Is obesity the next big American political issue? With one Republican presidential hopeful, Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, gaining national recognition for his personal weight loss and collaboration with former President Clinton to keep sweets out of school, it's possible. One person responsible for raising public awareness of the issue is Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist and modern-day Upton Sinclair who penned Fast Food Nation in 2001, a blistering expose of the dark side of the fast food industry: health risks, horrific working conditions and industry efforts to market directly to children.

Now, Schlosser is back with a fast food follow-up, Chew on This, a similar expose written with Charles Wilson; it focuses particularly on the dangers of fast food for children. But Schlosser is now set to reach an even larger audience: In the coming months we'll see a film based on Fast Food Nation, directed by Richard Linklater and featuring big name stars like Patricia Arquette, released across the country. Since we couldn't convince him to sit down with us over a burger, Campus Progress chatted with Schlosser over the phone.

Campus Progress:Fast Food Nation was a dramatic wake-up call for a lot of young people about foods we had all grown up eating. What inspired you to write that book?

Eric Schlosser: Well, I didn't come to it out of any great hatred for fast food, I used to eat it all the time. I did a big investigative piece at The Atlantic Monthly. It was about illegal immigration, it was about farm labor, migrant farm workers, and I told a very complicated story through something simple and concrete: a strawberry. We love strawberries and we eat lots of strawberries, and we eat lots of strawberries without ever thinking that each one of those strawberries has to be picked by hand. So, you want a lot of strawberries, you need a lot of hands. And that article was read at Rolling Stone magazine, and they invited me in to do the same thing for fast food.

Basically, they wanted me to go behind the counter and show all the complex systems that bring you this heavily processed food. I didn't jump at the opportunity because I eat fast food, and I didn't want to write something condescending and elitist putting down the industry, but the more I learned, the more amazed I was, and what was incredible to me was that I would be eating this food all the time without thinking about it, without having any idea where it came from or how it was being made.

Campus Progress: As a writer, I have to tell you the lead to that book is just incredible. You start out in a military base ...

ES: ... Cheyenne Mountain. One of our most top secret military bases, which is inside a hollowed-out mountain in Colorado.

Campus Progress: How do you come up with something like that?

ES: You know, it's not always premeditated. A lot of it comes out of the reporting. I was looking for a place to set Fast Food Nation, and Colorado sounded really interesting to me. It felt like, with the whole conservative religious fundamentalist culture, it was at the cutting edge of change in America. Little did I know how much that culture would take over America.

I decided to set it in Colorado Springs. There are these big military bases, so I applied to visit the base. And while I was there I started talking to them about what they eat there and it just blew my mind that, at that point, and I'm sure its no longer true post 9/11, the Domino's Pizza delivery guy would come right up to the gate at one of the most top-secret, important military installations in the United States. [If] you can get Domino's delivered to the Cheyenne Mountain air station, fast food has really infiltrated every part of American life.

Campus Progress: Tell us a little bit about your new film based on Fast Food Nation and whether you and Morgan Spurlock have a rivalry.

ES: Firstly, Morgan Spurlock: He made a totally disgusting film, but a really funny film. There's no rivalry whatsoever. As a matter of fact, we have a standing agreement that I will testify in his behalf when he gets sued by the industry, and he has promised to testify in mine.

The film that's based on Fast Food Nation is totally different from Super Size Me, and I love Super Size Me. This film is a fictional film, it's an independent film made by a wonderful director, Richard Linklater, who did Slacker and Dazed and Confused. It takes the title of my book and some of the themes but pretty much puts aside the book. There's nobody in the book who's literally in the film. The film is about the lives of some intersecting characters in a small town in Colorado, a lot of the film is in Spanish, some of the crucial characters are illegal immigrants, and in some ways it's an updating of [Upton Sinclair's] The Jungle on the hundredth anniversary of the publishing of that book.

Campus Progress: Why did you write your new book, Chew on This?

ES:Chew on This is aimed at kids, and it's aimed at the people who the fast food industry is heavily targeting with its mass marketing. When I finished Fast Food Nation and the manuscript was all done, I hired a fact-checker from TheNew Yorker, Charles Wilson, and his job was to make sure that every fact was right ... . He came to me with the idea of doing a children's book based on Fast Food Nation, arguing that these kids are being targeted by the fast food industry, they need the same sort of information in Fast Food Nation, and they need an alternate view of the world than the one they're getting from all these ads. So it sounded like a good idea, and I recruited him to help me with it.

Campus Progress: What do you think of the recent announcement of several major soda companies, including Coke and Pepsi, to stop selling their products in elementary and high schools come this fall, and why they might be motivated to do that?

ES: I'd like to think that they were motivated solely by concern for the health of American children. But, whatever their motivations are, I think it's a good thing. The deal was brokered by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and the current governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, a conservative Republican. I think it's a terrific step because it shows bipartisan support for ensuring that kids are eating healthy food in schools. I don't think it's an ideal agreement; it's going to be phased in over a number of years [and] it's a voluntary agreement. But to me it's a sign of the times, a sign that attitudes are really changing and there's a real feeling growing that we can't afford to have these companies marketing unhealthy food to kids in schools. I applaud the move by the soda companies to make voluntary changes, but I also support moves at the state and federal level to put tough restrictions on what kind of food can be sold in schools.

Campus Progress:Fast Food Nation sold extremely well; it raised a lot of awareness. Have you seen any improvement in the issues you talk about, like exploitative labor practices at fast food restaurants and the meatpacking plants that supply them?

ES: In the five years since the book was published, a lot has changed for the better and some things have changed for the worse. I'm not going to claim credit for my book being responsible for all this, but nevertheless things have changed. One of the ways things have changed is there's much more awareness about food. In the last five years there has just been a huge increase in organic production, the sale of organics. Whole Foods is one of the fastest-growing, most profitable food distributors, and they represent a whole different set of values from what McDonald's and KFC do. So you're seeing a big change in eating habits among well-educated people and upper middle class people, and that's good.

There's also a lot more awareness about obesity and the obesity epidemic, which really didn't seem to be discussed much five years ago and now is a huge, huge subject of debate and concern. Cutbacks on soda in schools, Governor Schwarzenegger kicking the junk food and the soda companies out of school, all that is good.

When it comes to worker safety and workers rights in the American meatpacking industry, I think things are much worse than they were five years ago, thanks mainly to the Bush administration, which is very close to the meatpacking industry. I went to Texas after Fast Food Nation was published to interview meatpacking workers there; those are some of the worst conditions I've ever seen. The food safety issues, I think, have gotten much worse, again, because the Bush administration is so close to the meatpacking industry. This isn't a Republican or Democratic issue, ideally, it's a non-partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats both have to eat. Unfortunately, a lot of money flows in Washington from this industry to certain politicians. There's been a real backslide, I think, in food safety measures.

One thing that I also think is worse is the eating habits of the poor and ordinary working people. As the obesity epidemic is growing in this country, it's mainly growing among people at the very bottom. These are the main consumers of fast food. Fast food is increasingly the food of the poor. What I'm hoping to see in the next five years is the same changes in eating habits that have occurred among the well-educated and the upper middle class now need to be extended throughout society, especially for the people at the bottom who are suffering the worst health effects of this food.

As a queer-identified man who grew up in a conservative Southern Baptist Church in North Carolina, I've spent most of my life flirting with conservatives and gays, but rarely both at once. Sure, at times my worlds have overlapped, like when, in Christian youth group, we'd go proselytize at gay bars with our trying-so-hard-not-to-be-gay former President of the Auburn College Republicans youth pastor. But, generally, these two worlds--the gays and the conservatives (both of which I simultaneously love and hate dearly)--have remained as two clearly distinct spheres in my life.

That is, until this past weekend at the Log Cabin Republican (LCR) National Convention.


For three days, hundreds of gay conservatives from all over the country descended upon Washington, DC for this $400-a-person convention complete with open bars, catered steak dinners, group prayers, readings of the Constitution, and more non-reciprocal meat market staring contests than you could possibly imagine. The Log Cabiners threw around business cards, strategized about elections, planned recruitment of all types, anointed and threw tribute to their favorite charismatic, super-sexy leaders, and desperately (and poignantly) searched high and low for any and every pro-gay Republican leader in the country. (Average distribution: one per 100 square miles)

And, as an "intern," I was at the center of it all: meeting and greeting Andrew Sullivan when he arrived to speak, bantering with Grover "drown Big Government in a bathtub" Norquist at the registration table, overhearing various attendees try to win social points by ambiguously implying that they had slept with LCR President Patrick Guerriero, and talking shop with my dinner table populated by JP Morgan executives.

Determined to immerse myself in the culture throughout the weekend (and avoiding nostalgia for the Republicanism of my youth), I certainly saw my fair share of elitism and puffed up right-wing rhetoric, but I was also surprised and impressed by the genuine sincerity, passion, and struggle of many of the attendees, and in the end became excited about much of the LCR movement.

Rich, white, Reagan-loving gay conservative politics?

One thing worth noting right off the bat is that by and large, the LCR convention was all about white, gay men; there wasn't much space (nor much of a turnout) from lesbians, bisexual or transgendered individuals. The Log Cabin Republican Staff. Can you guess which one's the administrative assistant?

Much of the weekend was spent reminding attendees that there need be no oxymoron in the phrase "gay Republican." (24% of gay Americans did vote for Bush in 2004.) The striking juxtaposition of a "Brokeback Mountain" Wyoming resort package right next to a framed image of Ronald Reagan on horseback in the silent auction drove this leitmotif home with more than a hint of irony.

Over and over again, the speakers expounded on how the philosophy of conservatism, and its insistence on liberty and freedom from the State, created a paradigm for gay identity and expression. It seemed that many attendees had so reworked their own history that Gay Liberation had become a natural outgrowth of Barry Goldwater conservatism, completely disconnected from feminist and left-wing political and social movements. Understanding a lot of LCR members means understanding that many gay Americans don't necessarily see their struggle connected to larger feminist and identity politics movements.

During one particularly embarrassing (and revealing) moment, one of the original LCR founders shouted from the podium: "And because of Reagan's courage as governor, California avoided banning all gays and lesbians from being state teachers." How sad that such a defensive, small-bore, conciliatory act became Reagan's most proudly pro-gay moment, and how much sadder for so many gay people to be unabashedly championing the man who refused to mention the word AIDS for the first five years of his Presidency even as the virus raged across the country and ravaged the gay community.

The Reagan-worship, which seemed quite sincere, really shouldn't come as much of a surprise, as it is fairly consistent amongst almost all conservative movements and groups. Each group molds Reagan to embody their particular core ideology--whether it's economists who hone in on his supply-side leadership, neoconservatives who highlight his aggressively uncompromising foreign policy, or in this case, gay Republicans, who focus on his "inclusive" party building. Take this line of thought far enough (and I'm sure a few LCRers would) and you conclude Reagan did more for gay rights through his reduction of the "death" tax and his promotion of anti-communist paramilitary groups overseas than any hate crimes legislation, nondiscrimination codes, or civil unions benefits ever have or ever will.

This smooth confluence of gay and conservative identities was utilized brilliantly throughout the weekend. By playing on the white gay male cultural stereotypes of conspicuous consumption, hedonistic indulgence, and children-less affluence, and fusing them seamlessly with country club Republican stereotypes dominated by stock options and lavish golf vacations, one begins to think that gays and conservatives are indeed--and always have been--one and the same. (That is, of course, if they reside in the top tax bracket.) Part of the event was tinged with a sense of "we're gay and rich, so hurry up and give us our rights so we can get back to doing what we really want to do: working out and accumulating capital." Several men's method of flirtation was to tell me how big their credit limit was (usually unlimited, of course) with a certain square jawed, jocky superiority. Another guy struck up a conversation by asking, "Do you play squash?" Needless to say, this kind of wealth and status-conscious attitude isn't limited to gay men or to conservatives, but the scene acquired an extra poignancy because I could almost imagine these guys standing in the corridors of power, wearing the same Brooks Brothers shirts as everyone else, whispering, echoing Tony Kushner's Reagan-era Roy Cohn: "I have sex with men. But unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true, I bring the guy I'm screwing to the White House."

An earnest LCR grassroots movement

But focusing on these pockets of extraordinary elitism would be to miss the larger point of the LCR conference entirely. It's important to remember that, in a lot of ways, the Log Cabin Republicans are a very organic, nuanced grassroots political movement. Though reductionist parody is always entertaining, to characterize the group as a sex-infused business networking opportunity is both inaccurate and politically limiting. The fact is, that for most of the LCR attendees, their main goal was to create a more inclusive Republican party that can produce a better world for so many gay and lesbian Americans, regardless of whom they choose to vote for.

During a remarkable session early Saturday morning, LCR organizers from all over the country gave a report on their local efforts. What they described was essential and grueling grassroots organizing work: letters to the editor, door-to-door canvassing, attending school board meetings and city council hearings. One LCR organizer explained, "to do effective gay grassroots organizing you have to be in the field, with people, talking to people, doing the hard work of politics, one person at a time."

And who else is going to do this work within the Republican party but the Log Cabin Republicans? Who else is willing to talk to Republican party leaders one by one, reminding them that some of their constituents are not heterosexual? These are people who are active in their churches or their campus Intervarsity chapter; and as church members and conservatives they can speak to fellow church members and conservatives with legitimacy. Perhaps this model can be effective, just as women across the country of all ideologies continue to speak out and demand more equality in the home and in the work place, one by one, little by little. Instead of trying to change the way the world thinks about larger frameworks of sex, power, and gender, these grassroots Log Cabin patriots have a simple plea for the Heartland: We're like you in every way Red State America, but could you just give us a little equality?

In one video shown at the conference, fifty openly gay and lesbian Republican delegates held a passionate, forceful rally asking for the Log Cabins to be able to have a booth at the 1996 RNC Convention. The rally was greeted with fiery, hateful counter-protests and anger from fellow delegates. Yet the LCR's stood firm, passionately defending their right to be there, and stalwartly holding strong to their identities as Republican, Christian, and gay.

Propaganda aside, I was generally impressed with the LCR's earnestness. Many of them are doing the work many people aren't willing to do: working in the heartland, talking to conservative religious leaders, setting up meetings with state-level Republican representatives and senators and asking them point blank why they support anti-gay adoption bills that pull apart American families, or refuse to support hate crimes legislation that better protects gay Americans from violence. And if at least a third of the country is Republican, can we ever arrive at a place of LGBTQ equality without a vibrant gay Republican movement?

Everything in moderation : a principled conservatism?

At the conference, the impacts of the social right-wingers--let's call it the DeLay/Santorum Caucus--were diminished in favor of a very conscious, if at times forced, optimistic focus on the few Republicans--mainly in the Northeast--who are supportive of gay and lesbian issues. Though there was tremendous emphasis placed on a few dozen elected Republicans who had shown courage in supporting gay and lesbian equality, there was nary a mention of the much greater numbers of elected Democratic politicians who were fully supportive of a range of LGBTQ rights.

Two ideological themes emerged: one, the need for LCRs to support all moderate Republicans--from Chris Shays to Christine Todd Whitman to John McCain--and to work to build a politics squarely in the middle; and, two, the need to cultivate a more principled conservative movement rooted in "genuine conservative values."

Congressman Jim Kolbe, a moderate Republican himself, represented the first of these themes. A former aid to Barry Goldwater, Kolbe spoke of what he saw as a link between terrorist nations and anti-gay oppression. Commenting on the male Iranian lovers who were recently executed in Tehran for homosexuality, Kolbe said that the nations that most threaten our national security are also the nations that are most oppressive to gays and lesbians. "Do gay rights stop at our borders?" he asked, and then called for the U.S. to become more active in exporting our way of life into other nations. Of course, Congressman Kolbe made no mention of the potentially deleterious impact that aggressive U.S. involvement in Iran would have on all Iranians, gay and straight.

Openly gay and HIV-positive conservative intellectual Andrew Sullivan best represented the second theme, through a riveting speech about the need to find a new conservative soul grounded in liberty and freedom driven by the spirit of self-critical conversationalists open to the exchange of ideas and always willing to admit mistakes. He eloquently spoke about how the Bush Administration had abandoned true conservatism by disregarding habeus corpus, irresponsibly expanding the federal government, and governing in a fundamentalist, oppressive manner. So much of his rhetoric and philosophy was similar to my own sense of the world (one rooted in vibrant democratic exchanges), yet his message sounded like empty idealism glazed with a hint of British colonialist nostalgia. I mean, how can we all really be free to enjoy our liberty when the structural framework of our society works against so many people?

Making space for not always progressive LGBTQ movements

In the end, I can't say I really believe in the Log Cabin Republican movement--the systems of patriarchy, unchecked corporate capitalism, war-mongering, and homophobia that produce LGBTQ oppression are too fundamentally linked together to separate LGBTQ equality from other issues. But my respect for these people and this movement and my sense of its importance has grown tremendously. Most Log Cabiners I met were rich, out of touch, and self-consumed, but, then again, so are many people, including our leaders on both sides of the aisle. I found myself impressed with their efficiency, lucidity, and positivity. There was something remarkably fresh about being around gay men who were into guns and hunting, and something inspiring about being around people who have the courage to work so intimately with the people responsible for so much hate.

The Log Cabin Republicans will continue to grow as a movement, as gays and lesbians become more mainstream, and younger generations of Republicans far more tolerant of gays and lesbians than their predecessors take over the Republican ranks. Our challenge as progressives is to figure out how we can work together with Log Cabin Republicans on issues we have in common so we can build a more inclusive LGBTQ rights movement. I'm certainly not about to, as LCRers are fond of saying, "come out as a conservative," but I will say that some of the activists I met renewed my hope in the power of the grassroots, in the power of the work people can do in infinitely small ways every day and everywhere, from small towns in Texas to suburban Ohio.

Gay Republicans explicitly pivot between multiple identities. They struggle over whether they dislike James Dobson or Hillary Clinton more, all the while feeling that they are equally despised at different times both for being gay and for being Republican. All of us encompass competing identities, desires, cultures and politics. And as we struggle to create a more participatory body politic and a more thoughtful national political discourse, that we can't simply deny those whose identities we see as contradictory or illogical. Instead, we might need to open up some space.

I'll probably continue to satirize gay Republicans, just as I often deride many straight Democrats. Ultimately, for me, the Log Cabin Republicans are sort of absurd and certainly politically problematic, but they are also at times so powerful and endearing that I find them absolutely essential to our national politics. But, of course, at the end of the day, it's important to remember that things can only go so far. As earnest and courageous as LCR politics can sometimes be, one thing will certainly not change: if you want to make it with a Log Cabin Republican, solid conservative philosophy will only get you so far; presentation, performance, and money is still more than half the game so brush off your American Express Black card and start starching your collars.

In Rock Springs, Wyoming, the winds are so fierce that they will slam your car door against your leg if you don't pay attention. Because trona and coal mining are the main industries in town, generations of families fill graveyard shifts that are both physically demanding and life threatening.

Shaped by the natural resources that surround it, Rock Springs is filled with small businesses that cater to the needs of its residents. Growing up in a family that started its own business, Smyth Printing, I was raised to believe in the importance of customer service, fast turn-around, and quality products. For twenty-five years, my parents have established partnerships within the community. City Market was the local grocery store where we shopped. I got my hair cut at Lynn's beauty salon and ate cookies at Fred's bakery.

Now, all of those businesses have been wiped out and in their place stands a massive concrete box called Wal-Mart. This economic giant looms across the street from Smyth Printing and has terminated the business we did with these independent stores. The literal shadow it casts over the shop is a constant reminder of the threat it poses to my family's livelihood. As my parents grow older, I realize that our business is a leg that could get slammed in the door of Wal-Mart.

From a young age I have observed and participated in the process of offering a distinctive, personalized approach to the business world. After school I began answering the phones by saying, "Good evening; Smyth Printing. How may I help you?" I practiced those words a million times in my head so my father wouldn't give me his typical speech, "Dealing with the customer and making a good first impression are crucial to running a successful business."

If I was far from the phone I would sprint to pick it up, because it wasn't allowed to ring more than three times before somebody answered it. I watched my dad run the press smoothly and efficiently. My mom, the graphic artist, worked directly with the customer to create a product they wanted. If a customer wanted a business card with a picture of a bucking bronco, she created it. If they didn't like the way it looked, she re-did it. It was as simple as that. Wal-Mart doesn't have a printing department yet, but I wonder how long it will be before they add it to their repertoire.

According to Wake Up Wal-Mart, "Over the course of a few years after Wal-Mart entered a community, retailers' sales of mens' and boys' apparel dropped 44 percent on average, hardware sales fell by 31 percent, and lawn and garden sales fell by 26 percent."

Is the world of small businesses on the verge of extinction? Working for Smyth Printing during the past two summers of my college career, I have begun to master a trade. I can handle thousands of sheets of paper, work the monster cutter without losing a finger, and precisely pad or collate NCR paper (that would be a kind of carbon paper to you). Hospital forms are three-hole drilled and shrink wrapped in hundreds. The wrap-around books are scored to 1/2 inch, folded, and stapled. Rather than relying on commercials or full page ads in the newspaper, our salesperson goes out into the community every day to personally advertise our services. Boxes are hand labeled and packed when a product needs to be shipped. We reach out to the community with our own hands, sponsoring Little League and United Way.

So what happens if Wal-Mart decides to open a printing department and make itself an even more super Super Center? Every time I come back to this town, I discover vacant lots where small businesses used to live. These holes weaken the structure of our community and corral the citizens to shop at Wal-Mart.

Wondering how such an enormous business functions in comparison to Smyth Printing, my dad and I cross the street to explore the Super Center. As I gaze down at the shopping list, I mentally note we need bread, milk, and toothpaste. We park the car and head toward the bustle and neon lights. Behind the sliding doors, a man and woman stand on opposite sides. I smile at these "personal greeters" and only receive blank stares in return. After passing the two statues rendered in human form, I realize this place is filled with a variety of name-brand products and generic employees. I wasn't looking for a two-armed bear hug, but some signs of life would have been nice.

I guess the poverty-level wages they are paid could dampen their pleasant personalities. "In 2003, sales associates, the most common job in Wal-Mart, earned on average $8.23 an hour for annual wages of $13,861. The 2003 poverty line for a family of three was $15,260."

We grab a cart and devise a game plan to maneuver efficiently through this oversized building. A lady with her handful of children accidentally rams our cart, initiating the bumper car ride towards the toothpaste. Passing city blocks of clothing, jewelry, and kitchenware, we finally approach the personal hygiene section where I scan the array of colors, shapes and sizes that are offered on the massive toothpaste shelf.

Finally, I discover Crest Original but it is located three feet above me so I search for an employee to help. The first one I spot can't stop because he is being called by management to the baby clothing section. The second one works strictly in the mechanical department and is already behind schedule on an oil change, so I track down a metal ladder myself. To cap off this rather impersonal, compartmentalized shopping experience, we are herded out through the check-out chute and into the parking lot with the echo of "have a nice day" ringing in our ears.

Back across the street at Smyth Printing, my parents have established a small business whose primary focus is narrowly defined by a particular trade, not five or six. While the nation's largest retailer is struggling to defend itself from public attack on their poverty wages and stingy health care plan, we are looking for ways to keep my family business afloat. While carrying boxes of envelopes into Hemphill Trucking, the owners chat with my father about the booming natural gas wells up North.

Back in the van we head to our next location and continue the same routine that we have performed for close to thirty years. Yet, I can't help but notice how the number of deliveries has shrunk considerably during the past two years. How long my family business is going to survive I can't predict, but quietly trying to persevere isn't going to cut it -- families with small businesses need to start talking about our situation. Perhaps Wal-Mart does represent inevitable economic winds of change; nonetheless, we need to fight to protect the small businesses and independent spirit of towns like Rock Springs, Wyoming.

A small minority of American industrialists never accepted the New Deal. In particular, they viewed our basic retirement insurance program, Social Security, as un-American. The journey of the anti-Social Security agenda from a fringe idea, disparaged by mainstream conservatives, to its modern apotheosis in this year's frightening privatization effort is ably chronicled by columnist Joe Conason in his new book The Raw Deal: How the Bush Republicans Plan to Destroy Social Security and the Legacy of the New Deal.

Conason explains how a few multimillionaires funded far-right think tanks that relentlessly pushed for the abolition of Social Security, cleverly re-branding the effort in terms of "privatization" and then "personal accounts." These ideas migrated from the far-right to the mainstream. Or was the mainstream migrating to the far-right? In any case, we interviewed Conason, whose writing appears regularly in Salon.com and The New York Observer, and who can be heard every Friday from 2 to 3 p.m. on the Al Franken Show on Air America Radio, to shed some light on this and other issues.

Obviously, you conceived of this book when Social Security was under a much more immediate threat than it is right now. Do you think that Social Security privatization will be attempted again, and could you hazard a guess as to when?

The urge to privatize or abolish Social Security is a generational goal of conservatives. It's something that they have wanted to do since the very beginning of the program seventy years ago, and it comes in waves - the first big wave was the Goldwater campaign in 1964, which was defeated, to a degree, on this issue.

The second wave was an attempt when Ronald Reagan became President, and that was defeated because progressives controlled the House of Representatives, led by Tip O'Neil, and stopped any notion of cutting or privatizing Social Security then.

Twenty years later, George W. Bush became President, and the conservatives behind him were, I think, even further to the right than Reagan, were determined to do that during his presidency. Clearly they've had two setbacks - one when the stock market tanked in 2001 after the Social Security Commission had tried to come up with a privatization plan - and now, following the last election, he tried again and it has, so far, failed again. I have no doubt that they will keep after this. The one thing you can say about conservatives, particularly this generation of conservatives, is that they're extremely determined to achieve their goals. They're very self-confident, and they have a strong belief in what they're doing, and they happen to be backed, in this case, by the powers financially. My guess, then, would be that if they maintain control of both houses of Congress next year that they will come back to this within the term.

Clearly there was a mobilization effort around this issue that seemed pretty effective. What would you suggest is the most effective way to try to stop the privatization campaign, should it come around again?

The mobilization that took place last year around this issue was effective because those who might have wavered on this issue, really in either party, have been held to account very specifically by activists. In other words, I'd say if there's a member of Congress in Florida or Pennsylvania who had said, "I think privatization is a good idea" or "I might vote for that," that information was immediately transmitted to a large network of activists who then mobilized people to let that member know that that was an unacceptable position. In my view, it worked. What it meant was that you had a block of members of Congress who were not going to move on that issue.

So if Social Security privatization comes up again the way to prevent it is to flood the wavering congressmen and senators with emails?

Well, other ways too. If they show up at a town meeting, be there. Phone calls, letters to the editor - all of the tactics that were used by progressive organizations, specifically the Campaign for America 's future, AFL-CIO… Rock the Vote was involved, a lot of groups got involved - there was a broad spectrum of tactics that were used to try to make it clear that not only were most people opposed to this idea, but they would not forget a member who would try to do this.

You were a very articulate defender of President Clinton during the impeachment hearings. Now you have conservatives looking very hypocritical saying that perjury isn't really such a big crime. Obviously, you can speak to that, but I'm also wondering if you could speak to the reverse accusation - that you are taking a harder line with Scooter Libby.

There's a difference between thinking that perjury is a serious crime and that President Clinton perjured himself, and that even if President Clinton perjured himself in the Paula Jones case, that that was an offense meriting impeachment. I don't think anyone is calling for President Bush or VP Cheney to be impeached over this matter yet.

Secondly, what is the nature of this perjury - what is it about? President Clinton was tried for perjury in the Senate and found not guilty. So, to me he had to pay a fine, he was disbarred for a period in Arkansas, he did not escape the embarrassment or sanction for lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. I don't think he should have escaped sanctions for it - I believed he should have been punished for what he did, but not impeached. If Scooter Libby lied before the grand jury and before the FBI in order to protect a conspiracy to expose Valerie Plame's identity, he should be punished. I don't have the slightest qualms about that. The hypocrisy is completely on the other side where people once told us that no matter how insignificant the underlying reason for the lie is, even if we have a perjury trap and invade someone's private life, that they should answer to the full consequences of that before the law, to now say that perjury and obstruction of justice are not important crimes here - that's absurd! It's hard for me to imagine that they can go on television and say this without laughing.

You talk a lot in the book about how Social Security privatization was an idea that's been hatched and nurtured by right-wing think tanks over the years. What do you see as the major progressive policy shift that we should be pushing?

The most important thing right now is what's called the Apollo project. It's the transition to a different kind of economy. All the benefits that would flow from that, not just for the environment, but for employment, for health - this is what I think is the fundamental project of this generation - weaning ourselves from the petroleum and carbon-based economy and figuring out how we're going to have economic growth and raise standards of living around the world without destroying the planet in the process.

You go on the Al Franken show. Do you think that liberal talk radio is successful thus far, and if not, do you think that there's something about the way it's being done that's causing it to fail? Do you think that a little more anger from the left to mimic the right might be more effective?

Air America, I think, is doing well - it will improve and do better. People should keep in mind that it took a while for Rush Limbaugh to catch on. It took a really long time for Fox News to. I also think the fact that the right is so angry about Air America already…it's a really good sign.

Congratulations, parents of the Class of 2009! As you read this, your child is settling into the routines of college life: ill-timed early morning lectures, inevitable all-night cram sessions, and the search for parties on a now fairly familiar campus.

While the pleasures of college life remain the same, the economic security that a degree used to guarantee has disappeared. This fall, the Class of 2009 joins the ranks of an emerging debtor class composed of educated young adults.

The average student borrower now graduates with $27,600 of debt, almost three and a half times what it was a decade ago. 84 percent of black students and 66 percent of Latino students graduate with debt. And 39 percent of all student borrowers graduate with unmanageable levels of debt, according to the Department of Education.

After graduation, young people confront unaffordable rents in markets like San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago or New York, where the majority of young adults pay between 30 and 50 percent of their income to rent.

And what income? Between 2000 and 2003, wages for college educated men and women between 23 and 29 years of age were down 3.5 percent and 1.2 percent respectively. In this flat, stagnant job market, most new opportunities are in jobs like burger flipping and jeans folding. Manpower, a temp agency, is the biggest private employer in the country. Many jobs in more desirable and competitive industries have salaries starting in the low $20,000s that offer little by way of benefits or healthcare.

Add to that young people's average credit card debt of over $4,000. Set aside your stereotypes of irresponsible youth: Over 70 percent of undergraduates use credit cards to buy school supplies, food and textbooks. 24 percent use their credit cards for tuition. Credit card companies are becoming the high-interest student loan industry of last resort. When it's all totaled up, young people spend 25 percent of every dollar earned on paying off debts and loans.

Federal policy isn't keeping pace with reality. Soaring education costs and inflation have not been met with aid increases. Caps on federal student loans have forced students to seek private loans, which were up from $1.1 billion in 1995-96 to $10.6 billion in 2003-04.These loans have much higher, often predatory, interest rates.

Today, the average Pell Grant covers only 40 percent of college tuition, compared to 77 percent 25 years ago. And under President Bush, the Department of Education revised Pell Grant eligibility guidelines, effectively excluding almost 100,000 young people from the program and reducing grant money for another 1.2 million.

This month, the U.S. Congress poured salt in the wounds: The Senate recommended slashing $14 billion in student aid programs as part of the budget reconciliation process. The House of Representatives proposed nearly $9 billion in similar cuts, forcing the average student borrower to pay an additional $5,800 in already unaffordable debt. Despite some unusual Republican dissent in the ranks, late last night, the budget bill passed by a razor thin margin. The final bill included $50 billion in cuts including $14.3 billion in cuts to federal higher education funding � the largest cuts to federal student loans in American history. (Though the reconciliation bill received much negative response from Democrats and even a few Republicans, very few people spoke out against the education cuts, focusing instead on issues like Medicare and food stamps.) Eighteen-year-olds now must borrow tens of thousands of dollars to invest in themselves � because their country will not invest in them.

Moreover, federal tax policy isn't exactly working in the favor of young people making low wages. We can't ask our buddies in the White House to just write off our student loan payments. We pay taxes on each and every dollar that we make in wages, tips, and salaries. We don't have stock portfolios, houses, and other assets to re-structure our tax liability. We bear the full brunt of life without loopholes � but forget fairness: struggling to limit the size of a hurricane-wrecked federal budget, Congress has made it clear that they are prepared to treat us a good deal worse than they already have � before they dare close the loopholes, shut down the giveaways, and trim the no-bid contracts for the well-connected and well-off.

Parents: remember that youthful knot in your stomach as you looked at the world after graduation and wondered about your place in it? We do that too. Only we look at the world as twenty-somethings sandbagged with the kind of debt that, until recently, would have taken decades to accrue. Recent surveys by the Cambridge Consumer Index and the Education Department confirm that student borrowers are deferring major life decisions like the purchase of a first home or marriage.

Energetic young college grads could soon invest in start-ups, emerging markets and new technologies if we entered adulthood burdened only by our high expectations and ideals. Educational debt hobbles the very group of risk-takers and innovators that has historically rejuvenated the American economy when, like now, it starts to flag. Love us, hate us, tolerate us � young people are your future. Fail to invest in us at your own peril. Thirty years from now we won't be able to take care of our parents if we're still living in a converted closet in a group house.

So here's our counter-offer: We need common sense policies that relieve the debt burden on students and recent graduates. Parents of students and recent graduates: tell them not to cut one dime of student aid. Tell them you'll remember how they voted and promise to hold them accountable. We'll do the heavy lifting, but we need you to let Washington to know that you're watching and that you care about the issue.

Work with us now to affect change, and we promise we'll never have to trade you into the traveling circus for a week's worth of Ramen noodles or sell you on eBay to cover the rent.

Hurricane Katrina raised awareness about the desperate poverty that so many residents of the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana live in every day. But John Edwards has been talking about American poverty since long before Katrina made landfall.

After a career of representing individuals against corporations in personal injury suits, he ran for the Senate from his native North Carolina and won. Six years later, in 2004, he ran for president, making poverty alleviation and greater equality a central theme of his campaign, and he continued to do so as the Democrats' nominee for Vice-President.

Now he is pursuing those objectives as director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and as Honorary Chair of the Center for Promise and Opportunity in Washington DC.

Tell us a little about your Project Opportunity college tour, why you think it's necessary, what you want it to accomplish and how?

Well, my view is that after Hurricane Katrina we have an extraordinary opportunity. The country is hungry to do something about poverty, not only on the Gulf Coast , but in America. And so many times in my life I have seen what impact students and young people can have. I saw it in the 1960s when I was a teenager -- when students led the fight for civil rights and they spoke out against the war in Vietnam. They had a huge impact on their own country, not just for that time, but forever. And I think we have that kind of opportunity available to us now.

So what I'm gonna do is go to ten college campuses to get young people engaged in fighting against poverty: to get 'em to come to the event that we have on campus, and to commit to at least up to twenty hours of community service, and to advocate for policy ideas, projects, that can do something about poverty in America. Actually in some campuses we're focused on community service and others we're focused on advocacy for policy ideas.

We have ten campuses, on every campus we have a core group of students who are doing the organizing, getting people to the event and helping determine what it is in the community we're gonna ask young people to do. So bottom line is, we're gonna get more students, more young people involved in their communities, and find that they can make a change in poverty.

In light of all the reports of voter disenfranchisement in Ohio and other swing states what are the steps you think we need to take to make sure that every vote is counted next time?

What I think is more important than focusing on the last election is focusing on moving forward and on what we should do to make sure our election system works the way it should. I think there was a lot of evidence and a lot of anecdotes in our last election about the voters being unable to cast their votes. We know there were people in Ohio that had to wait many hours just to be able to vote, while people in other areas, in some cases in more affluent communities, were able to vote in minutes -- that's not the way our election system is supposed to work. These are also some of the things we saw in the 2000 elections, particularly in Florida.

We have important work to do to make sure that everybody is confident that when they go to the polls, they'll be able to vote, and they'll be able to cast their vote in a reasonable amount of time, and they will be certain that the vote they cast was counted. Those things include making sure that we have the resources in place, particularly in poor voting precincts, to have adequate equipment -- it means making sure that we have an audit trail for the voting process.

Beyond that, I think we should take the election process out of the hands of partisan politicians and instead set up non-partisan election officials and election boards to monitor what's happening so that we know that the election process works appropriately. We live in what is supposed to be, to the rest of the world, a shining example of democracy. And we also live in the most prosperous area on the planet. There is no reason for anyone, in the process of our elections, to have a question about whether their vote counts.

What do you think students should do, especially southern progressive students, to counter the conservative influences on their campuses?

Well, we've heard a lot of talk about moral issues. Some people use that language to divide America. The truth is that poverty is the great moral issue that faces our country, here, within our own borders. The fact that we have 37 million people who live in poverty is wrong, morally wrong, in a country of our wealth. Some people think about this as, you know, they lump everybody who lives in poverty together, and they think of this as charity.

Here's the truth: the truth is that people who live in poverty fall in one of two categories: they either have serious bills or physical disabilities. For those people, helping them get by is in some ways charity, because we believe as Americans that that's what we should do. For the rest, and that's the majority of people who live in poverty, they are either employed or employable. For those folks, it's not about charity. It's about fairness and justice, because the rest of the country depends on them to provide the services they provide, whatever jobs they have.

I think what we want to do, I grew up in a rural town in the South, is give people a fundamental sense of fairness, of justice -- that it's not right for people to be working two jobs, in some cases, both parents -- in a two parent family, two parents are working two jobs -- they're working four jobs between the two parents -- it's not right for them to be doing that and not be able to at least provide a minimum standard of living for their family. So, I think talk about this as a moral issue, and talk about it as a fairness issue, because I think most people, whether they're a Democrat or Republican, will be responsive to that.

We were also wondering if you could talk to us about your College for Everyone program in North Carolina that you launched a few weeks ago.

This is an idea that I talked about in my own presidential campaign. The idea is that any young person who has taken college prep work, who is qualified to go to college, and has stayed out of trouble, and is willing to go to work ten hours a week will be able to go their first year of college completely for free -- tuition, books etc, paid for.

And what we've done to test the validity of this idea is found a place in eastern North Carolina , one the poorest counties in North Carolina , but the community is committed to doing something about their kids having a chance. And what we've done is, in Greene County, privately, we've raised the money for it to implement the program. In Greene County if you have taken all the prep courses, not gotten into trouble and commit to work ten hours a week, then your tuition and books will be paid for. The idea is many young persons who would not have gone to college will get a chance to go.

We've seen some numbers in recent articles saying that the income level at which a white family is more likely to vote progressive than conservative has been dropping from about $50,000 to $25,000 per year in the last three presidential elections. When progressives such as yourself are putting forward an economic platform that is beneficial to white working class families, why do you think it is that they aren't voting for you? And what can progressives in general do to alleviate that? What might you do if you're thinking about running in 2008?

Let me talk in general about what I think it's important for progressives to do. I think first of all to the key to success in today's political world is exhibiting strong leadership. People are worried about jobs, healthcare, and safety, and certainly worried about the war in Iraq and the impact it's having on our country and the people serving there. For all those reasons people want leaders who exhibit strength. Strength comes from conviction. Strength does not come from looking at yesterday's poll to figure out what it is we're supposed to say. We need to stand up with strength and backbone for what it is we believe in.

If the country sees that confidence in our leadership they will follow, because the reality is that what people care most about -- jobs, healthcare -- they trust us more than they trust the other side. They have to see that we will not walk away from our core beliefs whether they are popular or unpopular. And one indication of that is our willingness as a party and as a political movement to stand for doing something about poverty in this country.

The police still come once a month to empty the illegally occupied hotel, and might have succeeded by now if not for the hundreds of European tourists filling the available rooms to capacity.

In 2001, a victim of a quarter century of neoliberalism, the Hotel Bauen, went bankrupt and closed, firing all of its workers, many of whom went without work for a full year. Today the former lowest ranking staff � cleaning people, dishwashers, and receptionists � run the enterprise democratically, without a management hierarchy and with a nearly flat wage scale.

The cooperative owners took a vacated hotel with no rooms ready for guests, and transformed it, investing over a quarter million pesos in new beds, televisions, and a new restaurant on the ground level. Today, the enterprise employs 50 more people than when the workers opened it, and will continue to need more workers as they finish renovating the remaining 20% of unopened rooms over the next three months.

Hotel Bauen is one of more than 170 companies, ranging from bakeries to auto parts factories, that were once bankrupted and abandoned and have now become thriving worker-run empresas recuperadas, or “recuperated companies.� In a nation where around 1 in 5 are out of work and many remain frustrated and distrustful toward the government, this kind of do-it-yourself movement has gained considerable support.

It used to be that Argentina was considered the prosperous “Europe of Latin America.� But years of brutal dictatorship in the 1970s not only caused the death or “disappearance� of thousands of individuals, but also destroyed the economy. Years after the economic crisis began in 1976, democracy returned and the country began to take on various neoliberal economic policies of the IMF. But then, in 2002, Argentina reached the “inflexion point.� Unemployment reached 21.5 percent. During 2002 and 2003 poverty rates remained over 50 percent. One banker with whom I spoke said about 90 percent of Argentine companies went bankrupt during the crisis, with the failures concentrated in the industrial sector.

Beginning with the dictatorship, a succession of administrations have followed neoliberal economic doctrine, privatizing state services, introducing labor “flexibility� laws, and ending subsidy or tariff programs designed to protect local businesses. When traveling around Buenos Aires to talk to the workers of the cooperative factories, I rode private buses, private subways, and used privately sponsored street signs to find my way. The Argentine state is dead.

Yet daily needs have persisted, and workers across the nation decided that they did not have the option of unemployment, and chose to continue working even if their bosses were no longer handing out paychecks. Over the Argentine winter (that would be summer here) I spoke with workers in eleven cooperatives, including Hotel Bauen.

Most workers are not revolutionaries, yet their participation in this nationwide trend is revolutionizing the politics and economics of the nation, particularly in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area (Gran Buenos Aires), where the vast majority of the empresas recuperadas are located.

The first empresa recuperada in Capital Federal, the capitol of Argentina and the center of Gran Buenos Aires, was the Cooperativa de Trabajo Vieytes, Ltda., also known by the former private company’s name of Ghelco, a sweets company that produces candy, fudge and ice cream. The former owners of Ghelco told the workers the factory was closing as the crisis worsened, then hired new workers at lower wages.

When the veteran Ghelco employees learned that the factory was operating under new, low wage conditions, 43 of them occupied the sidewalks around their former place of employment, preventing the new workers or owners from entering. More than two months later, the owners and creditors abandoned the factory, and in July a judge ruled that the constitutional right to employment allowed the workers to reopen the factory as a cooperative.

On July 14, 2002, the 43 former employees of Ghelco formed the Cooperativa de Trabajo Vieytes, Ltda., and began production with an 800 peso loan from Union y Fuerza, an empresa recuperada from the Province of Buenos Aires. Since the recuperation of the factory, 10 new workers have joined the cooperative as production has grown. Cooperativa Vieytes now has clients in Spain, Brazil, and Uruguay, as well as in Argentina.

Wages have increased along with production, and the workers earn more now and receive better benefits than they did with the private company. They have achieved these successes without management; the old managers left with the owners. Moreover, they have expanded production without the incentives of graduated wage scales; all socios, or members of the cooperative, receive the same pay.

Many Americans have so internalized the virtues of specialization and individualized material incentives that we find it difficult to conceive of any other system. The capitalist organization exists through natural law, we are taught. In Argentina, I found a different set of natural laws that produced radically different results.

Manuel Ruiz, a maintenance worker in Vieytes, told me that he works harder under the cooperative, both because he is an equal part-owner and because of the material rewards. Since the cooperative’s founding, he has bought a house and a car, neither of which he could afford with the private company. Another employee told me his pay is three times higher in the cooperative than in the private company.

Manuel also appreciates the cooperative benefits. If he needs to stay home with a sick child, or if he is sick himself, he still receives full pay for that day. The cooperative provides medical insurance as well. He has 15 days of paid vacation per year. Finally, Vieytes has regular training workshops to train workers in their positions and in other skill areas so that its workers are better prepared for a variety of labor every successive year.

The daily conditions of work have improved as well. When Manuel needs some coffee or te mate, a common tea drunk in Argentina, he is free to make some. When he has finished his maintenance work, he goes and works in other parts of the factory, helping other workers.

While I was talking with Manuel, Jose, the security guard and communications director, was helping on the assembly line. Several Vieytes socios told me that they can produce more when they have flexibility in the factory. When the bosses were here, if they finished their task they would pretend to continue working to avoid appearing lazy. Now they find other workers in the company who need help.

Because all employees learn how to do multiple jobs, there is never a work slowdown or stoppage because somebody is unable to come in to work. The flexibility of daily labor also is a constant training program for all the workers, and represents an investment in human capital that may pay individual dividends should the factory close one day. This departure from the Taylor model of “scientific� labor organization is a humanizing process; every worker plays an integral role in the factory, and could not simply be replaced with a low skilled worker to fulfill a single task on the assembly line.

Given the dignified working conditions and economic security of working at Vieytes, it is not surprising that the socios work harder. One finds evidence of the efficacy of their commitment to the factory in a large new contract with Nestle, which will allow the cooperative to invest in several new machines and continue to expand production.

Socios of Cooperativa de Trabajo B.A.U.E.N. demonstrate the same level of commitment to their enterprise. When 38 former employees first occupied the closed hotel in March of 2003, none of the bedrooms were ready for guests, and half the first floor was closed off. Initially, the cooperative could only rent out the “salons� on the second floor for birthdays and other parties. Using that money, they began to renovate and open the rooms one by one, while architecture students from the University of Buenos Aires built a bar in the formerly closed off portion of the first floor.

By the time I visited Bauen, 80 percent of the rooms were open, the bar was busy all the time, and there was a constant stream of visitors flowing in and out of the hotel. The hotel was so busy that the only time I had the opportunity to speak to most workers was during their lunch break. The socios and socias of Bauen are fiercely proud of their hotel. They have created 80 new positions of employment as they have opened more rooms, and rejuvenated a potent symbol in Capital. Presidents, soccer stars and other notables used to stay in the hotel, and from the workers’ perspective the reopening, renovation, and improvement of Bauen represents broader possibilities of economic recovery for Argentina.

That future is far from certain. These co-ops are largely illegal. Though the government has set up an office to help those who want to reopen closed businesses, legal battles continue between owners and workers. There have been clashes with police over eviction notices at a few factories.

The former owner of Bauen has allies in the city government who have refused to expropriate Hotel Bauen for the workers as they have with dozens of other cooperatives in the city. So the Bauen workers hold demonstrations every few weeks and are working with a variety of leftist and centrist government Diputados (deputies, or legislators) as well as a grassroots collective of cooperative factories to promulgate a law of expropriation that will make it legal for workers to reclaim abandoned factories and continue running them.

If the movement of empresas recuperadas is going to continue to generate secure, dignified employment for Argentina, the regional and national governments will have to become more active in expropriating additional factories and also by instituting credit or subsidy programs. While some cooperatives such as Vieytes and Bauen can self-capitalize, some cannot, and in the absence of loans from banks, the government will have to provide either credit or subsidies to some cooperatives.

While the government of Capital Federal has instituted a subsidy program in coordination with faculty from the University of Buenos Aires, the amount of money is small and is inadequate to capitalize some empresas recuperadas with antiquated machinery. Moreover, some delegates from the city government are aligned with reactionary forces, including the owner of the Hotel Bauen.

If rightist forces recover in upcoming elections, owner seizures of worker-run factories could become a possibility, although the owners are currently poorly organized, with their political power dependent upon personal rather than organizational connections. Thus, today there is not a concerted governmental effort in Capital Federal, much less at the national level, to support the empresas recuperadas, and a reversion to a neoliberal paradigm would pose a grave threat to the cooperatives’ existence.

Finally, until the national government reforms the bankruptcy laws to place workers and creditors on equal standing, future bankruptcies will probably result in abandoned factories rather than functioning sources of work and production.

Regardless of the government response, however, the current success of the cooperatives in generating employment in the face of the worst crisis in Argentine history speaks to the human potential to envision and create a future based on human needs. Rather than accepting the dictates of a dehumanizing economic model, the cooperative workers of Argentina are building an economy based on human necessities, a model from which an increasingly polarized and impoverished American society could learn.