What a wonderful world

I’m a liberal
“I’ve always been a liberal, but that doesn’t mean what a lot of you apparently think it does.

Let’s break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I’m getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: Not every liberal is the same, though the majority of liberals I know think along roughly these same lines:

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. Period.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that’s interpreted as “I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all.” This is not the case. I’m fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it’s impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes “let people die because they can’t afford healthcare” a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I’m not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

3. I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone. It doesn’t necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I’m mystified as to why it can’t work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

4. I don’t believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don’t want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can’t afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

5. I don’t throw around “I’m willing to pay higher taxes” lightly. If I’m suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it’s because I’m fine with paying my share as long as it’s actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn’t have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal). All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I’m not “offended by Christianity” – I’m offended that you’re trying to force me to live by your religion’s rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you? That’s how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don’t force it on me or mine.

8. I don’t believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

9. I don’t believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN’T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they’re supposed to be abusing, and if they’re “stealing” your job it’s because your employer is hiring illegally). I’m not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

10. I don’t believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It’s not that I want the government’s hands in everything – I just don’t trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they’re harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

11. I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I’ve spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege – white, straight, male, economic, etc. – need to start listening, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government. What I am interested in is sensible policies, including background checks, that just MIGHT save one person’s, perhaps a toddler’s, life by the hand of someone who should not have a gun. (Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine).

14. I believe in so-called political correctness. I prefer to think it’s social politeness. If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles. It’s the polite thing to do. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you’re using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human. They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse. Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I’m a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn’t mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don’t believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

“So, I’m a liberal.”

(author unknown)

The Choice Is Yours

The 3 Choices When it Comes to Trump

First, you can complain. Yell. Bang on the dinner table. Tell your family and friends the man is a dangerous fool. Explode every time you read something about him. Swear every time you see him on TV. Go ballistic when you listen to him or about him on the radio. 

Complaining may feel good, but it won’t help.  

Your second choice: You can bury your head in the sand. Pretend he’s not there. Stop reading the news. Turn off the TV and radio. No longer visit political Internet sites. When family or friends bring up his name, change the subject. 

Burying your head in the sand may also feel good, but it certainly won’t help, either.

You have a third choice. You can get active, and make it harder for Trump to damage America. This coming November 6, 34 senate seats, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, and 36 governorships will be up for election or re-election.

Support primary candidates who will resist Trump. Mobilize to get out the vote. Organize so that November 6 becomes a total repudiation of Donald Trump and all he stands for. 

Start right now. Find an Indivisible group near you. Go Indivisible.org and become part of the solution. If you’re already in a blue state and want to reach out to purple or red parts of the country, visit swingleft.org or sisterdistrict.com.

Democracy is fragile, it requires all of us to protect it. 

Robert Reich

February 19, 2018

Trump’s Big Buyback Bamboozle

Trump’s promise that corporations will use his giant new tax cut to make new investments and raise workers’ wages is proving to be about as truthful as his promise to release his tax returns.

The results are coming in, and guess what? Almost all the extra money is going into stock buybacks. Since the tax cut became law, buy-backs have surged to $88.6 billion. That’s more thandouble the amount of buybacks in the same period last year, according to data provided by Birinyi Associates.

Compare this to the paltry $2.5 billion of employee bonuses corporations say they’ll dispense in response to the tax law, and you see the bonuses for what they are – a small fig leaf to disguise the big buybacks.

If anything, the current tumult in the stock market will fuel even more buybacks.

Stock buybacks are corporate purchases of their own shares of stock. Corporations do this to artificially prop up their share prices.

Buybacks are the corporate equivalent of steroids. They may make shareholders feel better than otherwise, but nothing really changes.

Money spent on buybacks isn’t reinvested in new equipment, research, or factories. Buybacks don’t add jobs or raise wages. They don’t increase productivity. They don’t grow the American economy.

Yet CEOs love buybacks because most CEO pay is now in shares of stock and stock options rather than cash. So when share prices go up, executives reap a bonanza.

At the same time, the value of CEO pay from previous years also rises, in what amounts to a retroactive (and off the books) pay increase – on top of their already humongous compensation packages.

Big investors also love buybacks because they increase the value of their stock portfolios. Now that the richest 10 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all shares of stock (up from 77 percent at the turn of the century), this means even more wealth at the top.

Buybacks used to be illegal. The Securities and Exchange considered them unlawful means of manipulating stock prices, in violation of the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934.

In those days, the typical corporation put about half its profits into research and development, plant and equipment, worker retraining, additional jobs, and higher wages.

But under Ronald Reagan, who rhapsodized about the “magic of the market,” the SEC legalized buybacks.

After that, buybacks took off. Just in the past decade, 94 percent of corporate profits have been devoted to buybacks and dividends, according to researchers at the Academic-Industry Research Network.

Last year, big American corporations spent a record $780 billion buying back their shares of stock.

And that was before the new tax law. 

Put another way, the new tax law is giving America’s wealthy not one but two big windfalls: They stand to gain the most from the tax cuts for individuals, and  they’re the big winners from the tax cuts for corporations.

This isn’t just unfair. It’s also bad for the economy as a whole. Corporations don’t invest because they get tax cuts. They invest because they expect that customers will buy more of their goods and services.

This brings us to the underlying problem. Companies haven’t been investing – and have been using their profits to buy back their stock instead – because they doubt their investments will pay off in additional sales.

That’s because most economic gains have been going to the wealthy, and the wealthy spend a far smaller percent of their income than the middle class and the poor. When most gains go to the top, there’s not enough demand to justify a lot of new investment. 

Which also means that as long as public policies are tilted to the benefit of those at the top – as is Trump’s tax cut, along with Reagan’s legalization of stock buybacks – we’re not going to see much economic growth. 

We’re just going to have more buybacks and more inequality.

Robert Reich
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2018

Everybody loves the library

Our public libraries, our literary commons, are gradually being enclosed -- sealed off to the public by a series of acts of our government -- local, state and federal -- as it bows to the dictates and priorities of corporations. The public library is one of the few settings where people can enter for free, access materials for free and stay without being expected to buy anything. The value of public libraries not only exists in the materials they lend and the non-commercial model they embody, but in the commons that they represent: A public area that offers Americans liberated intellectual spaces, the potential for community dialogues and organizing.

It seems that we need more money to help libraries to survive, and we need to stop the turning of our libraries from cultural, educational, community institutions to commercial ventures. To get a clearer insight into these problems, we need to look at how libraries were influenced by capitalism.In fighting this enclosure, The New York Times advocates more money for libraries. It presents a vision of libraries as places for poor children to "learn to read and love literature, where immigrants learn English, where job-seekers hone résumés and cover letters, and where those who lack ready access to the internet can cross the digital divide.... They are havens for thinking, dreaming, studying, striving and -- for many children and the elderly -- simply for staying safe, and out of the heat." An article in the Public Library Quarterly titled "Libraries and the Decline of Public Purposes," adds that libraries "help make possible the democratic public sphere." The author also warns that libraries are shifting from public service organizations to business and profit models that lead to the destruction of a public space.

Libraries as a System of Social Control

As we look at the rise and decline of public libraries, we will see that the changes are often related to the prime directive of capitalism: profit. If something goes wrong -- that is, if something endangers the possibility of profit -- it will serve as a convenient scapegoat and be reduced or eliminated in the budget of local, state and federal agencies. Public libraries, public education and public lands are three of the current victims of a shift in capitalism, for they have become "unnecessary expenses" which hinder the need for increased profits.

For our purpose, capitalism is an economic system based on wage labor (working for a wage), private ownership or control of the means of production (things like factories, machinery, farms and offices), and the production of commodities for profit, where a tiny corporate elite uses its wealth and political power to generate the priorities, finances and actions of Congress for their own benefit. The variations of capitalism over the years contain one constant: the struggle between the owners and workers for wealth and power. Since corporate capitalists have the money and power, they usually control the society. But when a depression occurs, the going gets tough for the much larger working class, they react, organize and struggle for more wages, benefits and control. The worker reaction to the Great Depression led to the enactment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s, which ultimately regulated capitalism in order to save it. Part of that workers' rebellion was due to the excessive wealth inequality of the Gilded Age, where the capitalist class accumulated the wealth at the expense of the workers, similar to today's wealth inequality in the new Gilded Age.

This conflict between owners and workers can be seen in the history of the public library movement. Libraries are part of a system of social control: they provide resources and education to immigrants. When the owners encourage the creation of public libraries, they see them as a training ground for immigrants for their industries. One example is Butte, Montana, in 1893, in which the new Carnegie library was touted by the mine owners as an "antidote to the miners' proclivity for drinking, whoring and gambling" as well as creating a community for immigrants, so that job turnover would be reduced.

Andrew Carnegie, an early capitalist philanthropist, typifies the intentions of the capitalist class to maintain the system (profits), and stop workers from revolting. In his 1889 article, "The Gospel of Wealth," he argued that the wealthy can reduce social protest through philanthropy. It was better to squeeze money from workers' paychecks, collect it and give some back to the community. Carnegie belittled workers, stating,

If I had raised your wages, you would have spent that money by buying a better cut of meat or more drink for your dinner. But what you needed, though you didn't know it, was my libraries and concert halls. And that's what I'm giving to you.

Carnegie's generosity was double-edged: to diminish the potential for worker uprisings, and to maintain and increase his profits. He was a generous man, but he was not wholly interested in improving or changing society, as demonstrated by his actions around the segregation of African Americans. Under segregation, Black people were generally denied access to public libraries in the Southern United States. Rather than insisting on his libraries being racially integrated, Carnegie founded separate libraries for African Americans. For example, in Houston, Carnegie opened the Colored Carnegie Library in 1909. Still, his generosity allowed him to build half of the American public libraries by 1930. Libraries also multiplied due to the need for public education, which included training the incoming 20-plus million immigrants (1880-1920) necessary to maintain the labor market and uphold the capitalist system.

Wars in our capitalist-controlled world are almost always fought over access to profits, resources and territory between two or more separate sets of ruling classes. In those struggles, propaganda is a useful tool. In WWI, the goal for libraries shifted to the Americanization of the immigrants, which included the suppression of "unpatriotic pro-German" books. In WWII, in contrast to the Nazis' burning of books, US librarians looked to books as weapons of war. During the Cold War (1947-1991), some public libraries also served as propaganda tools for US government foreign policy by limiting Soviet materials through the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This was a time when the ultra-conservative John Birch Society's members were urged to visit every public library in the country to make sure the society's Blue Book was available. The Blue Book contained warnings that the enemy will turn the United States into a communist police state and implied that President Eisenhower was a communist agent. In 1953, during the height of the McCarthy era, a member of the Indiana Textbook Commission tried to ban Robin Hood from schools and libraries for promoting communism because the protagonist stole from the rich to give to the poor. Fortunately, some brave students from Indiana University fought back and organized the Green Feather Movement (representing the green feather Robin Hood wore).

The Economic Attack on Libraries

At the end of the 1970s, training immigrant workers was no longer a concern for capitalist corporations because the labor shortage ended. This was also a time when public library funding began to decline. After 9/11, public fear intensified, as did surveillance by the state. One government reaction was, according to Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, that all libraries were required to give up information about their patrons. Some brave librarians who understood that such a requirement was a danger to our system, rebelled. For example, the Vermont Library Association sent a letter to Congress opposing the library-related features of the PATRIOT Act. Addressing the resulting flare-ups in the Middle East, US propaganda was a concern for some librarians who were alarmed over hyper-patriotic symbolism displayed in libraries right after the 9/11 attack (flags, poster, pamphlets). They endorsed a letter of concern that "such unusual displays may create an intimidating atmosphere for some library users."

Most of the public libraries of the late 20th and early 21st century provided a welcoming common space that encouraged exploration, creation and collaboration among students, teachers and the community. Libraries innovated and brought together physical and digital media to create learning environments. In 1982, the American Library Association promoted "Banned Books Week" that drew attention to books with unorthodox or unpopular beliefs, and made them available for all who wish to read them.

But at this time, there was an unease in the capitalist class about the dangers posed by the supposed democratizing effects of 1960s activism (civil rights, LGBTQ rights, environmental awareness, student movements and anti-Vietnam War activities). The conservative business interests attacked the regulated capitalism of the New Deal and introduced neoliberalism, a variation of capitalism favoring free trade, privatization, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services (libraries) and weakening the power of labor. Some followed the Powell Memorandum (1971), a roadmap for the conservative business interests to rise up and defend themselves against the alleged assault on "freedom," led by activists like Ralph Nader, Herbert Marcuse and others who had supposedly taken over the universities, the media and the government. At the other end of the spectrum, the liberal internationalists of the Trilateral Commission published a document titled "The Crisis of Democracy" (1975), which hinted that '60s-style activism could turn previously apathetic and ignored citizens into activists who may possibly upset the status quo.

The decline of worker immigration in the '70s and the stress of austerity due to the rise of neoliberalism led to the decline of social services, including the public library system, and the drift towards the business model for some libraries, with a focus on users as customers. They followed the model of corporations, using public relations, information commodification, efficiency, branding and corporate sponsorships to supplement their funding. The local, state and federal tax revenue previously required to maintain public services shifted to the pockets of corporations, the maintenance of the military-industrial-Congressional complex, or was stashed in tax havens. The middle class was fooled by the promise of tax cuts, because they were told that cutting taxes would boost spending, making the US economy flourish, so they mistakenly went along with big business, but the loss of these public institutions hurts everybody but the wealthy.

All these attacks on public libraries occurred in spite of the fact that libraries are an excellent taxpayer investment. For example, a 2007 study about San Francisco's library found that for every dollar spent on the library, the citizens received three dollars in materials and services.

The effects of the 2008 recession caused libraries to further suffer financially, even though they were used by more people. California completely eliminated state funding for libraries in 2011. Louisiana followed California's lead in 2012. Drastic cuts hurt the New York City public libraries, the Dallas Public Library, libraries in the state of Massachusetts and others. In the current federal budget, there is a plan to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which has been progressively reduced by prior administrations, both Democratic and Republican.

Increased budget cuts are leading to the end of our literary commons. How can advocates help public libraries survive and promote real democratic values and critical thinking? First, by understanding the fate of public libraries in the context of the history of capitalism. Second, by organizing and acting to protect public libraries as locations of community connection and potential action, the bane of the disempowering, oligopolistic capitalist system.You can fuel thoughtful, authority-challenging journalism: Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to Truthout.

Wednesday, January 03, 2018By Gus Bagakis, Truthout | Op-Ed