Contrasting advice for Wall Street protesters

On Sunday, Nicolas Kristof, the estimable New York Times columnist and Oregon native, offered a list of “practical demands” that he thought the “Occupy Wall Street” organizers should get behind. See his full column HERE.

His three “suggestions” are as much evidence of the problem as they are efforts at a solution. Take a look. (As you will see, my own "suggestions" are radically different):

1. Kristoff wants to impose a financial transactions tax. The “modest tax on financial trades” .... would “dampen speculative trading that creates dangerous volatility.”

2. Close the “carried interest” and “founders’ stock” loopholes, which, in Kristof’s words, “may be the most unconscionable tax breaks in America.”

3. Protect big banks from themselves by “moving ahead with Basel III capital requirements and adopting the Volcker Rule to limit banks’ ability to engage in risky and speculative investments." Kristof calls this “the finance equivalent of a pollution tax.”

Right. So what’s wrong with this surprisingly modest list?

Nothing really, except nothing on it will happen because the money-driven political system won’t allow it.

What’s needed is overarching political change. Note I didn’t say “reform.” Considerable “clean slate” thinking is needed here. Instead of nibbling ineffectively at the tax code, we need to take a hard look at that “holy of holies) the U.S. Constitution to see where it is at odds with democracy, civility, freedom and fairness.

So here is a list of changes (13 demands!) to commend to the Wall Street protesters:

1. Whatever constitutional provisions allow soulless Corporations to have the rights of individual citizens need excising.

2. Whatever constitutionally allows a handful of votes (in small rural states) to block the majority's will (through filibusters etc.), must go.

3. The electoral college is an anachronism. Out with it!

4. We need universal health care, period. No compromises, NONE. (this very likely can’t happen until 2. and 3. are in effect.)

5. The right to education and employment should have equal status with the right to vote — which, by the way, is also under attack — thanks again to the Constitution and the powers it gives the states.

6. In the name of peace, we should require that our foreign aid be equal to or greater than our military spending. The two must NOT be conflated.

7. The Second Amendment should be rewritten so that it clearly serves domestic tranquility, not crime, mayhem, “accidental deaths” and hatred.

8. Media literacy should be a required course in all schools — at every grade level.

9. We should create an economy based on needs, not wants. Note: that means our societal priorities should be public needs (schools, health care, bridges, mass transit, social services) at the expense of private wants (jewelry, expensive cars, second and third homes, private jets, yachts etc.) Basic needs should be spelled out and guaranteed. Housing, health, education, food etc. (We don't need to re-invent the wheel. See the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

10. We must legislate requirements that create a “carbon neutral” economy. We must end global warming.

11. Employees (including — and notably — CEOs) should be paid what they are worth, not what the easily manipulated market will bear or what closed boards of directors decide or compromised "compensation consultants" recommend. And, yes, the question of what employees are 
worth needs to be discussed, determined and negotiated openly and honestly. Questions of equity, living wages and human dignity should be addressed.

12. The judicial and law enforcement systems must be just and equitable. Minimum sentencing is a denial of due process and capital punishment is, in every case, “cruel” and “excessive.” Both should be outlawed.

13. Get big money out of politics once and for all. Limit campaign contributions and/or simply publicly finance elections. Believe me, it will be “cost effective.”

The contrast of my list to Kristof's solutions to our problems is stark and, frankly, worrying. I admire him for writing so boldly about the problems he finds among the poor abroad. Why, then, is he so wobbly and narrowly focused in writing about our problems here at home?

An afterthought: Under the present political system, my list is even less likely to be implemented than Kristof's. The difference, however, is that my list is attuned to working outside the system, which is exactly what the protesters are doing. More power to them — and us!

The Daily Us

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote a column ("The Daily Me") last Thursday advancing the thesis that as newspapers disappear, we will be on our own to pick and choose among news stories on the web.

He goes on to cite and agree with several studies that indicate we will choose to read only articles that re-enforce our biases. And we will ignore those that challenge our prejudices.

Kristof laments that the change will mean greater and greater polarization in a nation that can ill-afford it.

Perhaps, but for decades main-stream news media (newspapers, news magazines and TV) have provided us ideologically narrow choices. Rupert's choice and Gannett's and the New York Times', and CBS's and PBS's and The Oregonian's. With few exceptions (Bill Moyers, Ralph Nader and Ron Paul come to mind) mainstream American political discourse runs the gamut from "A" to "B."

By contrast, the Internet’s raging, howling cacophony give us a wild and refreshing range of political voices.

For 70 years, media myopia, extending in the narrow band from conservative Republican to liberal Democrat, has cramped our view of the world and our options.

The Internet has the potential to blow open awareness. Not just pushing out the boundaries on the political Left and Right, but lifting Up and pulling Down and exploring In and extending Out.

For example, I wonder whether the New Populism would have been amplified as it is being if it weren’t for the Internet and the millions of soapboxes that allowed the public to express its outrage over the AIG bonuses. Interestingly, that outrage has come from both Left and Right — and who knows where else.

Where’s the polarization? Where's "The Daily Me"?

What we have in the Internet is a Vox Populi. Not everyone may hear it, but it is always just a click away. And we can add our voices to it without paying a cent.

Before the Internet you had to go to some obscure storefront and purchase a screed to learn real alternatives. Now such opinion is free and on your desk top.

This is the stuff of pre-revolutionary pamphleteering that arose when owning a printing press was not limited to the wealthy. That widespread “power of the press” gave the American colonies the revolutionary “Common Sense” and hundreds of opinionated and, yes, biased pamphlets.

The Internet could fuel the equivalent to Thomas Paine’s persuasive prose, and before you know it we might be exposed to real choices. The economy might not be restored to its dependence on the old, destructive consumerist values; it might be fundamentally changed by a new set of values, as it desperately needs to be.

No, I don’t think the demise of tightly edited and narrowly circumscribed newspapers will give us “The Daily Me.”

I suspect it will give us “The Daily Us.” In fact it already has, and, unlike Kristof, I believe we are better for it.

Schools and scoreboards that don't know the score

Modern sports reporting prides itself on tying athletics to the real world, but today’s Oregonian was living in la-la land with a gushy story about glitzy video scoreboards at high schools. The new high-tech boards — billboards really — are showcases for junk food and junk beverages.

Oh, they do show the score, buried somewhere in the 7-Up and Dr. Pepper ads.

The Oregonian’s sports editors might want to check out today’s Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times. He addresses the menace posed to kids by soft drinks, aka “liquid candy bars.” In New York state, Gov. Paterson has proposed slapping a hefty 18 percent sales tax on soft drinks in order to discourage their consumption. Tax revenue could be used to support our schools.

Meanwhile high school athletics departments, to tap into advertising revenues and to hype sports, are welcoming beverage advertisers to sell dangerous, diabetes-causing junk drinks to kids via score boards.

In the Oregonian story, an athletic coach in Dallas, Oregon, added a scary but true observation. The article quoted him as saying that sports is another classroom for kids. In other words, sports teaches lessons — in this case, dangerous ones.

As the coach put it, “I really think so goes athletics, so goes your school.” And so goes education.

So what’s the score? Health — 0; Diabetes, obesity and other sugar-related health problems — 200 plus (in pounds).

And the people who run the schools are getting more stupid, and dangerous to our kids, by the minute.