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FRANCES FOX PIVEN, WILLIAM J. BARBER II, AMY LITTLEFIELD, REASONS FOR HOPE IN RUTH CONNIFF: SANDERS OR
BRYCE COVERT, AND OTHERS ON ENDING POVERTY IN AMERICA THE MIDST OF COVID-19 NOT, WE NEED A REVOLUTION
April / May 2020
www.progressive.org
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CONTENTS
FEATURES
19
Our Endless War on the Poor
American society persistently refuses to address the root cause of poverty.
Frances Fox Piven
32 46 51
Shelter from the Storm The High Cost of Dying The Day the Earth Moved
Solving the housing crisis in How the funeral industry takes On the fiftieth anniversary of Earth Day,
Missoula, Montana. advantage of grieving families. environmental activism has
Emily Withnall Mike Kuhlenbeck never been more urgent.
Tia Nelson
THE PROGRESSIVE | 3
24 Turning Shame to Blame 49 Making the Pandemic Worse
Advancing the fortunes of the poor By punishing vulnerable people,
starts with a change in perspective. Trump’s policy of “maximum
Wilson Sherwin pressure” is undermining efforts
to fight COVID-19
25 Cutting the Poor a Break Kathy Kelly PUBLISHER DEVELOPMENT
San Francisco pioneers a program Norman Stockwell DIRECTOR
to reduce the fees and fines that 52 Earth Day 1970: Action for EDITOR
Daniel K. Libby
keep people from succeeding. Survival Bill Lueders OFFICE MANAGER
Rebecca Nathanson
53 Inside Jokes WEB EDITOR
Elizabeth D. Miller
29 Taking Choice to the Next Level How a prison comedy program & AUDIENCE
ENGAGEMENT
POETRY EDITOR
Jules Gibbs
Reproductive justice also means featuring Fred Armisen has
helping poor families who want helped transform inmates’ lives. COORDINATOR
PROOFREADERS
Kassidy Tarala
to have kids. Hallie Lieberman Diana Cook
Amy Littlefield ASSOCIATE EDITOR Catherine Cronin
58 BOOK EXCERPT Emilio Leanza
36 Q: What Policy Change Would Henry Wallace and the Fight
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
EDITORIAL INTERN
Nuha Dolby
Have the Biggest Impact on Against American Fascism Alexandra Tempus
Alleviating Poverty? John Nichols PUBLISHING INTERN
Elise Gould, Anastasia Christman, EDITOR-AT-LARGE Madison Deyo
Jitu Brown 61 INTERVIEW Ruth Conniff
PSS PROJECT INTERN
‘We Need Both Equity and Rights’ ART DIRECTOR Bryanna Allen
38 Hell No, You Can’t Go Felicia Wong of the Roosevelt Kerstin Vogdes Diehn
Non-compete agreements chain Institute on how to reclaim FDR’s
even low-wage workers to their vision for America.
current employers. Norman Stockwell The Progressive tackles the forces distorting our
Sharon Johnson economy, corrupting our democracy, and imperiling
64 BOOKS our planet, and champions peace, civil liberties,
42 The Fight Against Preemption Religion and the Left equality, and justice.
Colorado beat back laws to Erik Gunn
prevent local governments
from improving worker pay and This issue of The Progressive, Volume 84, Number 2,
conditions.
Bryce Covert
went to press on March 25, 2020.
DEPARTMENTS
5 EDITOR’S NOTE 9 LETTERS
Editorial correspondence should be addressed to
The Progressive, 30 West Mifflin Street, Suite 703,
More Relevant than Ever
10 BLAST FROM THE PAST Madison, WI 53703, or to editorial@progressive.
6 COMMENT 11 NO COMMENT org.
The Real Epidemic Is Poverty
Subscription rates: U.S. - One year $29.70;
The Reverend William J. Barber II 12 ON THE LINE Canadian - One year $40; Foreign - One year $45.
8 FURTHER COMMENT Food Workers Face the
Pandemic Libraries and institutions - One year (Domestic)
A Time for Heroes $50; (Canadian) $65; (Foreign) $98. Send all
Lauren Justice, Emilio Leanza
Bill Lueders subscription orders and correspondence to: The
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14 SMART ASS CRIPPLE
1 (800) 827-0555.
18 SMOKING GUN
The Direct Care Worker Crisis Embarrassment of Riches The Progressive is published bimonthly with
Mike Ervin combined issues in February/March, April/May,
16 MIDDLE AMERICA
June/July, August/September, October/November,
December/January. Copyright © 2020 by The
What Happened to the Revolution?
Ruth Conniff
Progressive Inc., 30 West Mifflin Street, Suite 703,
Madison, WI 53703. Telephone: (608) 257-4626.
Publication number (ISSN 0033-0736). Periodicals
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Negin Farsad Kamilah Aisha Moon from readers. Contributions are tax-deductible
67 MAEVE IN AMERICA 70 VOX POPULIST when you itemize. Mail checks to The Progressive,
30 West Mifflin Street, Suite 703, Madison, WI
About Those ‘Illegal Aliens’ The Perils of ‘Small Government’
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68 EDGE OF SPORTS Postmaster: Send address changes to: The
A Life Without Sports Progressive, 30 West Mifflin Street, Suite 703,
Dave Zirin Madison, WI 53703.
www.progressive.org
4 | APRIL / MAY 2020
EDITOR’S NOTE
MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER
M
uch of this issue of The Progressive, focused on poverty, and fines; Emily Whitnall on efforts to curb homelessness in
was written, edited, and even already laid out on pages Missoula, Montana; Amy Littlefield on the need for a broader
as the rapid advance of COVID-19 forced dramatic vision of reproductive justice; Mike Kuhlenbeck on a funeral
changes in American life. We made what tweaks we could and industry that is now tragically seeing an upsurge in business;
replaced a few offerings, but the package is mostly the same and, and an interview with Felicia Wong of the Roosevelt Institute.
we think, more relevant and vital than ever. Addressing the needs of the poor is no longer a long-term
That’s because, in the weeks and months ahead, the working goal honored mostly in the breach. It is, as Barber argues, a
poor will be among the pandemic’s primary targets as they con- moral imperative and now, a practical necessity. We just can’t
tinue to provide essential services. The people on the frontlines keep underpaying the most important workers in America.
of this public health crisis—the ones who can’t simply stay home We are also heading rapidly toward an election that will
and wait it out—are low-wage workers in what are now high- decide the future of the nation. There is no need to despair
risk professions: health care providers and nursing home staff, at the narrowing of the choice on the Democratic side; the
grocery store clerks, child-care providers, drug store employees, struggle over what the party stands for is ongoing—as John
bus drivers and truckers, gig economy workers, and home health Nichols reminds us in the excerpt from his new book on Henry
care attendants (see Mike Ervin’s column). Wallace, The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party.
Top row: Bill Lueders, Norman Stockwell, Kassidy Tarala (featuring Harvey), Emilio Leanza, Kerstin Diehn, Daniel Libby, Elizabeth Miller. Bottom row: Catherine Cronin,
Madison Deyo, Jules Gibbs, Bryanna Allen, Nuha Dolby, Diana Cook, Fighting Bob.
That many of the low-wage workers we are relying on Progressives must continue to insist on bold and systemic
during this crisis are also subject to non-compete agreements, change, no matter who is picked to go head-to-head against
as Sharon Johnson describes in her article in this issue, is a Trump. It won’t happen otherwise.
travesty—and so is the fact that many states have laws barring In this tremendously busy and trying period, The Progressive
communities from raising the minimum wage, the subject of is getting by with the help of three new members of our small
Bryce Covert’s article. but dedicated staff: Kassidy Tarala, our new web editor and
As the poverty scholar Frances Fox Piven explores in this audience engagement coordinator; Emilio Leanza, our new
issue, we still treat poverty like a personal failing, and the poor associate editor; and Elizabeth Miller, our new office manager.
as being somehow responsible for their own predicament. That I hope to tell you more about them later on.
has to change, now that many Americans are facing an economic I am proud of my colleagues and the phenomenal effort they
crisis through no fault of their own. have put into this issue. We are all working together, though not
We are proud to present two of the nation’s leading voices hand-in-hand, to be a voice of sanity in a crazy time.
for the poor, Piven and the Reverend William J. Barber II, who
writes our lead “Comment” on the moral crisis of poverty in
America. Also in this issue: Wilson Sherwin on the need for
militancy among anti-poverty activists; Rebecca Nathanson Bill Lueders
on how San Francisco is helping the poor escape crushing fees Editor
THE PROGRESSIVE | 5
COMMENT by THE REVEREND WILLIAM J. BARBER II
THE REAL EPIDEMIC IS POVERTY
T I
he United States is the wealthiest nation in the n the aftermath of the Civil War, African Americans
history of the world, yet millions of American who had just escaped slavery joined with white
families have had to set up crowdfunding sites allies to form coalitions that won control of nearly
to try to raise money for their loved ones’ medical every southern legislature. These Reconstruction-era
bills. Millions more can buy unleaded gasoline for political alliances enacted new constitutions that ad-
their car, but they can’t get unleaded water in their vanced moral agendas, including, for the first time,
homes. Almost half of America’s workers—whether the right to public education.
in Appalachia or Alabama, California or Caroli- During the Great Depression, farmers, workers,
na—work for less than a living wage. And as school veterans, and others rose up to demand bold gov-
buildings in poor communities crumble for lack of ernment action to ease the pain of the economic
The Reverend Dr.
William J. Barber II is investment, America’s billionaires are paying a lower crisis on ordinary Americans. This led to New Deal
president of Repairers of tax rate than the poorest half of households. policies, programs, and public works projects that
the Breach and co-chair This moral crisis is coming to a head as the coro- we still benefit from today, such as Social Security
of the Poor People’s navirus pandemic lays bare America’s deep injus- and basic labor protections.
Campaign: A National
tices. While the virus itself does not discriminate, Pushed by these movements, President Franklin
Call for Moral Revival.
it is the poor and disenfranchised who will experi- Delano Roosevelt even called in 1944 for an econom-
ence the most suffering and death. They’re the ones ic bill of rights, declaring: “We cannot be content,
who are least likely to have health care or paid sick no matter how high that general standard of living
leave, and the most likely to lose work hours. And may be, if some fraction of our people—whether
though children appear less vulnerable to the virus it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed,
than adults, America’s nearly forty million poor and ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.”
low-income children are at serious risk of losing During what I like to call the “Second Recon-
access to food, shelter, education, and housing in struction” over the following decades, a coalition of
the economic fallout from the pandemic. blacks and progressive whites began dismantling the
The underlying disease, in other words, is pov- racist Jim Crow laws and won key legislative victories,
erty, which was killing nearly 700 of us every day in including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act,
the world’s wealthiest country, long before anyone and the Fair Housing Act.
had heard of COVID-19. With each period of advancement has come a
The moral crisis of poverty amid vast wealth is formidable backlash. This is how we find ourselves
inseparable from the injustice of systemic racism, today, in the year 2020, with levels of economic
ecological devastation, and our militarized war inequality as severe as during the original Gilded
economy. It is only a minority rule sustained by Age a century ago. Since the Supreme Court’s 2013
voter suppression and gerrymandering that sub- Shelby decision, Americans have had fewer voting
verts the will of the people. To redeem the soul of rights protections than we did fifty-five years ago,
America—and survive a pandemic—we must have while thanks to the earlier Citizens United ruling,
a moral fusion movement that cuts across race, gen- corporations can invest unlimited sums of money
der, class, and cultural divides. to influence elections.
The United States has always been a nation at In response to fair tax reforms, the wealthy have
odds with its professed aspirations of equality and used their economic clout to slash their IRS bills,
justice for all—from the genocide of original in- cutting the top marginal income tax rate from more
habitants to slavery to military aggression abroad. than 90 percent in the 1950s to 37 percent today. In
But there have been periods in our history when response to the hard-fought wins of the labor move-
courageous social movements have made significant ment, corporate lobbyists have rammed through one
advances. We must learn from those who’ve gone anti-worker law after another, slashing the share of
before us as we strive to build a movement that can U.S. workers protected by unions nearly in half, from
tackle today’s injustices—and help all of us survive. 20.1 percent in 1983 to just 10.5 percent in 2018.
6 | APRIL / MAY 2020
Decades after Depression-era reforms, Wall Street doesn’t tell us what we need to know. It’s an infla-
fought successfully to deregulate the financial system, tion-adjusted measure of the cost of a basket of food
paving the way for the 2008 financial crash that caused in 1955 relative to household income, adjusted for
millions to lose their homes and livelihoods. And the family size—and it’s still the way we measure pov-
ultra-rich and big corporations have also managed erty today.
to dominate our campaign finance system, making But this measure doesn’t account for the costs of
it easier for them to buy off politicians who commit housing, child care, or health care, much less twenty-
to rigging the rules against the poor and the environ- first-century needs like internet access or cell phone
ment, and to suppress voting rights, making it harder service. It doesn’t even track the impacts of anti-
for the poor to fight back. poverty programs like Medicaid or the earned income
Our military budgets continue to rise, now grab- tax credit, obscuring the role they play in reducing
bing more than fifty-three cents of every discretionary poverty.
federal dollar to pay for wars abroad and pushing In short, the official measure of poverty doesn’t
our ability to pay for health care for all, for a Green begin to touch the depth and breadth of economic
New Deal, for jobs and education, and infrastructure, hardship in the world’s wealthiest nation, where 40
further and further away. percent of us can’t afford a $400 emergency.
To redeem the soul of America—and survive a pandemic—
we must have a moral fusion movement that cuts across
I n a report with the Institute for Policy Studies, the
Poor People’s Campaign found that nearly 140 mil-
lion Americans were poor or low-income—includ-
race, gender, class, and cultural divides. ing more than a third of white people, 40 percent
of Asian people, approximately 60 percent each of
The wars that those military budgets fund contin- indigenous people and black people, and 64 percent
ue to escalate. They don’t make us safer, and they’ve of Latinx people. LGBTQ people are also dispropor-
led to the deaths of thousands of poor people in Af- tionately affected.
ghanistan, Syria, Somalia, and beyond, as well as the Further, the very condition of being poor in the
displacement of millions of refugees, the destruction United States has been criminalized through a sys-
of water sources, and the contamination of the envi- tem of racial profiling, cash bail, the myth of the Rea-
ronments of whole countries. gan-era “Welfare Queen,” arrests for things such as
The only ones who benefit are the millionaire laying one’s head on a park bench, passing out food to
CEOs of military companies, who are getting richer unsheltered people, and extraordinary fines and fees
every year on the more than $350 billion—half the for misdemeanors such as failing to use a turn signal,
military budget—that goes directly to their corpo- and simply walking while black or trans.
rations. In the meantime 23,000 low-ranking troops We are a nation crying out for security, equity, and
earn so little that they and their families qualify for justice. We need racial equity. We need good jobs. We
food stamps. need quality public education. We need a strong social
Key to these rollbacks: controlling the narrative safety net. We need health care to be understood as a
about who is poor in America and the world. It is in human right for all of us. We need security for people
the interest of the greedy and the powerful to perpet- living with disabilities. We need to be a nation that
uate myths of deservedness—that they deserve their opens our hearts and neighborhoods to immigrants.
wealth and power because they are smarter and work We need safe and healthy environments where our
harder, while the poor deserve to be poor because children can thrive instead of struggling to survive.
they are lazy and intellectually inferior. With the coronavirus pandemic bringing our
It’s also in their interest to perpetuate the myth country’s equally urgent poverty crisis into stark
that the poverty problem has largely been solved relief, we cannot simply wait for change. It must
and so we needn’t worry about the rich getting rich- come now.
er—even while our real social safety net is full of America is an imperfect nation, but we have made
gaping holes. This myth has been reinforced by our important advancements against interconnected in-
deeply flawed official measurements of poverty and justices in the past.
economic hardship. We can do it again, and we know how. Now is
The way the U.S. government counts who is poor the time to fight for the heart and soul of this de-
and who is not, frankly, is a sixty-year-old mess that mocracy. ◆
THE PROGRESSIVE | 7
FURTHER COMMENT by BILL LUEDERS
A TIME FOR HEROES
A
s this issue of The Progressive goes to press, the Even those living under lockdown in elder-care fa-
ultimate scale of the COVID-19 pandemic cilities where no family can visit are doing their part
remains unknown; its capacity for disruption in gracefully accepting this change in circumstance.
is not. We cannot and never will go back to the way
Our fears have been stoked, our routines sus- things were before this pandemic erupted. It will
pended, our sense of security shattered. Schools, change the nation’s future direction forever, possibly
restaurants, and workplaces are closed indefinitely, for the better. If the most sensible strategy during a
and millions of Americans in nursing homes and health care crisis is to make sure no one goes untreat-
elder-care facilities have been shut off from contact ed for lack of funds, why can’t we always take this
with their loved ones. approach? If cooperating as a global community to
This is a time for heroes, for people who will survive an existential threat makes sense now, why
put serving and saving others above their own self- can’t we do it to fight climate change? And why not
interest. It is a time for innovation and determina- take this opportunity to improve things for the low-
tion, as we learn how to cooperate and stay engaged wage workers who are now providing actual lifelines
with democracy, while practicing the new mandate to countless others?
of social distancing and staying at home.
We need to keep looking out for one another. If the most sensible strategy during a health care crisis
Weathering this global storm will take all of our com-
mitment and all of our grit. is to make sure no one goes untreated for lack of funds,
As everyone should have expected, President why can’t we always take this approach?
Trump’s handling of this disaster has been a disgrace.
After having disbanded the White House team in Of course, this pandemic will certainly bring out
charge of preparing for a pandemic, he blamed the our worst as well as our best. President Trump, who
nation’s inadequate testing capability on Barack embodies all of humankind’s worst instincts, has irre-
Obama (“I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump sponsibly, inaccurately, and xenophobically referred
said when asked); disputed the World Health Orga- to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” and a “foreign
nization’s death rate findings in favor of “my hunch” virus.” There have been attacks on Asian people and
that it was much lower; falsely claimed that “anyone Asian Americans for being presumed carriers.
who wants a test can get one”; and even hallucinated As Judith W. Leavitt and Lewis A. Leavitt, two re-
that “we’re very close to a vaccine.” tired professors at the University of Wisconsin-Mad-
We have to accept that Trump is not and will ison, put it in a recent op-ed for our Progressive
not ever be a leader. He will never be able to soothe Media Project (see page 37):
the nation or guide it competently. He will never be “We are all potential victims, as well as potential
able to convincingly fake empathy for anybody but spreaders of COVID-19. All of us. We are like the
himself. He is not just an embarrassment but also a mosquitoes in the spread of malaria or dengue. This
threat. He needs to be shunted aside until the next virus is not particular to any race, class, or national-
election can remove him from power. Or maybe he ity. Stigmatizing any one group impairs our ability
needs to be overthrown. to successfully combat this disease for all.”
Our hope lies not in the President, who claims Let us work to make sure this unfolding public
to have gotten his keen grasp of medicine from his health crisis has more heroes than villains. This is not
“great super genius” uncle. It rests, rather, in the col- just about stopping a pandemic but addressing the
lective action being taken, especially at the state and pathologies that underlie it, including bigotry and
local levels, to contain the novel coronavirus and care disregard for science.
for its victims. The struggle for a better world is as vital as ever.
We have seen remarkable decisions to cancel This is our chance to show greatness—not just as pro-
public events and close businesses, at a gargantuan gressives, but as a nation and as a species. It will be
cost. There has been impressive cooperation from the good practice for addressing the challenges to come. ◆
public with new rules about hygiene and behavior.
People have been responding in encouraging ways. Bill Lueders is editor of The Progressive.
8 | APRIL / MAY 2020
LETTERS
The Perils of Nonviolence This incendiary, divisive rhetoric aimed at Don’t Forget Us Inmates
stirring up division in our country means
“So the violence is real,” Bill Lueders any Russian efforts at doing the same were, Regarding your proposed Progressive plat-
writes in his Comment (“Let’s Prepare are, and will be moot, since this kind of form for 2020 (February/March issue), one
for the Upcoming Civil War,” February/ stuff is doing it in far greater volume. component was glaringly missing: reform
March issue) regarding Trump and his —Mark Hay, online comment (if not abolition) of the criminal injustice
supporters. And this, he says, “requires system, which consumes billions of tax
progressives to prepare to do something I think Trump, due to his particular men- dollars a year, chews up the souls of those
truly difficult: respond to violence with tal disorder and penchant for denying re- incarcerated, savages whole communities,
empathy and even love.” ality, would, if not re-elected, declare the destroys families, and breeds the very
I wonder if Lueders has studied Ameri- election “phony,” and say it was rigged crimes it speciously purports to prevent.
can politics of the 1850s? How would slave and a coup. He might declare martial law, Presidential candidates can and must
owners have responded to “empathy and suspend the election, and have at his dis- take action to at least suture the wounds
love”? Would Jews in 1933 Germany have posal all the police and soldiers who lack on America’s moral heart. They can push
changed history by “opening themselves the courage to not follow illegal orders. their party to repeal the Antiterrorism and
up to others [Nazis] and embracing their At this point, a violent reaction from the Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which
humanity”? I think not! left, however small and disorganized (a makes it harder to challenge unjust con-
Yes, the right probably does have more couple of Molotov cocktails or even stones victions, and the Prison Litigation Reform
guns to carry out violence, but the South thrown), would be used immediately by Act, which restricts the ability of inmates
had more trained militias in 1861 when the corporate press, magnified as evidence to file lawsuits.
it attacked Fort Sumter. Hitler certainly that rebels are at war with the government, Progressives concerned only with their
had the best military in the world in 1939 and the retaliation by the skilled milita- own particular groups are not progressive
when he attacked Poland, but he had no rized police alone would be a thousand at all. They are selfish. To paraphrase Mar-
moral cause. or ten thousand eyes for an eye. tin Luther King Jr., the only way to ensure
History tells us at times violence must This being said, nonviolent resistance social justice for yourself is to fight for it
be met with violence. Trump and his sup- is the ONLY way to respond unless one for others.
porters are not only violent but without wants to make a present of justifying mass —Nate A. Lindell
morals or rational values, and reason, love, state terrorism on the part of the Trumpists. Columbia Correctional Institution
or empathy will not work. —Brian Carlson, online comment Portage, Wisconsin
—William F. Johnston
Tacoma, Washington Taking the Oath Renewal Request Granted!
While the piece is beautifully written and Dave Zirin’s otherwise informative and Hello to you at The Progressive: Can you
I agree with much of it, I think the media timely article (“NFL Health Care’s Bitter possibly keep me on your mailing lists so
needs to be reminded that they control Fruit,” December/January issue) contains I can continue to receive your magazine?
the narrative, and even suggesting civil an interesting mistake. He calls sports You sent me magazines in 2019, and I do
war could set it in motion. I know it is team medical staff who care more about really appreciate your kindness. I’m going
tough to decide how these issues ought to getting players back on the field than at- crazy in here because I’m really not able to
be approached, especially from a journal- tending to their health “a grotesque per- stay up-to-date and informed on news is-
istic point of view when the purpose is to version of the Hippocratic Oath.” In fact, sues, other than very slanted mainstream
tell the truth and report the reality on the no doctor is given the actual Hippocratic TV news. Your magazine helps to give
ground. I don’t envy anyone the challenge Oath. Medical schools would not allow it, me real and valid input. It would be won-
that this brings. since it forbids a physician from being re- derful if you’ll continue your magazine
—Dean Kotula, online comment munerated for teaching other physicians, coming my way. Again, thank you for
specifically prohibits training women in your kindness.
the medical arts, and prohibits abortion —Daniel Holmes
How disingenuous to imply, via quoting California State Prison
a couple of unnamed and perhaps fabri- and physician-assisted death. After a long
precedent of disfavoring oaths, many Corcoran, California
cated Trump rally goers, that violence is
being advocated by Trump’s side. Never medical schools now use modern oaths
that avoid these pitfalls. Editor’s note: The Progressive provides a
mind that Bernie operative who threat-
ened on tape that if Bernie gets robbed —William R. Kerr free one-year subscription to any inmate
of the nomination, “Milwaukee will burn.” Bryan, Texas who requests one.
THE PROGRESSIVE | 9
B LAST F R O M T H E PAST
THE PANDEMIC OF 1918
Beginning in January 1918, an influenza pandemic sometimes dubbed “the Spanish Flu” circled the globe. It would eventually kill an
estimated 675,000 people in the United States alone. This pandemic occurred at a time when progressives were pushing this country to
adopt a system of national health care.
Here is an excerpt from an article by Irving Fisher, a professor
of economics at Yale University, that appeared in La Follette’s Mag- Give Health Care to the Poor
azine (later The Progressive) for January 1917, more than a full
The great question in a health program is how to get this
year before the pandemic started.
cooperation universally. What it amounts to is practically
a revised view of the ethics of the medical profession. It
We Need Universal Health Insurance seems that, in our great cities at least, those who get the
best medical attention are the very rich and the very poor.
At present the United States has the unenviable distinc-
The idea of extending free medicine to the other 90
tion of being the only great industrial nation without uni-
percent of the population seems revolting to many phy-
versal health insurance. For a generation the enlightened
sicians. Why should not something like this arrangement
nations of Europe have one after another discussed the
be extended to the entire population of the state and the
idea and followed discussion by adoption. It has consti-
nation? It does for five thousand of the great middle class
tuted an important part of the policy and career of some
by taxation what the very rich and the very poor have
of Europe’s greatest statesmen.
been getting in the great cities, substantially free of cost
It is the poor whose need of health insurance is great-
to themselves.
est. Millions of American workmen cannot at present
avail themselves of necessary medical, surgical, and nurs-
ing aid. Health insurance is like elementary education. In In November 1920, as the nation was electing Ohio Lieutenant Gov-
order that it shall function properly it must be universal. ernor Warren G. Harding to the presidency to “return normalcy” to
Certain interests which would be, or think they would the country, William C. Sieker, health officer for the town of Shore-
be, adversely affected by health insurance have made the wood, Wisconsin, wrote in an article for La Follette’s about efforts
to contain communicable diseases and the need for quarantine.
specious plea that it is an un-American interference with
liberty. They forgot that compulsory education, though at
first opposed on these very grounds, is highly American
and highly liberative.
Isolation Is Good Policy
It is by the compelling hand of the law that society Through occasional conferences, attractively printed bul-
secures liberation from the evils of crime, vice, ignorance, letins, the columns of the press, and above all, through
accidents, unemployment, invalidity, and disease. the schools, the educational process has gone on. The
schools, I feel, must be enlisted in this work. Religious
observance of the doctrine, “isolation first and diagnosis
The influenza pandemic, which first appeared in the United States afterwards,” has borne good results.
in the spring of 1918 on military bases among soldiers returning When in doubt, the public is given the benefit of the
from World War I, soon spread across the country. Eventually it doubt. We would rather quarantine a week too long than
would infect nearly one third of the U.S. population. a week too little. We cannot afford to have factions in
By the summer of 1919, the spread had significantly declined, our community. We want all to be active propagandists
but the social and political ramifications remained well into the for good health.
presidential election of 1920. What follows is from a talk by Pro-
fessor John R. Commons that was printed in La Follette’s issue for
October 1920. Many of these lessons of 1918-1919 are being remembered today
in the fight against COVID-19; others, like the well-reasoned quest
for universal health care, remain unfulfilled.
10 | APRIL / MAY 2020NO COMMENT
Geography Genius
A Very Stable Genius, a new book about
Donald Trump, reveals that he dismissively
told Indian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, “It’s not like you’ve got China on
your border.” The two countries have more
than 2,000 miles of shared frontier.
The Inside Poop America’s Most Wanted
Some schools in California began de- Rodney Garcia, a Republican state representative in Mon-
livering poop buckets to classrooms tana, has declared that socialists are “entering our govern-
for use during lockdowns due to ac- ment,” adding, “actually in the Constitution of the United
tive shooters and other emergencies. States, [if people] are found guilty of being a socialist mem-
“There can be no more clear public ber you either go to prison or are shot.” Asked where in the
indicator that we live in a country ac- Constitution this appears, Garcia would not back down,
cepting of gun violence,” muses Ven- insisting, “They’re enemies of the free state.”
tura County teacher Thomas Smith,
“than supplying schools with places
for kids to relieve themselves in class.”
Grand Theft Inaugural
President Donald Trump’s pri-
vate business empire pocketed
Paging Dr. Hunch more than $1 million from
President Donald Trump on the coronavirus, during a Fox Inauguration-related event
News appearance: “I think the 3.4 percent [fatality rate re- space rentals at grossly over-
ported by the World Health Organization] is really a false priced rates, in some cases for
number. Now, this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of space that was not even used,
conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a according to a lawsuit filed
lot of people will have this and it is very mild. They will get by the attorney general of the
better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t District of Columbia. The suit
even call a doctor, you never hear about those people so you accuses Trump affiliates of “bla-
can’t put them down in the category, in overall population tantly and unlawfully abusing
in terms of this corona flu, or virus. So you just can’t do that.” nonprofit funds to enrich the
Trump family.”
Unhealth Nut
The Trump Administration, shunting aside healthier eating
American Horror Story
standards launched by former First Lady Michelle Obama, President Donald Trump, in a radio interview, reflecting
reduced the amount of fruit and vegetables that public on Watergate: “Well, it’s a terrible thing and, you know, I
schools must serve and added pizza, burgers, and fries (at think of Nixon more than anybody else and what that dark
the behest of the potato lobby) to the menu. period was in our country. And the whole thing with the
tapes and the horror show. It was dark and it went on for a
ILLUSTRATIONS BY STUART GOLDENBERG
long time, and I watched it.”
Readers are invited to submit No Comment items. Please send original links or clippings with the name and date of publication to editorial@progressive.org or 30 West Mifflin
Street, Suite 703, Madison, WI 53703. Submissions cannot be acknowledged or returned.
THE PROGRESSIVE | 11ON THE LINE by LAUREN JUSTICE AND EMILIO LEANZA
FOOD WORKERS FACE THE PANDEMIC
The luxury of working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic does not extend to emergency personnel like nurses,
paramedics, and firefighters. But there is another group of workers still on the job that, after the outbreak, some states are
designating as essential. With restaurants closed, food workers have now become, quite literally, a lifeline for millions.
Among those putting themselves at risk so others can eat are interstate truck drivers, food bank and food pantry staff, and
the grocery store clerks who, despite panic-shopping, make sure our shelves remain stocked.
“It’s killing me, man,” says truck driver Hopeton
Francis, sixty-two. He had stopped in Madison,
Wisconsin, after two days of driving to do his
laundry and, maybe, grab something to eat. At the
moment, his only option is a drive-through. Francis
is from Jamaica and lives in Miami, Florida, but
spends most of his time on the road.
Jane Thurow, twenty-two, a senior at Carthage
College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, didn’t want to sit
at home feeling guilty about not doing enough.
So she volunteered to pack boxes of non-
perishable food for families in need at Second
Harvest, a food bank in Madison.
12 | APRIL / MAY 2020Judy Mitchell, fifty-four, works the late shift at a truck Jon Clark is a supervisor at the River Food Pantry, in Madison, which
stop in DeForest, Wisconsin. “I’d go crazy if I couldn’t recently switched to a curbside pick-up service to slow the spread
work,” Mitchell says, adding that truck drivers depend of the coronavirus. Clark had to improvise to safely and efficiently
on the showers she cleans, and the coffee she now deliver food to the 191 families who pulled up on the first day after
must serve from behind the counter. restaurants shut down. The pantry also stocks essential supplies, like
diapers, for those in need.
“I kind of feel like a house rat,” says Jose Tercero, a senior Jeff Nord, forty-three, is restocking a near-empty cleaning
at Madison East High School who works at Woodman’s, a supplies aisle at Woodman’s, where he has worked for twenty-
local grocery store. Since his school closed, he’s picked up three years. Nord, in all his time at the store, has never seen
extra hours and appreciates that he can “help people get shelves as empty, or lines as long, as they were in March.
what they need.” Tercero has a second job at a Wendy’s,
which has stayed open as other restaurants shutter.
THE PROGRESSIVE | 13SMART ASS CRIPPLE by MIKE ERVIN
THE DIRECT CARE WORKER CRISIS
M
any of the workers I’ve They must live the most austere Palsy and the ANCOR Founda-
employed to assist me at of lives, like Mother Teresa. That’s tion. This periodic report assesses
home say they are afraid what makes them saints. A well- all fifty states and the District of
someone is going to ask them paid saint is an oxymoron. Columbia on how well they are
what kind of work they do. I think that’s why their line of supporting their residents with
When they tell people their work continues to be so poorly intellectual and developmental
MIKE ERVIN, job is helping a disabled man compensated, despite it becom- disabilities through programs
a writer and get dressed, get in and out of his ing more difficult and more dan- such as Medicaid.
disability rights wheelchair, take a shower, et cet- gerous these days. COVID-19 The new version of this re-
activist in Chicago, era, they are often told they must will only exacerbate the “direct port contains for the first time
writes the blog be some kind of selfless saints to care crisis.” a section called “Addressing a
Smart Ass Cripple do that kind of work—even be- Workforce in Crisis.” It says that
at smartasscripple fore the advent of COVID-19. in 2017 nationwide, 43.8 percent
.blogspot.com and That’s funny, because I don’t of direct care workers left their
writes regularly at
have any selfless saints work- jobs within the previous year.
Progressive.org.
ing for me. I like people who Nebraska had the highest
have selves. My best work- turnover rate at 68.8 per-
ers are simply people who cent, but even where the
enjoy helping others and rate was lowest, in Wash-
getting paid for it. They do ington, D.C., it was still
their shifts, even in these 24.4 percent.
trying times, because that’s And, of course, the
their job. fact that these workers
The canonization of di- are paid an exceedingly
rect care workers is supposed crappy wage stokes up the
to be high praise, but it’s really high turnover rate. “The Case
a reflection of how profoundly for Inclusion 2020” says their me-
their work is misunderstood and dian hourly wage nationwide is
devalued. It’s a deep disrespect $12.09. In Alabama, it’s just $9.40.
cleverly disguising itself as an The terms “direct care worker” The District of Columbia is near
equally deep respect. And it be- or “direct support worker” are in- the top again at $14.03, but that’s
gins with the notion that helping creasingly being used to describe still not much, considering how
disabled people execute our daily those who assist disabled people expensive it is to live there.
bodily, domestic, and community in their communities and homes. I’m having a workforce crisis
functions is some of the dirtiest of Those are kind of dry job classi- of my own right now. My work-
dirty work. It’s like ministering to fications, but I like either better ers are paid by a Medicaid-fund-
the untouchables—literally. than calling them caregivers. I ed state program in Illinois. Their
And that’s where the vicious never call my workers caregivers. hourly wage went up from $13.48
cycle of devaluation begins. It sounds too much like a nurse to $14 on January 1. When Illi-
Those who provide care for peo- or a babysitter. nois had a Republican governor
ple with disabilities are dimin- But whatever you call them, from 2014 to 2018, these work-
ished by association. Because if these are dedicated workers with ers’ wages remained stagnant at
we’re untouchables, then only life-saving jobs, now more than $13 an hour. My workers are gig
saints would want to come close ever. economy workers. They receive
to us, right? And being a saint is no benefits nor any paid sick or
a dead-end job with no room for
advancement. Saints must always
be humble and self-sacrificing.
A report called “The Case for
Inclusion 2020” was recent-
ly put out by United Cerebral
vacation days.
When my crew is at full
strength, I employ six people.
14 | APRIL / MAY 2020Since this time last year, I’ve hired linchpin for success for so many of the most precise data, a few
nine people, fired three, and five people with disabilities to live the years up the road it will reveal
have moved on. Only two mem- independent life that they choose.” what we’ve already known for a
bers of my current crew were But because of low pay and long time—workers who help
with me at this time last year. All lack of benefits, good workers are people like me stay active, pro-
of them, thankfully, have stayed extremely hard to find and retain, ductive, and in good mental and
with me through the coronavirus Jorwic said. She offered up as an physical health are dismissed and
pandemic so far. example her brother, Chris, who disregarded and deserve a much
I like to think that my home has autism. better shake.
is a decent workplace. I hope it at Chris lives in the suburbs of “The lack of investment from
least beats working in a corporate Chicago and has a crew of three the top creates the crisis,” Jorwic
soul-crushing environment like or four workers who help him go
a KFC. I also like to think that out in the community, Jorwic ex- Workers who help people like me stay
I’m a fair and easy guy to work plained. Those workers earn an
for. None of the people who have average of $10 an hour. Recently, active, productive, and in good mental
recently moved on from me said she said, the worker who spent and physical health are dismissed and
they were doing so because I’m the most time with Chris reluc-
disregarded and deserve a much better
a jerk. One of them signed up tantly quit so she could take a job
for a photography project in the with higher pay. More than two shake.
mountains of Bolivia or some- months later, that worker still had
thing like that. But others left to not been replaced. said in her testimony. “There has
pursue higher-paying jobs. At $14 The “most direct way to make been a lack of federal investment
an hour with no benefits, it’s hard a significant impact on the work- for decades and states have not
to compete, even with KFC. force crisis,” Jorwic said, would picked up the slack.”
But all this stuff that’s been be for the state and federal gov- And as long as what direct care
happening regarding the coro- ernments to invest more money workers do is still regarded as the
navirus vividly illustrates how in funding home and community toil of saints, I’ll know we’re not
consequential this work is. My support programs so pay can be getting very far. This provides a
workers don’t have the luxury of brought up to and sustained at comfortable rationale for their
being able to hole up and hide. If competitive levels. continued devaluation, which
they don’t show up, well, you can In March, two U.S. Sena- allows those at the top who can
see the impact that has on people tors—Maggie Hassan, Democrat change things to conveniently
like me. And if they spend a week of New Hampshire, and Susan avoid facing the hard fact that
or two at home recovering, that’s Collins, Republican of Maine— the real answer is money. There’s
a week or two without pay. introduced legislation called the no way around it, especially now.
Recognizing the Role of Direct We have to invest heavily and
L ast November, the Arc of the
United States and the National
Domestic Workers Alliance host-
Support Professionals Act. The enthusiastically in these workers.
bill directs the Office of Manage- But that won’t happen until the
ment and Budget to revise the lives of those of us on the receiv-
ed a Congressional briefing enti- Standard Occupational Classifi- ing end of what they do, like me,
tled “The Hidden Crisis of Care in cation system to include a new are also genuinely valued. Helping
the U.S.—Addressing the Home category for direct support work- us isn’t relentless drudgery. It’s a
Care Workforce Shortage.” ers. The goal is to provide more vital service. What they do for us
Nicole Jorwic, the Arc’s se- precise data to determine how to is important to everyone because
nior director of public policy, best deploy resources by tracking what we do is also important. And
testified: “Nearly everywhere I where shortages of these workers we can’t do it without them.
go, the number-one issue that I are most severe. These workers won’t be paid or
hear about most is the workforce I suppose this approach is all treated appropriately until what
crisis.” She added, “The word well and good and full of the best they contribute is truly respect-
‘crisis’ doesn’t really do it justice— intentions, but it doesn’t get me ed. So don’t canonize my workers.
having a skilled, properly trained, too excited. Even if the govern- That doesn’t buy them any grocer-
and fairly paid workforce is the ment collects reams and reams ies. Show them the money. ◆
THE PROGRESSIVE | 15MIDDLE AMERICA by RUTH CONNIFF
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REVOLUTION?
A
few short months ago, diverse presidential primary field the system. He can make deals and
neither the coronavirus in U.S. history? What happened to get things done. He is not alarmed
pandemic nor Joe Biden’s Elizabeth Warren and the power- or angry. And that is a big part of
coronation were visible on the ful group of women who cleaned his appeal to moderate voters and
horizon. Biden’s clock in the debates? What the establishment. Sure, he has
We’re living in a different world happened to the revolution? taken money from big donors. But
now. so has nearly everyone in politics.
RUTH CONNIFF
is editor-at-large
for The Progressive
our
As we shelter in place, with
schools,
rants, and
workplaces,
playgrounds shut
restau-
down,
B15,
ernie Sanders was right. In his
debate
held in
with Biden on March
a sealed CNN studio
Many Democrats are OK with that.
Young people, on the other
hand, can’t stand it. The Bernie
and editor-in-chief watching Donald Trump fumble without a live audience to avoid revolutionaries under thirty I
of the new state his way through news confer- contagion, Sanders said that the know are appalled by Biden, who
news website ences—giving himself a “10” for current pandemic exposes the strikes them as the ultimate phony.
the Wisconsin his dangerously inept handling of great vulnerability of our unequal, All the jokes about his senior
Examiner.
a global disaster he once called a increasingly unjust society. moments, his out-of-touch com-
hoax and now calls the “Chinese As Sanders pointed out, the ments about “record players,” and,
virus”—it looks as though the guy United States spends twice as worse, his use of the word “aliens”
who seemed least on his toes in much per capita on health care as in that last debate to describe un-
the Democratic primary debates other developed countries, but our documented immigrants, are just
will be representing the majority patchwork of private insurance depressing now. The Trump cam-
of Americans who want to defeat providers that exclude millions of paign is already gleefully grabbing
Trump in November. people leaves us woefully unpre- onto this material.
The two events are not direct- pared to launch an effective, co- In the March 15 debate, Sand-
ly related. Biden won a majority ordinated response to this public ers hectored Biden about his past
of Democratic delegates not be- health crisis. positions—supporting the bank
Add to that the desperate situa- bailout; making floor speeches
The coronavirus pandemic exposes the tion of workers already living pay- in favor of the budget-balancing
check to paycheck, and the need Bowles-Simpson Act, which in-
huge cracks in our society that Sanders has to raise the minimum wage, tax cluded cuts to Social Security and
been pointing out all along. the rich, provide universal health Medicare; taking contributions
care, and restore the social safety from the pharmaceutical indus-
cause he seems like the safest bet net becomes undeniable. try; voting for the Iraq War, the
in a crisis (although some voters The coronavirus pandemic ex- Defense of Marriage Act, and, re-
think he is). He won because the poses the huge cracks in our soci- peatedly, the Hyde Amendment
establishment finally and fully ety that Sanders has been pointing that bars the use of federal funds
threw its weight behind him, after out all along. for abortion.
months of considering every other Biden’s response in the debate Biden copped to his votes on
alternative, from an inexperienced was to say that the nation is in the the war and the Defense of Mar-
small-town mayor to an arrogant throes of “a national crisis” that riage Act, and explained away the
former Republican billionaire who “has nothing to do with Bernie’s Hyde Amendment, which was
dropped in late and spent half a bil- Medicare for All.” rolled into other legislation. But he
lion dollars, proposing to save our Biden has made his case for pretended he had never support-
democracy by buying the election. the Democratic nomination by ed austerity and bank deregulation.
When none of the other op- painting the Sanders revolution He seemed incredulous that Sand-
tions worked out, the moderate as unrealistic. Getting to Medi- ers even brought it up. After all,
bloc closed ranks behind Biden, care for All, he argues, would take he’s winning. It’s time to pretend
and “Joementum” became a years, and people need action now. he’s a progressive champion, and
self-fulfilling prophesy. Biden projects a knowing con- it’s Sanders’s job to help him with
What happened to the most fidence in his own familiarity with that, not dig into his past.
16 | APRIL / MAY 2020Sanders had plenty of material. bill for “incentivizing people to “It is time to ask how we get to
Biden, as a Senator from Delaware, not show up for work.” Johnson, where we are,” Sanders said in his
spent years developing a cozy rela- who has suggested that the gov- closing statement. It is time “to re-
tionship with the banking industry ernment might be overreacting think America,” to try to make it “a
headquartered there. He has a long to the pandemic, since it may kill country where we care about each
record of less-than-perfect popu- “no more than 3.4 percent of our other,” not “a nation of greed and
lism. population,” spoke for a minority corruption.”
“That’s what leadership is about,” of Republicans in Congress and The Democrats are not going to
Sanders instructed Biden after one business interests against helping have a brokered convention. But
particularly bruising exchange on the working poor. He lost that Bernie Sanders and his base still
Biden’s record, in contrast to his fight. have a lot of power. Before 2016,
own. “It’s having the guts to take Biden is seeking the middle many of Sanders’s ideas were dis-
an unpopular vote.” ground, even as the Earth heaves missed as fringe notions, including
Moderate voters don’t neces- and cracks beneath him. He the $15 an hour minimum wage,
sarily want a President who takes pitches himself as the candidate
unpopular positions. They want of a “return to normalcy,” after Biden pitches himself as the candidate of
someone who can reassure Wall the dystopian presidency of Don-
Street and stop this nightmare we ald Trump. But more and more
a “return to normalcy.” But Americans are
are all living through. Americans are coming to grips coming to grips with the fact that we may
Biden has adopted Senator with the fact that we may never never see normal again.
Elizabeth Warren’s bankruptcy bill see normal again.
and part of Sanders’s free-college Sanders, in that last debate, student loan forgiveness, and
plan that would cover tuition at made the connection between Medicare for All.
public universities for families that the need for a robust government Now, not only have they moved
earn less than $125,000 per year. response to the emergency of the to the mainstream of the Demo-
But the bankruptcy bill Warren coronavirus pandemic and the cratic Party, but the whole world is
seeks to undo is one Biden helped way we address the emergency of waking up to the need for a more
to write, Sanders pointed out. (“I climate change. Biden’s climate unified, community-minded ap-
did not!” Biden huffed.) plans are “nowhere near enough,” proach to public health and our
Biden wasn’t prepared to relit- Sanders said, painting a picture of general welfare.
igate his whole, long record. He massive flooding, drought, food Every four years, we see the
expected to be allowed to morph insecurity, and populations dis- battle within the Democratic
into the candidate voters want him placed by global warming. Party—the rise of candidates like
to be. That’s the realistic approach “This is not a middle-of-the- Bernie Sanders or Ralph Nader or
to politics. ground thing,” he added. “It is Elizabeth Warren who show us a
insane that we continue to have vision of what America could be,
T he longer the coronavirus fracking . . . and to give tens of
emergency goes on, however, billions of dollars a year in tax
the clearer it is that a New Deal breaks and subsidies to the fossil
and then the inevitable collapse
into the candidate who is more
palatable to the guardians of the
style rethinking of our whole so- fuel industry.” status quo.
ciety is in order. While Biden describes corona- But the revolution in our pol-
Even Mitch McConnell told virus as an emergency requiring itics is about more than winning
his Republican colleagues to hold a response akin to war, Sanders a single election. We have to keep
their noses and vote for a House said, “I look at climate change in building power at every level,
bill that gives workers affected by the exact same way.” pushing the idea of a saner, more
the coronavirus temporary paid Sanders wants to spend billions humane nation. More people are
sick leave, boosts unemployment more than Biden on a transition to listening to progressive ideas, as
benefits, strengthens government renewable energy—a massive $13 the inequities of our current sys-
food aid, and helps states meet ex- to $14 trillion investment that oth- tem become increasingly indefen-
penses for Medicaid. ers have dismissed as unrealistic. sible.
Senator Ron Johnson, Repub- But continuing as we are is also We need the Sanders revolu-
lican of Wisconsin, derided the unrealistic. tion more than ever. ◆
THE PROGRESSIVE | 17You can also read
