WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
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Black Lives Matter issues a statement on Trump's election
Donald Trump has promised more death, disenfranchisement and deportations. We believe him. The violence he will inflict in office, and the permission he gives for others to commit violence, is just beginning to emerge. In the face of this, our commitment remains the same: protect ourselves and our communities. But we ask ourselves — how do we reconcile our vision for future generations' prosperity with the knowledge that more than half of white voting Americans believe a white supremacist can and should decide what's best for this country? We organize. Here's what we know: Civic engagement is one way to engage democracy, and our lives don't revolve around election cycles. We are obliged to earn the trust of future generations — to defend economic, social and political power for all people. We are confident that we have the commitment, the people power and the vision to organize our country into a safe place for black people — one that leads with inclusivity and a commitment to justice, not intimidation and fear. More
Anti-GOP Uprising Grows as 'Indivisible Guide' to Resisting Trump Goes Viral
President-elect Donald Trump rose to power while losing the popular vote by a historic margin, and his lack of a mandate means a vocal and organized resistance can weaken Republican resolve and "[stiffen] Democratic spines," the guide states. "We know this because we've seen it before," write the authors, former staffers who witnessed the Tea Party surge in President Barack Obama's first term. "We saw these activists take on a popular president with a mandate for change and a supermajority in Congress." "We believe that protecting our values, our neighbors, and ourselves will require mounting a similar resistance to the Trump agenda—but a resistance built on the values of inclusion, tolerance, and fairness," they write. "If a small minority in the Tea Party can stop President Obama, then we the majority can stop a petty tyrant named Trump." More
Poll: Only One In Five Want Obamacare Repeal Without Replace
Only one in five Americans agrees with the current Republican plan of repealing Obamacare without the details of a replacement being worked about, a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found. But the poll found a narrow divide among respondents on the question of whether to repeal the Affordable Care Act. According to the survey released Friday, 47 percent of respondents said lawmakers should not vote on a repeal, 28 percent would prefer that a repeal vote wait until the details of a replacement planned are announced, and 20 percent would like to see a repeal vote immediately with replacement details worked out later. More
More US Workers Have Highly Volatile, Unstable Incomes
The U.S stock market may be at record highs and U.S. unemployment at its lowest level since the Great Recession, but income inequality remains stubbornly high. Contributing to this inequality is the fact that while more Americans are working than at any time since August 2007, more people are working part time, erratic and unpredictable schedules -- without full-time, steady employment. Since 2007, the number of Americans involuntarily working part time has increased by nearly 45 percent. More Americans than before are part of what's considered the contingent workforce, working on-call or on-demand, and as independent contractors or self-employed freelancers, often with earnings that vary dramatically month to month. These workers span the socioeconomic spectrum, from low-wage workers in service, retail, hospitality and restaurant jobs -- and temps in industry, construction and manufacturing -- to highly educated Americans working job-to-job because their professions lack fulltime employment opportunities given the structure of many information age businesses. More
Corporations Prepare to Gorge on Tax Cuts Trump Claims Will Create Jobs
The official line from U.S.-based multinational corporations is that if they get a huge tax break, they’ll bring home the trillions of dollars in profits they’ve stashed overseas and use it to hire tons of Americans. (Nearly 3 million, says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce!) But now that Donald Trump’s election means it might really happen, corporate executives are telling Wall Street analysts what they’ll actually use that money for: enriching their shareholders and buying other companies… But if corporations won’t ramp up hiring, would a Trump tax holiday at least goose the stock market? Possibly, but that does little for most Americans, since stock ownership is so highly concentrated at the top. The most probable outcome from profit repatriation is that the yawning chasm between the richest Americans and everyone else will just get wider.
Indeed, that’s exactly what happened the last time the U.S. had a corporate tax holiday in 2004, cutting the rate on repatriated profits to 5 percent. Companies lobbying for the so-called “Homeland Investment Act” claimed it would help them hire Americans and invest in research and development. Instead they used the money for stock buybacks and increased executive compensation, while the prime beneficiaries actually cut their U.S. payroll. More
American Radicals and the Change We Could Believe In
Obama’s 2008 campaign, which mobilized millions of people new to politics, served as an illustration of the symbiotic relationship between popular movements and political action. Unfortunately, even before Obama assumed office, it became clear that he had little interest in building upon the popular upsurge that helped to elect him… Whether the enthusiasm generated by the Sanders campaign will survive the recent election is difficult to say. But it requires a historical perspective to understand its roots and possibilities. Although in some ways a complete surprise, Sanders’s challenge did not spring from the void: Its emergence was foretold by the Seattle demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in 1999 and, more recently, by Occupy Wall Street and similar protests around the country; the movement for a $15 minimum wage; the remarkable success of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century; and the movements against the deportation of immigrants, mass incarceration, and police mistreatment of people of color. More
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