The Coming Storm

Disillusionment with the Democratic and Republican parties has always been high.  Not since 1964 have more than 60% of eligible voters turned out for a presidential election.  Since 1900, 42% of eligible voters on average stay home each presidential election, effectively choosing “none of the above” rather than voting for either of the anointed candidates.  The number abstaining in non-presidential election years is even higher. For many, elections are irrelevant as they know their lives will not fundamentally change, regardless of which of the major parties rules the roost.  But for an increasing number, abstention is more conscious.  There is growing recognition that both the Democrats and Republicans represent Wall St. and big business, leaving the majority who slave away, working for a living, only the narrowest of choices between this or that representative of the slave masters.  In 2013, a record 42% of Americans identified themselves ...

First the bad news: To address anthropogenic climate change, capitalism will have to be replaced as the dominant world economic system.  How do we know this?  Well, we know that eliminating ongoing exposure to a poison is a prerequisite for curing an illness due to poisoning.  We know that any hope of modifying a dog’s aggressive behavior requires, at a minimum, that you stop rewarding the animal when it bites someone.  In short, we know that to solve a problem you must eliminate the causes before you can hope to effectively treat the symptoms. But is capitalism itself part of the problem?  Are private ownership and management of the world’s resources, energy supplies, industry and infrastructure compatible with the current needs of society, the environment and our planet?  Is the current system sustainable when it rewards industrial titans for maximizing returns at all cost, while existentially punishing any who might forgo profits for the p...

With an average of three mass shootings per year in the US since the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, CO in April of 1999—and five mass shootings in the first nine months of 2013 alone—many are justifiably concerned and frustrated.  Mainstream politicians dither, debating how best to treat the symptoms of the problem without overly upsetting the arms manufacturers who fund their campaigns.  Increased background checks and bans on certain types of weapons are discussed, but little concrete action is taken and few Americans believe that the limited palette of solutions considered by Congress would do much to staunch the bloodshed. After all, the manufacture of new assault weapons was temporarily banned by federal law from 1994 to 2004, but it’s not clear this had any impact on reducing gun violence.  The National Rifle Association reliably rails against any gun control legislation, ostensibly out of reverence for the Second Amendment, but more...

Something important is happening on the upper-left coast.  On August 6, socialist Kshama Sawant garnered 35% of the vote in a “top two” primary for Seattle City Council.  This allows Sawant to advance to the general election on November 5 where she will face Democratic incumbent Richard Conlin who received 48% of the vote. Considering that working people from coast to coast have been beaten and battered both economically and politically for more than a generation, and that we have been playing a losing game of defense for as long as most of us can remember; considering that one of the chief reasons for labor’s losses has been a tragic reliance on and obsequious deference to so-called “friends of labor” in the form of representatives of the Democratic and Republican parties, it is highly significant when an avowedly working-class campaign makes headlines. And the Sawant campaign has not been the least bit shy about stating the case for the millions of folks wh...

There’s an elephant in the room.  We all know it.  But we need the audacity to proclaim it openly.  The litany of urgent problems grows ever longer: endless war; executive assassinations; climate change; savage economic inequality; racial, gender, religious and national discrimination; poverty; unequal justice; shredded civil liberties; unemployment; lower pay and more harsh conditions for those lucky enough to have jobs; poisoned food, air and water; attacks on public education, Social Security and Medicare; a deadly, dysfunctional, profit-driven healthcare system; crumbling infrastructure; and the oft-forgotten but ever-present nuclear threat. All of these problems have one, common, overarching cause: an economic system that puts profits before people; a system that rewards the accumulation of wealth for its own sake, by any and all means, regardless of the consequences.  The system has a name.  It is capitalism . Capitalism has got to go....

The Real Harm in the Lesser-Evil Approach “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”  This insight by Albert Einstein reminds us that in life, certain choices and actions can undermine goals we ostensibly hold dear.  But when it comes to elections, such reasoning is suppressed.  Whenever the quadrennial presidential horse race heats up, spokespersons for the liberal left outdo each other rationalizing why “responsible” opponents of the status quo must buck up, be “practical” and, above all, never stray from the narrow, contrived choice allotted to us by those currently pulling the strings. Each race is different.  Sometimes, progressives will argue that the Democratic candidate is so meritorious that he/she has earned our support outright, based on the balance sheet of the candidate’s actual efforts and accomplishments.  Remarkably, there are those who try to make this case for Barack Obama today—a position that can only be defen...

In a classically hilarious cartoon , Bugs Bunny gets Daffy Duck twisted in logical knots, arguing whether Elmer Fudd should shoot the duck now, or wait until he gets home—a wretched choice if ever there was one.  Phony debates are a bit like that.  In this election season, Americans are given a “choice”: shoot us now or shoot us later.  There is no other imaginable possibility.  Or is there?  Cutting through the airwaves so replete with empty words and false choices, we present part two of the real debate: socialist, Sydney Solidarity, representing the interests of working people and the 99%, vs. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney of the Democratic and Republican parties, standing up for corporate America and the 1%. The second presidential debate took place October 16, moderated by Candy Crowley of CNN.  The questions, screened in advance, were posed by audience members.  Below are Solidarity’s responses to each of the debate questions. A tra...