If there’s one thing that most of the Right and most of the Left can agree on, it’s absolute defense of and deference to Israel. Watch me try and make this point — which is apparently as agitational as telling kids they’re no Santa Clause…

Thoughts on the topic?

The Institute for Policy Studies just released it’s 17th annual study of CEO compensation revealing that the CEOs of the 50 corporations that cut the most jobs over the last two years received average bonuses higher than those paid to CEOs of the largest 500 businesses in America. You follow that? The CEOs who cut jobs got the largest rewards.

What’s worse, the Institute for Policy Studies found that 36 of those 50 CEOs cut jobs at a time when their corporations were reporting record profits. They cut jobs, helped sink the economy and put even more money in their own pockets. And now Republicans (and, unfortunately, some conservative Democrats) want to reward these richest of the rich by giving them giant tax cuts?!?

Bailing out the super rich won’t help grow the economy. It will only further grow the monstrous gap between unemployed and struggling average American workers and the elite ranks of greedy CEOs — which is part of the problem in the first place.

In the Wall Street Journal, Michael Boskin (the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under George W. Bush) writes: “Businesses are flush with cash and profits have been solid.” In fact, businesses have been flush with cash for over a decade but as a matter of corporate policy and culture, big business has spent its money raising CEO salaries and paying higher short-term dividends instead of hiring more workers, creating better products and services and investing in our economy’s — and our nation’s — future.

Structurally, Wall Street has encouraged this extreme greed and inequality under the rationale of “trickle down” economics. But while even the Wall Street Journal acknowledges that big business is faring just fine in this economic crisis, the estimated 75% of Americans who’ve been touched by unemployment and recession aren’t feeling a drop of that trickle.

Meanwhile, the New York Times echoed a report in the Financial Times that the business lobby is bucking against new disclosure requirements in financial reform legislation that will require corporations to compute the discrepancy between salary and benefits paid to CEOs compared with those paid to regular workers in companies. The business lobby insists the complaint over the regulation is about “logistical” challenges — but, in truth, they don’t want the failure of “trickle-down economics” to be so blatantly and indisputably proven.

The New York Times writes: “It is clear that C.E.O. pay has skyrocketed while workers’ pay has stagnated; it is also clear that skewed pay and rising income inequality correlate to bubbles and crashes.” While in 1960 the average American CEO made 61 times what the average worker in his or her company was paid, now CEOs make an average of 411 times what their workers are paid. Some CEOs make 900 times more than their lowest paid employees. Are those CEOs really working 900 times harder? Or have we rigged our economic system to help CEOs and hurt the rest of us? Income and wealth for the top 1% of America has been growing while, adjusted for inflation, the rest of us are actually working harder and harder for less and less reward.

Given all that, conservatives want to give the richest of the rich EVEN MORE money from our public pockets?

In the Constitution, our Founding Fathers gave the federal government the ability to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States.” That “general Welfare” includes distributing resources more fairly and creating equal opportunity for all. These are core American values. We recognize that the children of Donald Trump inherently start off their lives several steps ahead of your kids or mine — let alone the child of a single, young mother who doesn’t have a job or a place to live. What makes America a great nation is not that the rich get richer but that we create conditions so those who start below have a chance at catching up and even getting rich themselves. Our national pride comes from what everyday Americans are able to achieve here, not from multiplying the largess of already-successful billionaires.

But conservatives have corrupted the idea of fair distribution not just to oppose providing vital supports for poor and working class families but to endorse policies that actually re-distribute money from average Americans to the very, very rich. Make no mistake about it, when Republicans call for extending Bush-era tax breaks on the richest of the rich, that means re-distributing OUR government funds away from unemployment benefits, veterans services, food stamp programs and public schools.

The independent Council of Economic Advisors has said government spending to stimulate the economy created between 2.5 and 3.6 million jobs in the second quarter of 2010. According to the Wall Street Journal 70% of economists say that government stimulus spending helped the economy. So let’s make this simple — a dollar in the hands of government does more to help the economy and jobs (including YOUR job and YOUR family’s bottom line) than that same dollar in the hands of the richest of the rich.

Our economic crisis was caused by deep, structural problems — free trade agreements sending manufacturing jobs oversees, to decimating worker protections to letting finance capital run wild. But scholars have also found a striking correlation between inequality and economic crises — as the gap between the rich and the rest of us gets bigger, recessions erupt. Conservatives are right in accusing some of us “liberals” of seeing an opportunity within this financial crisis. We see an opportunity to finally make the American economy work for working people instead of the just the super rich.

At Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally this past weekend in Washington, DC, we learned two things:

1. That Beck and the Tea Party want to take a song that’s totally awesome when sung by black gospel singers and make it not only really white but really awful.

2. That it’s hypocritical to deny persistent racism while drawing on racial resentment to mobilize your audience.

Here’s the second edition of “Sally Kohn Bucks Beck” — hot off the digital presses:

If you’re on Twitter or Facebook, spread this around!! Sometimes, the truth doesn’t have its own legs….

Welcome to a brand new series here at the Movement Vision Lab, combining thoughtful (and correct) political education and analysis with good ol’ fashion ranting and raving. In this case, I couldn’t take watching one more episode of Glenn Beck’s notorious show on Fox News without responding. So I have.

In this first episode, I debunk Beck’s claim that communism and fascism go hand-in-hand and are the goals of the progressive movement. Instead, I explain what progressives are actually working toward.

Watch it. Share it. And post comments with your ideas for future episodes.

After a recent appearance on Fox News, where I discussed the Cordoba House Islamic Cultural Center being planned in lower Manhattan, a friend asked me for a copy of my talking points to equip herself at an upcoming family dinner. I thought you might find my talking points and arguments useful, too. So without further ado:

1. Islam did not bomb the World Trade Center.

2. Imam Rauf (the head of the proposed Cordoba House) is exactly the kind of moderate Muslim who undermines Osama bin Laden most.

3. America was founded on religious freedom and tolerance.

Here’s a clip of me on the Fox News Strategy Room voicing my frustration at the highly un-American controversy surrounding the Cordoba House Islamic Cultural Center planned in lower Manhattan.

If we want to protect America, we have to protect our core values first and foremost. And that includes religious tolerance and freedom.

On May 12, 2009, I attended a briefing at the White House as part of a group of grassroots activists and community artists. Mike Strautmanis, Chief of Staff for the Office of Public Liaison and top White House advisor Valerie Jarrett, made some remarks about how community activists have a seat at the table as the Obama Administration sets the agenda for change. I raised my hand. Sometimes, I said, the role of advocates isn’t to be inside at the table, but entirely outside the room, “creating the political space needed for change”.

Strautmanis bristled visibly. He criticized the “professional left” (he didn’t use this exact phrase, but it’s what he meant) for approaching the Obama Administration with an “outdated mindset”, holding protest signs outside the fence instead of realizing what it means to be “inside the fence”. At the same time, he not-so-subtly warned that those who criticized the Administration, instead of cooperating, would find themselves back on the outside.

Throughout early 2009, stories suggest Strautmanis’ threat wasn’t hollow. The White House convened a weekly meeting called “Common Purpose” at which DC progressive organizations were invited for what many have called a “very one-way” conversation where the White House dictated its agenda and appealed to the professional left for back-up. In April, 2009, according to people who were at one Common Purpose meeting, White House advisors told the “professional left” to tone down rhetoric about huge bonuses paid to AIG executives. The left, in general, toned it down.

In August 2009, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel made a rare appearance at a Common Purpose meeting to scold progressive groups in Washington for attacking conservative Democrats in Congress who were obstructing progressive policies on Capitol Hill. Emmanuel called the strategy “f*ing retarded” and ordered the professional left to cease and desist. Much of the left did, in fact, stop the attacks on Blue Dog Democrats.

The under-reported scandal here is not that the White House tried to control and muzzle the professional left. The scandal is that the left, for the most part, complied.

Firedog Lake blogger Jane Hamsher has been almost singularly brave in covering this. Back in April 2009, Hamsher wrote:

“There’s a big problem right now with the traditional liberal interest groups sitting on the sidelines around major issues because they don’t want to buck the White House for fear of getting cut out of the dialogue, or having their funding slashed.”

I don’t share White House Spokesperson Robert Gibbs’ outrage that the “professional left” is currently being too critical of President Obama. What I am outraged about is that the professional left wasn’t more critical of Obama a year ago.

As I have written before, President Obama’s election was historic. Unfortunately, while progressives arguably laid the ideological groundwork for his victory, Obama pretty much won with his own charisma and field infrastructure. The left, with the possible exception of MoveOn and SEIU, could take little concrete credit for Obama’s election. This, combined with an overarching and persistent lack of ambition and bravery that plagues the American left today, rendered Washington’s non-profit liberal elite more than grateful to be lap dogs on a short leash held by the White House.

Throughout the fall of 2009, while progressives outside Washington feared the chances for single-payer health care and humane immigration reform were slipping away, professional progressive advocates in Washington hung all their hopes on the White House. I was in several meetings through the early fall of 2009 in which DC liberal leaders tamped down on any plans that might “upset the White House”, a phrase used on at least on two occasions. It was not whispered with embarrassment or secrecy. The professional left firmly believed that President Obama would carry our agenda.

This belief started to fade as the fight for the public option was not only lost but when it became clear that the President and his team had sold the public option out early on in a bid to please the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries. Right around then, in early 2010, you could literally watch the professional left abandon its doe-eyed rhetoric and find its teeth — and moral compass — again. Then came disappointment around immigration and climate change, which the White House initially pledged to take the lead on but then backed away from, and the left’s collective crush on Obama cracked faster than his approval ratings. Whether on the topic of off-shore drilling or deportation rates and border crackdowns, progressive advocates have been much less shy lately in telling Obama what-for.

Yet all evidence suggest that, from early on, President Obama failed to definitively side with ordinary Americans in the struggle against the tyrannical interests of big business and Wall Street. John Judis writes in his excellent analysis in The New Republic:

“Obama’s policy followed the same swerving course as his rhetoric. One week, he would favor harsh restrictions on bank and insurance-company bonuses, but, the next week, he would waver; one week, he would support legislation allowing bankruptcy judges to reduce the amount that homeowners threatened with foreclosure owed the banks; the next week, he would fail to protest when bank lobbyists pressured the Senate to kill these provisions. But, more importantly, Obama–in sharp contrast to Roosevelt in his first months–failed to push Congress to immediately enact new financial regulations or even to set up a commission to investigate fraud.”

Perhaps if the “professional left” had been doing its job and holding the President accountable early on — not in the spirit of destroying his presidency but, rather, strengthening it — there would not have been such a vacuum of public frustration into which Right wing critics could easily step. The White House was naïve to not distinguish between constructive criticism and destructive criticism at a time when listening to the former might have helped avoid much of the calamity in which the Presidency now finds itself. Instead, by trying to be superficial friends with both sides, Obama and his team have ostensibly made enemies on all sides of the aisle. Except with big business and Wall Street. They’re still good friends with them.

The irony in all of this is that the left is now blaming the Obama Administration for public discontent with liberal policies and solutions. A year ago, the professional left ceded all responsibility to the White House. And now they’re ceding all the blame. And that’s where Mr. Gibbs’ characterization is really wrong: There’s nothing professional about that!

Originally published for the Women’s Media Center.

The recent Federal District Court ruling declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional does exactly what opponents of marriage equality fear—legally redefines marriage for all Americans. Finally. Most Americans of all orientations and ages have, for a long time, been redefining marriage on our own. It’s about time the law catches up.

Sure, the Proposition 8 ruling was a wonderful victory for same-sex couples in California and nationwide. Judge Vaughn Walker eloquently wrote that “Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples.” This, like much of the ruling, brought tears to my eyes—a long-awaited herald of justice in a nation too often haunted by narrow intolerance.

But Judge Walker also wrote, “The evidence shows that the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state-mandated gender roles reflects an evolution in the understanding of gender rather than a change in marriage.” Every heterosexual American couple that isn’t predicated on the burly man going out to hunt while the obedient woman stays home to pop out children understands this ruling. The idea that traditional marriage is between one traditional man and one traditional woman, each playing traditional roles, was extinct in most American households long before talk of gay marriage entered the scene. In an era of working moms and metrosexual men, the idea of marriage as a one-size-fits-all straight jacket (pun intended) is plainly outdated. Married straight men everywhere who have cooked breakfast or changed a diaper, married women nationwide who have worn pants or (gulp!) been able to maintain their own finances should applaud Justice Walker’s ruling, too. Accordingly, you’re now officially as central to the American marital landscape as Newt Gingrich, his current wife and his two ex-wives.

For myself, as someone in a same-sex couple, the official endorsement of my relationship’s equality is an important and lovely engagement in the event that I ever opt for state recognition of my romantic life. But the fact is that for millions of Americans like me—both gay, straight and in the vast hinterlands in between—the little box of traditional marriage is too constricting for our evolving notions of love and partnership. Judge Walker had it half right. Modern heterosexual couples are indeed pushing the traditional boundaries of marriage. But perhaps the next step isn’t to, once again, expand the otherwise narrow definition of marriage but to altogether abolish the false distinction between married families and other equally valid but unrecognized partnerships.

No, that doesn’t mean I want to marry three women at the same time or a goat. It means that I think I should be able to decide what constitutes my family—whether it’s me and my same-sex partner and our toddler, or me and my elderly mother and father, or me and my best friend who want to care for and love each other but not necessarily be intimate. The job of the state is to protect my family and our rights—not decide that two parents plus kids makes a family and everything else is an exception to the rule at best.

So, for instance, when the government of Canada was charged with expanding the country’s conventional definition of marriage to include recognition of gay and lesbian couples, a commission was appointed to study the best path to equality. The commission came back with a startling but sensible option: get rid of marriage. Not at the religious/ceremonial level—you can still have your off-white dress and dance party—but at the governmental level. I would think anti-government conservatives would certainly agree that the government has no business telling me how or with whom to form a family. For the rest of us who otherwise value the role of government in our lives, benefits and rights can as easily be based on family functions, not forms. If I am my best friend’s primary caregiver, then I should be able to sign up to be one of, say, three people who have hospital visitation rights. If I want my closest aunt to be my Social Security beneficiary, why should the government stop me from signing her up? If I can use my cell phone to vote for American Idol, I’m sure I can press a few keys and designate my next of kin.

Anthropologist Gayle Rubin has written brilliantly on how society divides us all into privileged in-groups and excluded and marginalized out-groups. Historically in the United States, heterosexual couples were the in-group—but particularly certain kinds of traditional heterosexual couples, where the man earned all the money, they had lots of kids, the family was well-to-do, the kids went on to be financially successful. We have a certain image ingrained on our collective unconscious of what the “good” white picket fence (and white skinned) family means in America. In the Proposition 8 ruling, Judge Walker is quietly arguing that the boundaries between our traditional notions of the “good family” are already being blurred, not by ballot measures or court rulings but by the natural evolution of gender roles and family norms in America. He uses this reasoning to say legal marriage should also be expanded. But that merely expands the in-group category a little more. Grandparents raising their grandkids, unmarried people on disability living together, single moms, cohabitating but unmarried couples—they are all still, formally and culturally, in the outer circle.

The language of the Proposition 8 ruling is a victory for family diversity of all shapes and orientations. Yet the gay movement’s aim to expand the privileged category of marriage rather than formally redefine state marriage and extend all the rights and privileges of marriage to all family forms does little to dent the in-group/out-group superstructure in which homophobia and heteronormativity fester.

All movements for equality struggle with one essential philosophical dilemma: Are we fighting for the right to be the same or the right to be different? Equal treatment and government benefits for gay and lesbian couples should not be based on whether couples conform to limited notions of marriage and family, whether antiquated or updated. While certainly worth celebrating, the Proposition 8 ruling says that gay people are equal to straight people as long as they act like straight people. But the fundamental right to be treated equally, even if you are and act different, remains beyond reach. In the meantime, don’t hold your breath for an invitation to my wedding.

I just read Kevin Matton’s thoughtful article in The American Prospect arguing that liberals need to “Forget Populism” and focus on winning voters minds, not hearts, by proving our superior expertise and intellect to govern. I really admire Kevin as an historian and public intellectual but I vigorously — dare I say, in populist terms, passionately — have to disagree. Two overarching reactions.

First, populism in America today may be 99% about rhetoric, but rhetoric matters. I don’t want to reduce all predictors of small-p political sentiment to anecdotes about large-p Politics in Washington, but arguably Al Gore and John Kerry fared poorly in their elections because they were perceived (rightly!) to be elitist technocrats to which average Americans had trouble relating. As a reminder that all of life is really just a recapitulation of high school, Gore and Kerry and many Democratic “leaders” today are the math and science geeks. Sarah Palin is head cheerleader. No one likes her for her brains. In high school, as in politics and society more broadly, popularity is not necessarily equated with intelligence.

In the high school power structure, Barack Obama was that rare blend (especially rare for Democrats) of smart kid and popular kid. He’s the basketball team captain who also makes valedictorian and is elected student council president. His intelligence, which appealed to the base of geek-loving Democrats, was always on display alongside his inspiring eloquence, which broadened his, well, popularity. I remember resenting in the Bush-Kerry election how voters were actually polled on who they would rather have a beer with, let alone that they chose Bush. What a stupid question? But like it or not such stupid questions are what “real people” care about and, while incredibly reductionist, are crass ways at trying to get at the unmeasurably quality of charisma.

On the left, we’ve generally abandoned belief in charisma, partly for ideological reasons — a political correctness-based assertion that we’re all leaders in equal portion — partly for practical reasons — that we’ve been hard-pressed for a long time to come up with one prominent progressive charismatic leader, let alone enough to cover the airwaves and opinion pages and be elected to a governing majority nationwide. It’s no wonder that when the charismatic Obama came along we all ignored that he was plainly a centrist in progressive sheepskin and happily pumped our fists in populist “Yes We Can” euphoria. Just because our most recent affair with populism after a long, long dry-spell didn’t turn out as we hoped doesn’t mean we should cede the entire concept to the Right.

Which brings me to my second point. The essence of populism is, as Mattson writes, “the people, yes” — the idea that ordinary Americans have as much (or even more) to contribute to our political, economic and social evolution as do technocratic elites. Frankly, as someone who has seen first hand the deep condescension of many Washington-based progressive advocacy organizations toward “the field”, I think a movement-wide emphasis on populism is a welcome counterweight. The “don’t worry, we’re the experts in DC, we’ll handle the big questions” attitude toward the progressive movement outside Washington is as frustrating to grassroots liberal activists as the same sentiment coming from politicians in Washington irritates voters. Moreover, while conservatives certainly don’t want to help anyone — especially not poor people of color — the pity-filled do-gooder Sally Struthers-eque “thank goodness you have us to help you” attitude exuded by many white liberal activists (most often implied but often explicit) is downright offensive. Why is there no mass grassroots progressive movement rising up on the left like the Tea Party? Our not-so-hidden bias against average people is a big part of the answer. It’s in our attitudes, but it’s also reflected in the way we structure the progressive “movement” such as it is — focusing on Washington, DC think tanks and lobbying arms and spending barely little money and attention on real grassroots organizing.

If the newfound liberal love affair with populism gets progressive activists in general — and progressive organizations in Washington in particular — to spend less time running “the movement” on behalf of the needy ordinary Americans and calling the shots for the paltry grassroots constituencies that we have organized (when they even both to try working with them) and instead focus on building authentic, bottom-up people’s organizations so that an ever-widening base of progressive Americans feel their voices and their values are being heard in progressive organizations and, in turn, reflected in policies being passed in Washington … if “populism” is really a coded critique for the lack of respect for and attention to real grassroots organizing and popular leadership development in the progressive movement… then I say “populism, yes”!

As the saying goes, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?” Sometimes, cliché though it sounds, a cliché is just what’s needed to express a sentiment. And so it goes in the beleaguered relationship between the Democratic Party and grassroots progressive organizations.

Last week, the particularly beleaguered Harry Reid tacked an amendment onto a jobs and education bill that would expand funding for teachers and increase federal matching funds for state Medicaid expenses but would pay for the spending by cutting food stamps. The bill, with the amendment in tact, achieved cloture this morning — meaning that enough Senators voted to stop debating the bill and move forward to actually vote yeah or nay on the legislation.

But for once, the most interesting aspect of this legislation is not the horse trading to win a single Republican vote in a barely Democratic Senate. What’s most interesting is the contours of the corner into which Democrats backed progressive advocates.

Admittedly, progressive activists are accustomed to internecine battles, but usually these pit one arguably distinct interest group against another. When asked to sideline the needs of, say, poor black folks or undocumented immigrants and prioritize the needs of working class white folks, unfortunately few groups in Washington bat an eye. As a whole, us liberals tend to practice a “lowest hanging fruit politics” — which often translates to helping the higher placed fruit on the socioeconomic scale and letting the rest of the bunch rot.

For most liberals, then, the choice to support health care reform that would help mostly white, working class folks, while conceding to bars on access to abortions that would hurt mostly poor women of color was a no-brainer. But with the food stamps versus teachers and state aid tradeoff, it’s hard to make a case for the low hanging fruit of funding teachers and health care while denying poor people food — food like fruit.

Behind the scenes, progressive activists weren’t sure what to do. Some usually united coalitions bickered, with parts mobilizing to support the teacher and health care aid while their colleagues waved their arms in dismay that these leaders were, in effect, supporting cuts to food stamps. Accordingly, many progressive groups did nothing at all or officially took the position of having no official position. Meanwhile, the unions had perhaps adopted the clever “don’t worry” stance. According to Firedog Lake, on one strategy call, Chuck Lovelace, the Legislative Director for AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), noted that since the food stamp cuts wouldn’t take effect until 2015, there would be time to restore the funding. “We intend to go back and work to restore that benefit at the appropriate time… From my union’s perspective, we will go back and get that back.” Yes, because presumably we’ll be in a much better position if the Republicans control one or both branches of Congress….

A progressive activist friend called me about this, frustrated feeling pinned in the middle — by our own supposed political allies nonetheless — and said that at least the poor kids who lose their food stamps will be able to go to school and eat paste. Indeed, while some Democrats (not to mention the oligarchic Republicans) seriously debate whether to kill the Bush era tax cuts for the richest of the super rich, we’re forcing children across the nation to get their nutrients from Elmer’s Glue. That is, if the schools have enough money to buy glue.

Of course, we wouldn’t be in this situation if Democrats and President Obama hadn’t given in to the manufactured hysteria around deficit spending. Forty prominent economists recently agreed that while fiscal deficits are certainly a long-term concern, the United States will never balance its budget if it cannot first stimulate the economy through emergency spending. That means ambitious programs to fund public jobs, including teachers but also public works projects and new economic innovation, and establish strong safety nets for those who continue to struggle in our struggling economy. Jumpstarting our economy means putting the pedal to the metal, not easing up on food stamps to give a little gas to education. And if we have to take even more money from the exceedingly wealthy in our country who have already benefited from a strong economy and government policies that helped them grow their business and wealth, it’s only fair. Working class and poor Americans are already sacrificing too much in these tough times. To cut food stamps is an ugly additional blow. Instead of picking sides in a losing battle, progressives need to argue not just for revoking the Bush-era tax cuts but increasing taxes on the super rich. The rest of America needs the money. And don’t worry, the super rich have plenty to eat besides paste.