Lone Star Democracy Builders Association

Robert Reich has an editorial in the NYTimes about why we should like (some) regulations instead of blaming WallMart.

Not totally "value-based" yet, but heading in the right direction.

But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins?

The fact is, today's economy offers us a Faustian bargain: it can give consumers deals largely because it hammers workers and communities. We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves.

But you and I aren't just consumers. We're also workers and citizens. How do we strike the right balance? ... The problem is, the choices we make in the market don't fully reflect our values as workers or as citizens.

The only way for the workers or citizens in us to trump the consumers in us is through laws and regulations that make our purchases a social choice as well as a personal one. A requirement that companies with more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance, for example, might increase slightly the price of their goods and services. My inner consumer won't like that very much, but the worker in me thinks it a fair price to pay.

I wouldn't go so far as to re-regulate the airline industry or hobble free trade with China and India - that would cost me as a consumer far too much - but I'd like the government to offer wage insurance to ease the pain of sudden losses of pay. And I'd support labor standards that make trade agreements a bit more fair.

These provisions might end up costing me some money, but the citizen in me thinks they are worth the price. You might think differently, but as a nation we aren't even having this sort of discussion. Instead, our debates about economic change take place between two warring camps: those who want the best consumer deals, and those who want to preserve jobs and communities much as they are.

Yet the prices on sales tags don't reflect the full prices we have to pay as workers and citizens. A sensible public debate would focus on how to make that total price as low as possible.

Posted by GlennM at 6:21 PM in Corporations & Economy | Permalink

The Statesman had an article today about private social security and women. Since women are more likely to leave the salaried workplace (whether permanently or just temporarily) than men, reducing the social security guarantees hurts them harder than men.

In messaging this to conservatives, one might ask "why are they changing the rules to make it riskier for mothers that work at home?"

[Ok, things get more complicated with the spousal benefits, especially if there's a divorce. But the R solution to that is to have the private accounts be part of the estate to be split at the time of divorce. And I thought the R's didn't like lawyers.]

Posted by GlennM at 10:53 PM in How To Communicate & Social Security | Permalink | Comments (1)

Who says legislators don't have a sense of humor?

Pissed about the 10% affirmative action quota? Well, don't sweat it if you've got a monochrome football team: Bill ties college admissions, football.

Bike scrape? Bush ain't got nuthin on Ellis. The press release starts with "I knew that if I were to save Mayor White and Councilwoman Alvarado from this rampaging pack of mutant beasts, I could not hesitate," and gets better from there: Ellis hurt in bike mishap or heroic rescue.

Almost makes me want to be able to vote for Houston dems. Oh wait, I almost can...

Posted by GlennM at 5:52 PM in Venting | Permalink

Looks like the Dem website has undergone a major redesign. And it looks like Dean's already putting his stamp on it. For good, in my opinion.

It even has a blog, although open comments can sometimes not be a good thing.

Posted by GlennM at 10:41 PM in Our Infrastructure | Permalink

I recently was pointed to Scott Bateman's LiveJournal. He's a cartoonist that publishes his work online, and many of his recent cartoons are reactions to the 2004 election. Today's work is about the appointment of John Negroponte as National Intelligence Director. I like his sharp visual style, but even better is the way he just presents facts about the situation, building an argument panel-by-panel. I thought of posting this here because the discussion from this posting is all about reaching the other side; he's got frustrations that are similar to our own.

Posted by Ben at 5:42 PM in How To Communicate | Permalink | Comments (1)

David Van Os has a good diatribe against the current Dem strategy (or lack thereof).

Go here to subscribe, then go to the first entry.

It was also posted to David Holms' TX DNC group.

Sample quotes:

Upon analyzing the election returns in the metropolitan areas, I
found that the more the daily newspaper had attacked me for being a liberal, a populist, or a progressive, the better my results were.

I staunchly support the Constitutional right to privacy and the
Constitutional freedom of association, which means that I staunchly oppose the radical right's attempts to weaken gay persons' and gay couples' fundamental rights to free association and privacy; and that I staunchly oppose the radical right's attempts to weaken women's rights to the integrity of their private decisions about pregnancies.

I am pro-life, which means that I oppose the radical right's attempts to demean the private decisions of women about their lives and their personhoods.

Posted by GlennM at 9:58 PM in Our Strategy | Permalink

Personal Democracy Forum has a couple of big posts this week about the role of online groups in the democratic process. The lead post, America Offline, strongly advocates offline organizations, like our own little group, and wants to see the online activism of groups like Democracy for America use to encourage people to meet together and get involved in the organizations behind political power. The response, The Citizen and His Browser, Volunteering Alone, points to the online space as a replacement for inefficient real-life meetings and activities, and says that people want to be active, and that online groups allow that without taking up as much time as previous, face-to-face methods of organization.

I'm more sympathetic to the first posting, but I think both should be read. I really like the summary at the end of the first post:

...if we start to think of the internet as an organizing tool first -- a database of places as well as ideas, a database of calendars as well as pictures, we can also build a completely new social structure. It won't look like the voluntary associations of the 1950s, but it might get us past the isolation of the aughts.

Posted by Ben at 6:00 PM in Action | Permalink | Comments (1)