The Enemy is the Money Power

Everything that's wrong with the nation and the world comes down to plutocracy: rule by the rich.

Noah at Down with Tyranny:

Remember That Repugs Destroyed the Economy

The only way to stop this catastrophe is to vote in a Democratic Congress is 2018.  That means you should be out right now knocking on doors and getting Democratic voters off their asses.

TPM:

As Republicans in the House and Senate hash out their tax bill differences in a conference committee behind closed doors, with the goal of producing a final bill before the holiday break, conservative economists tell TPM that the policies likely to become law will wreak havoc on the country for many years to come. Though Republicans insisted repeatedly over the past few weeks that the $1.4 trillion in tax cuts, most of them geared toward wealthy individuals and corporations, would pay for themselves by stimulating economic growth, they presented no evidence to support their claims.

Instead, the economists and former government officials predicted, the bill will drive up the federal deficit, shrink and destabilize the health care market, exacerbate already historic income inequality, and pressure Congress to make deep cuts to the social safety net and government programs.

When you're cleaning a millionaire's toilets with your tongue for 50 cents an hour, remember that repugs voted this motherfucker in while every Democrat voted against it.

The Tories Are Winning

We should never have let the motherfucking traitors back into the country.

Digby:

It is a personality type committed to maintaining the "natural" order.

 

America was very good to New World royalty. They invested in a political party. They're preparing to close on a country.

As the Resistance Becomes Class War

 Tom Sullivan at Digby:

Keeping Us in Our Place

The only thing modern conservatives "conserve" is the power and wealth of the plutocracy. Anything and everything they say to the contrary is a lie.

 

Via Down with Tyranny:

Conservatism is the theoretical voice of this animus against the agency of the subordinate classes. It provides the most consistent and profound argument as to why the lower orders should not be allowed to exercise their independent will, why they should not be allowed to govern themselves or the polity. Submission is their first duty, agency, the prerogative of the elite.

Though it is often claimed that the left stands for equality while the right stands for freedom, this notion misstates the actual disagreement between right and left. 

Historically, the conservative has favored liberty for the higher orders and constraint for the lower orders. What the conservative sees and dislikes in equality, in other words, is not a threat to freedom, but its extension. For in that extension, he sees a loss of his own freedom. ... Such was the threat Edmund Burke saw in the French Revolution: not merely an expropriation of property or explosion of violence but an inversion of the obligations of deference and command. "The levellers," he claimed, "only change and pervert the natural order of things."

The Socialistic Policies Huge Majorities of Americans Want

It's almost as if a major political party in cahoots with the billionaire class and the Military-Industrial Complex spent last 70 years lying to Americans about what Socialism really is.

Digby:

This is a great piece by Paul Rosenberg at Salon about what really constitutes "mainstream." (Also too about how Sanders agenda exemplifies it.)

Here's just a taste:

You can get a strong sense of this from the results of the “Big Ideas” poll commissioned by the Progressive Change Institute in January, which has thus far gotten far less attention than it deserves. (Full disclosure: I’m a former blogmate with Adam Green, co-founder of PCI’s affiliate, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.) PCI first solicited ideas online through an open submission process (more than 2,600 specific proposals were submitted) and then let people vote on them (more than a million votes were cast). This bottom-up process was then tested out in a national poll. The following all received 70% support or more:

Allow Government to Negotiate Drug Prices (79%)
Give Students the Same Low Interest Rates as Big Banks (78%)
Universal Pre-Kindergarten (77%)
Fair Trade that Protect Workers, the Environment, and Jobs (75%)
End Tax Loopholes for Corporations that Ship Jobs Overseas (74%)
End Gerrymandering (73%)
Let Homeowners Pay Down Mortgage With 401k (72%)
Debt-Free College at All Public Universities (Message A) (71%)
Infrastructure Jobs Program — $400 Billion / Year (71%)
Require NSA to Get Warrants (71%)
Disclose Corporate Spending on Politics/Lobbying (71%)
Medicare Buy-In for All (71%)
Close Offshore Corporate Tax Loopholes (70%)
Green New Deal — Millions Of Clean-Energy Jobs (70%)
Full Employment Act (70%)
Expand Social Security Benefits (70%)

All of the above are in line with Bernie Sanders’ politics and all are extremely popular, with support across the political spectrum. For example, the infrastructure jobs program (a key element of Sanders’ platform) had 91% support from Democrats, 61% from independents and even 55% support from Republicans—compared to only 28% who were opposed. Donald Trump can only dream of being that popular among Republicans.

If people voted strictly on issues, Sanders would be a bipartisan dream. Unfortunately, the calculation that goes into voting is much more complex. But it's always good to know how people look at this stuff in the abstract. All Democrats should pay heed. So should Republicans but they are hamstrung by a base that's driven by the propaganda they've been feeding them for the past 40 years and they no longer have any actual idea of what government policies are or what the government does. But Democrats do ...

The Real Planks of AynRandy's Platform

The Tribble-Toupeed One is trying to have it both ways again.  No one should doubt his sincere embrace of freakazoid conservative rejection of human rights for women and gays, but someone needs to ask him about the exact planks of his libertarianism. Because they are far worse than he lets on.

D.R. Tucker at Political Animal:

In the libertarian world, the only citizen who has any actual rights is the wealthiest citizen. That citizen can pollute for free, pay people slave wages, put unsafe products on the shelves, and ignore common-sense work safety standards. Local, state and federal governments would, in essence, stand down as the tycoon abuses the population for profit.

This is the sick, dark vision of people like Charles and David Koch—a vision in which money equals freedom and government equals evil. It’s a vision in which being poor and sick means being dead and buried. It’s a vision in which severe economic inequality is considered the natural and logical order, the way things ought to be. It’s an amoral, abhorrent vision.

It was the vision that guided David Koch’s 1980 vice-presidential bid, as Vermont Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders noted in April 2014:

In 1980, David Koch ran as the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980.

Let’s take a look at the 1980 Libertarian Party platform.

Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”

“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”

“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”

“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”

“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”

“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”

“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”

“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”

“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”

“We support repeal of all laws which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”

“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”

“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”

“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”

“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”

“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”

“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”

“We demand the return of America’s railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”

“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called ‘self-protection’ equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”

“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”

“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”

“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”

“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”

“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”

“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”

“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”

“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”

In other words, the agenda of the Koch brothers is not only to defund Obamacare. The agenda of the Koch brothers is to repeal every major piece of legislation that has been signed into law over the past 80 years that has protected the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the most vulnerable in this country. 

Libertarian ideology is nothing less than an existential threat to America’s security, cohesion, safety and health. It seeks to undo the social bonds that tie us together. It wishes to turn rich against poor and powerful against weak. It recognizes no moral code except for that established by the self-serving billionaire.

All of us—progressives, centrists, moderates, even the handful of rational conservatives left—have a moral obligation to fight the cancer of libertarianism and keep it from growing within the body of our democracy; if we don’t fight it, our democracy will soon wind up in hospice care. We must condemn libertarianism as a radical ideology that’s every bit as pernicious as the radical ideologies of the past. We must educate our young people to understand that the end result of Ayn Rand is a social and economic wasteland. We must challenge libertarian ideologues and denounce them for their efforts to destroy the policies that have kept our nation strong since the New Deal. We must, in essence, declare war on libertarian ideology, for it is at war with America’s best values.

Since libertarianism is an assault on our country’s protections and principles, one cannot be both a libertarian and a patriot.

The Kochs have chosen sides.

Which side are you on?

"Highest standard trade agreement in history"

No, Mr. President, you are dead wrong about this.  NAFTA forever taints Bill Clinton's legacy, and if TPP goes into effect, all the massive good of Obamacare will disappear into the giant maw of global corporate greed.

And shame on you for misleading about the job and environment "protections."  Those are voluntary and unenforceable.  The power of corporations to strip democracy from even the largest nation is what's ironclad in TPP.



Full transcript here.

Keeping the Wage Slaves Down

Because the greatest threat to plutocratic power is a large, broad, strong middle class not afraid to exercise our political will.

David Atkins at Political Animal:

The only thing the plutocrats love more than keeping their money sheltered from taxation, is a cheap and desperate labor force. If people could retire and become homemakers comfortable in the knowledge that while they may have a little less money to spend on luxury items, their health and their children’s future would be looked after, how many people would quit their soul-sucking dead end jobs tomorrow?

A lot. Perhaps millions. And that labor market power would mean higher wages, fewer hours and more benefits to keep the best workers and reattract the fence-sitters. The current norm of wage slavery would begin to look much more like honest voluntary employment.

And that likely scares the plutocrats more than even taxes do.

David Atkins again:

You might think conservative politicians would look askance at the tremendous amount of money being wasted at the Pentagon for little to no gain. But no. Better to take swimming pools away from welfare recipients instead.

Because it’s not really about the money. It’s about making sure the wrong people know their place.

Fascism in Defense of Jingoism

It's demoralizing to see how public displays of worship toward national symbols have displaced public service and loyal dissent as proof of patriotism.

People who truly hated this country, who truly want to see its democratic government torn down and replaced by plutocratic and Dominionist rule would protect themselves with the most blatant demonstrations of symbol-worship.

Those are the dangerous ones.

Digby:

Here's some of that tolerance on display:

"I attempted to get up to use the restroom, rather urgently, during the 7th inning stretch as God Bless America was beginning. As I attempted to walk down the aisle and exit my section into the tunnel, I was stopped by a police officer. He informed me that I had to wait until the song was over. I responded that I had to use the restroom and that I did not care about God Bless America.

"As soon as the latter came out of my mouth, my right arm was twisted violently behind my back and I was informed that I was being escorted out of the stadium. A second officer then joined in and twisted my left arm, also in an excessively forceful manner, behind my back. I informed them they were violating my First Amendment rights and that I had done nothing wrong, with no response from them.

"I was sitting in the Tier Level, and of course this is the highest level of the stadium and I was escorted in this painful manner down the entire length of the stadium. About halfway down, I informed them that they were hurting me, repeated that I had done nothing wrong, and that I was not resisting nor talking back to them. One of them said something to the effect that if I continued to speak, he would find a way to hurt me more.

"When we reached the exit of the stadium, they confiscated my ticket and the first officer shoved me through the turnstiles, saying 'Get the hell out of my country if you don't like it.'

I think we all know what happened to those Dixie Chicks when they dared say they were ashamed of the president.

So really, all this whining about liberal intolerance and Stalinist authoritarianism because a couple of cretinous bigots want to be able to refuse to serve gays is just a teensy bit over the top considering the furious reaction one gets for saying anything the right doesn't like about guns, God or the flag around these people.

Impossible to Overstate the Economy-Killing Effects of the TPP

This sucker's coming to a vote any day, and it's a fucking catastrophe.

If it passes, the Trans-Pacific Partnership will stand out beyond failure to close Guantanamo, beyond NSA spying, beyond murder-by-drone as the thing that turned Barack Obama's presidency from a historic success to an ignominious failure.

Think Obamacare will last for decades?  If TPP passes, the first thing our new corporate overlords will do is demand - and get - its repeal.

With apologies for copying the whole superb thing, DR Tucker at Political Animal:

Although I have argued that Barack Obama should go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents of all-time, the man is not without his flaws…and a severe flaw is on display right now, in the form of his obsessive push for the odious and destructive trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Wikileaks deserves credit for exposing just how sleazy the TPP really is, although progressive pundits Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann and Amy Goodman (among others) have been warning us of the potential dangers of the TPP for some time. Simply put, if the TPP is implemented, it would effectively ensure that millions of Americans would be consigned to poverty for the remainder of their lives—while special interests, including polluters, would tighten their seemingly unbreakable grip over our economic and political system.

Late last month, Jonathan Weisman of The New York Times explained what’s at stake:

An ambitious 12-nation trade accord pushed by President Obama would allow foreign corporations to sue the United States government for actions that undermine their investment “expectations” and hurt their business, according to a classified document.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership — a cornerstone of Mr. Obama’s remaining economic agenda — would grant broad powers to multinational companies operating in North America, South America and Asia. Under the accord, still under negotiation but nearing completion, companies and investors would be empowered to challenge regulations, rules, government actions and court rulings — federal, state or local — before tribunals organized under the World Bank or the United Nations.

Backers of the emerging trade accord, which is supported by a wide variety of business groups and favored by most Republicans, say that it is in line with previous agreements that contain similar provisions. But critics, including many Democrats in Congress, argue that the planned deal widens the opening for multinationals to sue in the United States and elsewhere, giving greater priority to protecting corporate interests than promoting free trade and competition that benefits consumers…

Under the terms of the Pacific trade chapter, foreign investors could demand cash compensation if member nations “expropriate or nationalize a covered investment either directly or indirectly.” Opponents fear “indirect expropriation” will be interpreted broadly, especially by deep-pocketed multinational companies opposing regulatory or legal changes that diminish the value of their investments.

Included in the definition of “indirect expropriation” is government action that “interferes with distinct, reasonable investment-backed expectations,” according to the leaked document.

In other words, any attempt by our government to remedy income inequality, reduce carbon pollution or prevent consumer exploitation is potentially on the chopping block if the TPP goes through. The rich will thrive, the middle class will be reduced to the status of third-class citizens, and the poor…well, they won’t be around long enough to suffer any further.

The TPP is nothing less than a nuclear-level threat to the United States, a sick scheme that will only lead to economic chaos for our most vulnerable citizens. President Obama and his pro-TPP allies (including, sadly, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick) are lost in the clouds on this issue, oblivious to the compelling evidence that the passage of the TPP will lead to oblivion.

Remember when then-NASA climate scientist James Hansen declared that the Keystone XL pipeline would be “game over” for our atmosphere if built? The TPP is just as much of a threat to future generations as the Keystone XL pipeline. Under the terms of the TPP, any effort, no matter how minor, to mitigate the impact of human-caused climate change would, in all likelihood, be deemed a threat to economic competitiveness…and eliminated as such. That’s a death sentence for your kids.

The TPP is the economic equivalent of a violent offender prowling down dark city streets, just waiting to brutalize and bludgeon innocent and unsuspecting victims—in this case, every man and woman who happens to be a member of the 99 percent. However, like a violent offender caught by law enforcement, this sinister idea can still be stopped; courageous progressives are leading the charge to derail this deranged trade agreement this month.
 
This is a fight for life, a fight for economic nourishment and oxygen. Considering what’s at stake—the suffocation of the middle class, the elimination of efforts to avoid a catastrophic warming of the planet, the abrogation of our moral duty to create a more just and stable world—it’s clear that allowing the TPP to go through is like playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded pistol.

UPDATE: More from Katrina vanden Heuvel, Richard Trumka, The Hill, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders, The Nation, the Detroit News, the Seattle Times and Thom Hartmann.

Things It's Hard to Believe Most People Don't Understand

Yeah, I'm a liberal elitist and so are all my friends.  You know why?  Because we know what's true.

PZ Myers:

Here’s a great list of 9 things many Americans just don’t understand — I’ve distilled it down to just the main headings, but you should read the whole thing.

1. Universal Healthcare Is Great for Free Enterprise and Great for Small Businesses
2. Comprehensive Sex Education Decreases Sexual Problems
3. American Exceptionalism Is Absolute Nonsense in 2015
4. Adequate Mass Transit Is a Huge Convenience
5. The Bible Was Not Written by Billionaire Hedge Fund Managers
6. Learning a Second or Third Language Is a Plus, Not a Character Flaw
7. Union Membership Benefits the Economy
8. Paid Maternity Leave Is the Norm in Most Developed Countries
9. Distrust of Oligarchy Is a Positive

You know who doesn't understand these obvious things, and you know why they don't. So what do we do about it?

A Supreme Bunch of Thugs for Plutocracy

I was born just a few years after Brown v Board of Education, and for most of my life the Supreme Court was the lodestone, the guiding light of liberal social justice in this country.

Thanks to the Warren Court, I grew up and reached middle age in a country where no one could legally deny me the right to an equal education, to the right to vote, to live and work where I wished, to legal representation, to birth control, to political dissent, to protection from police invasion, to an abortion on demand.

That all started disappearing when RayGun made Rehnquist Chief Justice. But even with Thomas and Scalia, half-century-old rights prevailed.

Until now.

From the Nation:

The sad irony is that, rather than serve its traditional role as the institution of government where those shut out of the political process can find a voice, the Court has used its rulings to strengthen the already deafening voices of the wealthy and powerful. At the same time, it has insulated itself and the lower federal courts from the pleas of the politically disfavored by slamming shut the courthouse doors.

Here is a list of ten areas in which the Court has failed those Americans most in need of its protection.

§ Access to justice: Georgetown law professor David Cole recently wrote that “what most defines the Roberts Court may be its hostility to courts themselves.” In case after case, the Court has erected new hurdles for those who have been harmed and seek redress in the courts. It has allowed companies to use fine print to take away the right to trial by a jury or a judge for consumers and employees; it has also made it more difficult for victims of corporate wrongdoing to band together, and made it easier for claims of relief to be thrown out of court at the earliest stages. As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent in one such case, the “nutshell version” of the message for those seeking to stand up for their rights in court is: “Too darn bad.”

§ Business: The Roberts Court has made Mitt Romney’s statement that “corporations are people, my friend,” a central component of its jurisprudence. It has imbued corporations with the right to religious expression, as well as the right to free speech through political advertising and unlimited political spending. Spurred on by an elite Supreme Court bar largely in the service of wealthy corporate clients, the Roberts Court has become the most pro-business Supreme Court in generations. According to a study written in part by conservative Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner, the five conservatives on the Roberts Court are all among the top ten most pro-business justices since 1946—with Alito and Roberts ranking first and second.

§ Workers’ rights: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in 2013 that the majority of the Court “is blind to the realities of the workplace.” That blindness has manifested itself in decisions limiting government employees’ free speech and collective-bargaining rights; barring Lilly Ledbetter’s claim for decades of pay discrimination; raising the bar for proving age discrimination; preventing more than 1 million Walmart employees from having their day in court to allege gender discrimination; limiting the availability of overtime pay; redefining “supervisor” to allow employers to avoid liability; and making it more difficult for employees to prove retaliation by their employers.

§ Voting rights: The Roberts Court ripped the heart out of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder. In a stunning display of judicial hubris, the Court dismissed the 15,000-page congressional record in support of the act, as well as the language of the Fifteenth Amendment, which empowers Congress to enforce the right to vote free of racial discrimination. The decision was the culmination of a career-long mission by the chief justice to undermine the act, which he fought to limit as a young lawyer in the Reagan administration. And it has unleashed a torrent of state voter-suppression measures that target African-Americans, Latinos, the poor and the young.

SNIP

§ Guns: The Court struck a blow against those living in communities plagued by gun violence when the majority held for the first time that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to gun ownership and struck down the gun-violence-prevention laws enacted in Washington, DC. This “law-changing decision,” in the words of then-Justice John Paul Stevens, upended decades-old Supreme Court precedent on which hundreds of judges had relied.

§ Religion: The Roberts Court has drawn sharp lines favoring believers over nonbelievers and majority believers over minority believers. The Court has upheld the practice of beginning town meetings with a (Christian) prayer, denied taxpayers standing to challenge a public-subsidy program that gave money to private (Christian) religious schools, and reversed a decision prohibiting the display of a cross in a federal park. Also, as Justice Ginsburg wrote in her Hobby Lobby dissent, “In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises…can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.” In other words, they can impose their religious views on the rest of us.

Although the Court’s docket for its tenth term is not yet complete, it already includes cases that could deprive some 13 million low-income Americans of the subsidies they need to afford health insurance; affect whether as many as 8 million LGBT Americans in thirty-three states can marry; dilute the power of minority voters; permit employers to force women to choose between healthy pregnancies and their jobs; and make it much more difficult to remedy housing discrimination.

John Roberts turned 60 in January. Because of lifetime tenure, we may be looking at another two decades or more with Roberts as chief justice. But two of his fellow conservative justices—Scalia and Kennedy—are 78. It is likely that the next president will nominate their replacements, as well as those for 81-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg and 76-year-old Stephen Breyer. The 2016 presidential election is likely to determine the Court’s direction for at least a generation. Will it be a Roberts Court in which the chief justice is consistently in the majority, or will it be one in which Roberts plays the role of dissenter as he watches a progressive majority remedy the damage of his first decade? The voters will decide.

QOTD: Plutocrat Paul

Charlie Pierce, chronicling yet more ways the Tribble-Toupeed One is a dangerous fraud:

In their fundamental political souls, the Pauls are oligarchs. The only kind of "government regulation" they truly oppose, and the only kind for which they truly will go to the mattresses, is any attempt by the government that would prevent the rich from getting richer, or that would protect the rest of us from the political depredations of the corporate class. Everything else is a wink and a nod and a fake. So, somehow, keeping the cable giants from doing for the internet what Goldman Sachs et. al. did for the financial services industry somehow would make you there at your laptop, journaling away at your drone-free Starbucks, less free.

Get Your Workers' Bill of Rights While It's Hot

If you notice, as you are driving around NOT shopping today, that there are protests at the WalMart, that's because minimum wage workers are taking their lives in their hands to demand their greedy employer treat them like human beings.

Walmart-style slave labor does not have to be the standard.  In civilized places, workers have the power.

Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo:

So, what? Do these uppity, chronically stressed workers think The Economy exists to serve people instead of the other way around? Employees — I'm sorry, Associates — are supposed to genuflect and cross themselves at the sound of their master's voice, and ask how high when Job Creators says jump. What are those Left Coast socialists smoking?

Politico:

Meet your new union reps: the statehouse and City Hall.

San Francisco’s new law, which its Board of Supervisors passed Tuesday by unanimous vote, will require any “formula retailer” (retail chain) with 20 or more locations worldwide that employs 20 or more people within the city to provide two weeks’ advance notice for any change in a worker’s schedule. An employer that alters working hours without two weeks’ notice — or fails to notify workers two weeks ahead of time that their schedules won’t change — will be required to provide additional “predictability pay.“ Property service contractors that provide janitorial or security services for these retailers will also need to abide by the new rule.

What's worse, these subversive notions have a way of spreading east from the Left Coast like viruses. Call out the dragoons.

Speaking of predictability, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce is predictably miffed about the “Retail Workers Bill of Rights.” For struggling hourly workers, taking classes, caring for families, and raising children (and managing day care logistics) is something The Economy expects you to fit in between work shifts at multiple, part-time, low-paying, no-benefits service jobs where shift schedules vary a lot. But that's just the way it is and the way The Economy likes it. With labor unions weakened and workers disempowered, setting working conditions once governed by collective bargaining agreements now falls to local Democrats. That is, if you can find any that aren't Republican lite.

SNIP 

Earlier this year, 32-year-old Maria Fernandes of Newark, NJ died of asphyxiation while catnapping in her car between shifts of her four part-time jobs. The Economy did not attend her funeral.

It IS A Black Thing, But It's Also a Poor Thing

daChipster nails the real reason the rich don't want to share money with the poor: because then they'd also have to share the power.

But, it’s not a “black thing.”

In fact, with all due respect to the black community, most of what’s going on is not about them, per se.

It’s not black-white. Or brown-white. Or yellow-white. It’s not a race or color thing at all.

It’s a poor thing.

SNIP

Those who stand in opposition to Affirmative Action, public education, and other attempts to level the playing field bleat phrases like “Equality of Opportunity, not Equality of Outcome!” All the while, equality of opportunity is a sham.

The only people with equal opportunity are those who can pay for it.

The only people with equal justice are those who can pay for it.

The only people with equal police protection are those who can pay for it.

The only people with equal access to reproductive health are those who can pay for it.

The only people with equal political speech are those who can pay for it.

The only people with equal access to the ballot are those who can pay for it.

The only people with equal representation in Washington are those who can pay for it.

SNIP

It’s a poor thing.

Remember, chipster: no one on the Ferguson grand jury was rich by your measure. But three-quarters of those jurors were white.

Needs

ummagumma.co:


(Source: 365q)

No Right to Water

This is the logical conclusion of a country and a world run by the repug super-rich: only the repug super-rich are human.  Only the repug super-rich are worthy of the basic human right of drinking water.

Crooks and Liars:

Rika Christensen
Posted with permission from Americans Against the Tea Party

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes decided that the poor do not have a right to water, and allowed the water shutoffs in Detroit to continue. The ruling comes in response to a plea to ban the shutoffs for six months. In the land of the allegedly free, this is just one more way to punish the poor for having the audacity to be poor.

According to The Detroit News, Judge Rhodes worried that turning water service back on to customers who can't pay would hit Detroit's revenues too hard. "The last thing Detroit needs is this to hit its revenues," he said. He appears to be concerned about the overall welfare of one of the country's poorest metropolises, which would be commendable, except a city like Detroit can't get back on track by punishing its poorest residents.

Detroit's downfall came as the result of several different factors. It's a very complex problem that does not have one single solution (even the get-more-money-now solution won't work well for very long). So, by all means, punish the poor for being poor and for being unable to find halfway decent work in a city that doesn't have any halfway decent work anymore.

This is about more than whether punishing these people is in the interests of the greater good, though. Judge Rhodes actually issued a ruling in direct opposition to the U.N.'s position on water as a human right. According to The Huffington Post, the U.N. officially declared water to be a human right, and U.N. experts called Detroit's water shutoffs a violation of human rights, because these people genuinely don't have the ability to pay. Catarina de Albuquerque, the special Rapporteur on the right to safe water and sanitation, specifically said:

"Disconnections due to non-payment are only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying. In other words, when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections."

Plunder As A Way of Life

Plunder by the obscenely rich, that is.

Digby

Via @NatashaChart:

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” --Frederic Bastiat

I think we're there ...

Anti-Poverty Means Anti-Rich

Let's start by taxing billionaires out of existence.

Peter Marcuse in a letter to The Nation:

Re Greg Kaufman’s “Building an Anti-Poverty Movement” [Feb. 3]: It’s good to call attention to the shameful way our economy exploits the poor and how inadequately our government responds. But calling the problem “poverty” focuses on just half of it. It accepts the idea that the poor are responsible for their own problems, and families can pull themselves up through hard work and “climb the ladder of opportunity” (Obama in the State of the Union address), perhaps with a little help up from government. It’s an idea Nation writers reject. But they skirt the fact that you then have to confront the reality that the poor are so poor because the rich are so rich.

The focus on poverty can help avoid exactly that conclusion. Criticizing the rich smacks of “class war” and raises uncomfortable questions about the 1 percent and whether they deserve to reap so disproportionate a share of the wealth that increasing productivity provides them.

Seriously addressing inequality rather than only poverty would undercut the president’s justification of inequality in the State of the Union message­—that “we don’t resent those who, by virtue of their efforts, achieve incredible success.” Even if their efforts come from financial and employment practices that cause widespread joblessness and that very poverty that is being attacked?

Tackling poverty involves tackling inequality, tackling the wealth of the rich as well as the poverty of the poor. An anti-poverty movement needs to be willing to say that, out loud.

 The super rich are anathema to democratic society.