The Progressive Wing

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/30/people-are-tired-of-being-ignored-while-the-rich-get-richer-bernie-sanders-on-anger-and-hope-in-the-us-and-uk

Thanks orl!

Both are unlikely political sensations who were long consigned to the fringes: Bernie Sanders, an octogenarian US senator who inspired an army of voters far younger than himself; and Mick Lynch, a former blacklisted construction worker and child of Irish immigrants who, as the leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union (RMT), shot to national prominence when he humbled hostile but underinformed broadcast journalists. “I think Lynch is touching a nerve,” Sanders says.
The de facto leader of the US left has swung his considerable political heft behind a new campaign – Enough Is Enough – launched to fight Britain’s mounting cost of living crisis, which was founded in part by Lynch and the RMT. It has certainly touched a nerve: at a recent rally in Clapham, south London, many of those who had queued around the block were turned away for lack of space.
“‘Enough is enough’, funnily enough, is an expression we use a lot here,” Sanders says. “People are sick and tired of often working longer hours for low wages; sick and tired of their kids having a lower standard of living than them; and they’re sick and tired of billionaires getting richer and richer while they fall behind.
“Why, with all this new tech out there, are they not seeing an improved standard of living? Why not more equality, rather than less equality? Why are living standards deteriorating, not improving? Lynch is asking that, Enough Is Enough is asking that – and it’s hitting a nerve, because people are tired of being ignored while the rich get richer.”
Political cut-through is something Sanders knows a lot about, but it was only something he really achieved in his 70s. Born into a working-class Jewish family in New York, he became the mayor of Burlington, Vermont, at 40, later becoming a House representative and a senator. A longstanding independent, albeit one who has frequently allied with the Democratic party, Sanders championed causes long eschewed by mainstream Democrats, such as universal healthcare, the abolition of student fees, workers’ rights and the anti-war movement. But his dramatic rise – when he was transformed from a marginalised figure to a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 – was driven by two major factors.
One was the financial crash, which exposed inequalities and insecurities that disproportionately fell on the backs of younger Americans. The other was the expectations raised by the election of Barack Obama in 2008, which, for millions of Americans with stagnating living standards, ultimately felt dashed. Although neither his 2016 or 2020 bids succeeded, they mobilised a movement that revitalised the US left and transformed it into a major political force in the Democratic party and beyond.
This brings his attention back to a perennial passion – and what he wants to talk to me about: the prospects of the US labour movement. We speak over the phone, but he hits all his rousing lines with the zest of a platform rally. The thread that runs through all his answers is class politics. This is less of a novelty in progressive politics on the British side of the Atlantic – to rousing cheers at a recent Enough Is Enough rally, Lynch proclaimed: “The working class is back” – but it was long considered alien in a US that peddled a myth of classlessness. This was a politically convenient myth in a country where, Sanders notes, three rich men have more wealth than the poorest half.
But the Brooklyn-born Vermont senator has a new mission: to deploy his political weight behind efforts to unite the struggles of the US and British labour movements. On Wednesday, Sanders will bring his trademark oratory to an RMT rally in central London.
The labour movements in the US and Britain are significantly weaker than most of their western counterparts. In the US, trade unions had been long hobbled by “red scares” and anti-union so-called “right to work” laws, but they were severely weakened under Ronald Reagan, whose administration, in 1981, fired more than 11,000 striking air traffic controllers to send a salutory lesson to other workers. Today, little more than one in 10 US workers are unionised. British trade unionism did not suffer such a comprehensive rout, but the number of organised workers – about a quarter of the workforce – is half the level of the peak in 1979.
Does Sanders believe both labour movements are learning lessons? “I think what we’re beginning to see here in the US is a significant acceleration of trade union organising,” he says. “We are seeing more workers organising in unions, filing with the National Labour Relations Board [NLRB] to get certification – more than for a very long time.”
What has made him particularly optimistic is workers’ struggles in the union deserts of Starbucks and Amazon. Sanders recently joined striking Starbucks workers on a picket line in Boston. After more than 85 union organisers were fired by the coffee chain in recent months – the NLRB has filed multiple complaints against the firm – his support has boosted the national profile of the fight. “In Starbucks and Amazon, hundreds are joining unions – in Amazon, they’re taking on Jeff Bezos, the second wealthiest person in the world. We’re seeing struggles in university campuses, hospitals, nurses – we’re seeing unprecedented organising compared to what we’ve seen in recent years.”
But he touches on an apparent contradiction: “While the middle classes decline while the rich become richer and richer, there’s more support for the trade union movement in the US – people feel much stronger about unions than previously.” And he is right: last year, 68% of Americans told pollsters they approved of unions, the highest level since 1965, while polling in the UK has shown that most working-age Britons back the current wave of strikes. Yet that hasn’t translated into most joining a union. Why?
“In the US, corporations make it very hard for workers to exercise their constitutional rights to form a union,” Sanders says. “[Last Wednesday], the NLRB found Starbucks had fired workers and rescheduled those shop workers who were forming unions – which is illegal. We are seeing companies threatening workers that they’ll go to China. There’s massive corporate opposition to workers forming unions in the country.”
He highlights another formidable barrier: “We’ve got a media in the country which is certainly not sympathetic to unions, which will very rarely discuss the benefits of unions, like better working conditions, wages, pensions, et cetera, et cetera. The media is obviously owned by a handful of large corporations who don’t talk about class issues, economic issues. All of that contributes to making it harder for workers to become organised.”
But there is a tradition of militancy among US workers, despite attempts to scrub it out, not least in the 1950s under McCarthyism. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, waves of strikes rippled across US society. Does Sanders see a parallel? “Yes, I do. In the 1930s, there was a massive increase in organising and membership, and workers fought valiantly – they did sit-ins, took on powerful interests. What we are seeing now is real frustration in terms of inflation accounting for wages, with the average US worker earning less than almost 50 years ago – taking into account productivity gains, slightly worse than then. That’s insane!”
Given the likes of Starbucks have so long succeeded in suppressing labour organising, why has there been a blaze of activity? “I’ll tell you why, in my view: a lot of Starbucks workers are younger people. Many of them have college degrees and they’re looking around them: their wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, they can’t afford housing or healthcare or student debt, they’re falling further and further behind compared to their parents, and they’re standing up to the owner of Starbucks – Howard Schultz – saying: ‘You’re worth $4bn! What’s your problem with allowing us to organise workers?’ And his response is simply to try and fire workers and intimidate them. To some degree, this is a multiracial generational fight – primarily of younger people, but not exclusively – standing up to a billionaire.”
Starbucks has denied all allegations of retaliation. A spokesperson told the Guardian previously that “these individuals are no longer with Starbucks for store policy violations. A partner’s interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we have always held. We will continue enforcing our policies consistently for all partners.”
A pro-Vietnam war protest in May 1970 that descended into the Hard Hat Riot
But the relationship between the US labour movement and younger progressives has not always been harmonious, to say the least. In the 1960s and 1970s, US labour was led by the gruff former plumber George Meany, a zealous supporter of the Vietnam war, who relished denouncing student protesters as “kookies”. The nadir came in the form of the so-called Hard Hat Riot of 1970, when hundreds of construction and office workers physically attacked student protesters in New York. Is there hope this time for solidarity between trade unionists and the rising US younger left?
“That kind of unity is something we are working on very hard,” says Sanders. “I’ve now held three rallies with progressive union leaderships – with Sean O’Brien, the new president of the Teamsters, and Sarah Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants – in Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. What we see at these rallies is unionists coming together with younger progressives – and the unity of those forces, young people fighting for economic and racial justice with a union movement, has incredible potential. To answer the question: it’s absolutely imperative we bring them together – and we are trying to do that.”
When US workers fought bosses in the 1930s, they enjoyed the advantage of the sympathy and political muscle of the president, Franklin D Roosevelt. Joe Biden has repeatedly vowed to be “the most pro-union president ever”, but his career has long been wedded to establishment and “centrist” factions in the Democratic party. Sanders says he knows the president “reasonably well” and points to the 110-page policy platform his team hammered out with Biden’s campaign team in 2020, with taskforces covering areas ranging from healthcare to the environment.
“What the president recognised is that there was, and is, a movement of working people, of young people, who are sick and tired of the status quo, and I think, when we did the American Rescue Plan [to help the US through the pandemic], it was one of the most consequential pieces of legislation for working people in modern history. When we did the Build Back Better legislation [a huge package of measures related to social policy and the climate crisis], it had the support of the president for a multibillion-dollar transformational programme, and it was sabotaged by a couple of conservative senators, but he said: ‘I will stand by the working people of the country and take on the big monied interests.’”
This differs from some of the more pessimistic narratives about Biden from the US left, which is still reeling from Sanders’ two presidential-nomination defeats. But his optimism springs not so much from naivety about Biden as from a firm belief in the ability of struggles from below to bend the powerful to act in workers’ interests. “You’re seeing a progressive movement of people in every state of this country which is beginning to go beyond incremental politics, asking: ‘How does it happen that every rich country on Earth – including the UK – has universal healthcare, while we have a dysfunctional system? Why in other countries is university education free, when in this country it’s outrageously expensive?”

https://www.levernews.com/heres-how-to-end-dark-money/

(Continued)

I put it to him that his campaigns tapped into discontent, but magnified it and gave it direction. “What my campaign did was to raise issues, and the establishment suddenly discovered millions of people not happy with the status quo who wanted transformational change,” he says. Sanders gives the example of the president last week committing to cancel up to $10,000 (£8,500) of student debt. “Did it go as far as I wanted? No, but is it a significant step forward to alleviate the terrible burden that young people are suffering? Yes, it will help a lot.”
Another example is the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which, among other things, lowers prescription drug prices and promotes clean energy. “Again, it didn’t go as far as we campaigned on, but, on many of those issues, part of what we demanded has been implemented.”
What next for the US left? The youthful optimism of this 80-year-old senator appears limitless. Next, he says, they will grow the labour movement and tie it to the progressive movement. “You may or may not know, but, come January, in terms of politics, there will be a stronger underlying progressive presence in the House than at any time in modern history. We are seeing accomplishments at the political level, at the organising level, so we are making progress.”
Yet all of this relies on forcing a president to go beyond his comfort zone. Sanders remains one of the most popular politicians in the US, and his campaigns encouraged a galvanised US left to dare to dream of achieving outright political power. What lessons would a future campaign learn from his attempts, which transformed political debate in the US, but failed to secure him the presidency?
Sanders does a laugh anyone will recognise – the “I do not want to talk about this now” laugh. “That’s a long question – a very long question!” Again, he highlights his campaigns’ signature accomplishments – underlining that “a significant part of society is not happy with the status quo, that they’re sick and tired of income and wealth inequality and they want fundamental changes in our economic and political system”. But he clearly believes he was hobbled by establishment hostility. “When you take on the political establishment and the media establishment and the corporate establishment … it’s not an easy thing to do. We need time and we certainly didn’t have that luxury.”
I wonder, too, if he recognises that Enough Is Enough has emerged in large part because of a vacuum left by a Labour leadership that has abandoned any pretence of transformative change. Sanders is diplomatic. “I think it’s not dissimilar to what we’re seeing in the Democratic party here – I’m not commenting on the Labour party; I don’t know enough,” he says. Referring to traditional left-of-centre parties struggling in the global north, he adds:
“Because working-class people are increasingly alienated from the political process, those parties are not delivering for them. That’s why the Democrats have a choice to make: are they the party of the working class or the elite?”
The legacy of Sanders, surely, is that he brought together otherwise fragmented and disillusioned pockets of discontent into a highly visible and articulate movement with confident demands. Maybe – just maybe – he can help pull off the same trick by helping to unite the increasingly assertive labour movements on both sides of the Atlantic.

Aint Supposed to Die A Natural Death

Thanks obf for starting us off. I missed y’all yesterday.
From The Lever

Hey Aint…. We’re a small site, but we Progressive loudmouths are around. 🙂

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has been taking money from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's appointees, despite an executive order she reissued on her first day in office that's designed to avoid even the appearance of giving jobs in exchange for contributions. https://t.co/c2GaZOFNOC
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 30, 2022

No surprise. Is she better than that crooked RW yahoo or not?

Paul ADK

Since the GOPPER running for governor is being compared to DeSantis, I’d say yeah, marginally. Is she as good as we could get? LOL. But this is the State of Wall Street, it’s just a New York state of mind.

Biden to Ask Congress to Approve $1.1 Billion Arms Sale for Taiwan

Again, the *capital of Mississippi* does not have running water anymore. Not just for a few days — INDEFINITELY.
This isn’t on front pages nationwide because the city is 80% Black. The New York Times doesn’t even mention it. https://t.co/ykmH7meMHr
— Sean Kennedy, MPH (@phealthsean) August 30, 2022

And yet, the WH chooses to spend money on this:

The Biden administration is planning to ask Congress to approve a $1.1 billion arms sale for Taiwan that includes anti-ship missiles and anti-air missiles, Politico reported on Monday, citing sources with knowledge of the weapons package.
The arms package will include 60 Harpoon anti-ship missiles worth $355 million, 100 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles worth $85.6 million, and$655.4 million for a surveillance radar contract extension.
Once the Biden administration notifies Congress of its intent to make the sale, it starts a review period. Since there is massive bipartisan support for arming Taiwan, the deal will likely be easily approved.
The planned sale comes amid soaring tensions that were sparked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan at the beginning of August. China responded by launching its largest-ever military exercises around the island. More US delegations visited Taiwan throughout August, and the US sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait over the weekend.
Since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, the US has continued to sell weapons to the island. But those arms sales have increased in recent years, and the US has taken other steps to boost ties with Taiwan as part of its strategy against China.
Last week, Taiwan’s cabinet unveiled a plan to boost military spending by 13.9%. The additional funds will go toward the procurement of new weapons and will pay for Taiwan’s military operations that are being done in response to China’s stepped-up presence around the island, a consequence of Pelosi’s visit.

“Since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, the US has continued to sell weapons to the island.”
————————-
Typical American craporate stupid nonsense. Oh no, we can’t address climate chaos, water shortages, no safe drinking water in our cities. BUT, there is always PLENTY of coin for BS like Taiwan and Ukraine.

Paul ADK

Or, sadly, massively expensive rockets. As much as I love scientific progress, there is so much still we have to do here at home. Although, a reasonable tax structure would allow us to do it all. Just look at what this country accomplished in the 50s and 60s, when we had one.

Candidates backed by Warren, Sanders found primary success

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., tested their sway in the Democratic Party in several primaries this year, and a majority of their preferred candidates prevailed.
Of the 31 candidates Warren has endorsed in statewide or congressional races, 21 have won their primaries. And 15 of the 22 contenders that had Sanders’ backing won their primaries. Three of Warren’s endorsed candidates are facing primaries next month in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The two progressive leaders, both potential 2024 contenders should President Joe Biden not seek a second term, did have some overlap in their endorsements, backing 11 of the same candidates, nine of whom won their primaries.
Sanders and Warren particularly showed their influence in open seat races, where 10 of Warren’s endorsed candidates prevailed, and eight of Sanders’ candidates won the Democratic nomination.
While Warren and Sanders also both endorsed challengers taking on Democratic lawmakers, only a few who had Warren’s endorsement were successful.
Jamie McLeod Skinner defeated Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader in Oregon’s 5th District. And two Democratic lawmakers backed by Warren — Lucy McBath of Georgia and Jerry Nadler of New York — defeated fellow House members in their primaries after redistricting forced multiple lawmakers into the same districts.
Both Warren and Sanders mainly took sides in races the Cook Political Report rates Solidly Democratic. A majority of Warren’s preferred candidates — 17 out of the 31 endorsements — were in Solidly Democratic races. And 15 of Sanders’ 22 endorsements came in Democratic contests, mainly in deep blue House districts and in Vermont’s Senate race, where Sanders backed Democratic Rep. Peter Welch.

You gotta hand it to the craporate for-profit media. They label Liz as “Progressive.” Of course, their big $$love$$ is the orange maggot called, tRump. 🙁

Mr. Benny calls Drumpf “Orange-man bad.”

I have several colorful metaphors for Cult-45 which is mild.

If we really want to tackle the skyrocketing cost of higher education, canceling student loan debt isn't enough. Colleges and universities that accept federal student loans should be subject to a tuition cap.
From @ryanlcooper:https://t.co/1pF3hfqvxU
— The American Prospect (@TheProspect) August 30, 2022

"A new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll finds voters are giving Biden’s [student debt] plans pretty high marks" https://t.co/TR38xxf01I pic.twitter.com/haHfMlRFWS
— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) August 31, 2022

That’s good news especially considering the source.

I managed to vist the KSC twice, once when i did the right of passage (spring break) as an 18 year old- yea i was the weird one of the bunch BUT the rental car was in my name and went alone for the tour. The rest of the group hung out at the beach. ( Their loss) 🙂 The next time was with the family and i had the same excitment as the last time and had a great time again. Funny story from my solo trip as i was trying to navagate the map alone to get thier i made a wrong turn ended up at a security gate where two well armed gurads greeted me. I explained i made a wrong turn and was looking for the tour area. They were very polite /helpful and got me on course as it were.

I have to hand it to the Feds and the military (for once). The area around KSC is the Merritt Island National Seashore. It is federally protected, and the military does not mess around! It is also guarded by environmentalists as it is one of the loveliest, pristine parts of this polluted state.

100% concour, not a lot of changes to the environment in that area between my two visits

I’ll adimit i dont understand this economic policy to many contradiction’s by the Fed that dont make any sense in my opinion.

From the crooks at the Fed Controled by the rich.
Assuming there’s no change in the labor force participation rate, every 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate translates to a loss of around 1.6 million jobs, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. So if the United States suffers a typical recession, where joblessness hovers at around 6%, that would amount to about 5 million jobs, he said.
Even if the Fed were to revise its inflation target from 2% to 3%, it would still need to slow the economy to the point where roughly 1.7 million jobs are lost, according to an analysis from RSM released Monday. That would translate to the unemployment rate rising from today’s 3.5% to 4.6%.
“That is about as close as one may get to what can charitably be called a soft landing,” RSM economists Joe Brusuelas and Tuan Nguyen wrote in the report. However, “while a soft landing would be an optimal outcome, resetting the inflation target from the flexible target of 2% it announced two years ago would hurt the Fed’s credibility,” they noted.
If the Fed continues to try to get inflation all the way back down to 2%, RSM said the costs would be “much higher,” causing the loss of up to 5.3 million jobs and lifting the unemployment rate to 6.7%.
For context, prior to the Great Recession, the unemployment rate was already at around 5% — then shot to 10% as economic conditions worsened.
However, the current US labor market has been anything but typical. The unemployment rate remains near a record low, job openings are near record highs, and monthly job gains continue to be robust. The tight labor market conditions have resulted in higher wages as employers compete for talent (although those gains haven’t kept pace with inflation).
“We need the slowdown in job growth and job creation pretty quickly to take the steam out of wage growth and quell inflationary pressure,” Zandi said.
That would mean employment growth would have to stall out from a massive 528,000 jobs added in July to essentially below 100,000 per month, he said.
“For the Fed, the outlook is better if we saw job growth slowing,” Zandi said. “It’s ironic, it feels a little odd to say that — but that’s the reality when the economy is at full employment or even beyond full employment.”
A slew of employment reports are set for release this week and should provide some sense as to how these trajectories are trending.
How to take advantage of rising interest rates
How to take advantage of rising interest rates
Typically, inflation doesn’t come down without some level of higher unemployment, said Steven Ricchiuto, US chief economist for Mizuho Securities USA. “Now a lot of people at the Fed are hoping, and so far the data is working in their favor, that job openings come down and the number of people employed doesn’t really come down.”
The best-case scenario for the Fed would be a situation where people coming into the labor market have a harder time finding work versus mass layoffs occurring, he said.
“[The Federal Reserve members] are in a difficult balancing act,” he said. “They need to ease up the labor market to take some of the pressures off. By the same token, they don’t want to cause undue necessary pain in terms of the overall economy.”
And at this point, inflation is inflicting plenty of pain of its own, Ricchiuto added. Powell has repeatedly stressed that doing too little to address inflation would be worse than doing too much.
“So the real question is, ‘Is the medicine worse than the disease?'” Ricchiuto asked. “If the disease is left unchecked, the disease is very deadly. So if you wind up going through a cure that gives you some shorter-term pain for some longer-term benefit, is it worth it? The answer is, ‘yes.'”
Whether that pain involves a tighter labor market, layoffs, higher mortgage rates, greater cost of capital or a constrictive business climate, one thing appears likely: The effects will be widespread, Ricchiuto said.
“There isn’t going to be any particular area that necessarily is saved in the environment,” he said. “Different areas are going to feel the pain more significantly than other areas, there’s
no doubt about that.

So the Fed wants to put people out of work, force them to unemployment and then the R’s then their usual BS about picking themselves up by the bootstraps crap. Then the R’s say unemployment has to be cut and people need to get a job. We need people not to work to lower inflation but we have over 11 million jobs available. But we need lay people off so they can support themselves.

After reading this my head feels like “Norman” from the Harry Mudd episode when Norman melts down from the overload of illogic by Kirk

First of all, why is Byedone keeping Powell? He was put in there by the orange maggot. Sounds like more FRightwing BS handed down since Raygun: cut inflation for the rich by ripping off the working/middle class.

Neolibs at work.

The Washington Post is in financial trouble, but Jeff Bezos won’t use his vast fortune to bail them out.
Today on TAP, @ryanlcooper writes about how billionaires are no friend to a free press:https://t.co/PrNMhXXp6O
— The American Prospect (@TheProspect) August 30, 2022

Probably using it as a write off

You know it's going well when a candidate is referring to his campaign as a completely different entity than himself
— Tube Amps for Justice, USA (@CuriousAudioUS) August 30, 2022

Rubio-Demings is tightening but her commercials stink!

Contribute to the Strike Fund to stand with nursing home workers in Pennsylvania: https://t.co/IXe5MiO5pn
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 30, 2022

Benny

The extreme MAGA Republicans have made their choice: to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate, and division.
We’ve chosen a different path: forward, the future, unity, hope, and optimism. We choose to build a better America.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 30, 2022

Brought to you by Friends of the Lincoln Project. (heh)

Benny

So in Texas right now, @BetoORourke is within 3 points of Abbott and @CollierForTexas is within 1 point of Patrick. And as rabid moderate with a solid red house and senate, I’m here for it! 🍿 #txlege
— Jay Leeson (@jayleeson) August 31, 2022

That tells me if Beto gets turnout he’s got a shot at this. I find it curious that many R’s are all of a sudden scrubbing and references to Cult-45 and abortions.
Wonder why?

Benny

US life expectancy fell from 79 to 76 just from 2019 to 2021
https://t.co/rxuU5RF0M6
— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) August 31, 2022

Age life expectancy for Native Americans dropped from 69 to 65. All due to the pandemic

I would boil it down to Cult-45s in action and the anti vax crowd. Both had full media coverage of their BS 24-7. Thier sound medical advice killed thousands.