Social Justice Magazine
Shamus Cooke: Most Occupiers have learned that raw enthusiasm alone cannot bring victory to a social movement; ideas matter too. Action divorced from strategy equals wasted energy, divisiveness, diversions and unnecessary mistakes. Not all tactics push the movement forward.
Wednesday night’s packed Town Hall at the Robert A. Millikan Middle School auditorium in Sherman Oaks (January 4, 2012) to meet Congressman Howard Berman (D), the San Fernando Valley’s longest serving representative, was an informative and low-key affair about a good number of hot-button issues, punctuated by occasional but persistent outbursts from . . . [...]
Robert Reich: Not a day goes by without Republicans decrying the budget deficit. But the biggest single reason for the yawning deficit is big money’s corruption of Washington.
Joseph Palermo: Despite the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq, during this dismal period of “austerity” the public isn’t likely to see any discernible difference in the government’s misplaced priorities.
Shamus Cooke: For Occupy to grow into a democratic revolutionary movement, the working majority of the population must join in, requiring that Occupy broadcast a message based on concrete working-class demands.
Steve Hochstadt: The calls to flatten the income tax, to eliminate welfare payments, and to repeal regulation of industry are about going back to an earlier America, where the rich and powerful could use their advantages without hindrance.
Vivian Rothstein: According to the American Association of Retired People (AARP), a frightening 35 percent of Americans over 65 currently rely only on Social Security (an average person gets benefits of $14,000/year) to survive.
Randy Shaw: I expect many Occupy supporters to spend time from Labor Day to Election Day in 2012 on statewide initiatives seeking to raise taxes on the 1% in order to fund schools and other vital needs.
Friday Feedback: This week, John comments on “Real Social Security: A Just Distribution of Wealth” by Charles Hayes.
Carl Bloice: Several Democrats said during the day that the presentation had the support of a majority of the six Democrats on the panel, leaving the impression that at least one, and possibly two, of the party’s lawmakers had not signed on — possibly Becerra and Clyburn.
Charles Hayes: When I hear senate candidate Elizabeth Warren explain to an audience that no one makes a fortune in America all on their own, I can’t help but wonder why it has taken so long for this argument to surface.
Robert Reich: Occupiers and others have had enough.
Yet paradoxically the presidential race that officially begins a few months from now is likely to be as passionless as they come.
Randy Shaw: If President Obama and fellow Democrats agree to a deficit reduction deal that cuts Medicare, Social Security, and other programs serving the 99%, expect an electoral calamity for Democrats in 2012.
Alan Grayson, the former congressional representative whose speech on the House Floor went viral on YouTube, because he spoke truth, needs your help. After telling the raw truth about healthcare reform, Grayson lost his seat. But Saturday, 12 November, 2 p.m. we can help change that.Grayson famously said that Wall Street controls our economic policy, Big Oil controls our energy policy, and the military-industrial complex controls our foreign policy.
Carl Bloice: Greed is rampant, poverty and economic inequality are growing relentlessly in our country and our political system is ever increasingly corrupted by money. The system is in trouble.
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