Socialist Elected

Socialist elected to City Council in Seattle

Kshama Sawant of the Socialist Alternative, has defeated a long-standing Democratic member of the Seattle City Council, Richard Conlin.

Some of her issues: a $15-an-hour minimum wage in Seattle, and a “millionaires’ tax” to pay for better city services.

Sawant is a leading figure in Occupy! Seattle - remember my recent Post, Who Says "Occupy!" Went Away?

Here's a quote from there, just so I can say "told you so" -

"Just like "All the Hippies Became Yuppies", which is one of the crazy-making lies that was never challenged, and which led me to start work on my Book Proposal, "The War On The 60s", we have grown used to hearing claims that "Occupy!" was just a flash in the pan, a movement with no program that vanished into thin air at the first crack of a cop's baton."

The estimable Mitch Jesarich had excellent coverage of the Election and its meaning today in "Letters and Politics", with an interview with the brilliant Nation political writer John Nichols, author of "The "S" Word", a history of Socialism in the USA. (You'd be amazed just how much of the stuff there has been, though you wouldn't think it to hear the mainstream media talk.)

Mitch then played a slightly scratchy interview with Kshama Sawant, followed by one of her election speeches, laying out her proposals for the future. Fascinating stuff. You can hear it on the Archive, here.

Social Security: the Real Numbers

Congressman Alan Grayson knows whereof he speaks on matters of social programs and the Budget.  Here's what he said on a recent interview with John Fugelsang on Current TV, about the alleged crisis in "entitlement"* spending:

John Fugelsang: President Obama did meet with Senate Democrats today. And according to Politico -- and I found this a bit disturbing -- "He warned them that social insurance programs, including Social Security and Medicare, would need to be cut in some way in order to keep them going." Now, we've discussed this before. The President also said Republicans would have to agree to more revenue before he'd agree to change those programs. What do you think of that particular bargain, sir? Do social insurance programs need to be cut in order to save them, and will this particular crop of Republicans ever agree to add new revenues anyway?

Congressman Alan Grayson: No. The answer is that they don't.  Social Security has almost $2 trillion in the bank. It is the largest government fund in the entire world. That's what they've got sitting in the bank, and that's what the rest of the government and the American people owe that fund. Under current law, Social Security can pay 100% of its benefits for the next twenty-five years. which is probably longer than I'm going to need it.  And after that point, 85% to 95% of its benefits, forever. A minor tweak like, for instance, raising the cap on who has to pay Social Security taxes above the current [limit of] roughly $100,000, or, for instance, making it apply to investment income -- either one of those two things would make the program solvent forever. The situation is not terribly different for Medicare.

John: So does the President mean it when he talks about putting these cuts on the table, sir?

Alan: Look, I take no pleasure in saying this, because the President is my President. I voted for him twice, and he is the leader of my party. But in this regard, the President is wrong.

*ENTITLEMENTS - yet another example of the way (and we have to admit, it's brilliant how they get away with it) the right wing turn anything good and postive into a crime, or a source of resentment.  "Progressive"  wanting the world to be better, "Liberal", which means kind and generous - and many ohters, reduced to curse words in American political discourse.

Yes, an entitlement like Social Security or Medicare, is something people have paid for their whole working lives, which they are entitled to, and yet the masters of double-speak have reduced it to meaning scrounging or thievery.

Take a look at John Nichols' book "The S-Word", for a concise accounting of the pivotal role Socilaist ideas have played in US history - and yet no one is allowed even to utter the word....