Keep Fighting
Lest any doubt where I stand, let me assure you I'm still supporting John Edwards. Though his chances may not look great today, the contest for the Democratic nominee is still undecided. The media loves their horse-race metaphor and have decided that this is a a two horse race, but in presidential campaigns like horse races sometime the eventual winner is not one of the leaders but one who comes from behind. I believe that John still has chances and I'm sticking with him. Martin Luther King III in a letter to John encourages him to ignore the pundits and continue the fight, I agree. Here is the letter in its entirety.
Dear Senator Edwards:It was good meeting with you yesterday and discussing my father's legacy. On the day when the nation will honor my father, I wanted to follow up with a personal note.
There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of back and forth in the political arena over my father's legacy. It is a commentary on the breadth and depth of his impact that so many people want to claim his legacy. I am concerned that we do not blur the lines and obscure the truth about what he stood for: speaking up for justice for those who have no voice.
I appreciate that on the major issues of health care, the environment, and the economy, you have framed the issues for what they are - a struggle for justice. And, you have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election.You know as well as anyone that the 37 million people living in poverty have no voice in our system. They don't have lobbyists in Washington and they don't get to go to lunch with members of Congress. Speaking up for them is not politically convenient. But, it is the right thing to do.
I am disturbed by how little attention the topic of economic justice has received during this campaign. I want to challenge all candidates to follow your lead, and speak up loudly and forcefully on the issue of economic justice in America.From our conversation yesterday, I know this is personal for you. I know you know what it means to come from nothing. I know you know what it means to get the opportunities you need to build a better life. And, I know you know that injustice is alive and well in America, because millions of people will never get the same opportunities you had.
I believe that now, more than ever, we need a leader who wakes up every morning with the knowledge of that injustice in the forefront of their minds, and who knows that when we commit ourselves to a cause as a nation, we can make major strides in our own lifetimes. My father was not driven by an illusory vision of a perfect society. He was driven by the certain knowledge that when people of good faith and strong principles commit to making things better, we can change hearts, we can change minds, and we can change lives.So, I urge you: keep going. Ignore the pundits, who think this is a horserace, not a fight for justice. My dad was a fighter. As a friend and a believer in my father's words that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, I say to you: keep going. Keep fighting. My father would be proud.
Sincerely,
Martin L. King, III
Comments
This is an amazing letter! I got an email today from the Edwards campaign saying they are urging Democrats in Senate to fight against telecom immunity as well. I can't wait to hear how Hillary and Obama supporters justify yet another clear sign of their candidates blatant disregard for their constituents and continued enabling of corporate unaccountability.
It's wrong for your government to spy on you. That's why I'm asking you to join me today in calling on Senate Democrats to filibuster revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would give "retroactive immunity" to the giant telecom companies for their role in aiding George W. Bush's illegal eavesdropping on American citizens.
I can't help but be moved every time I read this.
Land grab. If land must be owned...
"SUWA, an ultra-liberal activist group in Utah"
Also sprach "Americans for American Energy". I used to belong to SUWA when I listened to Rush Limbaugh every day (radio stations are few and far between out here/there). Now I realize I'm just another extremist who doesn't like much of what America stands for.
If you don't buy a tattoo someone's selling, are you doing a skin grab? If you chase away someone graffitiing your wall, is it a "Wall-grab"? If you're not an extremist who doesn't like much of what America "stands for", you're most likely like the guy who says, "I'm not a Christian, I'm a Catholic": You don't know very much of what "we" stand for.
If you're not "extreme", you're mean, or sub-par.
I was not an Edwards supporter in the beginning, But I am an Edwards supporter now. I will be voting for him on black Tuesday.
John Edwards is on the same page as MLK. His NC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity (http://www.law.unc.edu/centers/poverty/default.aspx) is a prime example. I'd really like to see him do well tomorrow. He deserves some recognition for his planning (yes, the booklet online and so on, but this work as well) and work.
1968 to many represents a nadir in America. It was a very dramatic and violent year with events from around the globe reverberating here at home. There was the TET offensive, the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, the Prague Spring followed by the roll of Soviet tanks crushing all dissent, student revolts around the world but most acutely in Paris, Mexico City and New York City, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, political militancy and disaffection on open display at the Mexico City Olympic Games, a bitter three way race that put Richard Nixon in the White House.
But 1968 also represents the zenith of fairness in America, a time when income disparity was narrowing. In 1968, the ratio of CEO pay to average worker stood at 28:1. By 2005, it stood at 262:1 on salary . By 2005 the average CEO was paid $10,982,000 a year, or 262 times that of an average worker ($41,861). Basically put another way that year the average CEO earned $42,000 a day of each for each of the 260 work days that a year has or slightly more than what the average worker earned in the whole year. That’s just salary but factor in stock based compensation, it grows to a whopping 431:1.
While those ratios are striking, what is even more striking at least to me is that this sort of income disparity is uniquely American. It has not happened elsewhere in the West or even most of Latin America. Among the 30+ members of the OECD, the wealthiest economies on the planet as measured by GDP, only in the United States has income distribution widened. This did not happen by accident. It happened because we enacted public policy that enabled this dramatic transition. It happened because the GOP adopted the unadorned creed of Friedmanism of unfettered, unregulated free markets. And because the Democratic Party has largely acquiesced in allowing it.
1968 28:1 1970 30:1 1978 35:1 1982 42:1 1989 71:1 1990 107:1 1998 242:1 2001 525:1 2003 301:1 2005: 431:1
During the 1970s, the ratio only widened by 16% but in the 1980s, when Milton Friedman’s economic theories first found a home in the Reagan White House, the ratio doubled. By in the 1990s the ratio tripled. Part of the answer is that CEO pay now includes a larger percentage of incentives mainly stock based compensation. As the stock market boomed under Clinton, so did CEO compensation. But the other side is that the tax policy of the United States is regressive.
While in Europe, the ratio was never as narrow as it was in the United States but it has held steady at around 40:1 continent wide and it is widest in France and narrowest in the Benelux and Scandinavia. Compared the top 20 CEOs in each region: In 2006, the 20 highest-paid European managers made an average of $12.5 million, only one third as much as the 20 highest-earning U.S. executives. The Europeans earned less, despite leading larger firms. On average, the 20 European firms with the highest-paid executives on the continent had sales of $65.5 billion, compared to $46.5 billion for the 20 U.S. firms. Europeans have maintained their ratio through income redistribution policies. Taxing income at very high rates in order to maintain very generous social welfare programmes.
Fairness is a social policy goal in Europe, it is not one in the United States. What the letter from Martin Luther King III to John Edwards tackles is that issue fairness. To erase injustice and fighting poverty means addressing income distribution. It is a fight for justice.
Charles, thanks for the info on CEO pay.
I do hope Edwards does stay in the race. The longer he stays in the race, the more influence he has over the eventual nominee. Like many candidates, he'll stay in for a while longer, because of what he owes to the issues he believes in and to the people who have worked hard with him along the way.
Charles,
The gist of your post is accurate, but if one uses the Gini coefficient as an index of income disparity, the US is not the only western nation to see a significant increase. The UK has increased as much or more than the US, albeit from a lower value (and it is still lower today). The Gini coefficients of several Latin American countries are higher, but the US is closing the gap.
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