea that you might draw votes away from President Obama and help Governor Romney to win?

JS: The exit polls actually show that Nader drew equally from Democrats and Republicans, as well as people who otherwise would not have voted at all. So, I think there's good reason to reject the propaganda that tells us it's a terrible thing to stand up for yourself. Historically, we have made progress when there has been a social movement and an independent political party that helps drive that social movement into the broader public dialogue, forcing the larger political parties to change their agenda.

SVG: Isn’t there reason to believe that there would be major differences between Obama and Romney as presidents?

JS: Look at Obama's record. George W. Bush bailed out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion. Under Barack Obama, it's been $4.5 trillion in money disbursed and another $16 trillion in zero-interest loans. On free-trade agreements, Obama has gone way beyond Bush. He negotiated three more, and there's a new Trans-Pacific Partnership that would send jobs overseas, undermine wages, and compromise American sovereignty with a multi-national corporate board that can undermine American regulations.

On the climate, too, Obama has gone beyond Bush. We have expansion of offshore drilling, expansion into the Arctic, and into our national parks.

You can make the argument that the Republican ship is going to sink faster than the Democratic one. I don't really believe that anymore. And under a Democrat, the resistance goes to sleep. And that's far worse than any difference between Democrats and Republicans. What's going to save our necks here is the revival of our democracy, not the difference between two corporate candidates.

SVG: To what degree do you draw on the work of social movements in coming up with your agenda?

JS: We certainly weren't reinventing the wheel. We have drawn on existing ideas from labor unions and Green parties around the world who, in Europe in particular, have a policy called the Green New Deal. And I think in our work at the state level we are certainly drawing on the concept of YES! Magazine and David Korten's work around local sustainable economies.

SVG: What would you like to see the new economy look like?

JS: The green economy is a win-win for creating jobs, for stabilizing and reversing climate change, and for creating a healthier infrastructure. On health, it means addressing the environmental drivers of disease. By tackling air pollution, you also decrease rates of heart disease, asthma, and lung disease.

On transportation, it means having a public transportation system that encourages walking and biking. On nutrition, it means having a healthy, localized food supply that provides fresh and largely plant-based food.

We saw how all of this can play out in real time when Cuba lost access to Russia’s oil supply during the 1990s. They did a lot of biking and walking and stair climbing because they didn't have the elevators. The public health impact of this is all documented in a wonderful study done by Johns Hopkins and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. At a time when you would have thought stress would have aggravated chronic disease, the opposite happened. Death rates from diabetes plummeted by 50 percent, death from heart attack and stroke went down 20 to 35 percent, and obesity rates went down 50 percent.

We can't buy that kind of a health revolution spending $2 trillion a year. All we get is bankruptcy and sickness from the side effects of medication. So that's another way we win by moving to the green, relocalized economy.

SVG: How do you see this agenda moving forward?

JS: Well, I'm not holding my breath, but I'm also not ruling it out. Two recent polls said between 49 and 61 percent of American voters are calling for a third party and said they would seriously go for one.

We are in a perfect storm now where there's enormous desperation out there. One out of every two Americans is now in poverty or close to it. One out of every three homeowners is at risk of losing their home. Thirty-six million students and recent graduates are indentured debt servants. You talk to them about the spoiler effect and they say, “Sorry that doesn't pass the laugh test. It's my life that's been spoiled, thank you very much.”

It’s the politics of courage we need to move us forward. It’s the only thing that ever has.

Sarah van Gelder wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Sarah is co-founder and executive editor of YES!

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Do you wonder which members of Congress routinely side with the richest 1 percent and Wall Street?  Which lawmakers consistently vote to cut taxes for the rich, protect off-shore tax havens for transnational tax dodgers, and ensure that wealth is taxed more favorably than income from work?  Who tirelessly side with global corporations at the expense of domestic small businesses?

On the other hand, are you curious which members of Congress are committed to an economy that works for everyone, not just the 1 percent? What lawmakers back a level playing field between small business and transnational corporate conglomerates? Who are the voting champions for people who work for wages, dream of health insurance, and aspire to education their children without decades of debt?

In the new “Congressional Report Card for the 99 Percent" (full disclosure—I'm a co-author), the Institute for Policy Studies examined 40 different legislation actions in the House and Senate—votes and legislation introduced—to ascertain the real allegiances of sitting members of Congress. These include votes to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, levy a Wall Street speculation tax, invest in infrastructure, and protect workers and student financial aid.

Not surprisingly, the most promiscuous protectors of the privileged were Republicans. But 17 lawmakers in the Democratic party also got low marks. For example, in the U.S. Senate, Montana Senator Jon Tester and Virginia Senator Jim Webb—sometimes considered progressive—showed up on the list of “1 Percent Friendly Democrats.” Senators Mark Pryor (D-AR), Joseph Leiberman (I-CT), Kay Hagan (D-NC) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) also shared the “1 Percent friendly” distinction.

The Report Card also graded politicians for their commitment to reducing inequality and boosting the 99 percent.  The report’s “Honor Roll” gives an A-plus grade to 5 members of the U.S. Senate and 14 House members, including Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Al Franken (D-MN), Bernard Sanders (VT-I), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Nine Republican members of the House of Representatives got passing grades in the effort to reduce inequality. These included Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL), Walter Jones (R-NC), and Justin Amash (R-MI).

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The personal wealth of a politician did not dictate whether they were allied with the 1 percent or the 99 percent. Of the 20 wealthiest members of Congress, including the ten richest Republicans and Democrats, 13 of them got passing grades in reducing inequality and only 1 got an “F” grade. The failing grade went to Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey whose $22 million fortune makes him one of the 16 richest members of Congress. He ranks as the top “rule rigger” on behalf of the 1 percent, casting votes that only boost his own wealth and power.

The politics of deflection has worked for decades to divide and distract voters. If pro-1 percent, pro-Wall Street candidates can get their constituents to blame the poor, immigrants, people of color, and gays and lesbians for their economic challenges, then we will likely get policies that favor the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent. But if voters put on their “99 to 1” special glasses, then we can look forward to a political realignment in the coming years.

Chuck Collins is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies where he directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good.

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Recently, a respected friend sent me an outraged email. His subject line: "BOYCOTT VOTING!" He was at wit's end over the vast sums of money that wealthy individuals and corporations are pouring into our elections: $400 million from the Koch Brothers; $100 million from Sheldon Adelson. If big money is going to buy the election, he said, then he will “withdraw his consent” by not voting.

I, too, am apoplectic at the money flooding our elections. It speaks of a level of corruption that undermines my hopes for solving the big problems of our time. That’s why I’m promoting the passage of a constitutional amendment to curtail unlimited election spending.

But is boycotting the vote the right response? Here’s how I see it: the big money doesn’t buy votes. It mostly buys television ads to influence our votes or discourage us from voting at all. So why would I fall into the trap of doing what the big money wants? As I wrote to my friend, after the election, no one will notice your boycott. They will only notice who won. Think of your vote as an act of protest and vote for candidates who vow to change the system. Here's what you can do:

1. Vote the Whole Ballot

Vote the whole ballot. When we reach the bottom of the ballot, many of us find a bunch of names and initiatives we don’t know and skip them. Judicial positions are notorious for low vote tallies. So a few voters can determine who wins positions that can have a huge impact on our lives. I prepare by reading the voter pamphlet with care, especially watching for partisan buzzwords. Then I check with friends for additional information. I also sign up for emails from organizations that recommend candidates who match my values. So when I go to vote, I make my choices with confidence.

2. Contribute to Campaigns ...

Another conundrum in this money-soaked election season is whether to give money to candidates. Does our measly $25, $50, or even $500 mean anything when the 1 percent can so far outspend us? My husband is pretty cynical about political contributions. But do we want to force candidates to get their funds only from the wealthy? One candidate told me, “I need to raise at least one-fifth of what my deep-pocketed opponent raises. Otherwise, I’m just not a player.” I like this candidate. I think she has smarts and integrity. She wants to overturn Citizens United and other laws that make campaigns so expensive. So I (yes, together with my husband) made a contribution to her campaign, as well as to several other candidates we believe in.

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3. ... But Not Just Money

Fortunately, money is not the only way to influence an election. Giving time can be even more valuable. One respectful conversation with a potential voter can reverse the effects of thousands of dollars of ads. Going door to door, phoning, helping people get registered and to the polls can all make a difference. Your favored candidates may be outspent, but if they out-organize, they may be able to prevail. Organizing, of course, means getting people like you and me to volunteer.

It’s easy to be discouraged about a political system that seems so out of reach. I take heart from history. In the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, income inequality was similar to today’s. There was widespread political corruption. Then people rose up and ushered in the Progressive Era. They voted in candidates who instituted the estate tax and progressive income taxes, changed election laws, and made many other reforms.

By the 1950s through the 1970s we had an expanding middle class and a fairer election system. We can make those changes again. But only if we get engaged and informed, and vote.

Fran Korten wrote this article for It's Your Body, the Fall 2012 issue of YES! Magazine. Fran is publisher of YES!

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The ballot initiative process, which provides an injection of direct democracy in twenty-four states, often ends up helping the right wing. For years, deep-pocketed funders have backed ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage, restrict reproductive rights, or make it nearly impossible for elected state legislatures to raise taxes—hurting families and helping to tank state budgets.

Often, the process plays out like a game of tug-of-war. Two years ago, the rightward shift in control of state legislatures presaged a wave of legislative attacks on workers, women, immigrants, voters, and the middle class. But then a funny thing happened: Voters pushed back at the polls.

After the attack on collective bargaining in Wisconsin, voters engaged in a recall effort that flipped control of the state senate. Ohio voters last November repealed SB 5 by a wide margin, a law that would have limited collective bargaining rights for public employees. And the people of Mississippi soundly rejected an amendment claiming that life begins at conception, which would have rendered many forms of contraception illegal.

This fall, voters in some states and cities will have the chance to do more than just push back. Initiatives are on the ballot that would directly confront the destruction that austerity economics has wrought on communities, while building national momentum behind policies to revitalize our economy and protect our democracy. All kinds of issues are at stake, from workers’ rights to corporate influence in politics, to whether corporations and the luckiest few will pay their fair share in taxes. While voters will be electing a president, governors, Congress, and thousands of state legislators this November 6, here are a few places where a progressive vision will also be on the ballot:

Michigan: Guaranteeing Collective Bargaining Rights

Following attempts to roll back collective bargaining rights in states including Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio, voters in Michigan will have a chance to enshrine those rights in their state constitution by approving the “Protect Our Jobs” amendment. Conservative groups took to the courts in an attempt to keep the amendment off the ballot, but the state Supreme Court ultimately agreed with a lower court decision and ensured the measure will go before voters on Election Day.

A coalition of unions, small businesses, and other organizations is supporting the proposal, which would amend the state constitution by establishing “the people’s rights to organize to form, join or assist unions and to bargain collectively with public or private employers.” It would also prohibit employers or governments from interfering with those rights.

Unsurprisingly, the same corporate interests who have bankrolled legislative efforts to undermine labor in state after state also continue to fight this amendment. As of late August, according to the coalition leading the campaign, corporate spending on TV and radio ads against the proposal had reached $6.45 million (including time reserved for future ads), while only $1.73 million had been spent on ads backing the proposal. Yet despite this onslaught, an August Detroit News poll showed a 19-point margin of support for this effort to advance a positive vision of workers’ rights.

California: A Compromise Includes Millionaire’s Tax

California is one of 16 states that impose some sort of supermajority vote requirement on their state legislature if they seek to raise taxes. This has long been an obstacle to progressives seeking to avoid austerity budgets and destructive cuts. In California, ballot initiatives are one way around that obstacle. A set of competing initiatives was originally proposed for this fall’s ballot in the Golden State, including a millionaire’s tax backed by the California Federation of Teachers, the Courage Campaign, and other progressive organizations.

The measure as originally written would have permanently raised tax rates on earned income over $1 million. However, Governor Jerry Brown introduced a rival initiative (with the support of unions like the SEIU and the California Teachers Association) that he said would offer a “shared sacrifice.” That bill would have temporarily increased income tax rates on earnings over $250,000, while also increasing sales taxes.

Earlier this year, the two camps reached a compromise on a single initiative to raise both sales and income taxes. Proposition 30 would raise the sales tax from 7.25 to 7.5 percent, while creating three new high-income brackets that will see increased tax rates for the next seven years. While two other less popular tax initiatives will also be on the ballot, a July field poll showed voters favoring Proposition 30 by a margin of 54 to 38 percent.

Other measures to support new or existing state revenue increases will be on the ballot this fall in both Washington and Oregon. As the expiration of the Bush tax cuts approaches, West Coast voters have a chance to show Congress and the nation as a whole that Americans support a responsible approach to revenue—and asking the luckiest few to pay their fair share.

Oregon: Putting Money into K-12 Classrooms Instead of Lining the Pockets of Corporations

In Oregon, the fight against austerity economics is being thrown into sharp relief by a ballot initiative that would reform a 33-year-old state corporate tax refund to the benefit of the state’s kids. Measure 85, or the “Corporate Kicker for K-12 Schools” initiative, would amend the state constitution so that so-called “kicker” state tax refunds—which are currently returned to corporations when tax revenues exceed predicted values by more than 2 percent for a given budget cycle—are instead invested into Oregon classrooms.

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According to Our Oregon, one of the main backers of Measure 85, the corporate “kicker” has only been triggered five times since 1989. In 2007, the legislature voted to temporarily suspend the corporate “kicker,” diverting $344 million to a surplus “rainy day fund” account instead. Since then, legislative attempts to reform or eliminate the corporate “kicker” have met stiff resistance, so proponents of reform turned in over 200,000 signatures in July to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot. Our Oregon claims the measure would primarily affect large out-of-state corporations, which receive the bulk of “kicker” refunds.

Oregon has proven receptive to this type of effort before. The state bucked the national austerity trend at the height of national Tea Party mania in January 2010 by approving tax increases on corporations and high-income earners at the ballot box. This year, at least some initial signs are promising. A few weeks ago, a state commission of 24 randomly selected citizens voted 19-5 in favor of a report that will be summarized in a state-issued voters’ guide recommending that voters approve the initiative (despite the fact that the initiative’s own supporters did not support the Citizens’ Initiative Review Commission process). 

Florida (Orange County): Ensuring Access to Earned Sick Days

Orange County, which includes the city of Orlando, is a swing region in the middle of a swing state, where voters will have the chance to decide on a key protection for workers that is gaining momentum across the nation. The county’s Earned Sick Time measure would ensure that workers in businesses with 15 or more employees get one hour of paid sick time for every 37 hours worked, up to about seven days of sick time a year for an average full-time worker.

Corporate interests have responded by attempting to introduce a competing and intentionally confusing ballot measure intended to appear side-by-side with the earned sick days proposal—a move described by Citizens for a Greater Orange County, the main group backing the Earned Sick Time measure, as a “sneak attack… to undermine the will of Orange County voters.”

With nearly 40 percent of private sector workers and more than 80 percent of those in the lowest-wage jobs lacking access to paid sick time nationwide, cities and states have been taking the lead in ensuring that no worker needs to worry about losing a job just because they or a family member get sick. In 2011, Connecticut became the first state to pass a statewide paid sick-leave bill, and Hawaii and Massachusetts both saw progress on efforts this year. If successful, Orange County would join localities including San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Seattle, the last of which just enacted their paid sick-days policy earlier this month.

Update: The fate of the Orange County Earned Sick Days initiative became even more unclear on September 11 as county commissioners voted to hire an outside attorney to review the proposal's text and report back in a month, which would prevent the measure from appearing on the November ballot. State Rep. Scott Randolph called the move "a clear setup" and "a flagrant violation of the [county] charter."

Montana: Taking On Citizens United

Somewhat lost among the momentous Supreme Court decisions this summer was the Court’s summary reversal of a 100-year-old Montana law that conflicted with Citizens United, the case that opened the floodgates to corporate money in the 2010 elections. The Court’s ruling in June of this year overturned that law, which had banned corporate contributions to political campaigns. Montana was not alone in defending their campaign finance law; their argument was joined by 22 state attorneys general. 

Even as the Court was considering this case, an effort was already underway in the state to qualify a ballot measure that would confront the overriding issue of corporate influence in politics. That measure, the Corporate Contributions Initiative, would “establish” it to be state policy that “corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights because they are not human beings.” How an initiative could require officials to take a specific position on policy either logistically or legally is unclear, but even as an advisory measure, the effort could have a big impact in the growing debate over corporate personhood nationwide.

As Governor Brian Schweitzer told one reporter, “the initiative has very good prospects in Montana, but what we’re trying to do is start a prairie fire.” Indeed, other organizations and coalitions, including Common Cause and Move to Amend, are simultaneously working to pass resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. That effort was recently endorsed by President Obama himself, who noted in response to a questioner on Reddit that, “even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight [on] the super-PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change.” The President’s comment was a reminder of the role that ballot measures can play in building popular support for change on a wide range of issues—and of the need for continued grassroots pressure on these issues in every state, no matter who wins the big electoral contest this fall.

Charles Monaco wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. He is the Director of Communications and New Media at the Progressive States Network.

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Every election year, the two parties choose the agendas and issues to highlight and ballyhoo. Often it feels as though we citizens have little power to turn the conversation to the issues we want addressed.

But that’s not as true as it seems. Conversations around the water cooler or over the picket fence reverberate through society, amplified by social media that can make all of us into little newscasters. Campaigns like the petition drive launched by the League of Conservation Voters to demand that Jim Lehrer bring up climate change during the presidential debates show additional ways that citizens can set the agenda.

With that said, here are five issues we at YES! believe should be at the center of this election, and one that should be off the table.

1. Rebuild the economy, starting with the middle class and poor, not Wall Street and CEOs.

Although the Great Recession is officially over, the middle class and poor are still struggling. One in four working families is spending more than half its income just to keep a roof over their heads. There are more than half a million Americans who are homeless on any given night, and one in three families headed by a single mother is going hungry at least part of the year.

To get the economy moving again, we need to start by putting more earning and spending power in the hands of the poor and middle class, starting with a higher minimum wage and progressive tax policies. Only then can businesses invest, knowing they will have customers.

We need small and medium-sized businesses that are rooted in their communities, not giant transnational corporations. Government should help veterans, recent graduates, and the unemployed to launch their own businesses and cooperatives, and back employees who take over companies that are threatening to close their doors.

Newly proposed zones of so-called “free trade,” like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, should be stopped before more jobs are shipped overseas and wages and environmental protections are eroded even further, all of which benefits transnational corporations, not sustainable, rooted economies.

We need to break up the big banks, which nearly brought down our economy, and instead support the local banks and credit unions that invest in the businesses and homes of our communities.

2. Support practices that improve health; end those that harm us.

We can make a good start on addressing the root causes of the chronic ailments that afflict us by making sure everyone has access to healthy fruits and vegetables, safe outdoor spaces for exercise, and an environment free of toxins. Together, these steps would make a big dent in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, asthma, and  cancer.

Eliminating taxpayer subsidies to dirty energy corporations and producers of unhealthy additives like high-fructose corn syrup would be good steps in the right direction. Instead, taxpayer subsidies should support development of clean renewables and access in schools and neighborhoods to fresh, local food.

Access to health care is important, too. We should protect Medicare, which our elderly rely on, not turn it into a voucher program. And we should make sure that there are nonprofit, public, and cooperative insurance options as part of the health insurance exchanges that will be set up as part of the Affordable Care Act. Even better would be to extend Medicare for all.

3. Rein in deficit spending, starting with the U.S. military.

The bill for two massive wars, Bush-era tax cuts, and the economic bailouts of the big banks is coming due. How will we pay for it while our economy is still struggling?

Many empires have fallen after overextending their military forces and spending down their resources. The United States, too, runs that risk. By reinventing our military to defend the United States, rather than to project force abroad, and by putting veterans to work doing jobs that are needed here at home, we could rebuild our country and our economy, and rein in spending.

Here’s a place to start. A report by the Institute for Policy Studies shows we could save $252 billion a year without risking our national security by ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, cutting back on the hundreds of U.S. military bases around the world, and eliminating wasteful and obsolete programs.

While politicians have traditionally been loath to cut military spending because they are concerned about losing military jobs, it’s important to remember that every dollar spent on the military results in fewer jobs than one spent elsewhere. When combined with educational programs to retrain military personnel for work in other sectors, channeling military money into other parts of the economy means more, not fewer, jobs.

4. Get real about the climate crisis.

A single week during the summer of 2012 saw more than 2,000 temperature records broken in the United States. Two million acres of U.S. land burned in July alone, while 63 percent of the country suffered from a crop-destroying drought. Further north, large portions of Greenland’s ice cover turned to slush, while Arctic ice cover hit a record low.

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Yet neither of the two presidential candidates is making solutions to the climate crisis a centerpiece of his campaign, nor offering ways for hard-hit communities to cope.

That’s not to say that the two parties are in lockstep on this issue. The Republican platform doesn’t mention the climate crisis, except to ridicule Obama administration policies aimed at addressing it. The Democratic platform refers to climate change as among the greatest threats we face, and President Obama drew enthusiastic applause when he spoke of the climate crisis during his convention acceptance speech. But the president has backed off of the leadership he promised in his 2008 campaign.

The climate crisis ranks among the most serious emergencies ever faced by humanity, and taking immediate steps should be a top priority. Here are five policies that would make a real difference. The good news is that taking on the climate challenge would also clean our air and water, provide thousands of new jobs, and make us healthier.

5. Stand up to corporate power.

There’s no natural law that says we must allow big corporations and Wall Street banks to run roughshod over our economy and government. We the people created publicly traded corporations, and we issue the charters. We also have the right to reinvent companies to better serve employees, communities, and customers. And we have the right to revoke charters of companies that are chronic lawbreakers.

The overwhelming influence of money in politics was a problem before the activists on the Supreme Court chose to overturn laws that limit spending on elections. But since the Citizens United decision, the floodgates are open to massive, secret spending. Those with the money get the policies and the government they want; the poor and middle class get locked out.

Many citizens, along with state and local governments, are now calling for a constitutional amendment to establish that corporations are not “persons” and that money is not protected by the First Amendment.

We’ll need to take other steps to rein in the power of corporations and Wall Street and return authority for the future of our country to we the people. We can’t rely on candidates for public office who are dependent on big money interests—it will take popular movements, like the Occupy movement that swept the nation last year, to get them to do the right thing.

The stakes have never been higher. To get action on climate change, to restore the economy, to get a fairer tax structure, to reduce the massive scale of the military-industrial complex, and to move ahead on any number of fronts, we’ll need to put the interests of people first. And that means we need to take on the power of giant transnational corporations.

The political leaders of any party who have the courage to take a stand on this deserve our support.

What should not be part of this election?

Many more items are essential parts of public discourse, from education to immigration, but there’s one thing the election should not be about:

This election should not be about Governor Romney's Mormon faith nor about President Obama's Christianity. Nor should it be about whether the term "God-given" should have been removed from the Democratic Party platform. A quick look at the raging conflicts in the Middle East shows how well religious sectarian conflicts work out. Our own early history was rife with religious persecution. The framers of the Constitution wisely prohibited government from establishing a state religion or using religion as a test for public office. We'd be wise to follow that spirit, and keep government—and politics—separated from religion.

What's your agenda? And how are you bringing it out this election? Next blog post, I'll share some thoughts about how to get your voice heard above the din.

Sarah van Gelder wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Sarah is co-founder and executive editor of YES!

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If last week's Republican National Convention had a mythic protagonist (other than Mitt Romney, that is), it was the struggling small business owner. In speech after speech, we heard about the same basic person in the same basic dilemma: a small-business owner overcome by the burden of government regulations.

This isn’t exactly a surprise; lashing out at regulations has become daily bread for the GOP lately, and the narrative has been eagerly parroted by the media (an April analysis by the Institute for Policy Integrity found that use of the phrase “job-killing regulations” by U.S. newspapers has increased by more than 17,000 percent since 2007).

Indeed, many small-business owners report that regulations are their biggest obstacle to success. But are they really?

This spring, the service directory Thumbtack.com and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation asked small-business owners across the nation to rate how friendly their states—and particularly their states’ regulations—were to small businesses. Their answers generally matched conventional analysis: Utah and Texas, with fewer and looser regulations, scored well, while states with more aggressive environmental and labor standards, such as Vermont, California, and New York, scored worst.

But researcher Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance noticed something odd: Comparatively speaking, many of the states with the best scores, and the loosest regulations, weren’t actually home to very many small businesses:

Vermont, for example, which earned an “F” in the ranking, in part because of its cumbersome environmental and zoning regulations, has nearly twice as many small businesses per capita as laissez-faire Texas, which scored an “A+.” Low-ranking New York and Rhode Island likewise have more small businesses than most states.

Of the five most “friendly” states, only one, Idaho, outperforms the national average on numbers of small businesses. The other four lag behind, with Louisiana ranking 36th and Texas 47th in the nation.

In other words, the GOP's talking points about the impact of regulations don’t necessarily line up with reality. One reason is that politicians and pundits are too quick to make assumptions about the impact of regulations. The Institute for Policy Integrity, in the same report that noted the massive increase in discussion of the term “job-killing regulations,” discussed the problem with overly simplistic analysis:

“Even the most sophisticated job impact analyses have only limited predictive power in our complex and dynamic economy,” the authors note—and sophistication isn’t a notable feature of recent job analyses generated to make political points. They conclude that too many of our analyses of whether better regulations will cost jobs are too narrow or too short-term. “If analysts and advocates cannot reverse course, then the use of job impact analyses will remain a misleading distraction—nothing more than a red herring.”

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It’s not easy to isolate the factors that make an economy healthy, but many of the things that regulations are meant to promote (healthy workers and environments; protections against exploitation and monopolistic business practices) are certainly part of it. Small businesses thrive in places where local residents can afford their services and where a good quality of life attracts skilled workers.

They also do best when they’re not shaded out by national chains, another potential boon of strong regulations. “It may also be that these rules have a more limiting effect on their big competitors,” notes Mitchell. “Vermont’s land use policies, for example, have done much to preserve the vitality of the state’s downtowns and protect its farmland from sprawl, which has been a boon to local businesses and food producers, while also inhibiting the spread of Walmart and other big-box retailers.”

Along with “job-killing regulations,” another phrase repeated over and over at the convention was “business-friendly environment”—too often defined as an unregulated free-for-all. But if we want to create places where small businesses can truly thrive, we have to start thinking more carefully about what that phrase really means. Business-friendliness doesn’t necessarily depend on how many regulations there are. It depends on the environment: on creating healthy, vibrant communities in which small businesses can grow.

Brooke Jarvis wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Brooke is a contributing editor for YES!

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