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6. Make money.
On Halloween, in the parking lot of the Speakeasy Hotel and Casino in Reno, I met former governor of Texas Ann Richards, the feisty lady who'd joked at the 1992 Democratic National Convention that "poor George" [Bush Senior] had been "born with a silver foot in his mouth." A young man was talking to her about his ideas for starting a liberal think tank.
"The question is," she admonished, "where are you going to get the money for it? I don't want to hear about ideals unless you've got the money to fund your organization."
Seasoned by years of reality in American politics, Richards is a pragmatist -- as we all should become. First and foremost, we need to make money and fund our own organizations. This isn't as difficult as it might seem. We've proven that we have access to huge amounts of money that rivaled the Republican war chest.
We've lost political power, no doubt about that. But we can make up for it -- at least somewhat -- with economic power, which can sometimes trump political power. We sent Sinclair Broadcast Group stock tumbling and boycotted its advertisers en masse (although, thanks to individual sponsorships, it was able to broadcast "Stolen Honor" to millions of homes in Ohio and Florida within three days of the election, but that's another story). The campaigns of Dean and Kerry raised record amounts of funds, which belied the conventional wisdom that the G.O.P. is the party of money. At the end of the day, the left was able to come up with as much money as the right. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly called financier George Soros "a real sleazoid," most likely because MoveOn (one of Soros's organizational beneficiaries) turned out to be a fundraising powerhouse. The upper-crust urban elite supported Kerry, partially because they knew that Kerry's economic and foreign policies would be better for business.
The densest concentrations of wealth (the New York metropolitan area, the Bay Area, the Los Angeles area) are well within the politically blue regions of the country. There's a reason that Steve Jobs and other business leaders of Silicon Valley backed Kerry: we're the party of ideas, creativity and productivity, education, innovation, science and technology, internationalism and modernity. We drive the economy and -- for better or worse -- generate the most tax revenue and support the ignorant, church-indoctrinated, lazy bums of those in the red regions.
Let's embrace the much-derided label of the "liberal elite," at least economically. Let's create and manage our own wealth -- not only to take care of ourselves and others we care about during Bush's impending economic disaster, but also to fund the causes and organizations we care about: left-of-center political and social organizations, think tanks, microloans of community-based and socially responsible businesses, the true liberal media, educational programs, secular groups and progressive religious communities.
On a personal level, I recommend developing good financial management skills. Live frugally -- below your means -- and, if necessary, create a plan to eliminate unsecured debt. Develop a realistic savings plan.
How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt, and Live Prosperously, by Jerrold Mundis
Earn What You Deserve: How to Stop Underearning & Start Thriving, by Jerrold Mundis
9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying, by Suze Orman
Get A Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties And Thirties, by Beth Kobliner
Debt Free by 30: Practical Advice for Young, Broke, & Upwardly Mobile, by Jason Anthony and Karl Cluck
Charles Schwab's New Guide to Financial Independence Completely Revised and Updated: Practical Solutions for Busy People
Women's Guide to Financial Self-Defense, by June Mays
Local organizations associated with the nonprofit National Foundation for Credit Counseling offer free or low-cost debt management plans, financial management workshops and assistance for first-time homebuyers. (Note: Many for-profit organizations use the term "credit counseling" in their titles, so make sure that your local organization is an official member of the NFCC.)
In addition, let's spend our consumer dollars wisely: buy produce from local organic farmers, gifts from local artisans, big-ticket items from merchants we feel good about. Trade in your American SUV for a Toyota Prius. Another tactic: buy enough stock in a corporation you despise so that you can get into their private shareholder meetings and raise hell, or at least do some reasoned convincing.
Learn how to start, manage and grow a business. If you're unemployed, think entrepreneurially, one-man-band style. Run a shoestring operation on the internet to bring in extra income. (A friend and I co-founded FreeAfterRebate.info, an informational service specializing in free and almost-free deals on the web. It's been profitable since its first week.) Consider niche markets, especially in unglamorous, recession-resistant areas. If you're successful, hire smart liberals.
Growing a Business, by Paul Hawken
The Millionaire Next Door, by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
The Entrepreneur and Small Business Problem Solver: An Encyclopedic Reference and Guide, by William A. Cohen
Innovation and Entrepreneurship, by Peter F. Drucker
Secrets of Self-Employment: Surviving and Thriving on the Ups and Downs of Being Your Own Boss, by Sarah and Paul Edwards
Raising the Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business, by Gary Erickson
Marty Nemko, pragmatic career counselor
(I don't agree with him on everything, but he does offer solid practical advice)
Study the principles of sound investing. Abandon mean-spirited industries that create a lot of pain around the world (fossil fuels, health care management, big pharmaceuticals, weaponry -- in other words, all the industries whose stocks soared on November 3) in favor of more stable, responsible or forward-thinking markets (renewable energy technology? stem cell research? organic farming co-operatives? water treatment and desalinization plants? community microlending funds? private space travel? Canadian real estate investment trust funds? the euro?). While socially responsible funds are frustratingly steady, we probably won't experience an Enronesque betrayal with them. Let's start our own funds, pool our resources and invest in new businesses.
7. Educate yourself.
Whatever we decide to do, wherever we decide to go, whether we prefer to be formally educated or autodidactic (or some combination, which is ideal), we need to study and learn. Knowledge is power that can make us better people and increase our income potential (see Step # 6 above). We need experts in many fields: law, business, nursing and medicine, computer technology, science and engineering, mathematics, media and communications, religion and culture, languages, history and the liberal arts. If you have artistic talent, spend time developing it; other countries value the arts more than the United Red States does.
If you're fortunate enough to have a solid formal education, don't stop there -- and don't overrely on its existence, especially now that Bush's gang is hell-bent on bankrupting public schools and financial aid for higher education. Learn how to teach yourself. Read a lot. Visit libraries (while they're still open and free). Become more computer and media literate. Attend lectures and watch documentaries. Practice your communication skills. Learn at least one other language. Share ideas and listen to other people's stories. Commit yourself to being a life-long learner, and inspire others to do the same.
8. Support and protect the blue regions.
Perhaps you've seen this map by now:
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(Click here for larger image) |
After seeing this map, my first instinct was to urge my compatriots to batten down the hatches in our cities and beloved blue regions -- the West Coast, the Northeast and the Upper Midwest -- and to spend my domestic travel dollars in blue areas other than my own as well as liberal bastions of the red areas. (Various other maps reveal a bit more complexity and analysis.)
I predict a reversal of the liberal-federal/conservative-states alignment. The Bush cultists have apparently forgotten their beef with "big government." While I've always touted the idea of taxing wealth reasonably to support the common good -- health care, education, libraries, public transportation, scientific research, investments that grow the economy in environmentally and socially responsible ways -- I was appalled to have found myself turning into a libertarian overnight, at least as far as the federal government is concerned. ("How dare they steal my hard-earned money to fund their war machine and corporate boondoggles?!")
The blue regions might be able to staunch the damage, at least locally. California resoundingly passed the stem-cell research initiative, which may be a first sign of rejecting the Bush agenda. Let's whittle away further: pass state and local initiatives to protect reproductive choice, privacy rights, gay rights, natural habitats and more.
9. Reach out to the blue people in red states.
In early November 1984, in a dreary suburb on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, I was only student in my ninth grade class wearing a Mondale/Ferraro button. The day after the election, my classmates made extra sure that I knew that Reagan had won a second term. (What is it with right-wingers and gloating? How did they ever develop the reputation for "maturity" and "responsibility"?) I couldn't have felt more alone. (Just a couple of weeks shy of my nineteenth birthday, I moved to San Francisco and never looked back.)
I tell this story because I was once a blue person stuck in a red state. I had some progressive mentors -- I worked hard to find them -- but I wished more people had somehow found me and helped me through that difficult time.
Many blue people have decided to live in red regions permanently. Maybe it's their jobs or businesses, their (more affordable) homes, their love of the land and the communities in which they grew up, their families -- whatever the case may be, they're there and that doesn't make them any less blue (pun optional). We've learned from the various Democratic campaigns that many of our kindred spirits are blues in red land. As Barack Obama eloquently said, "We love our gay friends in the red states."
Short of air-dropping "Invest in solar" and "It's OK if you're gay" pamphlets over the Heartland, let's brainstorm other ways to reach these folks, especially the young ones who will inherit the political dominion. The internet helps, but keep in mind the rural/urban digital divide. Think small and local, like low-bandwidth community blogs, low-wattage radio stations and handwritten letter campaigns.
10. Embrace lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendereds.
I have mixed feeling about the actions of Gavin Newsom, our mayor in San Francisco. I'd been nervous back in February when he launched his gay marriage campaign. Couldn't he just wait a year? I thought. He was both lauded as a visionary and derided as an irresponsible Democrat. He took a huge political gamble and, unfortunately -- for all of us -- he lost that gamble.
Still, I couldn't help being happy for the thousands of ecstatic couples lining up to get married under the rotunda in City Hall. Since my teens, I've always cared deeply about gay rights. Here in San Francisco, I'm surrounded by LGBTs. Half the residents of my building are gay or lesbian, and we live on the hill just above the famously gay Castro District. I organized the Vote 2004 Project contingent in the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade and donated the rainbow "VOTE" banner to the LGBT Community Center afterward. I was honored to serve a community I have so much respect for.
If you're straight, please don't turn your back on LGBTs. The haters, not the lovers, cost us this election. I submit that we wouldn't have done as well as we did without LGBTs. They raised huge amounts of money through their communities and organized like nobody's business -- and they had a fabulous time doing it. Again and again, LGBTs have been the foot soldiers of community organizing and volunteerism, whether it was lesbians participating in abortion clinic defense (with little to gain from it) or colorful drag queens marching in high heels against the war. What the red states don't know is that where LGBTs go, so go the cultural creatives: the entrepreneurs, the scientists, the artists -- those who generate economic and cultural wealth. LGBTs make our communities and our lives beautiful and fun and wonderful, and the world would be much bleaker without them.
If you're an LGBT and you're feeling alienated and scared, please take heart. We will not abandon you. Some day we'll live in a world in which being gay is considered no more "deviant" than being left-handed. Until then, know that you are not alone and some of us straight folks are still paying for Showtime just so we can see Queer As Folk and The L-Word.
Share the love
Hope is gone only when you've decided it's gone, or when you're dead. You're still alive, and I'm guessing that if you're reading this, you have a roof over your head, food to eat, clean water to drink and clothes on your body, at least for the moment. We are rich compared to many in the world. We still have email and The O.C., our friends and the glorious sunrises over our beautiful land. Let's count our blessings.
Finally, please send a thank-you note and maybe some flowers to the folks who gave so much of themselves to the cause: Michael Moore; Howard Dean; Markos Zuniga of Daily Kos; Dan Chavez, Democratic organizer in Reno, NV; John Edwards, for sending some hope our way when he said that all the votes would be counted; George Soros and the many others at the organizations and alternative media outlets who care as much we do. (I'm sure the Kerry-Heinz family could use some love, too, especially after putting up with all those dishonorable Swift Boat Vets ads.)
Take care and stay in touch.
Sincerely,
Mariva
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