Ben Manski: He was the initiator of the Wisconsin Wave, a broad coalition that has played a leading role in the Wisconsin uprising, and is also the executive director of the Liberty Tree Foundation, an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies, and a co-founder of the Move to Amend coalition. Politically engaged since his early childhood in Israel and Wisconsin, now in his mid-30s, Ben Manski has worked for a variety of causes, notably serving as co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. Manski was a primary figure in the student movements of the 1990s, serving then as national coordinator of the Democracy Teach-Ins in the lead-up to the Seattle WTO protests. Today is a public interest lawyer, teaches sociology at Madison College, and remains a committed pro-democracy advocate.
The most recent "compromise" negotiated by President Obama has deepened the conversation about his tendency to compromise when the American people, and the rest of the world, expect real leadership. In the next few weeks we'll carry a number of different approaches to the President by cherry-picking from the web. In the present piece, political psychologist Drew Westen reconnects us with those heady days that followed the election in 2008 and shows us how the capable story-teller President failed to offer a counter narrative that "bends the arc of history toward justice."
... and I did not speak out, since I am a peace activist in Massachusetts. But last week the MA House overwhelmingly "voted to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care."
Unlike the Tea Party efforts to eliminate union bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, Wisconsin, and other states, this move in MA was led by Democrats who have traditionally stood with unions to oppose any reduction in workers’ rights. ... “It’s pretty stunning,’’ said Robert J. Haynes, president of the MA AFL-CIO. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected. The same Democrats who we contributed to, in their campaigns."
Two recent polls by Gallup affirm support for the idea that the rich must pay their fair share. On April 11, 2011, 59% of the respondents indicated that next year's budget should include "higher taxes on for families with household income higher than $250,000 and above." Another Gallup survey (on April 14, 2011) with somewhat different wording found a statistical tie in response to the question, "Do you think our government should or should not redistribute wealth by heavy taxes on the rich? The results should 47% choosing "should" and 49% opting for "should not" (with a 4 percent margin of error). Given the loaded wording, it is a remarkable percentage in favor of heavy taxation. Nearly 60% also indicated their preference that "money and wealth should be more evenly distributed" among Americans.
Today states and nation states compete with one another for investment and the resulting jobs. In the end, politicians of whatever stripe are more accountable to investors and less to voters. This situation is often presented as a natural outcome of globalization and economic development. In a review of two recent books, David Runciman, a well-known British political scientist, shows that seemingly unrelated developments: the resurrection of London as a center of global finance, the stationing of corporations in Delaware, the rise of sovereign wealth funds, and even Saif al-Islam Ghadaffi's philanthropy, are all connected with the relentless pressures of pro-business lobbyists and less with elections.
For the first time in more than a decade, the American public is focused on the rights of employees, especially the fundamental one: the right to bargain over the conditions and terms of employment. Despite a recent decline in public support for unions, about 60% of the public oppose efforts to weaken collective bargaining rights for public sector workers. A majority also rejects cutting pay or benefits to balance state budgets according to recent polls including one by CBS and the New York Times. This poll corroborates the findings of another conducted last week by USA Today and Gallup.
Ben Manski: He was the initiator of the Wisconsin Wave, a broad coalition that has played a leading role in the Wisconsin uprising, and is also the executive director of the Liberty Tree Foundation, an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies, and a co-founder of the Move to Amend coalition. Politically engaged since his early childhood in Israel and Wisconsin, now in his mid-30s, Ben Manski has worked for a variety of causes, notably serving as co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. Manski was a primary figure in the student movements of the 1990s, serving then as national coordinator of the Democracy Teach-Ins in the lead-up to the Seattle WTO protests. Today is a public interest lawyer, teaches sociology at Madison College, and remains a committed pro-democracy advocate.
Today states and nation states compete with one another for investment and the resulting jobs. In the end, politicians of whatever stripe are more accountable to investors and less to voters. This situation is often presented as a natural outcome of globalization and economic development. In a review of two recent books, David Runciman, a well-known British political scientist, shows that seemingly unrelated developments: the resurrection of London as a center of global finance, the stationing of corporations in Delaware, the rise of sovereign wealth funds, and even Saif al-Islam Ghadaffi's philanthropy, are all connected with the relentless pressures of pro-business lobbyists and less with elections.
For the first time in more than a decade, the American public is focused on the rights of employees, especially the fundamental one: the right to bargain over the conditions and terms of employment. Despite 