Tidbits, Reader Response & Announcements
July 30, 2011

- Re: Why Progressives Need a Big Idea (Michael Dover,
  David Arocho, Gordon Fitch)

- Speak Out for Good Jobs Now!- Oakland, Ca.

- Resolution on Afghanistan Exit Strategy (San
  Francosco Progressive Democrats of America)

- Re: Budgetary Deceit and America's Decline
  (Chris Lowe)

- Washington labor digitized collection
  (James H. Williams)

- Re: Where Politics Are Complex, Simple Joys at the
    Beach Swim-in for Freedom:
    (Joe Maizlish)

- Re: Anders Behring Breivik is Not a Fundamentalist
    Christian, He is Something Worse
    (Irving Lee)

- Sports: Views from Left Field
    (Peter Rothberg, The Nation)

                    ***

Re: Why Progressives Need a Big Idea

Progressives need a big idea? I agree.  After I met
President Obama at a Cleveland rally for campaign
volunteers, I gave one of his aides a copy of Bill
Quigley's Book Ending Poverty as We Know It:
Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage.  He
calls for a Constitutional Amendment in that regard.
Amending the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act back
to its original proposal in that regard would be a
start.  Many people may think big ideas aren't possible
when the economy is in poor shape, and no one wants
higher taxes.  But during the Depression in one state
after another, including Ohio, people voted for higher
taxes for school funding and other measures.  The
American people will do the right thing for the right
reason.  It would be a revolutionary thing for the U.S.
to establish such a right under law or constitution.
As globalizaion brings US unemployment rates and oil
prices to parity with Europe, our lack of Europe's
welfare state will need to lead to some other solution.
The right to a job at a living wage as an essential
part of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness would be a logical next step in the American
experience.

The U.S. essentially had full employment during WWII
because we were pursuing a national purpose to defeat
fascism.  Economists have shown that raising the
minimum wage significantly can produce unemployment and
inflation. But were such a right to a job accompanied
by wage and price conrols as were used in WWII and
under President Nixon, it might be possible to devise
an alternative to neoliberal social policy which
creating the optimal mix of the public, nonprofit and
market sectors needs to address human needs in a way
that was consistent with human rights, including the
right to a job at a living wage.  Democracy would
survive but the worst form of wage slavery would have
been eliminated: first in the US and then likely in the
rest of the world.  Progressives need a big idea.  Why
not take the promise of the American Revolution to its
next level? And do so in a way which preserves and
strenghtens what is unique about our nation? This is
not a new idea: it was widely proposed in the late
1960s, and embedded in the first draft of the Humphre-
Hawkins legislation.  It's time to return to that
important and excellent idea.

Michael Dover

Progressives are not so much in need of a big idea as
they are in need of will, a will to attend to the real
needs of people, a will to plan for a viable third
party, a will to put their money where their mouths
have been. In fact, the problem with Obama has been
that all he had were good ideas which he was unable or
unwilling to act on.  We do not need gimmicks, or
marketing.  What is lacking is a will to address the
real needs that people have.  We need real jobs, not an
idea about jobs.  We need committed politicians, and we
need the money that brining that about requires.

David Arocho

Establishment Democrats, having extruded the Left and
most actual liberals and progressives from their rather
conservative ranks, are hungering for 'ideas' now?
What a surprise!

Gordon Fitch

___________

Speak Out for Good Jobs Now!

Rebuild the Dream!

Tues., Aug. 16 @ 5:30 p.m.

Acts Full Gospel Church of God in Christ

1034 - 66th St., Oakland, Ca.

Featured: Representatives Barbara Lee & Raul Grijalva

Tell your story to Members of Congress who are working
to create good jobs and opportunity for every American.

Download and circulate the attached flier!

http://sz0034.ev.mail.comcast.net/service/home/~/?id=1773940&part=2&auth=co&disp=i

______________

On Wednesday, July 27, the San Francisco Democratic
County Central Committee unanimously passed the
following:

Resolution on Afghanistan Exit Strategy

Whereas, it is more than nine years since the start of
the war in Afghanistan, and the stated goals of
eliminating Osama bin-Laden and eliminating al Qaeda as
an effective force in that country have been achieved;"
and

Whereas, the continued prosecution of this war costs
$10 billion a month at a time when domestic
expenditures are being cut back dramatically; and

Whereas, the continuing killing of civilians ultimately
undermines both the reputation and security of the
United States,

Be it resolved that the San Francisco Democratic County
Central Committee congratulates Representative Jackie
Speier for cosponsoring HR 780, a bill to provide that
funds for operations of the Armed Forces in Afghanistan
shall be obligated and expended only for purposes of
providing for the safe and orderly withdrawal from
Afghanistan of all members of the Armed Forces and
Department of Defense contractor personnel who are in
Afghanistan, introduced by Representative Barbara Lee
(D-MA) and urges Representative Nancy Pelosi to join in
cosponsorship and urges Senators Barbara Boxer and
Diane Feinstein to file similar legislation in the US
Senate.

______________

Re: Budgetary Deceit and America's Decline

Quite remarkable, coming from a principal apostle of
the neoliberal "shock tactics" deconstruction of the
old Soviet bloc economies, the corrupt expropriation of
most of their wealth by venal Communist Party hacks,
gangsters and securocrats, and the World Bank/IIMF
extortions of "structural adjustment."  I guess it's
coming on 15 years since he changed his tune, and we
should be glad he's saying this now.

Chris Lowe
Portland, Oregon

_____________

* Washington labor digitized collection

Check out this digitized labor collection!

http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/uw-libraries2019-new-digital-portal-opens-state-labor-archives-for-deep-research

James H. Williams

______________

* Re: Where Politics Are Complex, Simple Joys at the
Beach Swim-in for freedom:

The direct actions against limitation on non-Jewish
residents of the W. Bank going into 1948-1967 Israel to
the sea brings to mind the "swim-ins" in the U.S., in
which African Americans challenged customs and laws
limiting use of some beaches to "whites-only." (I'm
sure people who wish to dispute the parallel can do so,
my associational sensitivities find the smell too
similar).

Another story, which I present without claiming that
the discrimination was as crushing as that in the W.
Bank, presents a couple of points of interest.The
resistance was expressed through humor (which we may
call direct action on the intellectual level), and the
discrimination was against Jews:

Groucho Marx is supposed to have remarked, when allowed
to visit a "no Jewish members" country club as a guest
of a friend but not allowed to swim in the pool: "What
about my daughter, can she go in up to her knees?
She's only half Jewish."

Joe Maizlish Los Angeles

____________

* Re: Anders Behring Breivik is Not a Fundamentalist
Christian, He is Something Worse

While Breivik complains about Islamazation of Europe,
he never addresses the Western Imperial interventions
for oil in Muslim countries. What hypocrisy!

Irving Lee

_____________

* Sports: Views from Left Field

As part of our special sports Issue -- only the second
in The Nation's 146 year history --
http://www.thenation.com/issue/august-15-22-2011 we
asked a distinguished group of writers, thinkers and
advocates to pay tribute to their favorite sports
heroes growing up. The eclectic group of contributors
includes Jennifer Egan, John Sayles, Bob Herbert, Ralph
Nader, Jane Mayer, David Remnick, Dennis Kucinich and
Cecile Richards, among many others. The result is a
package of moving mini-essays all expressing, in their
own way, a feeling many of us share: pure love of the
game. Check out the forum and read, listen to and view
new selections from the sports issue here.
http://www.thenation.com/slideshow/162312/jennifer-egan-monica-seles-jane-mayer-bob-herbert-sports-heroes

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