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15526 [lbo-talk] money -- rank: 1000

[Nathan asks where the money's going to come from. Eight of the top ten political givers since 1989 are unions, who've given a total of $200 million, most of it to Dems.] <http://opensecrets.org/orgs/index.asp> Blue Chip Investors Top Donor Dossiers Here you'll find total contributions for the 100 biggest givers in American politics since 1989--information that exists nowhere else. Read the full report. Top 10 donors: American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $36,694,599 ...

Document Size:	5803
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 13:06:54 PST 2006

15527 [lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >Okay, so where are those tens of millions of dollars going to come from? Organized labor gave what, something like $40 million to Dems in 2004? They keep contributing despite getting kicked in the head over & over - and losing election after election. Last I looked, the UAW had $1 billion in cash on hand - allegedly for a strike fund, but if they strike any time in the next four years, I'll eat my hat. Doug

Document Size:	5172
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 13:01:32 PST 2006

15528 [lbo-talk] another nobody for single payer -- rank: 1000

[The NEJM is, of course, one of the world's leading English-language medical journals.] New York Times [Letters] - February 11, 2006 A Viable Health Plan To the Editor: Your Feb. 3 editorial "The Lopsided Bush Health Plan" nicely summarizes all the reasons why health savings accounts are a very bad idea and will not help solve the nation's health crisis. But it disappoints at the end by failing to suggest what kinds of reforms might really work. The evidence seems clear: Market-based p ...

Document Size:	5572
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 11:26:47 PST 2006

15529 [lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >I very much hope that I'm completely wrong in what I'm about to argue, >but it is a possibility to which leftists and friends of labor (meaning >the persons who labor, not the organizations that 'represent' them) >ought to give serious thought. > >Unions are actively progressive only during the stages in which the >primary struggle is to achieve recognition and legality. Once >established they are (with marginal exceptions) merely more or less >effec ...

Document Size:	9445
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 11:24:50 PST 2006

15530 [lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs -- rank: 1000

John Lacny wrote: >I am not sure what the hell you want. For a start, I'd like organized labor to sign onto single-payer and throw serious resources into it. Finance ballot provisions, extend or withhold endorsements (and cash), staff phone banks, mobilize the membership, etc. There's no other institution in US society that could make as much of a difference as a mobilized union movement. Oh, and somehwere along the way, I'd like Nathan to come to his senses. He's too talented to be arguing s ...

Document Size:	5266
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 10:37:08 PST 2006

15531 [lbo-talk] Rabbi Michael Lerner using the Antisemitism card against the US Green Party -- rank: 1000

Chip Berlet wrote: >I am not a big fan of Lerner, but his statement below is perfectly >reasonable. There is plenty of antisemitism in the U.S. political >left, and knee jerk reactions against any use of the term are a real >problem. I agree, but so are knee-jerk invocations of the term. One can advocate divestment from Israel without being an anti-Semite. If you're going to make the charge, offer some evidence. Doug

Document Size:	5479
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 10:11:50 PST 2006

15532 [lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs -- rank: 1000

Marvin Gandall wrote: >But don't you have to assume that the union policymakers decided on the >strategy because they think forcing some state legislatures to implement >mandatory employer coverage is more politically "realizable" at this time >than getting legislation for universal medicare at the state or federal >level? Maybe. But maybe they - specifically SEIU - also thought that this approach wouldn't alienate their employers in the health care industry. (This is Fi ...

Document Size:	5766
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 10:10:39 PST 2006

15533 [lbo-talk] images of Mohammed throughout history -- rank: 1000

[via popbitch] Images of Mohammed throughout history: http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

Document Size:	4741
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 09:01:35 PST 2006

15534 [lbo-talk] Punitives and Attorney Pay -- rank: 1000

info at pulpculture.org wrote: >That's what occupational data does. You use a median because it >actually deals with the problem you raise: when a small number of >high earners could drag up the _average_(mean). Median is a better >approximation of what the typical earner makes. <http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos053.htm> In May 2004, the median annual earnings of all lawyers were $94,930. The middle half of the occupation earned between $64,620 and $143,620. Median annual earnings in ...

Document Size:	6444
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 08:52:11 PST 2006

15535 [lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >Do the single payer advocates really think it would be better to drop >resources for those two campaigns and divert them to a single payer fight >that has little chance of success? This is a classic bit of your propaganda mode: create false all-or-nothing, black-or-white choices. SEIU is pushing its own health care scheme, trying to organize janitors, and trying to create a new union federation all at once. Obviously they think they can walk and chew gum at the sam ...

Document Size:	5755
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 08:31:29 PST 2006

15536 [lbo-talk] chinese assembly line -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss wrote: >Yeah, the USSR was a massive forced industrialization >system from around 1928 to about 1970 or so. Yeah, and it worked pretty well. Russia is only now recovering from its undoing, and other former Soviet republics have barely begun. Doug

Document Size:	4746
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 08:26:25 PST 2006

15537 [lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs -- rank: 1000

Marvin Gandall wrote: >Nathan Newman wrote: > >>Politics is about choices in use of resources. Unions and their allies >>have >>made the judgement that minimum wage and fair share health care are two of >>the best strategies to make advances for working people this year. And >>there are campaigns supporting both of them in states across the country. >--------------------------------------------------- >This is an important point which has wider applica ...

Document Size:	6105
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 08:24:11 PST 2006

15538 [lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs -- rank: 1000

John Lacny wrote: >Yoshie Furuhashi: > >> One of the points of doing campaigns like one for single- >> payer health care is to mobilize many of the rank and file, >> rather than the wonky few. > >That's great, Yoshie. So who's doing it? For real, I mean. There aren't many organizations other than Physicians for a National Health Program doing this full time (and they have 14,000 members, most of them doctors, which isn't trivial), but there are a bunch of endorse ...

Document Size:	11482
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Feb 11 08:19:20 PST 2006

15539 [lbo-talk] new owner reads VVers the riot act -- rank: 1000

<http://www.sfbg.com/40/19/news_merger.html> Merger mania Lacey to Voice staff: Drop dead By Tim Redmond The merger between the nation's two largest alternative newspaper chains was finally consummated Jan. 31, and the very next day, Mike Lacey, the new owner of the Village Voice, was in New York City giving the staff the facts of life. Lacey met with Voice staffers Feb. 1, and, according to sources who were present at the meeting, announced that the Voice news section was too soft because ...

Document Size:	8261
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Feb 10 14:38:49 PST 2006

15540 [lbo-talk] Short-Term Tactics at Odds with Medium-Term Needs -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >I didn't say public health insurance is far left; in fact, I said it could >end up being reactionary depending on how it's implemented. My point was >that I actually find a concrete assault on corporate profits via the >Maryland Wal-Mart bill to be more inspiring than a theoretical discussion of >a health care plan. It's not even a question of preferring the moderate >solution to the radical solution, but of preferring the actual existing >fight to ...

Document Size:	6045
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Feb 10 13:04:55 PST 2006