"Looking to 2014: The emerging movement for the next new deal"

[applegrove]

Looking to 2014: The emerging movement for the next new deal

by the Roosevelt Institute at Daily Kos

http://www.dailykos.com/

"SNIP..................................


The rise of a new progressive organizing is cause to believe that economic reform and a shift toward broadly shared prosperity are within reach.

Thomas Edsall, who now is capping off his long career writing insightfully about the relationship between economics and public opinion as a blogger for The New York Times, concluded a piece in late December by saying, “Progressives are now dependent on the fragile possibility that inequality and socioeconomic immobility will push the social order to the breaking point and force the political system to respond.”

Edsall’s bleak prognosis raises the biggest question facing not only progressives, but the future of our democracy: is the political system in the United States capable of responding to the escalating crisis of stagnant wages, shrinking benefits, dissolving economic opportunity, and disappearing hopes of living anything that resembles the American Dream?

.......

"#1 you would have the government maintaining full employment, empowering workers and giving them more bargaining power, and #2 you would have a safety net for those who fell through the cracks… I think it is safe to say that liberals have abandoned #1 and doubled-down on #2… Without a strong middle and working class you don’t have natural constituencies ready to fight and defend the implementation and maintenance of a safety net and public goods. The welfare state is one part, complementing full employment, of empowering people and balancing power in a financial capitalist society."

Friedman’s contribution is to point out, as Edsall summarizes, that “during hard times people become less altruistic and more inclined to see the poor as undeserving.” Friedman says that when people are squeezed economically, rather than identifying with those still worse off, they “enter a period of retreat and retrenchment.” That is certainly what we are seeing now, with the government cutting unemployment benefits, food stamps, and a much larger swath of the safety net in a shrinking budget.


..................................SNIP"

[Hoyt]

1. I really think something is going to have to change. I fear our leaders won't have guts to do

anything, even in an incremental way.

[pipoman]

4. It isn't about guts, it is about inclination

Driven by greed and fiduciary responsibility to the same corporate daddy war bucks regardless the party. ..Both parties have the same responsibilities to the same masters..time for a new labor party to emerge, whether that is the Democratic party or another will decide the fate of the Democratic party.

[daleanime]

2. K&R....

[1000words]

3. A pleasant read, but mostly rooted in wishful thinking

Direct link to the piece:

http://www.nextnewdeal.net/looking-2014-emerging-movement-next-new-deal