Them that got shall get
them that not shall lose
so the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that got his own
-Billie Holiday

The public discussion about the bonus compensation of executive in the financial sector raises questions about the kind of society we have chosen to be. Last week Goldman Sachs announced that it was on track to dispense a record $23 billion in bonuses for 2009. This is just one company.  This week the Obama administration ordered the firms that received taxpayer money to bail out these companies to slash compensation to their highest-paid employees.  However, while compensation will be pared substantially from what the highest-paid people at the company might have received under normal circumstances, executives will still be permitted to receive multimillion-dollar pay packages.

Turn to sports and we find Phillip Rivers, quarterback of the San Diego Chargers, signing a $92. million six year contract extension. Not be out done, Eli Manning of the New York Giants, signed a six year contract extension for $97.5 million. LaBron James is waiting to sign perhaps the most lucrative contract in sports history.  He is sure to make mega-millions.  Meanwhile, teachers and everyday workers are struggling to make ends meet.  The average teacher salary is $51,000. The median starting salary for a teacher is around $32,000. It may take a few years for a teacher to build up enough experience to move very far beyond that starting salary. In contrast, California correctional officer’s maximum base annual salary is $73,728.

The salaries we paid workers in various sectors of our society are a reflection of the value we place on these people and their professions. Little wonder then that students in the USA lag behind other industrial nations in literacy, math and science. The U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics reports that thirty-eight percent of all fourth graders in the United States can’t read this simple poem. In a study of how good 15-year-olds are in math, USA ranked 24 out of 29 countries. That’s behind the Czech Republic and New Zealand. The Washing Post reported that scores from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment showed that U.S. 15-year-olds trailed their peers from many industrialized countries. The average science score of U.S. students lagged behind those in 16 of 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group that represents the world’s richest countries.

The diversion we have been fed around the false choices for health care, the so called federal deficit, and the twisted lives of celebrities, hide the fact that the real indicators of where we are going as a nation are trending downward. This is largely due to the moral and political choice we have allowed to be made in our name under the guise of “responsible government” and “living within our means”.  Consequently, education and the learning institutions have been starved, and the salary we pay teachers for the sacred duty of educating our children is not that far above the poverty level in terms of real wages.  What Americans are going to have to come to terms with is that is no longer a choice of whose best able to run the country and solve problems, democrats or republican.  None have the interest of everyday working people at heart.  A baseline will have to be established politics that says whichever party is in power, there are baseline matters which are non negotiable-affordable health care, quality education, jobs with decent pay, nurturing caring communities, and access of everyday people

On October 16th, 1968, two African-American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, raised their fist in a black power salute during the playing of the national anthem at the Olympics. The two had just placed medal times in the 200 meter dash during the Mexico City games. Smith’s record setting sprint brought him gold and Carlos took bronze. As the National Anthem began playing, the pair lowered their heads and raised their fists in what would become an iconic image of the black struggle for equality. As members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, the athletes also were shoeless to protest black poverty and wore beads to highlight the crime of lynching. For their symbolic protest, Smith and Carlos were promptly banned from the games and expelled from the Olympic Village. The corporate press back in the U.S. had a field day ostracizing the two for their supposed lack of respect. Both Smith and Carlos faced hard times and death threats when they returned home from the games, but the image of resistance they staged lives on, not in infamy, but in annuls of subversive history.

The protest and sacrifice by Smith and Carlos is an instructive example of the courage needed today to deliver on the promise of a “more perfect union.”  We honor and salute Tommie Smith and John Carlos-thou more than heroes- for their heroic action in the service of a better America

As we approach the last quarter of 2009, what has become preeminently clear is that we are rapidly approaching a divided and angry America.  What President Obama and the Democrats seem not to understand is that their unwillingness to advance polices which make ordinary American a priority-mortgage bail out, affordable health care, employment created through public works- has created a void where the most racist and crazed right wing spokespersons have stepped into and are speaking to the worst selves of Americans.  To be sure, these spokespersons, Beck, Limbaugh, Palin and others are speaking to the anger that many Americans are feeling as a result of their loss of work and employment and dignity. Too many American may very well come to believe, help from the right wing, that Obama and the elites, i.e., Democrats, are looking out for Wall Street’s interest rather than “everyday American people’s interest.  When viewed against Franklin Roosevelt’s approach to the financial crisis in the 1930s, there may be a kernel of truth to this accusation which will be exploited by the rights wing.

The irony and consequence of the Obama and the Democrats betrayal of ordinary Americans will be the acceleration of an authoritarian culture and movement in American dressed-up as populist movement. Undoubtedly, like all authoritarian movement, there will be scapegoats and victims.  This is not an alarmist perspective, but reading of American History. History, American in particular, is replete with instances where ordinary Americans have been turned against each other.  We must now force Obama and the Democrats to live up to the promise of a better America for ordinary American.

Unquestionably, the Presidency of Barack Obama will judge on the effectiveness of his policies and the success of his domestic and foreign agenda.  Yet, the framework which he develops and implements his policies and domestic and foreign agenda is as important as the policies themselves.  In fact, the framework-a value driven one, based on a different set of priorities and commitments, will in large measure determine Obama’s success in bring “real” change to America.

Thus, as important as health care reform, closing Guantanamo detention facility, regulations for banks and business, increasing employment is at this moment in America, advancing a new framework with the infrastructure to support that framework is of much greater importance and significance and if achieved will be an enduring legacy of Barack Obama.  However, to be far-reaching and drive fundamental change, this framework must be based on a values system which: 1) places people over corporate profits, 2) emphasizes collective responsibility, especially for those who have been marginalized and made to feel responsible for their misery, 3) supports an economic system which attends to the general welfare of all the people, not just the privileged, 4) empowers everyday working people to determine their own destiny, and 5) gives purpose and meaning to their lives.

This is task which we must help Obama achieve.  For, it is abundantly clear that with the advisors around him and his incremental approach to change, based not solely on his own conservative inclination, he will continue to try to improve the current system which is destructive and at odds with what Americans and the people of the world need in order to live and to reach their highest potential as humans. However, to make this happen, “We the people” must take the first and last steps in establishing this new, value-driven policy and political framework.

Let’s start out by acknowledging that the employees of ACORN (Association of Community Organization for Reform Now) who were caught in an undercover “sting” that saw them encourage criminal and unethical behavior were wrong and should be fired.  The story of ACORN should end there.  However, because of the politically motivated vendetta which banks, insurance companies and the Republican Party and rightwing pundits have against ACORN, ACORN has been made into the poster child of corruption.  Both the corporate and rightwing media (Fox News) have slandered ACORN. A recent study by Peter Dreier EP Clapp Distinguish Professor of Politics, Occidental College found that of the news stories on ACORN:

• 70%  failed to quote ACORN
• 82.8% failed to mentioned that ACORN reported voter fraud
• 82.2% failed to mentioned that voter fraud is rare
• 11% falsely claimed that Obama worked for ACORN
• 76% focused on voter fraud
•  80.3% failed to mentioned that ACORN reported voter registration irregularities
• 85.1 failed to note that ACORN was acting to stop incidents of registration problems by its temporary employees
• 61.4% failed to acknowledge that the Republican Party was trying to discredit Obama with an ACORN scandal

The study exposes the media as being complicit with conservatives, Republicans and the rightwing in smearing ACORN.  What is disturbing about this is that ACORN was falsely accused of inappropriate behavior and activities by the media which took it cue from the rightwing.  Second, before genuflecting before the rightwing, neither the Democrats nor the media ask the obvious question: what have been the accomplishments of ACORN and should not this be balanced against what ever problems ACORN may have encountered.  What the media and the Democrats would have discovered is that besides engaging the marginalize, mainly people of color living in low-income areas, in the electoral process, ACORN has been on the front line in fight banks and insurance companies who were engaged in unethical business practices.

What is clear is that ACORN has played a constructive role in electoral politic and in correcting injustices in low-income communities.  Ironically, both Democrat and Republican elected officials have engaged in far more serious and reprehensible behavior than members of ACORN.  Yet, the media does not call for their extinction. Instead, they explain away their behavior or put the blame on a few bad apples.  ACORN deserves the same consideration.  For if it can happen to them, it surely can happen to your favorite organization.

Former President Carter’s comment on the racism, displayed toward President Obama, under the disguise of protest was courageous and morally responsible.  Despite Obama’s denial of race as a motivator behind the protesters criticisms, Carter’s statement is supported by pattern of racist remarks, signs and actions by the protestors at the behest and support of the Republican Party.  Carter’s comments and observations are important for the following reasons:

1.    Carter is a white southerner who grew-up in the segregated South.  Thus, we can not be dismissed as a “liberal” who is out of touch.  He has legitimacy.
2.    Carter is a former president and thus commands and audience.  He can not be dismissed as a radical or “community activist.”
3.    Carter is taking and “anti-racist” position, which is important moral and political ground for other whites.
4.    Carter is making the criticism which the “corporate” media should be engaged in.
5.    Carter’s comments unmask the intent and motivation of those protesting under the pretext of “Big Government.” Where were these protestors during the “Big Government and wasteful spending of George W Bush years?

We should show support for Carter- write, email or call.  A fellow southerner and Georgian, Martin Luther King, said of persons like Carter:  “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.”  Carter has shown the measure of his morality and courage.  We are a better nation and people because of his courage.