The-Ave.US

By  Larry Neilson

[N.B. This began as one of those digital congratulations cards but soon grew beyond the humble one-paragraph intention. Here I share my thoughts on Tuesday’s election with you.]

Congratulations, President Obama!

Well done indeed. The whole election is the completest thing. I’m very pleased to see Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, and Suzan Del Bene joining the Congress, and that Alan Grayson will be rejoining it; they will all be strong advocates for the middle class you spoke so movingly of on the campaign trail.

Three issues I’d like to highlight going forward, if I may. One is climate change. Now the election is over we can quit pretending that drilling, baby, drilling will solve all our energy problems. The environment is giving us unmistakable signals of distress. The U.S. has essentially disowned the whole problem since 1980; isn’t it time we stepped up? Stopping the most destructive practices, like mountaintop removal mining, mining the tar sands, or shipping Rocky Mountain coal to China? How about stepping up the switch to renewables? We have the technology today to significantly reduce our carbon emissions, through swapping power sources and through conservation. Why aren’t we doing it?

My second request is to get tougher with big banks and plutocrats. Despite the enormous bailout (and continuing disbursements), the rules for trading in risky derivatives have hardly changed at all. Only a few prominent Wall Streeters (none of them a bank CEO, CFO, or COO) have been prosecuted. Wall Street has been let off with a pat on the wrist and a pledge to sin no more. I would not trust their word! HINT: Leave this part to Elizabeth Warren and simply back her up when she digs up the dirt.) Another side of this is following through on your pledge to tax the rich more fairly. Government should find the revenue to grow America as a first-rate society, not a collection of side rackets for wealthy investors. Our state governments are already investigating ways of avoiding predatory big banks, including setting up state banks whose profits inhere to the community as a whole.

While we’re on the topic of political money, it was so evident in the campaign just closed … too evident, in fact. One strand wove through the progressive – D wins on Election Night, that of resistance to big, anonymous, out-of-state political donations attempting to influence election results. Many of the best-known champions of the middle class who won convincingly made reversal of Citizens United and denial of corporate personhood a cornerstone of their campaigns. Bernie Sanders, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Duckworth, Elizabeth Warren, and Montana Gov. Bullock have focused on this as a strategem to break plutocratic power. In 2012 the Dems outdid the Republicans at their own game, raising huge amounts of cash and running lots of shamefully negative commercials. Now we must make the structural changes to our electoral system that will render these subterfuges unnecessary.

Lastly, one dear to my heart. I am from Washington State. We just passed a legalize-pot measure, Initiative 502. This is a well-thought-out bill with great depth and detail on how the transition will take place, plus room for improvisation as this is assuredly “new territory”. Colorado also passed a marijuana legalization initiative. Now, I don’t know if Colorado was quite as deep a shade of blue on that electoral map; but I would ask you to remember that Washington State is your base. Please don’t upset relations with your base by having the DEA interfere in the construction of a new paradigm for recreational pot use.

The enforcement machinery of DEA and the politics of the so-called “Drug War” are so jammed it would be impossible to expect progress in Washington (D.C.) on a more enlightened policy. Therefore verily I say unto you, Let the States lead, and let other states follow if they wish. If a significant number of them do, it will force a change in federal policy; however this will quite likely occur some time after 2016.

With the recent publication of the book “The New Jim Crow”, it has become impossible to ignore how disproportionately the drug and other laws have been used to imprison young men of color, to remove them from society and return them as unprivileged and under-resourced members. It cannot have escaped your attention the tragic effect the drug laws have had on African-American community life, to name only one community so affected. It is time to lift this heavy burden of latter-day racism off the laboring bodies of minority citizens struggling to make it in the harsh environment of today.

But do not let my admonitions dull the lustre of the moment. If Tuesday was a referendum on your philosophy and your performance, you got as solid a vote of confidence as you can get from such a divided people. And it was a repudiation of Citizens United, as barrels of out-of-state cash and nonstop negative ads failed to deter the election of Sherrod Brown, yourself, Joe Biden, and so many other true-blue Democrats.  This time we triumphed because of a sustained and intensive effort that included beating our adversaries at their own game.  Next time we should not settle for endless negativity and dismayingly frequent calls for funding, but should change the rules by which the campaigns are financed, getting back toward shorter campaigns, public funding, and issues-oriented campaigning.

Thank you for considering my concerns, and let me wish you a successful second term.  May your hand be steady on the tiller, your eye bright with nice judgment, and your heart ever trending toward compassion; and may your decisions be so far-sighted as to assure a proud place in history.