The San Francisco-based Fog City Journal, which is usually a source of decent progressive news, ran a shockingly right-wing column today about the federal DREAM Act and Barack Obama’s support of it.

When I first saw the headline, “Senator Obama, Say it isn’t so,” I thought it was going to be a criticism of Obama from the Left — as there has been some of that lately on progressive websites. But it soon becomes clear that this writer has a warped view of what Democrats should and shouldn’t support:

I was asked by a friend to call Illinois Senator Dick Durbin to voice my displeasure over his support for this DREAM Act, which is indeed a bad dream for many Americans. It aims  to eliminate the federal provision that discourages states from providing in-state tuition without regard to immigration status.  However, it offers no such discount to those American kids who are even poorer, or more disadvantaged than the illegal immigrants  this bill wants to help.

After three attempts to get through to Senator Durbin’s office, the Capitol operator offered to connect me with the “other Illinois senator.” That’s how I came to have a shouting  match with one of Senator Obama’s senior aides when he told me that his boss also supports this bill.

Senator Obama, how could you? Are you reaching out to a constituency who is not even part of our citizenry? Are you caving in to special  interests? Are you trying to be all things to all people?

More on the flip…

It’s possible that this person is not actually progressive, and so the right-wing frames shouldn’t come as a surprise. But the line of reasoning reflects a pattern of thinking that unfortunately is quite prevalent among certain progressive circles of late when it comes to the issue of immigration.

Progressives do not need to choose between supporting disadvantaged Americans who are poor and lack educational opportunities and supporting immigrants who lack even the most basic of human rights, despite their clear contribution to the American economy. It is in fact the job of progressive leaders, like Dick Durbin and Barack Obama, to stand up for all people, and to pass laws that open up paths of opportunity for everyone.

That is what the DREAM Act does. Immigrants are not a “special interest.” That term is reserved for corporate powers that try to influence government with money. How we address the human rights crisis of 12 million immigrants who are in this country now, being treated as second class citizens, is in the public interest. Their lives and how we relate to them affect everyone, and Obama is absolutely right to support a law that is one smart way of addressing it.

One of the key ways to solve problems in our society is by investing in people through education, and so higher education is a very smart and effective path out of poverty. Obama supports not only the DREAM Act, but other efforts to increase access and affordability of higher education for all students.

Human dignity is not a scarce resource. It’s not something that can be sectioned off and reserved for only some parts of the population. Obama’s support of the DREAM Act means he gets that.

If only more progressives would.

(cross-posted on Daily Kos)

You killed it.  All of the noise you made.  The blog posts.  The donations.  The email forwards to friends.  The petitions.  The copies of the intiative you sent to Arnold. Everything.  The netroots mobilized, and the right-wing backed down.  This is a lone bright victory, in what has been a tough couple of weeks.

Absent some big rich right-winger stepping up with $2 million in the next few days, the attempt to put an initiative on the ballot to steal 20 of California’s electoral votes is kaput.  The main Republican lawyer for the California Republican Party, and the mastermind behind this has quit.  They can’t find anyone who is not a front group established in MO to donate.  In short, the campaign is in disarray.

The campaign needed to collect at a bare minimum 433,971 valid signatures.  In reality they needed to exceed that by 2/3rds to ensure that they would make the ballot.  At last count they were only 40,000 towards getting that done.  Remember they needed to be in by November to make it.  The likelihood of them being able to recoup at this point and make it on the ballot is slim.

Courage Campaign’s Chair, Rick Jacobs wrote over at HuffPo:

As Howie Klein says,” It (‘s defeat) has more to do with the grassroots action against it, the organizing efforts of the Courage Campaign and the fact that the shady Republicans behind it, Californians For Equal Representation are a bunch of cronies of David Dreier’s from Missouri.” Paul Kumar , Vice President of SEIU’S United Healthcare Workers West, one of the online community’s best friends in labor, said, “Your work made it too hot for Schwarzenegger and other leading Republicans to handle and dried up our opponents’ access to money. The netroots was way out in front of the party regulars and big institutional players on this one and you deserve the credit for it.”

Courage Campaign and our online colleagues had support from a huge cross section of prominent leaders ranging from members of congress such as California Congressional delegation chair Zoe Lofgren, Hilda Solis and Jane Harman, members of the state legislature such as Karen Bass and Mark Leno, labor leaders such as Sal Roselli at SEIU and bloggers ranging from Arianna Huffington to John Amato and Jane Hamsher. We had folks from Hollywood such as Brad Whitford, Sherry Lansing and Judith Light as well as literally over ten thousand others.

I have to admit, this is a bittersweet day.  The thing is I know we could have beaten that initiative on the ballot.  Polling indicated that we just needed to get out our base, which we were already starting to do.  There was so much potential there for us to build a powerful new style people-powered campaign driven for and by the netroots that worked in coalition with a traditional media heavy campaign, the party and labor.  That had never been done before, but we were doing it.  We proved that it works. 

Heck today, there was an excellent diary here by Jo Etta from Show Me Progress that was digging into the shadowy MO donor connections.  I had people from MI helping with opposition research.  There were folks from all over the country on our phone call with Bradley Whitford on Monday.  It was that sort of crowd-sourcing that I was really looking forward to.  Quite honestly, we had an email all set up to go soliciting your best ideas for how to defeat this initiative.  Instead we get to celebrate… at least for this weekend.  For come Monday, it is time to get back to work.  There is too much we have yet to accomplish to let the foot off the gas pedal.

Like Rick says:

We beat the right wingnuts on this one. As the Los Angeles Times reports this morning, we demonstrated that with discipline, organization and speed we can defeat the bad stuff. As we build power, we’ll be there to support other progressives and remind those who claim to be what it really means to make progress.

Damn straight.  We take what we did here in a short amount of time and we build on it.  It’s time to play offense.  Courage Campaign is building progressive infrastructure for the long haul.  So stay tuned!

P.S. Did you see the fantastic article in today’s LAT entertainment section about Courage’s video of Josh Lyman Bradley Whitford?

Whitford admits that he usually cringes when he hears celebrities talking about politics. But, in this case, he had to get involved. “I feel like my children’s future is at stake,” he said.

He and Jacobs shot the video in his living room in an afternoon. “I realize this whole YouTube style is based on some quirky shut-in staring straight into the camera,” he said. “It’s interesting stylistically addressing the camera.”

In a way, it’s liberating. Without all the trappings of a Hollywood production, he delivered a simple message right into the lens. “You can’t out-hypocrite a Republican,” he said bluntly on the video.

Now it’s up to the YouTube audience to decide if it agrees.

“There are pendulum swings in the new media,” Whitford said. “It’s truly democratization by letting millions of individuals express themselves.”

Some expressions are bound to be more equal than others. And if Whitford’s example succeeds, there will be a lot more YouTube time in political Hollywood’s future

  Isn’t it amazing
The Obama Campaign & Movement 

I bounce back and forth, first thinking of myself as a world-weary seen it all before realist to an almost child like belief in truth, justice and freedom. I think it may well be a rare form of bi-polar syndrome. But, I don’t really mind because I secretly believe if I was one or the other, I’d get stuck on the world-weary fatalist end and what fun would that be.

My latest bounce back episode was triggered by the revelation that GQ magazine given the choice of good bottom line or defense of free speech chose one over the other. Your guess as to which they chose will tell you alot about  your placement along the world-weary to bliss line.

The story version I heard was that the Clinton’s did not like a story about to appear in GQ that to them was not a fair take on Hillary. GQ and Bill Clinton already had reached an agreement that would put Bill on the cover. Get ready miss bliss, here comes something that will really upset you.

It seems that having Bill on the cover of anything, will generate additional sales of whatever is so adorned. Well, some Clinton detaill was assembled and marched over to GQ. They made an offer that was hard to refuse. GQ could spike the unflattering portrait of Hillary and keep Bill on the cover or the reverse. To spoil the surprise, look for Bill to soon adorn the cover of GQ.

Lets move from this one case to the larger implications.

It is accepted orthodoxy that celebrity and notoriety sell. But now that power to sell is being used to determine what products will be sold. He/She who pay’s the piper, indeed will choose the tune.
 

(Wow!! We did it. You did it. Amazing. We drove them into disarray. Awesome work everybody!! – promoted by Julia Rosen)

Here’s the full article from the L.A. Times: GOP electoral initiative dealt major blows. I’ll highlight this paragraph:

There remained a chance that the measure could be revived, but only if a major donor were to come forward to fund the petition drive. However, time is short to gather the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed by the end of November. And backers said Thursday that they believed the measure was all but dead, at least for the 2008 election.

Well. That was quick. The L.A. Times is reporting that the BREAKING NEWS: Electoral initiative backers give up

Plagued by a lack of money, supporters of a statewide initiative drive to change the way California’s 55 electoral votes are apportioned, first revealed here by Top of the Ticket in July, are pulling the plug on that effort.

In an exclusive report to appear on this website late tonight and in Friday’s print editions, The Times’ Dan Morain reports that the proposal to change the winner-take-all electoral vote allocation to one by congressional district is virtually dead with the resignation of key supporters, internal disputes and a lack of funds.

  Isn’t it amazing
The Obama Campaign & Movement 

Fifty years ago today my universe was beginning to open at the speed of sound. I had survived the seldom easy transition from childhood to the first step on the stairs to adulthood. I had made it to the 8th grade. And I was virtually dizzy with the array of outward bound paths that had suddenly surrounded me. And everyone had a “yellow brick road” quality. Where would this one lead? What about this one; or this one? Who cared about that. The excitement was caused by the fact that they all pointed toward a way out.

Not that I had anything to run from…except for the ties that bind. Heck, even that lucky son-of-a-gun, Ricky Nelson was beginning to exhibit a wanderlous quality. And, he had it all. The looks, the girls, the big brother, two adoring (although admittedly over-bearing) parents. If Ricky could peek at the horizon, then, by golly, so could I.

I attended “neighborhood school”; I had always attended such schools as did all my friends. My friends were the entire student body. And, the best part, new freedoms were being granted like so much confetti at a new years eve celebration.

Not that there were no dark clouds on the horizon. Although our school was totally desegregated (roughly, 1/3rd white; 1/3 black and 1/3rd asian) it was simply a reflection of the affordability of the houses there. If you were a WW II veteran, and who wasn’t, you could and did buy your family a home of their own. A first for just about everyone.

Given this context for my take on the world, I was bewildered by what I saw on TV about what was going  on across the states in the south. Separate but equal was an oxymoron to my way of thinking. How could separate be equal. Why was one color poor and the other color less poor. (Truth be told, that all looked considerably poorer than anyone I knew.)

Then, 50 years ago today, the Little Rock travesty was recorded and shown to the Nation. Dogs, powerful waterhoses, a lynching mentality were used by one color against the other color. The horrors of the civil war were being re-enacted for each of us to see. I was shaken to my core and nauseated in my heart. Why, why, why? My yellow brick roads were much less appealing then.