YoungDemCA
YoungDemCA's JournalSome people here act like Obama ran on a radical left-wing platform
If anything, he was at least as mainstream/centrist as Hillary Clinton was in 2008, if not more so. The only real difference was his opposition to the Iraq War, and even that's overblown when you consider that he was very hawkish on Afghanistan during the campaign-and furthermore, Clinton backtracked on her initial support of the Iraq War during the campaign regardless.
I had thought that only Tea Party types were foolish enough to think Obama was ever going to be radical or even left-wing in a meaningful sense, but I guess I was wrong. No left-winger will become the President of the United States under the current system. We may as well be realistic about this. Don't make Obama into something he's not.
Politicians are never 100% like their campaign makes them out to be, and a lot of what attracted a wide variety of Americans about Obama on was an overall philosophy of governance rather than "I will do specifically X, Y, and Z while in office." Americans in 2008 were also sick of not just the Bush Administration and their Republican allies, but Washington insiders more generally, like McCain and Clinton; and Obama successfully painted himself as a (relative) outsider.
The Three Most Important Questions You Can Ask Your Teenager (HuffPo)
"A large-scale survey found self-reports of emotional well being have fallen to the lowest levels in 25 year study... fifty percent of college students report feelings of hopelessness; one-third reported feeling so depressed that it was difficult to function in the last twelve months ... They are stressed-out, over-pressured; (they exhibit) toxic levels of fear, anxiety, depression, emptiness, aimlessness, and isolation.p. 8)"
Deresiewicz claims that this generation of highly accomplished, college-bound students have been robbed of their independence because they have been raised in a petri dish for one purpose only: to attend an elite college that ensures their and their families' economic and social status. Instead of being nurtured towards real curiosity and a genuine sense of citizenship, these millennials are conditioned to think that everything they do is for the purpose of looking good in the eyes of admissions officers and employers: you earn good grades not because they mean you are learning something, but rather because they will help you stand out from your peers when applying to the Ivies. You engage in community service not because you wish genuinely to make a positive difference in the lives of others but rather because that is how you burnish your resume -- service as check-off box. You play sports not because they build character and teamwork and are a whole lot of fun, but because you want to try to get recruited for a college team. You study art or music not because you wish to refine your understanding of human nature, creativity and culture but because it will help you look smarter.
There is little intrinsic value in what you do. The result: Many college students who fall apart under pressure because they cannot conceive of the fact that hard work and learning are positive outcomes in and of themselves. They have no sense of who they are or what is important in their lives. They have spent so much time trying to look good that they do not know what "The Good" (consider Plato here) really is. They are walking ghosts of seeming, not of being.
snip:
Who tells us who we are?
Where do we want to go with our lives?
How do we want to get there?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-mulligan/the-three-most-important-questions-you-can-ask-your-teenager_b_6173822.html
I always have found it curious that some of the most vocal American "supporters" of Israel...
...are extreme right-wing white Protestant Christians.
To put it bluntly: people who fit that demographic profile were the backbone of the KKK (which, as you likely know, was extremely anti-Semitic and ant-Catholic besides being racist and xenophobic-not that those were mutually exclusive positions to hold, of course) in the 1920s-which had five million members and elected officials from both major parties throughout the country (not just in the South).
I guess issues of race, ethnicity, and class, along with the question of when your ancestors immigrated vs. who the immigrants are today (and what their racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic identities are perceived to be by the established dominant white American culture) shift the ideological priorities of the Right-to say nothing of how these issues complicate what it means to be an "American!", which is whole 'nother can of worms.
Undoubtedly it has something to do with right-wing evangelical Christianity's view of the "End Times", but to reduce it to a simple religious explanation without taking into considerations the *related* factors of race, ethnicity, immigration status, and class-and how they relate to changes in American foreign policy, particularly since 9/11-may obscure more than that illuminates.
The British settlers who founded this nation acted far, far worse than anything Israel's done
Their treatment of the native/indigenous populations of this continent essentially amounted to genocide, in practice-to say nothing of the uniquely evil "peculiar institution" of chattel slavery.
Yet no one seriously questions America's right to exist.
The Day the Purpose of College Changed
High taxes threatened "economic ruin," said the newly elected Ronald Reagan. Welfare stood to be curbed, the highway patrol had fat to trim. Everything would be pared down; he’d start with his own office.
California still boasted a system of public higher education that was the envy of the world. And on February 28, 1967, a month into his term, the Republican governor assured people that he wouldn't do anything to harm it. "But," he added, "we do believe that there are certain intellectual luxuries that perhaps we could do without," for a little while at least.
Governor," a reporter asked, "what is an intellectual luxury?"
Reagan described a four-credit course at the University of California at Davis on organizing demonstrations. "I figure that carrying a picket sign is sort of like, oh, a lot of things you pick up naturally," he said, "like learning how to swim by falling off the end of a dock."
Whole academic programs in California and across the country he found similarly suspect. Taxpayers, he said, shouldn't be "subsidizing intellectual curiosity."
snip:
Still, there were dissenters, Michael S. Roth notes in Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters. Benjamin Franklin mocked liberal education for focusing on the frivolous accouterments of privilege. Harvard College’s students "learn little more than how to carry themselves handsomely and enter a room genteelly," Franklin wrote. When they graduated, they remained "great blockheads as ever, only more proud and self-conceited."
snip:
The new governor didn’t spend time talking about the tension between Jefferson’s and Franklin’s visions. There was little political payoff in nuance. Reagan, one of his campaign aides told The New York Times in 1970, doesn’t operate in shades of gray: "He lays it out there."
snip:
That year students were most likely to major in business. The discipline’s rise seemed inexorable. In the 1930s, around the time Reagan went to college, about 8 percent of students studied in "business and commerce." When he was elected governor, that share was 12 percent. By the time he moved into the White House, more students majored in business than anything else. It’s held that top spot ever since. In the early 80s, most freshmen said they’d chosen their college because they thought it would help them get a better job. The previous top reason? Learning more about things that interested them.
It was a rational response to changing federal policy. Under the Reagan administration, the maximum Pell Grant decreased by about a quarter. Student loans became a more common way to pay for college, even as the president made their interest payments ineligible for tax deductions. As student debt rose, so did the urgency of earning a living after graduation.
Free-market ideas permeated higher education. "The curriculum has given way to a marketplace philosophy," wrote the authors of "Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to the Academic Community," commissioned by the AAC in 1985. "It is a supermarket where students are shoppers and professors are merchants of learning."
snip:
When politicians mock particular disciplines, it doesn’t exactly bolster popular opinion of liberal education. "If you want to take gender studies, that’s fine, go to a private school," Pat McCrory, the Republican governor of North Carolina, said on a radio show a couple of years ago. "I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job." In other words, it’s an intellectual luxury.
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Day-the-Purpose-of-College/151359?cid=megamenu
Republicans in both houses of Congress introduce Orwellian "Working Families Flexibility Act"
The bill:
-Gives private-sector employers the ability to offer their employees the option of comp time or overtime pay, both accrued at 11Ž2
times the overtime hours worked. Federal, State & local governments are currently allowed to offer comp time to their employees, but private-sector employers are banned from doing so by federal law.
-Requires employers who decide to offer this option to their employees to establish a written agreement with the employee outlining the options and to allow each employee to voluntarily choose the option that best fits his needs.
-Requires that comp time agreements be included in the collective bargaining agreement negotiated between the union and the employer for any employee represented by a union.
-Allows employees who choose to accrue comp time to accrue up to 160 hours each year.'
-Allows employees to “cash out” their accrued comp time at the traditional overtime pay rate at any time throughout the year.
-Maintains all existing employee protections, including the current 40-hour workweek and overtime accrual, and provides additional safeguards to ensure that the choice to use comp time is voluntary.
-Requires employers to pay employees at the traditional overtime rate for any unused comp time at the end of each calendar year.
-Ends the unfair discrimination against private-sector employees
-Enables parents to better balance work and family obligations
-Frees all workers to choose which commodity – time or money – is the more important resource at a given time
-Lessens the burden of unnecessary federal regulation
http://www.lanereport.com/43752/2015/01/sen-mcconnell-introduces-working-family-flexibility-act/
Doing some quick research, I found that this is not the first time that the Republicans in Congress have introduced this bill.
From April 2013:
What’s worse?The bill ends ”time-and-a-half” overtime pay for hourly and non-exempt workers as we know it, giving renewed incentive for businesses to work their employees as long as they want with near impunity.
In other words, the bill does the opposite of what House Republicans say it will.
snip:
With “comp time,” employers are encouraged to do the opposite. Making overtime less expensive to employers means more workers being scheduled for 50 or 60-hour shifts. Which means less time with your family – not more.
“Comp time” encourages mandatory overtime – and ends overtime pay as we know it. Instead of time-and-a-half pay for hours worked past 40, workers would get “comp time,” hours of time off to be taken later. Employers benefit because they don’t have to pay overtime, plus, they can have you use your comp time in a way that won’t cost them extra (during less busy periods, etc.).
According to the bill, individual employees have the “choice” between comp time or overtime pay. Since comp time saves the employer money, what is stopping them from inducing workers, subtly or not, into choosing comp time? They could give the “comp time” workers better shifts and better treatment, and they could even train workers not to take the overtime options – in the same way that Target and other stores train workers not to join unions.
Don’t be fooled: this is a pay cut. Again, having hours off “at some point” sounds nice. But overall, workers’ take home pay will go down, because that supplemental income you would’ve had from working overtime will disappear. Besides, depending on your schedule, you could get to December 31 without having the chance to use your accrued comp time, at which point you are left with no time off and no extra pay.
More here: http://blog.workingamerica.org/2013/04/26/7-things-you-should-know-about-comp-time-and-the-working-families-flexibility-act/
Gotta hand it to the Republicans...they certainly know how to make draconian right-wing policies sound great! "Working Families Flexibility?" Who could object to a title like that? Well, if it sounds too good to be true....it probably is.
K&R. Powerful and poignant message.
And (white) people-and I admit upfront that I am white-still wonder why African-Americans are often deeply suspicious of police officers and the criminal justice system in general.
Well, imagine if it was your child who was always on the receiving end of suspicion, judgement, harassment, bullying, and other forms of abuse and dehumanization-all because of the color of his or her skin. Imagine if every encounter your child had with a police officer was potentially fatal to your child-again, all because of your child's appearance.
Now imagine that you and your children were still expected-not just that, but legally obligated-by the society and country you live in to fully, 100% comply with those same people at all times: the bullies, the abusers, and the suspicious racists.
"To protect and serve." That is the stated purpose of police in this country. Yet, African-Americans and other people of color often feel that the real purpose of the police is to "protect" white America from African-Americans and other people of color.
What does "run on the issues" mean, exactly?
Far as I can tell, most Democrats are progressive nowadays. Most elected Democrats vote for Democratic proposals and against Republican ones. Sure there are exceptions, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.
A lot of people on DU and elsewhere seem to assume that everyone deep-down agrees with them, or thinks like them. But the liberal/progressive left-wing blogosphere is far more issue-oriented and attentive to the finer details of politics than the vast majority of Americans are.
I suspect that much of the American electorate is more religious/Christian (and socially/culturally conservative), less educated, more blue-collar working-class (or broadly middle class), more rural/suburban, less attentive to the issues, and generally much more suspicious of the left wing of the Democratic Party. Those are among the voters we have been hemorrhaging in recent years. Consequently, we need to do better with these demographics (among others) if we are to expand our party. This fantasy of a vast left-wing majority is just that-a fantasy.
The Secret History of the GOP's New Abortion Ban
Fascinating article from Mother Jones. Some excerpts below:
snip:
Yet proponents of banning abortion at 20 weeks insist that there are cases of infants born that early who survive. It's true that since Roe, medical advances have enabled a tiny, yet unknown, number of preterm infants to be born in the middle of the second trimester. But almost none survive. One study found that 85 percent of infants born 20 weeks after fertilization die within 12 hours. Another study found that 98 percent are born with major health issues such as brain hemorrhaging; 93 percent die within a year. The University of California-San Francisco Medical Center states that no infants born earlier than 21 weeks have survived.
Anti-abortion rights groups such as Americans United for Life, which authored several states' 20-week bans, deny that they are targeting Roe's viability rule. Instead, they focus on 20 weeks postfertilization because, they claim, it's the point at which fetuses experience pain. "Many of them cry and scream as they die," Franks says. But the scientific consensus roundly rejects this idea: For one, the relay path between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex—the connection that allows the brain to recognize pain—is not fully developed for another six weeks. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that the developmental milestones at 20 weeks—namely, the appearance of hair—are no more significant than those coming before or after.
The importance of 20 weeks also has its roots in medical beliefs that date back to colonial times. For centuries, it was commonly believed that a woman wasn't actually pregnant until she could feel the fetus moving inside her. Most states permitted a woman to use potions or instruments to terminate her pregnancy up to the moment of "quickening," which usually takes place between the 15th and 20th week of pregnancy. By the mid-1800s, most states banned all abortions, but the significance of quickening stuck in the popular imagination. When states began to liberalize their abortion statutes in the 1960s, the typical cutoff was the 20th week of gestation, as in the 1967 California law permitting some abortions signed by Gov. Ronald Reagan.
snip:
"All of these different tactics, all of these different theoretical persuasions, they're all linked," says Adams. "The original 20-week bans, or efforts to pass those bans, were predicated not on the notion that a fetus was pain-capable but the desire to make abortions as difficult to procure—and ultimately impossible to procure—as possible." The ultimate goal wasn't to simply erode Roe but to explode it.
snip:
Abortion opponents have used this information to suggest that women who have late abortions are irresponsible. "It's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of late-term abortions are performed on healthy mothers, on healthy babies," says Maureen Ferguson, a senior policy adviser for the conservative Catholic Association. Her group has called these abortions "inhumane.""People don't like the idea of late abortions," Pollitt says. "It's hard to mobilize sympathy for that." The proposed ban, she continues, will appeal to "people who don't know anything about what women go through to get an abortion."
Yet the women who have been most vocal in opposing these bans are those who ended wanted pregnancies for health reasons or because of fetal anomalies. That's one reason why the current House bill could rekindle the idea that Republicans are waging a "war on women." Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who works out of California, notes that the GOP's anti-abortion antics have fired up younger female voters about an issue that was once an afterthought for many. Perhaps anticipating this, the Republicans are planning to dispatch mostly female lawmakers to debate the bill on the House floor, Politico reports.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/republican-abortion-ban-20-weeks
Well said. The role of the President in the American system is conservative (small "c") by design
Expecting that to change any time soon is fantasy. At best, reforms that emanate from the President and/or from Congress are piecemeal and incremental, designed to head off social unrest and dramatic change rather than promote it.
And it's always been that way.
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