Why R We In Afghanistan?

February 5th, 2010

The Healthcare Not Warfare Band recorded this song to help raise funds for Carolina Peace, a longtime member of the SC Progressive Network. Go to their Web site to make a donation.

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Global speak out targets human population crisis

February 2nd, 2010

The Center for Biological Diversity announced today its participation in the second annual Global Population Speak Out, a month-long effort to publicize the crisis of unsustainable human population growth. The Center is speaking out as part of its overpopulation campaign, which addresses the devastating impacts of overpopulation on endangered species.

“The Center for Biological Diversity joins this year’s Global Population Speak Out to help raise awareness about this critical environmental issue and the endangered species and habitats threatened by human overpopulation,” said Randy Serraglio, a conservation advocate leading the Center’s campaign. “Unsustainable human population growth is the primary underlying factor driving the current decline and mass extinction of other life on Earth.”

The Center’s campaign, launched in February 2009, is a major educational initiative drawing attention to the close connection between the massive increase in human numbers and the rapid decrease in the planet’s biological diversity. “It is rare that an environmental group is willing to address the deep-seated problem of overpopulation,” said Serraglio, “but with more species going extinct today than ever before in our lifetime, we can no longer ignore our impact on the planet. We hope that many more conservation groups will join the conversation about population growth because it affects every environmental issue.”

As part of the ongoing campaign, the Center has created a Web site that illuminates the connection between burgeoning human population and accelerating biodiversity loss. “Most biologists agree that we have begun the sixth mass extinction event in the Earth’s history,” said Serraglio. “What separates this one from earlier events is that it is being driven by a single species – humans. All the direct threats to the earth’s biodiversity – land-use changes due to urban sprawl and commercial development, environmental contamination, competition for water and other resources, climate change, and so on – are driven by human overpopulation.”

The 2010 Speak Out promises to be larger than last year’s, as hundreds of individuals and groups have pledged to participate. This year’s sponsors include prominent conservation voices from outside the United States, where the subject of human overpopulation is less taboo, including the president of the European Section of the Society for Conservation Biology and the director of conservation at the African Conservation Foundation.

“As part of the GPSO this month and the Center’s overpopulation campaign, we’re planning to launch creative, multimedia education projects focused on protecting endangered species and our environment,” said Serraglio. “Our goal is to reach out to the public in new ways and help people understand how they can be part of the solution to curb runaway human population growth.”

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Support reproductive rights in SC

February 1st, 2010

On March 23, join South Carolina’s first Virtual March in support of responsible reproductive health policies. Advocates are organizing the march through Tell Them’s Web site. Thousands of men and women from across the state are joining together to let their legislators know they support access to medically accurate sexual health information and access to counseling and clinical services. Together, through responsible reproductive health policies, we can reduce the number of unintended pregnancies in South Carolina. Join today by registering here. The march is an easy way people can let legislators know they support this issue and expect representatives to support responsible public health policies.

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Nuclear ‘renaissance’ or ‘retreat’? France is not the example

January 28th, 2010

By Linda Gunter
Beyond Nuclear

It is perhaps no accident that the nuclear power industry chose a French word – “renaissance” – to promote its alleged comeback. Attached to this misapplied moniker are a series of fallacious suggestions that nuclear energy is “clean,” “safe” and even “renewable.” And, in keeping with its French flavor, a key argument in the industry’s propaganda arsenal is that the U.S. should follow the “successful” example of the French nuclear program.

France serves as a convenient sound bite for politicians and others advocating a nuclear revival (hypocritically evoked by many of the same people who insisted on “Freedom Fries” at the start of the Iraq War). A failure to challenge this facile falsehood has cemented the myth of a French nuclear Utopia in the minds of the public. It masks a very different reality.

France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. However, this alone does not constitute a success. Rather, it results in the production of an enormous amount of radioactive waste that, as is the case for all other nuclear countries, has nowhere to go.

France has no operating geological repository for nuclear waste. To date, therefore, it has resorted to reprocessing, a highly contaminating chemical process that separates uranium and plutonium while releasing large quantities of liquid and aerial radioactivity into the environment. These wastes have rendered the seabed near the French La Hague reprocessing center on the Normandy coast equivalent to radioactive waste. Liquid radioactive contamination from La Hague has been found in the Arctic Circle, while radioactive gases such as krypton 85 have been tracked around the world.

However, contrary to myth, reprocessed French waste is not “recycled.” The hottest waste, about 4 percent of the total, is stored at La Hague, along with about 81 tonnes of separated – and proliferation-friendly – plutonium (1 percent of the total). The remaining 95 percent, mostly uranium, is stored at another nuclear center, Pierrelatte, in southern France. Rather than “recycled,” this waste is simply transferred from La Hague operator, Areva, to the French electricity utility, Électicité de France (EDF). France does not have the technology to re-enrich this uranium but some of it is exported to Russia which does.

Nuclear energy has not gained France energy independence. France imports all uranium used in its 58 reactors – having abandoned the last of its 210 uranium mines in 2001. These latter also produced a large waste stream, including tailings (radioactive rocks and soils) that have been used to pave children’s playgrounds and public parking lots.

Today, French uranium is imported largely from Niger where Areva – which, despite its corporate appearance, is 90 percent government-owned – has mined for 40 years. Its legacy in one of the poorest countries on the planet is one of depleted and contaminated water, wide dispersal of radioactive dust and discarded radioactive metals that have been sold in local markets and used in homes.

Nor can nuclear meet all French electricity needs. France imports coal-powered electricity from Germany at peak times, because of its heavy use of electric home-heating. During heat waves and droughts, the French have been forced to power down or close more than a third of their nuclear plants, which rely on water sources such as rivers and lakes for cooling.

None of this has deterred Areva or EDF from driving aggressively into new nuclear markets, especially the U.S., where Aerva is promoting its huge Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR), with seven targeted at six U.S. sites. Since new reactors are too expensive to build unless federally funded, EPRs in the U.S. could result in American tax dollars flowing to the French government.

However, French nuclear success overseas has proved as elusive as it is at home. All but two of the U.S. EPRs are now on the back burner or canceled altogether. A recent joint report from the British, Finnish and UK nuclear safety authorities challenged the safety of the unproven EPR design. The two EPR flagship construction sites in Finland and France have experienced cost overruns and delays. The Finnish Olkiluoto site is more than three years behind schedule, with cost estimates soaring from $3.6 billion at pre-construction to more than $8 billion currently. Technical errors have plagued both sites.

These problems are by no means unique to the French nuclear industry. They typify the nuclear “renaissance” as a whole, which resembles more of a retreat, a word with decidedly less positive connotations when applied to France.

There are some fine French fashions to be followed – from camembert to haute couture. Nuclear power just doesn’t happen to be one of them.

Gunter is co-founder of Beyond Nuclear and specializes in researching the French nuclear sector. She is also the media and development director for Beyond Nuclear. This editorial was provided by American Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization that supplies the media with the views of state experts on major public concerns in order to stimulate informed discussion.

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The Southern State of the Union

January 27th, 2010

Institute for Southern Studies

As President Obama prepares to deliver his State of the Union address tonight, here’s a snapshot of some of the challenges facing Southern states — the very places Obama is having the roughest time.

But first, a little political trivia: Newly-elected GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell will be the third Virginian to deliver the SOTU response in the last five years. In 2006, Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine did the honors, and in 2007 it was Sen. Jim Webb. Message: Yes, Virginia, you are a swing state!

On to some signs of the state of our region:

SOUTHERN STATE OF THE UNION INDEX

Out of 13 Southern states,* number with unemployment rates over 10%: 8

Percent of African-Americans unemployed nationally: 16.4%

Percent of African-Americans unemployed in South Carolina: 20.4% (#1 in country)

Of 10 states with the lowest median income, number that are in the South: 8

Of 10 states with the highest number of occupational fatalities, number in the South: 5

Education spending per pupil in the state of New York: $15,981

Education spending per pupil in Tennessee: $7,113

Of 15 states with highest percentage of population incarcerated, number in the South: 11

Of 15 states with the highest percentage of population without health insurance, number in the South: 8

Of 20 Congressional districts containing the highest percentage of residents without health care, number in Florida and Texas: 15

Percent of the population of Mississippi enrolled in Medicaid: 21.2% (#1 in country)

Percent of West Virginia population enrolled in Medicare: 17.4% (#1 in country)

Rank of Texarkana, Arkansas/Texas, among U.S. metro areas having the highest percentage of their health insurance market monopolized by one company: 1

Percent of those enrolled in TRICARE, the federally-backed health insurance program for active-duty military and retirees, that are in Southern states: 47%

Number of Congressional seats and Electoral College votes Southern states are expected to gain after the 2010 Census: 7

Rank of North Carolina and South Carolina among states with biggest increase in Latino/Hispanic population: 1, 2

Months since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast: 53

Number of vacant or unoccupied residential addresses in New Orleans as of September 2009: 61,310 **

Of 15 states emitting highest amount of toxic releases into the environment, number in the South: 7

Of 10 states with lowest voter turnout in 2008, number in the South: 6

Of 10 states that saw the biggest increase in voter turnout between 2004 and 2008, number in the South: 6

Of 13 Southern states, number that set 30-year records for voter turnout in 2008: 10

President Obama’s net approval rating nationally, according to the latest Research 2000/DailyKos poll: +10

His net approval rating in the South: -48

Clearly, President Obama has his work cut out for him in the South — in more ways than one.

* The ISS list of Southern states includes Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

** Although a shocking statistic, it’s also important to acknowledge the good news: “The share of New Orleans residential addresses that are unoccupied fell from 33 percent to 29 percent [between 2008 and 2009]. This is in contrast to many cities around the country where blight is growing or has declined only slightly.”

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Sign petition to urge Congress to pass Fair Elections Now Act

January 25th, 2010

By Nick Nyhart
Public Campaign

Last Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its long-awaited decision in Citizens United v. FEC. And to nobody’s surprise, the Roberts Court issued a sweeping ruling that overturned the decades-old ban on corporate spending in elections.

The Court’s slim 5-4 majority went leaps and bounds beyond the factual record of the case in order to gut longstanding principles of well-settled election law. Specifically, the Court overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a landmark case in election law that upheld prohibitions on independent expenditures from a corporation’s general treasury fund.

We have all witnessed the corrosive impact that corporate and big money interests have had on the critical debates in Congress this year. They have successfully watered down or killed meaningful legislation on health care, financial regulation, and climate change. The Citizens United case will make an untenable situation worse. Members of Congress who vote against the deep pocket lobbyists will fear retribution during campaign season as they never have before.

To counter this increase in big money influence, we need Congress to act right away by passing the Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752, H.R. 1826).

Please sign our petition to Congress today: The Fair Elections Now Act is the best way to respond to the Roberts Court blatant disregard for democracy.

We need to tell Congress that now, more than ever, we need to change the way Washington works by passing Fair Elections.

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Corporate personhood trumps human rights

January 23rd, 2010

Charlie Smith
AFFA, Charleston

The 14th Amendment was adopted to ensure the constitutional rights of freed slaves and their descendants after the Civil War. There have been roughly 325 federal court cases relative to this amendment since that time. Nineteen of those cases have actually had anything at all to do with a human being. The remaining 300 or so cases have been part of the ongoing corruption process that grants “personhood” to corporations.  

“Corporate Personhood” is the legal concept that grants most of the rights of natural living, breathing citizens to corporations. Under our constitution US corporations are allowed virtually every right of human beings, including such rights as the right to marry.

This “marriage/merger” concept which flies in the face of “traditional marriage” is openly embraced by conservatives who will freely grant to a profit-making business what they flatly refuse to grant to millions of our living, breathing LGBT citizens. Did anyone hear a single conservative objection when half the major banks in our country eloped with the other half in 2008? Even corporations like Blackwater and Halliburton are allowed to serve openly in every branch of our military — unlike thousands of living breathing gay and lesbian citizens who still serve and suffer under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

What we have discovered over the course of the past year is that along with our “constitutional rights,” human persons also have the obligation to serve time in prison and in some cases be executed when they break the law. Corporations have somehow managed to avoid that unpleasantness.

In the wake of last week’s decision in the Citizens United case, corporate rights of personhood will now also include the right of corporations to buy politicians and elections with no limit on the corrupting power of their contributions. This is because corporations as “persons” must be granted free speech. This free speech right is in addition to their corporate “human right” to marry and their corporate “human right” right to serve openly in the military.

Does anyone see the irony that corporations have now been granted more “Human Rights” by the Supreme Court than millions of our own anatomically HUMAN citizens have been granted? After the last two years of outrageous corporate arrogance and greed, why is it that we have done absolutely nothing to strip those rights from corporations, yet we strip those very same rights every day from our very human LGBT soldiers and citizens?

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SC Progressive Network’s racial profiling study reveals SC traffic cops breaking the law

January 13th, 2010

The SC Progressive Network has released a study — based on a review of racial disparities in arrest rates and a new law requiring cops to report the race of those stopped for traffic warnings — that reveals most police agencies in the state are breaking the law by not reporting. The most recent report on the Department of Public Safety’s web site reveals that 189 of the state’s police agencies are not in compliance.

The Network is circulating this study to stimulate public dialogue about racial profiling and to encourage police agencies to advocate for a database that records all stops and allows for increased transparency.

Download the study here.

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Does SC have a racial profiling problem?

January 13th, 2010

Legislature urged to make law agencies process data to see how prevalent it is

By John Monk

The State

The General Assembly needs to order all law enforcement agencies to process the racial data they collect on their traffic tickets to provide a snapshot of whether there is evidence of racial profiling.

That’s the conclusion of a 26-page report on racial profiling in state traffic stops just released by the S.C. Progressive Network. (You can download the study here.)

The state Highway Patrol analyzes the race of drivers given warning tickets by troopers because of a 2005 law. But it doesn’t analyze the race of those given actual citations for such offenses as driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding or breaking the state’s seat belt laws.

Other law enforcement agencies collect similar racial data on tickets of their own volition, but also don’t analyze it.

All of that needs to change, according to Brett Bursey, director of the S.C. Progressive Network.

“After all, the race of over 2 million drivers a year is already recorded on all traffic tickets, but that data is not put in a form so it may be examined for patterns,” Bursey said.

Racial profiling is a term that refers to the improper targeting of a motorist because of his or her race, not because of a driving issue.

Bursey said that since the General Assembly is required this session to review a 2005 state law that mandated that warning ticket data be analyzed, now is the time for that issue to be studied anew.

The 2005 law requires the Senate Transportation Committee and the House Education and Public Works Committee to make recommendations on how that law can be improved – if any are deemed necessary.

Rep. Joe Neal, D-Richland, a longtime supporter of better racial traffic stop data, agreed with Bursey.

“This goes to public confidence in laws and justice. To ensure our system is truly color blind, we need to understand what actually is happening when tickets are given,” Neal said.

Analyzing existing racial traffic stop data apparently would not be difficult or cost much money, law enforcement officials indicated.

Neal and Bursey say the state already collects and analyzes racial data in two law enforcement areas: prison populations and suspects arrested for serious crimes like murder.

And one major agency – the Richland County Sheriff’s Department – has been collecting and analyzing racial data on its 20,000-plus annual traffic stops for 10 years.

“It’s fast and it doesn’t cost anything,” said Sheriff Leon Lott.

Lott’s data gives an overall picture of how the race and ethnicity of stopped motorists compares with county racial demographics. The individual traffic stop records of each of Lott’s 500 deputies can be easily examined for possible profiling, he said.

Three years ago, Lott said, his data helped prove a deputy was targeting blacks and Hispanics. The officer was arrested and fired.

Statistics alone aren’t proof of racial profiling, Lott said. Further investigation is needed to establish the complete situation, he said.

“The statistic is the baseline to start looking,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, which handled 1.9 million adjudicated traffic tickets last fiscal year, said it wouldn’t be difficult to write a software program to extract an overall racial picture of citations in which people have been found guilty of violations.

DMV official Beth Parks estimated it would take about two hours and cost at least $200 to arrive at a computer-generated racial profile of last year’s citations to which people were found guilty. She did not have an estimate of what percentage of the 1.9 million citations itwould be.

Last year, as the 2005 law required, the DPS analyzed – and made public – overall race data on 377,676 warning tickets the Highway Patrol issued.

But those warning tickets are only 41 percent of 904,348 tickets it issued last year for seat belt, DUI and other violations.

Last week, DPS director Mark Keel, at The State’s request, examined how his agency handles racial data in the 59 percent of actual citations.

“We have learned we do have the ability to do things with this data that we have not fully explored and fully utilized,” Keel said.

For example, said Keel, DPS can access each trooper’s record of the race of the people who get citations. Racial breakdowns of all citations in individual counties also are available, Keel said.

In the past, such matters as reducing the highway death rate and dealing with budget concerns, have taken much of his attention, Keel said.

But DPS already is having conversations about how to make better use of the data, including possibly making some of the overall patterns publicly available, Keel said.

Keel also said troopers’ supervisors already monitor their officers’ performance, and any racial profiling should be detected now, from an examination of troopers’ tickets issued as well as video made at traffic stops. Before Keel assumed his job in 2008, a few of those videos made the news because they showed troopers mistreating motorists, some of them black.

An official at the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks state laws, said a “fair number” of states track and process racial profiling data for traffic stops. She did not have specific numbers.

Lott said he has had good results gathering such data.

“It’s another tool,” Lott said. “You do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

Bursey said he hopes law enforcement will take the lead on creating a transparent database. “Good cops don’t mind sharing this data with the public.”

(The Progressive Network’s report can be viewed at www.scpronet.com.)

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South’s clout to grow after 2010 Census, but how much?

January 7th, 2010

By Chris Kromm
Institute for Southern Studies

Remember last year, when pundits declared that the 2008 elections were proof of the South’s waning hold on national politics?

That didn’t jibe with our analysis at Facing South. We showed that there was evidence not only of short-term political change in the South (one-third of the region’s Electoral College votes went to President-elect Obama), but an important long-term trend: the South’s political clout is growing, thanks to burgeoning population growth that will translate into more Electoral College votes and Congressional seats after the 2010 Census.

We won’t know exactly how many seats the South will gain until the Census wraps this December. But we have a good idea thanks to the Census Bureau’s latest state population estimates, which came out last month.

Using those estimates, Election Data Services projects that Southern states will gain six Congressional seats and Electoral College votes, mostly at the expense of states in the Northeast and Midwest.

Using several different projection models, EDS concludes:

Overall, the new 2009 estimates show that ten congressional seats in 17 states have already changed at this point in the decade [...]. Seven states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington — would each gain a seat and Texas would gain three seats if the U.S. House of Representatives were reapportioned with census population estimates for July 1, 2009.

Drilling down into the data a little further, some interesting questions and scenarios remain:

* How big will Texas get? Texas will be the biggest gainer, but by how much? EDS conservatively estimates the Lone Star state will pick up three Congressional seats/Electoral College votes. But a projection based on more recent population growth — which has stayed high in Texas while other states like Florida and North Carolina have leveled off — shows it gaining four.

* Will troops mean gains for North Carolina? Fast-growing NC has been a top contender for picking up a seat after 2010. But EDS says “all six models now show the state will just miss gaining an additional seat next year.” But there’s a big wild card: None of the EDS projections account for military personnel stationed overseas — a major factor in military-friendly North Carolina, whose growing bases helped the Tar Heel state gain a seat in 2000 over Utah.

* National surprises? Changing population trends are creating question marks in other parts of the country. Oregon, once considered a shoo-in for gaining a seat, now appears out of the running. California was projected to lose a seat last year, but now appears safe. Growth has stalled in Arizona and Nevada, but they’re still safe to gain a seat each, maybe two for Arizona.

And then there’s Louisiana. With the five-year anniversary of Katrina approaching, all of EDS’ projections show the state losing a Congressional seat.

There will likely be a few surprises after the 2010 Census count has wrapped. But the broader trend is clear: a shift in population and political power to the South and West.

INSTITUTE INDEX – Counting the children

* Rank of children among the age groups most often missed in the Census: 1
* Net undercount of children under age 10 in the 2000 Census: 1 million
* Net undercount of children under age 5: more than 750,000
* Rank of minorities among those children missed most often: 1
* Percentage rate at which black males under age 5 were missed in 2000: 5.3
* Percentage rate at which non-black males in that age group were missed: 3.3
* Percentage rate at which black females under age 5 were missed in 2000: 5.4
* Percentage rate at which non-black females in that age group were missed: 3.8
* Compared to the elderly, increased likelihood for children to live in hard-to-count areas: 50%
* Percent of all children who live in hard-to-count areas: 20
* Number of government programs serving families in need for which Census counts are used to calculate funding: more than 140
* Amount of federal funding those programs distribute: more than $400 billion
* Percentage points by which the U.S. population of children under age 5 is estimated to have risen since 2000: 6
* Estimated increase from 2003 to 2006 in the number of children with at least one unauthorized-immigrant parent, which complicates counting: 1.6 million
* Estimated number of children affected by the housing crisis, which also makes it more difficult to get an accurate population count: 2 million

(All figures from “Why Are Young Children Missed So Often in the Census?,” Dr. William P. O’Hare for The Annie E. Casey Foundation, December 2009.)

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Public interest group challenges women to run for public office

January 7th, 2010

South Carolina ranks last in the nation for female representation

No women serve in the South Carolina Senate and only 17 serve in the House of Representatives, which has 124 members. And there are no statewide elected women in South Carolina. That’s what prompted the Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics to hold a press conference today to call on more women to run for public office in the Palmetto State.

Rep. Jenny Horne, Summerville, and a member of the Institute’s Board, responded to the current statistics. “At 10 percent representation in the General Assembly, South Carolina ranks last in the nation for women in elected office. When I was a page in the South Carolina General Assembly in 1992, there were 22 women in the General Assembly or 12.9 percent. Since 1992, women have lost ground in female representation in the General Assembly. The Institute’s mission is to help reverse this disturbing trend.”

The Institute revealed a plan of action that aims to:

* Triple the number of women running for office in 2012;
* Build a network of outreach personnel to identify capable women in each congressional district;
* Stage 3 advanced training campaign schools in 2010
* Partner with Ready to Run™, a national training initiative of the Center for American Women and Politics at * Rutgers Eagle Institute of Politics, to increase training capacity;
* Launch a Talent Bank in cooperation with Alliance for Women to identify skilled women for nomination to public and private boards; and
* Host the 2010 Leading Women Dinner on April 16, drawing attention to women who have opened political doors.

“It’s regrettable that we’ll start our 2010 legislative session next week with these embarrassing numbers.” says Rep. Walt McLeod, Newberry, who serves on the Board of the Southeastern Institute. “Women make up more than half of our state’s population, yet they are just a fraction of the policy makers in our state legislature. This has a negative impact on the lives of all South Carolinians. We know that women bring positive perspectives to many issues critical to our state.”

Founded in 2008, the Southeastern Institute for Women in Politics is focused on three primary goals:

Increase the pool of capable women candidates.
Educate and train women to run and win.
Enhance the visibility of women in leadership roles and change public perception.

The Institute has held six campaign training schools and four major visibility events. It communicates twice each month with more than 20,000 statewide citizens via email.

“Our board is diverse politically, yet we are united on advancing women in political leadership roles,” says Donna Dewitt, Chair of the Institute’s Board and Co-chair of the SC Progressive Network. “We want every woman in South Carolina to have the opportunity to run for elected office, have the tools necessary to do so, and have unprecedented success.”

For further information on in Politics, email info@scelectswomen.com or visit www.scelectswomen.com.

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Young people need good jobs now

December 24th, 2009

By Liz Shuler and Donna Dewitt

As the new year rolls in, a four-letter word is on everyone’s lips: jobs.

With the unemployment rate at red-alert levels, the White House held a jobs summit, the president gave a major address and Congress is preparing legislation to create jobs. But not many are looking at the particular problems facing young workers. Not only have they been hurt disproportionately by the economic crisis, they could very well be the first generation in recent history to be worse off than their parents. Joblessness among young workers is even higher than the national average. They need jobs — good jobs — and they need them now.

In a recent survey done by the AFL-CIO and our community affiliate Working America, young workers spoke out about their dilemma. “Things are definitely harder for me today than they were for my parents at my age,” 31-year-old Laura told us. “Back then, you could graduate high school, get a job at the local grocery store and still be able to buy a house and even put a little away for retirement. It’s just not that way anymore.”

Today, young people are coming out of college tens of thousands of dollars in debt and unable to find jobs — certainly not the kind of jobs they thought they’d find. “Sometimes we wonder if it was really worth it to get an education for the price we’ve paid,” Jessica, also 31, reported.

More than half of the 18- to 34-year-olds we talked to earn less than $30,000 a year. Only 31 percent make enough money to cover their bills and put some aside. And benefits? Young people say the situation is just as bad. Thirty-one percent are uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago. Less than half have retirement plans at work.

Many young people are worried they won’t be able to start their adult lives and pursue their dreams of having families of their own. And they’re right to be worried: One in three 18- to 34-year-olds lives at home with their parents.

Without immediate action to create jobs, living standards for young workers — and even their children — may be stunted permanently. History teaches us that deep economic troughs like the one we’re in can scar young people for their entire careers as their earnings may never recover and their children may earn even less.

Yes, we need longer term economic restructuring. But we have a jobs crisis right now — for young people and all of us. And Congress and the president must jump-start jobs immediately.

Our states and communities are starving for aid to keep teachers and firefighters (many of them young workers) on the payroll. Let’s get that aid to them now. Schools are crumbling and higher education costs are out of control. Without significant new federal investments, the state and local budget catastrophe and infrastructure collapse will strangle long-term solutions for young workers. Are we really ready to write them off as a lost generation?

When people need jobs so badly, it’s the right time to invest in the clean, green technologies of the future, and in the distressed communities, putting jobless people to work tutoring children, cleaning up abandoned buildings, or providing child care, to name a few.

And let’s move some of the leftover bank bailout funds from Wall Street to Main Street, so community banks can lend money to small businesses for the purposes of job creation.

Efforts like these can keep and create at least 2 million jobs in the next year. As I travel across the country, young people tell me they are ready to join the fight.

In the same survey, thirty-five percent say they voted for the first time in 2008, and nearly three-quarters say they keep tabs on government and public affairs, even when there’s not an election going on. Job creation, health care and education are their top economic priorities. And — by a 22-point margin — young workers favor expanding public investment over reducing the budget deficit.

Young workers are not just calling for action to create jobs and fix the economy — they’re depending on it. Their economic future — America’s economic future — is at stake.

Shuler is the secretary treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Dewitt is the president of the SC AFL-CIO and Co-chair of the SC Progressive Network. This column appeared in The Sun News.

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Wrong Way on Afghanistan

December 21st, 2009

By Eleanor LeCain

In March 2003, I traveled to Afghanistan to facilitate a leadership training for a group of Afghan women who were hoping to help lead their country away from the abyss that had been Taliban rule.

Afghans I met — men and women — were grateful that the U.S. had knocked the Taliban out of power. They wanted to get an education and a job, but there were few schools and jobs available.

That was the moment when we might have been able to fund education and economic development to win over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, and help build a central government capable of running the country. The U.S. had clarity of purpose and a sense of national unity for its mission.

After all, Al Qaeda had launched the 9/11 attacks from Afghanistan, complete with terrorist training camps. Nearly the whole world supported our efforts to uproot Al Qaeda and to build a new and representative government in Afghanistan.

But the U.S. did not provide the support needed to help Afghanistan recover and rebuild. Afghans were puzzled why even then the U.S. was supporting cruel regional warlords, undermining the power of the central government we claimed to support.

Just days after I left Afghanistan, the U.S. invasion of Iraq began. President Bush shifted attention, military force, and funds to Iraq. U.S. efforts in Afghanistan languished. President Obama wants to recapture the historic moment that was lost in 2003.

But that moment has passed. An escalation of military force nearly seven years later cannot bring it back. Here’s why an escalation won’t work:

1)  The central government is too weak. People refer to President Karzai as the Mayor of Kabul because the only area he really controls is the capital. Afghanistan lacks even the basic elements of a functioning central government: it does not deliver services nationally like health care or education; it does not provide a national bank and finance system; it does not administer justice. Afghanistan is really a collection of regions, some ruled by warlords. So there will be no real central government to take over military operations in 18 months. That approach may work in Iraq, but it will not work in Afghanistan which is completely different. Iraq had a strong central government before the U.S. invaded; Afghanistan did not.

2)  The country is too corrupt. Corruption runs rampant from top to bottom. Funds intended to support military and development efforts are siphoned off by swindlers. Stealing isn’t a crime so much as a way of life. The police who should be protecting citizens are part of the problem: many of them shake people down for protection payoffs. In fact, protection payoffs are a large source of revenue for the Taliban.

3)  The country has become a big heroin den. Growing and trading opium is the country’s largest income source. Even people who don’t like opium feel it’s their best path to financial survival. So on top of political and religious feuds is a vast network of narcotics dealers.

4)  Local support for the US has dramatically diminished. The current war has dragged on for eight years. U.S. and Coalition forces have driven Al Qaeda from Afghanistan and have limited Taliban efforts to return to power. In those eight years, lots of Afghan civilians have been killed and injured. Bombs that have destroyed Taliban fighting units have also inflicted “collateral damage,” killing civilians. The neighbors and relatives of those dead civilians aren’t likely to welcome new troops as their liberators. Many Afghans now see the U.S. as part of the problem, an occupying force.

In addition to the likely ineffectiveness of escalation is the certainty of its expense. At a cost of about $1 million per soldier, 30,000 more troops will cost us about $30 billion a year. This is on top of the $1 trillion we have already spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. government is already in debt by over $12 trillion. Every dollar we spend is borrowed money. So we’re going to borrow more money to send more troops, thereby making us even more vulnerable to our creditors. Being heavily indebted to other countries is itself a threat to our national security.

There is another way forward. The U.S. first invaded Afghanistan to dismantle the terrorist training camps and their Taliban supporters. Mission accomplished. We can declare victory and set a new, clearly defined objective: prevent the resurgence of terrorist training camps. This objective can be met by the presence of a much smaller multilateral force. Also, more support for educating girls and women would lift families and communities while helping to reduce terrorism.

LeCain is a Washington, DC-based speaker and writer, the president and CEO of NewWayUSA, and a former Massachusetts Assistant Secretary of State. This piece was provided by the American Forum, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, educational organization that provides the media with the views of state experts on major public concerns in order to stimulate informed discussion.

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Support up for public campaign financing

December 18th, 2009

‘Hustle for money’ compromises officials, group says, and more N.C. voters see that.

By Jim Morrill
The Charlotte Observer

When the N.C. Voters for Clean Elections began a decade ago, only a few reformers championed the idea of publicly financing state political campaigns.

Since then, North Carolina has adopted public financing for the campaigns of appellate court judges, three Council of State offices and local officials in one town.

“Little by little, we’re demonstrating that publicly financed election processes are not only possible but work better for candidates and voters alike,” said Chase Foster, director of the reform coalition.

Last week, more than 50 people gathered at a downtown Raleigh cafe to celebrate the coalition’s 10th anniversary. Among them were legislators and at least two statewide elected officials.

Ten years ago, North Carolina still had a reputation for clean politics. Since then, voters have seen a former state House speaker, a congressman, an agriculture secretary and two legislators imprisoned for corruption. This fall, a special state prosecutor began to investigate a former governor.

All that helps fuel hopes for more changes. Advocates of publicly financed campaigns point to polls they say show growing public support.

An Elon University poll last month showed 87 percent of North Carolinians think campaign contributions influence elected state officials. And a statewide survey by Public Policy Polling in November found 65 percent say they’d support giving “a limited amount of public funds” to candidates.

“More people recognize that we’ve got to address the heart of the problem, and that’s the hustle for money that’s going on in big campaigns,” said Bob Hall, director of Democracy North Carolina, a watchdog group. “That is translating into support for public financing of campaigns.”

Public-finance advocates say the escalating costs of campaigning has forced candidates to rely heavily on political action committees and other special interests. They say 90 percent of campaign money in North Carolina comes from less than 1 percent of the population.

There are several proposals for further public financing in the General Assembly, and at least one in Congress.

All but a handful of the 120 co-sponsors of the federal Fair Elections Now Act are Democrats; one of the few Republicans behind it is Rep. Walter Jones, of Eastern N.C.’s 3rd district. Virtually all the sponsors of the state legislation are Democrats.

“It’s absurd,” state Republican Sen. Bob Rucho of Matthews said of public financing. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s still freedom of speech. You should be able to put the money you want to in a campaign and say what you want to say. The taxpayers shouldn’t be burdened with this cost.”

North Carolina’s judicial public financing program is funded by voluntary tax check-offs and by $50 fees on lawyer licenses. While some N.C. elections have been funded with tax money, that could change.

Plans to expand public financing in Council of State races would be funded entirely by assessments on those doing business with the particular agency or are regulated by it.

To qualify for public funding, candidates typically have to raise a number of small contributions and agree to spending limits.

Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, said recent headlines about politicians in trouble adds momentum to the push for public financing.

“People are looking for ways this doesn’t spiral so far out of control,” he said, “that we lose the capacity of the public to really be the key factor in democracy.”

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SC Blue Cross Blue Shield’s #1 Job: protecting profits

December 15th, 2009

By Brett Bursey
Director, SC Progressive Network

Rep. Tim Scott (R Charleston) has introduced legislation that calls for a state constitutional amendment to protect your right to be screwed by the health insurance industry.

“Must Article I of the Constitution of this State, relating to the declaration of rights, be amended so as to add a new section preserving the freedom of South Carolinians with respect to the providing of health care services, by prohibiting any law, regulation, or rule to compel an individual, employer, or health care provider to participate in a health care system, by allowing individuals and employers to pay directly for lawful health care services without penalties or fines for these direct payments, by providing that the purchase or sale of health insurance in private health care systems must not be prohibited by law, regulation, or rule, by providing those incentives in which the rights provided by this section do not apply, and to provide appropriate definitions?”

A “Yes” vote on this question would prohibit South Carolinians from participating in a “public option” national health care system that requires individuals to participate. While the chances for the US to join the rest of the civilized world in considering health care a right, corporate defenders like Scott aren’t taking chances.

The bill, written by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), with the assistance of Blue Cross Blue Shield, would make any federal mandate for participation in a national health plan against the law in SC.

The BCBS initiative to “protect your health care rights” has been introduced in 12 states. (See Think Progress for more information.)

Part of the reason the BCBS Association has claimed that it opposes the reform bill in its current form is because of what it perceives as a weak individual mandate. But the BCBS Association-supported ALEC campaign depicts the very notion of an individual mandate as “anti-freedom.” So either way the US Senate acts, BCBS will be able to trash the bill and try to kill reform.

The health industry has contributed $1.7 million to SC politicians since 2008, and BCBS accounted for $503,000 of the total.

Other legislative initiatives for 2010

S1011: Sen. Mike Rose (R-Charleston): Provides that a person with a special restricted driver’s license may drive unaccompanied between his home and his place of worship. As Sen. Rose can’t regulate religious preference, I guess this bill would allow those who worship beer to drive to their local bar to pray for eternal happy hour.

S902: Sen. Glenn McConnell (R-Charleston): This bill would repeal the state income tax and sales tax and replace them with a really big sales tax on the consumption of all goods and services excluding business to business sales. This regressive tax system would put the burden of maintaining the roads to the rich folks gated communities on the back of working people.

S1002: Sen. Mike Rose (R-Charleston): Constitutional amendment to permit the enactment of laws and Constitutional amendments by initiative petition. While the ballot initiative process in many states allow the citizens more direct control over their government (pro-gay, anti-gay and marijuana bills come to mind), there is a fear that SC might vote to bring back the Confederacy.

S947: Sen. Larry Grooms (R Berkeley): Amends the Constitution to provide procedures for recalling and removing from public office persons holding public offices of the state or its political subdivisions in the executive and legislative branches of state or local governments. This “Appalachian Trail” bill is intended to prevent disappearing governors. It may be the only way to get rid of politicians like Grooms, who bills himself as the “Tea Party Guy.” He is running for governor with the pledge to “take our nation and state back” from those who disbelieve in the primacy of white guys with guns.

S916: Sen. Phil Leventis (D-Sumter): A rare good bill that would include persons in a dating relationship – EVEN SAME SEX COUPLES – in the definition of a household hold member and to define “dating relationship” in the Protection From Domestic Abuse Act.

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