We Fight Low Information
t’s an old saw that the Vietnam War was ended not by protests on college campuses, as dramatic as they were, nor when the political elites in the nation’s capital stopped playing with dominoes. Rather, it was only when the war’s relentless horror and pointlessness became the main topic of conversation at Rudy and June’s [...]
Randy Shaw: You know that Occupy Wall Street and its local, national and international progeny have reached a level of success when everyone is offering advice. Unfortunately, the most commonly offered view – that activists must get specific about their demands – is entirely wrong.
Randy Shaw: A surprising shift has occurred in mainstream attitudes toward the openly anti-corporate Occupy movement: after first ignoring and then downplaying the effort, skepticism has given way to praise.
Randy Shaw: The greatest lesson of Occupy Wall Street is hard to dispute: many have not given up hopes for real progressive change, and are now more likely to focus outside the electoral process.
Randy Shaw: After years of teachers union bashing and corporate-led school “reform” efforts, anti-public school forces are now on the defensive. And the main reason is that the statistical measurements do not support their arguments, and even show a pattern of falsification.
Randy Shaw: A progressive coalition that claims to be “Bigger than the Tea Party” must hold Democrats accountable as effectively as conservatives do for Republicans .
Randy Shaw: Brown’s alignment with wealthy growers against indigent workers picking crops in the fields surely has Chavez turning over in his grave, and shows that the Governor views the UFW as just another group he is willing to betray.
Randy Shaw: When Democrats aggressively push their own agendas, they put Republicans rather than themselves on the defensive.
Randy Shaw: The Obama Administration honored Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday on February 6 by proposing steep cuts to two of the leading programs for the urban poor: community service grants and community development block grants (CDBG).
Paul Hogarth: While some may see Jerry Brown’s proposal as a “power grab” by the state that tells local governments how to spend their money, the truth is that it can prevent some devastating budget cuts that have been afflicting localities for years.
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.
Randy Shaw: An Obama Administration that routinely caves in to Wall Street, the military industrial complex, and other powerful interest certainly has no appetite for a battle with the NRA.
Randy Shaw: Nobody in San Francisco is doing more to empower and engage the disenfranchised than David Ho, which is why he is our local unsung activist hero for 2010.
Randy Shaw: The base supporting greater social and economic justice is still there to be mobilized, and activists can still tap the “Si Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”) spirit to succeed.
Randy Shaw: Brown’s history shows that he likes to shake things up soon after taking office, and he now has the perfect opportunity. The public desperately wants a solution to California’s longstanding budget crisis, and Brown’s political capital is as high as it will ever be following an election where Democrats won every statewide race and maintained all their Congressional seats.
Commentary by Mike Price, Ed Rampell, Randy Shaw, Bill Meyer, and Sherwood Ross.
Randy Shaw: As the nation asks hard questions about PG&E’s funding priorities in the wake of the San Bruno pipeline explosion, the controversial corporation has a new question to answer. Specifically, why did it spend the money to fly execs down for a golfing junket in San Luis Obispo when there was no shortage of Bay Area locations for off-site meetings?
Randy Shaw: Here’s a thought. What if the progressive media stopped reporting on every silly idea promoted by Sarah Palin and used that time to report on positive actions by the federal government to help people. I get emailed press releases announcing such accomplishments each day, so the stories are out there but are not covered.
Randy Shaw: Those who grew up pre-Internet love the feel of a newspaper in their hands, and many cannot imagine reading a book on a computer screen. But what’s become known as the Millennial Generation, those who knew computers before they could read, do not have loyalty to the printed page.
Articles by Robert Reich, Anthony Samad, Walter M. Basch, Ron Wolff, Randy Shaw, Ted Vaill, Randy Shaw, Steve Hochstadt, Gary Corseri, Georgianne Nienaber, Tina Dupuy, Sharon Kyle, Seth Hoy, Marian Wang, Ivan Eland, Jasmyne Cannick, Howard Roth, Katherine Smith, Michael Sigman, John Summers, Denis Campbell, Norman Solomon, Peter Dreier, Diane Lefer, Andrea Nill, Joseph Palermo, Jim Fuller, Gautam Dutta, Wais Hassan, and Aqeela Sherrills
Randy Shaw: But progressives believe the public supports more progressive stands (e.g. polls showed strong support for the public option that Obama abandoned), leaving Democrats to fend off charges that they talk about serving the public good but instead serve corporate interests inimical to the public welfare.
Randy Shaw: The Republican Party and Democratic so-called “deficit hawks” attack any proposed defense cuts as “job killers.” Yet this alliance refused to save the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers, and have backed tax and spending policies that have cost the nation millions of jobs in recent years.
Randy Shaw: It’s clear that MLB fears that formally recognizing its proliferation of Spanish-speaking players by providing interpreters could cause a backlash from a predominately white male fan base that likely supports Arizona’s anti-Latino law.
Articles by Rev. Irene Monroe, Randy Shaw, Georgianne Nienaber, John Delloro, Ed Rampell, Noman Solomon, Paul Hogarth, Paul Loeb, Ivan Eland, Jim Fuller, Carl Matthes, Andrea Christina Nill, Tom Hall, Charley James and Lulu Demaine, Berry Craig, Tom Degan, Robert Reich, Carl Bloice, Tracy Emblem, Tina Dupuy, Jeffrey Blankfort, Anthony Samad, Michael Sigman, and Johnny Townsend
Randy Shaw: After President Bill Clinton signed legislation in 1996 “ending welfare as we know it,” many highlighted this “common sense” solution and criticized progressives for opposing the bill. Soon after passage, politicians and the media said it had not caused the downsides that activists had predicted, ignoring that the law had not been fully implemented. But troubling reports soon emerged.
JP Sotille: Like so many of the so-called “Left” in America, Maher has basically accepted the key notion that a whole population of like-minded people have decided to kill Americans because of an irrational religious belief system.
Ivan Eland: Less scrupulous Republicans, such as McCain and Graham, should realize that their line of attack on Benghazi is not strong–Americans don’t usually vote on foreign policy unless a huge catastrophe has occurred.
By purchasing and dedicating commemorative bricks, Americans everywhere will be helping Advantage US Vets establish the Roots & Sprouts Farmstead as a not-for-profit workplace which will directly hire jobless honorably discharged veterans.
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Public Universities Join Attack on Progressive Activism
Randy Shaw: Just as Governor Walker is making headlines by attacking a liberal institution in a traditionally liberal state (you would not likely see nationwide protests over attacks on workers in Alabama or Georgia), school administrators in progressive cities like Santa Cruz and Santa Monica are also attacking progressive student activism.
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