Showing posts with label tax the rich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax the rich. Show all posts
Friday, April 20, 2012
Via The "Boston IndyMedia" Website- Tax Day -Boston -April 17th- Photos and Report
Click on the headline to link via the Boston IndyMedia Website- Tax Day -Boston -April 17th- Photos and Report.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Tax Day Activities In Boston-April 17th 2012- Report And Pictures
Click on headline to link to an entry for Tax Day Activities In Boston-April 17th 2012- Report And Pictures from The South End Patch.
Friday, March 05, 2010
*A Short Note On The March 4th Defense Of Education Rally At U/Mass-Boston
Click on the headline to link to a "Boston Indymedia" entry from the U/Mass-Boston Commitee To Have Fun (nice name,right?).
Markin comment:
As most people are already painfully aware of, public services, especially in places like California have been crippled during this latest almost catastrophic capitalist economic downturn. Nowhere is this more true that in the public education sector, including higher education. As a response to the ever-spiraling upward cost of tuition and other expenses and a bizarre corresponding decrease in the number of tenured and secured faculty and other personnel that make a campus what it is California students, teachers and labor leaders took the lead in calling for a nation-wide March 4th action. Hence, this writer’s presence at the U/Massachusetts- Boston rally.
The event at U/Mass, as such, was small but spirited. Certainly the young students who did take the time to make their voices heard, made them heard. And that is no small thing at this campus. I should note that while Boston has many, many colleges and universities, mainly private and expensive, U/Mass-Boston is a commuter school catering to a mainly working class, minority and immigrant clientele.
Although the economic squeeze has hit this population hard in every way the public college student here, in comparison at least to the mass of the private college students, although they are starting to fell the crunch too, are not, at this minute, necessarily the kind of student who will come out to such rallies. Many of these students work, are first generation college students, and have a myriad other responsibilities, many times not academically-related. Moreover, and I know this from personal experience, this campus is filled with “shoulder to the wheel” types who understand the only way out of the ghetto, the barrio and the working class quarters is to get that “education for the 21st century”. We have no quarrel with that aspiration; we just want that to include remembering for where they came and who got left behind...
What amazed me most, however, is that although those who did show up for this rally really were more spirited than I have seen students for a long time, since my school days and maybe yours, they do not have a clue about the wider picture. A huge theme, expressed by radicals and plain students alike here and elsewhere that day, ran along the lines of “taxing” the rich. Naturally, I had to mention that it would be far easier for working people to just take state power than to get the enactment a serious tax program that would put a dent in the fortunes of the “Fortune 500”. Far easier, for that is where they live. Nobody questioned my critique, although nobody really bought into the idea. More prevalent, as one would expect, was the call for politicians, especially Democratic politicians, to do the right thing. And without even one little “or else” attached. We have some work to do.
At the end of the day though what was most telling was the failure to link up the Obama war policies and the economic question. And that is the most revealing different, at least anecdotally, from the crowds, the mainly older crowds, which I have been running into recently at various anti-war rallies. The oldsters, for the most part, can make the link at some level. Strange that today the young are fighting for their economic future and the oldsters are fighting for their political “souls”. We have to put the two together, right? Then that easy road to a workers government mentioned above WILL be mere child’s play.
Markin comment:
As most people are already painfully aware of, public services, especially in places like California have been crippled during this latest almost catastrophic capitalist economic downturn. Nowhere is this more true that in the public education sector, including higher education. As a response to the ever-spiraling upward cost of tuition and other expenses and a bizarre corresponding decrease in the number of tenured and secured faculty and other personnel that make a campus what it is California students, teachers and labor leaders took the lead in calling for a nation-wide March 4th action. Hence, this writer’s presence at the U/Massachusetts- Boston rally.
The event at U/Mass, as such, was small but spirited. Certainly the young students who did take the time to make their voices heard, made them heard. And that is no small thing at this campus. I should note that while Boston has many, many colleges and universities, mainly private and expensive, U/Mass-Boston is a commuter school catering to a mainly working class, minority and immigrant clientele.
Although the economic squeeze has hit this population hard in every way the public college student here, in comparison at least to the mass of the private college students, although they are starting to fell the crunch too, are not, at this minute, necessarily the kind of student who will come out to such rallies. Many of these students work, are first generation college students, and have a myriad other responsibilities, many times not academically-related. Moreover, and I know this from personal experience, this campus is filled with “shoulder to the wheel” types who understand the only way out of the ghetto, the barrio and the working class quarters is to get that “education for the 21st century”. We have no quarrel with that aspiration; we just want that to include remembering for where they came and who got left behind...
What amazed me most, however, is that although those who did show up for this rally really were more spirited than I have seen students for a long time, since my school days and maybe yours, they do not have a clue about the wider picture. A huge theme, expressed by radicals and plain students alike here and elsewhere that day, ran along the lines of “taxing” the rich. Naturally, I had to mention that it would be far easier for working people to just take state power than to get the enactment a serious tax program that would put a dent in the fortunes of the “Fortune 500”. Far easier, for that is where they live. Nobody questioned my critique, although nobody really bought into the idea. More prevalent, as one would expect, was the call for politicians, especially Democratic politicians, to do the right thing. And without even one little “or else” attached. We have some work to do.
At the end of the day though what was most telling was the failure to link up the Obama war policies and the economic question. And that is the most revealing different, at least anecdotally, from the crowds, the mainly older crowds, which I have been running into recently at various anti-war rallies. The oldsters, for the most part, can make the link at some level. Strange that today the young are fighting for their economic future and the oldsters are fighting for their political “souls”. We have to put the two together, right? Then that easy road to a workers government mentioned above WILL be mere child’s play.
Friday, October 05, 2007
THE LIMITS OF LIBERALISM-ON CONGRESSMAN MCGOVERN'S WAR TAX PROPOSAL
Commentary
A rich man's war, a poor man's fight-including the dough
Just when I was beginning to think that it was safe to say something nice about the very few hard anti-war parliamentary Democrats left without having to bite my tongue one of them goes and bites me. In an entry a few days ago I mentioned that 3rd District Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern stuck out as a principled Democratic parliamentary anti-war advocate. I again mentioned it yesterday in regard to his vote against the very watered-down Pentagon contingency planning report now being pushed by the Democratic House leadership as a substitute for any real action on troop withdrawals. Those positions accrue to his honor. So far, so good.
However, I have also noted that such positions are merely the beginning of wisdom. I have argued that other factors preclude political support to such politicians, notably their otherwise pro-capitalist politics. And, as if delivered directly from the sages of the socialist pantheon for my benefit, a recent article in the Op/Ed page of the October 4, 2007 Boston Globe by Congressman McGovern brings the chickens home to roost.
Apparently Congressman McGovern is bothered (as I am, but for vastly different reasons) by the widespread indifference, expressed by the pronounced unwillingness to sacrifice on their behalf, to the fate of the rank and file soldiers in Iraq, except by the small circle of those directly affected. Moreover, the Congressman is greatly bothered by the ultimate cost of this war and the burden that it will place on future generations (you know, the classic –our children, and our childrens' children- rhetoric that is like manna from heaven for all politicians). The Congressman thus proposes and intends to introduce legislation that would levy a “surtax”, a war tax, on existing tax liability for all, except a few military-related cases, in order to pay down future Iraq War appropriations. Nice, right?
And there is the rub. The Congressman's underlying assumption is that, right or wrong on Iraq policy, we are all in this together, rich or poor, although the effect of the burden of his bill would presumably fall heaviest on the rich. But the hell with that notion. It it is a non-starter. In this increasingly class-bound society we are not all in this together. Not by a long shot. That is the fundamental liberal fallacy and goes a long way in explaining why we are in tough straits not just in Iraq but where this country is heading generally.
There is an old expression that cuts to the core of the fallacy on this issue. A rich man’s war, a poor man’s (updated these days to include women) fight. That means the money for it, as well. I am generally distrustful of tax-the-rich schemes as a panacea for the alleviation of social ills (or, as here, to bail out the very government that got into this mess in the first place). Generally, as presented by leftists, these schemes substitute for hard programmatic positions that focus on the need to see that the world has to be turned upside down, in short, the rich must go. So here I kick Congressman McGovern in the shins and call for a No vote on this proposal-with both hands and feet.
A rich man's war, a poor man's fight-including the dough
Just when I was beginning to think that it was safe to say something nice about the very few hard anti-war parliamentary Democrats left without having to bite my tongue one of them goes and bites me. In an entry a few days ago I mentioned that 3rd District Massachusetts Congressman James McGovern stuck out as a principled Democratic parliamentary anti-war advocate. I again mentioned it yesterday in regard to his vote against the very watered-down Pentagon contingency planning report now being pushed by the Democratic House leadership as a substitute for any real action on troop withdrawals. Those positions accrue to his honor. So far, so good.
However, I have also noted that such positions are merely the beginning of wisdom. I have argued that other factors preclude political support to such politicians, notably their otherwise pro-capitalist politics. And, as if delivered directly from the sages of the socialist pantheon for my benefit, a recent article in the Op/Ed page of the October 4, 2007 Boston Globe by Congressman McGovern brings the chickens home to roost.
Apparently Congressman McGovern is bothered (as I am, but for vastly different reasons) by the widespread indifference, expressed by the pronounced unwillingness to sacrifice on their behalf, to the fate of the rank and file soldiers in Iraq, except by the small circle of those directly affected. Moreover, the Congressman is greatly bothered by the ultimate cost of this war and the burden that it will place on future generations (you know, the classic –our children, and our childrens' children- rhetoric that is like manna from heaven for all politicians). The Congressman thus proposes and intends to introduce legislation that would levy a “surtax”, a war tax, on existing tax liability for all, except a few military-related cases, in order to pay down future Iraq War appropriations. Nice, right?
And there is the rub. The Congressman's underlying assumption is that, right or wrong on Iraq policy, we are all in this together, rich or poor, although the effect of the burden of his bill would presumably fall heaviest on the rich. But the hell with that notion. It it is a non-starter. In this increasingly class-bound society we are not all in this together. Not by a long shot. That is the fundamental liberal fallacy and goes a long way in explaining why we are in tough straits not just in Iraq but where this country is heading generally.
There is an old expression that cuts to the core of the fallacy on this issue. A rich man’s war, a poor man’s (updated these days to include women) fight. That means the money for it, as well. I am generally distrustful of tax-the-rich schemes as a panacea for the alleviation of social ills (or, as here, to bail out the very government that got into this mess in the first place). Generally, as presented by leftists, these schemes substitute for hard programmatic positions that focus on the need to see that the world has to be turned upside down, in short, the rich must go. So here I kick Congressman McGovern in the shins and call for a No vote on this proposal-with both hands and feet.
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