This short commentary, from my Facebook feed, says it all ~ ~ Sooz

From my Facebook feed ~ another stellar commentary! ~ Sooz

Robert Reich on Facebook;


New York Times columnist Paul Krugman yesterday warned Bernie supporters that change doesn’t happen with “transformative rhetoric” but with “political pragmatism” -- “accepting half loaves as being better than none.” He writes that it's dangerous to prefer “happy dreams (by which he means Bernie) to hard thinking about means and ends (meaning Hillary).”

Krugman doesn't get it. I’ve been in and around Washington for almost fifty years, including a stint in the cabinet, and I’ve learned that real change happens only when a substantial share of the American public is mobilized, organized, energized, and determined to make it happen. This requires a movement that keeps pushing -- sometimes for years and often beyond an individual election. Which is how we got labor rights, women’s suffrage, civil rights, Medicare and Medicaid, environmental protection, reproductive rights, and equal marriage rights.

Political “pragmatism” may require accepting “half loaves” – but the full loaf has to be large and bold enough in the first place to make the half loaf meaningful. That’s why the movement must aim high – toward a single-payer universal health, free public higher education, and busting up the biggest banks, for example.

But not even a half loaf is possible unless or until we wrest back power from the executives of large corporations, Wall Street bankers, and billionaires who now control the whole bakery. Which means getting big money out of politics and severing the link between wealth and political power -- the central goal of the movement Bernie is advancing.

What do you think?

At the risk of pissing a few people off, Hillary is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

The sentence that resonates loudest with me in the above commentary John posted is "Political 'pragmatism' may require accepting 'half loaves' – but the full loaf has to be large and bold enough in the first place to make the half loaf meaningful."

I deeply agree with and strongly support getting BIG $$$ out of politics ~ or, at a minimum, requiring full disclosure ... with significant penalties for non-compliance and with NO exceptions ~

Sooz

That is likely true, oskar ~ but no one [NO ONE!] can do everything on her/his own ~ she/he needs a super majority in both houses of Congress to get meaningful reform in place ~ and I personally don't see how that can be accomplished just by floating big ideas without having that super majority lined up ~

Sooz

Which is why the focus needs to be on Congress... yet the MSM almost completely ignores that.

I agree with you, Oskar.

Hillary is too entrenched in the current system. She knows how to use it and benefit from it, which is as you say is 'part of the problem'.

EXACTLY!!! ~ it's almost impossible to prioritize where to even start ~

Sooz

Furthermore, Hillary's approach is what has led to the current mess. Too many inches (compromises) have been ceded to the corporatists too many times over the past 50 years or so.

It all comes down to "the people".

Indeed. And Bernie's main focus should be getting voters off their butts.

I think he's doing an excellent job of that, oskar ~ at least now, in the early going ~

Bernie has succeeded in forcing the media to recognize he's a REAL challenger ~ what's going to matter BIG TIME very soon is whether he can translate the excitement he's creating into votes nation-wide ~ that takes smooth/seamless organization, which is something Hillary has more experience with ~

Sooz

The Bernie campaign is building from the ground up.
The Hillary campaign is directing from the top down.

Considering the point from which each one started I'd say there's no contest as to which campaign has, so far, been more successful.

The Trudeau Libs basically took the Bernie approach, though there were a few incidents of high-handedness which were quickly slapped down by the "locals".

[b]Would Bernie Sanders be so radical in Canada? Perusing his presidential platform

WASHINGTON [/b]— For an American presidential contender, Bernie Sanders is considered a pretty radical left-winger: a proud socialist who boasts of corporate America hating him, warns of an oligarchy destroying democracy and promises tax hikes to be offset by more generous social programs.

But what if he were Canadian? Where would the senator sit on Canada’s political spectrum — far left, centre-left, centre, or centre-right?



Healthcare
•Single-payer health system.

In Canada: The status quo. Every major Canadian party professes support for universal, government-run medicare — which Sanders sometimes points out.



Taxes
•Income-tax hikes. To pay for his health plan, he proposes a 6.2-per-cent premium on employers, a 2.2-per-cent tax on income. People earning more than $250,000 would get progressively higher increases, topping out at a 13-per-cent hike for incomes above $10 million. Sanders insists employers and taxpayers would come out ahead — by saving on insurance.

In Canada: This would feel familiar. The increases would bring U.S. taxes closer to the northern neighbour’s — perhaps higher in some cases, depending on the state and province, the tax bracket and how much of the employer premium gets passed on to workers.

It’s difficult to draw a sweeping conclusion because every jurisdiction taxes differently, said UBC economist Kevin Milligan. That being said, “(Sanders’ plan) would certainly close the (tax) gap — and potentially quite a bit of the gap (with Canada),” Milligan said.
•Higher estate taxes. In the U.S., inheritance below $5.4 million is federally exempt. Sanders wants the threshold lowered to $3.5 million.

In Canada: Inheritance from a parent is generally subject to capital gains, which redistributes wealth from one generation to the next.



Poverty
•Boost the minimum wage. It’s currently $7.25 federally in the U.S. Sanders wants to make it $15.

In Canada: This would be dramatic too. Even in Canadian dollars, $15 would be almost one-third higher than the highest provincial minimum wage.



Infrastructure
•A major spending boost. Sanders wants $1 trillion for improved roads, bridges and transit over a five-year time frame.

In Canada: This would be a sizeable increase. The Liberals have promised to spend C$125 billion over 10 years. The previous Conservative government spent $33 billion starting in 2007, and had another program underway.



Trade
•Cancel trade deals, notably NAFTA. Sanders has advocated this position for decades.

In Canada: This would leave Sanders to the left of any major party, none of which has proposed NAFTA’s cancellation. Polls have shown mixed feelings about past trade deals among Canadians, but they and their politicians are generally more supportive of them than their American neighbours.



Education
•Free tuition at public colleges.

In Canada: A big change. Canadian postsecondary institutions charge tuition — albeit generally much lower than in the U.S.



Family policy
•Introduce parental leave. The U.S. is the only industrialized country without paid leave for new parents. Sanders wants that changed. He proposes 12 weeks’ paid leave.

In Canada: He’d be slashing a social program. Every Canadian province offers about three times what Sanders is proposing, with some offering up to 52 weeks.
•Create a universal childcare and pre-kindergarten program.

In Canada: This would go farther than just about any Canadian province. Quebec pioneered the $5-a-day public day-care model in the 1990s. Federal parties have since promised to replicate it nationally, without success.



Financial regulation
•Break up the big banks.

In Canada: Not much of an issue. Unlike their U.S. peers, Canada’s big banks weathered the financial crisis without bailouts. Canada has different financial regulations, and also blocked bank mergers under the Chretien-Martin Liberals.
•Cap credit-card interest rates at 15 per cent.

In Canada: There aren’t any such caps on Canadian credit-card rates, although there are different caps on payday loans.



Labour
•Bolster collective bargaining with an Employee Free Choice Act. A key feature would make it easier to form unions. In addition to the current method of voting to certify, Sanders proposes adding a so-called card-check option that would create unions when a sufficient number of workers sign cards.

In Canada: This would restore the previous status quo. Card checks were undone last year by a private member’s bill supported by the then-Conservative government.



Political financing
•Limiting money in politics. Sanders wants more public financing, tighter limits on third-party spending, more disclosure requirements and a constitutional amendment giving politicians the right to regulate campaign spending — overriding recent Supreme Court rulings.

In Canada: It’s complicated. Different courts, different political culture. In some ways, Stephen Harper was more progressive than Sanders on the financing issue. He completely banned corporate and union donations and limited personal donations to $1,500 (2015 limit). On the other hand, Harper did away with public support for parties, which Sanders favours.

By Alexander Panetta

http://montrealgazette.com/news/would-b ... l-platform

From my Facebook feed ~ the numbers [both the rising expenditures and the declining "fully disclosed" expenditures] are staggering ~ I know I'm repeating myself but ... I still see the Citizens United decision as the worst USSC decision in my lifetime ~ the possible/probable USSC appointments are a BIG issue for me this election ~ Sooz

It Takes a Movement to Create Fundamental Change

Real change will take more than politicians cutting deals with monied interests. We need a movement led by the public.

By Robert Reich | February 3, 2016


Teddy Roosevelt in 1915. (Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons)

This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.

“I wish that we could elect a Democratic president who could wave a magic wand and say, ‘We shall do this, and we shall do that,’” Clinton said recently in response to Bernie Sanders’s proposals. “That ain’t the real world we’re living in.”

So what’s possible in “the real world we’re living in?”

There are two dominant views about how presidents accomplish fundamental change.

The first might be called the “deal-maker-in-chief,” by which presidents threaten or buy off powerful opponents.

Barack Obama got the Affordable Care Act this way – gaining the support of the pharmaceutical industry, for example, by promising them far more business and guaranteeing that Medicare wouldn’t use its vast bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices.

But such deals can be expensive to the public (the tab for the pharmaceutical exemption is about $16 billion a year), and they don’t really change the allocation of power. They just allow powerful interests to cash in.

The costs of such deals in “the world we’re living in” are likely to be even higher now. Powerful interests are more powerful than ever thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opening the floodgates to big money.

Which takes us to the second view about how presidents accomplish big things that powerful interests don’t want: by mobilizing the public to demand them and penalize politicians who don’t heed those demands.

Teddy Roosevelt got a progressive income tax, limits on corporate campaign contributions, regulation of foods and drugs and the dissolution of giant trusts – not because he was a great dealmaker but because he added fuel to growing public demands for such changes.

It was at a point in American history similar to our own. Giant corporations and a handful of wealthy people dominated American democracy. The lackeys of the “robber barons” literally placed sacks of cash on the desks of pliant legislators.

The American public was angry and frustrated. Roosevelt channeled that anger and frustration into support of initiatives that altered the structure of power in America. He used the office of the president – his “bully pulpit,” as he called it – to galvanize political action.

Could Hillary Clinton do the same? Could Bernie Sanders?

Clinton fashions her prospective presidency as a continuation of Obama’s. Surely Obama understood the importance of mobilizing the public against the moneyed interests. After all, he had once been a community organizer.

After the 2008 election he even turned his election campaign into a new organization called “Organizing for America” (now dubbed “Organizing for Action”), explicitly designed to harness his grassroots support.

So why did Obama end up relying more on deal-making than public mobilization? Because he thought he needed big money for his 2012 campaign.

Despite OFA’s public claims (in mailings, it promised to secure the “future of the progressive movement”), it morphed into a top-down campaign organization to raise big money.

In the interim, Citizens United had freed “independent” groups like OFA to raise almost unlimited funds, but retained limits on the size of contributions to formal political parties.

That’s the heart of problem. No candidate or president can mobilize the public against the dominance of the moneyed interests while being dependent on their money. And no candidate or president can hope to break the connection between wealth and power without mobilizing the public.

(A personal note: A few years ago OFA wanted to screen around America the movie Jake Kornbluth and I did about widening inequality, called Inequality for All – but only on condition we delete two minutes identifying big Democratic donors. We refused. They wouldn’t show it.)

In short, “the real world we’re living in” right now won’t allow fundamental change of the sort we need. It takes a movement.

Such a movement is at the heart of the Sanders campaign. The passion that’s fueling it isn’t really about Bernie Sanders. Had Elizabeth Warren run, the same passion would be there for her.

It’s about standing up to the moneyed interests and restoring our democracy.

http://billmoyers.com/story/it-takes-a-movement-to-create-fundamental-change/

An inch from endorsing Bernie, I'd say.

While neither has yet "officially endorsed" anyone, both Robert Reich and Elizabeth Warren have been VERY pro-Bernie from the get-go ~

Sooz

The American public was angry and frustrated. Roosevelt channeled that anger and frustration into support of initiatives that altered the structure of power in America. He used the office of the president – his “bully pulpit,” as he called it – to galvanize political action.

Could Hillary Clinton do the same? Could Bernie Sanders?

Could Donald Trump? Could Ted Cruz?

Seems Sanders and Trump have. The others, not so much.
And Trump makes no sense.

It still scares the bejesus out of me that, in polls looking at a national match-up, Rubio, who now will very likely be the nominee, beats Clinton.

That's why I'm not convinced the polls will prove to be accurate. There's a shift in attitude that could very well favour Sanders with the undecided voters.

This excellent commentary is directed "to the Republican Establishment", but it's a safe bet that none of them will read it ~ ~ Sooz

An Open Letter to the Republican Establishment
Sunday, February 28, 2016

You are the captains of American industry, the titans of Wall Street, and the billionaires who for decades have been the backbone of the Republican Party.

You’ve invested your millions in the GOP in order to get lower taxes, wider tax loopholes, bigger subsidies, more generous bailouts, less regulation, lengthier patents and copyrights and stronger market power allowing you to raise prices, weaker unions and bigger trade deals allowing you outsource abroad to reduce wages, easier bankruptcy for you but harder bankruptcy for homeowners and student debtors, and judges who will let you to engage in insider trading and who won’t prosecute you for white-collar crimes.

All of which have made you enormously wealthy. Congratulations.

But I have some disturbing news for you. You’re paying a big price – and about to pay far more.

First, as you may have noticed, most of your companies aren’t growing nearly as fast as they did before the Great Recession. Your sales are sputtering, and your stock prices are fragile.

That’s because you forgot that your workers are also consumers. As you’ve pushed wages downward, you’ve also squeezed your customers so tight they can hardly afford to buy what you have to sell.

Consumer spending comprises 70 percent of the American economy. But the typical family is earning less today than it did in 2000, in terms of real purchasing power.

Most of the economic gains have gone to you and others like you who spend only a small fraction of what they rake in. That spells trouble for the economy – and for you.

You’ve tried to lift your share prices artificially by borrowing money at low interest rates and using it to buy back your shares of stock. But this party trick works only so long. Besides, interest rates are starting to rise.

Second, you’ve instructed your Republican lackeys to reduce your and your corporation’s taxes so much over the last three decades – while expanding subsidies and bailouts going your way – that the government is running out of money.

That means many of the things you and your businesses rely on government to do – build and maintain highways, bridges, tunnels, and other physical infrastructure; produce high-quality basic research; and provide a continuous supply of well-educated young people – are no longer being done as well as they should. If present trends continue, all will worsen in years to come.

Finally, by squeezing wages and rigging the economic game in your favor, you have invited an unprecedented political backlash – against trade, immigration, globalization, and even against the establishment itself.

The pent-up angers and frustrations of millions of Americans who are working harder than ever yet getting nowhere, and who feel more economically insecure than ever, have finally erupted. American politics has become a cesspool of vitriol.

Republican politicians in particular have descended into the muck of bigotry, hatefulness, and lies. They’re splitting America by race, ethnicity, and religion. The moral authority America once had in the world as a beacon of democracy and common sense is in jeopardy. And that’s not good for you, or your businesses.

Nor is the uncertainty all this is generating. A politics based on resentment can lurch in any direction at almost any time. Yet you and your companies rely on political stability and predictability.

You follow me? You’ve hoisted yourself on your own petard. All that money you invested in Republican Party in order to reap short-term gains is now reaping a whirlwind.

You would have done far better with a smaller share of an economy growing more rapidly because it possessed a strong and growing middle class.

You’d have done far better with a political system less poisoned by your money – and therefore less volatile and polarized, more capable of responding to the needs of average people, less palpably rigged in your favor.

But you were selfish and greedy, and you thought only about your short-term gains.

You forgot the values of a former generation of Republican establishment that witnessed the devastations of the Great Depression and World War II, and who helped build the great post-war American middle class.

That generation did not act mainly out of generosity or social responsibility. They understood, correctly, that broad-based prosperity would be good for them and their businesses over the long term.

So what are you going to do now? Will you help clean up this mess – by taking your money out of politics, restoring our democracy, de-rigging the system, and helping overcome widening inequality of income, wealth, and political power?

Or are you still not convinced?

http://robertreich.org/post/140181226720