Get Used to It: Ep. 114, "The State of Everything"

(typewriter typing) (upbeat funk music) - Hi. Welcome to "Get Used to It". I'm Sheila Kuehl. I'm going to guide you through the next hour with three incredible guests. And I would tell you what the show's about if I actually had a title for it, but every so often, we get together and try to talk about what's going on in this country. What is the administration in Washington doing or not doing? How does it relate to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community and the rest of us? What can we do about it? I have no idea what we're gonna talk about today, but it's going to be really interesting because here are my three guests. First, Torie Osborne, who's the executive director of the Liberty Hill Foundation, here in Los Angeles County. And as we say, a long time activist in lots and lots and lots of things. Secondly, Phill Wilson, who's the executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, in case you can't tell from his shirt. (Phill laughs) And also, a long time activist in a lot of different community issues and cross-community issues. And my third guest, Rick Jacobs, who we haven't had on this show before. So, I wanna welcome him for his first time appearance. Who's a senior advisor to Democracy for America and also chaired Howard Dean's presidential campaign, here in California. Welcome, Rick. - Thank you. - Okay, Torie, as usual, I'm gonna start with you because I know that you will set the theme for us. There's a lot of things going on in this country. And a lot of people worried. People, not just in the LGBT community, but people who are not doing so well economically and who are doing worse and worse. They don't exactly know how to tie it to public policy issues or Washington, or what people are doing. We are a wedge issue but we're also part of that larger set of people who's scared economically. How do you see, first of all, how do you see the problem kind of setting up in America? - Hmm. Well, there's two things. One of the things that I've really, kind of, come to realize recently is, I kind of knew that there's been a right wing takeover as Gene Hardesty, who's one of the, really, the topnotch right wing opposition researchers, says there's basically been a growing coup in this country since 1980. And when Reagan became president, but it really started back in '64 when Goldwater lost and the new right had developed a strategic plan for tying together the single issues. You know, the anti-gun people and the anti-UN people and the anti-tax people and forging a single movement. And that's the language that they used. They looked at the power of the civil rights movement and the movements of the sixties. And they said, "We wanna do that, but we wanna have a conservative revolution." And they did it. And they beat their own timeline by getting Reagan in, four years before their 20-year plan. And so, and they really have rolled out, and what is now a juggernaut, but it's a juggernaut based on 40 years. Their first decision was to take over the Republican party. They were, many, some of them were Democrats, originally. That's why Young Americans for Freedom and Young Republicans, but some of them had been tied to the segregationist in the south, in the Democratic party. So, they made a decision to take over the Republican party and they made a decision to forge a movement out of several single issues that did not necessarily have anything in common. And this is what we're facing now, 40 years later. And George Bush has been their, you know, dream come true. Because he's a born again. And their latest constituents, they took, basically a constituency that never voted before. Christian conservative evangelicals didn't vote, till the late eighties, till they were the moral majority and then they were politicized. So, it's really come together for them. Okay. But here was my revelation, recently. And I don't know why it took me so long to, kind of, realize this, the movements of the sixties that are, you know, the ones imprinted on the DNA of my soul that have changed my life, made my life what it is, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, then gay liberation out of that, the Chicano movement, disabilities rights movements, all the movements that have expanded power, access, really the vision for this country, for democracy and pluralism and made it, and in our view, we see it as a long line from Tom Payne, through anti-slavery, through suffrage. You know, we see the higher self of America, you know. America's kind of schizophrenic, you've got your genocide, slavery, imperial, you know, arrogance and then you have this sort of beautiful hope that- - [Sheila] Over the mountaintops. - Yeah. And it's an interesting country in that way. And I mean, I think it struggles with it. And it changes really slowly, but it has been inevitable. It's been a step backward for every two steps forward. But there's a progressive tradition of the expanding of democracy and the empowerment. So, here was my revelation, the movements, that forged me in the sixties, assumed one thing, we assumed we stood on the ground of our parents' generation and the New Deal and, essentially, a set of economic safety nets and frankly, the Great Society. Now, we were kind of mad at the Democrats cause they brought us the war in Vietnam . And some of us, you know, stayed mad for a long time. And it kept us out of electoral politics. Many social justice people sort of just said, screw electoral politics. So, we went the other direction while the right wing took over the Republican party. We stayed, we may have voted Democrat, but many of us registered independent or we went to the Greens or we didn't vote. Look how many people don't vote in this country, starting with the sixties, not unrelated to this. Okay. But so, here was my revelation. We stood on the shoulders of those that had come before in the labor movement and then people who fashioned the New Deal, my father's generation did the Marshall plan and had a certain vision of this country and of the place of this country in the world. And it assumed an expanding state sector. And it assumed that the government would be the primary delivery system for equality. That the government would take care of people left behind by a rapacious economic system that, you know, capitalism creates inequality. And so, we assumed that you would always have a social security, always have Medicare and Medicaid. And that we would, we expanded for racial justice and the feminist revolution and then gay rights grew out of that assumption. And the government as a delivery system for equality means, not just, you know, head start programs, anti-poverty programs, the Great Society. But if you start your little battered women's shelter, you know, you gotta bring it up to scale, you may get a few foundation grants, but to bring it up to scale, any kind of human services to help people out or even kind of advocating for certain kinds of rights, you know, the government helps. Well, the right wing, as soon as they took power, Ronald Reagan, the first thing he did, get rid of the CETA program, Jimmy Carter's program, 50% of the, remember back then, 50% of the jobs at the Gay and Lesbian Center, here in Los Angeles, were CETA funded jobs. And that was throughout communities all over, black communities, there were women's centers, there were, including even the gay community. We, literally, had government funding that helped us build our communities. The delivery system for equality, for economic equality, but also for social equality has been starved. Starve the beast is the primary strategy for creating inequality, by the right wing in America. So, okay. So, our little movements flourished and grew in the gay community because it was a resource-rich community, built the, sort of, gay ghetto and left a bunch of lesbians and people of color behind. But we eventually found our way and fought our way in. And, you know, we forged this. And AIDS came along and that's when we first came up against, not just right wing homophobia and sex phobia and their whole Puritan thing and their, you know, but we realized that they were controlling the flow of funds and trying to diminish the flow of funds. Well, we got 'em to give us money for AIDS, but what's happened is, while we were busy fighting homophobia, and while we were busy, while immigrants and, you know, women and people of color and lesbians and gays have been, sort of, busy fighting on single fronts. Sometimes there's been intersections. Meanwhile, the right wing has completely changed economic policy in this country. Radical reversal, don't have enough time to go into it, but massive upward shift of money to individual wealthy people, who've doubled their amount of wealth in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, they've starved the beast of government, essentially and built the military spending. So, it's diverting money from social programs to the military, the war in Iraq is the latest example. So what this means is that there's a, kind of, there's a way in which the, not just the economic ground that we took for granted and expanding prosperity, expanding economics and expanding government. So that we thought, "Well, hey, you know, we want in." Gay people, African-Americans, women, we want in, but we assumed that the government would be a partner with us in expanding this vision of America. And in fact, as they took over power, as they took over power, they have shrunk the resources. - Well, not only shrunk the resources, if I may, and I wanna ask Phill if this has been their experience in the community fighting AIDS, but also, you know, in the black community, we had also talked about the growth of the so-called faith-based initiatives. And what that means is not, "Oh dear, there's, you know, religion." Not a bad thing. But the money going. - But wait, here's the thing that's so interesting, the right wing and the Republicans, because they become the same thing. They did not used to be the same thing. They are now the same thing. The Republicans, Reagan and Bush, stopped, tried to stop, funding to AIDS. You know, for all kinds of hideous political reasons. But so for a long time, they were against, they're starving the beast of government. Well then they figured out a way to kill two birds with one stone, they could build the infrastructure of their own social movement. Build the infrastructure of the radical right by diverting the money that was coming to AIDS programs, to good women's programs, to good youth programs, to GLBT programs, take that little, you know, money and feed it to these little church based abstinence-only programs. They had half a staff person, they were volunteer run, Well, they now got 25, 30 staff. - [Sheila] Right, exactly. - They figured out how to hijack a hundred million dollars of AIDS funding every year and build their own infrastructure of their own social movement. Now, in a sense, that's what we did. When we built, when we took money for AIDS. Now, you know, I ran a social services agency. You would take a little piece of that money it would go to your overhead, you'd be able to hire staff so that you give people jobs, you create, you bring them into your community or your movement. We were able to fund a whole series of people of color AIDS organizations that created staff positions, salary positions, power bases for a whole set of people into the GLBT community, who had been marginalized before. Well, they are doing that and they're doing it with these, I mean, I understand why they're doing it, but with these programs that are, they basically put people's lives at risk. Because these are not good programs. I mean, these are programs that lie to people about sexuality. And anyway, sorry, but it's very clever. And it's like they used to be against services until they figured out a way to take the money and channel it into their own infrastructure through these faith-based programs. - But still there's, I think, there's less total money available and, you know, they're sending it somewhere. Is that what you've found? - I think that plan needs to be made that they're doing both. They're both starving the beast. I'm not sure if- - Maybe we should stop using that for right now. - I'm not sure if I'm comfortable with that metaphor. But - [Sheila] That's what they call it. - They're antigovernment now. And so they're not, they don't want government to do its part, it's legitimate part now, in the creation and the sustaining of our society. So that's number one. And then what resources are there, they're diverting? Now, what's important and the difference between this, kind of, new faith based and I call it a new faith based because it's actually a lie that faith-based organizations haven't been involved in delivering social services all along. And there's never been a prohibition on churches getting money to do social services. The prohibition has been that you can't discriminate. Now, if you're gonna take public dollars to a deliver service, you have to deliver that service and not discriminate. That the price of the meal or the price of the shelter or the price of me getting information so that I protect myself from HIV and AIDS cannot be that I have to submit to your proselytization. You know? And so they couldn't proselytize. They couldn't use federal monies to proselytize. And so there's been a breaking down of that division of church and state. The other thing about the new faith based is that it's not about purely faith based. It's about faith with an agenda. - [Sheila] Mm-hmm. And that agenda, unfortunately, flies in the face of science, you know? And so these abstinence only programs, so what we have here, is we have an expanding abstinence only initiative going on with HIV prevention and a reducing, you know, overall pot. For example, in the president's new budget, you know, he reduced HIV prevention, okay. But he's expanded abstinence only programming. What does that say? That says that, "We are stepping away from comprehensive education around HIV and AIDS." That means that rather than giving young people or anybody more resources, more tools to protect themselves against a deadly disease, what we're doing is we're narrowing the choices and the choice we're giving them, what, is one that scientifically does not work. You know? And so, it's that combination of both dismantling the appropriate role of government, because at the end of the day, I think that that many on the right are opposed to the government playing it's appropriate role. Now and that quite frankly, is the protectorate of the least of us, you know. That's the role that government is supposed to play. And so, if government is playing that role, if in fact now, AIDS dollars or health dollars or social service dollars are being used to, kind of, bring people in from the margins, you know, to increase visibility. And I always said, from the very, very beginning, that increasing the visibility of gay men in America, in and of itself, if you never, ever, ever talk or use the word AIDS, is an AIDS initiative. Because it is the isolation that makes people vulnerable. It's the marginalization that makes people vulnerable now to HIV and AIDS. Now, people often talk to me about what kinds of discussions I have with my nephews. And so many people who watch your show, know that I raise my two nephews, and they said, "You must talk to them about AIDS all the time." And I said, "No, we don't really talk about AIDS all the time. We talk about their future. We talk about what they want out of their lives." And so, by empowering people, by giving people a sense of a future and a hopefulness by breaking away from the hopelessness and the helplessness, you then put people in a position that they feel that they have lives that are worth protecting. And that's the most important AIDS work that you can do. The contrary of that is by magnifying stigma, now by institutionalizing hate and divisiveness, what you do is you further marginalize people, you further isolate people, you reduce the venues where people can go to get services to those venues that are hostile to them. And what you do, you create an environment that, I'm fearful, that we'll see an explosion in HIV and AIDS across this country. - But don't you think, not the latter point, but don't you think that some of that is the purpose of shifting this funding, what's left of it, massively. That is, they're not interested in services. They're not interested in preserving people's lives or having them worry about their future. They're not interested certainly in our community, except when they can use it as a wedge issue to see if they can't get, you know, a million more votes somewhere by fostering hate. I think the thing that is most stunning to me is how most people refuse to, kind of, let it in, that their government might have such an agenda. - Well, I think that is a challenge for all of us, no matter how clear we see the issues, you know. I still see, you know, an America, my America is still an inclusive America. Now and quite frankly, now, I think that, you know, we are at a crossroads. You know, as shown by the last election, you know. And people are picking sides and trying to figure out how to move forward, to create the America that we want to have. Unfortunately, I think that, you know, the right wing of this crossroads is clear about where they're going. I'm not so sure that the rest of us are clear about where we're going. And I think that is critical. And I think, for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community, it's, we are at a point where we need to decide where we're in that mix. And I think that we've not been so clear. I mean, I think, a lot of what has been defining us has been an economic drive, you know, in that if we are richer and better resourced and what have you, then that in some way will protect us. You know, and as Pat Parker said, "No, that won't protect you." You know? And so I think that we need to have a clear understanding between the haves and the have-nots, where we really fall now, particularly with the trajectory of where we're going with the current political movement. - A lot of people have not recognized the fact that where there's this, sort of, attack on the poor, or it's worse than an abandonment, because it's really demonization and abandonment, really, at the same time. People do not perceive the impact on our community, as well. Having always thought that we were, you know, all these rich people and we'd have dinners. And, you know, as Torie talked about in one of her major addresses, which was wonderful, you know, going from visiting with people who were in need to one of our fabulous dinners with, you know, four gift bags or whatever. But still, that is not the whole of us. And the work that you've been doing, you know, for years and years, really encounters much more than just, sort of, the rich part of the community. - Well, absolutely. You know, and then the truth of the matter is that for so many of us, no, well, first of all, at the first slice of it, you know, I was talking to someone a little while ago and they were talking about, kind of, this divisiveness is happening in black communities and using gay and lesbian issues as a wedge issue in the black community. And someone said, "Well, you know, during the civil rights struggles, you know, there were black gay and lesbian people and they still had to sit at the back of the bus." Okay. You know, during slavery, you know, there were gay and lesbian people and they were still slaves. And so, it is not possible for us to, kind of, to do that separation and the same thing with the gay community. We are not a monolithic community, you know. And within, kind of, the richness of our quilt, you know, that we are, you know, multicultural, we span the entire economic spectrum of this country. You know? We still get calls from people who are homeless and we still get calls from people who don't have healthcare, you know, who have to rely on Medicaid and ADAP programs and what have you. And that is without regard to race, quite frankly. Now that's in regards to the fact that all of us, I mean, and the truth of the matter is, for the vast majority of us, we're two or three, in the best case scenarios, you know, four paychecks away from being poor. You know? And if we're unable to work, many of us are gonna fall between, you know, the phrase of the safety net that's being shattered in this country. - Well, Rick, you were in the middle of the griddle on these issues, certainly before the election, during the election and now afterward. And Tori says the right wing took over the Republican party, that doesn't leave much except for maybe the other major party. And then others who are trying to inform the Democratic party and Phill talking about, you know, what, sort of, the issues have come down to. What do you see from the work that you're doing now, in terms of the aftermath of the election, around these issues? - I'm gonna start with something a little more distant, which I was thinking about when, particularly when Phill was talking. About a year ago, I had lunch with a guy who was visiting an investment banker, visiting from Russia. And he said, "You know what? From 6,000 miles away, your country looks very unstable." And I said, "Well, why?" He said, "Because you have two political parties that, from a distance, don't disagree about fundamental issues, but the people in the country are as divided as I've ever seen." Now, this is a guy, we have to keep this in mind, to us this is big stuff, and it's huge stuff. But this is a guy who lived through a Bolshevik Revolution, that was fighting the idea of capitalism. Lived through a capitalist revolution that was fighting the idea of communism and came out somewhere on the other side where there's a big mess. (everyone laughing) So, he looks at America, which is supposed to be the most stable economy in the world, which arguably it is becoming not. He looks at the system that is supposed to be the most stable political system in the country. If you were to tell the story about the 2000 election and frankly, about some of the shenanigans that went on in 2004, and change the names of the country, the United States would say, "We can't deal with Gabon, anymore." So, this is what somebody from a distance sees. Now, you come close and see what happened in 2003 and in 2004. And here's what I see anyway, which is that, out of nowhere, in a way, on the Democratic side, on the non-right wing Republican side, we had a revolution. It was the first time in history, I think literally, the first time in political history in this country, that horizontal access to power was gained in some way. What does that mean? Means that people could contact each other without going through a vertical structure. They could talk to each other on the internet. They could, in the case of the anti-war movement or of the stupidity of miring this country in Iraq, they could communicate with each other and say, "You know what? We're showing up on the corner of Hollywood and Highland, and we're gonna have a protest." Happened all over the world. We've forgotten. That was only two years ago. It's only two years ago. Now what happened to those people? First of all, I would say that as Torie said, most of those people, older, younger, it was a very diverse crowd, were not emblazoned with the big D, they weren't Democrats, Democratic party members. They weren't even politically active, to a large degree. They came out and they said, "Wait a minute. Where's the Democratic party?" Look who voted for this war. Democrats. - [Sheila] Mm-hmm. - Look who voted for this war. Republicans. Look at my Russian friend. What's the difference? So, these people came into the street and they said, "You know what? We're gonna do this ourselves." And for the first time, and well, maybe since the sixties, but in a funny way, for the first time ever, people had the ability to communicate, literally instantaneously, take an action and force an issue onto the stage that wasn't there. Let's face it, the Democratic party establishment, as defined by the people who are in the Senate and the house, didn't wanna talk about the war. They were afraid of it. Why? Because if we talk about the war, well, Bush has got 98,000% approval rating, but look what we've done. And this is what, I hope, is the lesson of 2003, 2004. Look what we've done. When the Democrats got scared and decided we had to talk about their tax cut, we already lost. We were on their page. Now it's how much? When the Democrats got scared and decided we had to talk about their war, and it is their war, we got scared. It's their war, we're in it now. So, every time, every time we've seen our own party decide that it doesn't know where it wants to go or what it is, we've lost. What did we win this time? And what's so exciting to me? Is this time, we sure didn't win the election and we sure did lose Senate seats and, frankly, we sure did lose house seats and that matters. And if anybody thinks it doesn't matter, talk to Phill Wilson about the cuts that you're seeing and talk to Torie Osborne about people at Liberty Hill and the grantees that aren't able, frankly, to make ends meet and talk to Sheila Kuehl about budget deficits in this state that aren't abstract, they're not abstract. They are making this state unbalanced. And if this state becomes unbalanced, it means that the rich people that you were talking about, ain't gonna have a very good life either. So, here's what I loved about this cycle. People were able to stand up, literally, and say, you know, "We're not gonna take it anymore." Now, the candidate that was enwrapped in that mantle, Howard Dean, ultimately didn't make it as the nominee, obviously. The guy who did make it as the nominee, forgot why he got there. I mean, he just forgot. And so, I'll speak for myself and, not to fight the last election, but I'll speak for myself and say, when somebody, sort of, a quasi-Republican friend of mine said, "I didn't know, vote for Bush. So I did. I voted for Bush, thought it'd be better for Israel." So, I couldn't answer him. Because the only thing I could tell that Kerry was gonna do differently was be nice to the French. He had the same plan in Iraq. So, I get excited about this in a couple of ways, because the energy that came out of 2003 and 2004, in this state, where a lot of that energy began, is still here. Now, what's our challenge? Our challenge is to say, "Yes." Our challenge is to take an old political structure, built in the fifties and probably blow it up and be able to say to these people, "You know what?" Not just these people, by the way, it's people you deal with every day and you deal with every day, some of whom are internet enabled, some of whom aren't, all of whom have lives to live, who want to participate. And the challenge that we have, I think this time is, as I say, to say, "Yes, let 'em in." Last point. Everybody thinks of the coasts as blue, as Democrat. Well, it's particularly true in California, as you know. The coastline in California is very blue. It's Democrat. Most of the state, if you look at a map of this state, this state is bright red. The 20 fastest growing counties, in this state, excuse me, 20 of the Republican counties in this state. What do we have? 58 counties? - [Sheila] Right. - The 20 fastest growing counties in this state are in the red zone of the state. We'll probably have a million new people in those areas by 2008. California is not a, quote-unquote, Democratic bastion. We have 43%. 43% of the voters who are registered, which isn't very many of the voters, are Democrat. The largest growing segment of the voting population has declined to state, independent. - [Sheila] Mm-hmm. When, and we see what happens now, Democrats take great solace. "Well, yeah, they usually vote with us." Well, there's this Terminator guy in there and they didn't usually vote with us that last time. Did they? So, what I see, again, is optimism, in the sense that, people who cared and there were a lot of them, got up and said, "We care." And they did something about it. By the way, they did something about it with their wallets, too. That's how they changed politics this time, because 25 and 50 and 100 dollar contributions, overwhelmed, I think the Republicans were shocked, when they saw that, they couldn't believe it. They thought, "Well, we'll be way ahead in fundraising." And so, the second point though, is that people, the optimism is those people came into the system. The concern is our own system, our own, quote-unquote, Democratic party doesn't know what to do with them. - Well, I think, I mean, you know, there's a lot here and I want now, if you don't mind, to kind of, pretend that we're sitting around the table, we've just all had dinner and we're now on our coffee part. So, you know, interrupt each other, interrupt me, just jump in. Don't want to just talk about Democrats and Republicans, although we've all, sort of, touched on the fact, but it's interesting because we talk about what a big difference there is, when the right wing takes over the Republican party. The perception, however, that there's no difference seemed also to me to be a problem, because if there's no difference, then you know, why should people care? And what would they do in order to counter this takeover? Clinton was widely criticized by us, when he took office, he was not doing what he said he would do for our community, but I don't know whether there's a whole lot of gay people who wouldn't say, "Gee, it would be nice to have him back." (everyone laughing) You know? I mean, I'm not saying we were wrong. I'm saying that, it does make a difference, not only who's elected, but who is, sort of, driving public policy. And it makes a difference from the ground up, as well. So, the question is, we are in contact with a lot of people, we're in contact with a lot of people here. What are the actions that people can take? What, and I'm not saying you have all the answers or all the solutions, but I know that all three of you are optimistic or you wouldn't still be doing this work. And I am, too. Same thing. What are some ideas that you have about where we go now, in order to make America look more like we believed that it was and want it to be? Anybody. I know you have some ideas. - Well, I mean, I think, I mean, I'm a social movement person, it's who I am. It's only one lens for the world. But I happen to believe that, until there is a new vision for this country and for its place in the world, that can compete with the vision that the right has, for this country and its place in the world. And their vision is very powerful because when there's insecurity and fear and yes, the right wing is manipulating people's fear, but there's enormous insecurity, not just the kind created by them, more war, you know, more poverty, more insecurity in the middle class, but the world is changing. Globalization has radically, is shifting the economic, everything. People are, you know, there's massive immigration and migration around the world. There's economic insecurity everywhere. So, there's environmental instability, there's social instability. The movements of the sixties were liberating to many of us. They were very frightening to people. There was a 15 year period from 1960 to 1975, everything got blown, you know, the old vision of the family got changed. And for a lot of people, in this country and elsewhere, between what globalization has done to economic security and the old employment contract and what the social movements of the sixties did to their sense of world order, racist and sexist and homophobic as it was, it was a sense of a world order. And not world order, but order. And there was expanding prosperity. Everything has changed in the last 25 years. And so, I think what the Democrats, and actually, I think what, I mean to me, what has to happen, two things. One is inside the Democratic party and one is outside the Democratic party. By the outside the Democratic party, it's the refashioning of the next great American progressive social justice movement. I don't know what the name's gonna be. I don't know what name's gonna stick. - Well, you call it "The Movement", again. Like the old days. - Well, I'm all for that. I'm for, like the sixties, The Movement. You might do gay liberation, you might do civil rights, but it's The Movement. But whatever it is, whether we call it the new great American movement or the justice movement or the peace movement, I don't know what you call it. But the dots have to be connected. There are more people active today. between the all the civil rights and women's movements that came outta the sixties, that are getting, kind of, a little stale, but they're there and they've got some constituency. They've got an older generation of leadership, the MALDEF's and the NAACP's and the NOW's. And then you have a whole new urban justice movement. These kids that are organizing against unbelievable odds in schools, in east and south LA and against the criminal justice system, the horrifying over-incarceration of black and brown youth. The work that Liberty Hill's has been funding in LA, and it's all over the country. There's a vibrant new, you know, small, fragile, but it's very dynamic. You have a set of people, my generation, the baby boomers, some of them are in elected office. Some of them are executive directors, some of them are successful investment bankers and some of them are high school teachers. They still remember what it felt like when there was a spirit of fire and electricity, of that this country might be able to, you know, change and get better and we might be able to fight poverty. Nobody, who was there, forgets it. And there's a little place in their heart where they want to pull on that again. And then there's lots of other people, good hearted people, who are like just going, "Do we really?" You know, now there's a line of a thousand people at the soup kitchen instead of 150. Something's wrong. And it's getting worse and worse. So, I think there's, inside the Democratic party, everything that Rick was talking about because the left didn't do that and it was a mistake. And the right did it and they're in power. And the Democratic party has to take, and then I think there's this, kind of, connect the dots for the next 10 years. We have to get outside of our comfort zone. If we're running a little battered women's shelter, we need to just not talk to the other battered women's shelters. We gotta go talk to the other services that are getting cut. And instead of letting them divide and conquer us, there needs to be coalitions of social service agencies. There needs to be coalitions of advocacy groups, across their sectors, there need to be cross class and we've gotta be nice to each other. We have to be patient. Cornell West talks about it and says, "You know, we've gotta be patient with people. They may not have the right words." You know, like this guy says to me the other day, "Well, is Lydia your wife?" You know, like, he didn't know what language to use, but at least he was admitted, sort of, comfortable with the fact we were married, which shows that there was some progress. But anyway, so that's my piece of it, a great new American justice movement and working inside the Democratic party. - I think that we need to decide that America is worth it and that we're worth it. You know? And one of the things that Torie said, that I think is really important, and the reason why the right wing has gotten to where they are, is that they did decide that the America that they wanted to have was worth it. And that they were gonna take the time and do the work to make it happen. And where we've been is that we've been caught up in the election of the day. - [Sheila] Mm-hmm. You know, rather than doing the hard work and acknowledging that it may take 20 or 30 or 40 years, which means that we have to stay focused and not get distracted with any one election. You know? And particularly when you look at the right wing strategies, I mean, beginning with school boards and community councils and city elections and county elections and state elections And even, you know, in the way that they're infiltrating the black community, there are a number of the next generation of conservative stars are going to be black, you know, because the lieutenant governors that can move into governor's seats, you know, around this country. And in many cases, the two or three that there are, you know, are black Republicans. You know, and so, kind of, making that kind of investment, and even the way you invest in the movement. The right wing invests, actually, in a movement. The progressives invest in a program. - [Sheila] Exactly. - You know? We get funded to do a gay men's project, you know, or, you know, a women's project, you know, or an initiative, as opposed to say, you know, this is an organization that has added value for our community, let's invest in that organization, you know, and let's make that investment over the long haul. - [Sheila] Mm-hmm. - I think that's absolutely right. If you, again, though, look at our own party, not to be too much of a basher here. This state is the, everybody knows it, he richest state in the country. We exported something like 190 million dollars in the 2003, 2004 cycle, one election cycle, to other elections, in other parts of the country. We invested a dime? A nickel? I don't know how much we invested in our own infrastructure in this state, but nothing. Our own electoral and party infrastructure in this state. Now, we're really lucky. We're really lucky because we have Sheila Kuehl. I mean that. No, I'm serious. We have Sheila Kuehl, we have a few other people, or maybe more than a few other people, who are our leaders in this state, like Sheila Kuehl. But the more time goes by. That we only think about the next election, the less likelihood there will be that we're going to have leaders like Sheila Kuehl in Sacramento. - [Torie] We need a pipeline. - We need a pipeline. We also, again, somehow, I think what you're saying is right on the money. We need some knitting. We really need to show people. - [Torie] Connect the dots. - That it's, we're, and it sounds cliche, but we're so much stronger when we're all talking to each other and with each other. There are a lot of people I'm sure in your respective worlds. - [Torie] We need a vision. - Well, but there are also a lot of people in your respective worlds, I think, who probably aren't that interested in politics. You say politics to somebody, and most people say, you know, "Pass the crackers." - [Sheila] Corruption. - Yeah or whatever. - Well, not just boring but bad. - Right? Exactly. Exactly. With some reason. One of the things we have to do, and I think we can, one of the things we have to do is teach people that it matters. That public policy, that not just ideas and I mean, not just programs, but ideas matter. We have to provide the ideas, which means we have to put some money into it. And then we can have the right to say the Democratic party is a home for us. - But, you know, it's also interesting to me, the way the right wing has managed to change the structure of public policy and politics, not just the themes. But for instance, term limits, where you must be interested in very fast results. Very fast results are not what you're talking about. Very fast results are the next program or the next election. Nobody is around very long to say, "In six years, somebody's gonna be in my seat. And then six years after that, in that same seat." Who can we find and who can we build through a movement, not just individuals, but the way that was one of the aspects of looking at it. You talk about redistricting. They only wanna redistrict in the states that are dominated by Democrats. In the states, dominated by Republicans, they're very happy to have the legislature do the line drawing because it gets you more Republicans in Congress. It's only in California, clearly, that we wanna do redistricting, so we lose states. You know? - Yeah. Term limits is clearly unconstitutional. I am always amazed how it happens because it is very clear, though, that it is interfering with the people's right to choose. You know? And what happens in term limits is that, because of term limits, there's never an institutional memory in the elected officials. And so, the people that our government relies upon to provide the institutional memory are the lobbyists. Well, who has money to pay for the lobbyists? Now so, it's in the interest of the right wing for there to be term limits because they have the dollars to pay for the lobbyists so that the institutional memory reflects their point of view. - But they don't want term limits in Congress because they dominate Congress. What I'm saying is where you find a problem, if you're the right wing, change the structure, don't think about being consistent, just change it so that it works in your favor. And I think what you've been talking about is how we work towards a long term goal together with an idea of how to, not just in politics, but how to accomplish that idea. - Well, you know, I'm a one-note band here, but I think that the juggernaut is dismantling things so quickly and making life so insane. I mean, even if you have a middle class job, what did we hear? Our friend, yesterday's, daughter, she's making a boatload of money, very high level executive, just lost your job like that. The level of insecurity, the two thirds dropout rates in inner city schools, the average family spends 22 hours less a week, the parents, with their kids, than 20 years ago, bankruptcy rates. Didn't they just get rid of the filibuster yesterday? Didn't I hear on the, on the radio? I mean, the level at which the quality of life of experience of life in the richest country, in the history of the world, and we haven't even begun to talk about, you know, poverty or global poverty or 20,000 people a day dying of preventable poverty in the world or what AIDS is doing in Africa or the 50% of the plant species that are gonna be extinct in two generations, unless we reverse environmental policies, pretty damn quick. The level of dislocation. I mean, I could be crazy here, but I feel like there's like massive denial happening because we're so busy in our own little boxes. We're so, we're fighting to keep our agency alive, or we're fighting to keep our kids from the streets, or we're fighting to just deal with the emails in our inbox. I mean, pick your struggle at whatever level you are in society. It's so overwhelming. But meanwhile, folks, it's like, things are spinning out of control and the center can't hold. You're gonna have riots, you're gonna have more terrorism. And they are creating more terrorists, every day this war goes on. I mean, there are consequences. It's like, they're like, whatever. But so, how do you fight a juggernaut? Well, the only way I know of is another Gandhian movement or another, it's where something happens. And I don't know what the external trigger is, cause there's usually an external trigger and people just like snap into another consciousness or just go, "I will not keep doing this, business as usual. Something has to change." - Well, but you've been talking about our movement and how we're kinda different. - The GLBT movement? - The GLBT movement, that piece of the larger movement. - Well, I think the GLBT movement is hitting a wall. That night, when I came from taking a tour of Watts and talking to former prisoners, who are getting their lives together and are organizing, a van tour of Liberty Hill donors. And then I went to a big old gay dinner that night, and there were four gift bags and the obscene amount of money that the value was more than any of those guys had, you know, to his name that was talking to us earlier. I was not the only one who kind of went, "This is over the top." The economic divide, these macro forces eventually penetrate your life. You know, eventually you go, "I can't do this anymore." This speed up, this too much work in too little time. I never get to see my kids. I never get to, you know, my heart has shut down because I'm so busy with just trying to get ahead, whatever. Eventually, human beings just go. I think, I mean, either that, or we're just gonna all blow up. - But again, what I was gonna ask, I think about what you have said, what you've all said about the pieces of this activism is we are there and many LGBT people are in the middle of stuff and they're feeling beleaguered, as gay people. So, they identify with being beleaguered, as gay people. And that's as far as they see. And what I want to see if we can flesh out is, how do we, in your minds, and how have we encompassed more? So that people feel, "I can go do this one thing I can go do that." People don't know exactly what to do. They say to me, "Sheila, how can we help you with your healthcare bill?" And you know, we've got this and that, but there's something connected there. What can we do? - We have to create, yeah. - Well, one of the things that happened last time. We've all heard of Move On and how great it was and it is. But what people thought, I think, about the internet in 2003, 2004, particularly politicians thought, "Oh, good, new place to get money." Well, it was, but it don't work for everyone. Why? It's all about community. And one of the things that I think is pretty terrific and one opportunity we have, is if we can turn the dial just a tiny little bit and we can communicate, and that doesn't mean broadcast, if we can communicate with people about healthcare, about a bill. Now, you're right, Phill, that's very short term, but you gotta connect those two things. If the Democrats or progressives truly have a vision for what this state should be, for what this country should be, how much better this country can make the world, which I think we do. I really think we do. We don't articulate it very well. I think everybody, all four of us, could feel that, right? If we can communicate the vision and then we can find the way to communicate, you can go, you, person who's receiving this email, can go take this flyer, you can print it out and you can go to your grocery store. You can go talk to your neighbors. You can create a house party. The tools are there. The application hasn't really taken root yet. So, I think to me, one big area, and I don't mean to sound like an internet nut, I mean, I barely know how to turn my computer on, but there's a big infrastructure there that we just have to be willing to use properly. And it isn't all about asking for money all the time. - I think we have to create new social spaces. That's the only word I know, sort of like, where social forums are, new spaces for convening across sector, across whatever, that out of which will come an energy and there's an electricity to a social movement. We've seen it in little bits. You know? There was a little bit around the living wage movement. The janitors strike, there was during the AIDS epidemic, we created an alternative place where we took care of each other. It's part community, it's part public policy pressure group, but you gotta have an infrastructure. If those black and white women had not been meeting in the church basement in Montgomery, Alabama, and had the mimeograph machine and the phone list, there would've been no infrastructure. After Rosa Parks said no to racism with her body and the NAACP decided this is the one, this is the one, this is the one that we fight. There had to be an infrastructure, we have to create. We have infrastructure, we have groundwork, we have nonprofit organizations. We have progressive church groups, but we have to create the next level, which is social spaces across our little boxes. And I happen to believe, as my mentor said to me, you know, sort of, social movements, the energy, the synergy, something bigger than our individual issue, happens when an external thing, it's like a spark, there's a something that happens, but you have to be ready for it. And you have, like John D'Emilio's leaping and creeping. You have to, how well you creep determines how high you leap. You have to build your base camp for the next soaring ascent up the mountain. And we have to think of ourselves as building the base camp for the next moment in history, when we will be linked together, when it will happen, the people walk out and into the streets or whatever, or they say, "Okay, the meetups are happening tomorrow." - Well, we have to have the courage, also, to stand for something. Now, my concern is that on two critical issues, the Democrats did not have a position of integrity. The war was wrong. End of discussion. - [Sheila] Right. - Now, it was wrong. Okay. That gay marriage, civil gay marriages are right, because our constitution says there should not be two classes of citizens. And because the separation of church and state protects both the church and the state, short and simple, doesn't matter what the polls say. Then you can have a discourse on the issues. You know? And so we have to have the courage to do that. And when I talk about long term, I don't mean that we should not pay attention to what's happening today. But what I mean is that we should not give up our values. We should not give up our integrity in the interest of a short term election. - [Rick] You're absolutely, right. - Now, it is because that, the reason why it mattered, that those women were in the basement, in the church when Rosa Parks said, "Enough is enough." is because enough was enough. It wasn't that, maybe it was enough. It was enough. You know? And they knew where they were going. And so, it was worth that battle. It was worth an action that they thought was gonna take 30 days for them to last a year. - [Torie] Mm-hmm. - Because they were clear that we're not going back to the back of the bus. It doesn't matter. Take away my job, beat me, do whatever you want to do. I'm not going back. - And that was what informed the Civil Rights Act. I mean, in 1964, at the same time as the right wing was being made crazy, one of the things that made them crazy was the signing of the Civil Rights Act. And it was, it all built on that work, on people saying, you know, they didn't like the Democratic party too much, either. Because the Democratic party was chicken shit then too, about civil rights, even Kennedy was. And you know, when, I mean, Dr. King talked about civil rights, he also talked about the war in Vietnam, and everybody was shocked. He was supposed to be just buttonholed, you know, and just talking about race. Why is he talking about the war? When there was a huge- - [Torie] Or economics? - Yes. There was, you know, such a connection. - [Torie] There was the janitor's strike. - And that's part of the patience, I think, that you were talking about, not only with each other, but the fact that, in order to make a party, which is the other major party in the country, do the right thing. You have to insist, person by person, on what the right thing is. I think that's exactly, you're talking about those feelings. - With Howard Dean, look, those guys really didn't think he was gonna become head of the party. I really believe that. I really think- - [Rick] Well, there's no question. - This is the beginning of, what could be, if there are progressives who are willing to take over, to step in and replace those encrusted old, you know, cliques, little clubs that are in charge of most of the Democratic party operations in many states. You could do a similar thing to what the right wing did, within the Democratic party state operations. Howard Dean is a good start at the top of the Democratic National Committee. And, you know, I don't know when that moment is gonna be, that people are gonna say, "Enough is enough." And the boycott is gonna happen, that that spreads across, you know. Or, who are gonna be the people that sit in those lunch counters? Because there were a lot of different incidents of people who sat in lots of lunch counters and made front page headlines, but it didn't, the fire didn't take off. There were three years of organizing SDS chapters before there were 400. It's like a hundredth monkey thing and there's a little bit of magic to it. I don't know what the moment is when people just say, "Enough is enough." - Well, it's interesting, it's happening with Schwarzenegger. I mean. - It's happening with Schwarzenegger. I really think- - You know, here's a guy who is doing. everything the right wing has set out to be done, when people are going, "Oh, no, no, no. He's such a moderate." Well, he says, he's a moderate, but that's the only thing indication that anybody has that he's supposed to be a moderate, including saying we're having to starve the monster. Did that sound familiar? And, but the nurses said, "Enough is enough.", and followed him around with an airplane, Air Arnold. And all they're saying is, "You lied. Tell the truth." And then the teacher said, "You know, the nurses are kind of brave. You know, maybe I could be that brave." They're not doing it quite yet, but they're also starting to say, "You lied. You know, you said this, you're doing this. It's a lie." It's like saying the Emperor has no clothes. Maybe those are the externalities different for each person, but bringing us into the fold because of the outrageousness. - [Torie] Right. - Of what's going on. - Listen to "Air America". That's been giving me a lot of hope. I just have my button turned to, we're in Los Angeles, I know there's a national show, but "Air America" is in a lot of different cities. Listen to it. It's great. Left wing radio. (Sheila laughing) It's like, "Yes." Left wing talk radio. I think we're at the beginning of something, I really do. This year I celebrate 40 years of social activism and there's something, my radar is vibrating. And I think, I don't know where it's going or when, but it's, you know, it's a mosaic, there's lots of different pieces of it. Everybody will be called. Bernice Reagon, Sweet Honey in the Rock founder, said recently, in this interview on television, she said, "You know, this next movement, whenever it happens, it's gonna make the civil rights movement seem like a picnic." - [Sheila] Mm. - It's gonna be a struggle because this is really life and death for the planet. And it's their God, you know, it's the fundamentalist God against the Christian fundamentalist God, I don't see the difference. I really do not see much difference between this apocalyptic fundamentalist Christian God, that hates queers and women and democracy and equality for this. I've worked as a social justice activist for 40 years. I don't think so. But I, you know, and I'll work for the rest of my life, but I just, I feel like something's happening. We're, like, at the very, very, very beginning. I don't know, you know, what the issue is or what's gonna get people out of their speed up and complacency and fear and denial. But I believe it will because it's always happened throughout his human history. It has always happened. - I think that we have to tell people and remind people that this is your country. You know? It is your country. - [Torie] And they're stealing it. - You have a right for it to reflect who you are, you know? And as we keep humming away at that, and as people keep seeing that there are actions that are taken in their name, that they don't believe in, now, eventually more and more and more people will stand up. I think that the spontaneous anti-war movement was about that. It's about people saying, "Hey, now, this is not the America I want." Now and because I love this country, I believe in this country, I'm a part of this country. Now, I'm gonna stand up." And I think that we need to continue to tell people that. - Isn't the Democratic, big D Democratic, message that this country is great because of the diversity, that is the country. Now, again, it sounds trite, but that's what's so wonderful about the country. That's why we've thrived for all these years. - Well, that's why we're not giving up. I mean, I don't see any of you giving up. I've never seen such, I called it profound, grounded optimism, after your remarks last night. And I really think it is grounded. When you say optimism, people say, "It sounds unrealistic." But remember the faith-based community, which is what they called themselves in Washington, calls us the reality-based community, like it's a bad thing. (everyone snickers) Well, I think it's a good thing. And I'm really glad that you were here on the show. We've just gone through a whole hour and it seems like 10 minutes, as always. So, thank you, Torie. Thank you, Phill. Thank you, Rick. Thank you for being with us. This is America. This is America. Get used to it. (uplifting music)