Liberals

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Tax Proposal Could Raise $720 Billion Over The Next 10 Years

January 15, 2019 Ruth Milka, Nationofchange.org Educate! Electoral Politics, Liberals, Reform, Revisionism, Taxes

Such a high tax rate is not unheard of and higher rates used to be the norm during a large portion of the 20th century. Why was this the case? Because higher tax rates on the wealthy generated huge revenue. As Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez proposes, the revenue from raising taxes on the wealthy could be spent to fund the Green New Deal, a proposal that would implement radical policy in order to eliminate fossil fuels and carbon emissions within the next 12 years. Prior to the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan slashed tax rates for the wealthiest, the tax rate for any taxpayer that made more than $216,000 a year was 70 percent.

Why “Good Liberals” Won’t Save The Climate

October 26, 2018 By Scott Parkin, Counterpunch.org Strategize! Climate Change, Liberals, Profit

We’ve known for a long time not to believe the false rhetoric of “good liberals” like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Jerry Brown. In rare moments, we’re able to draw a stark contrast between them telling us that they “feel our pain” and the harsh reality their policies have on our communities. Last month, in downtown San Francisco, California Gov. Jerry Brown attempted define his legacy of “real climate leadership” with the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). With GCAS, Brown provided an opportunity for governors, mayors, corporate lobbyists and the environmental non-profit industrial complex to network, hobnob and announce major initiatives for climate action.

The Insurgent Power Of The Commons In The War Against The Imagination

October 12, 2018 David Bollier, Center for New Economics Create! Books, Ideology, Liberals

Thank you, Fred [Iutzi] and The Land Institute for inviting me to this wonderful festival! It’s a great honor to be speaking at an event at which so many illustrious thinkers, innovators, and activists have attended in the past. I want to thank the Land Institute for its pathbreaking research and leadership over the years – and give a special thanks to Wes Jackson for his vision, courage, and sheer persistence over so many years. I’m not a farmer or seed-sharer, and I don’t have a specific role in the farm-to-table world except as a grateful eater. However, I do live in a small, somewhat rural town, Amherst, Massachusetts, a place of maple trees and CSA farms, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost, and a town common.

Atlas Network, The Right-Wing Libertarians

August 31, 2018 By Aram Aharonian and Álvaro Verzi Rangel, Peoplesdispatch.org Educate! Electoral Politics, Liberals, Libertarian

The capitalist international exists, it mobilizes the libertarian movement of right-wing, they are known as “libertarians” and it is obviously very well financed. It works through an immense conglomerate of foundations, institutes, NGOs, centers and societies united by undetectable threads, which include the Atlas Economic Research Foundation or the Atlas Network. In the Latin American Forum on Liberty of the Atlas Network, held in May 2017 in the luxurious Brick Hotel in Buenos Aires, in the presence of Argentine President Mauricio Macri and the Peruvian-Spanish writer Mario Vargas Llosa, it was discussed how to defeat socialism at all levels, from the battlefields on the university campuses to the mobilization of a country to embrace the removal of a constitutional government, as in Brazil.

Trump And The Politics Of Neoliberal Destruction

August 3, 2018 Ajamu Baraka, Counterpunch.org Educate! Electoral Politics, Liberals, Trump Administration

With the outrageous decision by the Trump White House to bar a CNN propagandist posing as a reporter, more people are now starting to make the connection between press freedom and the issue of the “right to know” and of unimpeded information. But we have to ask once again, where was this concern when democrats under Obama were using the espionage act to jail whistleblowers and prosecuting journalists? Why no outrage on the eve of the Ecuadorian government turning over Julian Assange to be prosecuted by Western intelligence for the crime of publishing accounts of their nefarious actions? Where were these objective defenders of the right to information when the state was collaborating with private corporations like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to alter and limit political speech and information?

No Liberal Rallies Yet For The Children Of Yemen

July 23, 2018 Paul Street, Counterpunch.org Educate! Children, Immigration, Liberals, Yemen

Hundreds of thousands of people showed up across the United States at more than 600 gatherings three weeks ago. They came out to protest Donald Trump‘s “zero tolerance” immigration policy in highly choreographed, Democratic Party-affiliated “Families Belong Together” rallies and marches. Liberal celebrities marched and spoke. Local, state, and federal Democratic Party politicians and office-holders gave passionate speeches denouncing Trump’s separation of Central American migrant children from their parents at the southern U.S. border. Marchers carried signs expressing their concern for children and families.

Liberal Madness And The Anti-war Imperative

July 21, 2018 Staff, Blackallianceforpeace.com Organize! Anti-War, Liberals, US Imperialism, US military

The ongoing and deepening crisis of U.S. society has caused anger, fear and confusion. The precipitous decline of the standard of living for millions of people in the United States helped produce the conditions for the election of Trump. This, in turn, created the Democrats' irrational anti-Russia position. The problem, of course, is that whether it is taking aggressive, militaristic positions with either Russia or North Korea, pushing an already unstable and reckless Trump administration to be more forceful is a dangerous position that could easily pull the United States into yet another military conflict. But that is precisely what the Democrats and their liberal allies have been demanding, with potentially disastrous consequences for millions.

Money Matters! Why Monetary Theory And Policy Is A Critical Terrain For The Left

July 19, 2018 Staff, Thenextsystem.org Create! Capitalism, Left Politics, Liberals, New Economy, Policy

As our demands grow bolder—true full employment, the rebuilding of the social safety net starting with Medicare for All, an overdue green and just transition—so will the naysayers’ inevitable refrain: “How will you pay for it?” This Left Forum panel on June 5, 2018 moderated by Gar Alperovitz brought together a combination of innovative thinkers and practitioners who together present a different understanding of monetary policy and the money system. They show a way out of the austerity trap and reveal that the obstacles to bold action at a national scale on jobs, healthcare, and climate are political, not economic. This is a partial, edited transcript.

Pelosi: “I Don’t See Anything Inappropriate” In Rigging Primaries

May 4, 2018 Caitlin Johnstone, Medium.com Educate! Electoral Politics, Liberals

The Intercept has published a secretly taped audio recording of one of the most powerful Democrats in America pressuring a progressive candidate to drop out of a Colorado congressional primary race. It hasn’t been getting as much attention as the WikiLeaks drops on the DNC’s sabotage of the Sanders campaign because it’s not about a presidential race, but make no mistake: this is the single most damning piece of evidence ever published exposing the Democratic Party’s war on progressives. The recording features House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, informing primary challenger Levi Tillemann that if he runs, he will be running against not just the chosen establishment candidate Jason Crow, but against Hoyer and the full might of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) as well.

NYT: Don’t Be Progressive, Be A ‘Liberal’

April 21, 2018 Jim Naureckas, Fair.org Educate! Corporate Media, Liberals, Propaganda

Its ostensible subject is why Democrats should call themselves “liberals” and not “progressives.” But in making that case, it hits most of the main points of the New York Times‘ ideology—one that has guided the paper since the late 19th century. First and foremost, it’s a defense of the status quo. “The basic premise of liberal politics,” Weiner writes, “is the capacity of government to do good, especially in ameliorating economic ills.” But not too much good, mind you: “A liberal can believe that government can do more good or less,” he stresses. Weiner draws a contrast with progressives: “Where liberalism seeks to ameliorate economic ills, progressivism’s goal is to eradicate them.” So Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society is cited negatively as an example of “a progressive effort to remake society by eradicating poverty’s causes”—in the process supporting “community action” and financing the “political activism”...

How Vermont Changed From Red To Blue

April 19, 2018 Steve Early, Socialpolicy.org Create! Electoral Politics, Liberals, Vermont

Donald Trump’s fear mongering about Mexicans and Muslims, Haitians and Africans, and other foreigners is hardly sui generis in U.S. history. In the mid- 19th century, nativists on our east coast regularly sounded the alarm about barbarian invasions from famine-stricken Ireland. Their west coast counterparts warned for many decades of the “yellow peril” spreading across the Pacific Ocean from China to California. Yvonne Daley’s new book about the late 20th century transformation of Vermont, reminds us that even domestic population shifts involving native-born whites can be easily demonized—if the physical appearance and social customs of the “outsiders” in question are sufficiently strange and they are not depicted as law-abiding. One of the highlights of Going Up the Country: When the Hippies, Dreamers, Freaks, and Radicals Moved to Vermont is Daley’s re-creation of a minor panic triggered by Playboy, when it had millions of readers.

Electing Progressive Prosecutors Isn’t Enough. Now, Activists Are Holding Them Accountable.

April 2, 2018 Adeshina Emanuel, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Electoral Politics, Liberals

In October 2015, Rev. Charles Straight, pastor of the Faith United Methodist Church in Dolton, Illinois, and other members of the People’s Lobby sat down with Kim Foxx to find out whether she was a worthy and willing partner in criminal justice reform. Straight remembers that Foxx, who was running for Cook County State’s Attorney, said she was committed to countering the failed war on drugs and stemming other drivers of mass incarceration. “She had a stake in seeing that the criminal justice system would work for all people, particularly people of color,” Straight says. “We found that she was a partner we could talk to about some of these things.” The People’s Lobby, a grassroots organizing group, and Reclaim Chicago, the political action committee it supports, are two of the progressive organizations that campaigned for Foxx.

The Two-Party System Is Facing Its Biggest Challenge In 70 Years

March 26, 2018 Theo Anderson, Occupy.com Educate! Electoral Politics, Liberals

We are in a moment of nervous, semi-panicked reflection about the health and prospects of the American political system. Take The Atlantic’s March essay, “America Is Not a Democracy.” It begins with the story of how a private water company in Oxford, Mass., apparently derailed a public buyout pushed by locals who were angry about high rates and poor service. The plan was voted down at a town hall meeting mysteriously packed with people who had shown little previous interest. “Even in this bastion of deliberation and direct democracy,” writes Yascha Mounk, “a nasty suspicion had taken hold: that the levers of power are not controlled by the people.” With good reason. Polling shows that Congress is profoundly out of tune with the will of the people on almost every issue, from gun control to single-payer healthcare to action on climate change.

Liberal Ire At Trump And Cambridge Analytica Is Misdirected From Billionaires Who Own Your Data

March 24, 2018 By Bruce A. Dixon, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Data, Liberals, Surveillance, Trump Administration

Liberals this week want to drum us into outrageous fury over the fact that Facebook, with almost 2 billion accounts worldwide, handed over user data of millions of people to Cambridge Analytica, a firm retained by the Trump campaign. Cambridge Analytica, or CA for short is part of the Robert Mercer empire, which funds an entire zoo of nonprofits from Citizens United to the Cato and Heritage Foundations, and which sponsored Steve Bannon’s career and Breitbart News after the death of its founder Andrew Breitbart. CA’s claim to fame was the supposed identification of 5,000 data points on millions of people by which they could supposedly distinguish firm supporters from wavering ones, identify potential contributors and much more. Of course the millions whose data is being sold to marketers have nothing to say in the matter.

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