Yes, and what I think the article tells us is that rather than explaining in
detail why it is more expensive in the longrun to cut medical care or
financial assistance, we might talk about how we need to have a society in
which we are all caring for each other and that it is wrong to say that
people who are poor, for whatever reason, should suffer because they don't
have enough to eat or insufficient medical care. In other words, we should
be talking about values which are clearly in opposition to those of the
conservatives.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Hachey
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2015 10:08 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Why Liberals Have To Be Radicals |
PopularResistance.Org
Hi Miriam,
This is an excellent article, one of the best I've seen in some time. I've
been thinking now for awhile that the continued income inequality and all of
the accompanying injustice is radicalizing me. So, let's make it clearer. WE
who are liberal or radical need to shout out our ideas just as loudly and
proudly as the rush Linbaughs of the world preach their right-wing ideas.
Bob Hachey
The Proud radical.
PS does my use of the word radical put me on a terrorist watch list? I hope
not, but if it does, so be it.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 5:13 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Why Liberals Have To Be Radicals |
PopularResistance.Org
Why Liberals Have To Be Radicals | PopularResistance.Org pf-core frame list
of 3 items
Why Liberals Have To Be Radicals | PopularResistance.Org frame
popularresistance.org
https://www.popularresistance.org/why-liberals-have-to-be-radicals/
Why Liberals Have To Be Radicals
(Photo: AP/Charlie Neibergall) Democratic presidential candidates stand on
stage during the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame Dinner on July 17 in
Cedar Rapids. From left, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Hillary Clinton,
and Lincoln Chafee.
(Photo: AP/Charlie Neibergall) Democratic presidential candidates stand on
stage during the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame Dinner on July 17 in
Cedar Rapids. From left, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Hillary Clinton,
and Lincoln Chafee.
Note: The politics of radical transformation are becoming more evident to a
wider audience. We have always considered Robert Kutner of the American
Prospect to be a solid partisan, Democrat who supports the Democratic Party
agenda and is slightly left of center of Democratic Party views but still in
the mainstream. In the article below he states what is obvious to many
readers of Popular Resistance, participants in Occupy, Black Lives Matter
and so many other parts of the movement for social, economic and
environmental justice. Kutner highlights that today's politics - even the
politics of so-called socialist Bernie Sanders - do not come close to
actually solving the economic, environmental, racial and social problems of
the United States. This is part of the process we are in as a movement -
developing national consensus for radical transformation . The movement is
highlighting reality so it can be seen.
-
PopRes
____________________________________
Just about nothing being proposed in mainstream politics is radical enough
to fix what ails the economy. Consider everything that is destroying the
life chances of ordinary people:
list of 3 items
Young adults are staggered by $1.3 trillion in student debt. Yet even those
with college degrees are losing ground in terms of incomes.
The economy of regular payroll jobs and career paths has given way to a gig
economy of short-term employment that will soon hit four workers in 10.
The income distribution has become so extreme, with the one percent
capturing such a large share of the pie, that even a $15/hour national
minimum wage would not be sufficient to restore anything like the more equal
economy of three decades ago. Even the mainstream press acknowledges these
gaps.
list end
The New York Times's Noam Scheiber, using Bureau of Labor Statistics data,
calculated that raising the minimum wage to $15 for the period 2009 to 2014
would have increased the total income for the 44 million Americans who earn
less than $15 an hour by a total of $300 billion to $400 billion. But during
the same period, Scheiber reported, the top 10 percent increased its income
by almost twice that amount.
Scheiber concludes:
block quote
So even if we'd raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the top 10 percent
would still have emerged from the 2009-2014 period with a substantially
larger share of the increase in the nation's income than the bottom 90
percent. Inequality would still have increased, just not by as much.
block quote end
Restoring a more equal economy simply can't be done by raising incomes at
the bottom, even with a minimum wage high that seemed inconceivable just
months ago. It requires going after the grotesquely concentrated wealth and
power at the top.
Restoring a more equal economy simply can't be done by raising incomes at
the bottom, even with a minimum wage high that seemed inconceivable just
months ago. It requires going after the grotesquely concentrated wealth and
power at the top.
Last week, another writer in the
Times, Eduardo Porter,
assessed Hillary Clinton's eagerly anticipated speech on how to rescue the
middle class.
Porter's conclusion? Far from sufficient. He writes:
block quote
Mrs. Clinton's collection of proposals is mostly sensible. The older ones -
raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing child care to encourage women into
the labor force, paying for early childhood education - have a solid track
record of research on their side. The newer propositions, like encouraging
profit-sharing, also push in the right direction.
But here's the rub: This isn't enough.
block quote end
Nothing in mainstream politics takes seriously the catastrophe of global
climate change. Few mainstream politicians have the nerve to call for a
carbon tax.
The budget deadlock and the sequester mechanism, in which both major parties
have conspired, makes it impossible to invest the kind of money needed both
to modernize outmoded public infrastructure (with a shortfall now estimated
at $3.4 trillion) or to finance a green transition.
The economy is so captive to financial engineers that even interest rates
close to zero do not help mainstream businesses recover. There is still a
vicious circle of inadequate purchasing power and insufficient domestic
investment.
The rules of globalization and tax favoritism make it more attractive for
companies to assemble products, export jobs, and book profits overseas.
To remedy the problem of income inequality would require radical reform both
of the rules of finance and of our tax code, as well as drastic changes in
labor market regulation so that employees of hybrids such as Uber and
TaskRabbit would have both decent earnings and the protections of regular
payroll employees.
Congress would have to blow up the sequester deal that makes it impossible
to invest money on the scale necessary to repair broken infrastructure and
deal with the challenge of climate change.
Politicians would have to reform the debt-for-diploma system, not only going
forward, as leaders like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed,
but also to give a great deal of debt relief to those saddled with existing
loans.
Unions would need to regain the effective right to organize and bargain
collectively.
Somehow, in the postwar era, ordinary people enjoyed economic security and
opportunity; and despite the economy of broad prosperity, there were plenty
of incentives for business to make decent profits.
This is all as radical as, well, . Dwight Eisenhower.
Somehow, in the postwar era, ordinary people enjoyed economic security and
opportunity; and despite the economy of broad prosperity, there were plenty
of incentives for business to make decent profits. There just weren't
today's chasms of inequality.
But the reforms needed to restore that degree of shared prosperity are
somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders.
This is one of those moments when there is broad popular frustration, a
moment when liberal goals require measures that seem radical by today's
standards. If progressives don't articulate those frustrations and propose
real solutions, rightwing populists will propose crackpot ones.
Muddle-through and token gestures won't fool anybody.
Why Liberals Have To Be RadicalsWhy Liberals Have To Be Radicals |
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popularresistance.org
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Why Liberals Have To Be Radicals
(Photo: AP/Charlie Neibergall) Democratic presidential candidates stand on
stage during the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame Dinner on July 17 in
Cedar Rapids. From left, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Hillary Clinton,
and Lincoln Chafee.
(Photo: AP/Charlie Neibergall) Democratic presidential candidates stand on
stage during the Iowa Democratic Party's Hall of Fame Dinner on July 17 in
Cedar Rapids. From left, Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Hillary Clinton,
and Lincoln Chafee.
Note: The politics of radical transformation are becoming more evident to a
wider audience. We have always considered Robert Kutner of the American
Prospect to be a solid partisan, Democrat who supports the Democratic Party
agenda and is slightly left of center of Democratic Party views but still in
the mainstream. In the article below he states what is obvious to many
readers of Popular Resistance, participants in Occupy, Black Lives Matter
and so many other parts of the movement for social, economic and
environmental justice. Kutner highlights that today's politics - even the
politics of so-called socialist Bernie Sanders - do not come close to
actually solving the economic, environmental, racial and social problems of
the United States. This is part of the process we are in as a movement -
developing national consensus for radical transformation . The movement is
highlighting reality so it can be seen.
-
PopRes
____________________________________
Just about nothing being proposed in mainstream politics is radical enough
to fix what ails the economy. Consider everything that is destroying the
life chances of ordinary people:
list of 3 items
Young adults are staggered by $1.3 trillion in student debt. Yet even those
with college degrees are losing ground in terms of incomes.
The economy of regular payroll jobs and career paths has given way to a gig
economy of short-term employment that will soon hit four workers in 10.
The income distribution has become so extreme, with the one percent
capturing such a large share of the pie, that even a $15/hour national
minimum wage would not be sufficient to restore anything like the more equal
economy of three decades ago. Even the mainstream press acknowledges these
gaps.
list end
The New York Times's Noam Scheiber, using Bureau of Labor Statistics data,
calculated that raising the minimum wage to $15 for the period 2009 to 2014
would have increased the total income for the 44 million Americans who earn
less than $15 an hour by a total of $300 billion to $400 billion. But during
the same period, Scheiber reported, the top 10 percent increased its income
by almost twice that amount.
Scheiber concludes:
block quote
So even if we'd raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the top 10 percent
would still have emerged from the 2009-2014 period with a substantially
larger share of the increase in the nation's income than the bottom 90
percent. Inequality would still have increased, just not by as much.
block quote end
Restoring a more equal economy simply can't be done by raising incomes at
the bottom, even with a minimum wage high that seemed inconceivable just
months ago. It requires going after the grotesquely concentrated wealth and
power at the top.
Restoring a more equal economy simply can't be done by raising incomes at
the bottom, even with a minimum wage high that seemed inconceivable just
months ago. It requires going after the grotesquely concentrated wealth and
power at the top.
Last week, another writer in the
Times, Eduardo Porter,
assessed Hillary Clinton's eagerly anticipated speech on how to rescue the
middle class.
Porter's conclusion? Far from sufficient. He writes:
block quote
Mrs. Clinton's collection of proposals is mostly sensible. The older ones -
raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing child care to encourage women into
the labor force, paying for early childhood education - have a solid track
record of research on their side. The newer propositions, like encouraging
profit-sharing, also push in the right direction.
But here's the rub: This isn't enough.
block quote end
Nothing in mainstream politics takes seriously the catastrophe of global
climate change. Few mainstream politicians have the nerve to call for a
carbon tax.
The budget deadlock and the sequester mechanism, in which both major parties
have conspired, makes it impossible to invest the kind of money needed both
to modernize outmoded public infrastructure (with a shortfall now estimated
at $3.4 trillion) or to finance a green transition.
The economy is so captive to financial engineers that even interest rates
close to zero do not help mainstream businesses recover. There is still a
vicious circle of inadequate purchasing power and insufficient domestic
investment.
The rules of globalization and tax favoritism make it more attractive for
companies to assemble products, export jobs, and book profits overseas.
To remedy the problem of income inequality would require radical reform both
of the rules of finance and of our tax code, as well as drastic changes in
labor market regulation so that employees of hybrids such as Uber and
TaskRabbit would have both decent earnings and the protections of regular
payroll employees.
Congress would have to blow up the sequester deal that makes it impossible
to invest money on the scale necessary to repair broken infrastructure and
deal with the challenge of climate change.
Politicians would have to reform the debt-for-diploma system, not only going
forward, as leaders like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed,
but also to give a great deal of debt relief to those saddled with existing
loans.
Unions would need to regain the effective right to organize and bargain
collectively.
Somehow, in the postwar era, ordinary people enjoyed economic security and
opportunity; and despite the economy of broad prosperity, there were plenty
of incentives for business to make decent profits.
This is all as radical as, well, . Dwight Eisenhower.
Somehow, in the postwar era, ordinary people enjoyed economic security and
opportunity; and despite the economy of broad prosperity, there were plenty
of incentives for business to make decent profits. There just weren't
today's chasms of inequality.
But the reforms needed to restore that degree of shared prosperity are
somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders.
This is one of those moments when there is broad popular frustration, a
moment when liberal goals require measures that seem radical by today's
standards. If progressives don't articulate those frustrations and propose
real solutions, rightwing populists will propose crackpot ones.
Muddle-through and token gestures won't fool anybody.
Why Liberals Have To Be Radicals
