Progressive Alliance Voter Recommendations

Progressive Alliance.  June 5 election- Adopted

U.S. President	Barack Obama	Democrat
U.S. Senate	Dianne Feinstein	Democrat
U.S. Congress  District 7	Ami Bera	Democrat
District 3	John Garamendi	Democrat
District  10	Jose Hernandez	Democrat
Ballot Initi Prop 28 -- Term Limits Change	Yes
Proposition 29 -- Cigarette Tax	Yes
Assembly district 8	Ken Cooley	Democrat
Assembly district 9	Richard Pan	Democrat
Sacramento City council  6	Kevin McCarty	Democrat
Sacto City council   8	Bonnie Pannel
Sacto City Council  2	Rob Kerth
Sacramento County Supervisor	Gary Blenner Jeff Kravitz    District 3	Occupy
Twin Rivers School Board	Area 3	Walter Kawamoto
Sacramento Board of Education	Area 3.  Edith Crawford Area  7   Harold Fong
	Area 4 Estelle Lemieux
Sacramento Democratic Central Committee	District 5	Michael A Piña
Placer County	Democratic Central C.	Phil Kim
Yolo County Supervisor	Arturo Pimentel

John Stewart and Fox News

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Communist Central
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Robert Reich (Why Obama Should Be Attacking Casino Capitalism -- Both Romney's Bain and JPMorgan)

Robert Reich (Why Obama Should Be Attacking Casino Capitalism -- Both Romney's Bain and JPMorgan)

Help to elect Walter Kawamoto

Walter Garcia Kawamoto, Candidate. Twin Rivers School District.  Sacramento

The election Is June 5, 2012.   Find out about Walter at facebook.com/WalterKawamotoForTwinrivers.

Endorsed by Sacramento Progressive Alliance.  Walter needs volunteers and funds.contact walter.kawamoto@gmail.com   916-217-8087.

Robert Reich Explains How Mitt Romney Got Obscenely Rich

Robert Reich Explains How Mitt Romney Got Obscenely Rich

Rich people are not job creators- it is a myth

Wall St. and Congress: Who Regulates Who?

Happy Birthday Brother Malcolm!

Click on the Video to Watch Ossie Davis' 

Inspiring Tribute to Malcolm X

Why the 1% Don't Rule in Norway

Published on Thursday, May 17, 2012 by Waging Non-Violence

Did the Norwegians Have a Revolution?

by George Lakey

For the better part of a century, some visionaries have been trying to break out of the dominant belief that there are only two means of forcing change: reform through elections and revolution through violence. The rigidity of that binary choice still strangles thinking today.(London student protest, via Bowalley Road.)

A Norwegian, for instance, once wrote to me that there simply wasn’t enough direct conflict in the country to use the word “revolution”; as I have described in detail before, the Labor Party got enough votes in the 1930s so it could finally create a coalition government. An election seems to have made the change. But that view focuses on politicians and electoral forms and overlooks the main scene of the conflict, which was mass direct action in the economic arena. To say that the change happened through elections is to mistake the effect for the cause.

The Norwegian owning class fought for decades to maintain domination against the rising militancy of workers’ strikes and other forms of direct action. The 1 percent — through its instrument, the Conservative Party government — called out troops repeatedly to keep workers in line. My Norwegian father-in-law refused military service as a young man because he personally might have to shoot fellow workers rather than a national enemy. The owning class also recruited tens of thousands of people into an organization devoted to violent strike-breaking.

"The Norwegian bottom line: When the capitalists act out, they must pay for their spree, not the people."

The Labor Party was not the polite, consensus-seeking party of today’s Norway; it was the electoral representative of — and controlled by — the workers. One couldn’t even be a member of the Labor Party in the old days if one wasn’t a worker. The action that counted for Norway’s future was not in the Storting (the parliament) but in the deadly fight between the 1 percent and the trade unions. And the stakes were very high: Who would lead Norway, the super-rich and their bourgeois allies or the working class?

The stakes were so high, in fact, that a young Vidkun Quisling tried to put together a military coup against the government that was run by the Conservative Party in an attempt to suspend parliamentary forms and create an efficient dictatorship. After all, the German and Italian 1 percent supported a fascist solution to “labor unrest,” so why not the Norwegian?

Robert Reich: Public vs. Private Morality

Governor Brown Slashes Schools and Social Services, But Not Corporate Tax Avoidance | California Progress Report

Governor Brown Slashes Schools and Social Services, But Not Corporate Tax Avoidance | California Progress Report

The Fairer Sex (Part 1 of 2) - ABC News

The Fairer Sex (Part 2 of 2) - ABC News

The Battle for the War on Women

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

California budget takes from schools and the poor to pay for corporate tax avoidance

Budget May Revise.

The proposed California  budget for next year says that income will be  $15.7  billion less than expected. 

The report is here.  http://www.dof.ca.gov/documents/2012-13_May_Revision.pdf

California does not have enough money to continue the funding of schools, universities, fire and safety, and social services.  The Republican Party has consistently refused to raise taxes.  So, the Republican legislative blocking  has forced the following cuts.

Medical, child care, Cal Works, Nursing homes, In Home Supportive Services, Cal Grants ( college tuition), and a forced employee pay cuts (5%) – such as a 4 day work week.  These cuts are from the current budget. The May Revision provides level funding for k-12 schools.

If the tax proposals are not passed in November, there will be an additional $5.6 billion dollars  cut from  K-12 schools.  These are called trigger cuts.  They will be automatic if the initiative is not passed.

These draconian cuts are imposed because the state will not- or can not – deal with corporate tax evasions.  We know of $10 billion in tax evasions from Apple, and there probably is a similar tax evasion by Google, Yahoo, and other internet companies. 

California is  Not Broke , but corporate tax subsidies are destroying our schools.

We suffer from two problems: a huge concentration of income at the very top of the income distribution and a tax system that fails to tax  that concentration.  Our tax system asks those with less to pay more and those with more to pay less.

Address to the People of California: Governor Brown Discusses 2012-2013 ...

Here is Jerry's view.  Our views that austerity will not work have been posted in prior posts.

Will the Democrats drink the austerity cool aid?

For those who viewed the excellent video last night of The Heist.  You may recall the role of the Peterson "think tank".  Here is what they are doing this week.

Will Democrats Embrace "Austerity American Style"?

   Crash This Party and Find Out

By Richard (RJ) Eskow
Campaign for America's Future
May 11, 2012

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2012051910/will-democrats-embrace-austerity-american-style-crash-party-and-find-out

Heard about the meeting that's being held to decide
your economic future? If the answer's "no," don't feel
bad: That's because you weren't invited. But Tim
Geithner was. So was Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican
member of Congress whose radical right-wing plans for
cutting Medicare have made him the subject of a Mitt
Romney "bromance." So was Bill Clinton, who showed up
last year and uttered the usual Beltway insider's
falsehoods about what's really wrong with Social
Security.

Hey, maybe your invitation to billionaire Pete
Peterson's "Fiscal Summit" got lost in the mail. Or
maybe they really, really didn't want you there. Who
cares? That's no reason not to go anyway.

Hey, Sen. Bernie Sanders wasn't invited, and his
proposal for Social Security was much more popular with
the American people than anything that's likely to be
discussed at this little get-together.

It's Your Party

   That's right: There's a "summit," and nobody
   invited the American people. They didn't even
   invite the guy who proposed the fiscal plan
   that most Americans - including most
   Republicans - wanted, according to the polling
   data. But he's going anyway.

May 15, 2012 at 1 p.m. In Front Of the Peter G.
Peterson Foundation Fiscal Summit 1301 Constitution
Avenue NW Washington, D.C.

Volunteer for Walter Garcia Kawamoto

Walter Garcia Kawamoto, Candidate. Twin Rivers School District. 

The election Is June 5, 2012.   Find out about Walter at facebook.com/WalterKawamotoForTwinrivers.

Endorsed by Sacramento Progressive Alliance.  Walter needs volunteers and funds.contact walter.kawamoto@gmail.com   916-217-8087.

The Student hunger strike at Sac State

     http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=5953199

Colbert on President Obama's Marriage Equality Announcement

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Tucson - Mexican American Studies

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Michelle Alexander Discusses "New Jim Crow" on Colbert

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

CSU Faculty Union prepare for possible strike

The CSU Trustees were meeting inside today, first in closed session to discuss “executive personnel matters” and collective bargaining. Then they met in committee on yet another new policy to give more raises to campus presidents, now from university auxiliaries.

Meantime, 150 faculty from 20 campuses all over California protested outside. The faculty made a strong pitch that the CSU Trustees and management need to adopt policies that put instruction and student services first, and to settle a fair contract with the faculty.

CFA President Lillian Taiz, who was among the rally speakers today, called for CSU management “to get their priorities straight.”

Andy Merrifield, CFA Bargaining Team chair, said the hard work of the faculty this semester, as well as today’s actions, “provide the Bargaining Team the support it needs to work toward a fair contract at the table.”

Art Pulaski, Secretary-Treasurer of the California Federation of Labor, said fair contracts for university faculty affect every campus community’s capacity to deliver quality education to students.

Corporate Tax Loopholes: The REAL Waste, Fraud and Abuse in California’s Budget | California Progress Report

Corporate Tax Loopholes: The REAL Waste, Fraud and Abuse in California’s Budget | California Progress Report

Campus Progressive Alliance

The Friday Night Film Series Celebrates May Day – Solidarity with all Workers!

HEIST

Who Stole the American Dream?

"A brilliant film that will incite

you to riot and rebel."
--Rosanna Lapinski, SBCC Film Reviews


Friday, May 11, 2012

 Hinde Auditoriium

Sac State University Union
 Shorts--6:00pm   Feature Film--6:30pm

Info: 916-248-3970 or paulb1221@sbcglobal.net

Why Occupy Can't -- and Shouldn't -- Become the Progressive Tea Party

[Editor's Note: Interesting analysis of the relationship between Occupy and electoral politics, even if I ultimately disagree with Berger's conclusion. - Paul B]

 Max Berger, Organizer with the Occupy Movement
Why Occupy Can't -- and Shouldn't -- Become the Progressive Tea Party

Posted: 05/04/2012 3:35 pm

As long as there has been a thing called Occupy Wall Street, there have been people who've suggested it should become the left's version of the Tea Party. Josh Harkinson's piece is a notable contribution to the conversation because it comes after eight months of in-depth reporting on the movement. Harkinson, like Jennifer Granholm, suggests that Occupy should recruit and run candidates, so the left has champions in Congress and can credibly threaten less ideologically aligned Democrats. According to this logic, it doesn't matter if Occupy does this itself or essentially outsources the job to our progressive allies -- the point is to find ways to elect more good Democrats.

The idea of a progressive Tea Party was totally my jam before Occupy started. Like Harkinson, I didn't see how the left could create real change in America without taking control of the Democratic Party. Now I think it's important to recognize that the problems we face as a country can't be solved by electing more Democrats, or even by electing more good Democrats. A progressive Tea Party would be a welcome addition, but it wouldn't be nearly enough to create the kind of change we need.

If Occupy tried to start a left Tea Party, we would be following in the footsteps of several progressive movement efforts that came up short. Howard Dean's presidential campaign turned into Democracy for America to reclaim the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," the Progressive Change Campaign Committee explicitly references the DCCC, and Rebuild the Dream originally billed itself as the progressive Tea Party. I have worked for each of these organizations and have lots of respect for their work. But unfortunately, none of these projects, despite their many successes, have managed to mount a serious national effort to take out bad Democrats and replace them with good ones. They are constrained by the lack of a grassroots base in many congressional districts and big donors reluctance to fund challenges to Democrats. Even big, collaborative efforts to take out bad Democrats have a relatively poor record (See Sheyman, Ilya; Halter, Bill; or Lamont, Ned).