The 2016 elections are strategic for advancing racial justice [feedly]

The 2016 elections are strategic for advancing racial justice
http://peoplesworld.org/the-2016-elections-are-strategic-for-advancing-racial-justice/

This has been a gut-wrenching time. The horrific police murders of Alton Sterling andPhilando Castile and the killing of five police officers in Dallas give the uneasy sense of a nation on edge. Have we entered a more hateful and polarized era? Or is real progress toward racial and social justice possible?

It is a moment full of great danger, but also great possibility. Actions in the streets, conversations around the dinner table, and especially the outcome of the 2016 elections will be decisive to which direction the nation takes.

Impact on 2016 elections

Like the Orlando massacre, the tragic events in Baton Rouge, La., Falcon Heights, Minn., and Dallas are reverberating in the 2016 elections. On cue, Donald Trump declared he would be a strong "law and order" president.

This conjures up images of the 1968 campaign of Richard Nixon who ran on a "law and order" platform. These thinly-disguised code words were aimed to appeal to whites based on fear and racism - part of the Southern Strategy. Nixon succeeded in winning a substantial section of white voters on this basis, which led to a backlash against civil rights, women's rights, and the social gains of the 1960s. It was the beginning of a broader attack on the New Deal gains. Racism was central, for instance, to the rise of the extreme right and its takeover of the GOP, the victory of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the further repeal of social gains.

Racism has been a central thread throughout our nation's history dating to slavery. After 50 years of GOP and right-wing racism being injected into the veins of the body politic, we are confronted with the likes of Donald Trump. Racist ideas that once existed on the fringe are now being made acceptable to the mainstream. They have found some fertile ground in an era of economic dislocation and decline and the rapid demographic shifts that are unsettling millions, particularly white working people.

At moments like this, whites without anti-racist consciousness are susceptible to demagogues like Trump, easily taken in and manipulated by racist stereotypes, bigotry, and disoriented to act against their self-interests. Especially for working class whites, particularly white men, whose anger and frustration over their own bleak future is being misdirected away from their class enemy toward their black and brown class brothers and sisters.

Instead of taxing the rich, they will get more enrichment of the one percent. Instead of a living wage, they will get continued declines in real wages and greater economic insecurity.

Racism and the fight for unity

The corporate mass media paints the picture of a racially polarized nation - black vs. white. In truth, life is much more complex.

It has been well-documented, beginning with the groundbreaking Kerner Commissionreport on the 1967 urban rebellions, that most whites view the same developments differently than African-Americans. This perception gap stems from the different social realities blacks and whites experience due to segregation and institutionalized racism as well as the impact of racist ideas and practices.

Whites who are ignorant of what is occurring in the African-American community are especially vulnerable to racist ideas. The latest surveys indicate that nearly 40 percent of whites are sympathetic to the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement, including 50 percent of white youth. For sure, there is a core of diehard intractable racists. But there are also large swaths of whites that can be won to anti-racist positions, depending on the circumstances and issues.

Greater awareness of the reality of racism and growing empathy toward its victims is an important first step toward then taking action. The challenge is to find the points of unity, to expand and deepen this anti-racist sentiment, and to influence a majority of whites to act on the basis of morality, common humanity, and self-interest.

Only eight years ago, the first African-American was elected president on the basis of an outpouring of anti-racist majority sentiment. The victory didn't end racism, but represented a blow against it. But before President Obama stepped foot into the Oval Office, reactionary forces were plotting to obstruct and undo his presidency. Racism was then and remains now the core element of the assault.

The movement led by Black Lives Matters and its allies is influencing millions of whites. Issues and perspectives that had only been discussed on the margins among whites are discussed increasingly in the mainstream.

Videos of police killings spread on social media have profoundly impacted public consciousness. Many whites are becoming aware of a reality they knew little or nothing about. This can be likened to the impact from the images of police dogs and fire hoses unleashed on African-American demonstrators in the South or the gruesome horror of the Vietnam War brought into living rooms through television during the 1960s.

The transformative potential of today's exposure to images of police violence, protests, and the public discussion shouldn't be underestimated - even if changes aren't apparent right away. Changing consciousness is a contradictory process. It takes time to absorb lessons and re-examine old ideas and prejudices and make way for new ideas.

Majorities make change. And it will take a majority that feels compelled to act over the police killings and institutionalized racism to make change. When taken together, communities of color, the multi-racial labor movement, the young generation, and a substantial number of whites horrified by what is happening, constitute an anti-racist majority.

2016 elections victory a strategic necessity

The 2016 elections offer an extraordinary opportunity for the anti-racist majority to frame the debate and to engage millions of our fellow Americans, especially white Americans. Anti-racist whites have a special responsibility to act.

The stakes have never been higher. Defeating Trump and dislodging the GOP from its domination of Congress and state legislatures is a strategic necessity to advance racial justice. And it is integrally connected to advancing gender equity, and the rights of the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and workers, and action on climate change.

The outcome will determine what laws are passed, how they are enforced, and how the judiciary might rule on them. It will determine the nature and direction of the public discourse and the overall atmosphere in the country.

"To bring about the kind of change we need, we need to ensure that every demonstrator is a voter and that we show up en masse and in the millions," NAACP president Cornell William Brooks said on CBS's Face the Nation.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton present the nation with two starkly different paths. Clinton's campaign reflects a multi-racial coalition, and her administration will mirror the diversity of the American people. Clinton has addressed reforming the criminal justice system, institutionalized racism, and responded to the killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, telling CNN:

"I will call for white people like myself to put ourselves in the shoes of those African-American families who fear every time their children go somewhere, who have to have the talk about how to really protect themselves when they're the ones that should be expecting protection from encounters with police." 

A Clinton win would be a victory for racial and gender justice.

But what gains are likely under "law and order" President Trump and a GOP Congress? His daily incendiary rhetoric, calls for banning Muslims, building a wall with Mexico, his likely appointment to lead the Justice Department, and racist nominations to the US Supreme Court - all of these would ensure the fight for racial justice and any social progress will be immensely harder.

Election Day 2016 is time for the anti-racist majority, horrified by recent events, to act. It couldn't be more urgent.

Photo: A Black Lives Matter demonstrator outside the U.S. Capitol building. | AP/Evan Vucci 

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Krugman: Bull Market Blues [feedly]

Bull Market Blues

Paul Krugman

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/opinion/bull-market-blues.html

Like most economists, I don't usually have much to say about stocks. Stocks are even more susceptible than other markets to popular delusions and the madness of crowds, and stock prices generally have a lot less to do with the state of the economy or its future prospects than many people believe. As the economist Paul Samuelson put it, "Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions."

Still, we shouldn't completely ignore stock prices. The fact that the major averages have lately been hitting new highs — the Dow has risen 177 percent from its low point in March 2009 — is newsworthy and noteworthy. What are those Wall Street indexes telling us?

The answer, I'd suggest, isn't entirely positive. In fact, in some ways the stock market's gains reflect economic weaknesses, not strengths. And understanding how that works may help us make sense of the troubling state our economy is in.

O.K., let's start with the myth Samuelson was debunking, the claim that stock prices are the measure of the economy as a whole. That myth used to be popular on the political right, with prominent conservative economists publishing articles with titles like "Obama's Radicalism Is Killing the Dow."

Strange to say, however, we began hearing that line a lot less once stock prices turned around and began their huge surge — which started just six weeks after President Obama was inaugurated. (But polling suggests that a majority of self-identified Republicans still haven't noticed that surge, and believe that stocks have gone down in the Obama era.)

The truth, in any case, is that there are three big points of slippage between stock prices and the success of the economy in general. First, stock prices reflect profits, not overall incomes. Second, they also reflect the availability of other investment opportunities — or the lack thereof. Finally, the relationship between stock prices and real investment that expands the economy's capacity has gotten very tenuous.

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On the first point: We measure the economy's success by the extent to which it generates rising incomes for the population. But stocks don't reflect incomes in general; they only reflect the part of income that shows up as profits.

This wouldn't matter if the share of profits in overall income were stable; but it isn't. The share of profits in national income fluctuates, but it has been a lot higher in recent years than it was during the great stock surge of the late 1990s — that is, we've had a profits boom without a comparably large economic boom, making the relationship between profits and prosperity weak at best. We are not, in fact, partying like it's 1999.

On the second point: When investors buy stocks, they're buying a share of future profits. What that's worth to them depends on what other options they have for converting money today into income tomorrow. And these days those options are pretty poor, with interest rates on long-term government bonds not only very low by historical standards but zero or negative once you adjust for inflation. So investors are willing to pay a lot for future income, hence high stock prices for any given level of profits.

But why are long-term interest rates so low? As I argued in my last column, the answer is basically weakness in investment spending, despite low short-term interest rates, which suggests that those rates will have to stay low for a long time.

This may seem, however, to present a paradox. If the private sector doesn't see itself as having a lot of good investment opportunities, how can profits be so high? The answer, I'd suggest, is that these days profits often seem to bear little relationship to investment in new capacity. Instead, profits come from some kind of market power — brand position, the advantages of an established network, or good old-fashioned monopoly. And companies making profits from such power can simultaneously have high stock prices and little reason to spend.

Consider the fact that the three most valuable companies in America are Apple, Google and Microsoft. None of the three spends large sums on bricks and mortar. In fact, all three are sitting on huge reserves of cash. When interest rates go down, they don't have much incentive to spend more on expanding their businesses; they just keep raking in earnings, and the public becomes willing to pay more for a piece of those earnings.

In other words, while record stock prices do put the lie to claims that the Obama administration has been anti-business, they're not evidence of a healthy economy. If anything, they're a sign of an economy with too few opportunities for productive investment and too much monopoly power.

So when you read headlines about stock prices, remember: What's good for the Dow isn't necessarily good for America, or vice versa.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Retiring: Calls for Social Security Expansion Grow Louder in Washington [feedly]

Retiring: Calls for Social Security Expansion Grow Louder in Washington
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/your-money/calls-for-social-security-expansion-grow-louder-in-washington.html

JANA PANARITES was about to make a midlife career shift in 2010 when her father died. At age 50, she had completed a master's degree in cultural diplomacy at the University of Southern California and was looking for a position in the nonprofit sector. That plan ground to a halt when she moved back to Maryland, where she grew up, to take care of her mother.

"Like a lot of caregivers, I had no idea what I was getting into," she said. "I wound up spending so much time taking care of her, there was no time to take care of myself, let alone produce an income."

Ms. Panarites has no regrets about the three years she spent caring for her mother, who now lives in an assisted-living facility in Florida. On the contrary, she said, "it's one of the most important things I've ever done."

But the detour damaged not just her career prospects but her futureretirement security as well. Her annual Social Security income — projected at $18,500 if she files for benefits when she reaches full retirement age in 2026 — will be at least 20 percent less than she could have expected had she not left the work force, according to a rough estimate from the Social Security Administration.

A growing number of legislators and policy makers would like Ms. Panarites and other caregivers to receive some relief as part of a broader effort to expand and modernize Social Security benefits.

Until recently, all the talk in Washington regarding Social Security was about cuts. But a grass-roots progressive coalition began campaigning for expansion nearly three years ago, and it has succeeded in moving the concept to the center of the Democratic Party.

Expansion was a popular theme of Senator Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign; now Hillary Clinton has moved into the expansion camp, saying she would support higher benefits for caregivers and widows and widowers.

Continue reading the main story

Advocates were also elated recently when President Obama endorsed improving benefits. That was a shift from his earlier support for limited cuts at a time when he was hoping, in vain, to reach a grand fiscal bargain with Republicans in Congress.

"We can't afford to weaken Social Security," Mr. Obama said in a speech on June 1. "We should be strengthening Social Security. And not only do we need to strengthen its long-term health, it's time we finally made Social Security more generous, and increased its benefits so that today's retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they've earned."

Photo

"Like a lot of caregivers, I had no idea what I was getting into," said Jana Panarites, with her mother, Helen.CreditPeter W. Cross for The New York Times

The changing political winds have emboldened those who say that fears that Social Security will go bankrupt are overblown.

"I'm delighted people are arguing for expansion," says Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. "I've always been against cutbacks, so now I'm in the center of the debate."

More than 20 expansion bills have been floated by lawmakers, with proposals ranging from targeted increases for vulnerable retirees to larger increases in benefits for all retirees. At the same time, many of those pushing for increased benefits support dealing with Social Security's long-range imbalance by making cuts elsewhere and raising revenue to pay for both expansion and by closing the financing gap.

The combined trust funds for Social Security's retirement and disability benefits are projected to be depleted in 2034, according to the annual report of the program's trustees. At that point, Social Security itself would have sufficient revenue from current taxes to pay only 79 percent of promised benefits.

That problem could be avoided if Congress agreed to raise additional revenue, impose benefit cuts or do some combination of the two.

Some targeted expansion recommendations come from centrist camps. For example, a recently issued report on retirement security by the Bipartisan Policy Center called for adjusting Social Security's progressive benefit structure to deliver higher amounts to lower-income retirees. The changes would increase benefits by $176 a month to the median recipient who files at full retirement age — an increase of 10 percent on a $1,700 benefit.

The policy center called for lifting Social Security's minimum benefit for very-low-income seniors, and enhancing the program's survivor benefit. Currently, widows and widowers receive either their own benefit or 100 percent of a deceased spouse's benefit, whichever is higher; under the B.P.C.'s proposal, survivors would receive their own benefit plus 75 percent of their deceased spouse's benefit.

At the same time, the center recommended two across-the-board benefit cuts: gradually raising the normal retirement age and adopting a less generous annual cost-of-living adjustment.

"We're really trying to show solutions that can emerge when you put people with very different ideological perspectives in a room and let them negotiate for two years," said Shai Akabas, director of fiscal policy at the center.

As for caregivers like Ms. Panarites, some proposals would help bolster their retirement income by giving them extra credit for years devoted to taking care of a parent or child in need. Social Security benefits are determined by a formula based on the average of a worker's highest 35 years of lifetime earnings.

Photo

Ms. Panarites and her mother at the assisted-living facility in West Palm Beach. A growing movement seeks to expand Social Security benefits for caregivers. CreditPeter W. Cross for The New York Times

Ms. Panarites's earnings peaked at $75,000 in 2006, before she left a job as a paralegal to pursue her master's degree. Her income has been negligible since 2008, although she has since started a career as an author and podcaster focused on the issues facing caregivers.

"Your 50s are supposed to be your peak earning years," said Ms. Panarites, now 56.

Her lost lifetime Social Security benefit could easily top $125,000 if she lives to roughly 89, the expected longevity for a woman who reaches age 65.

"When people decide to leave the work force to do caregiving, they usually think, 'It will be just a couple years, and I can get by,' but they don't think of the implications 20 years later when they want to retire," said Gail Gibson Hunt, president of the National Alliance for Caregiving.

Meanwhile, progressives who started the expansion movement are thinking bigger.

"The real question is whether you expand Social Security across the board, so middle-class workers get an increase, or you don't," said Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, an advocacy group. "Then, you can argue about how big to make the increase."

Expansion would mitigate the erosion of benefits put in motion by the last major Social Security overhaul, enacted in 1983, which gradually raises the full retirement age from 65 to 67, effectively reducing, by 25 percent, the amount of preretirement income replaced by benefits.

How would the government pay for Social Security expansion, while also helping close its solvency gap?

The main vehicle would be through changes in the payroll tax on salaries and wages, which now collects 12.4 percent — equally split between employers and employees — up to a cap, currently set at $118,500.

An option would be to raise the tax rate gradually. The Bipartisan Policy Center recommends raising the payroll tax another 1 percentage point, spread over 10 years.

Others favor permitting Social Security to invest a portion of the trust fund in equities. By law, trust fund reserves must be invested in special-issueTreasury bonds that pay very low rates of interest. Some proposals call for allowing investment of 40 percent of reserves in higher-return equities, which could close about one-fifth of the long-term shortfall, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration.

The revenue solutions ultimately will depend on the breadth — and cost — of any expansion.

"Most of the expansion proposals have been modest," Mr. Goss said. "People understand we have a shortfall to deal with, and across-the-board bumps get expensive."

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Larry Summers: When the best umps blow a call [feedly]

Case: Embedded in this post by Summers on (wrong?) CBO estimates of the value of public goods (infrastructure) investments is a very important question for "socialist economics". How to value, depreciate, or negate, the value of public investments is at the heart of answering the question: How much socialism can a nation afford?

When the best umps blow a call

Larry Summers

http://larrysummers.com/2016/07/14/even-the-best-umps-occasionally-blow-a-call/

CBO is an American national treasure. Without the impartial objectivity it brings to the budget process our country would make much worse policy. Baseball without an umpire would be a very different game, and similarly the making of budget policy without CBO would be a very different and inferior activity. However, even the best umps occasionally blow a call and I am afraid that is what CBO has done in its recent infrastructure report.

An acknowledgment at the outset: I have been a strong advocate of infrastructure investment for years and have even argued that debt financed infrastructure is likely to reduce deb-to- GDP ratios because of the growth bump from infrastructure. This argument has been taken up by the IMF and many others. So I am not neutral on this subject.

My views come in part from a simple calculation. Imagine an infrastructure project that costs $1 and yields a modest 5 cents a year in real return forever, in terms of higher GDP. The project thus has a 5 percent social rate of return. Tax collections will rise by about 1.5 cents a year. With the indexed bond market suggesting federal real borrowing costs that are negative for 10 years and 50 basis points for 30 years, the government will come out ahead on the investment. Now, as Brad DeLong and I pointed out a few years ago, matters are more complex than this particularly because capital depreciates, and because infrastructure projects have other effects, but the basic point continues to hold.

So, I was very surprised to read the June CBO report on the consequences of federal investment. It assumes, from its reading of the literature (also here), as its central base case what it calls a 5 percent rate of return on infrastructure investment but then finds that the payback effect of infrastructure investment on the federal deficit is very small, contradicting my earlier claims and more importantly raising doubts about the desirability of a big infrastructure push.

Why the discrepancy? After carefully reading the report, and speaking at some length with CBO officials, I think I understand at least one aspect of it. CBO uses the term "rate of return" in a way that is very different than what I would regard as standard usage. They take a 5 percent rate of return to mean that one dollar more capital produces five cents more output. This turns out to be quite different from assuming that investments in public capital earn a 5 percent return.

For example, CBO does not subtract depreciation in calculating their rate of return unlike what is standard in the private sector. Nor, contrary to what I would have assumed was natural, do they suppose that rates of return are reduced by the fact that on their (questionable) assumptions it takes many years for dollars invested to turn into capital. (Think of R&D as an example here). Adjusting for these factors, CBO is actually assuming an economic return a little above 2 percent on public investment and then concluding it will not help much.

If one assumes that public investment is basically unproductive, it is no surprise that it does not yield large economic benefits. There is still the question of if the 5 percent rate of return is misdescribed, whether or not CBO has made a reasonable judgement about the productivity of public investment. I'm pretty skeptical. They rely on aggregate econometric estimates of an elasticity of GDP with respect to public capital. Such estimates are plagued by all sorts of problems of heterogeneity, simultaneity, limited variation in the exogenous variables and so forth.

I would prefer to build up from individual projects by looking for example at estimates of the return on fixing potholes, building dams, or repairing water systems. I think anyone taking this kind of ground up approach will conclude that the social return to public investment is far higher than 2 percent. This is, of course, a matter of judgement.

There are other, probably lesser, problems with CBO's work. Much of the adverse effect of public investment on the budget in their work comes from an assumed increase in interest rates resulting from budget deficits. This assumption would have been natural once, but is much less compelling in the current liquidity trap, possible secular stagnation environment. They also haircut the return to federal investment by assuming that it crowds out state and local investment but do not recognize explicitly the benefits of less state and local borrowing. And they focus on deficit impacts rather than the more appropriate question of impacts on debt-to-GDP ratios.

On balance, I do not think anyone should change her mind about public investment based on CBO's analysis. Great umpires never change their minds. But they do learn from their mistakes. I hope CBO will do better next time out.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

Re: [socialist-econ] BERNIE’S 7 LEGACIESBernie Sanders’s campaign is now officially... [feedly]

John, thanks for sending this out.  I agree that Reich can sound way too preachy, rendering judgement from his most high perch in Berkley.

But as a very traditional policy wonk, Reich misses the most important legacies of the Bernie campaign.

Bernie's greatest legacy is building one of the most successful mass movements in American history in the context of a political campaign, a truly amazing achievement.

Almost as important is that Bernie undermined and greatly weakened the case for unfettered capitalism.  He also undermined austerity economics.

Bernie validated but did not concede the pain and anger and hopelessness of millions of Americans--and showed us that millions of Americans want fundamental, progressive change.

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 14, 2016, at 7:15 AM, John Case <jcase4218@gmail.com> wrote:

Agree with most of these points. Wish Reich would be less preachy.

BERNIE'S 7 LEGACIESBernie Sanders's campaign is now officially...
http://robertreich.org/post/147298636320

BERNIE'S 7 LEGACIES

Bernie Sanders's campaign is now officially over, but the movement he began is still just beginning. He's provided it seven big legacies:

First, Bernie has helped open America's eyes to the power of big money corrupting our democracy and thereby rigging our economy to its advantage and everyone else's disadvantage.  

Polls now show huge majorities of Americans think moneyed interests have too much sway in Washington. And thanks, in large part, to Bernie's campaign, progressives on Capitol Hill are readying a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and bills requiring full disclosure of donors, ending gerrymandering, and providing automatic voter registration.

None of these will get anywhere in a Republican-controlled Congress, but they will give progressives a powerful theme for the upcoming election. It's called democracy.

Second, Bernie has shown that it's possible to win elections without depending on big money from corporations, Wall Street, and billionaires. He came close to winning the Democratic nomination on the basis of millions of small donations from average working people. No longer can a candidate pretend to believe in campaign finance reform but say they have to take big money because their opponent does.

Third, Bernie has educated millions of Americans about why we must have a single-payer health-care system and free tuition at public universities, and why we must resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and bust up the biggest banks. These issues will be front and center in every progressive campaign from here out, at all levels of American politics.

Fourth,the Sanders campaign has brought millions of young people into politics, ignited their energy and enthusiasm and idealism.

Fifth, the movement Bernie ignited has pushed Hillary Clinton to take more progressive positions on issues ranging from the minimum wage to the Trans Pacific Partnership, the XL Pipeline, Wall Street, and Social Security.

Sixth, he's taught Americans how undemocratic the Democratic Party's system for picking candidates really is. Before Bernie's candidacy, not many people were paying attention to so-called "super-delegates" or whether independents could vote, or how primary elections and caucuses were run. From now on, people will pay attention. And the Democratic National Committee will be under pressure to make fundamental changes.

Seventh is the real possibility Bernie has inspired of a third party – if the Democratic Party doesn't respond to the necessity of getting big money out of politics and reversing widening inequality, if it doesn't begin to advocate for a single-payer healthcare system, or push hard for higher taxes on the wealthy - including a wealth tax - to pay for better education and better opportunities for everyone else, if it doesn't expand Social Security and lift the cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax, if it doesn't bust up the biggest banks and strengthen antitrust laws, and expand voting rights. 

If it doesn't act on these critical issues. the Democratic Party will become irrelevant to the future of America, and a third party will emerge to address them. 

Bernie, we thank you for your courage, your inspiration, your tireless dedication, and your vision. And we will continue the fight.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed

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BERNIE’S 7 LEGACIESBernie Sanders’s campaign is now officially... [feedly]

Agree with most of these points. Wish Reich would be less preachy.

BERNIE'S 7 LEGACIESBernie Sanders's campaign is now officially...
http://robertreich.org/post/147298636320

BERNIE'S 7 LEGACIES

Bernie Sanders's campaign is now officially over, but the movement he began is still just beginning. He's provided it seven big legacies:

First, Bernie has helped open America's eyes to the power of big money corrupting our democracy and thereby rigging our economy to its advantage and everyone else's disadvantage.  

Polls now show huge majorities of Americans think moneyed interests have too much sway in Washington. And thanks, in large part, to Bernie's campaign, progressives on Capitol Hill are readying a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and bills requiring full disclosure of donors, ending gerrymandering, and providing automatic voter registration.

None of these will get anywhere in a Republican-controlled Congress, but they will give progressives a powerful theme for the upcoming election. It's called democracy.

Second, Bernie has shown that it's possible to win elections without depending on big money from corporations, Wall Street, and billionaires. He came close to winning the Democratic nomination on the basis of millions of small donations from average working people. No longer can a candidate pretend to believe in campaign finance reform but say they have to take big money because their opponent does.

Third, Bernie has educated millions of Americans about why we must have a single-payer health-care system and free tuition at public universities, and why we must resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and bust up the biggest banks. These issues will be front and center in every progressive campaign from here out, at all levels of American politics.

Fourth,the Sanders campaign has brought millions of young people into politics, ignited their energy and enthusiasm and idealism.

Fifth, the movement Bernie ignited has pushed Hillary Clinton to take more progressive positions on issues ranging from the minimum wage to the Trans Pacific Partnership, the XL Pipeline, Wall Street, and Social Security.

Sixth, he's taught Americans how undemocratic the Democratic Party's system for picking candidates really is. Before Bernie's candidacy, not many people were paying attention to so-called "super-delegates" or whether independents could vote, or how primary elections and caucuses were run. From now on, people will pay attention. And the Democratic National Committee will be under pressure to make fundamental changes.

Seventh is the real possibility Bernie has inspired of a third party – if the Democratic Party doesn't respond to the necessity of getting big money out of politics and reversing widening inequality, if it doesn't begin to advocate for a single-payer healthcare system, or push hard for higher taxes on the wealthy - including a wealth tax - to pay for better education and better opportunities for everyone else, if it doesn't expand Social Security and lift the cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax, if it doesn't bust up the biggest banks and strengthen antitrust laws, and expand voting rights. 

If it doesn't act on these critical issues. the Democratic Party will become irrelevant to the future of America, and a third party will emerge to address them. 

Bernie, we thank you for your courage, your inspiration, your tireless dedication, and your vision. And we will continue the fight.

 -- via my feedly newsfeed