Community Programs Offer New Vision for America
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In 2008, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor joined with the Teamsters, the city administration and the Port of Los Angeles to create the innovative Clean Truck Program to combat the toxic emissions that had caused spikes in asthma, cancer and mortality rates among children, truck drivers, the elderly, dockworkers and residents near Southern California’s transportation corridors.
The Clean Truck Program is a prime example of the ways workers and community leaders can work together to rebuild our economy and create a new vision for the future, Northeastern University professor Joan Fitzgerald told a forum on “Rebuilding America From The Bottom Up” at the America’s Future Now conference, which ends today.
Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation, praised the Clean Truck Program in a statement last year:
“Small and large companies alike have seen the economic advantages of environmental stewardship, and have invested over $500 million in low-emission fleets. Over 60 percent of the cargo that arrives at our shores is now moved to American stores by professional, hard-working drivers in clean trucks—three years ahead of schedule to meet emission-reduction targets.”
While national policy issues remain important, in our nation’s cities, rural areas and regions, workers and community leaders are creating and testing new and innovative ideas to turn the country around. In the process, progressives are finding support from liberals and conservatives for a new vision of America, Fitzgerald and other panelists said.
Lessons of Financial Collapse Can’t Be Ignored
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If the nation ignores the history of what caused the collapse of the financial system, says Phil Angelides,
“We will be doomed to bail it out again.”
Angelides is chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission charged with finding the causes and culprits behind the nation’s economic disaster. Speaking at panel discussion this afternoon at the America’s Future Now conference, Angelides said he dubbed the meltdown, “the immaculate financial crisis” because no one on Wall Street, the Big Banks or the deregulating policy makers that controlled the reins of the system, will take responsibility.
There has been almost no reflection by Wall Street over the crisis because the American taxpayers gave them $1 trillion. Wall Street reform is a start, not an end. We have to commit to changes in our financial system so it works for the many, not the few.
Pelosi Says Job Creation Is Economically and Ethically Right
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Creating jobs and forging an economy that breaks out of the boom-and-bust cycle that always leaves working families busted is both good policy and morally right, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told the hundreds of progressive activists at the America’s Future Now conference this morning.
“We have an ethical responsibility to create good jobs and economic necessity to create good jobs.”
She said it is imperative that lawmakers, policymakers and especially voters work to “achieve an economic prosperity that not only puts people back to work,” but opens the doors of economic opportunity that have been shut for the millions of people at the bottom of the economic ladder.
We need to create a new prosperity….Let’s build a future—America’s Future now based on job creation—jobs, jobs, jobs.
Jobs, Economic Fears—Not Love of Right—Fuel Workers’ Anger
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The nation’s working families “are understandably frustrated, anxious and angry,” says AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker.
“They are angry at Wall Street and the government…they don’t see anybody out there fighting with passion for good jobs…the forces of the right are at work to turn that anger in a dangerous direction.”
Holt Baker moderated a panel discussion—Working Class Anger: Does it Go Left or Right?—this afternoon at the America’s Future Now conference examining the roots of the anger that the mainstream media often portrays as the fuel that feeds the right-wing Tea Party movement.
Pollster Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners says people’s distrust of government is at an all-time high. That distrust stems from their economic concerns and fears that the government hasn’t been able to sooth, but is not an endorsement of the radical anti-government stance of the extreme right, she says.
America’s Future Now Conference Sets Progressive Vision
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The America’s Future Now conference kicks off this morning. During the next three days, the largest gathering of progressive activists, leaders and lawmakers will map out an economic and political agenda for change—and the organizing strategies for taking that agenda to the country.
Those strategies will focus on fighting the corporate lobbies that stand in the way of economic justice and reform; energizing and building a movement for jobs now; and creating a progressive majority that challenges both obstructionist Republicans and timid Democrats.
We’ll bring you reports from several of the sessions, panels and break out groups.
Progressives Set for America’s Future Now Conference, June 7–9
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More than a year into the Obama administration and with November elections just ahead, progressive activists will gather June 7–9 in Washington, D.C., to forge a strategy to build a majority for real change in America.
The America’s Future Now conference, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), traditionally is the largest gathering of progressives in the country. There’s still time to register for the conference. Register now here or click on the America’s Future Now icon above.
Grassroots activists and policy-wonk analysts have gathered at the campaign’s conferences each year for six years to forge an economic agenda for change—and the organizing strategies for taking that agenda to the country.
America’s Future Now Conference, June 7-9
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Join progressive activists next month at the America’s Future Now Conference to help forge a battle plan that takes on corporate power brokers, Wall Street banks and obstructionist Republicans and moves the economy into a job-creating mode.
The annual conference, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF), is set for June 7-9 in Washington, D.C., and the top issues on the agenda are:
- Curbing Wall Street with strong Wall Street reform legislation.
- Improving and expanding health care reform.
- Making it in America with a revived manufacturing base.
- Protecting the social contract, especially Social Security and Medicare.
Ayers on Green Jobs: An Opportunity to Restore American Dream
Investing in our national physical infrastructure and moving to a greener economy present tremendous opportunities for the government and business, union and community groups to develop a new economic strategy that could restore the American Dream to millions of workers, the president of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD) said.
With as many as 100 million people living in families that earn less in real terms than their parents did at the same age, the American Dream is in trouble, BCTD President Mark Ayers told the America’s Future Now conference earlier this week.
If the situation persists where the vast majority of economic gains go to those at the very top and where most people are removed from upward mobility, then we are at risk of destabilizing our economic and social structures.
So, it is clear that this is a watershed moment in American history.
Old Economy Doesn’t Work—Time for a New Model
An economy in which the rest of the world produces and America consumes no longer works. The United States must begin to make more of the things we consume. That will require a new vision for our economy and concrete actions to change the core policies that created the current global economic crisis.
Speaking during a workshop at the America’s Future Now conference this morning, several members of a panel on global economic strategy said the key to long-term economic recovery is the creation of a new economic model that emphasizes production and savings, not consumption.
That new vision must include actions to fight the major causes of the collapse of U.S. manufacturing—currency manipulation, trade policies that foster a race to the cheapest sources of labor, tax policies that encourage companies to move offshore and the imbalance of power between workers and employers.
Bail Out Average Americans, Not Bankers
Behind all the hype and technical jargon surrounding the nation’s banking and mortgage crises, the bottom line comes down to answering this question: Does the nation want to spend its resources on rich bank stockholders or on roads, bridges, schools and other necessary projects?
Speaking during a workshop at the America’s Future Now conference this morning, several members of a panel on the banking crisis said the financial system is broken and that the Obama administration’s plan to fix it doesn’t address the scope of the problem. The three-day conference is sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future.
(Click here to read more news and views from the America’s Future Now conference. You also can listen to the conference sessions live on BlogTalk Radio here.)
The administration is holding its breath, hoping big banks will recover the value of some of their assets over time if taxpayers bail them out over the short haul, said Damon Silvers, vice chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel.
