LAFFers Speak Out

Excerpts from recent articles by LAFF members

Radhika Balakrishnan

After participating in a teach-in for Occupy Wall Street, Radhika reflects on the experience in The Huffington Post in an article co-written with James Heintz of the University of Massachusetts.

Occupy Wall Street has hit a chord with people, underscoring what many see as the primary problem of the U.S. Economy. Last week we participated in a teach-in at Occupy Wall Street, in which we linked the problems caused by the financial sector with a broader concern over human rights in the U.S. At the teach-in, we focused on two human rights principles: (i) the obligation to protect; and (ii) the concept of maximum available resources.

The obligation to protect requires governments to prevent violations of economic and social rights by the actions of third parties. Governments are also obligated to use the ‘maximum available resources’ to realize economic and social rights.

The obligation to protect has important implications for financial regulation. It was the actions of third parties—the financial institutions—which undermined the economic and social rights of people living in the U.S. Fundamental changes in financial regulations over the past 30+ years represent a failure of the U.S. government to take steps to prevent financial institutions from taking actions which put people’s jobs, homes, and economic security in jeopardy. It is not that there was simply deregulation of the U.S. economy, in reality there has been a re-regulatory process that has been biased toward the interest of banks rather than workers and families.

The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (1999) repealed many of the regulatory protections put in place after the Great Depression under the Glass Steagall Act (1933). For example, the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act paved the way for massive consolidation in the financial industry, creating the huge institutions behind the current crisis. When the crisis broke, these consolidated institutions had to be bailed out because, we are told, they are simply too big to fail. 

The recent Dodd-Frank bill is a step in the right direction in terms of the focus and need for different regulation, and is a break from the recent past. However, while it gives regulators a stronger mandate, it is too early to tell whether the new provisions will be aggressive enough, or effective enough to prevent another disaster.

The bailouts point towards a second human rights principle, the idea that government should use the maximum available resources to support the realization of economic and social rights. If the bailouts were so essential to the functioning of the U.S. economy, why aren’t more people experiencing the benefits? 

Some of the bailout programs were ‘on budget’ in the sense that they were funded through the federal budget. The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, introduced in 2008, was a bailout funded through government spending. However, much of the support to the financial sector did not come from the budget, but instead was orchestrated by the Federal Reserve. With the financial meltdown, the Federal Reserve took unprecedented steps to support the financial sector.

Specifically, the Fed helped out by buying up trillions of dollars of questionable corporate assets that were causing problems. However, few ordinary people have benefited from this strategy. What happened to all that money? The banks are holding on to a large share of it. In the second quarter of 2011 (April to June), U.S. banks were hoarding $1.6 trillion that they held as deposits at the Fed—effectively preventing these resources from having any positive impact on job creation and the broader economy. 

There is a stockpile of $1.6 trillion sitting idle in accounts at the Federal Reserve—the outcome of decisions made by public institutions. This money is not being used to support the right to a job, or the right to hold on to a home. This money, given to the banks to help jump start the economy, is money the banks are sitting on. 

Michael Lipsky 

After hiking in the Pasayten Wilderness of Washington state, Michael speculates on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times on the need for continuing government regulation of the nation’s wilderness areas.

In modern America, “wilderness” is a specific legal category. In 1964 Congress passed the Wilderness Act, which set aside 9.1 million acres of public land as places where people would be visitors but not leave any marks; today some 108 million acres are protected under the act.

Wilderness areas, unlike national parks, are managed with minimal interference with natural processes; trucks, all-terrain vehicles, chain saws and even bicycles are forbidden. The pristine wilderness we seek out to get away from everyday rules and regulations relies, paradoxically, on farsighted laws to protect it from logging, commercial concessions, summer dude ranches and private homes commanding the best views.

In fact, according to one count, at least 19 major laws affect patrons of wilderness areas. The Clean Air Act ensures the quality of air drifting over the Cascades from the industrial cities of Puget Sound. The Endangered Species Act protects the species native to these mountains, including the largest concentration of Canada lynx in the lower 48 states. 

We also carried with us reassurances, provided by federal and state regulations, that the fresh, dried, canned and freeze-dried food we had packed was safe to eat. The gas canisters we counted on for fuel met federal safety requirements.

While there is no evident law enforcement in the Pasayten, people also bring to the wilderness expectations engendered in law—that norms reinforced by legal sanctions will prevail, even if the mechanisms for law enforcement are absent. The law extends across the mountains, carried as part of the gear of the backcountry, you might say.

America is engaged in a great debate on the role of government and the extent of its reach. In the heart of the mountains, far from the roads that would take us back to commerce and competition, we saw that even our beloved refuges were the results of public structures, allowing us the hard-sought illusion that we are beyond their reach.

Sushma Raman

In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Sushma calls for foundations, large and small, to collaborate in public policy advocacy. 

A recent report issued by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy confirmed what many organizers and advocates know intuitively: One dollar invested by foundations in policy advocacy, community organizing, and civic engagement results in $91 in benefits for local communities. Despite the power of supporting community organizing and public policy, however, many foundations shy away from such work, preferring to support direct services. 

A recent Foundation Center survey indicated that 76 percent of foundations do not fund or engage in direct charitable activities that could be considered policy related.

Yet the current US budget crisis requires that foundations reassess their attitude toward public policy engagement. Increased scrutiny of the philanthropic sector and the expectation that foundations can fill the gap created by diminishing public resources have created a need for foundations to step up and participate in the public policy debate in an organized and strategic fashion.

Public policy and advocacy are often seen as the domain of large, private, national foundations and not usually perceived as relevant or appropriate strategies for many community-focused foundations and their governing boards. Foundation boards are often reluctant to engage in what they perceive as political activities. Furthermore, there is sometimes confusion about whether activities such as advocacy and lobbying are permissible and legal for foundations.

So how can foundations, especially community-oriented ones, influence public policy? They can collaborate. Although foundations often require nonprofits to collaborate, their own track record is unimpressive. Yet public policy and advocacy are areas where collaboration is not only appropriate, but imperative. 

Collaboration also makes sense. For example, smaller foundations in a collaborative can benefit from institutions with in-house research and evaluation expertise. Ones with cautious boards can see that they are not the only ones engaged in risk. And smaller-asset foundations can leverage their dollars by partnering with others. Furthermore, legislators may be more apt to listen when messages are consistent and being delivered by more than one organization.

Fortunately, the recent growth in philanthropy has been accompanied by an increase in infrastructure organizations that support the sector. These include research and training organizations (for example, Alliance for Justice); associations of grantmakers (the Council on Foundations, Southern California Grantmakers, and the European Foundation Centre); affinity groups (the Association of Black Foundation Executives); and public policy organizations (the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).

This community of practice can help funders examine how their mission and grantmaking can better align with public policy opportunities, while also maximizing philanthropic impact and effectiveness.

Fran Korten

On her website, Fran reflects on the Norwegian response to terror and possible lessons for the United States:

As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I can’t help but wonder if we in the U.S. could have acted differently. Could we have responded with something other than fear, super patriotism, military invasions, and domestic crackdowns? Could we have responded with community, openness, and tolerance plus smart strategic moves that made us safer without feeding the cycle of death?

I wasn’t sure what might be possible at a national level until I learned of Norway’s response to their terrorist’s attack of July 22. That gave me a glimpse of a different way.

The terrorist’s bomb struck right in the heart of Oslo, destroying the building of the prime minister and his staff and damaging several other government buildings. That bombing killed 8 people and injured 89. On the island of Utoya, the terrorist killed 69 more and injured 62—mostly teenagers who were attending a summer camp for young members of the Labor Party.

The bomber’s palpable threat to the central government could have caused a major crackdown, prompting terrorist alerts everywhere and draconian measures to ensure the tragedy was not repeated. 

Government leaders could have focused on the threat and kept the country in a mood of fear. Instead, prime minister Jens Stoltenberg adopted as his mantra what a young girl said after the tragedy: “If one person can create so much hatred, think of how much love we can all create together.”

I learned of Norway’s response from my friend, Jacob Bomann-Larsen, an adviser to the Norwegian government: “Our answer will not be hate and revenge, but more openness, more tolerance, and more democracy.” In Oslo, just three days after the shootings, close to 200,000 people gathered in the streets for a flower ceremony and many more held ceremonies in cities and towns across the country. The Crown Prince declared “Today our streets are filled with love.”

The Norwegian response reminded me of some of the initial responses to 9/11 in the U.S. several weeks after the attack. People set up altars, gathered in groups. Interest in learning about Islam spiked. Polls showed an enhanced focus on family, community, and authenticity. Well-known figures such as Rosa Parks, Martin Sheen, Harry Belafonte, Gloria Steinem, Danny Glover, and Bonnie Raitt signed a petition urging the pursuit of justice for the perpetrators, not a military response.

But the U.S. government’s preparations for war, its color-coded terror alerts, the Patriot Act, the new Homeland Security Department, and constant reminders of the threats to our nation soon drowned out the spirit of openness and community. Images of war filled our daily newscasts.

Norway has managed to sustain its choice for openness and tolerance. If they had been attacked by an international network of foreigners, rather than an ethnic Norwegian, would that still be the case? We don’t know. What we do know is that we humans are a choice-making species. When we are attacked, we are not inevitably destined to lash out violently. We can choose to respond differently.

My hope, is that in any future attack, we will have learned the folly of an aggressive military response. That we will pursue smart security strategies and professional international police work. And that we can be as courageous as our friends in Norway, responding with love, openness, tolerance, democracy—and roses.