Category: Blog

People’s World | Republican Extremism Goes Too Far

The continued attack on the working class in this country simply amazes me. What is it going to take to get people to see that Republicans are merely pandering to their religious biases, and they do not actually serve their interests?

From People’s World, today:

With double-digit unemployment, losing more manufacturing jobs than any other state and new jobs almost non-existent, the state legislature passed a retroactive 48-month lifetime limit on welfare cash assistance. Almost 40,000 people, the majority children, have been cut off. In addition, unemployment benefits have been cut from 26 week to 20 weeks. Other legislation will cut the amount jobless workers are eligible to collect. 

One of the first acts of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder was to lower the corporate tax rate by almost $2 billion. The loss in revenue was made up by taxing seniors’ pensions, slashing the earned income tax credit for low-income workers and cutting funding of public schools.

People’s World | Marriage equality activists win victory for all families

People’s World:

ORLANDO, FL – At the Dec. 12 meeting of the Orlando City Commission, leaders voted unanimously to pass a Domestic Partner Registry. The City of Orlando registry will be the first of its kind in the Central Florida area, with supporters hoping the registry will soon be adopted by Orange County.

I’m not sure I agree with PW’s headline framing this as a marriage equality win – we’ve got oodles of evidence on the ground that domestic/civil partnership laws aren’t remotely equivalent to marriage, and there’s little reason to think they ever will be – I hope this counts as a win.

No, “separate but equal” never really means equal, but at least this will help show people in Florida that the sky won’t fall if at least some legal recognition for gay couples happens.

Socialist Worker | The Egyptian revolution continues

Also on Socialist Worker:

THE FIRST parliamentary elections of the post-Mubarak era have just been staged against a backdrop of deadly clashes between state security forces and protesters in and around Tahrir Square that left at least 42 people dead and over 3,000 injured. What exactly spurred the recent outbreak of violence and how do you think these surrounding circumstances affect the overall legitimacy of the elections? 

WHAT TRIGGERED the uprising this time are the same conditions that also triggered the January uprising. There isn’t much that has changed over the past months, so the objective conditions for the revolt were there. All we needed was the trigger, something to happen that would basically ignite the whole situation again.

What happens if Egypt doesn’t settle down into yet another essentially puppet regime of the West?

Socialist Worker | Persecuted by the national security state

This morning on SocialistWorker:

AFTER MORE than a year and a half behind bars, Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old U.S. soldier accused of leaking classified information to the muckraking website WikiLeaks, will face a court date on December 16 in Fort Meade, Md. The Article 32 hearing is the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing, where a military judge will determine if there is enough evidence to proceed with a court-martial.

I don’t have much hope that Manning will be treated impartially, given the hysteria around the entire WikiLeaks incident; reports of his having been tortured psychologically bode for a very public kangaroo trial, I think.

Dalai Lama | Education of the Heart

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama:

My hope and wish is that one day, formal education will pay attention to what I call “education of the heart.” Just as we take for granted the need to acquire proficiency in the basic academic subjects, I am hopeful that a time will come when we can take it for granted that children will learn, as part of the curriculum, the indispensability of inner values: love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness.

https://plus.google.com/108551811075711499995/posts/PzysaPAv927 

People’s World | Despite attack ads, Elizabeth Warren gains steam

WORCESTER, Mass. – Elizabeth Warren’s campaign to defeat tea-party darling Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., has surged to frontrunner status, even as Karl Rove’s shadowy corporate-backed super committee PAC pours millions of dollars into attack aids on behalf of the current senator. 

A UMass-Boston Herald poll released Dec. 7 showed Warren opening a hefty seven-point lead against Sen. Brown, the first time her campaign has been ahead. Warren’s supporters argue that the numbers went up as more people came to know the candidate. 

http://www.peoplesworld.org/despite-attack-ads-elizabeth-warren-gains-steam-with-video/

People’s World |Occupiers message to Congress: All we want for Christmas is good jobs

From People’s World: 

WASHINGTON-“All I want for Christmas is JOBS!” 

That was the message on a placard carried by a Philadelphia Unemployment Project (PUP) member as he marched with about 50 other PUP members to join a “People’s Camp” on the Capitol Mall Dec. 6. 

PUP brought a busload to join rallies, speak outs and other mass actions during a rainy but mild week in the nation’s capital. It included sit-ins outside lawmakers’ offices demanding that they extend jobless benefits and create jobs by approving a multi-billion dollar public works program.
A coalition including Rebuild the American Dream movement, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) USAction and many other unions and community organizations are sponsors of the mobilization. 

Protesters from Ohio sat down in the corridor outside House Speaker John Boehner’s office, “bearding the corporate Grinch in his den.” It was one of dozens of impromptu sit-ins at congressional offices to protest Republican obstruction of President Barack Obama’s jobs program.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/occupiers-message-to-congress-all-we-want-for-christmas-is-good-jobs/ 

It’s time to be scared of the Republicans again

This is among the best explanations why I left the two-party, “lesser of two evils” system when I left the Democratic Party in 2001. We’re never going to get parties that represent our interests as Leftists if we keep funding the Democrats as the only “realistic” choice.

The message is clear: You might be achingly disappointed by the first three years of the Obama presidency–by the bailout of Wall Street while millions of homeowners face foreclosure, by the failure to push for a real jobs program, by the betrayal of the promise of universal health care, and by the capitulation to the Republicans’ deficit hysteria, even while the Bush-era tax cuts for the super-rich were preserved. But it’s time to set that aside, and be scared of the Republicans again–and work for Obama and the Democrats in order to stop the “greater evil.”

http://socialistworker.org/2011/12/07/republican-creeps-democratic-enablers