A Pretty Good Election, but the Right Still Rules (tags)
The November 6, 2012 election turned out fairly well for progressives — from Barack Obama retaining the presidency to a true Left-wing Democrat like Bob Filner winning for Mayor of San Diego — but the Right is still strong. The issue agendas and terms of discussion continue to be dictated by an increasingly militant Right wing and America's pathetic, ill-organized remnant of a Left no longer has the power to put pressure on the political system for progressive reforms the way it did in the 1890's, 1930's and 1960's.
Whatever we think of the Democratic Party, like it or not, in the current political emergency, we are going to HAVE to align with them and vote for every Democrat on the ballot over every Republican — not because the Democrats are that progressive but because the Republicans plan a sweeping Right-wing revolution comparable to the changes Germany went through when Hitler took power in 1933, and the Democratic Party is one essential vehicle we will need to use to stop them.
Arrested for Voter Registration (tags)
The recent arrest of former Congressional candidate Ray Lutz for attempting to register voters at Occupy San Diego is an indication of how far the class war in the U.S. has extended. It's part of a much more sophisticated series of actions on the part of the corporate Right to make sure that the "wrong" people — those that question the right of the 1 percent to run the country as they please — don't get a chance to vote.
Occupy Wall Street and its sister movements, including Occupy San Diego, have dramatically changed the terms of political and economic debate in the U.S. Before they arose, it looked like the only choices the American people would be given to understand the disaster that has befallen them in this nation's economic collapse was the mild pro-corporatism of the Democratic Party and the ardent, Ayn Randian pro-corporatism of the Republicans and the Tea Party. What's more, so far the Occupy protesters have shown an ability to learn from the Left's past mistakes, pattern their movement after the American Revolution (as the Tea Party did) and junk the hideously unworkable process of consensus decision-making.
Tea Party America and How to Fight It (tags)
The recent debate in Washington, D.C. over raising the debt ceiling has underscored just how totally the radical Right in general and the "Tea Party" in particular have taken over America's political debate and the economic and social consciousness of a majority of Americans. The remnant of a Left that still survives in America can only fight back if it first realizes, like a rehab patient, that we've "hit bottom" and then musters the kind of internal and external discipline it will take to mount an effective counter-attack. Instead of critiquing ourselves in public, we need to settle our differences behind closed doors, present an image of rock-solid unity to the outside world and get rid once and for all of the insanity of "consensus decision-making."
November 2 Election: Any Democrat Over Any Republican! (tags)
This is not the year for American Leftists, progressives and liberals not to vote — or to cast protest votes for alternative parties. The extremely Right-wing Tea Party has virtually taken over the Republican Party and, if not stopped, has a good chance of winning control of the country in 2012 and instituting policies that will result in a full-blown depression, a corporate dictatorship and, ultimately, the end of the human race through unchecked global warming. We MUST vote to elect EVERY Democrat on the ballot in 2010 and 2012 — AND we must mount a massive direct-action movement to put pressure on the Democrats to govern progressively.
Dump the Health Insurance Bill (tags)
With the death of the “public option,” the Medicare buy-in and everything else in the proposed health insurance “reform” bill that might actually serve the public good, the bill is now nothing more than a giant, $1 trillion-plus corporate welfare program for the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Its meager promises of reform in the way the health insurance industry does business — no total caps on coverage or exclusion of “pre-existing conditions” — are likely to be flouted in practice. The progressive community made a serious mistake by not staging their own protests and disrupting Congressional town-hall meetings to demand single-payer and other progressive reforms — and as a result it will be the Republican Party and the Right in general which will reap the benefit of the putrid piece of corporate welfare the Democrats are trying to palm off on the American people as “health reform.”
Defending China's Right to Self-Determination (tags)
The struggle over granting or denying China "permanent normal” trade status with the U.S. and admission into the World Trade Organization—requires a strong intervention by those of us who see our work as building an anti-racist, anti-imperialist U.S. Left against U.S. chauvinism and in favor of China's rights to equality and self-determination.