10 Most Read Articles This Week

This week’s 10 most read articles leads off with Rudy Acuña’s “How Democrats Have Abandoned Their Core,” decrying that party’s propensity for selling out to pressure from the Tea Party, especially around the critical issue  of cultural studies for Mexican-Americans in Arizona and elsewhere throughout the Southwest.

Last week, we ran no “Top 10″ list because our Google machine was on the fritz for part of the previous week, which threw off the results. But really these lists aren’t meant to be a horserace, suggesting that the articles that appear on it are better or more powerful than others published during the week that do not.

Too many variables go into these rankings to make that claim. For one thing, the day of the week we publish an article makes a big difference. Sundays, Mondays, and Wednesdays are the big days for readership; Friday readership is pretty poor, and Saturday is the dog–everyone’s out enjoying the day, participating in a demonstration, enjoying their families, or taking a break.

Also, we can only pick one article to lead off our daily newsletter, giving that one special prominence — including the email’s subject line — which gives it a special boost. Again, we don’t necessarily pick the “best” article to head up the newsletter — the one we most enjoyed reading, lightly copyediting, and posting — but rather go with the one that will interest the most potential readers.

So why publish these Top 10 lists? We typically publish 35 articles a week (in part, so we can have five articles to fill each day’s newsletter). Those articles go by pretty fast and we know many people are too busy to check in everyday. Putting the 10 Most Read articles before you each week gives you a second chance to catch an article, guided by what your fellow readers have accessed most heavily.

We would enjoy any feedback you might have on these Top 10 lists or any other aspect of LA Progressive.

Cheers,

Dick Price & Sharon Kyle
Editor & Publisher, LA Progressive

10 Most Read Articles
28 April to 5 May, 2012

1. How Democrats Have Abandoned Their Core. Rudy Acuña: The strategy of the DNC has been to support Blue Dog Democrats who have sold out on the issues of the economy, immigration, and the struggle to save Mexican American Studies in Tucson. In the process, racism has become constitutional in Arizona.

2. Roots of LA’s 1992 Uprising. Javier Gonzalez: For me, the real question was why are there so many poor and hungry people who feel so targeted and so left out in a county that is consistently America’s number one home for millionaires? Roots of LA’s 1992 Uprising is a post from: LA Progressive.

3. Right-Wing Propaganda: False Equivalents. Steve Hochstadt: These two conservative propagandists know that the average reader, especially those who want to believe conservative ideas, won’t or can’t follow the trail backwards from their misleading writings to the real facts. They don’t seek truth, they obscure it.

4. High School Students Protesting Corporate Education Reform. Mark Naison: It is one thing to subject yourself to prison-like conditions and militarized discipline if the result is escape from poverty and a ticket to the good life. But what if neither of those result from all this sacrifice?

5. Is Obama Missing Olympia Snowe’s Point? Bob Letcher: How can Senator Snowe’s “point” cause enough of a problem to lead her to give up her seat, and at the same time not be counted as an “issue” at President Obama’s re-election website?

6. SB 1070, Obama Wins Either Way. Victoria Defrancesco Soto: If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Arizona, then the President wins by harnessing the Latino electorate’s frustration and firing them up even more to get to the polls in November.

7. The GOP’s Death Wish. Robert Reich: How can a political party be so dumb as to piss off Hispanics, women, and young people? Because the core of its base is middle-aged white men.

8. Activists Breathe New Life Into May Day. Peter Dreier: This year, in the wake of Occupy Wall Street and the rebirth of a national movement for social justice, a wide spectrum of activist groups will be out in the streets to give voice to the growing crusade for democracy and equality.

9. Working Smarter to Save Workers’ Lives. Diane Lefer: Employment-related death, disability, and illness exact a high toll not only on workers and their families, but on business and the economy as a whole.

10. The Small Government Fallacy. Charles Hayes: American history shows beyond a doubt that our health as a nation is dependent in large part on a vibrant middle class. Extreme inequality severely weakens our economic foundation.