Emboldened by their successes in the healthcare reform debate, the Right is ready to crush all attempts to re-regulate Wall Street. These past two months, conservatives have revived an old tactic -- red-baiting. We are sure to see more red-baiting during the fight for financial reforms. Why would our opponents use such a retro tactic as red-baiting? Because red-baiting has been an effective way of branding community and labor organizers and progressive reformers as un-American. This tactic has worked very well for them in the past. Are we going to let them get away with it this time?

Calling folks socialists and communists has been the Right’s favorite way of discrediting economic and progressive populism. We don’t have to take the bait. There is no need to get defensive when they call us Leftists. Our country has a proud and very American Left tradition. Instead, we should claim our place in American history, along with all the other patriots who have taken a stand against corporate greed and corruption, against racism and discrimination and for workers, communities and poor people. As we go forward in our fight for financial reforms and an economy that works for all of us, we can stand on the shoulders of people like Tom Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Ida B. Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr and so many more.

Some of History's Progressive Patriots

Early on, when the new republic was forming, law-makers sought to contain the power of big banks and multinational corporations. These entities were seen as potential sources of unaccountable power akin to a monarchy. Thomas Jefferson warned about ‘the selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.’ This is why states insisted that corporations have charters. The corporate charter was meant to define its public purpose and to give states the means by which to hold companies accountable to that purpose.

During the Progressive Era, Teddy Roosevelt led the charge to break up monopolies and re-assert the public purpose of corporations. TR stated this in bold terms: “'This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.” Any lawmaker who said this today would be skewered by Fox and branded a communist. TR was not against corporations or profit-making. He and other progressives of the time wished to regulate industry to secure the public good. As part of his campaign for corporate and financial reforms, TR vowed to break up what he called the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics. This is exactly what we should call for today. Even some of the tea-baggers would have to agree with this.

The savior of American capitalism –- Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- recognized a link between economic democracy and political democracy: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself.” FDR boldly exposed those who served as apologists for banks and corporations as he made his case for New Deal reforms.

If our opponents want a throw-back to the 1950s, when red-baiting was fashionable (and shameful, along with racial segregation and gender discrimination), then let’s give them a different kind of throw-back -- to the Post-war prosperity that expanded the middle class, made possible by regulations that tied finance to productive capacities, unions that ensured workers got their share of the prosperity they helped create, government investments in the social safety-net, and monetary policies that helped maintain a delicate balance without crushing financial innovation. Even Eisenhower was called a socialist by some, because he supported many of the policies and regulations that kept the financial sector tied to the productive economy.

Another time when patriots pushed America to live up to its democratic principles, including economic democracy, was during the civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, who was the target of intense red-baiting, often spoke of the linkages between civil rights and economic democracy. Near the end of his life, Dr. King began organizing against poverty and the war in Vietnam. In a speech about poverty, King said: “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

What This Means For Today

We say it is our patriotic duty to care about the victims of Wall Street’s recklessness: laid off workers, retirees who’ve lost their pensions, homeowners in foreclosure, communities destroyed by the housing crisis, small businesses devastated by the credit crunch. It is very American to say that banks should serve the interests of the productive economy, not drive it into the ground. It is patriotic to insist that our elected officials represent our interests, and protect our wellbeing, instead of pandering to greedy financiers who, even after bringing about the worst meltdown in 80 years, run roughshod over Congress. It is decidedly unpatriotic to sit back and allow Congress to be bought by Wall Street and Corporate America.

Let’s show them what our brand of patriotism is all about. We don’t attack the most vulnerable in society. We stand up to Wall Street and we expect our elected officials to do the same. Stand with us at the upcoming Showdown in Chicago.

--Sandra Hinson