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A Political Revolution for the US Left

Ethan Young Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung - New York
The Bernie Sanders campaign is primarily a political movement with social overtones - in particular, its embrace by students and young people, mainly white, who are responding to an anti-austerity message presented clearly, forcefully and repeatedly. Social movements have also appeared (or re-appeared) in response to social issues stimulated by neoliberalism, and the rise of the nativist, religious, and armed far Right - #BLM; Fight for $15; DREAMers - and many more.

Tidbits - March 3, 2016 - Reader Comments: Donald Trump: Racism and Mob Mentality; After Super Tuesday; Melissa Harris-Perry; Israel; Flint; Haiti; China; UK; Announcements; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Donald Trump: Racism and Mob Mentality; After Super Tuesday; Melissa Harris-Perry Firing; Take Action for the Release of Tair Kaminer, Conscientious Objector in Israel; Criteria for Negro Art; Lawyers Fight for Their Rights; and Flint; Haiti; China; UK; Announcements: March 8 Celebrate International Women's Day in New York - Play on Harriet Tubman with Vinie Burrows; C.L.R. James and Race Question - New York - March 25 and more...

The Post-Hope Democrats

Doug Henwood Jacobin
There's a perverse form of American exceptionalism circulating around the Clinton camp: just because things work in other countries doesn't mean they can work here. As Hillary herself put it, "We are not Denmark. I love Denmark, but we are the United States of America." True enough, but that has no bearing on why single-payer couldn't work here. The only obstacles are political -- elites, which include Hillary and Starr, don't want it.

The Sanders "Economic Plan" Controversy

Dave Johnson; Chris Sturr Campaign for America's Future
When you dare to do big things, big results should be expected. The Sanders program is big, and when you run it through a standard model, you get a big result. - James K. Galbraith (former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee - the congressional counterpart to the CEA). Paul Krugman in The New York Times has attacked Sanders' economics. Here a number of prominent economists respond, showing how big a change the proposals actually are. They are HUUUGE.

Betty Friedan Would Vote for Bernie: Gloria Steinem and Other Feminists Need to Hear This

Lucy Komisar Salon
I knew Friedan and I know she believed the system wasn't just about men and women, either. The author recounts her hours long conversation with Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, Labor Day weekend 2005, five months before her death. Betty was thoughtful. Finally, she commented: 'We didn't challenge the system enough.'

Tidbits - February 25, 2016 - Reader Comments: Why America Is Moving Left; The Bernie Movement; Angela and Fania Davis; Socialism; Puerto Rico; Solidarity with India; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Times Invents 'Left' Economists to Attack Sanders; Trump - Most Dangerous Face in GOP Field; Bernie and the Movement; Why America Is Moving Left; Fania and Angela Davis - New Kind of Civil Rights Activism; Teachers Walk-In in 30 Cities; Sanitizing Socialism and Needing to Create a New Kind of Capitalism With a Conscience; Announcements: Life Is Waiting - Film Banned in UAE, Lebanon, Belgium; New York Faculty Unions Supports India Students and Faculty

Bernie and the Movement

Bill Fletcher, Jr. Jacobin
Bernie Sanders is a boon to progressive politics. But we need a movement that rebuilds the networks and organizations of the Left.

Why America Is Moving Left

Peter Beinart The Atlantic, Jan - Feb 2016 issue
Republicans may have a lock on Congress and the nation's statehouses - and could well win the presidency - but the liberal era ushered in by Barack Obama is only just beginning. The need to win the votes of Millennials and minorities, who lean left not just on cultural issues but on economic ones, will shape how whoever wins in the general election, and governs once in office.
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