Coming together for schools – Activists gather around the country on March 1st to resist attacks on education

A MARCH 1 day of action turned out thousands of Californians to walkouts, rallies, teach-ins and other protests to take a stand against brutal cuts to public education.

At every level, from K-12 classrooms to universities and city colleges, students, teachers and staff are feeling the budget ax. California was the epicenter of the protests, but there were also other cities, such as New York City and Chicago, where activists also used the opportunity to show their resistance to education cuts in their states.
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At an event happening at the same time for Mass White Ribbon Day addressing domestic abuse, organizers welcomed March 1 protesters. Students joined and spoke out against violence against women along with issues regarding education.

“This action shows that there is a core group of students in Boston dedicated to stopping the privatization and corporatization of higher education,” said UMass Boston student Chris Morrill. “While this was the first action organized since the end of last semester, it was an important step in a long process of building a mass movement for education.”

http://tinyurl.com/7a57yu6

Occupy Birth Control

I just finished reading 99 Nights with the 99 Percent, by journalist Chris Faraone. For his book, subtitled Dispatches from the First Three Months of the Occupy Revolution, Faraone spend 99 nights (including days) in various cities across the country with Occupy protesters to examine who these individuals are, what they believe in, and what their daily grind consists of. Faraone’s narrative made me think about birth control. If you think that sounds like a wild leap, it’s not. Bear with me.
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The vast majority of Americans want a just economic system, want banks held accountable for predatory lending and other immoral (and sometimes illegal) practices, and want the government held accountable for enabling these practices, the vast majority of women, and the men who care about them believe access to birth control is a right. The idea that women, 51 percent of the population, should have equitable health insurance coverage and the power to decide their own reproductive destinies is as much a no-brainer as the idea that in a democratic nation the rich should not be getting richer by neglecting and taking advantage of the poor.

So let’s occupy birth control. Women who use birth control and the men who support them need to speak up and speak out about this issue. Women, who have the unquestionable right to decide their own destinies, are the 99 percent. Imagine if we used Chris Faraone’s idea (I’m assuming he’ll forgive me for stealing it) and spent 99 Nights with the 99 percent of women all across America who use birth control. We would surely meet women of all walks of life, ages, races, professions and belief systems who are making a difference in their communities and families.

http://tinyurl.com/7rhk3db

Obama Moves G-8 From Chicago to Camp David: “Occupy Camp David” Explodes on Twitter

In a move that some are saying is a response to fears over massive Occupy protests, Obama announced Monday that he would be moving May’s G-8 summit from downtown Chicago to the rural presidential fortress of Camp David. “They are running scared from the people,” tweeted @OccupyWallStreetNYC.
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Twitter users have been having a fun time recommending a “lovely camping trip in May” and making jokes about camping and tents,  but despite the posturing, the logistical nightmare of marshalling protesters anywhere close to Camp David will severely confine any kind of protest. Elite marine patrols wouldn’t help either.

Still, the area probably won’t escape protest-free: an Anonymous-affiliated account tweeted the location for another camp near Thurmond, MD: Cunningham Falls State Park, suggesting that protesters might want to make reservations. It’s not exactly in David itself, but since the media is going to have a much harder time getting credentialed at Camp David than they would have in Chicago, a nearby Occupy camp would likely be viewed as an acceptable alternative for coverage.

http://tinyurl.com/776oth8

The austerity-based class war against the American people

Rapidly rising deficits at both the federal and state and local government levels, along with prospective long-term financing problems in the Social Security and Medicare programs, have triggered a one-sided austerity-focused class war in the US and around the globe.

A coalition of the richest and most economically powerful segments of society, conservative politicians who represent their interests, and right-wing populist groups like the Tea Party has demanded that deficits be eliminated by severe cuts at all levels of government in spending that either supports the poor and the middle class or funds crucial public investment. It also demands tax cuts for the rich and for business. These demands constitute a deliberate attempt to destroy the New Deal project, begun in the 1930s, whose goal was to subject capitalism to democratic control.

In this paper I argue that our deficit crisis is the result of a shift from the New-Deal-based economic model of the early post-war period to today’s neoliberal, free-market model. The new model has generated slow growth, rising inequality and rising deficits. Rising deficits in turn created demands for austerity. After tracing the long-term evolution of our current deficit crisis, I show that this crisis should be resolved primarily by raising taxes on upper-income households and large corporations, cutting war spending, and adopting a Canadian or European style health care system. Calls for massive government spending cuts should be seen as what they are – an attack by the rich and powerful against the basic interests of the American people.

http://tinyurl.com/7cxvbfm

Obama’s middle-of-the-road austerity budget “less savage” than Republican proposals

(video)

http://tinyurl.com/6mhm8vo

The Secret Austerity Society: Bipartisan Group Works on Grand Bargain

Intransigence from Republicans basically kept us out of a grand bargain last year. Plenty of Democrats were willing to do it, the White House was more than willing to do it, and even John Boehner was willing to do it, at least on a conceptual level. But House Republicans wouldn’t betray their tax pledge and so it didn’t happen.

There are some different dynamics to the next round of the grand bargain. There are still enough Democrats willing to deal, led by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer. The White House has de-emphasized a deficit deal, but their budget still shows a blueprint for one, and if they get revenue in exchange, they’ve stated openly that they would make cuts to Medicare and other social programs. So is there a new willingness on the Republican side? According to The Hill, Republicans have joined a bipartisan working group that is preparing a document on deficit reduction.

http://tinyurl.com/7h76q7s

The Occupy Movement in the 2012 Elections

Just as the Tea Party did in 2009 and 2010, Occupiers have begun to shift American political discourse. We are now more aware of, and more outraged by, the growing income disparity in our country and the pervasive role of money in our elections. This trend may merely be indicative of the cyclical nature of American political interests, but I prefer to believe in the power of Occupy Wall Street and its message.

Concurrently, though, there is something quietly unsettling about the movement. Perhaps it is that I still believe in the capitalist system, and I cringe every time my peers use the words “dirty capitalist” or “bouji.”  Or perhaps, it is that I am waiting for the Occupy movement to materialize into a real operation for political change within the confines of our flawed two party system. Occupiers believe that the American political process once belonged to the American people but has since been co-opted by corporations, special interests groups, and big money. The movement is characterized by a desire to reclaim the American political process – a goal that cannot be achieved entirely by operating outside that same system.

http://tinyurl.com/7zpqy2j

Was Occupy’s “Shut Down the Corporations” Action a Success?

If the action was intended only to be educational, then it surely succeeded, since numerous news outlets had to explain to the public the main target of the actions: ALEC, a group of corporations that work together to buy off politicians so that pro-corporate laws can be passed and anti-1% laws can be defeated.

However, if the goal of the day of action was to build power towards winning concrete victories for working people, Shut Down the Corporations must be viewed with greater scrutiny.

Although education is a crucial component in any social movement, it must be incorporated into a larger strategy of building power among the 99%. This creates an easy barometer to assess Occupy or labor movement actions: does the action build power or not?

http://tinyurl.com/86park2

The Truth About Drug-Testing the Unemployed

The new federal law that lets states drug-test applicants for unemployment compensation was a small win for the Republican-led efforts to examine the urine of everyone receiving government safety-net benefits. How many people it will affect depends on how the Department of Labor establishes the regulations-and on whether the courts continue to hold that such policies violate the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches.

House Republicans initially wanted to let states drug-test all 7.5 million people collecting unemployment compensation. The compromise reached in the payroll tax-cut deal, along with cutting six months off the time people can collect, authorizes states to test applicants for benefits in two circumstances: if they were fired for using drugs, or if the only occupation they’re suited for is one the Department of Labor lists as commonly requiring drug-testing.

http://tinyurl.com/76u33c5