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Tidbits - August 10, 2017 - Reader Comments: Korea; Nagasaki; Nuclear Weapons; NAACP Warns Black Travelers When Visiting Missouri; Medicare March; Healthcare and Democrats; UAW-Nissan Election Defeat; Venezuela; Hard-Line Catholics; KXL; and more...

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Reader Comments: Korea; Nagasaki; Nuclear Weapons; NAACP Warns Black Travelers When Visiting Missouri; Medicare March; Healthcare; How Democrats Can Win - How They Must Fight; UAW-Nissan Election Defeat; Venezuela; Vatican and Hard-Line Catholics; Last Chance to Comment Against KXL; Announcements: Zapatista Music Celebration; Feminist Organizing School; and more...

Liberals Strike Back... Against Single Payer

Michael Lighty Common Dreams
Ironically, healthcare reform efforts have sought to "improve and expand" every element of the present system, except the program that works best: Medicare. The Clintons tried to expand HMOs, Obama expanded private health insurance and Medicaid, the GOP tried to expand "individual purchase. Medicare—if improved and expanded to all—could confront the industry, contain prices and restore the values of caring and community to our healthcare system.

The Democratic Party’s Deadly Dead-End

Nicolas J S Davies Consortium News
By playing for centrist and neoconservative votes, national Democrats have left the party floundering with no coherent political message and creating a daunting challenge for democracy, says Nicolas J S Davies.

How Can Democrats Win - Who is the Base; Problem of Working Class White Voters; Building a Winning Coalition; Learning Lesson from Ossoff Defeat

William E. Spriggs The American Prospect
Why the white worker theme is harmful. It’s a mistake to racialize an economy that harms the entire working class. What has happened to more whites now is that the market has moved past them as well. It took almost 40 years to get to this point, in the near term no recipe of policy fixes will sufficiently remedy the effects. Democrats need to focus on reversing those long-term trends, but also must have something to offer workers now.

books

Bill Clinton: His Career a Disaster for Black Americans

Nathan J. Robinson Jacobin
With all the toxicity coming out of the White House and the GOP-dominated Congress, it's important to remember how insufferable were the politics of the neoliberal Democrats in power under Bill Clinton. The book under review (an article derived from the book is below) should help us remember how malignant were the Clinton years when it came to economic and social justice.

This Wasn't Just a Primary Victory. This Was a Revolution - Advances Movement for Racial and Criminal Justice

Will Bunch The Philadelphia Inquirer
Larry Krasner's victory for Philadelphia District Attorney is huge! Krasner has been the main defense attorney for #BlackLivesMatter and Occupy and has freed 80 prisoners on wrongful conviction charges. He ran to end stop-and-frisk, end cash bail, and treat drug law violators via the public health rather than criminal justice system. A huge victory for the movements against police brutality and mass incarceration - for progressive and racial justice movements nationwide.

Friday Nite Videos | April 21, 2017

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Bernie: 'Our Job Is to Radically Transform the Democratic Party'. John Oliver | French Elections. Ode to Joy in Nuremburg. Dirt and Deeds in Mississippi. A Message to Trump from Climate Scientists.

The End of the U.S. Empire Can Be a New Beginning for Our Democracy

Daniel Cantor and Barbara Dudley The Nation
Only by understanding how Trump fits within our recent history will the left be able to figure out where we go from here. We are once again at a moment of consequential political realignment. Both major parties are deeply divided. We need to engage in shaping the newly emerging parties. The Democrats may or may not move left; they, like the Republicans, may split.
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