Some Justice for Women

My wife is in a graduate-level course studying domestic violence. When she got home yesterday, we were talking about two shocking figures:

1. Homicide is a top cause of death for pregnant women in the United States. A 2005 study showed that only pregnancy-related complications ranked higher as a cause of death. Other studies have found homicide is the top cause of death for pregnant women.  

2. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the United States. More than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.

Here is another disturbing figure: 

Women are paid only 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid. 

There's a lot to be said about how these three figures are related: Hopelessness in one part of our lives makes it easier to take advantage of us in another.

But I want to call your attention to two common-sense solutions, two signs of hope. There are two bills working their way through Congress right now that would immediately bring some justice for women.

Two Signs of Hope in Congress

The first is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. You may remember hearing about Lilly Ledbetter. She worked for nearly 20 years at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company facility in Alabama, where she discovered that she was being paid less than the lowest-paid man doing the same work, even though she had more experience. So, she took the company to court, and a jury awarded her $3.8 million. But the company appealed to the Supreme Court, where conservative justices said, "Whoa, not so fast!"  

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court gave one of the most ridiculous rulings I have ever heard. The court said that workers have no right to sue for remedy if they wait more than 180 days after the first paycheck that shows discrimination, even if they don't discover the pay discrimination until much later. (Wanna guess which side George W. Bush's Supreme Court appointees were on? Here's a hint: Not the side of women and workers.) According to the National Women's Law Center (NWLC), the ruling overturned a long-standing principle that "each paycheck that is discriminatorily reduced is an act of discrimination that resets the 180-day clock for filing challenges." Marcia Greenberger of the NWLC says that the new precedent set by the Supreme Court meant more than 300 similar court cases around the country were lost. 

Imagine if you discovered today that you are being discriminated against in your paycheck. Upon investigation, you find that it's been going on for 181 days! That makes it even worse, right? Well, the Supreme Court says you are S.O.L. Your employer managed to keep the secret for 180 days, so the law rewards them and they get away with it.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would essentially overturn the court's ruling for future cases (though of course not for Ledbetter herself). It would mean that every unjust paycheck is an act of discrimination that can be challenged in court; therefore, a company can't just stall and delay for 180 days and then be scot-free. Every illegal paycheck would restart the 180-day clock.

The second common-sense, pay equity bill is the Paycheck Fairness Act. This act would strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963 by closing loopholes created by courts that allow companies to essentially ignore gender-based pay discrimination. It would also put gender-based discrimination sanctions on equal footing with other forms of wage discrimination, such as discrimination based on race, disability, or age.

Current Status

Both of these bills passed the House on January 9th. The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed by a vote of 247-171 (95% of Democrats voted for it, and 94% of Republicans voted against it). The Paycheck Fairness Act passed by a vote of 256-163 (96% of Democrats voted for it, and 90% of Republicans voted against it).

Now the two bills go to the Senate, where their only remaining obstacle is a determined, corporate-friendly Republican minority. A previous version of the Ledbetter bill died in the Senate in April 2008. A procedural vote broke along party lines (with just 6 Republicans and 1 Democrat crossing over to the other party), and Republicans were able to kill the bill and maintain pay-discrimination rights for the corporate interests they represent. 

I promise that Senate Republicans are not the villains in every story. But it sometimes seems like it. The most conservative members of perhaps the most conservative part of government often make the Senate the place where justice goes to die. 

Take Action

Click here to tell your Senators that you expect them to support these important fair pay bills. 

I am hopeful that with more Democrats in Congress, President-elect Obama about to take office, and the emergence of a "Yes we can" attitude in the country, these bills can pass despite the entrenched opposition.

Fair pay for women is good news for everybody. It's good for men because it removes downward pressure on their own wages. It's good for families because it often provides a second solid income for a family. And of course it's good for women, because it puts some reality behind all our rhetoric about equality. And perhaps most importantly, it makes fewer women tethered to scumbag men because they can't earn enough on their own.

"It's The Freakin' Weekend" Franken Update

Al Franken is going to be the junior Senator from Minnesota, and that is reason to celebrate.

Jim Mone/AP

Mobilized by the Times

Of all the non-presidential races in the 2008 election cycle, I'll say I was most emotionally invested in the Minnesota Senate race between Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) candidate Al Franken and incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. Over the past several years, I felt like I had watched Franken spurred to incrementally greater actions by events around him. Like most people, my first exposure to Al was on Saturday Night Live, where he was just damn funny. Later, I heard about his book, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations. I never read that one, but I appreciated that he was willing to stand up to a monster and a bully.

I noticed Franken again in 2003, when he published, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. The book's cover shows the faces of Bush, Cheney, Ann Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly. The book was excellent, and I loved that Franken could demolish the positions of the Right, while remaining hilarious. You probably remember, 2003 was a dark time in American politics. It was heartening to see a guy dig in his heels and lower his shoulder into the advancing Republican machine. Franken seemed, to me, not like a comedian who happened to have some political opinions, but like a really smart guy with ideas and convictions, who happened to be funny.  

In 2004, Al became a talk show host on Air America Radio, where he hosted the "The O'Franken Factor," later renamed "The Al Franken Show," which ran 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 years. In 2005, he wrote, The Truth (with jokes), at the beginning of Bush's second term. "The Truth" was a more serious, less shooting-from-the-hip, less funny kind of book. In retrospect, I think Franken had begun to realize that a lot of people actually took him seriously, so he started to act (a little) more like a traditional political personality. I think the passion and feeling had also grown more intense and began to overshadow the jokes.

His story is one of a pretty normal, flawed, likable guy--a comedian--who was transformed into a serious politician by a genuine and righteous indignation at those who had hijacked our government. He started out yelling and pointing at the absurdities and lies, because it was a time that required some yelling. He ended up in towns all over Minnesota talking like a wonk about healthcare, retirement, and renewable energy.

The Wellstone Seat

I've learned that we can't really understand the intensity of Franken and the Minnesota DFLers in this campaign without knowing something about the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. He joined the Senate in 1991 and represented Minnesota as a true-blue progressive. He was called "The Conscience of the Senate." He made mental illness issues a focus of his career and also focused especially on peace, environment, labor, and health care issues. Wellstone voted against authorizing the Gulf War and against the 2003 invasion of Iraq (before that was a fashionable position). After his vote against the war on October 11, 2002, just weeks before his reelection bid, he told his wife, "I just cost myself the election." 

He was probably wrong. Polls showed Wellstone with a solid lead in the final stretch of the election, before he and his wife and daughter and four others died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. At his giant memorial service broadcast on national TV, Senator Trent Lott and Governor Jesse Ventura were booed by some in the crowd. Republicans played this up and milked the incident in the media for all it was worth. It probably proved the difference in the election. Norm Coleman beat former Vice President Walter Mondale, who the DFL named as Wellstone's last-minute replacement on the ballot, by 2.2% of the vote. 

The tragic death of everybody's hero and friend, Paul Wellstone, followed by the appropriation of his memorial service to elect his opponent, was pretty devastating for DFL faithful and a lot of Minnesotans. I can tell in his speeches and books that it's been devastating for Al Franken too, who was a good friend of Wellstone. It wasn't just that Wellstone was gone or that Coleman was in the Senate. It was that Coleman was in Wellstone's seat. 

Franken by a Nose, a Very Small Nose

During the final leg of the campaign, when polls showed the race absolutely neck and neck, I was baffled that there was not more support from Team Obama or national Democrats in the Minnesota Senate race. If I'm correct, Barack Obama did not visit the state once during the campaign. I understand that Minnesota was a safe state for Obama, and maybe he wanted to focus on "expanding the playing field" to traditionally Republican states. But once it was clear Obama was going to win the whole thing by a good margin, why was there not a more aggressive push in downticket races? We were nearly saddled with six more years of solidly red Norm Coleman representing solidly blue Minnesota. 

On January 5th, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board announced the final election recount results, showing Franken winning by 225 votes out of 2.9 million cast. The Coleman campaign almost immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the recount. Do I need to point out that the day after the election, when initial results showed Coleman with a slim lead, Coleman called on Franken to concede to spare the state the drama and "begin the healing process"? Why is Coleman not following his own advice?  

I have not read anyone who seriously thinks Coleman's lawsuit will reverse the election results. (For kicks: intrade shows 95% odds that Franken wins in the end.) The main effect (and maybe even the goal) of the lawsuit is to keep the Senate from seating Al Franken for the first month or two of the Obama Administration, making the Senate slightly more red than it should be during those important weeks.

My only sorta-disappointment in the whole thing is that there was no single moment of victory. The understanding that Franken would win grew slowly throughout the recount process. But dang, this win feels good. There is some justice in the universe. Al Franken shoves Norm Coleman out of Paul Wellstone's seat. Minnesota has another good guy in the Senate.

Introducing Micro-Progress

"Micro-Progress" posts will be a recurring theme on this blog, highlighting local-level stories of progressive activism and progressive victories. Highlighting the "small" stories shows that every one of us can be an activist, and that we need not be intimidated by those who try to make politics a game for experts and famous people. 

Every day, thousands of Americans take steps to improve their own lives and the lives of their neighbors, even when doing so goes against political orthodoxy. Every day, thousands of Americans take small, important stands in their communities against a worn-out philosophy that places the profit and privilege of the powerful over the needs of people. 

Micro-Progress posts will attempt to tell these stories. 

Finally, we all need periodic reminding that local adds up to global, that micro-progress adds up to macro-progress. All the great progressive victories of American history were merely accumulations of the micro-victories of ordinary Americans. All of our great people's movements were merely collections of individual people who decided to begin taking responsibility and begin taking action.

So now, on to our first Micro-Progress story...

Over the holidays, I came across a tiny AP story in my hometown newspaper. The headline read, "Ohio Schools Keep Cafeterias Open For Holidays." Basically, a school district outside Cincinnati decided to leave its cafeterias open over Christmas break to provide hot lunches for needy students, and it was the first time the district had ever done that. That's it.

   

(photos by Ernest Coleman/The Enquirer)

In other words, some folks in the school district thought, "We have hungry kids in the community. We have food and a place to serve it. Let's make it happen."

I read the article and thought, "I bet the simplicity and compassion of this story would drive arch-conservatives nuts." Think about it, public money funding a public institution to feed poor children. That's "spreading the wealth around!" That's "redistribution!" That's socialism! Or communism! Or something.

Well, sure enough...

The Cincinnati Enquirer has a longer version of the story, and on the website readers can leave comments. Out of a total of five commenters, three people are angry about the schools feeding poor children, one person's comment was removed by the moderator, and one person is supportive of the program.  

One real charmer writes, ""If you can't feed, clothe and provide shelter for [your children] DON'T HAVE THEM." 

(In other words, "Sorry little girl. We can't feed you. Your mother shouldn't have given birth to you.")

Another champ, who goes by Diddy56, complains about, "too many handouts" and "people [abusing] the system."

Lunchlady82 writes, "Constant handouts only make people lazy. These people have no direction or goals. They just stumble through life and have no plan from one day to the next."

(In other words, "Sorry little girl. We can't open this can of apple sauce, because it will make you lazy. You need goals.")

In the future, Better Than Machines will revisit the topic of people who are barely getting by resenting those who aren't getting by--where that resentment comes from, how it's manifested, who it serves. But for now...

Here's a round of applause for the North College Hill School District, for doing the right thing with the resources they have, even if it goes against what we're told is politically acceptable. I'd call that Micro-Progress.    

One Thousand George Bushes, One Thousand Dick Cheneys

My wife and I just returned from a nice, long holiday visit with family and friends in Florida. I've been thinking about what 2009 might bring, with the new Administration and new Congress. I've also been thinking about what it will be like to finally put the Bush Era behind us and begin a national healing and rebuilding process. It definitely won't be quick or easy. 

For some reason, a remark Bruce Springsteen made while campaigning for Barack Obama has been echoing in my head. Those who know me well know that I believe Springsteen is a modern-day Woody Guthrie. You can bet this won't be the last time he is quoted on this blog. Here's what Mr. Springsteen said:

"I've continued to find,wherever I go, America remains a repository of people's hopes, possibilities, and desires, and that despite the terrible erosion to our standing around the world, accomplished by our recent administration, we remain, for many, a house of dreams. One thousand George Bushes and one thousand Dick Cheneys will never be able to tear that house down."

This is a line from a speech Springsteen made in Philadephia on October 4th, during an acoustic set at a Vote for Change Rally. The transcript of the speech is here and you can see video of his entire set here. 

I think the reason those words resonate with me is this: In the darkest days of the Bush years, it really did look like we were losing things that we might not get back. It felt like our country was slowly slipping away from us. For me, it wasn't just the torture, the erosion of habeas corpus, the corporations running regulatory agencies, the lies that led to war, the incompetence and ignorance, or any of the other many shocks. 

What was scary was the manner in which it all happened. It was as if resistance was futile. As the shocks continued to mount, the government all but gave us the finger and laughed in our faces. We got used to White House spokespersons who would blatantly lie to a room full of media who were almost completely cowed into submission. As late as March 2008, when an ABC reporter pointed out to Dick Cheney that recent polls showed about two-thirds of Americans thought the war in Iraq was not worth it, Cheney replied, "So?" 

It was as if to say, "Ha! What are they gonna do about it?"

Well, I've realized that Bruce is right. The historic grassroots mobilization witnessed during the campaign, the rumblings of an awakened spirit of activism, and the marked change in the tone of our national political dialogue demonstrate that, in fact, we will not be conquered. George Bush and Dick Cheney can batter America, but they can't tear it down. Ideas of "opportunity, equality, social and economic justice, a fair shake for all our citizens" are too deeply ingrained here for George and Dick to waltz into Washington and ruin it all.

Merry Christmas from Better Than Machines

Three Christmasy tidbits:

1. Here's an early Christmas present for you: Al Franken has pretty much won the Minnesota Senate race against Norm Coleman. On Christmas Eve, the state's Supreme Court unanimously rejected Coleman's last-ditch legal attempt to prevent the state from certifying the election recount results, which show Franken winning by 47 votes. Now Coleman's really-last-ditch option is a lawsuit contesting Franken's victory.

2. In case you didn't know, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) is tracking Santa's flight. Check it out here. 

3. Here are the Christmas songs in my head right now. Whether you believe them or not, they are powerful words.

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;

It is the night of the dear Savior's birth!

Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 

Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

and...

Christ by highest heav'n adored 

Christ the everlasting Lord!

Late in time behold Him come

Offspring of a Virgin's womb

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see

Hail the incarnate Deity

Pleased as man with man to dwell

Jesus, our Emmanuel

Hark! the herals angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!

Hail the Son of Righteousness!

Light and life to all He brings

Ris'n with healing in His wings

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth

Born to give them second birth

Hark! The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

The War on Christmas

As millions of Americans gather with family and friends this week to celebrate the birth of Jesus and the mystery of the Incarnation, political conservatives hope you'll remember one important message:

Liberals are waging a War on Christmas!

Obviously, if your political and economic fortunes depend on preventing working folks from acting to better their own lives, you need to come up with plenty of things to keep them distracted. You can make elections about sex 'n guns; you can set poor whites against poor blacks and vice versa; and you can invent foreign threats from almost random Third World countries. But I guess every now and then you have to throw out some totally bizarre, freak-show fantasies--you know, just to mix things up.

Our friends at Fox News have been talking up a "War on Christmas," as part of a larger assault against Christianity itself, since at least 2004. Bill O'Reilly boldly casts himself as champion of the people, fighting to save the holiday against "the far left," "the loony left," "the Kool-Aid secular progressive ACLU America-haters." In 2004, O'Reilly began a recurring segment on his show called "Christmas Under Siege." In 2005, one of the other Fox crazies, John Gibson, published a book called, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.

The evidence offered that "liberals" are waging war against our favorite holiday usually falls into one of two categories: 1) Employees at retail stores saying "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," or 2) A small town somewhere deciding not to allow a religious display at a public building. That's the "war." 

I guess by now we are used to the manufactured, never-ending culture war, where big-money talking heads on TV dress up as everymen to take on a mostly mythical "liberal elite." Sometimes we should just laugh it off. But if we are really interested in "defending" Christianity against concerted attacks, let's focus on real stories of religious persecution instead of made-up ones. Let's change our dog-eat-dog culture, where we mask plain old greed as "success." Let's love our neighbors as ourselves, even when that involves resources and money. It's radical, but so is following Christ. 

Pay-to-Play Politics: It's Not Just Republicans

Two quick examples from recent news about how our political system encourages money-for-power, power-for-money exchanges. Both involve Democrats.

First, we have Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly trying to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat. The only thing surprising about this story is how completely unsubtle Blago appears to have been about the whole thing and how utterly red-handed he appears. Normally these kinds of scandals are harder for the public to follow, but this story broke big and broke fast.

Another observation: People initially bandied about Jesse Jackson Jr.'s name as one of the alleged "bidders" for the seat, mentioned in the Justice Department's affidavit. (Everybody knows he is interested in the seat.) People absolutely love to smear Jesse's father, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. After all, whenever a well-known civil rights leader connects racism, extreme economic inequality, and war as three parts of the same evil, there are just too many powerful people who have an interest in silencing or discrediting him.

Well, it now looks like Jesse Jr. is the good guy in this story. He is apparently the one who first tipped off the Justice Department to the whole Blagojevich Corruption Machine.

Second, Caroline Kennedy appears to be the front-runner to be appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's vacant Senate seat in New York. I have nothing against Caroline. But the only reason there is even a possibility she will be the next senator from New York is that her last name is Kennedy and she is wealthy and famous. According to this AP story, Kennedy "told New York's governor on Monday that she's interested in the U.S. Senate seat." In other words, she just called up the governor and talked to him and that's why she is now the front-runner. Wow, why didn't any of the millions of other Democrats in New York think of that? Just call the governor, duh.

Both of these stories arise from an obvious flaw in the system: governors can appoint people to fill vacant Senate seats. I have not heard any major discussion of this as a systemic problem. Instead, Blajojevich is treated as just a bad apple. The best we can come up with is that he should be removed from office and charged with a crime. No real changes necessary. In Kennedy's case, we call it another example of shallow, personality-based politics and America's dynastic tendencies (which it is). But no one calls for any lasting change to fix anything.

How about this: A new constitutional amendment saying that governors can no longer fill vacant senate seats. Instead, a special election is held 120 days after the seat's vacancy.