A report from the Conference to Take Back America, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, June 4-6, 2003 in Washington, DC.

by Patrick Abegg  OpEdNews.com

On June 4, 2003, progressive Americans gathered in Washington DC to begin the process to Take Back America. I attended as a rank-and-file Democratic activist, on my own, without any organizational attachment. There were many organizations that had sent people, as well as those there on our own. We were all lucky to be there, because this may be the event that progressives point to in the years to come as our moment when things began to happen.

We came together at the beautiful Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington on the afternoon of June 4. The first session was on the New Politics of Engagement. It should have been clear that something was happening from the energy in the halls of the hotel as we approached the session.

Robert Borosage, the co-director the Campaign for America’s Future, led off the first session on the New Politics of Engagement. He described the coming together of the idea of building an independent progressive network.

Stan Greenberg, the leading Democratic pollster, brought forward strong evidence of the support in the American population for Democratic positions. Do the American people want the Bush tax cut? Not at the expense of creating large deficits, and in any case they’d much rather spend the money on quality health care. Bush’s support is very, very shallow, and many of the people who say they support him don’t plan on voting for him. One issue that has swung very strongly to the Democratic Party is the issue of education. Voters do not believe Bush’s commitment to education anymore. Likewise, the Democrats are now seen as the party more likely to fix state budget messes.

Wes Boyd, of the leading online network of progressives, MoveOn.Org, spoke about the leadership qualities that he and his colleagues have seen as critical to the development of progressivism. They are: Listen (Strong Vision, Big Ears), Serve, Trust, Fight, and Lead. Especially memorable was his admonition that we get stronger when we fight. We need to get feedback and use it to develop our plans.

Ellen Malcolm is a true pioneer in grassroots organizing with Emily’s List, the feminist woman’s fund-raising organization. In addition to the well-known fundraising efforts, they also have broadened their activity to include training people on how to run campaigns (so that their money is well spent). She emphasized that convincing women to vote is very often an effort in connecting political activity to the daily lives of the women. She also pointed out that there is way too much focus on the next election, not on building for the future.

The official opening session was on the topic A Program for a New Majority. It started with Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) who repeated the basic question of “Where are you?,” each time with a focus on a different group. She’s looking for the voices of the progressive community. For example, where are the progressive lawyers who should be pointing out the impact of the right-wing assault on the constitutional history of America? She challenged us to speak with our own voice to challenge the Bush Administration. One practical suggestion that she had was for us to have voter registration forms at every event. She’s wonderful. When will we see her featured more publicly by the national party?

Chellie Pingree is the new head of Common Cause, and is best known for writing Maine’s prescription drug law. She emphasized the need for authenticity, and being able to look people right in the eye and tell them what we believe. She also expects us to share our values with each other, because very often we find that we share values even if we disagree on policies.

John Sweeney, the head of the AFL-CIO, was the first of many labor leaders to talk with us. He reached out to us looking for help in working together to end the anti-unionism in America today. He reminded us how important a strong labor movement is to the success of many progressive initiatives, from health care to retirement security. He highlighted the need to challenge the Bush Administration: “Where are our jobs?”

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich laid into the Bush tax cut as the wrong tax cut for working America. He broke down the basic economic dishonesty of the Bush Administration on this issue. (Barney Franks later suggested that Bush deserved a double Nobel prize for economic fiction). And he pointed out that “It’s still the economy, stupid.” (Actually, he let the crowd add the last word – we were happy to join in.) He spoke of the need to challenge conservatives, even if it means going on what he described as “yell-in” programs. (“They yell at me, I yell at them, and the callers yell at everyone.”) He was the first of many to use the slogan “Organize, Mobilize, Energize.”

Jo’ie Taylor is the President of the United States Student Association. She talked about the difference in activism for the new generation of students.

Reg Weaver is the new President of the National Education Association. He emphasized that we already know what it takes to make great schools: modern buildings, high standards, small class sizes, great teachers, and adequate interventions for children. He pointed out that 85% of rich parents send their kids to public schools. We need to make all schools like those that the rich kids attend.

David Wellstone is Paul Wellstone’s oldest son and the co-founder of Wellstone Action. He signed copies of his father’s autobiography. I look forward to working with Wellstone Action, which has announced plans to come to Massachusetts in the fall.

That night, we had an awards and fund-raising banquet for The Campaign for America’s Future. The reception before the dinner was a good opportunity to meet people and talk about the exciting start to the conference. The tables were assigned, and I ended up with a table of mostly Midwestern activists. We had some good discussions at dinner, and I talked with several of them later in the conference.

Three progressives were honored and spoke to us.

Maria Elena Durazo is the Vice President of the HERE Union and a legendary union organizer among Mexicans in California. David Wellstone presented her with the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award. She highlighted her involvement with the Immigrant Worker’s Freedom Ride this fall, which we all should participate in to help defend the rights of the workers who do the jobs that native-born Americans won’t do. She mentioned Paul Wellstone’s involvement with the job actions in Los Angeles at the time of the last Democratic Convention.

Regena Thomas is a organizer and Secretary of State in New Jersey. She received the America’s Future Progressive Champion Award. She talked about the basic community organizing that ended up with Governor McGreevy appointing her as the Secretary of State.

Barney Frank was the Master of Ceremonies for the evening, but arrived at this point in the program because the House had been in session. He came with the good news that the Republican leadership had pulled the repeal of the Fair Labor Standards Act from the agenda, much to the delight of the union organizers present.

Bill Moyers received the America’s Future Lifetime Leadership Award. He spoke at length on the first Progressive era, and the Gilded Age that preceded it. He reminded us that Karl Rove wants to imitate the McKinley era.

Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont, was the first of the Presidential candidates to appear. Dean hasn’t impressed me with his candidacy so far, and his performance here was mixed. He claimed to be the only major candidate who was opposed to the Iraq War, even saying that he had “voted” against it. Of course, he doesn’t have a vote, but both Edwards and Kucinich had voted against it, and Kucinich had led the House opposition. Plus, he claimed Paul Wellstone’s mantle, which is a dangerous thing to do in front of this crowd. The crowd reception was lukewarm except for the crowd of volunteers that he brought with him (oddly enough, the only one of the candidates to do so).

The first Plenary Session of the day was called Shrubbed: The Radical Project of George Bush.

Ralph Neas is the President of People for the American Way. As the leader of the major progressive organization that focuses on the courts, he emphasized the truly radical nature of the Bush legal agenda. They intend to de-fund the government and pack the courts with extremists. They are trying to “remove the constitutional basis for progressive government” by overturning the legal precedents that allow the New Deal, Fair Deal, and Great Society legislation.

Deb Callahan is the President of the League of Conservation Voters. She emphasized three basic issues that Bush is attacking: clean air, clean water, and the elimination of toxic sites. Her message for progressives is that environmental groups are really an untapped resource, as 11 million voters belong to various groups, almost as many as the labor movement, but those 11 million aren’t organized. She recounted a story of meeting 1960’s Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, the greatest environmental official in American history, and asking him what it was like. He said, “If you could dream it, you could do it.” In our age, we need to Dream, Work, and Win.

In the middle of the session, John Edwards, a Senator from North Carolina and the next Presidential candidate, appeared. He spoke about why it was important for Democrats to oppose the Republican agenda. He emphasized that the values of the Bush Administration are “Wealth, Not Work.” He hammered on the need for a real prescription drug benefit and the forces lined up against us. Oddly enough, he never told us why he should be the Democratic President to fix things. He looks like he’d better go back to running for Senate re-election instead.

Kim Gandy is the President of the National Organization for Women. Oddly enough, she gave the speech of the whole conference that most closely approached a call for a moral crusade. She started by talking about how every time progressive women get together it starts with a discussion of the “Parade of Horribles,” of all the latest bad news about what they’re doing to us. She told us: “I’m proud to be left, but I’m tired of being left out.” We need to speak the truth without apology. She says she doesn’t like it when the NOW is referred to as a “splinter group,” but that looking around, we were going to turn all these splinters into a two-by-four. In the most moving moment of the conference, she challenged us to ask ourselves every day, “What would Paul Wellstone do? What can I do?” Over the next 17 months, what changes can I make in my life to take my time and invest it in the battle to win the 2004 election?

Wade Henderson is the Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. He challenged us to really look closely at the changes that this Administration is making. And in response to Bush’s call for an end to affirmative action in higher education, he stated that if Bush was serious about removing the need for that program, he’d fully fund primary education. He left us with the slogan “Organize, Strategize, Articulate, Deliver.”

Maude Hurd is the President of ACORN. She’s a social services counselor in Dorchester, MA, dealing mostly with substance abuse issues. She reminded us that her community doesn’t have time to be afraid, and doesn’t have the time to be discouraged, because just eking out a living takes up all of their time. She reminded us of the latest Bush attack on the poor, by making the documentation requirements for the Earned Income Tax Credit too burdensome.

The next Plenary Session was An Economy That Works for Working People.

Jon Corzine is a Senator from New Jersey. “We need an economy that works.” He emphasized the callowness of the Bush Administration in eliminating the wage tax credit and unemployment benefits. “What was wrong with the economy in the 90’s that we had to fix it?” He noted that the state and local budget shortfalls will reach $100 Billion this year.

Jamie Galbraith is an economics professor at the University of Texas. “Bush and company didn’t create all of the economic problems, but they’re not doing anything to fix them.” They have used the continuing stagnation as an excuse for their agenda. His solution: “let’s keep the cities and states growing, not contracting.” We need to tell the rich “You are better off paying taxes in prosperity than going down in the first class cabin of a sinking ship.”

Barbara Ehrenreich is an author on labor issues. We need to address the 30% of workers who live in poverty. What was really distinctive about the boom of the 90’s was how little pay rose for the working poor. Low unemployment no longer means wages increases. This has multiple reasons. Labor is relatively immobile; “transportation is a wage issue.” The working poor have little information about jobs. We need to make the pay disparity clearer; e.g. Wal-Mart workers start at $7 per hour versus the $10M ($66M with stock options) made by the CEO. Communities need to pass living wage and minimum wage laws.

 Leo Gerard is the President of the United Steelworkers of America. The disjointed, formerly silent, majority is now the progressive majority. Is any industry doing well today? Just military and pharmaceuticals. 200,000 retirees in steel have lost their company-provided health care.

Carol Moseley-Braun is a former Senator from Illinois and the next Presidential candidate to appear. She is likeable, although clearly not much more than a symbolic candidate. I’d love to have her as Secretary of Education in the next Democratic Administration. She told of her time as Ambassador to New Zealand and the Maori people, who look to the past as their way of solving their problems in the present. We can learn from this philosophy and use our own past more effectively.

The next Plenary Session was on The Challenge of Affordable Health Care.

Sonny Hall is the President of the Transport Workers Union of America. He moderated the session, and the only comment I recall of his was that we needed to get to our Senators to get them to support a filibuster on Medicare repeal, if necessary.

Deana Knutsen is with USAction, but spoke as the mother of a disabled child. She described the challenges she faced in the current system.

Ellen Golombek is the Director of Americans for Health Care of the SEIU. The union has been working on the grassroots aspect of health care reform. We need to emphasize a real health care plan and financing options in order for it to be credible.

Robert Kuttner is the Co-Editor of The American Prospect magazine. How do we get national single payer health care on the menu? He referred to an idea called “the politics of excluded alternatives,’ in other words, the things that we agree not to talk about. “It’s fair, it’s efficient, it brings everyone together.” Let’s call it “Medicare for All.” Bush is too tied to the insurance industry; their individual mandates just won’t work. We need to build coalitions of doctors, businesses, and consumers. “Let’s find an idea that Bush can’t steal” – unlike some of the half-way plans.

William McNary is the President of USAction. We need to raise expectations. Then we need to elect a Congress who will pass it, and a President who will sign it. “We’re not going to let them take away Medicare and Medicaid.”

The next breakout session I attended was on Expanding Democracy. I missed the end of this.

Miles Rapoport is the President of Demos. His organization focuses on the inequalities in the current voting system. He thinks we need to tie together the issues of campaign finance reform with electoral reform. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) makes money available for electoral reform. We need to think about using some of that money for outreach programs. One other potential reform we can look at is election-day registration.

Todd Cox works for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He’s concerned with the identification provisions of the HAVA, which may be an undue burden on the poor electorate (“a de facto poll tax”). They’re also involved with the attempts to reinfranchise voters who have lost their right to vote due to criminal convictions, with an emphasis on the negative impact of the loss of their votes to their communities.

John Kerry is a Senator from Massachusetts and the next Presidential candidate to appear. Very cautious, and not generally reaching out to the progressive community. Also, the only candidate not to work the crowd afterwards. He did tell a great story about the date (June 5) being the night in 1968 when he returned home from his first tour of duty in Vietnam, only to reach California as Bobby Kennedy was shot.

The last Plenary Session of the day was on Security in a Changed World

Katrina van Heuvel is the Editor of The Nation magazine. “Are you safer now than you were four years ago?” She quoted Eisenhower: “Security begins at home.” (which refers to mental security more than physical security). Her question was how do we use our power to engage the world? Do we do it as an imperial power, or as a leading partner?

Ben Barber is part of the Democracy Collaborative. He is best known for his rather prescient book Jihad vs. McWorld, written several years ago. “We have conjured the fear that is terrorism’s very weapon.” “Every emerging feature of the interdependent world cries for America to look outward.” “An empire of fear, or a republic of citizens?” “Civic dissent in America has been put on hold.” “Fear’s empire colonizes our imagination.”

Bernice Powell Jackson is from the UCC Justice and Witness Movement. “We’ve lost our moral compass.” Dr. King invites us to ask “Is it right?” Too often we have been on the wrong side. We must take responsibility for our own behavior. Within the progressive movement, we must put aside past differences and work together. “Racial justice and peace goes hand in hand.”

Tom Andrews is the National Director of Win Without War. What can we do for a just and secure planet? Start by defeating the Neocons and Bush. We must break America’s confidence in Bush’s security issues, as ignoring national security is a grave error. We need to tap the peace asset, but also tap the “persuadable voters.” We need to take on and address their fears. Tell them why Bush is undermining their security. After all, Bush’s message to other nations is clear: develop your own weapons of mass destruction or else. We need to have a public campaign to convince the people; the cumulative effect will create doubts. We need to talk to America.

Dennis Kucinich, a Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, was the next Presidential candidate to appear. As a Kucinich fan, I’m biased, but I thought Dennis needed a home run, and he swung like Sammy Sosa. He used his lines about the first act as President would be to cancel NAFTA, and the union folks went wild. He talked about Social Security privatization, and described “401k’s turning into 201k’s.” He pulled out of his pocket the receipt for H. Res. 260, the request for an investigation into the lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction, filed by him earlier in the day. And he repeated his great phrasing: “Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction.” The crowd was wildly enthusiastic, as they would only be for him and Al Sharpton.

We then broke for an indoor barbecue, as the lawn was still wet outside. It’s great to be able to sit around talking to progressives from all over the nation.

Arianna Huntington, the well-known political columnist, led a rap session with a couple of comedians, Matt Cooper from Washington and Aaron Freeman from Chicago. It was OK, but not great. I spent the rest of the evening talking to a couple of my friends. What a day.

Presidential candidate and Congressman Dick Gephardt of Missouri led off the morning with a videotaped presentation. It was his basic stump speech, focused on his working-class Democratic roots and values.

We had a surprise visitor. Debi Stabenow, the Senator from Michigan, came to ask our help in the fight against the conservative compromise proposal to weaken Medicare. USAction developed a letter for all of us to sign.

Heather Booth, a veteran organizer in the Midwest, was next. She spoke on the subject Stand Up, Fight Back: Paul Wellstone’s Charge to Progressives. She encouraged us to “take it to heart, take it home, and take it out.” We need to focus on our image of a “government that can do things we can’t do for ourselves.” We need to produce three things. First, a “coming together of progressive forces.” Second, a “broad agreement on message and values.” Third, a “willingness to be bold and speak truth to power.” Finally, she reminded us of Paul Wellstone’s line: “Passion and personal commitment.”

Rev. Al Sharpton was the final Presidential candidate to appear. He’s quite the speaker, really giving it to Bush, as well as to the moderate Democrats. He’s certainly very inspiring to the Democratic base, but not taken very seriously because most people don’t respond well to his style. But we really need his honesty in the race.

I attended the breakout session on Civil Rights for the People Who Gave Us the Weekend: Winning the Freedom to Choose a Union.

Andy Levin is the Director of the AFL-CIO’s Voice@Work Campaign. He reminded us that unionization is the most powerful force for progressive change. Many good things in a community are associated with increased unionization. But most people don’t know what happens when workers try to form a union: what kind of tactics that the employers use to prevent the union from coming into being. He said that the focus of Labor Day activities this year would be the right to organize, and that there will be lots of things going on for 12/10, the International Human Rights Day.

We heard from a new organizer for the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union. (I didn’t catch her name, but she was an immigrant from Eritrea). She told her story, of joining a unionization drive, getting support from the union organizer when things got tough, and going on to become a union organizer in her own right. “Before we were scared…”

Barbara Ehrenreich is an author on labor issues. She focused on the relationship between the right to organize and a number of other missing rights. These rights include: no freedom of speech in the workplace, no privacy rights, and no right to go to the bathroom. When these rights are missing, the organizing drive becomes that much more difficult. “We need a Workers Bill of Rights.”

Bill Fletcher is the President of TransAfrica. He drew an analogy to the civil rights campaigns: “we need to focus people’s attention on the anti-union abuses in the same way that we used to focus them on the anti-lynching campaign.” If we can highlight the grossest abuses, then the injustice of the overall position will become clear. We need to see it as a long-term struggle, and explain how the right to organize will produce economic justice. The movement needs to be led by popular figures, not just unionists (“think about how the NRA has Charlton Heston”). We also need to define clear enemies and examples of the gross injustices.

Christopher Donovan is a State Representative from Connecticut. “It’s all about power” to create equality, benefits, and fair wages. He talked in detail about an organizing drive for janitors in Stamford, including getting arrested two weeks before his election. Elected officials can be quite effective in turning up the heat on local companies, so we need to work with them. He also described how we need to stand up for each other, by telling the story of union members working for gay rights out of respect for a union colleague with a gay kid. Organizing drives can make the union members feel even more powerful when they see other community leaders standing alongside them.

The final breakout session was on Winning Health Care for All: Avoiding Déjà Vu.

Anthony Wright is the Executive Director of Health Access California. Health care issues have a double edge because no one comes to office looking to cut health care, but the state budget crises sometimes forces difficult choices. He reminded us that half of the system in California is already public, either through Medicare, Medicaid, or the state employees plan, so government already has a huge role in health care. “We need to make our enemies vote against reform.”

Richard Kirsch is the Executive Director of Citizen Action New York. He started by looking back at the “last fight,” the Clinton health care plan. He emphasized how organized the opposition was, while the supporters weren’t. This allowed them to convince Americans that changes weren’t needed, which is somewhat easy since people “put a high value on what they have, and don’t want to lose it.” Our advantage is that our proposals are better for America. We need to remind the public about “Medicare, our national health care program for senior citizens and the disabled,” so that public health care doesn’t appear as alien. We should provide a choice of health care through Medicare or private insurers, so that no one loses what they’ve already got.

Becky Ogle is a leading Disability Rights activist. She focused on the difficulties that the disability community had getting their message out last time, even though they are natural experts on using the health care system. She emphasized the need for “no more Band Aids,” but rather serious reform.

For our closing lunch, we heard from two veteran activists. I didn’t take notes, so this is really pulling off of my memory.

Gerald McEntee is the President of AFSCME. He spoke to our need for unity across the progressive universe.

Jesse Jackson, Sr. is the President of Rainbow/Push Coalition. He gave an inspirational speech in the way that only Jesse Jackson can. He talked about some of his personal struggles within the Democratic Party, including what he described as his “choices” following Bill Clinton’s calculated snubs of him. There was something poignant about his reminder that he could have taken his toys and gone home, but chose to accept Clinton’s private apology and move on. It is hard not to listen to Jesse without remembering the personal commitment that’s involved in the progressive movement.

The conference closed with the Millionaire March to Vice President Cheney’s house. This was a project of USAction, intended as an act of political satire. I saw them off, and went to catch my train home.

Patrick Abegg is a progressive Democratic activist from Gloucester, Massachusetts who’s been involved with numerous campaigns over the years. He’s currently a volunteer for the Dennis Kucinich for President campaign as well as trying to figure out how to finally elect a Democratic Governor in Massachusetts.   This article is copyright by Patrick Abegg. He can be reached at pabegg@ix.netcom.com.  originally published by opednews.com Permission is granted to forward this or to place it on a website as long as the article is included intact, including this statement.