The New Deal and Self-destructive Donald Trump (tags)
From 1929 to 1932 industrial production halved and in a chain reaction over 5000 banks went bankrupt. Farmers' incomes shrank by 70 percent, unemployment rose to 25 percent, and there were no welfare state measures to cushion the misery.
The economy for faith healers (tags)
Due to the sharpening contradictions of late capitalist socialization, barbarism, not reason, is increasing. Reason is not advancing in the overall historical movement, as once postulated by Hegel. Only the overcoming of this false whole, would offer humankind a chance of survival.
What is the American Left? (tags)
The Black Congressional Caucus and the Progressive Caucus, and a handful of old and new Senators (Warren of Masschusetts and Sanders of Vermont) represent continuity in articulating the traditions of the New Deal and the Great Society. So do a number of Governors...
A Pretty Good Election, but the Right Still Rules (tags)
The November 6, 2012 election turned out fairly well for progressives — from Barack Obama retaining the presidency to a true Left-wing Democrat like Bob Filner winning for Mayor of San Diego — but the Right is still strong. The issue agendas and terms of discussion continue to be dictated by an increasingly militant Right wing and America's pathetic, ill-organized remnant of a Left no longer has the power to put pressure on the political system for progressive reforms the way it did in the 1890's, 1930's and 1960's.
Ryan, Akin: Two More Reasons to Vote for Obama (tags)
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, two stories — Mitt Romney's choice of arch-conservative Ayn Rand devotee Paul Ryan as his running mate and Missouri Congressmember and Senate candidate Todd Akin's comment that women almost never get pregnant from "legitimate rape" — highlighted the vast differences between the two major parties. No progressive can possibly still believe that it makes no difference whether the Republicans or the Democrats win this year's election in the face of the overwhelming evidence that the Republicans plan (and, if they win, will enact) a sweeping change in U.S. government that will eliminate ALL business regulation, environmental protection and civil rights for women, people of color and Queers.
Whatever we think of the Democratic Party, like it or not, in the current political emergency, we are going to HAVE to align with them and vote for every Democrat on the ballot over every Republican — not because the Democrats are that progressive but because the Republicans plan a sweeping Right-wing revolution comparable to the changes Germany went through when Hitler took power in 1933, and the Democratic Party is one essential vehicle we will need to use to stop them.
Occupy Wall Street and its sister movements, including Occupy San Diego, have dramatically changed the terms of political and economic debate in the U.S. Before they arose, it looked like the only choices the American people would be given to understand the disaster that has befallen them in this nation's economic collapse was the mild pro-corporatism of the Democratic Party and the ardent, Ayn Randian pro-corporatism of the Republicans and the Tea Party. What's more, so far the Occupy protesters have shown an ability to learn from the Left's past mistakes, pattern their movement after the American Revolution (as the Tea Party did) and junk the hideously unworkable process of consensus decision-making.
Tea Party America and How to Fight It (tags)
The recent debate in Washington, D.C. over raising the debt ceiling has underscored just how totally the radical Right in general and the "Tea Party" in particular have taken over America's political debate and the economic and social consciousness of a majority of Americans. The remnant of a Left that still survives in America can only fight back if it first realizes, like a rehab patient, that we've "hit bottom" and then musters the kind of internal and external discipline it will take to mount an effective counter-attack. Instead of critiquing ourselves in public, we need to settle our differences behind closed doors, present an image of rock-solid unity to the outside world and get rid once and for all of the insanity of "consensus decision-making."
The November 2 midterm elections were not only a decisive rejection not only of the Obama administration but a full-scale endorsement of free-market economic policies and lassiez-faire capitalism — albeit by a much smaller segment of the American electorate than voted Obama and the Democrats into power in 2008. Millions of Americans voted against the party under whose watch unemployment has risen from 6.2 to 9.5 percent, and bought into the Republicans' critique that the reason for Obama's failure is he's been too much of a progressive, unduly burdening the private sector with regulation and taxation. Thanks to talk radio and Fox News, millions of Americans profoundly believe that Obama and the Democrats are far more radical than they are — and as long as they remain on the air and have their current level of influence, U.S. politics will continue to move even further Right.
David Swanson Lays Out 16-Point Plan for U.S. Left (tags)
Activist David Swanson spoke at the First Unitarian-Universalist Church in Hillcrest July 15, ostensibly to promote his book “Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union,” but actually to deliver a 16-point plan for revitalizing the American Left. His speech was full of withering scorn not only for President Obama but also for progressives who supported him in the campaign and still believe in his good intentions.
Dump the Health Insurance Bill (tags)
With the death of the “public option,” the Medicare buy-in and everything else in the proposed health insurance “reform” bill that might actually serve the public good, the bill is now nothing more than a giant, $1 trillion-plus corporate welfare program for the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Its meager promises of reform in the way the health insurance industry does business — no total caps on coverage or exclusion of “pre-existing conditions” — are likely to be flouted in practice. The progressive community made a serious mistake by not staging their own protests and disrupting Congressional town-hall meetings to demand single-payer and other progressive reforms — and as a result it will be the Republican Party and the Right in general which will reap the benefit of the putrid piece of corporate welfare the Democrats are trying to palm off on the American people as “health reform.”
Two Anniversaries: Berlin and Seattle (tags)
November 2009 was not only the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — an historical milestone reported to death by the corporate media — it was also the anniversary of an event the corporate media chose to ignore: the 10th anniversary of the mass protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in November and December 1999. The challenge for radicals and progressives today is not only to revitalize the spirit of Seattle but to take back the initiative in an era in which the biggest and most confrontational mass actions are being staged by the "teabag" Right.
Fletcher Rallies Progressive Crowd to Fight the Right (tags)
The leaflet advertising author and former labor educator Bill Fletcher's talk September 13 in Balboa Park promised a considerably more optimistic speech than the one he actually gave. Stunned by the mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. by radical-Right opponents of President Obama's supposedly "socialist" agenda, Fletcher gave a strongly worded warning to his Leftist audience that unless the American Left organizes now, not only to fight the Right but to appeal to the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans, the movement he called "Right-wing populism" — talk radio, Fox news, the "teabag" protests and the thug-like disruption of Congressmembers' town-hall meetings on health reform — will sweep the country and consign all progressive movements and any part of distributive justice and a social-welfare state to oblivion.
Commentary: State Supreme Court Hears Prop. 8 Cases (tags)
Not everything that is unjust is therefore unconstitutional. That's the lesson the progressive community should learn from the California Supreme Court's oral hearings on Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage recently approved by a narrow majority of California voters. Instead of relying on the courts to secure our rights, we should be doing education, direct action and other tactics to win majority support for equality.
Prop. 8 and the Triumph of Theocracy (tags)
The passage of Proposition 8 proves that many American voters are committed to a basically theocratic view of government in which THEIR moral values and commitments should rule over others. It also means the Queer community needs to do some soul-searching over why people of color and others we considered natural allies voted for 8 in greater percentages than whites did, and whether "marriage" as a term carries too much religious baggage ever to win majority support for its legal extension to same-sex couples.
The U.S. Economy on FIRE (tags)
The current U.S. economic crisis didn't start a few years ago when banks and financial institutions started selling "subprime" real estate loans to high-risk borrowers and then repackaging them as "mortgage-backed securities." It began in the early 1970's as a result of a long-term plan by America's major corporations and business leaders to drive down workers' wages and extract more surplus value — and the workers' response, which was to take on more debt. Any real solution that benefits working people cannot be instituted until the power of the corporate rich over the political system is broken.
With Barack Obama having won the Democratic Presidential nomination, he'll face a well-established Republican attack machine and propaganda apparatus within the corporate media. This editorial in the July 2008 Zenger's Newsmagazine also argues that progressives should support Obama, but keep the pressure on him by street activism to make sure he doesn't cop out and govern as the moderate, pro-corporate Democrat Bill Clinton was.
3/19 Lee Siu Hin: 5 Years of U.S. Invasion At Iraq/What's Going On In Tibet? (tags)
I still clearly remember on the evening of Tuesday March 18th, 2003 (Iraq time morning of March 19th)....
A Review of John Ross' Zapatistas (tags)
Review of Zapatistas' struggle for autonomy and freedom.
Christopher Hitchens – On Why We Must Win
Anarcho-pacifist / Hip-Hop producer accused of hate crime (tags)
Promoting critical thought = COINTEL fodder
CyberRadicalism: Book by Carl Davidson & Jerry Harris (tags)
15 essays developed over the past decade through the Chicago Third Wave Study Group's efforts to redefine a new Marxism for the 21st Century. .
Who's watching the watchers? How the ADL and SPLC have moved into goosestepping tandem with the FBI to observe the people..
Linking the American Left to Terror-The Stewart Conviction (tags)
The true meaning of the radical persecution of civil-rights attorney Lynne Stewart is simply to link the American left wing with terrorism.
Response to Stewart Frameup: Expose 9/11 Inside Job (tags)
The frameup and unjustifiable conviction of outstanding workingclass attorney, Lynne Stewart, is not only an outrage that must be protested, and the conviction must be appealed, but it must be a wakeup call that EXPOSING THE 9/11 HOAX is just as important as all other activities of the peace and labor movements.
Five Years After WTO Protests: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization Movement (tags)
The media spin cycle leading up to major anti-globalization protests has become so predictable that activists have been forced to come up with better media strategies to keep up with the lies and disinformation. The mainstream media starts the cycle several months in advance with articles and coverage about the upcoming summit and accompanying protests.
Haiti, Is That One of the Tahitian Islands? (tags)
The Yuppie Silence
Progressive Anti-War Presidential Candidate? (tags)
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)is a progressive Democrat opposed to war and "free" trade who is considering a bid for President. He refuses to put corporations and profits over people and he is not afraid to stand up for the common folk!