"Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
                                                                                                  —Dylan Thomas

And so too must we rage against the dying of our democracy as we mobilize to stop Trump from dismantling our democracy in his ego-driven thrust for absolute power.

The Alliance for Democracy National Council has been grappling with how most accurately to describe and address our alarm regarding the direction President Trump, his cabinet and sycophants have been taking the country. Fascism seems to best describe the direction in which we are headed. We need to examine this claim carefully.

Fascism is defined as a nationalistic right-wing system of government and social
organization which is extremely authoritarian and intolerant, promoting oppressive ideas and behaviors.  This sounds a lot like Trump and his administration.  Today, we are perched on a slippery slope from derogatory name calling to a full-fledged political movement. We must organize to put the brakes on this slide into fascism. 

The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, has faced intense scrutiny and criticism linking its policy agenda—specifically Project 2025—to authoritarian and fascist directions. Critics, including scholars and political opponents, argue that the Heritage Foundation aims to dismantle democratic check and balances, consolidate presidential power  under the “unitary executive theory,” create a militarist domestic and foreign policy, and challenge human and civil rights based on hatred of “others” as the basis for a far-right agenda that aligns with key features of 20th century fascism.

Back in 2017, Shane Burley in his book Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It  noted that fascism has gained strength and apparent legitimacy in the US by sidestepping through popular areas of the left, including anti-capitalism, international solidarity, anti-war politics, and environmentalism.  Are we advocates for true democracy unwittingly contributing to this? We are concerned that fascism is poking up through our supposedly democratic institutions.

We need to listen carefully to the language used by President Trump and spokespeople for Project 2025.  Is Trump a fascist or just an egotistical autocrat? 

Is a fascist system being put in place or will it fade away when Trump is no longer President? Is the Heritage Foundation along with Project 2025 authors, especially those in the administration, using Trump as an instrument to create a fascist system?

Are we using the term “fascism” as a facile way of calling out Trump’s ego-centered authoritarian rule? Are Trump’s proclamations about how things will be done — e.g., taking over Greenland, Venezuela, and Cuba – dominating the world via an ever-expanding military/industrial/corporate complex and a policy of war first and never negotiations, creating the framework for a fascist system of government?

These are key questions.

Most worrisome is the Supreme Court elevating the power of the presidency, creating the space and opportunity for fascist dictates on the part of the President and his cabinet now in the future. 

We at the Alliance for Democracy have been grappling with these questions, and we are eager to hear your thoughts and learn how you are engaging locally in response to these alarming fascist threats to our democracy.

On today's edition of "Corporations and Democracy" radio, hosts Annie Esposito and Steve Scalmanini explore "Will New Supreme Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett Become the Most Radical Right-Wing Member of the Supreme Court" with guest Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and former president of the National Lawyers Guild.

In the second half of the program, Annie and Steve welcome Harvey Wasserman, a long-time writer and radio host, for a take on "The Integrity of the Presidential Election."

"Corporations and Democracy" airs from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. [Pacific Time] on Mendocino and Ukiah public radio stations KZYX & Z, 90.7, 91.5, and 88.3 FM, or you can listen live at the station website, www.kzyx.org. 

​Alliance co-chair David Delk has written a great letter to the editor in support of public banking, looking to the success of the public Bank of North Dakota in making Paycheck Protection Program loans to struggling businesses in that state.

Economic forecasts predict long-term unemployment and business closures as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Until there's a widely available and safe vaccine, there will be no hoped-for "V-shaped" recovery. In fact, what we have seen so far is the largest corporations getting bigger and the rich getting richer, as they take over market and services from smaller and locally-owned retailers, restaurants, and service providers.

As financial institutions committed to putting the public good first, public banks would be a key component of a broad economic recovery, if there were more of them! Fortunately there are active campaigns to establish public banks in cities and states across the US. The Massachusetts and Oregon campaigns are Alliance-sponsored projects.

by David Delk
​
Portland Public Banking Alliance is moving forward with a dual focused plan to advance creation of a Portland (OR) municipal public bank while at the same time beginning the process for a state-wide initiative campaign to amend the state constitution to allow formation of a state public bank.
 
Language in the Oregon state constitution has been interpreted to prohibit such a bank. We are working on the initiative language now with a view to getting this on the ballot in November 2022.
 
In the city of Portland we have identified several candidates running for Mayor and City Council positions who support a municipal bank formation. Happily those candidates are in a strong position to join the council next year to give us a majority of council members, and a likely strong partner voice in the Oregon legislature.
 
Organizing at the state level continues as we need to change state law to facilitate municipal bank formation. While the state constitution is said to prohibit a state public bank, no such language exists regarding municipal bank formation. But a couple of changes need to be made to state law to ease the path to achieving that goal. We continue our outreach to current members of the Oregon legislature as well as candidates running for those positions. And we will reintroduce the Municipal Banks Bill in the new legislative session.

by Barbara Clancy

The Massachusetts Public Banking campaign, a sponsored project of Alliance for Democracy, is organizing for a 2021 refiling of our bill to create a public bank to fund municipal infrastructure projects. We are also assessing potential changes to the bill to help the state build a more just and resilient economy following the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Our steering committee is looking at how to broadly define infrastructure in order to win more municipal and public support, as well as considering whether the bank should be empowered to lend directly to small businesses as well as cities and towns. Steering committee members are also very aware that the economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic could easily be a precursor for more long-lasting disruption caused by climate collapse. That realization makes our work all the more urgent.

David Delk has given this talk on Citizens United v. FEC to several groups in Oregon. In it, he explains the need for an amendment to the Constitution saying that its rights belong to people, not corporations, and that governments must regulate campaign finance, and gives a call to action to support a Senate version of HJR48, the We the People Amendment.

My topic today is Deepening Democracy.
 
You might expect that I will talk about how to get out the vote, how to get rid of the Electoral College, how we need to reinstate the Voting Rights Act of 1964 which the Supreme Court punched a big hole in recently.  Or maybe about, here in Oregon especially, how to control the flow of unlimited money into the political process, specifically by supporting the legislative referral to the Nov 2020 ballot amending the OR constitution to allow limits on political campaign contributions in Oregon.   We all need to support this referral in our communities.
 
But instead I want to talk about Citizen United, because Jan 21st is the 10 anniversary of that awful decision.  It struck yet another blow against democracy by allowing even more special interest corporate money into the politics system, swamping the voices of ordinary people like you and I.
I want to talk about corporate personhood and the court system’s granting of human rights to corporations. Court-created corporate personhood has given the rights and privileges of human beings to corporations while removing them from the duties and obligation of being our servants.   

In 2013, Dave Lewit, active with the Massachusetts Public Banking working group and a former Alliance chapter coordinator, looked at the aftermath of the "Great Recession" and what organizations and theorists were proposing to address systemic problems with our global and national financial systems. 

He wrote this article, which was first published in Empirical magazine. It looks at the link between money and rebellion, and some of the groundbreaking changes advocated by those working to democratize finance and money, including public banks, unemployed worker co-op formation, government-created credit bypassing private banks, and a trillion-dollar coin to jump start the economy and shrink public debt. Just as in 2013, it's time for popular education to lay out these issues and solutions. 

​Public banking activists in California and across the country are celebrating the passage of AB 857, authorizing California cities, counties, and the state to create their own public banks. The bill was signed into law in October by Governor Gavin Newsom after being filed at the start of the session by Assembly members David Chiu and Miguel Santiago.  But the bill’s filing was preceded by years of city-level advocacy, with local public bank groups in Los Angeles, Oakland, Humboldt County, and San Francisco, among others. These groups worked with city councils and county government and built connections across issues to bring a diverse coalition together in support of the bill once it was filed.
 
With San Francisco and Los Angeles both working on filing bank plans under the new bill, look for these cities to join North Dakota and American Samoa, as well as dozens of other countries where public banks are established, in being able to provide non-profit, transparent, accountable and affordable finances for public purposes—putting public money to work for the common good, rather than Wall Street profits.
 
Alliance Co-chair Nancy Price was one of dozens of CA Public Banking Alliance campaigners who met with Assembly and Senate committee members in the spring and early summer to help shepherd the bill through several committee hearings and votes, and to help fend off unfriendly amendments. “The combined efforts of Coalition members and endorsers of this bill, as well as calls to the legislature and committee members and in-district visits led to success,” she said. “And this California win will give a huge push to Alliance sponsored campaigns” for public banks, currently underway in Massachusetts and Portland OR.

Oregon’s legislature has approved a ballot measure for the Nov 2020 ballot to amend the state’s Constitution to allow limits on campaign contribution at the state, county and city levels, to allow disclosure of contributors, and to allow political advertisements to also include information on who paid for them. But that hasn’t put a stop to a citizen effort to collect enough signatures to get a similar measure on the ballot.
 
Oregon is one of only five states that have no enforced campaign contribution limits—the others are Alabama, Nebraska, Utah and Virginia. The result is outlandish amounts of money given and spent in elections--$37 million in the last gubernatorial race, with $2.5 million coming from Nike founder Phil Knight alone--and an increasingly clear line between money and inaction on issues of concern to voters. For instance, Republican legislators who skipped the state to block a vote on a clean energy jobs bill also received large donations from companies whose bottom lines would have been impacted by the legislation. 
 
Still, Oregonians are continuing to collect 220,000 signatures statewide to get the a similar measure on the ballot, since it’s possible for the state legislature to rescind their approval.  Alliance council member Joan Horton said that legislators take the signature drive seriously, and knowing that people in their districts were out working for the measure spurred them to support a referral “A continuing signature drive is “insurance” that the legislature will not rescind their referral of SJR18 during 2020’s short session. According to our attorney, we are not on the ballot for certain until that short-session is over next year. He says it’s very unlikely to be rescinded, but it’s a chance we don’t want or need to take”, she said.
 
Alliance national co-chair David Delk noted that in Portland, the local chapter’s efforts will be focused on having the 2020 state ballot measure approved by city and county voters and supporting efforts elsewhere in the state. Every expectation is that it will pass locally, since Portland and Multnomah county voters have already approved two other local ballot measures by about 90%, though implementation is still partly tied up in court. The chapter will also join with other supporting organizations to make sure that when the question passes, contribution limits established under it are not too high and the implementing legislation is loophole-free.
 
In another legislative win Oregon also approved two legislative study committees on a single payer health care plan for the state, and a state public option. David, who also leads the Health Care for All Oregon Metro chapter, said “The single payer study committee is expected to write legislation to implement such a program in Oregon.  Passage of this study committee is quite exciting for Oregonians and moves the ball forward for Oregon to be the first state in the nation to create a single payer health care system.  Remember, everybody in, no one out!"