How Will the Open Primary Change Things for California Voters? Can a teacher win an election when career politicians oppose her? Will progressive voters show up and the power of big money?
The “Other As Enemy” Is Enemy to Democracy
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Charles Hayes: Keen shows how utterly easy it is to alienate one’s imagined opposition in such a way as to justify any and every means of obliterating them.
The LA Progressive Attacked!!
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Sharon Kyle: This morning the LA Progressive was attacked. We were down for several hours. BeyondChron and Truthout were also attacked this week. As a result, both of these sites experienced considerable down time as well. Read more to find out who is doing this and what we can do.
Yes on H: Keep Special Interests at Bay
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Anjuli Kronheim: All politics is local and we believe that if, not when, Los Angeles succeeds in passing Measure H, we will send an important message that we are taking back our democracy.
Report from an Unclear Front
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Bob Letcher: In the face of last year’s healthcare reform efforts, opponents screamed the inherently violent and hardly constructive “Kill the bill”; now, it’s opponents of reducing collective bargaining rights for public employees who are screaming the still inherently violent and hardly constructive “Kill the bill”.
Will Revolution Succeed in Egypt?
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Steve Hochstadt: Little depends on what we in the U.S. do. Our best bet is to offer support to democratic institutions, no matter who the likely winner of a free vote might be.
The End of America’s Middle East Empire
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As we’ve watched the dramatic events in the Middle East, you would hardly know that we had a thing to do with them. Oh yes, in the name of its War on Terror, Washington had for years backed most of the thuggish governments now under siege or anxious that they may be next in line [...]
The Rally to Uncloak the Koch Brothers
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The rally to voice discontent with the corporate control of America, specifically, the influence of the Koch brothers and their billionaire buddies begins today. Beginning at 11:00am PST / 2:00pm EST today (Sunday, Jan. 30), you can tune in to Common Cause to watch the panel discussion
How Redevelopment Agencies Subvert Democracy
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Randy Shaw: As mayors, developers and Agency staff try to fend off Governor Brown’s proposed transfer of redevelopment funds to local governments – earning far more media coverage than cuts to programs serving more vulnerable Californians – little has been said about the fundamentally undemocratic nature of redevelopment agencies.
Lynne Stewart Update
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For more than thirty years she represented controversial, and often unpopular defendants. Because of work she did in providing legal council to one of her clients she was charged with conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists.
The Internet Changes Nothing
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Marshall Poe: In the end, the message is the message, and the message transmitted over virtually all modern media, the Internet included, is this: buy something. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way things are in our world. It’s time to face it—the Internet changes nothing.
Athens, Birthplace of Democracy
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Steven Hill: While democracy can be noisy and messy, and can sometimes result in confusion and inefficiency, if implemented fairly with the right institutions the human experience shows that it is capable of fostering remarkable things.
Democracy Loses to War in Canada
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Tom Hayden: While it is significant that Canada will end its combat role in Afghanistan next year [unlike the U.S. commitment until 2014], it is disheartening that both the Conservative and Liberal parties have agreed to stay in a “training” role indefinitely
New START Is Worthy, but Let’s Not Violate the Constitution to Save It
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Ivan Eland: Denying Obama a victory—even if it’s good for the country—is very irresponsible. And on balance, the New START Treaty is good for the country.
Amazing Germany’s Declining Unemployment: How Do They Do It?
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Steve Hill: the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel not only pursued different economic policies than the Obama administration, but Germany also has a greater degree of economic democracy than the U.S.
Post-Election Day Immigration Fallout
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Andrea Christina Nill: While many Democrats are lamenting post-Election Day results, immigration advocates are breathing a small sigh of relief. The general sentiment seems to be that things are bad, but they could’ve been much worse. But the immigrants rights movement also took some big hits last night. . .
The Real Center of American Politics: A Reflection on Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert
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Robert Reich: In other words, the political center isn’t about what we decide It’s about how we decide. The center American democracy is a commitment vigorous debate, done honestly and civilly.
Suppose Your Actions Swung the Election
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Paul Loeb: Suppose the phone calls you made, money you donated, doors you knocked on, and conversations you initiated helped swing a critically close race, or two or three.
The Perfect Storm
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Robert Reich: The perfect storm: An unprecedented concentration of income and wealth at the top; a record amount of secret money flooding our democracy; and a public becoming increasingly angry and cynical about a government that’s raising its taxes, reducing its services, and unable to get it back to work.
Review of Dave Eggers’s “Zeitoun”
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Jim Cullen: Zeitoun is revealing less in what it shows about those awful days in August and September of 2005 than as a lightning-illuminated snapshot of the ongoing decay of an egalitarian American democracy.
Rebooting California
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Diane Lefer: Why does it matter? This year, once again, California not only failed to pass a budget by the deadline but delayed it longer than at any other time in our history, causing chaos and hardship for vendors, employees, and municipalities while harming our credit with rating agencies and raising the interest we pay.
Will The Public Ever Get Energized About Net Neutrality?
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Sylvia Moore: As if the Supreme Court’s enthusiastic approval of oligarchy wasn’t enough, we’re facing another one of the biggest threats to free speech and democracy – corporate control of the Web.
Where to Go from Here on Voter-Owned Elections
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Wayne Williams: With Voter Owned, Auditable, Transparent and Verifiable Elections, voters will come out in larger numbers as they have more confidence in their government. More viable candidates of all races and genders will run for office, and most likely the cost of elections will go down because the public will be more educated, involved and aware.
Big Media At It Again: Broadcasters Want FCC to Let Them Own Even More
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Sylvia Moore: As if the proposed Comcast/NBC Universal merger just wasn’t enough, the nation’s big broadcasters are strapping on the feed bag, ready to engorge themselves with more tasty snacks of the public’s television and radio airwaves.
Did Greedy Homeowners Cause the Big Crash?
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Steve Hochstadt: We grredy American homeowners appear as co-conspirators in many judgments about what caused the great recession. In these interpretations, many of us were greedy for wanting bigger homes than we deserved, foolish to have then bought larger houses than we could afford, and stupid for agreeing to the low-interest/low-payment scams of mortgage sellers.
Friday Feedback: Terrorist Threats Not “Free Speech”
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Friday Feedback: When Sarah Palin tells her fans to “reload,” when she uses rifle scopes to depict pictorially her political enemies, when her rhetoric in Tea Bag rallies is filled with gun/violence imagery, one needn’t wonder for too long if this might have an effect in encouraging an extremist or two to shoot the man the majority of us voted into office. You don’t have to have a psychology degree to know the power of mob “groupthink” and how it can easily spur people to violence. History and research prove the deadly effectiveness of such “mob psychology.”
Our Incredible Shrinking Democracy
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Robert Reich: It seems as if more and more decisions that should be made democratically are being shunted off somewhere to a few people who make them in back rooms. Which programs should be cut, which entitlements pared back, and what taxes raised in order to reduce the long-term budget deficit? Hmmm. Let’s convene a commission and have them decide.
2010 Media Summit: Call for Participation
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If you are as concerned that our democracy is being usurped by today’s media, that communities are being harmed by the absence of local issues covered by mainstream media, and that diverse groups lack access to the media, now is the time to act!
PCL offers monthly Open House Events on the 2nd Saturday at 2pm and 3rd Thursday at 6pm. Click here to learn more.
Being Right or Being Good
Steve Hochstadt: The ability to offer anonymous and uncensored opinions to the world, that is now offered for free by the internet, has greatly increased the forcefulness with which more and more people assert their superior knowledge and everyone else’s confusion.