Letters

"Jesus, I think, would have preferred that we keep our money changing and our worshiping separate." Readers respond to Lynn Harris' article about the Christian business boom.

Read “Verily, I Sell Unto You,” by Lynn Harris.

Five years ago I moved with my husband from a blue state to a red state to be closer to his family. The cultural differences are enormous, and I still have not adjusted. One of the things I have noticed are crosses and fish symbols next to businesses in the phone book.

My two experiences with overtly Christian businesses have been as follows: A kitchen remodeling company initially refused to work with us because they thought my husband and I were “living in sin” since I didn’t take my husband’s last name when we got married (which is a sin in and of itself out here, but that’s another article). We also got a lecture on Jesus and were asked if we were Christians, with the implication being that they wouldn’t work with us if we weren’t (they were an astronomically good deal, so we did the non-Christian thing and lied our asses off; I’m a lapsed Christian and my husband is non-Christian).

The second business was a tiling company. As the worker was tiling a wall he proceeded to berate me for not having children, implying that my decision was an “affront to God.” I chose not to have children for medical reasons, none of which are his business.

Why did I put up with this? Well, besides good pricing, I’d be hard pressed not to find a business around here that proselytizes in one form or another. After reading Lynn Harris’ article, I’m now more concerned that the “Christian business model” is becoming widespread. Make no mistake, the businesses that I’ve come into contact with have obviously had no problems with harassment and discrimination. These so-called Christians seem intent on driving non-Christians to second-class citizenry, if they’re allowed to be citizens at all. I’m so fearful of the direction this country is headed in, I can hardly stand it. On the bright side though, my husband and I have become excellent do-it-yourselfers over the past few years.

— G.K.

If Salon writers and other liberals really want to win back Congress and the White House, they need to think long and hard before writing articles like this, or that series on the Exodus organization. If you don’t want to seem anti-Christian, then quit targeting Christians in your top stories. Many, many Catholics went red the last two elections because they feel alienated by Democrats. While as a Catholic I would hardly be welcomed at evangelical meetings, I still respect their beliefs and realize that there are much larger problems in this world that Jesus signs on buildings.

I mean, really, what’s the deal? Crisis pregnancy centers talking people out of abortions has somehow become a crime to liberals. When did that happen? Putting “Jesus” on your building is somehow bad in the land of free speech and protection of religion?

If you want the average American to think Salon is an extremist, out-of-touch publication, then keep writing Christian exposé articles. But you are dragging all left-leaning people along with you in the war of public opinion.

I have really started to question my membership in the Democratic Party these days. Instead of writing articles on AIDS orphans and what we can do to help, instead of writing articles on the privatization of water in South America, or the rise in cancer rates in states like Texas — things that we can gain consensus about within our own party — our most vocal advocates concentrate their support on every polarizing issue that’s available to us.

So you don’t believe in Jesus. OK, what do you care if others do? I don’t believe in Santa or the Easter Bunny, but I don’t write snide stories about little kids that do. Live and let live.

— Tiffany Lach

Many thanks for Lynn Harris’ well-balanced portrait of the increasing visibility of overtly Christian businesses. One word, though, to Ms. Trammel and those like her, who feel potential customers are turned away because “this world is wicked and the name of the Lord sometimes repels people.”

That’s not it at all: I myself would be disinclined to enter such a Christian business simply because I don’t want to be proselytized when all I’m looking for is a workout or a cup of coffee or an auto tuneup. The evangelicals might argue that we shouldn’t separate such daily activities from our faith, but for an awful lot of us, our faith is a very personal, very private thing, and it seems downright distasteful to go shouting to everybody about my level of piety. It’s not about what I practice in my daily life; it’s about not needing to go around proclaiming it all the time.

— Robert Toombs

Lynn Harris’ roundup of “Christian” marketing failed to mention that real estate professionals who market themselves overtly by religion run the risk of violating the advertising provisions of the Fair Housing Act.

The act at 42 U.S.C. section 3604(c) makes it illegal to “make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.”

I’d say that “Christian Realtor At Remax Progressive” pretty much screams out a preference for “Christian” customers (or those who wish to be “saved” by their Christian real estate experience). Real estate agents’ services are supposed to be available on an equal-opportunity basis, but how welcoming do these companies appear to be to Muslims, atheists, Jews, etc.?

— Tracey McCartney, Tennessee Fair Housing Council

Jesus, I think, would have preferred that we keep our money changing and our worshiping separate. What was all that hoo-ha in the temple about, after all? And would a Christian business charge interest or “forgive us our debts”?

— Pat

I live in a city where religion is a dominant part of absolutely everything, and the “oppressed” Christians have pretty much complete control of the media and government. My experience with companies that aggressively promote their religious ties has largely been that they tend to offer inferior quality and inferior service. I assume that they believe that other Christians will patronize them and are willing to pay more for less in order to support their peers.

While I have had some positive experiences with Christian-labeled businesses, they have been the minority. What’s more, I know that many of the businesses I deal with on a daily basis are Christian owned and operated, but they don’t feel the need to use it as a marketing tool. And those businesses are always a pleasure to deal with (or at least not a hassle; it’s hard to describe spending thousands of dollars to replace a busted furnace as a pleasure).

— Matthew Yarbrough

As a progressive (or “liberal”) Christian, I am so tired of being characterized as someone who, unlike an evangelical Christian, compartmentalizes my spiritual practice from the rest of my “personal” or “professional” life. Christians of the non-evangelical persuasion spend just as much time and energy living their faith in all facets of life as those who openly advertise theirs. We’re just not into taking credit for it.

— Catherine Penn

Regarding the “Christian” labeling that has become so prevalent these days, I think in the minds of your average consumer there’s a perception that “Christian” is somehow “better”: more fair, more honest, more honorable, higher quality, etc. Any Christian business owner who doesn’t acknowledge they are capitalizing on this is being disingenuous.

In my own experience, the idea that “Christian” businesses are somehow better is a myth. I worked in Christian and mainstream media for many years as a writer and photographer, and I got seriously ripped off several times. The people I worked with viewed their business as a ministry and therefore felt justified not paying me on time (or at all). A typical example is the time I complained about an issue I was having to a major Christian record company’s publicist; she tossed off my concern with the comment, “Yeah, but we’re going to be tithing at the label now! Isn’t that cool?”

Aside from my negative personal experiences, I would also warn evangelical Christians that in using faith to market their businesses and make purchasing decisions, they seriously run the risk of further ghettoizing themselves from the rest of the culture.

— Lisa Zhito

The small company that replaced my garage door advertises itself as a Christian business. But I hired them because they have a good product, their estimate was reasonable, and their installer came up with the best technical solution for fitting a door into my odd-size garage. I couldn’t have cared less if they were owned by a Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, Hindu or what have you.

— Nancy Ott

I enjoyed Lynn Harris’ article on Christian businesses. I was deeply disappointed, however, that she did not include in her brief list of different Christian ventures the greatest and most mind-bogglingly strange Christian enterprise on the market: the Christian Wrestling Federation.

— Charles Roseman

- 0Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

America’s billionaire-run democracy

Whichever candidate wins the 2012 presidential election will have been bought and paid for by the 1 percent

By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship

(Credit: AP)

Topics:2012 Elections, Campaign Finance, Citizens United

Watching what’s happening to our democracy is like watching the cruise ship Costa Concordia founder and sink slowly into the sea off the coast of Italy, as the passengers, shorn of life vests, scramble for safety as best they can, while the captain trips and falls conveniently into a waiting life boat.

We are drowning here, with gaping holes torn into the hull of the ship of state from charges detonated by the owners and manipulators of capital. Their wealth has become a demonic force in politics. Nothing can stop them. Not the law, which has been written to accommodate them. Not scrutiny — they have no shame. Not a decent respect for the welfare of others — the people without means, their safety net shredded, left helpless before events beyond their control.

The obstacles facing the millennial generation didn’t just happen. Take an economy skewed to the top, low wages and missing jobs, predatory interest rates on college loans: these are politically engineered consequences of government of, by and for the 1 percent. So, too, is our tax code the product of money and politics, influence and favoritism, lobbyists and the laws they draft for rented politicians to enact.

Here’s what we’re up against. Read it and weep: “America’s Plutocrats Play the Political Ponies.” That’s a headline in “Too Much,” an Internet publication from the Institute for Policy Studies that describes itself as “an online weekly on excess and inequality.”

Yes, the results are in and our elections have replaced horse racing as the sport of kings. Only these kings aren’t your everyday poobahs and potentates. These kings are multi-billionaire, corporate moguls who by the divine right, not of God, but the United States Supreme Court and its Citizens United decision, are now buying politicians like so much pricey horseflesh. All that money pouring into Super PACs, much of it from secret sources: merely an investment, should their horse pay off in November, in the best government money can buy.

They’re shelling out fortunes’ worth of contributions. Look at just a few of them: Mitt Romney’s hedge fund pals Robert Mercer, John Paulson, Julian Robertson and Paul Singer – each of whom has ponied up a million or more for the Super PAC called “Restore Our Future” — as in, “Give us back the go-go days, when predators ruled Wall Street like it was Jurassic Park.”

Then there’s casino boss Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam, fiercely pro-Israel and anti-President Obama’s Mideast policy. Initially, they placed their bets on Newt Gingrich, who says on his first day in office he’d move the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a decision that would thrill the Adelsons, but infuriate Palestinians and the rest of the Muslim world. Together, the Adelsons have contributed ten million to Newt’s “Winning Our Future” Super PAC.

Cowboy billionaire Foster Friess, a born-again Christian who made his fortune herding mutual funds instead of cattle, has been bankrolling the “Red White and Blue Fund” Super PAC of Rick Santorum, with whom he shares a social right-wing agenda. Dark horse Ron Paul has relied on the kindness of PayPal founder Peter Thiel , a like-minded libertarian in favor of the smallest government possible, who gave $900,000 to Paul’s “Endorse Liberty” Super PAC. Hollywood’s Jeffrey Katzenberg has so far emptied his wallet to the tune of a cool two million for the pro-Obama Super PAC, “Priorities USA Action.”

President Obama — who kept his distance from Priorities USA Action and used to call the money unleashed by Citizens United a “threat to democracy” — has declared if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. He urges his wealthy supporters to please go ahead and back the Super PAC. “Our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it stands,” his campaign manager Jim Messina said. To do otherwise, he added, would be to “unilaterally disarm” in the face of all those Republican Super PAC millions. So much for Obama’s stand on campaign finance reform — everybody else is doing it, he seems to say, so why don’t you show me the money, too?

When all is said and done, this race for the White House may cost more than two billion dollars. What’s getting trampled into dust are the voices of people who aren’t rich, not to mention what’s left of our democracy. As Democratic pollster Peter Hart told The New Yorker magazine’s Jane Mayer, “It’s become a situation where the contest is how much you can destroy the system, rather than how much you can make it work. It makes no difference if you have a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ after your name. There’s no sense that this is about democracy, and after the election you have to work together, and knit the country together.”

These gargantuan Super PAC contributions are not an end in themselves. They are the means to gain control of government – and the nation state — for a reason. The French writer and economist Frederic Bastiat said it plainly: “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in society, they create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” That’s what the Super PACs are bidding on. For the rest of us, the ship may already have sailed.

: Bill Moyers is managing editor of the new weekly public affairs program, "Moyers & Company," airing on public television. Check local airtimes or comment at www.BillMoyers.com. More Bill Moyers
: Michael Winship is senior writing fellow at Demos and a senior writer of the new series, Moyers & Company, airing on public television. More Michael Winship

- 1Comment
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

The bishops go off the deep end

Rejecting the Obama contraception compromise, they display their irrelevance to moral and political dialogue

By Joan Walsh

Topics:Catholicism, Contraception

Just as I was publishing my post about Catholic tribalism on Friday, predicting that the brilliant White House “accommodation” on contraception wouldn’t mollify the U.S. Conference of Bishops, the bishops released a statement that made them seem, well, mollified, at least a little. The new Health and Human Services regulations were “a step in the right direction,” their statement read, and so I softened an assertion that the bishops would continue to wage war against the compromise.

I needn’t have soft-pedaled. Only a few hours later the bishops came out, guns blazing, insisting the only solution they would accept would be for “HHS to rescind the mandate for those objectionable services.” By any employer, for any employee in the entire country — a country where the vast majority of voters, and of Catholics, support Obama’s stand. And at Sunday Mass, bishops and parish priests throughout the nation read aloud the stunningly political letters about the controversy they already had planned. Now, with the bishops’ blessing, Republican are hard at work on legislation that would force HHS to strip the contraceptive coverage requirement for all employers, not just religious employers. Sen. Roy Blunt would allow employers to decline to cover any service they deem objectionable; Sen. Marco Rubio would restrict the legislation to contraception coverage.

I have a couple of reactions to the bishops’ extremism. First of all, as someone raised Catholic, I wonder why they’ve never read letters about any of their social justice priorities: universal health care, increased protection for the poor, labor rights, or action to curb climate change? Why does this topic – not even the morally challenging issue of abortion, but the universally accepted practice of birth control – merit such a thundering reaction from the pulpit?

Second, as an American, I also wonder: How do they continue to demand tax-exempt status when they’re railing in their churches about blatantly political – and divisively partisan – public concerns. As the first writer on my remarkably sane letters Catholic tribalism letters thread remarked, their public support for the extremist GOP position makes me think they should register as a Republican political action committee rather than remain a tax exempt religious institution outside the bounds of politics.

Even as the bishops became more shrill and extreme, the debate over contraception coverage became smarter and calmer last week. Major Catholic organizations supported Obama’s Friday move, including the Catholic Health Association, Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and Catholic Charities USA. Before the president’s announcement, famed attorney David Boies did the most to usher in the new tone by framing the HHS rules as a matter of labor law. Boies doesn’t believe, by the way, that HHS is in any way required to provide the exemption for churches it wrote into its regulations even before the compromise. If the church is employing people, whether co-religionists or not, it has a responsibility to comply with employment law. He proved that even the administration’s initial regulations, exempting churches, was a strong attempt at accommodating anti-contraceptive religious groups.

But maybe the best argument on behalf of the Obama administration’s position comes from a very unlikely source, as Jay Bookman points out: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In two different decisions, the conservative Catholic Scalia has sided with the court majority in finding that religious teachings can’t justify religious employers – or employees — failing to comply with labor law. In the 1990 “Employment Division v. Smith” decision, regarding an employer’s ability to fire a Native American employee who used peyote, despite the employee’s claim that the using the drug was a religious rite, Scalia wrote:

“We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.” In an even more directly relevant 1982 decision holding that Amish employers must comply with Social Security and withholding taxes, though their faith bars participation in government support programs, Scalia wrote:

Respondents urge us to hold, quite simply, that when otherwise prohibitable conduct is accompanied by religious convictions, not only the convictions but the conduct itself must be free from governmental regulation. We have never held that, and decline to do so now.

I’ve written repeatedly that my inability to quit the Catholic Church entirely comes from the fact that its social teachings formed my social conscience, and to this day some of the people doing the most good for the poor and the excluded are devout Catholics. But the bishops are impossible to defend. Today, they are working on behalf of the Republican Party. “They have become the Pharisees,” says Andrew Sullivan, a conservative practicing Catholic. “And we need Jesus.”

I’ll be discussing the bishops’ GOP politicking on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” at 8 pm ET.

: Joan Walsh is Salon's editor at large. More Joan Walsh

- 0Comments
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

No, Newt, don’t quit to make room for Santorum

Never, ever listen to the National Review

VIDEO

By Alex Pareene

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum (Credit: AP)

Topics:2012 Elections, Rick Santorum, Republican Party, National Review, Newt Gingrich

The National Review has attracted some attention today for publishing an editorial suggesting that Newt Gingrich abandon his presidential run in order to allow Rick Santorum to fly free and destroy Mitt Romney. (Ramesh Ponnuru contests the notion that the editorial calls on Gingrich to quit the race but “the proper course for him now is to endorse Santorum and exit” seems pretty unambiguous even if it’s prefaced with a reminder that Gingrich told Santorum to do the same thing last month.)

Gingrich should not listen to them. At all. (Not that Gingrich listens to anyone, besides perhaps his wife, but still.) This editorial can be safely ignored for the following reasons:

First of all, everyone should always do the opposite of whatever a National Review editorial says to do. The opposite of what “The Editors” want is invariably the correct choice, morally and politically. If politicians always made “doing the opposite of what The Editors of the National Review want” a top priority, there would be universal peace and prosperity and kick-ass super-trains crisscrossing the nation.

Second, The Editors don’t even have the facts of Santorum’s surge correct: As Dave Weigel points out, Gingrich, contrary to The Editors’ claims, has won more delegates than Santorum thus far. Santorum has three delegates. Three. The press likes to cover caucuses and primaries even when they’re meaningless and non-binding and feature negligible turnout because those are the only actual events to cover in a primary race, but the result is that a couple of random wins are massively over-imbued with supposed import, leading even the politically savvy Editors of the National Review to believe that Rick Santorum has actually won a bunch of delegates because he got some old people into some auditoriums in suburban Minnesota.

Third, there is nothing about the Santorum surge that makes it any more sustainable or solid than all the previous candidate surges, except that it’s happening while primary contests are actually happening instead of last September. In other words, a Santorum collapse could be imminent, and it could come whenever Mitt Romney gets around to seriously devoting his attention to destroying him with money. Santorum has a lot of room to be attacked from the right, especially since he’s got the Rust Belt Republican politician habit of occasionally sounding sympathetic to working-class resentment of rich people. And his political history is filled with assorted crimes against current fanatical GOP dogma. Weigel posted a good one earlier: An old campaign ad in which Santorum actually admits to loving newspapers.

Oh also something about supporting Amtrak, despite trains being part of the UN plot to destroy American sovereignty.

Finally, there is the fact that Rick Santorum is an unambiguously awful candidate. He is not just a “social conservative,” he is a paleolithic anachronism of reactionary thought. The American people, despite the fervid wishes of a couple bishops and Kathryn Jean Lopez, are not actually remotely anti-contraception. Most voters — especially since the ratification of the 19th Amendment — think women should be allowed to have jobs outside the home. The last time the Republicans won a presidential election, they had 48% of the female vote, and I imagine they’d like to tie or beat that number this year, maybe? Rick Santorum is decidedly not the man for that job, unless scientists invent some sort of mind control ray that falls into the hands of Phyllis Schlafly.

So, no, Newt Gingrich, don’t quit just yet, and I’m not just saying that because having Gingrich around makes a political writer’s work marginally more colorful. All Gingrich really needs to remain “competitive” in the media race through Super Tuesday is one more big check from his rich uncle Scrooge McAdelson.

(Not that Gingrich is going to be the nominee! It’s still going to be Romney unless something unprecedentedly hilarious happens at the convention.)

: Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene

- 1Comment
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Whose Wisconsin recall is it?

Veer to the populist left or hug the middle of the road: That's the choice facing the campaign against Scott Walker

By Josh Eidelson

Retired firefighter Jim Cerro, second from right, of Madison, cheers the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, in Madison, Wis.

Retired firefighter Jim Cerro takes on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (Credit: AP/Andy Manis)

Topics:2012 Elections, Wisconsin, Scott Walker, Editor's Picks

The Scott Walker recall is already historic. Last month, organizers submitted signatures from over a million Wisconsinites, the largest portion of an electorate to ever petition for recall of a United States governor. The total – nearly double the number required – means near-certain certification by the state’s election board of what will be the third gubernatorial recall in American history. Last week’s $700,000 pro-Walker ad buy by the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity was the latest confirmation that the Walker recall will be a marquee race. But what kind of race will Walker’s opponents seek: a battle of competing centrist appeals, like the fall presidential election, or something very different?

Last winter, the three-week occupation of Wisconsin’s capitol brought into sharp relief what would become two of the year’s defining forces: Emboldened far-right state governments and emergent left populist movements. After Walker successfully pushed through his “budget repair” bill to cripple public workers’ collective bargaining rights, much of the energy of the capitol occupation shifted to efforts to recall the bill’s midwives in the Senate. Though they took place in Republican-leaning districts, last summer’s recall campaigns against six GOP senators were marked by fierce populism rather than cautious moderation.

TV ads, door-to-door canvassers, and some of the Democratic candidates themselves portrayed Republicans as rich people out to screw the 99 percent. Their effect, Wisconsin AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Stephanie Bloomingdale told me during the campaign, would “determine how we do these kinds of populist messages in other states.” The result was a split decision. Two Senate Republicans went down, and four held on (all three Democrats facing similar recall elections survived). The effort fell one success short of the announced goal of flipping the state Senate, but it was a striking victory against senators who had weathered the Democratic wave of 2008. And it laid the groundwork for the recalls now facing more GOP senators, the lieutenant governor and Walker himself.

Will the campaign against Walker pick up the populism where those recalls left off, making class-based appeals and drawing sharp contrasts? Or will it pander to the moderate sensibilities of an imagined middle 5 percent? A few factors will make the difference.

First will be the selection of a candidate. “The key to winning is to have a candidate who is a champion,” says SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin vice president Bruce Colburn, “and not somebody who is more of the same, or wants to be in the middle of the road.” Once Wisconsin’s elections board certifies the petitions, dates will be set for a general election (expected in spring or summer) and a Democratic primary preceding it. By then, there could be a consensus candidate – or not.

In an early sign that “Anybody but Walker” won’t cut it, a rumored candidacy by Walker’s 2010 Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, has been met by public and private discouragement from unions charging that his own hostile relations with public sector workers should be disqualifying.

“I would hope that Tom Barrett understands the issues here, and why he might not fit the matrix of what a champion looks like,” says Marty Biel, executive director of the largest local of the state’s largest district council of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

One public face of the Wisconsin uprising, Fire Fighters Union president Mahlon Mitchell, has been publicly weighing his own run, though it appears unlikely. Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, a prominent Walker antagonist, is a potential candidate. State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, who has often sided with the GOP, announced her candidacy on Wednesday and touted her role as one of the “Wisconsin 14” senators who fled the state last year in opposition to Walker’s bill.

The state’s largest teachers union announced Wednesday it’s backing the other declared candidate, former county executive Kathleen Falk. But Madison Teachers Inc. president John Matthews, whose union’s mass walkout helped jump-start the capitol occupation, says he wants more candidates to join the race. If there’s a theme here, it’s this: Labor expects to play a major role in vetting a candidate, and electability alone won’t be enough this time.

But it won’t just be the candidate setting the tone; so will the tactics. To channel, and resemble, an actual popular movement, much of the campaign will have to take place in face-to-face conversations rather than just on TV. The more progressives take the campaign door to door, the more populist it will be – and that may be where the campaign is won or lost. Activists expect the message on the doors will be more aggressive than whatever the candidate’s own message is. “It’s pretty clear that when people call him ‘1 percent Walker,’ that resonates,” says Colburn, who adds that labor will supplement traditional voter canvassing with rallies around the state.

Then there’s the message of the TV ad wars, of which Americans for Prosperity’s $700,000 is just a harbinger. Much the advertising in the Senate recalls came not from the Democratic candidates or party, but from the labor-community We Are Wisconsin coalition.

“Historically it was labor and the Democratic Party that partnered in the political process,” says Biel. “But here the change is, it’s labor and the community that partner in the political process.” We Are Wisconsin’s ads helped establish the campaign’s populist edge, and some Democrats’ ads reinforced it. The more third-party groups dominate advertising, the more populist it’s likely to be. A spokesperson for Democracy for America says the national group will support We Are Wisconsin’s efforts.

All of these influences will be mediated by the events unfolding outside the campaign over the next few months. Positive economic signs that buoy Obama’s reelection chances would do the same for Walker. If the economy improves, progressives may be more hesitant to skewer Walker as representing the 1 percent — but that kind of contrast will become even more important.

Even more significant may be the metastasizing corruption controversy embroiling Walker. One of the former Walker aides charged with illegal campaigning Tuesday pled guilty as part of a deal in which she’ll testify against other Walker associates. Walker himself has retained a pair of criminal defense attorneys to accompany him to a meeting with Milwaukee’s district attorney. If the scandal intensifies, it could become the centerpiece of a cautious, moderate campaign that skirts ideology and makes the case Walker is just too corrupt and divisive to serve. Or the scandal could be folded into a populist narrative in which Walker’s alleged crimes are portrayed as an extension of his corporate agenda.

“The message we started here has gone out [through] the Occupy movement and really resonated,” says Democracy Addicts founder Ed Knutson, who’s been active in last year’s capitol demonstrations and Occupy Wall Street. Knutson expects “a strong populist element” to the campaign. “There’s a real opportunity here to … move it a little bit further back to the left.”

The AFL-CIO’s Bloomingdale says the work of the recall – long days volunteering in the cold – has raised activists’ expectations. “People didn’t go out and collect those signatures in those conditions for nothing.”

: Josh Eidelson is a freelance journalist and a contributor at The American Prospect and In These Times. After receiving his MA in Political Science, he worked as a union organizer for five years. More Josh Eidelson

- 1Comment
- Permalink
- Print
- Short URL
Share:
- Email
- Twitter
- Facebook
- LinkedIn
- Digg
- Reddit
- StumbleUpon
- ShareThis

Can Greece thwart a complete meltdown?

The government's austerity measures sparked violent protests -- and still aren't enough to guarantee an EU bailout

By Siobhan Dowling, GlobalPost

A riot police officer throws a stone at demonstrators during violent protests in Athens' Syntagma (Constitution) square February 12, 2012 (Credit: Reuters/Yiorgos Karahalis)

Topics:GlobalPost, Greece

This article originally appeared on GlobalPost.

BERLIN, Germany — Amid growing unrest, Greece’s government has finally approved tough austerity measures, yet it is far from certain if the deal will be enough to avert disaster.

As lawmakers in Athens debated a bill Sunday that would impose yet-more severe austerity on the country, outside the parliament building tens of thousands of people gathered to voice their opposition to the deal. Violence flared, as buildings were set on fire, and the police engaged in running battles with rioters.

Around 150 shops were looted and over 40 buildings, including the Attikon, a 19th-century theater-turned cinema, were torched. Unrest also flared in the second largest city of Thessaloniki, and on the islands of Corfu and Crete.

The violence may have been perpetrated by a minority, but there is little doubt that the onslaught of yet more cuts to wages, spending and public jobs is massively unpopular in Greece.

And the crisis is far from over. The Greek government will be under pressure to deliver on the promises it has made to the international troika of lenders — the European Central Bank, European Union and International Monetary Fund — if it is to secure the 130 billion euro ($172 billion) bailout it needs to evade default.

The next hurdle for Greece is the meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Wednesday. The government, headed by Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, will have to convince the Eurogroup that Athens can come up with yet another 325 million euros in budget savings after political leaders refused to cut pensions. The troika is also demanding written commitments from politicians to implement the deal after April elections.

Athens is also expected to inform the euro zone ministers of a planned debt swap deal with private lenders, which should slash 100 billion euros from Greece’s massive debt burden.

Europe’s Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn welcomed the parliamentary vote as a “crucial step” on Monday, adding that he was confident that the Greeks would identify the concrete measures for the further 325 million in cuts before Wednesday’s meeting.

German Economics Minister Philipp Roesler cautiously welcomed the Greek parliament’s move but made it clear that German approval of the bailout was not inevitable. “Now we need to wait and see what comes after the legislation,” Roesler told public broadcaster ARD.

“We have taken one step in the right direction but we are still far from the goal,” he said.

Berlin is waiting until the troika release a report on Greece’s debt sustainability before the Bundestag votes on whether to back the bailout on February 27.

Many countries in the euro zone, particularly Germany, are wary of ploughing more money into Greece based on the latest pledges, considering the commitments it made in May 2010 for the first bailout of 110 billion have not been kept.

Greece has struggled to stick to the troika’s targets to cut the deficit while it continues to grapple with the affects of five years of recession.

Now it is being forced to implement even fiercer cuts, which critics say will just push Greece further into a downward spiral. On Sunday the Greek parliament backed the package, including a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage and 150,000 job cuts in the public sector by 2015.

Despite the refusal of 43 members of the coalition parties to back the deal, the legislation still passed comfortably with 199 votes in favor and 74 against. The two biggest parties – the socialist PASOK, and conservative New Democracy – backed the deal, while the right-wing populist LAOS party refused to do so, and withdrew its support for the technocratic government.

“The full, timely and effective implementation of the program won’t be easy,” Papademos told parliament on Sunday. “We are fully aware that the economic program means short-term sacrifices for the Greek people.”

With a 14.5 billion euro bond repayment due on March 20 the pressure has been on to get a deal in place to avoid a Greek bankruptcy.

However, the austerity measures that are a pre-condition of the bailout money, leave little prospect of Greece returning to a path of growth any time soon.

“Yesterday’s vote in the parliament may have saved the country temporarily from default, but the Greek economy is going bankrupt and the country’s political system is failing,” the head of the Greek Commerce Confederation, Vassilis Korkidis, said in a statement.