We all know that Bush and many Republicans have opposed the SCHIP health bill which would have covered millions of children.

We all know the debacle which No Child Left Behind has been.

The intersection of these three issues constitutes a moral imperative for progressives and Democrats, and exposes an incredible weakness in the Republicans/Conservatives: What happened to family values?

Below are my initial thoughts on this ‘story’ and how it can be used to a) mobilize an understanding of progressive family values b) expose the Republicans as rhetoricians who fail at every turn to provide and protect our families c) enable us to offer a clear progressive alternative as a coherent package.

Granted the Dems are not perfect in all of these issues, but we can show that we are a hell of a lot better than the RepubliCons/Conservatives. 

Conservatives: Leaving Every Child Behind

The Value Story
As Conservatives have framed it family values are just rhetoric and legal regulation of what occurs in the bedroom. Progressives need to claim this agenda and show that these values they extend into all areas of society, such as school, healthcare, and the economy.

The Feedback-Loop/Strategic InitiativeTrade
This enables us to talk about family values, but also about the importance of safety mechanisms in trade. We must go on the offensive and talk about the Republican view of free trade and the progressive view of fair trade–and that it entails protections on our family as well.

Jobs
All these toys being produced with toxic chemicals in China means they are not being produced safely at home. When we cut the legs off our families whose livelihood is/was manufacturing, we are not only endangering them economically but with the products they buy. Republicans have been at the heart of Job Loss, Union Busting, and Out-Sourcing.

Healthcare
Not only are families losing out to tainted products and lost jobs, their healthcare is not being provided for. Now millions of children are missing out on healthcare they could have had because of the Republican block of SCHIP.

NCLB
It goes without saying that this program has hurt children: it has been underfunded, it has turned students into test-taking drones who as a result are not learning creativity, critical thinking, or proactive thinking. These skills are vital to succeed in today’s economy. We must institute a progressive vision for education.
 Every Child Left Behind VS. A True Family Values Package

The intersection of these 3 issues not only enables us to differentiate our view of family values from the Republicans, it allows us to lead on progressive policies.

Since the 50s and particularly since the late 70s/early 80s we have grown up with a corporate mentality and not a civic mentality.

In a corporation, if you don’t like your job you’re supposed to change jobs (not organize and overthrow); if you don’t like a product, you’re supposed to not buy that product again.

In a civic mentality you’re supposed to take responsibility for the problems and promises around you, and change things around you.

What we are trying to do when we talk about getting people involved is trying to get people– youth, middle age, seniors to convert from a corporate mentality to a civic mentality.

We need to focus on the bridge between the two: between the corporate mentality and the civic mentality.

Activism has a snowball effect. As someone who has barely done anything politically up until very recently, I know that most people need that bridge, need that first small bite. I am 29 years old and only became active about 1 year ago.

I answered a phone banking email for MoveOn in 2005. I figured I would show up and work for a few hours. Then I thought I would go back a couple times. Then I was there every night–I drove straight from work, stopped at a fast food joint, ate on the way, and dialed until they told us to stop. I am now the Columbus volunteer Coordinator for MoveOn and a semi-regular blogger here, Dkos, and Rockridgenation.

But I had to take that first step across that bridge.
And it has snowballed.

Posted in the Comments:

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2030#15988

<blockquote>

Ohio Republican Rep. David L. Hobson announced Sunday that he will not seek re-election next year in the state’s 7th District….

Hobson also is the third Ohio Republican who will be leaving the House at the end of next year. Rep. Ralph Regula said last week that he would not seek a 19th term in the Canton-area 16th District, and Deborah Pryce of the Columbus-centered 15th District will also be leaving….

Ohio’s 7th, which takes in all or part of eight counties in south-central Ohio, has a generic Republican lean: President Bush won 57 percent of the district vote in the 2004 election, and Hobson won more than 60 percent of the vote in each of his nine elections.

Republicans usually run strongly in Greene County, an area near Dayton that is the most populous jurisdiction in the 7th, and also in Fairfield County southeast of Columbus. Democrats are more competitive in Clark County, which is between Dayton and Columbus and takes in Hobson’s hometown of Springfield, and they run well in precincts in and around Columbus….

The Democratic field presently includes William Conner, who took 39 percent of the vote as Hobson’s 2006 opponent, and F. David Woolever, a pizzeria owner. Other Democrats are expected to consider a bid now that the popular Hobson is retiring.
</blockquote>
http://www.cqpolitics.com/2007/10/hobson_joins_ranks_of_house_re.html

Cross Posted at Open Left, Daily Kos, and Progress Ohio

1)    Identify a goal of people you want to reach.
2)    Rather than calling everyone yourself, do a first path through top tier people and recruit them to help calling as well.
3)    During this first pass, give each person their own goal based on the amount of time they can donate. Ask them to commit to a specific day and time. Plan to speak with them the following day and ask how it went. Ask for another commitment. And so on.
4)    Get the One Thing. With everyone you talk to and they talk to- What is the One Thing they want to change more than anything else.
5)    With this method the people you will reach snowball. The initial goal of the phone banking may be several things.
a.    Get those you reach to locate more phone bankers.
b.    Get those you reach to begin locating captains while you continue trying to reach more phone bankers.
c.    Both: get a commitment on precinct captain and then get them to call.
6)    Goals. For you and everyone you call, and everyone they call.
Check-in: be sure to check in with those who give you commitments.
The one thing: What is the one thing that is most important to them in the next election: their kid’s healthcare, their family member in the military, separation of church and state, the environment etc. When citing their progress, remind them that they are helping bring about that One Thing.
Progress: All progress is good progress. If you wind up with 10, 20, 50, 100 more
precinct captains, it is still more than you started with.
Lists: Keep a list in excel or elsewhere- contact information and personal
Information of everyone who commits to you and of the people who commit to them. Information on your base is a gift which keeps on giving.

According to the press secretary MoveOn and everyone else out there are contrived and nothing we do is out of benevolence it is all political.

There were many families and children standing there last night. We were there in good faith and supporting her on an issue on which she, families of Ohio, and MoveOn agree.

This bill is about working across party lines, and bridging the ideological gap. The families and MoveOn were there last night to emphasize that very point: we will back Republicans like Pryce when they make good decisions, when they make value-driven decisions.

I am sorry that Rob Nichols did not see it that way.
I am left wondering if Pryce owns those comments or whether she would seek to distance herself from them if she knew about them.

Here is the news piece…

COLUMBUS, OH (2007-10-04) D rivers along Front Street responded to signs that urged them to honk if they support children’s health insurance. The signs were carried by a handful of volunteers with MoveOn.org. Volunteer Jill Boyer and her children were among those taking part in the rally. Matthew is nine years old and Alexander is seven. Boyer says both have autism.

“My children need the Medicaid to pay for services that most insurance companies won’t cover,” says Boyer. I’ve tried to get private health insurance for them but the insurance companies won’t touch them because of a pre-existing condition – autism.”

Spokesman David Ploskonka said Boyer and others wanted to thank 15th District Congresswoman Pryce for her vote in favor of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. President Bush has vetoed the $35 billion expansion of SCHIP. The Senate has enough votes to override his veto. The House does not.

“We’re here to ask her to lobby more Republicans to get the veto overturned and the kids the health care they need,” said Ploskonka.

Pryce Press Secretary Ron Nichols says… says MoveOn.org’s thank you effort seems weak given that the organization spent $480,000 to unseat Pryce in 2006.

“Everything they do is 100% politically motivated and contrived,” said Nichols. “Nothing is done out of benevolence.”

Read the rest of the story at WOSU

1) Republicans are delusional in that they think progressives impose values and they do not.

2) I ask them why Republicans force us to give up our civil liberties, why the decide who gets to get married, why they want to decide how a woman handles their pregnancy, why they are attacking our free speech (MoveOnAd), why they are imposing a loss-stop (sic?) on soldiers who should have gotten out of Iraq long ago, why so many of them are for putting the 10 Commandments all over the place when supposedly have a pluralistic, secular nation and government, and why do so many of them want to force people to adopt English as the Official national election.

I reject their terms.

I ask: Why do you hate democracy? Democracy is where a group of people who chose a leader who then governs according to the values of those who chose her or him (theoretically).

Progressive have 1 definition of government. They have another.

Under ours, democracy is a mutually beneficial society–we have social spending and public schools which help people in those programs, other people suffer from less crime, a more tolerant and educated, and healthier society–we all benefit by having a stronger democracy and a stronger country.

Under theirs– they can’t go out and buy another i-pod or another yacht, or whatever. (I am being a bit snarky here) but under their definition, government is there to get out of the way.

But without these taxes and social programs we all suffer.

And anyone who thinks their pay check is theirs and their alone is delusional.
A) Think about a job– no one is paid what they are actually worth by hour or salary. Part of their pay goes to the building and resources they use everyday, their managers and their employees. Their pay is TAXED.

B) No one is successful or unsuccessful in a vacuum. Education, transportation, trade, laws, regulation–it all exists as an infrastructure which goes towards they guy or gal getting their paycheck. They’re paying their dues to be part of a free society and more productive society. Those taxes don’t HINDER them–they HELP them.

Tell them to go to a country with no functioning public infrastructure or democracy and then see how FREE they FEEL and see then if they feel like VALUES are being IMPOSED on them.

Crossposted at Rockridge: the question was asked, my reply is in the comments below the question and then posted here above.

http://www.rockridgenation.org/questions/what-should-i-say-when-i-am-told-that-i-am-pushing-my-values-onto-others

As an environmentalist and as a progressive, I was somewhat wary when I picked up my copy of Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility by Ted Nordhaus & Michael Shellenberger. It sounded like it prescribed an easy answer to a myriad of complex problems surrounding global warming. From what I had heard their entire argument was that we could fix all our environmental woes if we simply spent more on clean energy.

Needless to say, I was skeptical.

They argued that the politics of limits as they call them, the legislative attempts at limiting consumption, pollution, carbon emissions and other foul odors, had been completely ineffective and were counter productive.

Having read the book, I am not a complete convert to their solution–but I am a complete convert to their argument and found the book rich with ideas. Stick with me over the jump for more.

I hope to follow this diary with others related to the myriad of topics discussed in this book, but for now I want to focus on the book’s framing of environmentalism and the author’s conception of limits.

The authors believe that limitations will not be enough– both in terms of policy aimed at fighting global warming, and in terms of framing the need to fight global warming.

They argue that even if we cut emissions to zero we would still have extreme weather to deal with for a long time to come. They argue that doing so would likely hurt the economy. They argue that people are most giving and empathetic when their basic needs are fully addressed.

Therefore, they argue, we need to invest billions in clean energy, thus buoying up jobs, and empathy while addressing carbon emissions. They call for an Apollo Energy Project (and they are part of the brain trust behind the Apollo Alliance

Now I am still somewhat torn on the idea that we can not cut emissions without damaging our economy. I sincerely think we can keep the economy going and cut emissions.

But the other side of the authors’ argument is that we can not get through to people with a rhetoric of limits– limit pollution, limit carbon, limit consumption. They argue people will not respond to this frame–and have not responded much since the start of the environmental movement–and that politicians can not win with this frame.

While I buy the argument that rhetoric and framing is critical, and we must unleash the power of the economy and produce clean technology–I don’t buy the policy idea that we can exist without limits.

How can we as a species living on 1 planet with limited resources truly expect to survive indefinitely while popping out millions of babies a year, and consuming every resource in sight?

We can not.

And while some conservatives say that we can and should consume everything–and then the Rapture will come (yay!) I for one am not holding my breath for the rapture, and I for one care about the future of the human race.

But at the same time, I can not fathom people in this country, or around the world accepting the idea that we need to stop having so many babies and begin shrinking the population, and start lightening the burden on the planet.

In a sense, we have over extended our welcome.

Still I think the authors truly have something to say about framing. If we take a page from conservatives, we learn that voters and people respond to values and vision–not facts and policies. (See the Rockridge Institute for more on this and books by George Lakoff Don’t Think of an Elephant, Thinking Points Rockridge Institute & blog). I sincerely think we need to make the fight against global warming a value issue– a moral issue–a fight to preserve the future for our children and grandchildren.

We also know that voters care as much more about the economy than any other issue.

We need a hybrid frame: The fight against global warming is a moral issue, and it is an economic issue–we must invest in our economy while investing in our children’s future.

The book itself is rich with ideas, although I think ultimately they are trying to have their cake and eat it too: consume, consume, consume, and yay magically all our solutions go away. (I am being a bit reductive here, but at the end of the day their primary is replace lots of polluting consumption with green consumption.)

I leave you with an excerpt from the the call for an Apollo Space program by JFK, an argument by way of isomorphism, of our need for a positive, uplifting, and moral-laden argument for the most pressing issue of our time.

Kennedy’s vision contains some of the most moving words in this century’s political speeches; his goal is ours–to motivate millions to attempt what seems impossible.

Link at the end of the speech.

Below he begins by talking about the speed of science since the turn of the 20th century. As you read a few of the subjects below remember that he was talking about the space program, but imagine he was discussing the need for a clean energy Apollo Project….

<blockquote> This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward…..

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it–we mean to lead it…. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding….

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man….

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. JFK Address at Rice University on the Nation’s Space Effort

</blockquote>

I was reading about a hearing held in Washington on the ‘degrading stereotypes of women and Blacks in the media.’http://www.vibe.com/news/news_headlines/2007/09/washington_hip_hop/ I was wondering– are hearings/actions like this akin to censorship or is it good that politicians want to fight stereotypes, and is it the corporation’s responsibility to do so as well?

Pushing deeper we come to the fact that underlying this case is what I take to be a typically conservative frame: the culture war or the hydra head frame. Go after rappers who sing about gangs, drugs, and poverty–but don’t go after the so-called free market policies producing ghettos and crumbling schools. Go after immigrants, but do not go after the trade policies there and the economics here which motivate so many immigrants to come here for -ohmygod- jobs. Go after Sheryl Crow and Gore for global warming–don’t go after the policies causing it. Keep swinging the swords, lopping off these heads because they fire up voters, and another hydra head will grow just in time for another election.

Is the hydra head a valid (perhaps undiscussed) frame or is another example of the power grab (as discussed in Don’t Think of an Elephant in reference to the Enron debacle and Gray Davis election in CA)? And how as progressives can we fight this frame and go after the actual body producing the hyrda heads (i.e. conservative policies and economics?

Posted at www.rockridgenation.org

We need our own Infrastructure Alliance.

I am working on a project and an ActBlue page to make it easier for us to fund long term projects and long term messaging campaigns. I plan to begin by starting an ActBlue page focused on groups working to strengthen the progressive backbone in this country.

Again my major objectives here are:

1. Donate to groups which are not with the Democratic Party

1. Donate to umbrella groups–not groups which are single-issue oriented.

1. Focus on message and strategy

1. Think Long Term.

I need your thoughts and suggestions. I don’t want to create a list of 5-10 random groups. I hope to build up a good list and then run a poll in a later diary to get a collective sense of who should be on this page.

Take Back America
Act Blue
Blog PAC
Rockridge Institute
DFA
MoveOn
USAction-TrueMajority
AirAmerica
Center for American Progress
Progressive States Network
BuyBlue
MediaMatters
DemocracyNow
Alternet
AirAmerica
AmericaVotes
People for the American Way

Posted at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/27/204349/577