Memo to Warren

A second proposal would be to make it easier, and less risky, for workers to form a union. Right now, the success rate of unionization campaigns in the public sector is around 85 percent; in the private sector around 50 percent. This is not because public-sector postal workers are hardcore collectivists while private-sector Fed Ex workers are die-hard individualists, but rather because public-sector employers seldom aggressively oppose unionization campaigns, while private-sector employers do so routinely, if illegally. (Five percent of workers on organizing drives are fired, though this is against the law.) The most sensible way to amend our labor law would be to allow unions to win recognition in a workplace by collecting the signatures of a majority of the workers there.

Next, be an advocate for public investment. On both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Democrats have become neo-Coolidges, the party of deficit reduction uber alles. This wasn‘t the policy of the Roosevelt-Truman or Kennedy-Johnson Democrats. The World War II generation invested more in schools and infrastructure than any generation before or since. Today, with the prospect of a huge budget surplus and with polling showing overwhelming support for higher funding of schools, the Dem-ocrats have forgotten how to invest in the future. In fact, we now have the best opportunity in decades to rebuild America’s crumbling public sector. We need a candidate to make that case.

Finally, there‘s a way you can personalize the issues of the global economy -- and, for that matter, the issue of how the financial community controls government trade policy. As a producer of films, you are protected by the insistence of the U.S. government that other nations honor our copyright laws. Capital and intellectual property are sacrosanct in all our trade accords. Your fellow Americans who produce cars, steel and garments, however, have no such protections. Our government has not insisted that other nations adopt any standards, much less ours, when it comes to labor rights. In fact, labor and environmental standards have to be part of the core documents of any trade accords. In their absence, our double standard in policy is creating a double standard of living for the American people.

Campaign-finance reform I’m sure you don‘t need any help with. As for Ishtar jokes, you’re on your own.