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Chicago Progressives’ Mixed Results Against the ‘Money Machine’

David Moberg In These Times
Even as class appears to play a bigger role in Chicago politics, racial, ethnic and other identities will impact elections as long as keep impacting everyday life. But campaigns like those for Garcia and for many of the council members are already forging a shared progressive politics.

The Origins of Modern Policing

Sam Mitrani The Indypendent
The liberal way of viewing the problem rests on a misunderstanding of the origins of the police and what they were created to do.

The Entitlement of the Very Rich

Dean Baker Truthout
If the public has a clear understanding of the agenda of the Immelts of the world, and their political allies, it will be better positioned to protect the entitlements that workers depend on have paid for.

labor

In No One We Trust

Joseph E. Stiglitz The New York Times
Rising inequality means rising distrust: A study published last year by the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the upper classes are more likely to engage in what has traditionally been considered unethical behavior. . . Economic inequality, political inequality, and an inequality-promoting legal system all mutually reinforce one another. . . As always, it is the poor and the unconnected who suffer most from this, and who are the most repeatedly deceived.

Economic Opportunity Is Lowest In the Former Slave States

Eric Zuesse OpEd News
New Dixie has replaced the aristocracy's black slaves of Old Dixie, by the local (white) aristocracy's institutionalized bigotry against poor people, now of all ethnic groups. What used to be their purely racist bigotry has, it seems, devolved into a crushing, pervasive, classist, bigotry in the South.

Status and Stress

Moises Velasquez-Manoff New York Times
There’s a direct relationship among health, well-being and one’s place in the greater scheme. Based on studies by the British epidemiologist Michael Marmot, “the higher you are in the social hierarchy the better your health.”

The Real Irs Scandal: Targeting By Class

David Dayen Salon
For all the talk of scandal regarding the IRS targeting groups named “Tea Party” or “Patriot,” it’s not hard to draw an additional lesson from the facts of the case — a pattern that follows the well-worn model of the modern political age: Benefits flow to the rich and the well-connected, with pain for the rest.

labor

Downton and Downward

Timothy Egan The New York Times
Is the U.S. a less upwardly mobile society than Britain a century ago?
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