Tax Fairness: An Appeal for a Nonviolent Movement.

Dear Wade’s Weekly Subscribers:

I’d very much appreciate your thoughts concerning the following 1300-word article, “Tax Fairness: An Appeal for a Nonviolent Movement.”

My hope is that you will help improve this proposal and become involved in its implementation.

INITIAL REQUEST FOR YOUR INPUT:

• Would you be willing to endorse this proposal if the substance remains the same as this draft? I am not asking for an endorsement now.

• Do you have suggested changes?
• If you can’t endorse it in its current form, would you be willing to do so if your suggested changes were incorporated?

Please post your comments below and share this post with associates.

After feedback from this email is incorporated, this proposal will be discussed at the January 15 Compassionate Politics Workshop in San Francisco in one of the many breakout groups that are envisioned for that workshop.

If you live in the Bay Area, you are invited to participate in the full workshop, which will be held Saturday, January 15, 8:30 am—5:00 pm at the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples at 2041 Larkin (near Broadway), San Francisco. Please register in advance by sending an email to compassionate-politics-workshop AT googlegroups DOT com.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Fellowship Church, which was co-founded by Howard Thurman, a major mentor for Martin Luther King, inspired me to undertake this project. Its presiding minister, Rev. Dorsey Blake, provided precious moral support. Rev. Charlotte Myers, who leads its Engaged Spirituality class, helped write the following article. Jakada Imani, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights which was founded by Van Jones, offered vigorous support and solid input. Mary Hudson and Melyssa Jo Kelly contributed valuable copyediting.

Yours,

Wade Hudson

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Tax Fairness: An Appeal for a Nonviolent Movement

By Wade Hudson

Thanks to the federal government, for more than thirty years the superrich have been taking evermore of our nation’s income for themselves. Since 1974, the richest 115,000 households, the top one tenth of one percent, have seen their share of the nation’s total personal income grow from less than 3 percent to more than 12 percent, the highest level ever recorded. Contagious greed has corrupted our culture, poisoned our society with resentment, and created great hardship and insecurity.

To reverse those trends, ordinary Americans, with strong leadership, must change national economic policies by mobilizing a nonviolent movement focused on winnable objectives. To start with, we should lower taxes for most Americans and raise taxes on the richest one percent.

With this focus, we can improve economic opportunity for all Americans and help transform our society into a truly compassionate community dedicated to the common good of the entire human family.

Henry Ford famously said, “If I pay a man enough money to buy my car, he'll buy my car.” After World War Two, corporate America agreed with Ford. With support from both political parties, corporations shared a sizeable portion of their profits with organized labor. For decades, this agreement enabled the economy to steadily boost incomes at all levels at roughly the same rate.

Then, forty years ago, a radical faction of the wealthy elite resolved to overturn that post-war consensus. They steadily recruited more of the superrich to join them and eventually took over the Republican Party, with Democrats usually struggling to play catch up. With wealth-driven leadership, their well-oiled machine persuaded the federal government to raise taxes on most households, lower taxes on the superrich, help big business bust unions, deregulate entire sectors of the economy, allow campaign cash to flow freely, and let lobbyists move quickly back and forth between government and corporations. In short, the federal government restructured the economy to benefit the superrich, with little regard for others or the environment.

As a result, money that workers need for basic necessities now goes to people who don’t need it.

This extreme concentration of wealth makes our economy so top heavy it may be unable to stand because ordinary consumers don’t have enough income to sustain steady growth.

This development is due to politics, not natural economic forces. No other modern economy has witnessed a similar shift to the top.

Throughout this upward redistribution of wealth, most activist organizations have failed to address pocketbook issues of greatest concern to middle-class, working families. Those few organizations that do deal with national economic issues don’t engage in grassroots organizing.

The need is urgent therefore for middle-class and low-income workers and wealthy allies to grow a new, strong, democratic movement to promote broadly shared prosperity in the United States of America.

In building this movement, we should avoid placing blame on any one group. Everyone is responsible. Our society is a self-perpetuating social system. Any lasting solution must involve the comprehensive transformation of our institutions, our culture, and ourselves.

With this attitude, we should seek alliances with small business. What is good for Wall Street and giant corporations is not always good for Main Street.

Another key will be the recruitment and training of individuals who are prepared to engage in civil disobedience rooted in the nonviolent principles of Martin Luther King, Jr.—including a commitment to “justice and reconciliation, not victory.” Applying these principles to our tax fairness campaign will be one of our greatest challenges.

Development Strategy

The following scenario describes one way that this movement might develop. It suggests a basic framework to illustrate how we could move forward. As others get involved, they would likely modify this plan.

In early 2011, a strong, inclusive, representative governing board forms. The initial directors decide whom to invite to join. Later, active members elect the board.

The board adopts a long-term mission statement, a name for the organization, and written policies to guide the project. These policies include the following:

• Our initial general focus will be to increase economic opportunity for all Americans by impacting national policy with regard to tax fairness.
• We will periodically adopt specific, short-term, winnable goals.
• Rather than scapegoating “enemies,” making personal attacks, and using hate to mobilize supporters, we’ll assure that our public communications are dignified and grounded in compassion.
• We’ll appeal to everyone’s enlightened self-interest in broadly shared prosperity and urge everyone to acknowledge their moral responsibilities to others and the environment.
• All members will sign a statement of nonviolent principles, including a commitment to engage regularly in self-development and support one another in those efforts.
• We’ll engage in nonviolent civil disobedience as a last resort in order to prompt key individuals to engage in serious negotiations concerning how to resolve our differences.
• The board will not micromanage but will focus on adopting written policies to guide the project, select the Executive Director (ED) or co-directors, and regularly evaluate the ED.
• Financially, we’ll rely primarily on members’ dues.

Once the board has selected the ED, the staff will:

• Compose a Tax Fairness Pledge, create a website, recruit partner organizations, and establish membership requirements.
• Write a Home-Based Team Manual with guidelines concerning how to form and sustain home-based teams, which will consist of members who live in the same Congressional District (CD) and meet in members’ homes or a community center at least monthly to:
• Share a meal.
• Report on their self-development efforts.
• Support one another in those efforts (if only by listening to those reports).
• Make decisions concerning how to advance the project’s primary focus.
• Establish methods for home-based teams to select representatives to a District Chapter and District Chapters to select representatives to a State Chapter.

The Launch

A nationally prominent individual announces the project in a widely circulated article that invites readers to sign the Tax Fairness Pledge, become members, and participate in the organization’s first membership meeting, which will stream live on the Web and be shown to gatherings of members in numerous cities. 

Following this meeting, the members gather signatures for the Pledge and the national staff forms a broad, representative, well-informed Legislative Task Force. While seeking input from the membership, this task force identifies one clear-cut legislative focus for the organization.

Chapters ask key officials, community leaders, opinion-shapers, and organizations in their region, including the local Chamber of Commerce, to sign the Pledge and support our top-priority legislation. In particular, chapters establish ongoing relationships with their Congressperson and Senators.

If and when a key official or organization fails to sign the Pledge, the chapter invites them to discuss the issue in a carefully structured, thoughtful, respectful public form. If they decline, the chapter organizes a series of demonstrations at their office and the media is notified. If they continue to decline to discuss the issue publicly, some members enter their office and refuse to leave, risking arrest, while seeking to enter into good-faith negotiations concerning our issues.

In 2012, the organization focuses on the November election, engages candidates for national office, and asks them to sign the Tax Fairness Pledge and support our top-priority legislation.

After the election, the organization evaluates prospects for the next session of Congress and the national office re-convenes the Legislative Task Force, which determines next year’s primary focus.

By speaking the truth, improving our own attitude, character, and skills, and developing small, supportive communities, we persistently focus in a disciplined manner on our goal to enhance economic opportunity for all Americans, as one way to grow a truly compassionate national community.

We’re all in this together. A true benefit to one benefits all. We must inspire our neighbors to step up and join us.