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Post by jdredd on Jul 21, 2014 0:55:52 GMT -5
Has class war rhetoric ever won an election? Americans have never given class war much credence, nor do many people want to talk about it now, it's in bad taste. So of course I plan to talk about it, even if it is just to annoy conservatives.
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Post by jdredd on Jul 21, 2014 1:00:00 GMT -5
america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/7/the-growing-criminalizationofhomelessness.html"As the number of homeless people in America’s major cities has increased, so have ordinances criminalizing homelessness and pushing homeless families and individuals into the criminal justice system. Criminalization has become a tactic with which politicians have reconfigured cities to serve wealthier citizens and tourists, at the considerable expense of the poor. These politicians are rarely challenged, and developers, businesses and city officials have partnered with police and private security forces to “cleanse” urban spaces by any means necessary. A new report from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found the number of cities imposing penalties for camping, begging, sleeping, sitting or eating in public has risen sharply in the last two years. There are now laws against feeding the homeless in over 50 cities. Ordinances prohibiting sleeping in cars — specifically targeted at the destitute — have more than doubled nationwide since 2011. In Denver the City Council passed a controversial “urban camping ban” in 2012 to clear space for the continued development of its downtown into a “ millennial playground,” complete with nightclubs, restaurants and a miniature-golf course. Honolulu’s mayor told The New York Times he had renewed a crackdown on the homeless because tourists “want to see their paradise … [not] homeless people sleeping.” And Phoenix announced the creation of “a new organization focused on downtown’s revitalization,” while at the same time launching an initiative to arrest street people with misdemeanor warrants." Now tell me this is not obvious class war, even if you agree with the ends.
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Post by jdredd on Jul 25, 2014 15:04:46 GMT -5
In a previous post I wondered if class war had ever won an election, but now that I think of it, it may have been an influence on the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election. Wasn't it obvious to many voters that Romney was a toady of the 1%? Was to me.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 23, 2014 1:24:42 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/us/robert-e-poli-leader-of-pivotal-strike-by-air-traffic-controllers-is-dead-at-78.html?ref=obituaries"Robert E. Poli, who led the tumultuous 1981 air traffic controllers’ strike, which prompted President Ronald Reagan to dismiss 11,500 controllers and is viewed as a pivotal moment in the decline of organized labor, died on Sept. 15 at his home in Meridian, Idaho. He was 78." "The episode burnished Mr. Reagan’s reputation among conservatives. Although the president had supported the controllers’ right to bargain and even made concessions — and although the controllers were in clear violation of the law — the image that his supporters cultivated for him was of a tough executive standing firm." Yes, this was an opportunity for The Gipper to polish his creds as an anti-Labor guy. Reagan is long gone, and this was one more milestone in the long Class War going on in America and the world. The present status quo may continue for awhile, but eventually the worm will turn once again.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 27, 2014 12:45:46 GMT -5
www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-29394697"Tory MP Mark Reckless has said he is leaving his party to join UKIP, announcing his decision on the eve of the Conservatives' conference." "On immigration, Mr Reckless said constituents needed to believe that the UK had control over who comes into the country, adding: "At the moment we do not have any sense of that." He said: "Does anyone left or right genuinely support an immigration system where we turn away the best and brightest from our Commonwealth, people with links and family here in order to make room for unskilled immigration from southern and eastern Europe." Yes, who wants those stupid dirty poor people? Draw up the moat and only let decent people in.
Obviously he has no idea what the left is about.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 4, 2014 1:15:51 GMT -5
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/2/labor-union-target-scott-walker-opens-lead-in-wisc/"Mr. Walker went on to survive a union onslaught and a recall election — the first governor in U.S. history to do so — but has had a bull’s-eye on his back ever since pushing through legislation to revamp costly collective bargaining over pensions and health care. Leaders from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the National Education Association (NEA) say they have a score to settle with Mr. Walker in the November election. “They consider me to be their No. 1 target, and the reason is simple: We took the power out of the big government interests, the big government union bosses, and put it back into the hands of the taxpayer,” Mr. Walker said." Here's how you obfuscate the class war: Call the representatives of labor "Union Bosses" and the wealthy corporate interests that oppose them "the taxpayer". Probably Koch toady Walker will win but the war will go on. This war is much more real than the phony war on ISIS 12,000 miles away.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 6, 2014 18:25:23 GMT -5
america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/10/american-legislativeexchangecouncillocalmunicipalgovernment.html"The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has long made headlines as a conservative policy-sharing network that has pushed an agenda of voter suppression and dismantling of public education at the state level. Now the group, backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, is going local with its new initiative, the American City County Exchange (ACCE). Soon, city government or county commission policies could be generated at the same right-wing think tank that has attacked environmental protections, attempted to undermine the rights of workers and made it harder for people to vote. At a time of congressional gridlock and partisan rancor, local policies are easier to come by at the local level, with business and citizen groups coming together to generate solutions to problems such as affordable housing, public transit, open space and good-paying jobs. At the heart of these efforts is the spirit of regional collaboration among people who will have to live with the consequences of policy. ALEC, with its new project, plans to interrupt that collaborative policymaking process by coming in from the outside with model bills based on an ideological obsession with privatization rather than on local knowledge about what works." As I've said before, just because people don't want to hear about class war doesn't mean it's not happening.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 7, 2014 23:26:04 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/business/30000-lose-health-care-coverage-at-walmart.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHeadline&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0"Walmart Stores, the world’s largest retailer and the nation’s largest private employer, said on Tuesday that it would terminate health insurance coverage for about 30,000 part-time workers, joining a string of retailers that have rolled back benefits in response to the Affordable Care Act. Starting on Jan. 1, Walmart will no longer offer insurance to employees working less than an average of 30 hours a week, a move the retailer said was in response to an unexpected rise in health care costs. “This year, the expenses were significant and led us to make some tough decisions,” Sally Welborn, Walmart’s senior vice president for global benefits, said in a blog post announcing the changes." Walmart could continue to give these workers coverage if they had an ethical bone in their body. But they don't.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2014 2:23:53 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/business/30000-lose-health-care-coverage-at-walmart.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpHeadline&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0"Walmart Stores, the world’s largest retailer and the nation’s largest private employer, said on Tuesday that it would terminate health insurance coverage for about 30,000 part-time workers, joining a string of retailers that have rolled back benefits in response to the Affordable Care Act. Starting on Jan. 1, Walmart will no longer offer insurance to employees working less than an average of 30 hours a week, a move the retailer said was in response to an unexpected rise in health care costs. “This year, the expenses were significant and led us to make some tough decisions,” Sally Welborn, Walmart’s senior vice president for global benefits, said in a blog post announcing the changes." Walmart could continue to give these workers coverage if they had an ethical bone in their body. But they don't. Since I work at wallyworld! I dont recall part time can receive Health Insurance, I asked about if part time do get insurance! but I will find out. I know only full time get health ins. I was never asked if I want health ins. but I was part time for a year when I proved myself to mgtment to get full time by giving very good reasons why! Dont believe what left rag says they never post real news just Bull left Sh*t!
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Post by jdredd on Oct 13, 2014 21:06:36 GMT -5
online.wsj.com/articles/the-capitalist-cure-for-terrorism-1412973796?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories
"Today we hear the same economic and cultural pessimism about the Arab world that we did about Peru in the 1980s. But we know better. Just as Shining Path was beaten in Peru, so can terrorists be defeated by reforms that create an unstoppable constituency for rising living standards in the Middle East and North Africa.
To make this agenda a reality, the only requirements are a little imagination, a hefty dose of capital (injected from the bottom up) and government leadership to build, streamline and fortify the laws and structures that let capitalism flourish. As anyone who’s walked the streets of Lima, Tunis and Cairo knows, capital isn’t the problem—it is the solution."
I posted this link in another thread but I thought it applied here too. So what this guy is saying is that radical Islamism can be solved by economic prosperity, which means that it is not so much a religious or ethnic thing as it is class warfare, except instead of forming Unions and stuff they behead people. Is he right? I don't know. Hey, it was in Murdoch's Wall Street Journal./b]
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Post by jdredd on Nov 20, 2014 17:43:03 GMT -5
You know, I was going to post comments on how the UC tuition increases is another example of class war (higher education for the children of the rich only), but suddenly this whole class war subject is starting to smell like a conspiracy theory. And what I think about conspiracy theories is that if you are looking for evidence of one, you will find it, whether the conspiracy is real or not. So I think I will let this thread sink to the bottom of the pile...
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Post by jdredd on Jan 2, 2015 17:59:10 GMT -5
I decided to recycle this thread after listening to a small amount of Hannity on the radio today. It was a repeat, of course, this being the holiday season and I'm sure Hannity is enjoying it at one of his vacation homes. But he had on some of those Muslim-bashing activists that go on all the right-wing radio shows, and they were trying to smear liberals as not being tough enough on the ISIS thugs for their condoning slavery of women considered "booty". Yeah, slavery sucks, and ISIS guys deserve death. But the real point of all this is to distract the working class from class war in favor of religious war overseas. It's worked so far, but it needs to be rebooted on a regular basis by hyping the latest Islamic baddie.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 2, 2015 20:46:16 GMT -5
Meanwhile, in Europe, it looks like the religious war is coming home with the anti-Islam immigration movements. What makes it more interesting is the rejection of class war by Europeans since the fall of the "Iron Curtain".
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Post by jdredd on Jan 3, 2015 20:50:10 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/opinion/sunday/kenan-malik-the-nihilist-rage-of-radical-islam.html?ref=opinion&_r=0"There are many forms of Islamism, from the Taliban to Hamas, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Boko Haram. What they have in common is a capacity to fuse hostility toward the West with hatred for modernity and, seemingly, to provide an alternative to both. Islamists marry political militancy with a conservative social sensibility, a hostility to globalization with the embrace of a global ummah (the worldwide community of Muslim believers). In so doing, they turn the contradictory aspects of their rage against modernity into a strength. Jihadism provides Islamist ideology with a military form and seemingly creates a global social movement, at a time when radical alternatives have collapsed. What jihadism does not possess is the moral and philosophical framework that guided anti-imperialist movements. Shorn of that framework, and reduced to raging at the world, jihadists have turned terror into an end in itself. The slaughter in Peshawar, like the mass beheadings by the Islamic State, tells us something about the character of contemporary Islam and of Islamism. It tells us even more about the state of contemporary politics, and especially of radical politics." I interpret this as a claim that class war has "collapsed" as a "radical alternative" and has been replaced by Islamic Fundamentalism as a way to attack the Powers-that-be. And that is what is confounding leftists, who also are fighting the PTB, but are repelled by religiosity. The right, of course, supports the status quo and has no qualms about fighting a religious war. And if history is any guide, religious war is what we are going to get.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 6, 2015 14:13:12 GMT -5
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30694406"Politicians and celebrities in Germany have joined a media campaign against Pegida, a group protesting against what it sees as the "Islamisation" of Europe. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and retired footballer Oliver Bierhoff are among 80 figures to back a petition in German newspaper Bild. It comes after rival rallies took place across the country. Some 18,000 people attended one anti-immigration rally in Dresden on Monday. There have been weekly protests by the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West (Pegida) since October. But counter demonstrations have sprung up, with thousands marching in Berlin, Cologne, Dresden and Stuttgart." I'd love to know the demos on the Pegida folks. Are they working class? Middle class? All classes? Young? Old? Religious? Are they old and religious like the Tea Party clowns here in the USA?
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