Is 2016 a Good Opportunity for Progressives to Acquaint Voters with the Real...
Let the smear tactics begin! Hopefully it will show the American people just what kind of scum conservatives and the GOP really are. Bernie Sanders, an independent and social democrat in the US Senate,...
View ArticleThe War on Poverty A Half Century On; Race, Class and the Current Crisis.
This year marks the fifty first year anniversary of LBJ's "War on Poverty," a flurry of "Great Society programs designed to pull up millions of poor folks which, prior to 1965, accounted for no less...
View ArticleIs Globalization the Real Cause of US Unemployment and Chronic Stagnation?
Many progressives, myself included, have fallen into the globalization argument trap when accounting for chronically high average levels of unemployment in the US and low overall GDP growth rates or...
View ArticleWealth and Income Inequality as a Political Issue in America
A study done by two professors, one a business professor at Harvard the other a psychology professor at Duke University, on popular attitudes toward wealth inequality in contemporary America has shown...
View ArticleBernie and Federal Income Taxes: Why He Suggested Restoring the Top Bracket...
Progressive income taxes at the federal level have all but disappeared. Billionaire investor Warren Buffet famously declared that his $60,000.00/year secretary pays a higher effective federal tax rate...
View ArticleIs the Ownership Society a Fraud?
Bernie Sanders' recently made a comment in an interview about the possible wisdom of a 90% top bracket on the very wealthiest income earners in America (probably millionaires and billionaires who...
View ArticleDoes Opposition to Free Trade Agreements Necessarily Mean Support for Tariffs?
Since the House Passed "fast track" for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), with significant Democratic Party support, it only seems appropriate to have another look at the whole...
View ArticleHow Influential Is AIPAC On US Foreign Policy?
It is often assumed that US policy in the Middle East would be far more "even handed" and less tied to Israeli interests if a lobby in Washington called the American Israeli Political Action Committee...
View ArticleThe US and Israel: A Rejoinder to My Critics.
There's so much of importance in the news these days; far too much to continue to beat a dead horse. Still I feel not only the need for some closure on this issue, which to me is highly important,...
View ArticleGreece, Debt and Austerity: A Better Way Forward is Possible.
The current crisis in Greece is due to the fact that the country is plagued by a structurally weak economy. That simply means that the Greek economy is highly volatile and unstable, lacks a viable...
View ArticleWas the Maastrict Treaty a Big Mistake?
When very staid, rational and sober economists like Paul Krugman declare Greece's solemn right to bolt from the EU and go off the Euro, one sits up and takes notice. Here is his argument;The truth is...
View ArticleWhy Bernie Sanders is African-Americans Best Hope in 2016.
Bernie Sanders was asked by a prominent activist in the Black Lives Matter movement, what he would do about America's problem with what she called "structural racism" which I take to mean the...
View ArticleBernie Sanders Finally Makes Racist Police Brutality Against African...
“It is unacceptable that police officers beat up people or kill people...If they do that, they have got to be held accountable.” Senator Bernie Sanders in Houston, TX 7/19/15It does appear that Sanders...
View ArticleWhat's Really Behind Illinois Budget Deficits: Rauner Won't Tax the Rich.
The State of Illinois, like most states, has had long term structural deficits especially since the 2008 financial crisis/recession dramatically reduced economic growth and therefore, tax base from...
View ArticleObamacare: Myth and Fact. Are Employers Really Dumping Their Health Insurance...
Conservatives are now all over the place claiming that employers are dumping their existing more expensive health benefit plans because Obamacare is so much cheaper to provide. Employers with fifty or...
View ArticleWill Immigration Reform Vex the Sanders Campaign Even More Than Police...
Sanders is beginning to epitomize the traditional white left who, like him, have tended to be highly educated, middle and upper middle class people who have always had the very sanguine belief that by...
View ArticleWhat is a Nation-State?
Sometimes it is good to place purely topical political issues on hold to pursue the deeper realm of political theory. I recently wrote a diary in which I reproach Bernie Sanders for using the term...
View ArticleNo Good Deed...
I'm disgusted! Disgusted with the treatment of the most progressive candidate to run for high office in this country since Eugene Debs, another socialist, who polled nearly 920,000 votes from his...
View ArticleFear, Hope and Change in 2016.
No one jumped for joy like I did on the recent news that Bernie is ahead of Hillary 44% to 37% in New Hampshire. No one expected a seven point lead this early. But stop and think. The problem is that...
View ArticleBehind the Numbers: The Anatomy of a Low Wage Recovery
For the first time since the week ending on April 15th 2000, the four year moving average for new unemployment claims has reached a new low. On April 15, 2000, according to MarketWatch the moving...
View ArticleMandatory Detention is Unconstitutional. Let's Dump It Now!
Mandatory detention in the US began in 1988 as part of the War on Drugs. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act created new grounds to deport non-citizens convicted of an "aggravated felony" including murder, drug...
View ArticleBernie's Political Momentum is a Shock to Skeptics
According to a recent Washington Post report, over 100,000 people have so far turned out to see Bernie Sanders publicly deliver his populist political message. He's addressed overflow crowds repeatedly...
View ArticleWe Were Right All Along: The Voters Want REAL Democrats not Republican Lite!!
An interesting bit of news from Politico about Democratic Party strategy in Red States. According to Politico, "...the suddenly ascendant left — its populist overtones becoming part of the mainstream...
View ArticleThe TPP is Even Less About Trade than all the Rest.
Wheaton College economics professor, John Miller writing in Dollars & Sense, a self described journal of "real world economics" puts the issue quite bluntly; "TPP is less about trade than about...
View ArticleThe TPP and Jobs
According to a March 2015 CRS report about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the annual level of trade already taking place between the US and the other twelve trade bloc members is quite high;...
View ArticleViva La Sandersistas!!
A report from Public Policy Polling (PPP) last Tuesday had this to say about the current standing of the Democratic candidates with the voters.There's been a big shift on the Democratic side since...
View ArticleThe TPP and the US Auto Industry
The Center for Automotive Research (CAR) published an in depth study of the effects of a free trade agreement (FTA) with Japan on the US automobile industry in August 2012. This is basically what they...
View ArticleBlaming the Victim: The Puerto Rican Debt Crisis and Neo-Colonialism.
Puerto Rico's current debt crisis has earned it many comparisons to Greece the most notorious being the German finance minister's recent tactless attempt at humor when he facetiously proposed...
View ArticleUS Hegemony and the Current Crisis in the Middle East: The Neocons revisited.
Recent events in Paris have once again reopened the discussion on the real causes of Jihadist terrorism in Europe and elsewhere. What is missing from the public discussion among progressives...
View ArticleRefugees are not Terrorists: The Case for Compassion.
In a humorous take on the mean spirited attitudes displayed by many in the GOP and their supporters, Susie Day, a regular commentator on the Monthly Review blog, wrote a satirical piece on the sudden...
View ArticleThe Crisis in the Eurozone Revisited: Towards an Alternative Theory of Money.
Discussion of the Eurozone crisis is again catching public attention as yet a fifth bailout has been disbursed to the Greek government worth about 2 billion Euros ($2.3 billion). The cost of this...
View ArticleIs Bernie Sanders the Antidote to Trump's Reactionary Politics?
In a recent post on Monthly Review’s MRZine blog, which I highly recommend, Victor Wallis explained that the Trump phenomenon is historically symptomatic of deepening capitalist crisis whereby poor...
View ArticleDoes Trump's Candidacy Constitute a Threat of Fascism?
The renowned Frankfurt School thinker Max Horkheimer famously remarked, “Those who do not wish to discuss Capitalism should also keep quite about fascism.” How prescient those words were in light of...
View ArticleObamacare, the Working Poor and the Middle Class: A Critique.
Obamacare was a good start and has saved a lot of people who didn’t have health insurance. Stories abound! It was based in part on expanding Medicaid by relying on individual states to raise the income...
View ArticleBernie and the Banks
Financial reform is a core issue for Bernie Sanders and is a popular one with the voters as well. If Hillary gets the Democratic Party nomination, which is pretty much a certainty at this point, it...
View ArticleTrump's Foreign Policy
Many of Trump’s detractors across the political spectrum have declared that he has no foreign policy approach or even the most rudimentary knowledge of foreign policy making. This is a dangerous...
View ArticleWhen Will We Acknowledge the WORKING POOR are a National Issue?
It is generally acknowledged that for the first twenty years after the end of WWII, about one in every five Americans fell below a conservatively estimated poverty line. Today, it is closer to one in...
View ArticleAbout that "Radical Islam" Thing...
President Obama’s speech in the immediate aftermath of the massacre inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was brilliant and compelling. His case against using the term “radical Islam” was convincing...
View ArticleThe Roots of Homophobia
Most reliable contemporary research on homosexuality shows that although being gay is as old as humanity itself, homophobia is not and in fact, open anti-gay bigotry is a distinctly modern phenomenon....
View ArticleThe Gun Nuts.
I have never really had a strong opinion on guns or gun rights. I’m starting to rethink my views (or lack of them). The real apparent source of genocide against Americans is...other Americans, not...
View ArticleIs Global Trade the Cause of Job Loss?
Presidential hopefuls across the political spectrum from Donald Trump to Bernie Sanders want to blame global trade and specifically “bad trade deals” for the ongoing loss of US jobs, particularly in...
View ArticleAnti-Brexit: Why Populist Xenophobia is No Answer to Middle Class Decline.
Late last week 52% of the roughly 33 million British voters in the referendum on whether or not to leave the European Union (EU) demanded exit. The vote favoring a British exit from the EU, or Brexit...
View ArticleThe Alt-Right: Is Trump Mainstreaming Political Extremism
What began as a mere supposition at the start of Trumps campaign last year has now been confirmed beyond doubt. Trump’s campaign is bringing racist and fascist groups out of the shadows into mainstream...
View ArticleHow the GOP Broke Obamacare.
The recent premium hikes on many ACA plans, some say on average by 22% or more, shows the inherent weakness of a health care reform based on recommendations by the ultra-conservatiive Heritage...
View ArticleThe Ongoing Systemic Form of Election Fraud Keeping Republicans in Office No...
It’s been clear for a long time that Florida is the most important swing state for US presidential hopefuls. It’s quite hard to win an election without it. The GOP knows this and consequently has made...
View ArticleTrump, the Current Crisis of US Capitalism and the Myth of American...
The renowned twentieth century German philosopher Max Horkheimer famously remarked; “Those who do not wish to discuss capitalism should also keep quiet about fascism.” He was simply admonishing those...
View ArticleDoes the Large Annual US/Mexico Trade Deficit Allow Mexico to Finance the...
It’s hard to argue that since NAFTA went into effect in January 1994, trade relations with Mexico have been very beneficial for the US economy or its workers. According to the US Census Bureau, US...
View ArticleToward a Deeper Understanding of the Muslim Ban.
The racist executive order signed by Donald Trump on January 27, 2017 to bar all refugees for 120 days, indefinitely bar Syrian refugees, and bar immigrants from Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia,...
View ArticleSober Thoughts on Immigration
Guadalupe García de Rayos may have the first notable casualty of the recent Trump executive order deporting undocumented US residents charged with felonies. Garcia de Rayos has been here twenty two...
View ArticleTrump Tariffs Won't Work.
Trump’s proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports could affect the prices of over 1,300 different kinds of consumer durables typically imported from China raising the price to US consumers often...
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