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  • Labor & EconomyMarch 11, 2014Peter Dreier

    How Is Paul Ryan a ‘Moderate’?

    It is a sign of how far right the Republican Party has moved that New York Times columnist Ross Douthat describes Rep. Paul Ryan as a “moderate.”

    In his column on Sunday, “Four Factions, No Favorite,” Douthat looked at the likely candidates for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Drawing on an article by Henry Olsen in the conservative journal National Interest, Douthat divides the GOP core voters into four groups: centrist (“think John McCain’s 2000 supporters or Jon Huntsman’s rather smaller 2012 support”), moderately conservative (“think the typical Mitt Romney or Bob Dole voter”), socially conservative (“think Mike Huckabee or Rick Santorum backers”) and very conservative but more secular (“think Gingrich voters last time or Steve Forbes voters much further back”).

    Reviewing the stellar cast of likely GOP wannabes for 2016 (Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush,

     » Read more about: How Is Paul Ryan a ‘Moderate’?  »

  • Politics & GovernmentFebruary 24, 2014Rev. Jim Conn

    Family Feuds: Agreeing to Disagree

    The most difficult conversations for most activists happen with family. Particularly with parents or aunts and uncles, and cousins who disagree with a politically progressive perspective. My parents and I stopped talking about world events long before they died. I think that is a fairly normal behavior choice — just stop talking. When I visit with cousins who live in red states or the red parts of blue states, I almost always try to avoid any discussion that could lead to conflict. And I think they do too.

    On the other hand, such difficult discussions are sometimes hard to avoid. Late last fall I received a screed forwarded by a cousin who lives in one of those red places on the map about an issue I thought had long gone the way of most such topical conflicts: the President’s birth certificate. I knew this was still a hot issue in some quarters during the President’s reelection,

     » Read more about: Family Feuds: Agreeing to Disagree  »

  • Labor & EconomyFebruary 19, 2014Steven Mikulan

    How San Francisco Created a New Social Compact: An Interview With Ken Jacobs

    Forget, for the moment, downer news stories coming out of Midwestern statehouses, Southern auto plants and sundry federal courts. A new book edited and co-written by three Bay Area researchers optimistically chronicles what can be accomplished when progressive politicians and a determined electorate, backed by an energetic union movement, tackle income inequality, health care, labor peace and other challenges. When Mandates Work: Raising Labor Standards at the Local Level, edited by Michael Reich, Ken Jacobs and Miranda Dietz, parses a dozen years of legislation passed by San Francisco voters or their board of supervisors. Thanks to 10 ordinances enacted between 1996 and 2008 —

    • 77,500 low-wage workers are now receiving higher pay;
    • A new minimum wage law has put $1.2 billion in the pockets of workers
    • 59,000 workers can stay home from work when they or a loved one is sick without risk of losing a job or a paycheck
    • More people have access to health care—three-quarters of city employers have invested more money into health care

    In an interview with Capital &

     » Read more about: How San Francisco Created a New Social Compact: An Interview With Ken Jacobs  »

  • Labor & EconomyFebruary 10, 2014Rev. Jim Conn

    Corruption: Made in the USA

    We Americans don’t like to think of our country as corrupt – or at least as corrupt as Japan, whose yakuza crime syndicates have taken over much of the legitimate business sector, including providing materials for the Fukushima nuclear reactor and scooping up homeless people to work as cleanup crews there. Of course we’re not like India, where things only get done with a bribe. And hopefully we’re not as bad as Russia, where this year’s Winter Games have been called “the most corrupt in Olympic history.”

    Still, corruption sure feels pervasive here. Last year the people who run the banks, insurance companies and stock brokerages contributed $10 million to the legislators who sit on the House Financial Services Committee. That body makes the rules for the finance industry. Known as a “juice committee” because membership is so lucrative, House leaders added 61 more positions to the panel, because so many Congressmen wanted to sit on it.

     » Read more about: Corruption: Made in the USA  »

  • Culture & MediaFebruary 6, 2014Steven Mikulan

    Randy Shaw: An Activist’s Story

    Randy Shaw does not fit the rabble-rouser profile. An upper-middle-class native of West Los Angeles, he came to San Francisco in 1979 to enroll in the city’s prestigious Hastings Law School, whose downtown campus is part of the University of California, Berkeley. There, however, he discovered that his school had for years been expanding by swallowing up residential hotels catering to low-income residents in the adjacent Tenderloin district.

    “It used to be,” Shaw remembers, “that if you wanted to evict someone in the Tenderloin you’d throw them down a flight of stairs. Then it became more civilized: You’d just threaten to throw them down a flight of stairs.” In 1980 he co-founded the Tenderloin Housing Clinic as a legal aid resource for neighborhood residents. But it soon grew into an aggressive grassroots organization battling developers who wanted to replace much of the Tenderloin with luxury tourist hotels.

     » Read more about: Randy Shaw: An Activist’s Story  »

  • Labor & EconomyJanuary 29, 2014Roxana Tynan

    Obama’s Speech: So Close and Yet So Far

    There was something tantalizing about Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech last night. When was the last time an American president talked about the simple human cruelty of our Dickensian sick leave and maternity policies? Or told CEOs to just do the right thing and raise wages for their workers?

    What made Obama’s speech compelling is that he did more than just issue platitudes — he announced his decision to use executive authority to increase the pay of workers employed by companies that contract with the federal government. That will mean a nearly $3 an hour raise for hundreds of thousands of people. In an era of Tea Party-engineered partisan gridlock over pretty much everything, that’s nothing less than a seismic shift.

    So why didn’t the State of the Union address leave me popping the champagne and toasting to an impending economic realignment that would reverse the nation’s slide back to the same levels of inequality we faced before the Depression?

     » Read more about: Obama’s Speech: So Close and Yet So Far  »

  • Labor & EconomyJanuary 28, 2014Madeline Janis

    President Obama: The Solution to Unprecedented Inequality is Good Jobs and Opportunities for the Disadvantaged

    Last week, the U.K. publication The Guardian used an interesting anecdote to describe the key finding of an Oxfam report on global inequality: The world’s 85 richest people now own more wealth than the planet’s poorest 3.5 billion people. All of the world’s wealthiest individuals, Guardian writer Graeme Wearden noted, “could squeeze onto a single double-decker” bus.

    The ironic image of the super-rich riding a humble public bus is an apt metaphor for the socioeconomic quandary facing America before President Obama makes his 2014 State of the Union address tonight. Underinvestment in job creation, training, education and public services like transportation put middle-class success out of reach for many Americans, while at the other end of the spectrum, wealth has been concentrated in very few hands.

    President Obama’s speech ought to address the central problems of economic inequality and deficit of opportunities and services for many Americans.

     » Read more about: President Obama: The Solution to Unprecedented Inequality is Good Jobs and Opportunities for the Disadvantaged  »

  • Labor & EconomyJanuary 17, 2014Donald Cohen

    States Are Regretting Prisons for Profit

    We all know the political shorthand: “red” states vote conservative while “blue” states vote progressive. But these days the deep red hue of Idaho, Arizona and Texas isn’t just a reflection of their political leanings; it’s all the red flags voters are raising about private prisons in those states.

    In 1997, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) took over the Idaho Correctional Center. Predictably, the facility was soon plagued with rampant violence, understaffing, gang activity and contract fraud committed by CCA. One former inmate said the facility was so violent that it was commonly referred to as “gladiator school.” What’s more, in 2012 the Associated Press showed that taxpayers didn’t even get the savings they were promised.

    This month, tired of the bad headlines, Idaho Governor Butch Otter – a strong proponent of outsourcing – announced that the state is taking back control of the privately run prison.

     » Read more about: States Are Regretting Prisons for Profit  »

  • Politics & GovernmentJanuary 13, 2014Rev. Jim Conn

    A Very Familiar New Year

    “Happy New Year!” is the salutation we use to greet each other around the turn of every year. We talk as if what is past has disappeared in the rear view mirror and that what’s ahead will be brand new, novel and something completely different. In newspapers, blogs, magazines and cartoons, we survey the events of the year past and make predictions about the year ahead.

    In reality not much ends on December 31st except the calendar hanging in our kitchen. Instead, the issues of one year carry over into the next. The behaviors of one year become the practices of the next. In the real world, matters of conflict and tension continue over years, even over decades.

    This is the baggage that we’ll continue to carry with us in the new year:

    • Our national health care program, still in its first roll-out process,

     » Read more about: A Very Familiar New Year  »

  • Labor & EconomyJanuary 7, 2014James Elmendorf

    SeaTac Minimum Wage Law Faces Catch-22 Hurdles

    The holiday interlude brought a mixed blessing from Seattle —that’s the positive spin, frankly—in the form of King County Superior Court Judge Andrea Darvas’ ruling in the SeaTac minimum wage case. The complaint, officially named BF Foods v. City of SeaTac, concerns Proposition 1, a ballot initiative adopted by the voters of the City of SeaTac last November, that raised wages to $15 an hour for airport and hotel workers.

    Opposition to the measure was rather heated, as opponents sued to keep the matter off the ballot. Having failed in that endeavor, they spent big money to defeat it. Having lost, a recount, which did not change the results. After which, this suit.

    The main litigant, according to press reports, is Alaska Airlines; they cleverly brought in the Port of Seattle, which runs the airport. The legal approach here was something of a kitchen sink strategy,

     » Read more about: SeaTac Minimum Wage Law Faces Catch-22 Hurdles  »

  • Labor & EconomyJanuary 2, 2014Donald Cohen

    Outsourcing Wars: What the New Year Can Learn from 2013

    When future taxpayers look back to the moment they started taking back control of their schools, roads and services, they will look to 2013. From coast to coast, taxpayers rejected reckless outsourcing schemes.  They held for-profit corporations accountable.  And they said “no deal!” to CEOs who would put profits ahead of public health and safety.

    These victories don’t always appear in the national media.  But taken together they represent a real shift.  Working together, I’m sure we will have many more in 2014.

    Connecticut: Opponents of education privatization defeated three Bridgeport school board members who supported pro-charter schools superintendent Paul Vallas.

    Privatization-is-wrong Idaho: Corrections Corporation of America left the state “after more than a decade marked by scandal and lawsuits surrounding its operation of the state’s largest prison.”  Upon hearing the news, Spokesman Review columnist Shawn Vestal wrote,

     » Read more about: Outsourcing Wars: What the New Year Can Learn from 2013  »

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    Politics & GovernmentDecember 31, 2013Capital & Main

    2013: The Things They Said

    You have to hand it to conservatives — when they don’t like what they see in the mirror, they investigate the mirror-maker. Likewise, if they get knocked to the ground — as, say, the way they did in the 2012 elections — they just get up and say the exact same things that got them decked in the first place. Looking at the following quotes from the past year can give a reader the impression that, for some people, 2012 never happened — or 2008, for that matter.

    People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children.

    Richard Cohen, Washington Post columnist

    Wanting a white Republican president doesn’t make you racist, it just makes you American.

     » Read more about: 2013: The Things They Said  »

  • Politics & GovernmentDecember 12, 2013Steven Mikulan

    Austerity Is Here to Stay

    Yesterday Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum drew some disheartening conclusions from the budget deal worked out between Congressman Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray – the much-lauded compromise that is headed for passage, barring some last-minute Tea Party putsch in the House. Sure, Drum allowed, the budget’s entitlement cuts were almost too tiny to notice, and along the way some sequester reductions were restored. But that wasn’t the point.

    “Two years ago,” Drum wrote, “Ryan’s budget was basically at the outer limit of mainstream conservative wish lists. Today it looks tame . . . Republicans have massively changed the spending conversation since 2010. Austerity has won.

    The fact remains that many in the political media are applauding the new budget as a triumph of realpolitik simply because it defuses the threat of a determined minority taking down the world economic order – a threat that has become the new baseline in budget negotiations.

     » Read more about: Austerity Is Here to Stay  »

  • Politics & GovernmentNovember 22, 2013Steven Mikulan

    If JFK Had Lived – He’d Be Very Old Today

    It really is true what they say – if you’re old enough, you’ll remember where you were when you heard President Kennedy was dead. I was onstage rehearsing a fifth-grade play when a teacher (a jovial Texan who seemed to know everything about the history of Dr. Pepper soda) came into the auditorium with the news. He and my own teacher seemed more fascinated than saddened about what had happened in Dallas, and we kids were just happy to suddenly be sent home early. Outside, yellow maple leaves covered the sidewalks, the fall air was tinged with a slight chill and, as it was a Friday, with the smell of burning papers from our school’s incinerator.

    Today, of course, is the 50th anniversary of the assassination and this month has been all about JFK, especially on television, where Kennedy appears to have been rehabilitated as, once more, the man who was on the verge of changing the world.

     » Read more about: If JFK Had Lived – He’d Be Very Old Today  »

  • Politics & GovernmentNovember 20, 2013Harold Meyerson

    The GOP’s War Against Voters

    Better bring some identification — and not just any identification, official though it may be — if you plan to vote in Republican-controlled states. However, if you contribute tens of millions of dollars to sway an election on Republicans’ behalf, the party will fight to keep your identity a secret.

    Consider, for instance, what happened to some attempting to participate in this month’s elections in Texas. The New York Times reported that “Judge Sandra Watts was stopped while trying to vote because the name on her photo ID, the same one she had used for voter registration and identification of 52 years, did not exactly match her name in the official voter rolls.” Both Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis and Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott — the front-runners in next year’s gubernatorial contest — encountered the same obstacle. As did Jim Wright, the 90-year-old former speaker of the U.S.

     » Read more about: The GOP’s War Against Voters  »

  • Politics & GovernmentNovember 18, 2013Adminsm

    Tech Workers Are Not Our Enemies

    (Randy Shaw is the editor of BeyondChron and author of The Activist’s Handbook, Second Edition. This post first appeared November 14 on BeyondChron and is republished with permission.)

    Last week’s Twitter IPO triggered stories about “tech culture’s” impact on San Francisco and the broader society. It made me ask: is there really a culture of tech outside the workplace and, if so, what is it? More importantly, does labeling popular activities among young workers as “tech culture” create divisions among people who otherwise could be working together to solve social problems? Many (including myself) have identified the term with a libertarian political philosophy, hostility to unions and overwhelming white and Asian-American workers under-40 without kids. It is also identified with the rise of artisan coffees and foods, wine bars, upscale restaurants and the now legendary $4 toast that led the Courage Campaign to launch a petition to Mayor Lee regarding the city’s rising costs.

     » Read more about: Tech Workers Are Not Our Enemies  »

  • Politics & GovernmentNovember 12, 2013Adminsm

    Pragmatism in the Age of Inequality

    How will the 2016 election be framed? What will be America’s choice?

    If the coverage of last week’s two big winners offers a guide, the choice will be between “pragmatism” and “ideology.”

    The Washington Post called Chris Christie’s huge gubernatorial victory a “clear signal in favor of pragmatic, as opposed to ideological, governance.”

    But the mainstream media used a different adjective to describe Bill de Blasio, last week’s other landslide victor. The New York Times, for example, wrote of “the rise of the left-leaning Mr. de Blasio.”

    Again and again, Christie is described as the pragmatist; De Blasio, the lefty.

    But these appellations ignore what’s happening to an America in which almost all the economic gains are going to the richest 1 percent, median household incomes continues to drop and the number of Americans in poverty continues to rise.

     » Read more about: Pragmatism in the Age of Inequality  »

  • Politics & GovernmentNovember 8, 2013Adminsm

    A Manual for Change

    Randy Shaw’s The Activist’s Handbook is a book with legs. First published in the early 1990s, it has now been updated as a guide to “winning social change” in the new millennium. If you’re a long distance runner in any U.S. social movement—or trying to figure out how to become one—this is the training manual for your team.

    The appearance of a second edition has given the California-based author and community organizer a chance to expand upon the case studies he utilized in the initial edition, adding new material about protest activity not yet stirring two decades ago. The eclectic mix of older and new material makes the information and advice that Shaw dispenses even more useful to organizers of all types. His latest Handbook examines “new strategies, tactics, issues and grassroots campaigns and revisits whether activists have learned from past mistakes.”

    The ground covered includes fights for better housing and tenant rights,

     » Read more about: A Manual for Change  »

  • Politics & GovernmentNovember 7, 2013Peter Dreier

    The Elections: Ebb Tide for the Tea Party?

    On Tuesday, Bill de Blasio won a landslide victory to become the mayor of New York City, voters in New Jersey and Seatac, Washington supported minimum wage hikes and the Illinois legislature voted to legalize same-sex marriage. These are among the progressive victories that swept across the country.

    Despite a few setbacks, progressives had much to cheer about, sensing that the tide is turning against the unholy alliance of big business, the Tea Party and the religious right. Growing protests — such as the “Moral Monday” movement in North Carolina, militant immigrant rights activism, battles to protect women’s health clinics from state budget cuts, strikes by low-wage workers, civil disobedience actions to challenge voter suppression and student campaigns against global energy corporations — reflect a burgeoning progressive movement bubbling up from below the surface that is beginning to have an impact on elections.

    By far the most impressive symbol of this rising tide is de Blasio’s landslide win,

     » Read more about: The Elections: Ebb Tide for the Tea Party?  »

  • Politics & GovernmentNovember 5, 2013James Elmendorf

    Just Wondering

    Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times brought a behind the scenes account of the genius of San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith and his brilliant maneuvers to oust former Mayor Bob Filner.

    I’m not sure what led to the piece, but in it we learn that Goldsmith—a former legislator best known for his campaign to legalize ferrets and the resulting Willie Brown quip about his toupee—was single-handedly responsible for Filner’s resignation.

    The key: “Goldsmith persuaded the City Council to refuse to defend Filner in the [Irene] Jackson lawsuit and instead force him to hire private attorneys.”

    Why so critical? “Goldsmith’s investigators examined Filner’s finances and concluded he could not afford lawyers to fight the lawsuit.”

    Why so brilliant? “’It was a bluff,’ said Goldsmith, noting that California law requires a public employer to represent an employee, even a mayor, accused of on-the-job-misdeeds.”

    Why should we care?

     » Read more about: Just Wondering  »