=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #419
—December 8, 1994—
News and resources for environmental justice.
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BIG-PICTURE ORGANIZING–PART 2: POLLUTED POLITICS
Michael Colby is sprawled across his armchair, ruminating on the
recent elections. “Newt Gingrich is a gift,” says Colby with a
broad smile. “He’s just what we need.” With his crew cut, faded
plaid shirt and old Levi’s, Colby seems like a lanky young farmer
attuned to the details of weather, seeds, and soil. Colby does
help his wife, who runs an organic farm, but his main occupation
is strategist for anti-toxics campaigns around food safety, with
an eye firmly fixed on the big picture. Colby heads Food &
Water, Inc., in Marshfield, Vermont [phone: 1-800-EAT-SAFE].
Food & Water has joined three battles simultaneously: to stop
food irradiation, to get BGH (synthetic growth hormone) out of
cow’s milk, and, most recently, to end the use of dangerous
pesticides. Yes, END THE USE.
Colby sees the problem this way: chemical corporations have
invaded the food industry because they profit handsomely when
their poisons are pumped onto or into our food. Someone else
reaps the consequences. “They’ve got to be stopped, that’s all
there is to it,” he says. They CAN be stopped because Americans
care about their health; good, safe food is essential to health;
and people “get it” about the chemical corporations.
Furthermore, taking on the chemical corporations provides a great
vehicle for talking about other problems brought on by corporate
dominance of our culture, Colby says.
How can we take on the chemical companies by campaigning for safe
food? Colby sees the problem the way any good organizer might: we
devise strategies that capture the imagination of the public, get
people engaged, and focus their anger on winnable goals. Colby
says its definitely doable.
If people “get it” about corporations, how do we explain the
Republican success on November 8?
In a recent interview, Colby told THE NATION, “I’ve got to hand
it to the Republicans for tapping into the latent anger in the
American electorate. For me, this election was about people
trying to take back their government. What they will soon find
out, however, is that we don’t live in an individual democracy,
but a corporate republic. Grass-roots environmental campaigns
will be able to capitalize on that realization.” [1]
For their part, the Republicans claim they were swept into office
November 8 by their “Contract With America,” a 10-point promise
to reduce capital gains taxes for the rich, end welfare handouts
to the children of unwed mothers, base all of the nation’s
government regulations on the junk science of cost-benefit
analysis and risk assessment, fatten up the military to crush
imagined attackers, [2]make it harder for consumers to bring
lawsuits against corporations that sell dangerous products, and
protect Wall Street manipulators from certain kinds of investor
lawsuits. [3]
But these promises are NOT what swept the Republicans into
office. To begin with, only 39% of eligible voters voted; 61%
stayed home. [4]
Secondly, a TIME MAGAZINE/CNN poll reveals that only 12% of the
voters voted Republican because they favored the Republican
platform. Seventy-four percent voted “Against Bill Clinton” or
“Against the Democrats,” according to TIME. [5] Now 12% of 39% =
4.7%, so Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” received a
positive mandate from a scant 4.7% of the voters on November 8.
Who put the Republicans into office this year? Not people with
annual incomes of $30,000 or less; they voted overwhelmingly
Democrat. People making $30,000 to $49,000 per year split their
votes between Democrats and Republicans. Yet the Republicans
won. “The Republicans won this year not because they achieved
record support among any class of voters, but because rich people
voted. About 7% more voters were wealthy this year than in 1992;
and 7% fewer were working class. The shift in turnout was enough
to cost the Democrats control of Congress,” says Peter Levine, a
researcher at the University of Maryland. [6]
Money bought the election, in every sense. You have to have big
money just to become a candidate. According to Ellen Miller, of
the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C., in 1992,
the average House race cost $542,000. In other words, you had to
have half-a-million dollars in the bank just to run for a seat in
Congress. In 1994, it was even more expensive.
When Bill Clinton ran for President in 1992 he promised to get
money out of politics. He said then that American politics was
being held “hostage” by monied interests. He said “political
action committees, industry lobbies, and cliques of $100,000
donors buy access to Congress and the White House.” [7] However,
after winning the Presidency, Mr. Clinton gave campaign finance
reform a low priority, and he failed to push a reform bill
through his own Democratically-controlled Congress. THE NEW YORK
TIMES editorialized (May 31, 1994), “Mr. Clinton has spent more
time and energy courting well-to-do donors at fancy private
receptions than prodding Congress to enact serious political
reform.” During his first 20 months in office, Mr. Clinton
personally raised $40 million in Democratic political donations.
“Mr. Clinton is the best money draw his party has enjoyed in
decades,” the NEW YORK TIMES says. [7]
Nevertheless, Republicans have more money to spend than Democrats
do. The NEW YORK TIMES observes, “Indeed, even though Mr. Clinton
has sharply closed the gap, the Democrats still get creamed by
Republican money men. Through the first 18 months of Mr.
Clinton’s term in office, the Democratic National Committee and
its fundraising organs in the House and Senate raised $83
million, as against $162 million raised by the Republicans.” [7]
Does money get you elected? Candidates that outspent their
opponents won 30 of the 35 Senate races in 1994 (83%), and 370 of
the 435 Congressional races (85%). [8] Clearly, money translates
directly into votes.
The Republicans argue that unleashing “free market” forces –and
reducing taxes on corporations and on the rich –will allow the
economy to grow so everyone can benefit. This is what the
country tried throughout the 1980s; this is Reaganomics.
Unfortunately, the facts reveal that this “trickle down” or
“supply side” theory plunges the nation into massive debt, makes
the rich richer, swells the poverty rolls, and reduces the income
and security of the middle class.
The economy has been growing in recent years, but so has economic
inequality. The U.S. Census Bureau reported in October that
average per-person income rose in 1993, but 72% of the growth
went to the wealthy. [9] A full 40% of the growth went to the top
5%, the group that Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls “the
overclass.” [10] The top fifth of American households took 48.2%
of the nation’s income in 1993; the bottom fifth received just
3.6% –an historic record for inequitable distribution of income
in America. [9]
From 1989 to 1993, the typical American household lost $2,344 in
annual income, a loss of 7%. Between 1970 and 1993, working
people without a college degree –75% of the American workforce
–saw their wages decline 12%. [9] Labor Secretary Reich says one
important reason for the decline of wages is that growth in
corporate profits is not being passed along to workers. The
Secretary issued a stern warning November 22: “If American
business continues to pursue short-term profits at the price of
insecurity and falling living standards for a large portion of
our society, it will sooner or later reap the bitter harvest of
popular rage.” [10]
In a recent national poll, 55% of American adults said they no
longer believed that you could build a better life for yourself
and your family by working hard and playing by the rules. Of
those without college degrees, 68% said they no longer believe
it. [10]
Corporate America, guided by a wealthy, self-serving “overclass,”
has polluted our politics, hijacked our democracy, and diminished
the American dream. For now the anger and frustration of the
public is being manipulated by Newt Gingrich and other children
of George Wallace. For now, the targets of rage are immigrants,
welfare mothers, government officials, gays, and an ill-defined
“counter-culture.” But this could change; it represents an
unprecedented opportunity for organizers and activists.
Dan Cantor, executive director of the New Party, formed in 1992
as an alternative to the two major parties, and now active in 10
states [phone: (212) 302-5053], sums it up: “This election marked
the end of liberalism, but not in the simplistic way Mr. Gingrich
believes. The state has failed, and the free market is failing.
For most Americans, getting government off our backs is just one
piece of the job. The real task is to get government on our side
and to rein in a market system gone berserk.” [11]
Where do we begin? “We connect with people through their
health,” says Michael Colby of Food & Water. “Then we talk to
them about family, community, and the principles of the Founding
Fathers. Corporations aren’t just poisoning us, they’re running
us off the land, taking our skills, destroying our democracy.
People understand that.”
[To be continued.]
                
                
                
                
    
–Peter Montague
===============
[1] Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, “Death and Life for
America’s Greens,” THE NATION (December 19, 1994), pgs. 760-765.
[4] Steven V. Roberts, “Sea Change,” U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT
(Nov. 21, 1994), pg. 39.
[5] John F. Stacks, “Stampede!,” TIME (November 21, 1994), pg. 48.
[7] Michael Wines, “President Grows a Money Tree,” NEW YORK TIMES
October 1, 1994, pg. 9.
[8] “Can’t buy me love, but…,” IN THESE TIMES November 28,
1994, pg. 7.
Descriptor terms: michael colby; food & water; pesticides; rbgh;
bgh; radiation; food irradiation; food safety; newt gingrich;
republicans; democrats; farming; farmers; elections; campaign
finance reform; contract with america; military buildup; consumer
products; lawsuits; product safety; wall street; wealth; income
distribution; ellen miller; center for responsive politics; bill
clinton; supply side economics; trickle down economics;
reaganomics; robert reich; dan cantor; new party; political
organizing; corporations;