Economy
The President got in bed with Republicans to help him pass gun control legislation, but it was no love-match, they screwed him over & the morning after has left us with no new laws.
He continues to court conservatives on immigration reform & budget deals, and he's willing to make big compromises that the morning after look more like mistakes.
Now to do extend a hand to the Christian Right to appeal to those who won't ever be appeased, his administration is opposing access for young women to the morning after pill.
Just because there's no pill to fix the bad political mistakes Obama has made doesn't mean he should deny Americans a legal course out of a bad situation.
Whether a pill or some political will, we could all use a way to make things right -- it's better than mourning after the morning after.
Join a night that you won't regret with conversation, comrades, discussion & drinks at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
Margaret Thatcher visits with Augusto Pinochet while he was under house arrest in London.
Margaret Thatcher is dead.
While we in the United States tend to lionize our departed Presidents, a la St. Ronnie of Santa Barbara, British politics is not nearly so genteel or forgiving. Her legacy will be debated much more critically in Britain than Reagans’s has been in the U.S.
Aging punk-rockers, Irish Republicans and trade unionists greeted the passing of Baroness Thatcher which much less solemnity. On Face book, a movement began to push “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead” temporarily to iphone’s number one downloaded song.
Thatcherism embodied the ultimate unrestricted “free market” anarcho-capitalist principles. And Thatcherism did not see industrial unions as part of a “free market”. Her policies destroyed the union movement in Britain and essentially de-industrialized vast swathes of the country. Read more
The New York Times front page on 7 March 1930, the day following the march for Unemployment Insurance.
Does it boggle your mind to see working class people using their time to demonstrate for less government involvement, while living off of unemployment or social security checks? What exactly are these people thinking? How can people work so directly against their own best interests?
It's an insanity that Thomas Frank noted in his book "Whatﾒs the matter with Kansas?":
"the country we have inhabited for the last three decades seems more like a panorama of madness and delusion worthy of Hieronymous Bosch: of sturdy patriots reciting the Pledge while they resolutely strangle their own life chances; of small farmers proudly voting themselves off the land; of devoted family men carefully seeing to it that their children will never be able to afford college or proper health care; of hardened blue-collar workers in mid-western burgs cheering as they deliver up a landslide for a candidate whose policies will end their way of life, will transform their region into a "rust belt," will strike people like them blows from which they will never recover." Read more
Labor Day Demonstration against child labor - 1909
So if "class warfare" actually breaks out (we’re not talking about beheading rich folks .... yet!) with what "class" do you identify?
Are you "middle class, upper middle-class, lower class?" These are categories we love to use and always see in the corporate media.
These categories are based on how much you make and how much you consume. They assume you work. You have a job. If if are "lower" or "middle" class you cannot stay home and live on accumulated wealth or on income generated by others working for you. Yet rarely are such folks characterized as "workers".
The broad categories of class are better defined by your relationship to the process of the production of wealth.
You are either a worker, selling your labor because you have no other adequate source of income or you are an owner, a capitalist whose income is generated by others - i.e workers in your factory/corporation or your investments, or your accumulated wealth. Read more
Even the recent heinous acts of gun violence aren't budge the US Senate, which is too scared to tackle a restoration of the assault weapons ban.
Superstorm Sandy, the series of climate crises & the hottest seasons on record can't budge the climate change deniers in both Houses into any action on carbon reduction.
Despite an election that rejected him, nothing will budge Paul Ryan from a Tea Party budget plan that slashes popular, essential programs.
It's one thing to say Congress can't budget. But when it comes to Congress, nothing -- not common sense, popular sentiment or urgent necessity -- can budge it.
Congress: can't budget. Can't budge it.
If you need a drink to lift your spirits, or some comrades to share spirited talk, join your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
This year I will be 71 years old, assuming I make it and I have close family now into their eighties. I was born in the first year of WW II and my older relatives born in the 1930s during the Great Depression.
When I was a kid grandparents lived with their children and their grandchildren. One of the kids took in their mom and pop while the rest of the kids were expected to kick into the pot to provide for their support.
That’s the way it was before Social Security.
Folks were expected to work until they died which usually wasn’t long. The average life expectancy for a male in the 1920s was 49 years. If you lived longer there was no expected retirement age. You worked until you could no longer work or until you could no longer find work.
Then you were expected to live on your savings. Home ownership at the time was below 20% in the lower working class and the average wage adjusted for inflation in today’s purchasing power was around $13,000. So usually old folks didn’t have sufficient resources to live on.
So you went to your children if you had any. It was expected. Grandma usually got one of the children’s bedrooms. Read more
The President having GOP Senators for dinner didn't stop them from having him for lunch. He may win over their taste-buds and tummies, but it's a far reach to their hearts and minds.
Paul Ryan's past budget proposals have turned the Republicans into lemmings, yet despite a decisive national defeat,Ryan's new budget is a lot like the old.
More Americans speak against the sequester but stopping cuts requires Washington action,and in DC these days, the hardest task is getting Congress to do anything at all.
We need a group of proud aging men with differing goals & fractured alliances to can get together to make a decision.
They just did it in the Vatican -- why is Capitol Hill having so much trouble?
Whether discussing the white smoke in Rome or just the hot air and dark tempers in DC, share your thoughts, a drink & a night with your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY
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The fiscal cliff was an artificial problem caused by a Congress punting an issue and settled by Congress punting an issue.
When President Obama caved last time, he swore it would truly be the last time, a resolution he re-resolved this time, which will last until he caves next time.
The Republicans show serious resolve to refuse to seriously solve anything. The Democrats are only resolute in their commitment never to be too resolute.
We're kicking off a new year, but Washington can't kick old habits. We need a New Year's resolution to see this year new real solutions…or hey, we'll say we want a revolution.
Our revolution begins at happy hour so make your resolution to raise a glass at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY
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Watching the House vote on the Senate’s bill to avoid the fiscal cliff last night, I was struck by how relieving it can be to watch our leaders to their jobs. When the votes were tallied, we saw forward movement, with Reps. Boehner and Paul voting in favor of the necessary legislation. A splinter of hope was realized in the middle of the night on New Year’s Day. Rationality won out over ideology.
What has nearly broken our union time and again is a devotion to identity politics: so often we vote for candidates we think are like ourselves rather than the best people for the jobs. President Obama’s administration has been harassed and harangued by politicians and a media outlet obsessed with how his identity is different than theirs- and consequently, they’ve felt him unworthy of their support. At last, we are seeing that strident belief begin to weaken, and a glimmer of logic shines in. Read more
The GOP say the only way to address the debt is to weaken Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security, but we know that healthy, secure Americans make a healthier, more secure America.
Deficit hawks want to stop investing in our country and privatize our resources and public works, though we know a strong national infrastructure is key to a strong, national economy.
Tea Partiers obstruct needed disaster relief and laugh off spending on disaster preparation, yet we know a robust defense of our country will make a more profitable, predictable country.
They talk about being fiscally responsible, but doing it by physically irresponsible -- weakening our citizens, society & nation.
We need strong Americans & a strong America. Getting physically stronger is fiscally smarter. Let's get fiscal -- and get physical.
And let's get together for a liberal libation with like-minded lefties ready to chat at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY
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Tax fairness is a pillar of a successful economy but the GOP wants to further tax cuts for the rich without saying how they'll pay for those cuts...meaning working Americans will pay the tab.
Our social safety net has strengthened our society but the Tea Party wants to slash entitlements...yet won't name particular programs they'd cut.
We want revenue to keep our country running, but conservatives argue for closing loopholes...without showing how that can add up.
One side is arguing for a stronger America. The other side isn't making an argument at all.
We want the New Deal. They are offering No Deal.
At least we know who we're dealing with.
Deal yourself in for a coupe of rounds of good conversation with great company at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY
Find - or start - a chapter near you.
