John Case has sent you a link to a blog:
Blog: Enlighten Radio Podcasts
Post: Tuesday: The Winners and Losers Radio Program, Rockpile, Best of the Left
Link: http://podcasts.enlightenradio.org/2017/05/tuesday-winners-and-losers-radio.html
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Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Monday, May 29, 2017
The Addicts Next Door
https://shar.es/1R6cKT
West Virginia has the highest overdose death rate in the country. Locals are fighting to save their neighbors—and their towns—from destruction.
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West Virginia has the highest overdose death rate in the country. Locals are fighting to save their neighbors—and their towns—from destruction.
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Sunday, May 28, 2017
Enlighten Radio:Neruda odes, storytelling, Jane Austen on Monday
John Case has sent you a link to a blog:
Blog: Enlighten Radio
Post: Neruda odes, storytelling, Jane Austen on Monday
Link: http://www.enlightenradio.org/2017/05/neruda-odes-storytelling-jane-austen-on.html
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Post: Neruda odes, storytelling, Jane Austen on Monday
Link: http://www.enlightenradio.org/2017/05/neruda-odes-storytelling-jane-austen-on.html
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Saturday, May 27, 2017
Democracy and the politics of intolerance [feedly]
Democracy and the politics of intolerance
http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2017/05/democracy-and-politics-of-intolerance.html
http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2017/05/democracy-and-politics-of-intolerance.html
A democracy allows government to reflect the will of the people. Or does it? Here I would like to understand a bit better the dynamics through which radical right populism has come to have influence, even dominance, in a number of western democracies -- even when the percentage of citizens with radical right populist attitudes generally falls below the range of 35% of the electorate.
There are well known bugs in the ways that real democracies work, leading to discrepancies between policy outcomes and public preferences. In the United States, for example, we find:
But to understand the ascendancy of the far right in US politics we need to go beyond these defects. We need to understand the processes through which citizens acquire their political attitudes -- thereby explaining their likelihood of mobilization for one party or candidate or another. And we need to understand the mechanisms through which elected representatives are pushed to the extreme positions that are favored by only a minority of their own supporters.
First, what are the mechanisms that lead to the formation of political attitudes and beliefs in individual citizens? That is, of course, a huge question. People have religious values, civic values, family values, personal aspirations, bits of historical knowledge, and so on, all of which come into play in a wide range of settings through personal development. And all of these value tags may serve as a basis for mobilization by candidates and parties. That is the rationale for "dog-whistle" politics -- to craft messages that resonate with small groups of voters without being noticed by larger groups with different values. So let's narrow it a bit: what mechanisms exist through which activist organizations and leaders can promote specific hateful beliefs and attitudes within a population with a range of existing attitudes, beliefs, and values? In particular, how can radical-right populist organizations and parties increase the appeal of their programs of intolerance to voters who are not otherwise pre-disposed to the extremes of populism?
Here the potency of appeals to division, intolerance, and hate is of particular relevance. Populism has almost always depended on a simplistic division between "us" and "them". The rhetoric and themes of nationalism and racism represent powerful tools in the arsenal of populist mobilization, preying upon suspicion, resentment, and mistrust of "others" in order to gain adherents to a party that promises to take advantages away from those others. The right-wing media play an enormous role in promulgating these messages of division and intolerance in many countries. The conspiracy theories and false narratives conveyed by right-wing media and commentators are powerfully persuasive in setting the terms of political consciousness for millions of people. Fox News set the agenda for a large piece of the American electorate. And the experience of having been left out of a fair share of economic advantages leaves some segments of the population particularly vulnerable to these kinds of appeals. Finally, the under-currents of racism and prejudice are of continuing importance in the political and social identities of many citizens -- again leaving them vulnerable to appeals that cater to these prejudices. This is how Breitbart News works. (An earlier post treated this factor; link.)
Let's next consider the institutional mechanisms through which activist advocacy can be turned into disproportionate effects in legislation. Suppose Representative Smith has been elected on the Republican ticket in a close contest over his Democrat opponent with 51% of the vote. And suppose his constituency includes 15% extreme right voters, 20% moderate right voters, and 16% conservative-leaning independents. Why does Smith go on to support the agenda of the far right, who are after all only less than a third of his own supporters in his district? This results from a mechanism that political scientists seem to understand; it involves the dynamics of the primary system. The extreme right is highly activated, while the center is significantly less so. A candidate who moves to the center is in danger of losing his seat in the next primary to a far-right candidate who can depend upon the support of his or her activist base to defeat Smith. So the 15% of extreme-right voters determine the behavior of the representative. (McAdam and Kloos consider these dynamics in Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America; link.)
Gerrymandering plays an important role in these dynamics as well. Smith doesn't have to moderate his policy choices out of concern that he will lose the general election to a more moderate Democrat, because the Republican legislature in his state has ensured that this is a safe seat for the candidate chosen by the party.
So here we are -- in a nation governed by an extreme-right party in control of both House and Senate, with a President espousing xenophobic and anti-immigrant intentions and a budget that severely cuts back on the social safety net, and dozens of state governments dominated by the same forces. And yet the President is profoundly unpopular, confidence in Congress is at an abysmal low point, and the majority of Americans favor a more progressive set of policies on women's health, health policy, immigration, and international security than the governing party is proposing. How did democratic processes bring us to this paradoxical point?
In 1991 political scientist Sam Popkin published a short book called The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. The title captures Popkin's central hypothesis: that voters make choices on the basis of rational assessment of available evidence. What he adds to this old theory of democratic behavior is the proviso that often the principle of reasoning in question is what he calls "low-information rationality". Unlike traditional rational-choice theories of political behavior, Popkin proposes to make use of empirical results from cognitive psychology -- insights into how real people make practical decisions of importance. It is striking how much the environment of political behavior has changed since Popkin's reflections in the 1980s and 1990s. "Most Americans watch some network television news and scan newspapers several times every week" (25). In a 2015 New Yorker piece on the populism of Donald Trump Evan Osnos quotes Popkin again -- but this time in a way that emphasizes emotions rather than evidence-based rationality (link). The passage is worth quoting:
-- via my feedly newsfeed
There are well known bugs in the ways that real democracies work, leading to discrepancies between policy outcomes and public preferences. In the United States, for example, we find:
- Gerrymandered Congressional districts that favor Republican incumbents
- Over-representation of rural voters in the composition of the Senate (Utah has as many senators as California)
- Organized efforts to suppress voting by poor and minority voters
- The vast influence of corporate and private money in shaping elections and public attitudes
- An electoral-college system that easily permits the candidate winning fewer votes to nonetheless win the Presidency
But to understand the ascendancy of the far right in US politics we need to go beyond these defects. We need to understand the processes through which citizens acquire their political attitudes -- thereby explaining their likelihood of mobilization for one party or candidate or another. And we need to understand the mechanisms through which elected representatives are pushed to the extreme positions that are favored by only a minority of their own supporters.
First, what are the mechanisms that lead to the formation of political attitudes and beliefs in individual citizens? That is, of course, a huge question. People have religious values, civic values, family values, personal aspirations, bits of historical knowledge, and so on, all of which come into play in a wide range of settings through personal development. And all of these value tags may serve as a basis for mobilization by candidates and parties. That is the rationale for "dog-whistle" politics -- to craft messages that resonate with small groups of voters without being noticed by larger groups with different values. So let's narrow it a bit: what mechanisms exist through which activist organizations and leaders can promote specific hateful beliefs and attitudes within a population with a range of existing attitudes, beliefs, and values? In particular, how can radical-right populist organizations and parties increase the appeal of their programs of intolerance to voters who are not otherwise pre-disposed to the extremes of populism?
Here the potency of appeals to division, intolerance, and hate is of particular relevance. Populism has almost always depended on a simplistic division between "us" and "them". The rhetoric and themes of nationalism and racism represent powerful tools in the arsenal of populist mobilization, preying upon suspicion, resentment, and mistrust of "others" in order to gain adherents to a party that promises to take advantages away from those others. The right-wing media play an enormous role in promulgating these messages of division and intolerance in many countries. The conspiracy theories and false narratives conveyed by right-wing media and commentators are powerfully persuasive in setting the terms of political consciousness for millions of people. Fox News set the agenda for a large piece of the American electorate. And the experience of having been left out of a fair share of economic advantages leaves some segments of the population particularly vulnerable to these kinds of appeals. Finally, the under-currents of racism and prejudice are of continuing importance in the political and social identities of many citizens -- again leaving them vulnerable to appeals that cater to these prejudices. This is how Breitbart News works. (An earlier post treated this factor; link.)
Let's next consider the institutional mechanisms through which activist advocacy can be turned into disproportionate effects in legislation. Suppose Representative Smith has been elected on the Republican ticket in a close contest over his Democrat opponent with 51% of the vote. And suppose his constituency includes 15% extreme right voters, 20% moderate right voters, and 16% conservative-leaning independents. Why does Smith go on to support the agenda of the far right, who are after all only less than a third of his own supporters in his district? This results from a mechanism that political scientists seem to understand; it involves the dynamics of the primary system. The extreme right is highly activated, while the center is significantly less so. A candidate who moves to the center is in danger of losing his seat in the next primary to a far-right candidate who can depend upon the support of his or her activist base to defeat Smith. So the 15% of extreme-right voters determine the behavior of the representative. (McAdam and Kloos consider these dynamics in Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America; link.)
Gerrymandering plays an important role in these dynamics as well. Smith doesn't have to moderate his policy choices out of concern that he will lose the general election to a more moderate Democrat, because the Republican legislature in his state has ensured that this is a safe seat for the candidate chosen by the party.
So here we are -- in a nation governed by an extreme-right party in control of both House and Senate, with a President espousing xenophobic and anti-immigrant intentions and a budget that severely cuts back on the social safety net, and dozens of state governments dominated by the same forces. And yet the President is profoundly unpopular, confidence in Congress is at an abysmal low point, and the majority of Americans favor a more progressive set of policies on women's health, health policy, immigration, and international security than the governing party is proposing. How did democratic processes bring us to this paradoxical point?
In 1991 political scientist Sam Popkin published a short book called The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns. The title captures Popkin's central hypothesis: that voters make choices on the basis of rational assessment of available evidence. What he adds to this old theory of democratic behavior is the proviso that often the principle of reasoning in question is what he calls "low-information rationality". Unlike traditional rational-choice theories of political behavior, Popkin proposes to make use of empirical results from cognitive psychology -- insights into how real people make practical decisions of importance. It is striking how much the environment of political behavior has changed since Popkin's reflections in the 1980s and 1990s. "Most Americans watch some network television news and scan newspapers several times every week" (25). In a 2015 New Yorker piece on the populism of Donald Trump Evan Osnos quotes Popkin again -- but this time in a way that emphasizes emotions rather than evidence-based rationality (link). The passage is worth quoting:
"The more complicated the problem, the simpler the demands become," Samuel Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California in San Diego, told me. "When people get frustrated and irritated, they want to cut the Gordian knot."
Trump has succeeded in unleashing an old gene in American politics—the crude tribalism that Richard Hofstadter named "the paranoid style"—and, over the summer, it replicated like a runaway mutation. Whenever Americans have confronted the reshuffling of status and influence—the Great Migration, the end of Jim Crow, the end of a white majority—we succumb to the anti-democratic politics of absolutism, of a "conflict between absolute good and absolute evil," in which, Hofstadter wrote, "the quality needed is not a willingness to compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Nothing but complete victory will do." Trump was born to the part. "I'll do nearly anything within legal bounds to win," he wrote, in "The Art of the Deal." "Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition." Trump, who long ago mastered the behavioral nudges that could herd the public into his casinos and onto his golf courses, looked so playful when he gave out Lindsey Graham's cell-phone number that it was easy to miss just how malicious a gesture it truly was. It expressed the knowledge that, with a single utterance, he could subject an enemy to that most savage weapon of all: us. (link)The gist is pretty clear: populism is not primarily about rational consideration of costs and benefits, but rather the political emotions of mistrust, intolerance, and fear.
-- via my feedly newsfeed
The Right to Strike [feedly]
The only problem with the Big Strike theory (from at least two authors that know something about big, lost, strikes) is that nothing other than political struggle, including illegal political strikes, wins that "right".
https://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/the-right-to-strike/
For half a century, the loss of the right to strike has moved in lock step with the increase in income inequality. According to an International Monetary Fund study of twenty advanced economies, union decline accounted for about half of the increase in net income inequality from 1980 to 2012. The following is the start of a Boston Review discussion on US workers' right to strike.
James Gray Pope, Ed Bruno, Peter Kellman
May 22, 2017
In December 2005 more than 30,000 New York City transit workers walked out over economic issues despite the state of New York's Taylor Law, which prohibits all public sector strikes. Not only did the workers face the loss of two days' pay for each day on strike, but a court ordered that the union be fined $1 million per day. Union president Roger Toussaint held firm, likening the strikers to Rosa Parks. "There is a higher calling than the law," he declared. "That is justice and equality."
The transit strike exemplified labor civil disobedience at its most effective. The workers were not staging a symbolic event; they brought the city's transit system to a halt. They claimed their fundamental right to collective action despite a statute that outlawed it. For a precious moment, public attention was riveted on the drama of workers defying a draconian strike ban.
How did national labor leaders react?
AFL-CIO president John Sweeney issued a routine statement of support, while most others did nothing at all. To anybody watching the drama unfold, the message was clear: there is no right to strike, even in the House of Labor.
About a decade earlier in 1996, Stephen Lerner, fresh from a successful campaign to organize Los Angeles janitors, had warned in Boston Review that private sector unions faced an existential crisis: density could soon drop from 10.3 percent to 5 percent if unions did not expand their activity beyond the limits imposed by American law. He called for unions to develop broad organizing strategies—industry-wide and regional—and to engage in civil disobedience. Few embraced these radical strategies. Today private sector union density is about 6.5 percent, not quite as low as Lerner predicted, but down from a high of over 30 percent in the mid-1950s.
Union decline matters. For half a century, it has moved in lock step with the increase in income inequality. According to an International Monetary Fund study of twenty advanced economies, union decline accounted for about half of the increase in net…
Peaceful disobedience and political action would be two key components of a rights-centered strategy. When people think of civil disobedience today, most think of symbolic protests or brief disruptions designed to attract public attention. Unions have conducted some important actions of this type, for example during the San Francisco hotel strike of 2010 and the more recent Fight for Fifteen.
For the rest of the article and for responses to this article please go to Boston Review
Reposted from Portside. We were unable to create a link from the Boston Review to WordPress.
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Two Movements, One Goal: The Working People Weekly List [feedly]
Two Movements, One Goal: The Working People Weekly List
https://aflcio.org/2017/5/26/two-movements-one-goal-working-people-weekly-list
https://aflcio.org/2017/5/26/two-movements-one-goal-working-people-weekly-list
Two Movements, One Goal: The Working People Weekly ListKenneth Quinnell Fri, 05/26/2017 - 10:51
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Every week, we bring you a roundup of the top news and commentary about issues and events important to working families. Here's this week's Working People Weekly List.
Civil Rights and Labor: Two Movements, One Goal: "A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess." —A. Philip Randolph
UFCW Members Make Safety a Priority at Tyson Poultry Plant: "On a typical day at the Tyson Foods processing plant in Glen Allen, Virginia, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400 shop steward Aleta Johnsons was operating the Packmat bagging machine. All of a sudden, she heard a co-worker yelling, 'Stop, stop, stop! Please help—stop the line!'"
23 Million People Lose Health Insurance Under the House Republican Plan: "Three weeks after members of Congress voted 217-213 to pass the so-called American Health Care Act, they—and we—finally know how much damage it will do, and it is not pretty. Congress' own experts in the Congressional Budget Office said that the Republican health plan will cut 23 million people off of health insurance within a decade, while cutting taxes by $992 billion, overwhelming for the wealthy few and corporations. Remember, this is the plan then-presidential candidate Donald Trump promised would provide 'insurance for everybody.'"
8 Things You Need to Know About a New Bill to Raise the Federal Minimum Wage: "Working people continue to lead the fight for living wages. We support the Wage Act of 2017, introduced today, to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, index it to median wages and increase the minimum wage for tipped workers. Here are the key details of the legislation, introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Reps. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)."
The President's Broken Promises on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid: "Donald Trump made a straightforward promise to the American people when he asked for their votes: He would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Unlike the way many politicians talk, he did not qualify or hedge this promise to give him an out if he changed his mind later, and many Americans took his promise at face value."
6 Reasons Curtis Ellis Is a Terrible Pick for Trade Post: "News has emerged that Curtis Ellis is being considered by President Donald Trump as one of the finalists to run the Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs. The job is considered to be a key part of any effort to boost U.S. manufacturing jobs while cracking down on labor abuses overseas. Here are six reasons why this move is a bad idea and will harm working people."
Working People at AT&T End Three-Day Strike: "On Friday, 40,000 AT&T workers, members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), walked off the job on a three-day strike to protest the company's failure to invest in good jobs with a future at AT&T wireless, wireline and DIRECTV. The groups striking represent working people in 36 states and the District of Columbia. This is the first time AT&T wireless employees have gone on strike."
Shuler Joins Graduate Teachers Seeking Recognition of Their Union at Yale's Commencement: "Thousands of supporters rallied today at Yale University's commencement in solidarity with the graduate teachers who formed a union with UNITE HERE Local 33. The university has refused to recognize the union and come to the negotiating table."
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Latest Budget Bill Makes More Cuts, Revenue Still Needed from Legislature [feedly]
Latest Budget Bill Makes More Cuts, Revenue Still Needed from Legislature
http://www.wvpolicy.org/latest-budget-bill-makes-more-cuts-revenue-still-needed-from-legislature/
-- via my feedly newsfeed
http://www.wvpolicy.org/latest-budget-bill-makes-more-cuts-revenue-still-needed-from-legislature/
During this week's special session, the Governor introduced HB 115, the latest version of the budget bill. Way back in February, the governor introduced his original budget plan, which called for $450 million in new revenue. During the regular session, the legislature failed to agree on any revenue measures, and at the end of the session passed a budget that was balanced with a $90 million withdrawal from the Rainy Day Fund and major cuts to higher education and Medicaid. That budget was vetoed by the governor. Since then, the Governor, Senate, and House have entered into a stand-off over personal income tax cuts and sales tax increases, with little attention to the actual budget.
Now with HB 115, we can see what the governor's plan is once there is some revenue agreement with the Legislature. Total General Revenue spending in HB 115 totals $4.35 billion, which is $155.7 million below the governor's original proposal. The latest revenue projections show available General Revenue funds for FY 2018 to be $4.09 billion, which means that the legislature would need to raise about $260 million in new revenue for this budget proposal to balance. Current revenue proposals fall far short of that mark, and create bigger budget problems in the future.
Here are a list of major changed in HB 115 from the Governor's original proposal:
- The Save our State Fund in the Department of Commerce is reduced from $105.5 million to $15 million. Other cuts to the Department of Commerce total $629,448.
- In the Department of Education, $1 million is cut from 21st Century Assessment and Professional Development. The "smoothing" of payments to the Teacher's Retirement System's unfunded liability is also included, saving $44.7 million.
- Funding for the Education Broadcasting Authority is restored, but still cut by $85,813 from FY 2017 level. Other cuts in the Department of Education and the Arts total $493,403 below the governor's original proposal.
- In DHHR, funding for the Center for End of Life, Office of Healthy Lifestyles, Osteoporosis and Arthritis Prevention, and the Tobacco Education Program are eliminated, while General Revenue Funding for Medicaid is cut by $9.9 million below the governor's original proposal.
- The Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety is cut by $5.1 million below the governor's original proposal, including $3.8 million cut from the Division of Corrections.
- Community and Technical Colleges are cut by $1.3 million below the governor's proposal.
- Funding for HEPC and 4 year colleges and universities is cut by $5.4 million below the governor's original proposal, while $1.6 million in funding is restored for WVNET. Overall funding for Higher Education would be $13.8 million below FY 2017 funding levels.
- Cuts in other areas of the budget, including DEP, Department of Revenue, and Executive Branch agencies, total $1.4 million
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