FEATURE

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE December 31, 2018

Trapping Students & Society In A System Of Debt & The Corporate ‘Discipline Culture’

“Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, the can’t afford time to think. Tuition fee increases are a ‘disciplinary technique,’ and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the “discipline culture. This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.” — Quote from a 2011 news report in the Ottawa Citizen, which paraphrased statements Chomsky made during a lecture at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. ***** The Crushing Burden Of Long-Term Student Debt…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know December 31, 2018

“The War At Home”: 1979 Film On Anti-Vietnam War Protests In Madison, WI Hits Theaters With Timely Relevance

“This is Hometown. America in revolt … not to be missed.” — Variety Democracy Now! (12/28/18) The War at Home, a landmark documentary about antiwar protests in the 1960s and ’70s in Madison, Wisconsin, has just been re-released nationwide. In an extended interview, we revisit the film with co-director Glenn Silber, two-time Academy Award nominee, and discuss why he argues now is an important time to revisit the responsibility to stand up and say no to war. “I think the Dow demonstration, at least in Madison, and probably elsewhere, is one of the most important demonstrations ever, because what was it?…

ALL ARTICLES, Democrats, FEATURE December 27, 2018

Corporate Joe Biden: Okay, Cross Him Off The List. Next…

  “I don’t think 500 billionaires are the reason why we’re in trouble. But we have not seen this huge concentration of wealth. And the folks at the top aren’t bad guys. I get in trouble in my party when I say wealthy Americans are just as patriotic as poor folks, I’ve found no distinction. I really haven’t. But this gap is yawning. It’s gaping and it’s having the effect of pulling us apart.” (And, oh yeah, and according to Corporate Joe Biden, Social Security and Medicare earned benefits “need adjustment”, too.) — Joe Biden, Brookings Institution talk “about 8…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE December 24, 2018

Beware Beto Bunk: Can We Really Afford A Corporate-Friendly Obama Clone Progressive Pretender?

  By Norman Solomon Reader Supported News (12/19/18) News media tell us that Beto O’Rourke has reached the top tier of potential contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. CNN polls now rank him in third place — behind only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders — among likely Iowa caucus-goers as well as among Democrats nationwide. Progressives are apt to be enthusiastic about O’Rourke — if they don’t know much about his record. Inclinations to hop on the Beto bandwagon are understandable. O’Rourke was inspiring this year as he fought to unseat the despicable U.S. senator Ted Cruz with a campaign that built…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Police State America December 13, 2018

While Banned In Warfare, Tear Gas Is Now A Favorite Weapon Of U.S. Border Patrol & Domestic Police On American Streets

Customs and Border Protection began using tear gas under the Obama administration in 2010. The agency’s use of tear gas has now reached a seven-year record high. Democracy Now! (11/28/18) As the Trump administration continues to defend firing tear gas into crowds of asylum seekers, we look at the history of tear gas, which is banned in warfare but legal for federal authorities and police to turn on civilians. Border authorities’ use of tear gas has spiked under the Trump administration, with the agency’s own data revealing it has deployed tear gas over two dozen times this year alone. Bipartisan…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Gun Cult December 13, 2018

Members Played For Chumps: NRA Pays Lavish Executive Perks Even As It Cuts Costs

The NRA recently rolled out its second dues increase in two years. By Mike Spies & John Cook The Trace (11/28/18) The National Rifle Association paid more than $100,000 in personal expenses for an official who is now leading an austerity campaign within the organization, new tax filings show. The official, Josh Powell, is the NRA’s executive director for general operations. The Trace and Mother Jones reported two weeks ago that Powell, along with the NRA’s new treasurer, Craig Spray, is seeking to impose steep cuts to the gun group’s budget. The effort is so stringent that the NRA did away with free coffee and…

FEATURE, Your Brain On Politics December 13, 2018

Understanding The Brain & How To Create Effective Progressive Messaging

Frame4Future.com Spirit In Action (12/1/18) Scott Wittkopf helps organizations & people learn to do effective progressive messaging through his firm, Frame for the Future. It’s a bit ironic that the scientific research proves that people do not make their decisions based on scientific research, but on frames, and progressives have been doing an inferior job of harnessing this knowledge to support their goals. Based on the work of George Lakoff and others, there is great untapped potential for progressive causes. Scott presented on the topic at the Eau Claire Grassroots Festival, sponsored by Wisconsin Grassroots Network. Link to 55-Minute Audio  

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ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE December 13, 2018

Humiliation, Homoeroticism, Sexism, Violence & Animal Cruelty: Inside The Frathouse Training Ground Of America’s Leaders

“Aggression and humiliation are the norms here, the one driving the other.” By Sean O’Hagan The Guardian (12/10/18) Last year in the US, four freshman students died as a direct result of hazing rituals during college fraternity initiation ceremonies. All the deaths occurred during or just after drinking bouts in which the victims consumed vast amounts of spirits in a short space of time while older students egged them on. One of the deceased, Maxwell Gruver, 19, a student at Louisiana State University, was found to have had a blood-alcohol level over .49 g/dl at the time of his death – just .31 is considered life-threatening….

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Democrats, FEATURE, M. Taylor Columns, Rethuglicans, Weasel Walker December 6, 2018

COUP! Unable To Even Name The Foe, Wisconsin Dems Flap Hankies & Rattle Teacups At Fascist Onslaught Against State Govt.

A brass knuckle legislative coup. By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (12/6/18) What has happened in Madison this week with the hard right Republican legislature preemptively kneecapping the administration of Democrat Governor-elect Tony Evers and Attorney General-elect Josh Kraul before they even have a chance to take the oath of office is a brass knuckle legislative coup. While it is shocking the republicans would take such action it is not surprising; after all, that is what fascists do; abandon legal niceties, tradition and the normal transition of power. All those vestiges of democracy are as dead to the GOP…

'Just-Us' System, ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE December 6, 2018

High-Profile Wall Street Pedophile Pal Of Trump, Bill Clinton & Alan Dershowitz Benefits From Corrupt Connections & Twisted ‘Just-Us’ System

  The Young Turks (12/4/18) Jeffrey Epstein avoids a civil trial by paying out and apologizing. Cenk Uygur and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. “A politically connected multi-millionaire sex offender accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls struck a last-minute deal to avoid a civil trial that would have allowed some of his victims to finally testify against him in open court. Jeffrey Epstein struck the deal with lawyer Bradley Edwards shortly before jury selection was set to begin in West Palm Beach, Florida. ‘What happened today was a win,’ Edwards, who represents some…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change, FEATURE December 3, 2018

Climate Catastrophe — This Is How Capitalism Kills Us

  By Hamilton Nolan Splinter News (11/18/18) On Meet the Press yesterday, Utah Senator Mike Lee said about our climate change crisis, “all the proposals I’ve seen so far that would address any of these issues would devastate the U.S. economy.” This is considered a reasonable explanation of maintaining the status quo. This is the insanity built into capitalism. Lee was specifically explaining why he would not support a carbon tax, the single most direct, rational, and market-friendly way of restricting carbon emissions. The context for the question was the release on Friday of a reportfrom the US government itself saying that, within a century, climate change…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know December 3, 2018

America’s Forgotten Dark History Of Organized Anti-Semitism Re-emerges In Today’s Far-right Groups

Mass rally of 20,000 American Nazis at Madison Square Garden in 1939. Orgnizer Fritz Kuhn declared that if George Washington had still been alive, he would be a Nazi. This aspect of history is rarely found in textbooks. By Bradley W. Hart The Conversation (11/29/18) Hours after Robert Bowers allegedly walked into a Pittsburgh synagogue and killed 11 people, investigators told the media that Bowers appeared to have acted alone and fit what experts call the “lone mass shooter profile.” Weeks later, FBI agents arrested a Washington D.C. man who followed Bowers on social media. He had told relatives he wanted…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Health Care December 3, 2018

With ‘Unlimited Funds to Lie,’ Insurance Industry & Corporate Democrats Gear Up To Kill Off Medicare For All

  By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (11/21/18) Medicare for All is rapidly surging in popularity among the American public and gaining momentum in Congress, but private insurance interests and Big Pharma have no intention of giving up their immensely profitable stranglehold on the U.S. healthcare system without a fight. According to strategy documents obtained by The Intercept and the watchdog group Documented, the private healthcare industry is working aggressively alongside corporate Democrats to spread anti-single payer propaganda and “minimize the potential” for Medicare for All as an alternative to the current for-profit status quo. Directed by former Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton staffers and leading insurance industry lobbyists, an…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE November 29, 2018

Why? The FBI Is Massively Undercounting Hate Crimes

  Southern Poverty Law Center (11/16/18) Mulugeta Seraw was standing on a corner in Portland, Oregon, when they spotted him. It was 1988, and he was a college student from Ethiopia. His friends had dropped him off in front of his apartment, and he was standing next to their car, talking, when a group of racist skinheads affiliated with a neo-Nazi group descended. As one attacker smashed the car’s taillight and a window with a baseball bat, another punched Seraw. When his friends tried to intervene, the skinheads attacked them too, beating the black men with their fists, baseball bats…

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ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Good News November 26, 2018

Anand Giridharadas: A Tale Of Two Americas And The Mini-mart Where They Collided

TED Talks (3/24/18) Ten days after 9/11, a shocking attack at a Texas mini-mart shattered the lives of two men: the victim and the attacker. In this stunning talk, Anand Giridharadas, author of “The True American: Murder and Mercy In Texas,” tells the story of what happened next. It’s a parable about the two paths an American life can take, and a powerful call for reconciliation. Link to 19-Minute Video

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Health Care November 26, 2018

Ohio Republicans Declare Motherhood “Necessary” & Want To Make It Mandatory

Clinging to — and pushing — sexist stereotypes. By Amanda Marcotte Salon (11/24/18) While the name of Brett Kavanaugh has fallen out of the headline news cycle, the religious right has not forgotten that his recent addition to the Supreme Court now means they likely have five votes to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to ban abortion. While the endless churn of outrageous Trump stories occupies national headlines, anti-choice activists and politicians are swiftly moving to pass laws that they clearly hope will lead, perhaps within a year, to vacating the current legal protections for abortion rights. In…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Health Care, Surveillance State November 22, 2018

As Snoopy Insurers Offer Discounts For Fitness Trackers, Wearers Should Step With Caution

  By Stephanie O’Neil NPR 9111/18/18) When Kathy Klute-Nelson heads out on a neighborhood walk, she often takes her two dogs — Kona, a boxer, and Max, a small white dog of questionable pedigree who barrels out the front door with barks of enthusiasm. The 64-year-old resident of Costa Mesa, Calif., says she was never one to engage in regular exercise — especially after a long day of work. But about three years ago, her employer, the Auto Club of Southern California, made her and her colleagues an offer she couldn’t refuse: Wear a Fitbit, walk every day and get…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE November 22, 2018

Nazis Are Gearing Up Secretive Paramilitary Training Across America

One thing stands out: The Base’s posts are largely designed to promote violent action. By Ben Makuch & Mack Lamoureux VICE (11/20/18) A neo-Nazi who goes by the alias Norman Spear has launched a project to unify online fascists and link that vast coalition of individuals into a network training new soldiers for a so-called forthcoming “race war.” Spear, who claims to be an Iraq and Afghan war veteran, is a self-proclaimed white nationalist with a significant online following. His latest act involves bringing neo-Nazis together, regardless of affiliation and ideology, into a militant fascist umbrella organization. His tool for doing this? A social network…

ALL ARTICLES, American Socialist Tradition, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, Resist! November 19, 2018

Shameless Barack von Obamenburg, Herr Donald & Bipartisan Capitalist Hypocrisy: On How Fascism Happens

“One of the first things we must get rid of is the idea that democracy is tantamount to capitalism.”  — Eleanor Roosevelt By Paul Street CounterPunch (11/16/18) Caravan of Lies Never underestimate the disingenuousness of top U.S.-American politicos.   They truly have no shame. Notice how little the fascistic president Donald Trump has to say any more about the big bad Central American Caravan that was supposedly menacing the United States with a great criminal “invasion”? The U.S. military “heroes” sent down at great taxpayer expense to “defend our border” will be missing Thanksgiving with their families thanks to this fake…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Rethuglicans November 8, 2018

Know Who Hates You: A Short Video Guide To American White Supremacist Fascist Groups

  Think Progress (8/8/18) White supremacists in America are not a unified group, but a loose coalition of hate groups, each fringe and dangerous in their own way. In the year since the deadly violence on display at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., different white nationalist, anti-immigrant, and general hate groups have demonstrated in cities across the country. The Nationalist Socialist Movement, Vanguard America, and League of the South held a “White Lives Matter” rally in Shelbyville, Tenn. in October. In July and again in August, hate groups Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys clashed with anti-hate…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE November 5, 2018

Did Scott Walker & Donald Trump Deal Away The Wisconsin Governor’s Race For Foxconn?

The costs include taxpayer subsidies to the company totalling more than $4.5 billion, the largest subsidy for a foreign corporation in American history.  By Don Kaufman The New Yorker (11/3/18) In September of 2017, Governor Scott Walker, Republican of Wisconsin, signed a contract that would make his state the home of the first U.S. factory of Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer. The company, which is based in Taiwan and makes products for Apple, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, among others, would build a 21.5-million-square-foot manufacturing campus, invest up to ten billion dollars in Wisconsin, and hire as many as…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know November 1, 2018

Forewarned — Know Fascist Symbolism: The Number “14”

  Anti-Defamation League “14 Words” is a reference to the most popular white supremacist slogan in the world: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The slogan was coined by David Lane, a member of the white supremacist terrorist group known as The Order (Lane died in prison in 2007). The term reflects the primary white supremacist worldview in the late 20th and early 21st centuries: that unless immediate action is taken, the white race is doomed to extinction by an alleged “rising tide of color” purportedly controlled and manipulated by Jews. ADL…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE October 29, 2018

As GOP Moves To Slash & Disable Medicare & Social Security, 60% Of Americans Say Repeal Trump Tax Scam Instead

  By Jake Johnson Commoner Dreams (10/26/18) As President Donald Trump and Republican leaders make clear that they intend to enact deep cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security after next month’s midterms in a supposed effort to rein in the soaring deficit—which has ballooned largely due to Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax law—a survey published on Friday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans would prefer repealing the Republican tax cuts over slashing the safety net. Conducted by NPR, PBS NewsHour, and Marist, the poll found that 60 percent of Americans would rather eliminate Trump’s tax cuts than gut safety net programs to reduce the federal budget…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Media Hits & Misses, Your Brain On Politics October 29, 2018

Two Years In, Trump Can Still Count On News Media To Mindlessly Do His Bidding

By George Lakoff George Lakoff’s Facebook Page (10/28/18) Two years in, Trump and the right wing can still count on the news media to do their bidding. Constant repetition of their lies and language help spread it far and wide. They know that constant repetition of lies – even to debunk them – only makes them more sticky. Here are their tactics in use: 1. Frame first, meaning get your understanding of the situation out there. 2. Divert attention from things you don’t want people to pay attention to, for example by attacking somebody else. 3. Attack the messenger or…

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ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know October 22, 2018

“Dark Money” Blows The Cover Off The Money Poisoning American Politics

This year, dark money spending on TV ads has increased 86% compared to the comparable point in the 2014 midterm elections. By David Moore Sludge (10/1/18) Shadowy election spending was hit with a spotlight as the “Dark Money” film held its nationwide premiere on PBS last night. In the documentary, sketching out the money flows between front groups earns the tension and narrative of a political thriller. Filmmaker Kimberly Reed follows journalist John S. Adams as he tracks dark money in Montana over three election cycles, from 2012 through 2016. “Dark Money” offers a detailed view of the dedicated work of…

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ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, Surveillance State, War State America October 22, 2018

‘A Moment To Remember’ — When The US Abandoned Any Pretense Of Democracy For The Love Of ‘Our S.O.B.s”

“In December 1954, the NSC [National security Council] met in the White House to stake out a strategy that could tame the powerful nationalist forces of change sweeping the globe. Across Asia and Africa, a half-dozen European empires that had guaranteed global order for more than a century were giving way to new nation, many — as Washington saw it — susceptible to “communist subversion.” In Latin America , there were stirrings of leftist opposition to the region’s growing urban poverty and rural landlessness. To make it “absolutely clear we will not tolerate Communism anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.”influential Secretary…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Police State America, Surveillance State October 18, 2018

American Police State Update: Undercover Cops Are Creating Fake Facebook Accounts To Track Protesters

  By Jon Schuppe NBC News (10/5/18) In the summer of 2015, as Memphis exploded with protests over the police killing of a 19-year-old man, activists began hearing on Facebook from someone called Bob Smith. The name was generic, and so was his profile picture: a Guy Fawkes mask, the symbol of anti-government dissent. Smith acted as if he supported the protesters, and, slowly, they let him into their online community. Over the next three years, dozens of them accepted his friend requests, allowing him to observe private discussions over marches, rallies and demonstrations. In public postings and private messages he…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Gun Cult October 18, 2018

MAD Magazine’s School Shooting Cartoon Feature Is A Poignant & Horrifying Commentary On America’s Tradition Of School Shooting

(Cartoon by Marc Palm / Mad Magazine, 2018.) This is shocking. It’s also very smart. By Ryan Britt Fatherly (10/5/18) Satire about school shootings might seem overwhelming in the face of so much tragedy, but a new powerful and artistic statement is calling out the complicity many Americans have about gun violence. But this razor-sharp indictment isn’t coming from Sacha Baron Cohen or even Stephen Colbert.Instead, the most affecting commentary on gun control you’ll see this month was just been published in Mad Magazine. In the latest issue of Mad Magazine (which is out on newsstands and in Barnes and Noble bookstores right now), there’s a brilliantly sad…

ALL ARTICLES, Climate Change, FEATURE October 11, 2018

What’s Not In The Latest Terrifying IPCC Report? The “Much, Much, Much More Terrifying” New Research On Climate Tipping Points

By Jon Queally Common Dreams (10/9/18) If the latest warnings contained in Monday’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—which included pronouncements that the world has less than twelve years to drastically alter course to avoid the worst impacts of human-caused global warming and that nothing less than keeping all fossil fuels in the ground is the solution to avoid future calamities—have you at all frightened or despondent, experts responding to the report have a potentially unwelcome message for your already over-burdened heart and mind: It’s very likely even worse than you’re being told. After the report’s publication there were…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Screwing With Your Vote October 8, 2018

Hey, Youngsters, America’s Old Farts Have A Message For You: “Don’t Vote!”

An edgy Knock the Vote social media ad has been gaining social media traction this week features old white seniors Trump supporters taunting younger citizens into not voting in the upcoming November elections. “Tax cuts for the rich? Hell yeah, I’m rich as fuck,” one old fart declares in the ad. Another declares: “Climate change? That’s a you problem. I’ll be dead soon.” The ad concludes with a bitter bit of prediciiton: “We’ll be there, but you won’t because we’re a generation of doers, not whiners. We’re doing great.” Link to 1-Minute Video (Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2018….

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE October 4, 2018

Brett Kavanaugh Reveals The Smug Banality Of The Bipartisan Ruling Gang

  By Meagin Day Jacobin (10/2/18) The masters of the universe, it turns out, are losers. The Brett Kavanaugh hearing was a kaleidoscope of family and God and prestigious clerkships spliced with boofing and ralphing and brewskis. It was a thorough dressing-down. In the end, one was left with the impression of an unremarkable guy who was born on a conveyor belt to power, without much obligation to distinguish himself from his peers. On the contrary, his success was relatively guaranteed on the condition that he didn’t distinguish himself from them, that he simply play nice with the fellas — and not…

ALL ARTICLES, Economic Injustice, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know October 4, 2018

‘Fresh Air’ Review: Smart, Unsentimental ‘Heartland’ Pays Tribute To America’s Working Class & Exposes The Class Warfare That Exploits Their Lives

  “It’s a hell of a thing to grow the food, serve the drinks, hammer the houses and assemble the airplane that bodies with more money eat and drink and occupy and board while your own body can’t go to the doctor.” By Maureen Corrigan Fresh Air (10/3/18) Sarah Smarsh is a daughter of the white working class. Born in rural Kansas, Smarsh traces her lineage back through five generations of family farmers. She also traces herself back through generations of teenage pregnancies; Smarsh’s mother was just 17 when she had her. During the 1980s, when Smarsh was growing up,…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Gun Cult October 1, 2018

Great News For Mass Shooters: One Year After Las Vegas, A New Texas Company Is Selling Murderous Bump Stocks

  By Alex Yablon The Trace (9/28/18) When a gunman perched in a Las Vegas hotel room used rifles affixed with bump stocks to commit the deadliest mass shooting in American history, Slide Fire Solutions went from an obscure Texas manufacturer of a gun world novelty to the main purveyor of a notorious and widely condemned product. As federal and state lawmakers of both parties called to ban bump stocks, and attorneys filed lawsuits, Slide Fire announced in April that it was shutting down. But on the one-year anniversary of the massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, bump stocks remain not only…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, Democrats, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know, M. Taylor Columns, Rethuglicans September 24, 2018

Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 11/9” Lays Bare The Dangerous Crossroads We Are At And What We Need To Understand From Steve Bannon

  Tyrant. Liar. Racist. And a hole in one.   By Mark L. Taylor The Commoner Call (9/24/18) This past weekend I saw Michael Moore’s new documentary film Fahrenheit: 11/9. You will find a detailed review of the film below, so I won’t go into a lot of detail here other than to say it is an extraordinary film — in my opinion, his best — that lays out the path of how this nation has come to the dangerous crossroads with fascist totalitarianism we now confront. As Moore explains, it is not hyperbole to talk in such terms and his…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE September 20, 2018

American Fascism: Trump Is The Symptom, Not The Problem

Concern regarding ascendant fascism isn’t necessarily misguided— the question back is: where have you been for the last fifty years? [Editor’s Note: This is an especially insightful column that peels away to “the” problem we are facing in our political and tilted economic system. — Mark L. Taylor] By Rob Urie CounterPunch (9/17/18) From Whence ‘We’ Came Fascism is a loaded topic for Americans. The term is usually put forward as oppositional, as the flip side of representative democracy, e.g. authoritarian. Left unaddressed is whose interests’ American representative democracy represents. Twenty years of research by political scientist Thomas Ferguson strongly supports the…

ALL ARTICLES, American Fascism, FEATURE, Resist! September 17, 2018

Bernie Sanders: A Growing International Authoritarian Axis Demands An International Progressive Front

  The Tip Of The Problem By Bernie Sanders The Guardian (9/13/18) There is a global struggle taking place of enormous consequence. Nothing less than the future of the planet – economically, socially and environmentally – is at stake. At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, when the world’s top 1% now owns more wealth than the bottom 99%, we are seeing the rise of a new authoritarian axis. While these regimes may differ in some respects, they share key attributes: hostility toward democratic norms, antagonism toward a free press, intolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities, and a…

ALL ARTICLES, American Socialist Tradition, FEATURE, History They Don't Want You To Know September 17, 2018

History They Don’t Want You Know: How Depression Era Co-Ops Built A Healthy Alternative Economic Model

Public domain photo. The idea of a genuine economy shorn of Wall Street contrivance touched a chord.  By Jonathan Rowe Yes! Magazine (9/14/18) he mood at kitchen tables in California in the early 1930s was as bleak as it was elsewhere in the United States. Factories were closed. More than a quarter of the breadwinners in the state were out of work. There were no federal or state relief programs, nothing but some local charity—in Los Angeles County, a family of four got about 50 cents a day, and only 1 in 10 got even that. Not long before, America…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE September 13, 2018

Of Course We’ll Slash Your Hard-Earned Social Security & Medicare To Fund Tax Cuts For The Wealthy, Republicans Admit

  By Rebekah Entralgo Think Progress  (8/21/18) Slowly but surely, Republicans that supported the trillion dollar Trump tax bill are revealing their true motivations: slashing Medicare and Social Security. During a Sunday interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH) urged entitlement reform as the deficit continues to balloon as a result of the GOP tax cuts. [Language Note: Social Security and Medicare are not ‘entitlements’. They hard earned benefits people have invested in through wage deductions. — Ed.] “I do think we need to deal with some of our spending,” Stivers said. “We’ve got try to figure out how…

ALL ARTICLES, FEATURE, Weasel Walker September 10, 2018

Weasel Walker’s Foxconn Bait-And-Switch: Fewer Jobs & Business For Other States

Is Walker’s big deal turning into just another empty election year promise? By Dave Hansen, State Senator Dist 30 Green Bay Progressive (9/8/18) GREEN BAY, WI – Since Governor Walker’s initial announcement of the Foxconn deal he has been promising it will create 13,000 jobs. But anyone who remembers his promise back in 2010 to create 250,000 jobs during his first term in office knows to take such promises with a large grain of salt. The same day that Walker made his promise of 13,000 new jobs, Foxconn’s owner Terry Gau would only commit to creating 3,000 jobs and even President…