Unstoppable (11 page)

       
14.
   
End unconstitutional wars and enforce Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution, which includes the exclusive congressional authority to declare war.

       
15.
   
Revise trade agreements to protect US sovereignty, and resume full congressional deliberations, ending fast track.

       
16.
   
Protect children from commercialism and its physical and mental exploitation and harm.

       
17.
   
End corporate personhood.

       
18.
   
Control more of the commons that we already own.

       
19.
   
Get tough on corporate crime, providing penalties and enforcement budgets.

       
20.
   
Ramp up investor power by strengthening investor-protection laws and by creating a penny brigade to pay for an investor watchdog agency.

       
21.
   
Oppose the patenting of life forms, including human genes.

       
22.
   
End the ineffective war on drugs.

       
23.
   
Push for environmentalism.

       
24.
   
Reform health care.

       
25.
   
Create convergent institutions.

It is important to think about
how to think about
convergence before we look over these proposed reforms. Otherwise, there will be too many wayward or excessive expectations, missed opportunities, and/or abrupt prejudgment about changes in one area after another. Herewith some guidelines:

First
, for each agenda, divide the subject between procedural and substantive convergence. We can agree on a general policy or stance without having to also agree on the exact implications
or use that would be made of a policy. For example, years ago LibCons agreed on the value of the federal and state Freedom of Information acts, which were directed to having a more open government. These laws can be used by anybody, regardless of who they are, and the requesters cannot be denied because of their motivation. So, let us imagine, one researcher may dig into the background of a Democratic governor's actions because the examiner is looking to expose corruption, while another may be looking into this same material because he or she is a partisan Republican desiring to expose any member of the other party. Each would have equal right to the records. Procedural stage 1 having been accomplished, with Freedom of Information acts passed, LibCons will have to decide whether they agree on exactly what files or internal reports to obtain at any given time. That is the substantive stage.

Second
, some of these initiatives can be advanced based on various positions or actions of the LCs over time that occur independently of one another, as long as they are solidly based on the principles and philosophies of liberalism and conservatism.

Third
, whether or not there is a likelihood of the proposed reform being adopted or enacted in its entirety, the proper mindset is to aim high, but recognize that only a partial realization is possible at a given time. If one doesn't score the rare home run, then a single, double, triple, or run-saving catch or throw can be considered real progress.

Fourth
, it may be worth the effort if we just commence a public discussion and debate on the topic. After all, everything starts with a conversation. Given the impoverishment of public and political dialogue these days, talking about something overcomes rooted self-censorship and shatters the taboos that have frozen freedom in the first place. If you visit our group's website,
www.debatingtaboos.org
, you'll see some actual debates shown on C-SPAN on usually taboo subjects as well as commentary about the necessity of confronting these typically unmentioned topics.

Fifth
, in any given convergence, there will be uneven contributions by the LCs because one or the other has the most experience, best Rolodex, or more fire in the belly behind the desire to join together. This, naturally, is to be expected and welcomed. An illustration is Head Start, launched mostly by eager liberals but now backed by many conservatives because of its efficient effectiveness at early childhood education.

Sixth
, even with concurrence on the goals, there will likely be difference over the means. Taxation reform is a prime illustration of this point. Conservatives and liberals are both in favor of it, but they have quite different ideas of how it should be done. Knowing this from the beginning may signal a temporary no-go or mean that each member of the alliance, having launched the demand for change together, can then proceed on their own to put forward their version of how it should be done.

Seventh
, it is likely that the pioneers in any early convergence move will receive criticism from loyalists and invite career retaliation, ostracism, or some other expressions of disapproval. Pioneers must be prepared and able to stay true to their convictions.

Eighth
, we can reasonably ask at what point on the continuum of LC collaboration can the effort be deemed to reach convergence? Is it when one L and one C converge? Or is there a critical mass needed to show that the convergence is really underway? The question is as hard to answer as this one: When does the Mississippi become a river, starting from its origins in drops of water in Minnesota that turn into rivulets, then brooks, streams, and tributaries? It is all in the flow, the direction, and the expanding replenishment. The various publics will notice when the takeoff occurs.

Ninth
, when the LCs lock arms and get going, they will have to come together over what advocacy tools to use and what arenas to enter, considering what is available in a democratic society. Should they work through legislatures? The courts? Regulatory or procurement agencies? Should they work with entrepreneurs
(commercial or nonprofit), those in the academic world, media, the retired, prominent persons, the enlightened super-rich, whistle-blowers, shareholders, grassroots campaigns? Ls and Cs often have different contacts, backgrounds, and tastes in connection with such levers of change, and how they are applied will have to be worked out in the same spirit of convergence.

Tenth
, one noteworthy benefit of working on alliances is that the very experience with convergence stimulates the depth of our basic humanity and sense of justice. It is too easy to be cut off from others by narrow worldviews. Well-meaning, serious people are not immune to the infinite capacity of humans to self-deceive, to make their brain's capabilities prisoners of their cloistered, tunnel-vision minds. And when it involves the monistic merchant or commercial mind, especially that fostered by Big Business, we find this perspective responsible for some of the most astonishing absurdities. This is particularly visible in the way Big Business executives predicted calamities for their industries that are now seen as accepted, commonsense reforms and regulations. Businessmen publicly predicted that ending slavery and child labor, women achieving the vote, the creation of Social Security, and the introduction of auto and workplace safety would wreck their industries. (See
http://crywolfproject.org
.)

Eleventh
, these convergences require resources. First, money—the fuel for the solid development of effort. Convergers should devote real time and imagination to securing (if possible) a few enlightened super-rich, who may be in their seventies, eighties, and nineties, and composed of a different perspective toward life, the future, and posterity than that of their younger affluent friends. Our country is laden with leaden fortunes, basking in lassitudinous investments, some of whose possessors can be brought forth to advance our society in a way that would invigorate these generous donors with fresh significance. Let what follows be a preliminary menu of sorts for their tasting.

5

Getting to the Actions: Convergences Ahoy!

T
his is the point where we need to go over the reforms and directions list, looking at the key places where a convergence exists
in potentia
but needs to be coordinated for effective action. The first seven items on the list focus on economics in connection with such matters as the government's relationship to business contractors and the minimum wage.

1. Get the Department of Defense to audit its budget.

Even people accustomed to reading the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and investigative media reports about the mind-boggling waste, duplications, and corporate frauds in the Pentagon are astounded to learn that the Department of Defense cannot or will not make an annual audit of its sprawling $527 billion yearly budget, not counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
¹
GAO auditors stationed at the Pentagon report
every year
to their principal—Congress—that the DOD's books are unauditable! Congress shrugs.
That is half of the entire discretionary budget of the US government. Unauditable budgets mean huge monies go astray. There is, for example, no audit trail for the $9 billion unaccounted for in the first months of the Iraq war.
²
One year the GAO caught the Air Force buying billions of dollars in spare parts because the service did not know that they already had these parts in some warehouses somewhere.
³

Now there has been no polling on the public's attitude toward this colossal accounting gap, but I'll bet a demand for an auditable Pentagon budget would be supported by more than 90 percent of the population. Who in their right mind would run an operation like this? Well, someone who is big enough and can get away with it because the organization's funding pipeline, wrapped in patriotic flags, coming from Congress, and swarming with lobbyists for uncontested corporate contractors, is almost untouchable. Just about everybody knows this inside Congress, but they find it easier to self-censor and benefit from “feathering in their nest,” as Howard Dean calls it, than to stand up against the policies that the Lockheed Martins, the Raytheons, the Boeings, and the General Dynamics corporations call a jobs program, especially as one or another of these firms and their subcontractors have operations in nearly every congressional district—420 out of 435, according to Dean.
⁴

Still, setting the objective of having a Department of Defense budget capable of being audited is a perfect candidate for convergence. Anyone opposing this demand couldn't pass the laugh test. People from the Left-Right constituencies would flock to this cause if it gained traction, and if it became a reality, nobody would be more relieved than the GAO, plus the internal, beleaguered Pentagon auditors themselves and, maybe, the secretary of defense himself. Along these same lines, an analogous LR convergence-friendly demand would be that our legislators disclose all government budgets without exception.

2. Establish rigorous procedures to evaluate the claims of businesses looking for a government handout, which would end most corporate welfare and bailouts.

There are so many one-way corporate subsidies, handouts, giveaways, bailouts, and bloated contracting programs pouring out of Washington, DC, that there is no existing government compilation of them all. The reaction to the way Bush and Obama bailed out the Wall Street crooks and speculators was a flood of criticism from all directions, including from the Tea Partiers and the Occupy Wall Street participants. Those who voted for the string of bailouts in Congress were made to feel that the country would be backed onto an economic cliff if they didn't go along with the plans of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who hailed from the lucrative helm of Goldman Sachs.

If we had a series of tests, proving such things as the validity and value of their claims, that corporate welfare seekers must pass, first in Congress and then in the agency or department that selects the takers, we would definitely cut out most of these multibillion-dollar freeloaders.

Presently, it is purely corporate lobbying and campaign cash that drives these gravy trains through Congress. Take the atomic energy industry, for example. Why should taxpayers bear the risk for tens of billions of dollars, the cost of financing and insuring atomic power plants? It is justified by the atomic power utilities saying the private financial markets won't loan and insure these white elephants without 100 percent federal government loan guarantees and the taxpayers' assumption of most of the liability in case of a disastrous meltdown. These reasons are not good enough. Such claims by the industry have never been carefully evaluated. Putting more rigorous, data-based criteria in the law as part of an annual approval process for any money disbursement to corporations would make Congress less vulnerable to sheer pressure politics from the corporatists.