rozziecole's blog

Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs was interviewed by Democracy Now on April 11.   He explained that the American people want control of corporate power, less mlitary spending, and public health care.

Welcome to Democracy Now!  Your understanding of what this agreement is?

JEFFREY SACHS: Well, this is a miserable step in the wrong direction. It started last December, when Obama and the Republicans agreed to cut a trillion dollars of taxes by extending the Bush tax cuts. And now, even though the details aren’t even worked out, apparently, they’re slashing into programs for the poor. So this is all going in the wrong direction, and many of us who supported President Obama just feel that he’s abandoned the field. He’s left it to the right wing, which wants nothing more than taxes cut for the rich, whereas the American public is saying very clearly, in every opinion survey, one after another, if you want to close the deficit, go after taxes for the rich, raise them, cut military spending, cut the excess profits in the insurance industry and healthcare, do things that would really make a difference—don’t punish the poor.

Green Party leader Ted Glick calls for a convergence of Greens, progressive Democrats, and non-electorally oriented progressive activists.

“THOSE WHO TAKE THE MEAT FROM THE TABLE
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the taxes are destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
Of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary men and women.”

-Bertolt Brecht

Several times in columns over the last year or so I have written about the need for a “third force,” a broad, independent and progressive united front.

Those people who know me might think this is nothing new. After all, for over 15 years I have been a leader of the Independent Progressive Politics Network, which has had unity-building for an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans as central to its mission. However, my conception of a 21st-century-second-decade “third force” has one major difference, which is:

What we need is an alliance which consciously incorporates elected Democrats as well as elected Greens and independents, as well as groups, or individual leaders and members of groups, like Progressive Democrats of America and the Green Party. More than that, this alliance eventually needs to support and work to elect candidates running both as Democrats and progressive independents, and maybe even an occasional Republican.

"We need to build a new majority."  Labor Notes interviews Lynn union leader Jeff Crosby about the need for labor to rethink its approach to politics.

by Mark Brenner - November 19, 2010

Who would have thought that the party of Big Business could do so well just two years after the banks crashed the economy? Republicans are treating the mid-term election like a homecoming party, but polls show it was more like a kick in the pants for the guys in charge.

Nearly two-thirds of voters identified the economy as the most important issue facing the country, but most of those who showed up at the polls pulled the lever for the champions of unfettered free markets. And voters who blame Wall Street for our economic problems tilted even more Republican.

Rev. Jesse Jackson and United Auto Workers President Bob King issued the following statement at a July 12th press conference in Detroit.

DETROIT (July 12, 2010) No group has suffered more from America's economic meltdown than working men and women. The auto industry was decimated and workers paid the price. Urban America is in crisis and teachers, transportation workers, and all who do the hands-on work that make our cities run are the first to feel the effects of budget cuts. Unemployment continues at around 9.8%. Detroit is ground zero of this national crisis with an unemployment rate that is far higher. From December 2007 to June 2009, auto assembly and parts production accounted for 325,000 lost jobs. The auto industry has gone from a high of 1.5 million workers to 400,000 today.

In Appalachia and the Gulf, years of unenforced regulation, driven by corporate greed and government complicity, have led to needless deaths and destruction in the coal and oil fields.

The record floods in the Northeast U.S. this spring are classic symptoms of global warning, Dr. Joseph Romm wrote in Climate Progress on March 31.  Romm is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. In 2009, Time magazine named him “the Web’s most influential climate-change blogger.”   He was Acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy during the Clinton Administration and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT.