Published on Saturday, September 26, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Medicare for All: Yes We Can

by Holly Sklar

More Americans die of lack of health insurance than terrorism, homicide, drunk driving and HIV combined.

Grandma could be dead from lack of health insurance before she turns 65 and gets Medicare - 80 percent of first-time grandparents are in their 40s and 50s.

America is the only country that rations the right to health care to those 65 and older.

Lack of health insurance kills 45,000 American adults a year, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. One out of three Americans under age 65 had no private or public health insurance for some or all of 2007-2008.

You can't go the emergency room for the screening that will catch cancer or heart disease early, or ongoing treatment to manage chronic kidney disease or asthma. And even emergency care is different for the insured and uninsured. Studies show uninsured car crash victims receive less care in the hospital, for example.

Even with health insurance, many Americans are a medical crisis away from bankruptcy. Research shows 62 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical, a share up 50 percent since 2001. Most of the medically bankrupt had health insurance - the kind insuring profits, not health care.

Health insurance executives don't worry about going bankrupt from getting sick. Forbes reports that CIGNA's CEO made $121 million in the last five years and Humana's CEO made $57 million.

We're harmed by health industry and political leaders following the Hypocritic Oath: Promise a lot, and deliver as little as possible.

Wendell Potter, CIGNA's chief of corporate communications until quitting in 2008, testified to Congress, "The status quo for most Americans is that health insurance bureaucrats stand between them and their doctors right now, and maximizing profit is the mandate." He said, "Every time you hear about the shortcomings of what they call 'government-run' health care, remember this: what we have now ... and what the insurers are determined to keep in place, is Wall Street-run health care."

Premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance jumped 131 percent between 1999 and 2009 - from $5,791 to $13,375 - hurting businesses, employees and families.

Contrary to myth, the United States does not have the world's best health care. We're No. 1 in health care spending, but No. 50 in life expectancy, just before Albania, according to the CIA World Factbook. In Japan, people live four years longer than Americans. Canadians live three years longer. Forty-three countries have better infant mortality rates.

One or two health insurance companies dominate most metropolitan areas in the United States.

Health industry lobbyists and campaign contributors have gotten between you and your congressperson so they can keep getting between you and your doctor. There are 3,098 health sector lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill - nearly six for every member of Congress.

As Business Week put it in August, "Health insurers are winning." They "have succeeded in redefining the terms of the reform debate to such a degree that no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable."

President Obama should listen to his doctor. Dr. David Scheiner was Obama's doctor for 22 years in Chicago. On the July 30 anniversary of Medicare, Scheiner said, "I have never encountered an instance where Medicare has prevented proper medical care ... Insurance companies frequently interfere and block appropriate care."

Scheiner belongs to Physicians for a National Health Program, which, like a majority of Americans, favors Medicare for All - 58 percent favored "Having a national health plan in which all Americans would get their insurance through an expanded, universal form of Medicare-for-all" in the July 2009 Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, for example.

Tell President Obama and Congress, Yes we can have Medicare for All. Rep. Anthony Weiner's amendment would substitute the text of the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act (HR 676), which has 86 co-sponsors, for House legislation HR 3200. Like the even worse Baucus bill in the Senate, HR 3200 would feed for-profit insurers more customers without providing the universal health care Medicare could provide at much lower cost.

It's time to stop peddling health reform snake oil.

Medicare for All won't kill Grandma, but it may save her children and grandchildren.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service

© 2009 Holly Sklar

Holly Sklar is co-author of "Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us" and "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future." She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com.

Single-payer Everywhere! To members of Progressive Democrats of America

Conor Boylan September 2 at 12:20am Reply

Leaders in the movement for the only real solution for health care reform—Medicare for All—met in the Medina, Ohio, at the home of PDA member, supporter, and always gracious host, Dave Kelley for strategy sessions and a panel discussion on August 23-24.

Joining members of the PDA national team at the weekend gathering were Rep. Dennis Kucinich, community organizer and legislative advocate Donna Smith of the California Nurses Association, Healthcare-Now’s assistant national coordinator and “Baucus 8” arrestee Katie Robbins, and the tireless executive director of HealthCare4AllPA, Chuck Pennacchio. Dozens of members of Single-Payer Action Network of Ohio (SPAN Ohio) also attended the weekend events, along with Midwest PDA leadership, to organize future plans. Read the full report here

http://pdamerica.org/articles/chapters/oh-2009-08-27-11-21-59-chapters.php

Watch Dennis Kucinich speak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVHNz03qQp8#, and check out some photos from the eventhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/pdamerica/sets/72157622131060114/

And, there are more events coming up in which PDA national team members will be particpating--please try to attend:

On September 12, Tim Carpenter will be a panelist at the Fighting Bob Fest VIII. https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/mtgdetail.asp?formid=meet&caleventid=15426

On October 20, join us at the Single-Payer Rally in Harrisburg, Penn.https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/309/personalopt1.asp?formid=meet&c=9799962

Keep an eye out for the Mad as Hell Doctors Care-a-Van coming to a city near you. https://madashelldoctorstour.com/Our_Route.html

We're in constant communication with our friends at California Nurses Association, Healthcare NOW!, Physicians for a National Health Program and the member groups of the Leadership Conference on Guaranteed Healthcare as we follow the healthcare reform debate, and the progress of the Kucinich and Weiner amendments. We'll keep you informed!

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter, National Director,

Laura Bonham, Deputy Director,

Conor Boylan, Field Coordinator.

Published on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 by YES! Magazine

Upgrading the Way We Do Politics

by Sandy Heierbacher

Town hall meetings being held on health care legislation across the country are exploding with emotion, frustration, and conflict. Citizens are showing up in throngs to speak out, and sometimes to shout, about health care—turning the meetings into a vivid demonstration of what's missing from American democracy.

Many of the most vocal protesters at town hall meetings are motivated not by the legislation itself, but by their fears and sense of exclusion from the process. The health care debate has illustrated the need for a better method of public input–not only to help prevent those feelings of alienation, but also to produce legislation that actually meets the needs of citizens.

At the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD), our members are involved in a flurry of discussion about how we can encourage public engagement that’s more participatory and more productive than what we’ve seen in the news lately.

Scrap the typical “town hall meeting” format

"The term 'town hall' conjures up images of townsfolk gathering in some New England hamlet, writes deliberative democracy scholar Jim Fishkin. But today's typical "town hall meetings" don't live up to that tradition. They don't allow citizens to feel they've been truly heard, or to discuss issues in any depth. Like public hearings, town hall meetings tend to largely be gripe sessions, where the most passionate and bold attendees take turns giving three-minute speeches—usually after enduring long speeches from the front of the room.

Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, one of the members of Congress who did not plan a large town hall meeting during the recess, has suggested that the raucous nature of the town-hall-style sessions has made them counterproductive. “If people genuinely wanted to have a constructive conversation, then that would be a different thing,” she said. “But that has not been what we’ve seen.”

She's right on one count: the town hall design sets the stage for activist groups and special interest groups to try to 'game' the system and sideline other concerned citizens in the process. As Martin Carcasson, director of Colorado State University’s Center for Public Deliberation, recently pointed out, “the loudest voices are the ones that get heard, and typically the majority voices in the middle don't even show up because it becomes a shouting match.”

False accusations and misinformation have certainly played a role in fueling the furor, but they might not be as effective if people hadn’t already felt cut off from the process. As Tom Atlee, founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute noted, many of the recent town meetings were originally organized to promote the Democratic health care agenda, not to provide opportunities for real dialogue with and among citizens. “So in a sense they invited disruption from those who felt unheard,” he said. And when a person or group feels ignored, their frustration often shows up later “with increasing and often dysfunctional energy.”

Upgrade to higher-quality meeting formats

So how can officials hold more effective open-to-the-public meetings with their constituents? Dozens of effective public engagement techniques have been developed to enable citizens to have authentic, civil, productive discussions at public meetings—even on highly contentious issues. These techniques have names like National Issues Forums, Study Circles, 21st Century Town Meetings, Open Space Technology, and World Cafe, to name just a few.

When done well, these techniques create the space for real dialogue, so everyone who shows up can tell their story and share their perspective on the topic at hand. Dialogue builds trust and enables people to be open to listening to perspectives that are very different from their own. Deliberation is often key to public engagement work as well, enabling people to discuss the consequences, costs, and trade-offs of various policy options, and to work through the emotions that tough public decisions raise.

Skilled facilitation is key to almost all forms of dialogue and deliberation. Alexander Moll, who is facilitating a health care deliberation using the National Issues Forums method in Washington, D.C. later this month, describes his role this way: “My job is to elicit the best ideas from each of you, regardless of ideology... I do not ask 'leading' or 'loaded' questions that bias the conversations; instead I'll ask questions like, 'Why do you believe this to be true?' or 'Can you explain your position further?’” Skilled facilitators know how to translate conflict and anger into specific interests, needs and concerns so that what's behind the emotion can actually be understood and addressed.

“Ground rules” or “agreements” are also par for the course in dialogue and deliberation. Typical agreements establish a kind of golden rule for everyone present, asking people to treat each other as they would want to be treated. By refraining from interrupting each other and by listening with the intent to understand rather than to seek points to argue with (two typical ground rules), participants are more likely to be heard and to hear each other.

To involve a broader representation of the public, events should be publicized widely and thoughtfully enough so a variety of people attend (not just the usual suspects). Furthermore, it’s helpful to organize participants into smaller groups (fewer than 10 at a table is ideal) to ensure each person gets the chance to speak and to make it less likely that one individual or interest group will dominate the whole meeting.

No matter what technique is used, legislators can help all attendees feel heard by diligently recording what citizens say, and being clear about how they plan to use the information gathered (perhaps to share with other constituents or with fellow legislators). Another proven strategy is to “reflect back” the concerns, values, and desires they are hearing. Ideally, public officials join in the dialogue as participants, after which they can publicly reflect on some of the things they've heard. The more thorough and authentic they are in doing this, the more impact it will have on those attending.

Reflecting back, using ground rules, working with facilitators, and having people engage with each other in small groups are all basic but critical elements of quality public engagement. To allow people to deliberate, or wrestle with the complexities of the issue, some important work must also be completed before the public meeting. Balanced information must be provided about the issue at hand, and a fairly-framed spectrum of possible policy choices can be put on the table for attendees to discuss.

Perhaps most importantly, the legislator hosting the meeting must genuinely be open to learning from what his or her constituents think should be done to address the issue at hand. One major barrier to putting these ideas to play right now is that public input should be requested—and heeded—much earlier in the policy-making process. Now that there are draft bills floating around, citizens (rightly) would not trust that their nuanced input would have much impact on what happens in Washington. At this point in the policy process, loud voices and outrageous accusations actually are more likely to impact health care policy—but not necessarily in a productive way.

Atlee observed that “when people are only invited to participate when there is a final battle between (for example) Republican and Democratic proposals for health care, this fact alone invites polarization. When an issue is in crisis mode, it is easier to manipulate people with fear and extreme language and imagery; there is less time to get information and issues clarified; there is less patience on all sides to delve into the actual complexities; and nonpartisans get the sense they are being sold false alternatives.”

One NCDD member recommended asking two legislators from different parties to co-host deliberative events on contentious issues like health care reform. Many citizens on the right distrust politicians on the left—and vice versa. A joint deliberative forum held early in the decision-making process can help build trust beyond party lines, and help legislators get a sense of what their constituents are willing and unwilling to support, and why.

It is also vital to find ways for attendees to wrestle with the trade-offs inherent in all complex policy issues. As President Obama said at a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado, “there is no perfect, painless silver bullet out there that solves every problem, gives everybody perfect health care for free. There isn't.” Americans need to discuss the trade-offs involved (in the proposals as well as the current system) with each other and with policy-makers, to clarify the values that are embodied in different approaches to health care reform, and to identify the needs that are most important to them. Legislators need to trust us enough to listen.

Most Americans feel strongly that the voice of the people should have an influence on public policy and that the right to speak up and dissent is anything but “un-American.” A recent joint statement by several leading organizations in the field of participatory democracy noted that “beyond simply having a voice, people should have a chance to be informed, to hear each other, to work through tough decisions with each other and their elected officials, and to use democratic processes to figure out how to solve the problems that face us.”

Though it may not seem like it when we watch clips from health care town halls, the truth is that people can come together to have a positive impact on national policy, not only in spite of our differences, but because we can use those differences to make better decisions. It is my hope that what may have seemed like a utopian ideal a few weeks ago—democratic debate in which the people are informed and involved from the beginning—may now seem like a necessary but long-overdue upgrade in the way we do politics.

Sandy Heierbacher wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Sandy is the co-founder and director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), a network of 1200 groups and professionals who bring together Americans of all stripes to discuss, decide and act together on today's toughest issues.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License

Campaign for America's Future

Making It In America

By Robert Borosage

Washington's special genius is for gridlock. As we're seeing in the health care debate, the entire system is designed to frustrate action — even when Democrats have a popular president, 60 votes in the Senate and a large majority in the House. Moneyed interests trump party loyalty. Partisan politics trumps national purpose. Congressional rules and egos favor dithering and delay.

So on health care, Republicans have lurched into partisan opposition, hoping that obstructing change will lead to Obama's "Waterloo," and they can replay 1994 and take back the Congress. Blue dog Democrats remain lap dogs for special interests, blind to the fury that they will face if reform fails.

But at least on health care, the administration is leading the charge. We haven't even begun an adult conversation about the fundamental question of America's global economic strategy. What is the economy we will build out of the ashes of the old?

Obama has raised the subject. He understands that we can't go back to the old economy — and shouldn't want to. We can't go back to borrowing $2 billion a day, largely from the Chinese, to serve as consumer to the world. We can't go back to an economy in which finance captures 45% of the nation's profits. We can't keep shipping good jobs, technology, and manufacturing capacity abroad and expect to sustain a broad middle class at home. We've got to start making it in America again. As Obama has declared, "The fight for American manufacturing is the fight for America's future."

As Louis Uchitelle in the New York Times reports, the United States now ranks behind every industrial nation except France in the percentage of overall economic activity devoted to manufacturing. We've been shedding manufacturing jobs for years, and the recession has been brutal, with nearly two million industrial jobs disappearing since it began.

But we haven't even begun a serious conversation about what it would take to revive manufacturing in a global economy. The president's trade representative, Ron Kirk, seems clueless, intent on passing free trade agreements with Panama, Columbia and South Korea that are but tribute to the old unsustainable ways. The president calls sensibly for investment in education and training, in 21st century infrastructure, in research and development — but his budgets project reducing domestic expenditures to levels lower as a percentage of GDP than the early 1960s. And conservatives in both parties say that isn't low enough.

Obama has suggested that America must lead in the green industries that surely will grow in the future — new energy, more efficient appliances, more sophisticated building efficiencies — and the supply chains associated with windmills, solar cells, batteries, fast trains, electric cars and more. Yet, Obama opposed the weak "buy America" provision put into the stimulus bill. His energy bill contained no serious effort at insuring that these products would be built here. Amendments designed to help manufacturers here were introduced into the bill in the dead of night because the administration needed the votes of industrial state Democrats to pass it. And because Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and the Apollo Alliance had put together elements of a new energy industrial policy that House members could elbow into the legislation.

Contrast that with China. China has determined that new energy will be one of its strategic industries. It is now the largest manufacturer of solar panels — exporting 95% of its production, largely to Europe and the US.

While Obama felt it necessary to distance himself from the "buy America" provisions put in the stimulus bill, China has no such compunctions. As the Times reports, "when China authorized its first solar power plant this spring, it required that at least 80 percent of the equipment be made in China. When the Chinese government took bids this spring for 25 large contracts to supply wind turbines, every contract was won by one of seven domestic companies. All six multinationals that submitted bids were disqualified on various technical grounds, like not providing sufficiently detailed data."

The European companies weren't exactly foreigners. They had built turbine factories in China to meet the government's requirement that the turbines contain 70 percent local content. But having no doubt benefited from that transfer of technology and engineering experience, the Chinese contracted with home—grown companies, rejecting the bids of the Chinese based European companies while approving those of Chinese companies that had never built a turbine before. European wind turbine makers have now stopped bidding on Chinese contracts, concluding that their bids had no chance.

China is intent on dominating the new energy markets of the future. If its past practices are any indication, it will subsidize exports, manipulate its currency, buy China at home, force multinationals to transfer technology and partner with Chinese companies, and engage in industrial piracy to make its way.

If the US wants new energy to be the centerpiece of a new economy in which — in the president's words — the US "consumes less and produces more," then it will have to have an industrial strategy. It doesn't have to mimic the Chinese, but it has to respond to them, rather than invoking old shibboleths about "free trade," and ignoring the reality of the world marketplace.

A new book issued by the Alliance for American Manufacturing with the ungainly title of Manufacturing for a Better Future for America shows how China is not alone, detailing the practices that our trading partners use to sustain their industrial capacity and export markets.

A new global strategy is essential. But getting there won't be easy. Just as the insurance companies impede sensible reforms in health care, and big oil and coal block vital changes in energy, and Wall Street guts vital reform of finance, global corporations and banks will spend a lot of money to defend the unsustainable trade policies of the old economy.

This can lead to cynical resignation or to fury. But one thing is clear. Little will get done until Americans show politicians that while the lobbies can pay for their campaigns and provide employment in retirement, they can't defend them against the justified anger of a citizenry no longer willing to put up with gridlock.

Action Alert: Single Payer on the Table

Representative Weiner goes for broke with single-payer proposal


Today, Monday July 20, the silence in the House of Representatives around single payer and H.R. 676 will end. Rep. Anthony Weiner, (D-NY09), who has already rankled Republicans and Blue Dogs with his no-nonsense statements before the House Energy and Commerce hearing on H.R. 3200, will move to amend the current bill. His proposal is essentially to replace H.R. 3200 with H.R. 676—single payer Medicare for All.

This exciting and potentially monumental move needs our support. We pushed Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s amendment to victory last Friday, and we can do it for Representative Weiner, too.

The full committee and its five subcommittees are spending the next three days debating the bill and performing their markups. This is the time to act, and Representative Weiner is making his move.

Call or fax the committee members and tell them you want them to support Representative Weiner’s proposal. Listen to his blunt analysis in Friday’s session of what real healthcare reform is made of, and you’ll get some good ideas of what to say when you call or fax. It’s a no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners approach to the legislative process almost never heard on the House floor.

Energy and Commerce Committee Phone: (202) 225-2927, Fax: (202) 225-2525
Henry A. Waxman, CA, Chair Phone: (202) 225-3976, Fax: (202) 225-4099
John D. Dingell, MI Phone: (202) 225-4071, Fax: (202) 226-0371
Edward J. Markey, MA Phone: (202) 225-2836, Fax: (202) 226-0092
Rick Boucher, VA Phone: (202) 225-3861, Fax: (202) 225-0442
Frank Pallone, Jr., NJ Phone: (202) 225-4671, Fax: (202) 225-9665
Bart Gordon, TN Phone: (202) 225-4231, Fax: (202) 225-6887
Bobby L. Rush, IL Phone: (202) 225-4372, Fax: (202) 226-0333
Anna G. Eshoo, CA Phone: (202) 225-8104, Fax: (202) 225-8890
Bart Stupak, MI Phone: (202) 225-4735, Fax: (202) 225-4744
Eliot L. Engel, NY Phone: (202) 225-2464, Fax: (202) 225-5513
Gene Green, TX Phone: (202) 225-1688, Fax: (202) 225-9903
Diana DeGette, CO Phone: (202) 225-4431, Fax: (202) 225-5657
Lois Capps, CA Phone: (202) 225-3601, Fax: (202) 225-5632
Mike Doyle, PA Phone: (202) 225-2135, Fax: (202) 225-3084
Jane Harman, CA Phone: (202) 225-8220, Fax: (202) 226-7290
Jan Schakowsky, IL Phone: (202) 225-2111, Fax: (202) 226-6890
Charles A. Gonzalez, TX Phone: (202) 225-3236, Fax: (202) 225-1915
Jay Inslee, WA Phone: (202) 225-6311, Fax: (202) 226-1606
Tammy Baldwin, WI Phone: (202) 225-2906, Fax: (202) 225-6942
Mike Ross, AR Phone: (202) 225-3772, Fax: (202) 225-1314
Anthony D. Weiner, NY Phone: (202) 225-6616, Fax: (202) 226-0218
Jim Matheson, UT Phone: (202) 225-3011, Fax: (202) 225-5638
G.K. Butterfield, NC Phone: (202) 225-3101, Fax: (202) 225-3354
Charlie Melancon, LA Phone: (202) 225-4031, Fax: (202) 226-3944
John Barrow, GA Phone: (202) 225-2823, Fax: (202) 225-3377
Baron P. Hill, IN Phone: (202) 225-5315, Fax: (202) 226-6866
Doris O. Matsui, CA Phone: (202) 225-7163, Fax: (202) 225-0566
Donna M. Christensen, VI Phone: (202) 225-1790, Fax: (202) 225-5517
Kathy Castor, FL Phone: (202) 225-3376, Fax: (202) 225-5652
John P. Sarbanes, MD Phone: (202) 225-4016, Fax: (202) 225-9219
Christopher S. Murphy, CT Phone: (202) 225-4476, Fax: (202) 225-5933
Zachary T. Space, OH Phone: (202) 225-6265, Fax: (202) 225-3394
Jerry McNerney, CA Phone: (202) 225-1947, Fax: (202) 225-4060
Betty Sutton, OH Phone: (202) 225-3401, Fax: (202) 225-2266
Bruce L. Braley, IA Phone: (202) 225-2911, Fax: (202) 225-6666
Peter Welch, VT Phone: (202) 225-4115, Fax: (202) 225-6790

Check out PDA’s Healthcare for All Issue Organizing Team (IOT) pages for recent news on healthcare reform and single payer, as well as resources on legislation and issues.

In solidarity,

Tim Carpenter, National Director
Laura Bonham, Deputy Director
Conor Boylan, Field Coordinator

Progressive Democrats of America is a grassroots PAC that works both inside the Democratic Party and outside in movements for peace and justice. Our goal in 2009: Expand progressive influence in Congress as we build on our 2008 electoral successes. PDA's advisory board includes seven members of Congress and activist leaders such as Tom Hayden, Medea Benjamin, Thom Hartmann, Jim Hightower, and Lila Garrett.

Spread the Progressive Word

CREDO Action

Stop Dirty Coal in Michigan

The skies are getting darker in Michigan.

Right now, while Congress is debating climate change, the coal industry is moving quickly to build two more expensive, dirty coal plants in Michigan. Why the push to build more coal plants now, when Michigan's energy use is declining?

Coal industry lobbyists have been successful in introducing gaping loopholes into the climate change bill pending in Congress. As a result, most of the provisions aimed at reducing coal's massive effect on climate change only apply to new plants coming online As a result, most of the provisions aimed at reducing coal's massive effect on climate change only apply to new plants coming online years from now. That means Big Coal will try to build as many dirty plants as possible before these rules go into effect.

It gets even worse. The coal industry is trying to build these plants without full public hearings on the matter. People in Michigan deserve the right to speak out.

The Department of Environmental Quality and the Public Service Commission are taking public comments right now on the proposed coal plants, and we need to let them know that Michiganders want a clean energy future, and no new dirty coal plants. We've got to tell them: No new coal.

It's now or never in the fight against climate change The more people who respond with the message "No New Coal," the more chance we have at stopping these dirty and expensive coal plants, and moving Michigan towards a clean energy future.

Sign this petition now to tell the Department of Environmental Quality and the Public Service Commission: Michigan needs a clean energy future. No more coal.

Participate with your State PIRGs

U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), takes on powerful interests on behalf of the American public, working to win concrete results for our health and our well-being. The state PIRGs are independent, state-based, citizen-funded organizations that advocate for the public interest. Since 1970, we have been delivering results-oriented citizen activism to protect our environment, encourage a fair and sustainable economy, and foster a responsive democratic government. We uncover threats to public health and well-being and fight to end them, using the time-tested tools of investigative research, media exposés, grassroots organizing, advocacy and litigation.

At each state PIRG, the staff works to achieve concrete, practical changes on issues ranging from air and water pollution to campaign finance reform, from genetic engineering to consumer privacy.

The state PIRGs employ close to 400 organizers, policy analysts, scientists and attorneys, and are active in 47 states and Washington, D.C.

Read more about the work of individual state PIRGs at their Web sites:

AkPIRG / Arizona PIRG / CALPIRG / CoPIRG / ConnPIRG / Florida PIRG / Georgia PIRG / Illinois PIRG / INPIRG / Iowa PIRG / Maryland PIRG / MASSPIRG / PIRGIM (PIRG in Michigan) / MoPIRG / NCPIRG / NHPIRG / NJPIRG / NMPIRG / NYPIRG / Ohio PIRG / OSPIRG / PennPIRG / RIPIRG / TexPIRG / WashPIRG / WISPIRG

• Site Map
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U.S. PIRG: The Federation of State PIRGs • 44 Winter Street, 4th Floor, Boston, MA 02108
Federal Advocacy Office: 218 D Street SE, Washington, DC 20003

CRUNCH TIME FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM

Hi Friends,

Right now it's crunch time for health care reform.

The president knows it: Our advocates on Capitol Hill have learned that Obama cleared his schedule for the next two weeks so that he can focus on health care.

The health care industry knows it, too: They're spending $1.4 million EVERY DAY to sway fence-sitting lawmakers and weaken or defeat the reforms.

If the leader of the free world has set all other business aside to accomplish real health care reform, can you help him out at this critical moment?

Please take a minute right now to call your senator and ask her to support the president's health care plan.

You can find talking points and report your call on our website.

Here's what else we'll be doing across the country:

* Building a grassroots movement. Our canvassers are talking with hundreds of thousands of Americans face-to-face about health care, to swell the ranks of our supporters.

* Dispelling myths. Big industry and their Washington lobbyists are trying to convince Mom and Pop small businesses that they can't afford health care reform. So next week, we're holding press conferences in 18 states to release a new report on how small businesses can tackle their health care problems.

* Working in the Capitol. We're meeting with lawmakers in D.C. and organizing support for health care reform in their districts.

* Foiling the opposition. We're also going to tour health care swing states, and we're bringing a special guest to help us sway fence-sitters. Stay tuned.

The House leadership just introduced the America's Affordable Health Choices Act, and is racing to win House passage by the August congressional recess. If your health care premiums are rising, if anyone you knew ever was denied care they needed, if you're sick of our broken health care system, now is the time you can actually do something about it.

Please click below to call your senator and demand real health care reform now.

http://www.uspirg.org/action/health-care/call-your-senator?id4=ES

Sincerely,

Andre Delattre
U.S. PIRG Executive Director
AndreD@uspirg.org
http://www.uspirg.org

P.S. Thanks for your continued support. Please feel free to share this e-mail with your friends and family.

P.P.S. To read members' testimonials on our health care crisis, or submit your own, visit our health care stories page.

Tell Congress to support the president's plan to reform health care this year!

Current Campaign

Making Health Care Work

Health care costs have doubled in the past 10 years.

We need to seize the opportunity for real changes that can make health care more affordable, secure and dependable for all Americans by passing President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Read more.

How You Can Help

Tell Congress to support the president's plan to reform health care this year!

Contact your senators and tell them to support the President's comprehensive health reform plan.

U.S. PIRG's Larry McNeely talks about the public plan option and how it will make all insurers more competitive at the same time as it gives Americans a choice. Tune in every Monday for a new video briefing or catch all the briefings on our channel, here.

News

Washington, D.C.: Health Care Reform and the Biologics Bill - U.S. PIRG Supports Innovation, Not Monopoly 7/14/2009

Washington D.C.: U.S. PIRG Statement Supporting Senator Dodd’s Amendment to End Insurance Rescissions 7/10/2009

Washington, D.C.: New Weekly Video Briefings on Health Care Reform 7/07/2009

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The Facts about Comparative Effectiveness Research 7/07/2009

More Bang for the Health Care Buck 5/21/2009

More Bang for the Health Care Buck: How an Efficiency Standard for Health Insurers Can Reduce Overhead and Deliver More Patient Care 5/05/2009

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Healthcare NOT Warfare, Sign the Petition

Healthcare NOT Warfare, Sign the Petition

As Martin Luther King Jr. observed forty years ago, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." While the insurance and pharmaceutical industries post huge profits, the U.S. health care crisis grows steadily worse. Today, nearly one in six Americans has no health insurance. Tens of millions of others are woefully under-insured. Meanwhile the war in Iraq drains our resources and overburdens our budget. Our government's duty is to protect us--security begins with our health and well-being at home. In 2009, we have an historic opportunity to turn from warfare to health care for all. We call on the Democratic Party at all levels--in party platforms and resolutions--to commit to redirecting wasteful and unnecessary military spending to meet human needs. This commitment must start with comprehensive, guaranteed health care--driven by the needs of patients and the judgment of doctors. We call on Democrats to support a plan that eliminates any financial barriers between the patient and healthcare providers, resulting in a patient not receiving medically necessary care. We call on members of Congress to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan and to pass H.R. 676, Rep. John Conyers' bill which guarantees comprehensive publicly-funded, privately-delivered health care for everyone in the U.S. Please fill out the form completely--we need your street address to determine who your member of Congress is. Continue

Overcome the power of the military-industrial complex

Dear Friends,

We are working on a several fronts when it comes to war and peace: torture accountability, stopping the ongoing wars and reducing the military budget.

These are big challenges but to achieve them elected officials need to be pushed further than they want to go. Right now, the Pentagon and weapons industry have the stronger voice. But, organized and persistent voices of voters can overcome the power of the military-industrial complex.

To be effective we need to expand the number of people working on these issues.

Please forward information to people you know who are concerned about these issues.

Click here to use the tell a friend tool and urge people to take action against torture. Or give them this link: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1312/t/6850/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27281

And, you can urge people to stop the ongoing wars by clicking here. Or give them this link: http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1312/t/9050/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27366

If you want to keep up on the latest economic news, you can get our free daily news summary sent to your email box. To do so, register by clicking here.

Visit the activist toolbox for more ways you can help.

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

Kevin Zeese
Executive Director

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VotersForPeace is a nonpartisan organization that does not support or oppose candidates for office.

VotersForPeace.US

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Baltimore, MD 21218

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PDA Priorities: Mobilizing the Progressive Vote and Voice

PDA Priorities

1. End the War, Redirect Funding

PDA wants all troops withdrawn promptly, and war funds redirected toward social needs at home and humanitarian aid in Iraq. Toward that end, we call on the Democratic-led Congress to use its powers to 1) cut off funding that prolongs the military occupation of Iraq, and 2) fully investigate false White House claims justifying the invasion and occupation of Iraq. If such investigations lead to moves toward impeachment, so be it.

PDA is working closely with members of Congress to enact a fullyfunded, prompt, orderly withdrawal of all U.S. troops and military contractors from Iraq. We support stand-alone legislation or amendments to defense and appropriations bills that will accomplish that goal. And we support measures in Congress to prevent an attack on Iran and to renounce any interest in Iraqi oil or in permanent military bases in Iraq. We do not support Democratic leadership proposals with prolonged and porous timelines that allow tens of thousands of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq on vaguely-defined “training” or “anti-terrorism” measures. PDA coordinates its “Out of Iraq” efforts with dozens of Congress members, including Reps. Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey and Maxine Waters.

End the War, Redirect Funding

2. Health Care for All

It is immoral for a country as wealthy as ours to have 45 million people with no health coverage, and tens of millions more with inadequate or overly expensive coverage. It also makes no economic sense; despite spending twice as much as other industrialized nations on healthcare, our system performs poorly because the private U. S. insurance bureaucracy soaks up nearly one-third of all health care money in waste, profits, paperwork and advertising. Poor health and poor health care are drags on the economy and job creation; up to half of all personal bankruptcies are caused by health care crises.

PDA supports Rep. John Conyers bill, H.R. 676, which establishes streamlined, nonprofit national health insurance--enhanced Medicare for All--which would negotiate drug and treatment costs. By replacing private insurers and recouping administrative savings of up to $300 billion per year, this single-payer approach provides topnotch health care to everyone. Care would be privately delivered by healers and hospitals, but publicly financed--with no bills, co-pays, deductibles, denials or medically-induced bankruptcies. PDA also supports health care initiatives at the state and local level that move us toward a nonprofit single-payer system.

Single-payer Health Care

3. Economic Justice
When working people reject their economic interests and vote Republican on wedge issues of abortion and gay rights, it is partly because they haven't heard a Democratic economic agenda that speaks strongly to their needs. PDA proposes to win over "soccer moms," "NASCAR dads" and "swing voters" through an agenda of progressive tax reform, fair trade and economic security measures.

PDA calls on Democrats in Congress to roll back Bush tax breaks for the wealthy--so that the richest 1 percent of Americans (with yearly incomes averaging $1.3 million) will not pocket $300 billion over the next four years. Tax burdens on the middle class can be eased if the wealthy pay their share. PDA supports fair trade that protects workers' rights and the environment, while opposing wage-reducing "free trade" agreements that protect only corporate rights to globally exploit unprotected labor. This year, PDA will work closely with allies like Sen. Sherrod Brown to block renewal of "fast track" authority, which allows the White House to enact trade deals without Congressional amendment.

Along with unfair trade deals like NAFTA, attacks on the right to unionize are a key factor in the decline of America's middle class. PDA endorses the Employee Free Choice Act, which establishes unions in any workplace where a majority of workers sign up. PDA also supports middle-class job creation through federal investment, such as the Apollo Alliance for renewable energy, and investment in wireless Internet networks.

Employee Free Choice Act
Apollo Alliance

4. Clean, Fair, Transparent Elections
The U.S. election system is in crisis. Big-money interests dominate U.S. politics in ways unknown in other industrialized countries, with social and environmental progress often blocked by officials who cater to big donors to insure re-election funds. Incumbents are unfairly insulated by district gerrymandering and rules obstructing independent candidates and parties. In recent years, voters themselves have faced political and even racial obstacles in casting votes and in getting their votes counted.

Soon after its formation, PDA worked with Rep. John Conyers in exposing the 2004 election irregularities in Ohio that helped elect Bush. PDA activists engaged in "election protection" monitoring during the 2006 voting. We support federal legislation that bans the further use of touch-screen (DRE) voting machines for counting votes, establishes a paper ballot as the official record for deriving voter intent, and requires rigorous mandatory audits of elections. To eliminate big-money dominance, PDA supports comprehensive campaign finance reform at the state and national level, including Clean Money public financing of the public's elections, plus free TV time for candidates. PDA opposes the racially-biased disenfranchisement of felons who've served their time, and supports reforms like "Instant Runoff"/proportional voting, paper ballots which assure more accurate and broader representation than winner-take-all elections.

Clean Elections
Instant Runoff Voting

5. Stop Global Warming
No issue reveals more clearly the flaws of the U.S. political-economic system than global warming--the dominance of greed and corporate power over the public good, and the near-sighted focus on the short-term over the welfare of future generations. The departing Republican chair of the Senate's environment committee used his final meeting in December 2006 to blame Hollywood and the media for "alarmism" and for "hyping" the problem of global warming. But as shown by the stunning success of Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," the public is ready to act to save the planet and to protect our remaining wild places from further degradation in the pursuit of oil. PDA calls on the Democratic majority in Congress to lead boldly in reducing our country's oil dependence and use of fossil fuels by raising auto fuel economy and imposing mandatory caps on carbon pollution while investing in public transportation, energy conservation technologies and alternative energy development. (Such investments create good-paying jobs.)

Copyright © 2004-2008 Progressive Democrats of America • All text available for public use with appropriate attribution.

GREENPEACE USA

Call on Obama to restore science to its rightful place

In just a few hours, the House of Representatives will vote on global warming legislation that doesn’t live up to what the science shows we have to do to stop global warming. The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) bill has been so heavily influenced by the coal and oil industries, that Greenpeace now opposes the bill.

President Obama vowed to “restore science to its rightful place” in his inaugural address, yet ACES all but ignores the science. Take action now and urge Obama to be a leader on global warming.

Here’s what’s WRONG with the legislation:

• The Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that to avoid the worst climate impacts such as intense droughts, super charged hurricanes and increased heat waves, the U.S. and other industrialized countries must cut their emissions by 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020. This bill, as it’s currently written, only calls for a 4% reduction by 2020. And there’s very little chance those targets will be improved.
  
• These weak targets are made even worse by 2 billion tons per year of allowable offsets. Offsets allow polluters to put off for more than a decade real cuts in their emissions The offsets are so high that they will exceed the actual pollution reductions required until at least 2026 — that’s time we don’t have!
  
• Coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of global warming pollution in the U.S. In order to tackle climate change, we need to begin phasing out coal immediately. But instead of phasing-out coal plants, ACES will actually encourage the growth of a new generation of coal-fired plants! To add insult to injury, tens of billions of taxpayer dollars would be spent on the myth of carbon capture and sequestration — an untested and unproven technology that is decades away from full-scale deployment even by the most optimistic estimates.

Worst of all, ACES will actually remove the President’s existing authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act—an authority that was recently reaffirmed by the Supreme Court. Now that the House has proven that it won’t step up and stop global warming, President Obama’s power to regulate greenhouse gases is our greatest hope.

Urge your member of Congress to vote against this bill, and tell the President he MUST deliver on his campaign pledge to set climate policy based on science, not politics. Take action now!

Building the sustainable economy

Building the sustainable economy

by Marcin Gerwin

Tiger’s nest in Bhutan
Photo: Thomas Wanhoff

In 1994 the government of Haiti lifted tariffs and allowed imports of cheap, subsidized rice and other crops from abroad. This policy was recommended by the International Monetary Fund and urged by the U.S. government (1). Over the years this tiny change in policy led to an estimated 830,000 job losses, it damaged food security and rural livelihoods, and eventually led to food riots and hunger in 2008 (2). If people in Haiti were to decide by themselves on their country policy, would they choose the recommendations of the IMF that brought them into starvation? Would people of Ecuador allow toxic pollution in the Amazon for the sake of Chevron Texaco profits? Would people in India accept genetically modified seeds of cotton that caused crop failures, spiral of debt and hundreds of farmer suicides? And would people in the USA support bailing out banks with their own money in a way that is not transparent and does not lead to the recovery of the financial system? They wouldn’t. These things happen around the world because we still don’t have true democracy, where people set the rules for themselves.

Women sowing rice in India
Photo: Michael Foley

In 2001 twenty subsistence farmers, small traders, small food processors, and consumers, mostly women, and some of them illiterate, met in Indian village to decide on the future of agriculture in the state of Andhra Pradesh. They were chosen to represent the rural diversity of their state. They were presented three different models of development. The official plan, put forward by Chief Minister of the state, was backed by grants and loans from the World Bank and the UK government. The plan was to mechanize, consolidate and genetically engineer agriculture of the state to produce cash crops for export, and to reduce the farming population from 70% to 40%, to have more workers for industry. The second vision involved developing environmentally friendly agriculture to produce cheap organic products for domestic and Northern supermarkets and it was supported by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements and the International Trade Center. The third vision was influenced by Gandhian and indigenous ideas, and involved increasing local self-reliance and sustainability in both agriculture and economics.

Each model was illustrated by videos, farmers and traders could hear the summary of the policies, ask questions, consult with government officials, scientists, corporate and NGO representatives from the state, national and international level. They also considered advantages and disadvantages of each vision, based also upon their own knowledge, priorities and aspirations. After one week they made a decision.

Tom Atlee writes:

In their recommendations (…) they said they wanted self-reliant food and farming, and community control over resources. They wanted to maintain healthy soils, diverse crops, trees and livestock, and to build on their indigenous knowledge, practical skills and local institutions. They wanted to maintain the high percentage of people making their livelihood from the land, and did not want their farms consolidated or mechanized in ways that would displace rural people. Most of them could feed their families through their own sustenance farming. They did not want to end up laboring in dangerous brick kilns outside of Hyderabad, like so many who had left their farms. They also rejected genetically modified crops and the export of their local medicinal plants. (3)

If we wish to make some meaningful changes in the world, we need appropriate tools for that. A number one tool in the earth repair workshop is community-based democracy. It is a key for unlocking the potential for sustainability. In most cities in the world we choose our representatives to manage them. They decide on our behalf what the taxes will be spent on or what new investments will be made. It may work well, it may be a disaster. However, we can make these decisions directly together, as a community. We can meet, discuss, consult with experts and decide ourselves what the future of our city or village will be like.

What can we decide about? We can make decisions regarding all the issues that are relevant for a municipality. We can set the priorities for the budget spending, plan the new investments, hire personnel, decide on the level of their salaries, give permissions for private infrastructure investments, set local taxation and monitor the work of the city council. In some countries municipalities can even write their own local law. It is very important to understand that it is the citizens who employ the city council and the whole administration, not the other way around. They are all our employees, we hire them! If you live in a democratic country it is already written in your constitution. We employ the local administration to help us manage the issues of a city or a village, and with a community-based democracy their jobs is to put our decisions into practice.

In democratic countries collecting taxes is nothing but a fundraising event, which aim is to gather money for the projects for common good. There is no reason why we shouldn’t have a say in what our money is spent on. And, even if we spent these funds on exactly the same projects as the city council, thanks to community-based democracy we could gain something more, something that otherwise may have not appeared – a sense of a common cause, a united action that brings people together, that can create a feeling of “us” - a real community. In the same city there may live people who share the same interests, who could be friends, yet, they usually don’t have the opportunity to meet each other. With community-based democracy this opportunity is created. People meet and talk with each other and that is a great benefit by itself.

Community-based democracy could be useful also in taking decisions on state-wide issues. It could work exactly the same as with decisions on local matters. People meet, discuss, consult with experts and talk to other communities to see what their opinion is like and why. After final discussions in communities people vote, votes are counted and decision is made, directly by the people. Currently there is only one country where people vote often in state-wide referendums, and that’s Switzerland.

How do you get started?

Parkowa Street in Sopot, Poland.
Photo: Marcin Gerwin

You need to check the constitution of your country first. In our Polish constitution we have an article that says that our country is a common good of all people and that people can govern it directly or indirectly through their representatives. If you have an elected government, then it all should be fine, as somewhere in the constitution it is written that power in your country belongs to the citizens. Then, you need a city council that will listen to the people. They need to agree to accept the decisions of the citizens taken in meetings. From the legal perspective these meetings can be regarded as a public consultation event, with a small difference – according to an informal agreement between citizens and the city council, decisions taken by the citizens are final. Most probably it wouldn’t require any initial changes in law. Participatory budgeting, which is a form of community-based democracy, has already been introduced in Brazil, Ecuador, Spain, France, Germany, Colombia, Portugal, Italy and the UK among others.

Next, talk to your friends or people who you think might be most interested in a community life. The process of starting a community initiative has already been designed by the Transition Towns initiative and you can learn a lot from their experience. What you need at the beginning is a steering group which should be designed for its demise from the outset. The steering group is the ignition and the catalyst of the process, it is the group of people that organizes the community meetings and awareness-raising events. If you are already involved in a Transition initiative, then community-based democracy could be a practical extension pack for you. Community-based democracy can release the budget of your community and redirect it towards sustainability. If you would like to start an initiative for community-based democracy from scratch, then you don’t need to worry about establishing an organization. When I was asked if our initiative in Sopot is an NGO, I answered “No, we don’t need to register an NGO. We already have an organization and it is called a municipality of Sopot. We have more than 39,000 members and a yearly budget of around 60 million USD.” It’s just that people are not aware of that.

How do we plan to change the way our city is governed? In 2 years we will have new elections for the city council. We will ask the candidates for the mayor, if they would agree to accept the decisions made during the community meetings. If yes, then we will vote for them. If no, then we will not vote for them. If the situation gets desperate you can always have your own candidate, but it is important that the initiative for community-based democracy is not run by a political party, but by a movement. Will we succeed? I don’t know. It all depends on how many people will decide to participate directly in community life. But we will try.

How you organize the process of decision making in your community, depends entirely on you. We plan to use Open Space Technology for running meetings and setting the agenda and the KJ method for selecting priorities for the budget. In some cases formal voting may be necessary, in others consensus can be made. The city of Porto Alegre in Brazil has 20 years of experience in participatory budgeting (830kb PDF), so you can find out how they designed their process of managing the city budget.

The next step is creating a common vision for the future of a city or a village. It is a good moment to learn about sustainability and to consult with experts on your plans. Citizens may not necessarily be specialists in renewable energy or in designing public transport, they may not be aware of peak oil or climate change and may plan for highways or want to build new coal fired plants. Can you make them choose sustainable solutions? No, you cannot. They are free to choose any solutions they find most appropriate. We take this risk in Sopot as well. When I told a friend about this initiative, she said: “You know, that is very dangerous. There are some guys who may want to burn down the forest in our landscape park.” In theory they could propose that. But in practice, in our city at least, the rest of the people would not let them do it anyway. So, besides introducing community-based democracy, it is a good idea to run awareness raising events and educate people about sustainable living.

Women serving tortillas on a parade
in Cotacachi. Photo: feserc

The experience of participatory budgeting in Cotacachi canton in Ecuador is a very encouraging one. It is a small and ethnically diverse canton that stretches from the Andes to the lowland tropical areas. In 1996 the people of Cotacachi elected a new mayor (a native Kichwa), who introduced participatory budgeting there. People decided to use their budget to improve health care services and invest funds in education and electrification. Cotacachi was declared by UNESCO the first illiteracy-free area in Ecuador and the quality of healthcare is one of the best in the country (4). All people are invited to take part in the planning process, regardless of age, gender or ethnic and economic background. They decide on the use of 100% of investment resources. Decisions are made after meetings in the working groups that focus on health, education, tourism or children and youth issues. In 2000 the people of Cotacachi decided that they would like to live in an ecological canton, the first of this kind in Latin America (5).

The advantage of this system of governance is also that there is no conflict of political parties, there are no clashes for votes between left and right. We, the people, have already won the elections. No one is going to throw us out of the office in 4 years. We don’t need to prepare for the next elections. We are already there. We can sit down and decide what is best for our communities.

It seems to me that community-based democracy could fit very well with Transition initiatives. Democracy can provide involvement of the whole community, funding and a real influence on decisions made, while the Transition approach could provide a direction - sustainable living, adapting for peak oil and localizing economies. Democracy alone is not enough to create a sustainable world, we need a clear direction to understand where we would like to get to, and Transition initiatives provide just that.

Towards sustainability

When you have a community-based democracy in your city, or better in the whole country, then you can start changing the economy. It is vital that localizing and greening the economy is not imposed on people, but instead, it is something they choose themselves. Sustainability is not an abstract idea that only environmentalists can comprehend. It is just common sense, based on the understanding of how nature works. You don’t need a Ph.D. to get it. If you cut trees in the forest faster than they can grow back, sooner or later the forest will be gone. A child in a kindergarten can understand that. Adults can understand it as well and what’s more, they can do something about it. Yet, sustainability is not just about survival and living within the limits of our environment. It is about maximizing happiness, about flourishing communities, thriving nature and a wealth of natural resources.

We need to redesign our economies in a way that we will be able to feed ourselves with nutritious and healthy food, provide clothes, housing, clean water and a good life for all 8 billion of us in the next 20 years. That’s quite a challenge, but it is doable. It is doable if we have a real democracy. If we don’t, then the corporations and politicians may successfully defend the global market economy. If you have real democracy, than people can pass the law that is in the interest of their common good. They start to think about the economy, about what is really best for them and, I hope, they start to act responsibly, if they are told what the environmental consequences of their actions are and what impact it will have on their future.

The way the economy works, the very economic model, has an influence on human relations and the environment. Modern capitalism, for example, is based on self-interest. As Adam Smith points out: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Another important feature of capitalism is competition in the free market that is supposed to keep the prices low and provide an incentive for innovations. Hmm, since everyone is concerned with their own interest, then how can capitalism help to create healthy communities where people help one another? The answer is: it can’t. That’s just not what it was designed for. It was designed for increasing profits and minimizing costs for the companies, while the invisible hand of the free market was supposed to help the rest society to improve their material standard of living. Unfortunately, the struggle for profits encourages polluting the environment to keep the costs down and saving on work conditions. There is no doubt that capitalism can increase Gross Domestic Product fast. But it does so at the expense of social life and the environment. Yet, ever increasing GDP doesn’t have to be the aim of the country’s policy anyway. How about a good life instead? In Bhutan the national policy is focused not on GDP but on GNH - Gross National Happiness.

McDonald’s in Tokyo
Photo: nicolacassa

Economic globalization, which is associated with modern capitalism, didn’t happen by chance, it is not unavoidable, as if it was winter or gravity. Economic globalization was designed at the end of the World War II by US planners and it was officially launched with the international conference in Bretton Woods in July 1944. The main objective of the design was to allow US corporations to enter foreign markets and to allow US control over the world economy by removing trade barriers, allowing free exchange of currencies and setting up a system of fixed exchange rates that would minimize the risks involved with exchanging foreign currencies. Over the next years three institutions were established: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and later on the World Trade Organization, and their job was basically to enforce free trade rules in as many countries around the world as possible and to dismantle local self-sufficiency. Governments that didn’t want to cooperate were encouraged in a more informal way, which is described in a book written by John Perkins “Confessions of Economic Hitman”. Economic globalization can be reversed with a simple flick of a pen, if people decide to raise tariffs on imported goods.

Socialism, as it was experienced in Eastern Europe or in Soviet Union, has many flaws as well. First of all it was not a democracy. Even now, there are no free elections in Cuba nor in China. There is no free press nor freedom of speech. The country is not run by people, but by an authoritarian government, which cannot be changed after 4 years. Common ownership of resources is good, but in a classic socialist country, “common” doesn’t mean that it belongs to people. It belongs to the government. If a factory is run by state, than in practice it means that it belongs to no one, and if the workers get paid, they don’t really care what they produce nor if the quality of what they do is good. The manager may be incompetent, but he is a friend of the Minister, so he gets a job. There is no direct public oversight of the commons. The country is vulnerable to corruption and cronyism. Bureaucracy is rampant. Not so cool.

La Paz, Bolivia.
Photo: Jessie Reeder

Socialism, as it is emerging in Latin America, in Bolivia, Venezuela or in Ecuador, is different. There are free elections and people can influence policies in some ways. Public participation was allowed, for example, in Ecuador in 2008 when a new constitution was drafted. More than 3,500 organizations presented their proposals to the assembly, and thousands of public meetings were held in schools, universities and communities to decide what the new constitution should include (6). Whether these new forms of governance in Latin America will be successful, depends very much on how much public oversight will be agreed upon - in other words: how democratic these countries will be. If in Bolivia, for example, the state decides to run a gas company, who will hire the manager? Who will monitor the company’s performance? Will people be able to fire the manager at will, if they decide he is not doing his job well? Who will decide about what the revenue of gas sales will be used for - the people or the government? If people, then they may use it well. If the government, then these funds may be used for buying votes or for funding projects that people don’t really need.

Do we have other choices besides capitalism and socialism? We sure do. Just what’s important to remember is that both capitalism and socialism may be very different from one country to another. Capitalism in Sweden, for example, with public healthcare, public universities and very high taxes is not the same as capitalism in the USA. The economic model of Sweden is still capitalism, but it is different from the latest US version, because the state budget in Sweden is used to help people rather than to support corporate gains.

Prayer flags near Leh in Ladakh
Photo: ReefRaff

OK, but what if we wanted to create a society based on cooperation and sharing, rather than on self-interest and competition. Could it work? Of course, it did work for thousands of years in traditional communities all over the world, in communities of the Yanomami Indians in the Amazon, in Ladakh in the Himalayas, among the San Bushmen tribes in South Africa or in traditional Aborigine tribes in Australia (7). Economy based on sharing is also present in the industrialized countries now, and it is, for example, open source software (Linux or Wordpress), open encyclopedia (Wikipedia), posting scientific research on the internet, voluntary fire brigades, food banks where people donate food or even uploading photos on Flickr with a Creative Commons license. The formal name for an economy based on sharing is a gift economy. Its taste is very different from capitalism.

In many cultures people still work for free for the common good or simply to help their friends. In Ecuador, when people in the Indian communities meet to accomplish some task together, like weeding a garden or cleaning around a school, it’s called “minga”. In Sri Lanka, when people meet to build a road or a new well, it’s called “shramadana” – a gift of labor. A whole network of 15,000 villages, where people work together on various projects for the benefit of communities, has evolved there (it’s called Sarvodaya Shramadana). And when people in the cities in Australia meet to establish a permaculture garden, share skills and have fun, then it’s called a “permablitz”. All of these are forms of a gift economy.

When designing an economy in your area, you can choose elements of any economic system and mix them as you please. For example, you can have a communal forest in your village, but keep private housing (some tribes in the Amazon live in long communal houses). You may have a communal garden, gather food and cook meals together, but sell ginseng from this garden as a cash crop to the pharmaceutical company 100 miles away. You can also trade without money exchanging goods and services directly (barter) and, for example, you could supply fresh salads to the urban community in exchange for dental care. You can have a free market, but set caps on companies so that they stay small and share the market with each other rather than compete endlessly for customers, and besides that promote cooperative ownership by special taxation or financial incentives. Corporations could be given charters for one or two years for activities, that could be renewed if necessary, and their stakeholders could be directly responsible for any corporations’ wrong doing. Not all things can be produced locally, like hard disks or cameras, and in some cases a big producer could be an advantage.

You can also choose a cooperative economy, where people decide on what needs you have and then share responsibilities – who does what – grow food, cook, teach in school, run a kindergarten. It’s teamwork. A good example of a cooperative economy is Gaviotas, a village on the Colombian savanna. The economic model you choose depends on the personalities of people living in your community. It depends on how much individual and how much community life you would like to have. You need to talk it all over together. Don’t push it.

Going local

Let’s imagine a community that decided to begin a transition to a sustainable economy. They have just voted for a community-based democracy, they have mobilized more than half of their citizens and now would like to plan their budget expenditures. What can they do? What can they spend their money on? Boy, this is an exciting perspective! There are so many things you can start in just one year! After many meetings, discussions, community parties and consultations with experts, people decided on the following: they want to have their local currency to keep the money circulating in the local economy and they want their own bank that will issue this currency and provide credit at a 0% interest rate. This bank will also be able to issue credit in the national currency, however, since it is owned by the community, it will keep the credit rate at the minimum level and provide credit only for investments that are agreed upon by the community. The maximum amount of credit available per person was set to keep the inflation down and consumption at a sustainable level. Local currency is a top priority in this community due to a high unemployment rate, and equally important is access to land.

The municipality owns several hundred acres of agricultural land that is not privatized. This land is leased to citizens who want to grow their own food in exchange for land stewardship and supplying part of crops for school meals. There are more people willing to have a garden than land available, so 40 more acres were bought with the money from the city budget. Contracts have been also made with local farmers to supply various vegetables, fruits and grain to city shops. A discussion sparked about how to manage distribution of this food and it turned out that it was easiest to work together with local grocery stores, rather then to built a special warehouse.

Bicycle hire system in Paris
(Velib). Photo: Filo.mena

Two buses with electric engines were ordered from the factory (there was a long waiting list, so they will arrive one year later) and a credit line was opened for cab drivers who wanted to exchange their internal combustion engines for electric ones. A car sharing club was established with just 4 cars for a start and a public bicycle hire system. To provide clean electricity a plan for a transition to completely renewable sources of energy was developed in 6 months, and the purchase of the first vertical wind turbines, photovoltaics and small hydro generators was scheduled for the next spring. Since it was the citizens who managed the municipality there were no problems with obtaining permission for placing them. All large generators were to be owned by the community and electricity was to be sold at the cost of maintenance.

Vertical axis wind turbine installed in London
Photo: thingermejiq

A local law was passed to allow reuse of grey water in gardens and the use of compost toilets. All food scraps were to be collected, composted and sent back to farms and gardens. Environmental standards were set for all new buildings, and from now on only passive houses were allowed to be built in this municipality. A large sum was designated for insulating school buildings and installing solar collectors for water heating, but it was calculated that increasing energy efficiency will eventually bring yearly savings in heating. People in this city also decided that they would like to help other communities around the world, especially in developing countries, so they earmarked part of the budget for this purpose. In the first year they have chosen to support organizations that teach people how to establish forest gardens in tropical countries, how to purify water using plastic bottles placed in the sun and those that promote family planning in poor districts.

Magic ingredient

How does it happen that one company that makes carpets cares about the environment, uses recycled materials, reduces its energy use and cares for its employees, while the other dumps toxic waste to the stream, pays such meager salaries that people hardly make ends meet and burns tons of coal without any thought about climate change? How is it possible that in one community meetings are peaceful and people manage to find solutions that can be accepted by all, while in the neighboring community, just 10 miles away there are always conflicts, people are divided and everyone sits on the meetings with arms crossed? There is a magic ingredient necessary for the community and environmental projects, one that makes their success possible. It does magic, because it makes people listen to and help each another, it makes people plant trees or work to save humpback whales. Do you know what that magic ingredient is?

References:

1. Haitians blame U.S. for food shortages, Marketplace, American Public Media, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/05/08/haiti_food_cri..., accessed on 01.02.2009.
2. Hunger in Haiti, photo gallery, Guardian.co.uk, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/jul/22/haiti?lightbox=1, accessed on 01.02.2009.
3. Tom Atlee, “Tao of Democracy”, Chapter 13.
4. Tatyana Saltos, “The Participatory Budgeting Experience: Cotacachi – Ecuador”. See also: “Interview with Leonardo Alvear: Participatory Democracy Part I, Cotacachi’s Participatory Democracy Revitalizes Politics in Ecuador”, http://www.pro-ecuador.com/participatory-democracy.html and “Cotacachi Democracy in Action: Choosing Good Health”, http://www.pro-ecuador.com/Cotacachi-democracy.html.
5. Environmental Management Intersector Committee, http://www.cotacachi.gov.ec/htms/eng/asamblea/nosotros.htm, accessed on 28.01.2009 and The Rainforest Information Center, http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/anja/anjacoto.htm, accessed on 28.01.2009.
6. Helga Serrano, Eduardo Tamayo, “Change Triumphs in Ecuador’s Constitutional Referendum”, Center for International Policy, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5571, accessed on 02.02.2009.
7. See: Helena Norberg-Hodge, “Ancient Futures”.