More Social. More Security. We can reform immigration in a way that builds community with people & families who are contributing to America -- or we can keep criminalizing our neighbors.
We can pass sensible gun regulations to create a sense of trust, safety & relief -- or we can succumb to the paranoia calling for more guns, danger and distrust.
Our budget can strengthen our country, invest in infrastructure, provide a safety net -- or can cut successful social programs that support the most vulnerable among us.
So why is Obama out to cut Social Security, when on issue after issue, we need policies that are More Social for More Security?
You can be secure in the social scene where you share views, and sip some booze at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
Here's a proposal that can help with two major current issues: Raise the taxes on bullets. Adding, for example, ten dollars to the cost of a box of bullets will discourage their purchase and help with the country's deficit problems. Surely the conservatives could accept this tax increase as reasonable?
Many states have passed higher taxes on cigarettes by claiming that it helps pay medical costs for problems caused by smoking, so why can't we do the same thing for the problems caused by bullets?
Sounds like a win-win to me.
Can Conservatives and Moderates get along? Could a Liberal be friends with a Republican? Is inter-political party love possible? Of course- these things happen every day. But if relationships are built on common values, how is this possible? Many Congressmen and Congresswomen believe Democrats and Republicans have different values, and that these values are an impassable gulf between us. However, the intractable divisions between the parties, from gun control to budget cuts, are all political, not value-based.
Except for sociopaths, all of us want our country to prosper and be safe. We want to see ourselves reflected in the leaders that represent us. Americans want to feel heard. How we achieve these aims is where we diverge. This is where politics steps in. Read more
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
It’s Monday April 8th! Do you know where your podcast is? On this day in history back in 1935, Congress established the Works Progress Administration program, and FDR signed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. Not too shabby considering they were in the depths of The Great Depression, eh? It makes you wonder. We were able to find money to help people during the time in America’s history when we were as broke as broke can be. We were able to create jobs, invest in the country, and work together towards what would become America’s golden age. We were able to pass The Social Security Act and form unemployment insurance delivering a New Deal for Americans. This only happened because enough people decided that helping people was the right thing to do. They realized we were stronger together. They were right. Read more
Writing from the plane headed to the National Conference on Media Reform in Denver, CO, organized by the terrific folks at PPF’s longtime friends at Free Press. My first time in Denver, look forward to seeing the mountains. Read more
As the GOP tries to connect to Latino voters, they first apologize for a Congress member's slur -- which he says he didn't realize was a slur.
While Congress considers steps on gun violence, conservatives oppose action, deny the facts & cling to the myth that more guns make us safer.
And though some on the Right have come out for marriage equality, others still claim that same-sex couples are a threat to marriage.
It can be hard to tell whether right-wingers are truly ignorant of the world around them...or whether they just prefer to ignore it.
If only we could ignore them a little more...
Here's a fact you can't ignore: good company & good conversation at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
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"READ THE OFFICIAL RULES"
It’s March 28th! Do you know where your podcast is? On this day in history in 1774 the government of the British Empire embodied the term “tyranny”, passing The Boston Port Act, The Massachusetts Government Act, The Quartering Act, and The Administration of Justice Act. You know what they say about those who don’t study history right? The Sons of Liberty, or insurgent rebels to the British, had dumped three cargo ships worth of precious tea into Boston Harbor to protest the Tea Act. In response the British government passed the draconian acts to remind the insurgents of their place. The British enjoyed global hegemony and needed to remind the colonists, and the rest of the world, that they were not to be trifled with (in British parlance those are actually strong words). With zero sense of the justice that many British philosophers helped to define, the empire closed the port of Boston, made the Massachusetts government impotent, placed British troops in the homes and businesses of the insurgents, and placed British officials above the law. 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
As arch-conservatives cling to definitions of marriage as between a man and a woman, more and more Americans come to believe that people have the right to marry whom they love.
While the Supreme Court's right flank seems uncomfortable recognizing gay families, Anthony Kennedy, the presumptive swing Justice, is recognizing history's swing toward equality.
Dem leaders finally follow public sentiment, 2016 contenders and coming out for gay rights & though the Republican Party lags behind, more GOP voices are calling for change.
In the end, people love who they love, couples have the right to start families, and why stand in the way of a great wedding?
Whether through Courts, States or the Capitol, before long, even the Grand Old Party will be celebrating a Gay Old Party, and we'll all be better off for it.
Speculate about SCOTUS, pipe up about politics & pass around a pitcher to share a toast as you gather with like-minded lefties at your local progressive social club.
DRINKING LIBERALLY Find - or start - a chapter near you.
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.
The OpenCongress team has submitted a proposal to the Knight Foundation NewsChallenge for open-government projects:
OpenGovernment.org – a version of “We The People” for state, city, and local governments
… thanks to mentions from friends-of-PPF like Chris Hayes, Zephyr Teachout, Reihan Salam, and others, as of this writing we’ve risen in the ranks to the bottom of the first page of most-viewed projects overall. Currently ranked 20th most-viewed of 825 proposals, not too shabby – and we’re sixth most-applauded overall, which is awesome popular support. Lots of great #opengov submissions, more on that below. (Right: a sample of our new, clean design for Q&A on OG.) Read more
Its March 18th, do you know where your podcast is? On this date in history back in1937, 298 school children experienced the worst gas of their lives, and not the kind that would provide their schoolmates with smirks, giggles, and sour smells. Their school, Consolidated School of New London Texas, had been built in 1930 and was in the middle of massive oil and gas fields and many of the nearly 1,200 students were sons and daughters of energy workers. The gas that troubled the school on that day was natural gas, there was an explosion, and those 298 students were killed, many of them instantly. This astonishing disaster was investigated thoroughly; findings revealed that raw gas escaping from leaking lines had accumulated in the dead space between the foundation and basement floor. The gas expanded due to a drop in barometric pressure and an electric spark from a switch in the manual training shop had triggered the explosion. It has been reported by history.com (caveat emptor) and others, that a cryptic message was found on a blackboard in the rubble, “Oil and Natural gas are East Texas’ greatest natural gifts. Read more
