Rebkeh
Rebkeh's JournalHealth care for all in MO
http://missourihealthcareforall.org/They will have an event, Lobby Day, next week (Tuesday) in Jefferson City. Sign up for training now.
Getting back to the issues, if you please.
And by issues, I mean those which illustrate the philosophical differences between the democratic candidates. Income inequality, the disappearing middle class, exploitation of the poor, a pathetically unlevel playing field supported by racism, and the lack of representation of the poor among them. Writer Thomas Frank uses (so called) liberal Massachusetts' economic successes and failures to illustrate the economic problems that are at the foundation of just about every argument we are having this raucous primary season.
America is having an identity crisis. Who are we going to be?
Wealthy Liberals Don't Seem to Care About Inequality
Thomas Frank asks in his new book: What ever happened to the party of the people?
By Thomas Frank / TomDispatch April 6, 2016
http://www.alternet.org/economy/thomas-frank-wealthy-liberals-dont-seem-care-about-inequality
:big snip:
The answer is that Ive got the wrong liberalism. The kind of liberalism that has dominated Massachusetts for the last few decades isnt the stuff of Franklin Roosevelt or the United Auto Workers; its the Route 128/suburban-professionals variety. (Senator Elizabeth Warren is the great exception to this rule.) Professional-class liberals arent really alarmed by oversized rewards for societys winners. On the contrary, this seems natural to thembecause they are societys winners. The liberalism of professionals just does not extend to matters of inequality; this is the area where soft hearts abruptly turn hard.
Innovation liberalism is a liberalism of the rich, to use the straightforward phrase of local labor leader Harris Gruman. This doctrine has no patience with the idea that everyone should share in societys wealth. What Massachusetts liberals pine for, by and large, is a more perfect meritocracya system where the essential thing is to ensure that the truly talented get into the right schools and then get to rise through the ranks of society. Unfortunately, however, as the blue-state model makes painfully clear, there is no solidarity in a meritocracy. (emphases mine) The ideology of educational achievement conveniently negates any esteem we might feel for the poorly graduated.
This is a curious phenomenon, is it not? A blue state where the Democrats maintain transparent connections to high finance and big pharma; where they have deliberately chosen distant software barons over working-class members of their own society; and where their chief economic proposals have to do with promoting innovation, a grand and promising idea that remains suspiciously vague. Nor can these innovation Democrats claim that their hands were forced by Republicans. They came up with this program all on their own.
Read from the beginning:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/thomas-frank-wealthy-liberals-dont-seem-care-about-inequality
Wisconsin!! Thank you!
Volunteers, voters and everyone involved. Thank you for your hard work!
TYT Election results coverage?
Anyone know if they are doing a live show and when it starts?
Afaict, the website doesn't say anything.
Thought I'd share this here since it involves WI
Voter suppression in Wisconsin:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511643054
Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Could Block 300,000 Registered Voters From the Polls (The Nation)
Wisconsins Voter-ID Law Could Block 300,000 Registered Voters From the PollsOne of the countrys toughest voting restrictions takes effect for the April 5 primary.
Ari Berman
April 1, 2016
http://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-could-block-300000-registered-voters-from-the-polls/
snip
Randle is one of 300,000 registered voters in Wisconsin, 9 percent of the electorate, who do not have a government-issued photo ID and could be disenfranchised by the states new voter-ID law, which is in effect for the first time in 2016. Wisconsin, one of the countrys most important battleground states, is one of 16 states with new voting restrictions in place since 2012. The five-hour lines in Arizona were the most recent example of Americas election problems. Wisconsin could be next.
Randles account is hardly unique in Wisconsin. The lead plaintiff who challenged the voter-ID law, 89-year-old Ruthelle Frank, has been voting since 1948 and has served on the Village Board in her hometown of Brokaw since 1996, but cannot get a photo ID for voting because her maiden name is misspelled on her birth certificate, which would cost $200 to correct. No one should have to pay a fee to be able to vote, Frank said.
Noted voting-rights expert Allan Lichtman, a professor of history at American University, says the Wisconsin voter-ID law represents the first time since the era of the literacy test that state officials have told eligible voters that they cannot exercise their fundamental right to votenot in the next election, probably not ever.
The law also targets students. Student IDs from most public and private universities and colleges are not accepted because they dont contain signatures or a two-year expiration date (compared to a ten-year expiration for drivers licenses). The standard student ID at only three of the University of Wisconsins 13 four-year schools and at seven of the states 23 private colleges can be used as a voter photo ID, according to Common Cause Wisconsin.
There's so much more in the article, it was hard to choose which excerpts to post. See it in its entirety (includes graphs and other information)
http://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-could-block-300000-registered-voters-from-the-polls/
Star Bellied Sneeches
All the "He's not a Democrat" talk made me think of one of my favorite books from childhood.
Oregon people ... (Oregoners?), read this
This is an interesting article in itself but the April deadline jumped out at me too. Get the word out.
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/04/oregon_records_surge_in_unaffi.html#incart_river_index
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