REWIND - A Week of Quotes & Cartoons SUNDAY Quote of the Day October 7, 2012 ' There is one important number in the report that barely budged from previous months. The share of jobless workers out of work for six months or more remained extremely high, at 40 percent, or 4.8 million people, of which more than half had been out of work for more than year. And finding a job remains difficult: in July, the latest month for which data on job openings was available, nearly 13 million jobless workers were competing for 3.7 million openings. 'Long-term joblessness is largely a measure of the depth of employment loss during the recession from the end of 2007 to mid-2009. Its persistence means that a top priority now is to extend federal jobless benefits, which kick in when state unemployment insurance benefits run out, generally after 26 weeks.' Editorial New York Times October 7, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/9d2xxvu Toon of the Day http://tinyurl.com/9ccr5wk Grouch Randy Bish - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review MONDAY Quote of the Day October 8, 2012 'To win the 2012 elections, progressives must immediately wage court fights, organize election monitoring and, above all, get every eligible voter registered and to the polls. But once the race of the moment is run, a new generation of voting rights activists must again bend the arc of history toward justice by finally and firmly guaranteeing that every American has the right to vote.' Editorial The Nation October 15, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/8u4ernb Toon of the Day http://tinyurl.com/9mpvw7n You Decide Jeff Danziger TUESDAY Quote of the Day October 9, 2012 'Hopefully, Vice President Biden will be blunter in calling out Paul Ryan in Thursday's vice presidential debate. The House Budget Committee, whose allegiance to Wall Street speculators threatens the retirement security of Americans over age 65 and, especially, of Americans who are headed toward retirement, has outlined a strategy for the eventual privatization of Social Security. Biden could simply quote the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, which says that for " the GOP Romney/Ryan Presidential ticket, Social Security is seen as little more than a budget target. They intend to use it to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and allow Wall Street to access American workers' Social Security funds".' John Nichols Washington correspondent for the Nation and the associate editor of the Madison, Wis. Capital Times The Nation blog October 8, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/9sg4j27 Toon of the Day http://tinyurl.com/9fjjcnk Campaign 1912 David Horsey - Los Angeles Times WEDNESDAY Quote of the Day October 10, 2012 'The transformation of Latin America is one of the decisive changes reshaping the global order. The tide of progressive change that has swept the region over the last decade has brought a string of elected socialist and social-democratic governments to office that have redistributed wealth and power, rejected western neoliberal orthodoxy, and challenged imperial domination. In the process they have started to build the first truly independent South America for 500 years and demonstrated to the rest of the world that there are, after all, economic and social alternatives in the 21st century.' Columnist Seumas Milne The Guardian (UK) October 10, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/9sjoxbq Toon of the Day http://tinyurl.com/9sykhdt Ryan & the Poor Martin Kozlowski THURSDAY Quote of the Day October 11, 2012 ''Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, visiting Athens this week at the invitation of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, got a chance to see the suffering and anger of Greeks firsthand, brought about by budget policies imposed in exchange for a European Union bailout in the debt crisis. She acknowledged the sacrifices Greeks have already made, yet she insisted that only more austerity can lead to better days. She could not be more wrong. ' Editorial New York Times October 11, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/8daf84r Toon of the Day http://tinyurl.com/8wwnjt6 New Pig in Town Martyn Turner - The Irish Times FRIDAY Quote of the Day October 12, 2012 'I know that banker bashing can be off-putting in a media world practiced in dismissing all-too-accurate references to the extreme disparity of rewards to the richest as an expression of the irrationality of class warfare. But how else to describe the pique of an industry that feels oppressed by the Obama presidency despite an average annual wage of $362,950, which in 2011 increased by a not inconsiderable 16.6 percent over the previous two years. (That's the average for securities industry employees, not to be confused with the $12 million eked out by Goldman CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein last year, down from the $68.5 million he got in 2007 when Goldman was happily constructing toxic security bundles.) 'Those figures on the overall rise in Wall Street pay, released this week by the New York State comptroller, offer a stark reminder that under the policy of bailing out the banks, initiated by Bush but embraced by Obama, class warfare has been waged effectively not by the unemployed and foreclosed. It rather has been carried out by the bankers who caused the economic meltdown and who now are ticked off that Obama has not completely rolled over.' Commetator Robert Scheer truthdig October 12, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/8nhxzkv Toon of the Day http://tinyurl.com/8bwp7v3 Smiles Rob Tornoe - The Philadelphia Inquirer SATURDAY Quote of the Day October 13, 2012 'CHOMSKY: That is part of the Oslo agreement. The Oslo agreement stipulates explicitly that the West Bank and Gaza strip are a single territory. Ever since they signed the Oslo agreement, the United States and Israel have been dedicated to undermining them. The U.S. can violate law freely but it is never reported. Everybody else is too weak to do anything about it. The U.S. is just a rogue state. 'LEZAMA: What should people in the U.S. be doing in response? 'CHOMSKY: They should be breaking through the media and general doctrinal barriers to come to know what is going on. They should be helping people learn about this. I don't have any secret sources of information. Everything I have said is public knowledge, but it is not known by anyone. The problem is self-censorship; the media just don't report anything about it, and rarely do. There is just a tremendous amount of propaganda and indoctrination so people dont know what is going on. This is not the only case, but it is an important one. Everything I have just mentioned is straight on the public record. What activists ought to be doing is place this in the public's attention.' An Interview With Noam Chomsky by Ricardo Lezama Sabbah Report September 28, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/9kwm8bf Toon of the Day http://tinyurl.com/9mtq9uo Performance Enhancing John Cole - The Times-Tribune ___________________________________________ Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. Submit via email: [log in to unmask] Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3 Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate