Newsitem List

Many Occupiers have expressed a valid concern over the Obama campaign attempting to hijack the Occupy movement. To avoid this pitfall some Occupiers advocate more radical methods, ideas and strategies. But sometimes these tactics create new problems. While swerving safely left of the Democrats’ grasp, some Occupiers have overreached and exited the orbit of most working people, who would otherwise naturally gravitate to the Occupy movement. Some Occupiers dismiss this new worry, viewing the Oc...

The Homo economicus is a kind of calculating machine on two legs that incessantly calculates personal benefits and profit. His conduct follows the model of rational expectations and assumes all other persons will follow this model. Incursions of the state should make possible more social equality. Finance-driven capitalism is based on myths and false models....

Charles Smith, a delegate from AFSCME Local 444 to the Alameda Labor Council reports on the 12/5/2011 meeting and the battle over solidarity with Occupy Oakland and their call for Oakland Port Blockade on December 12, 2011...

2011 has been an historic year in the U.S. From last winter’s explosion of mass protests in response to the attacks against public workers’ unions, especially in Madison, Wisconsin, to the even more widespread Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWSM), there have been few years in the past decades that demonstrate so clearly the fighting spirit of workers in America when they are forced to defend themselves from corporate attacks....

Harry Hopkins, head of the WPA under Roosevelt, created 4 million jobs in 2 months. How many jobs in journalism, health care, education, bridge repair and community centers could be created with the help of the Internet? Solutions are not lacking, only political will. Sharing and redistribution must replace the myths of the self-healing market and corporate beneficence. Democracy and public spirit are sacrificed when corporate profits are identified with community health....

The Alexander/Mendoza campaign calls for a real jobs program, as well as protecting public sector jobs which have been faltering since the economic crisis began. They say that spending billions of dollars on incentives for businesses doesn’t get the job done – rather they call for the government to create jobs directly....

An extraordinary 2 million public sector workers went on strike on 11/30/11 in Great Britain and US nurses picketed British consultates in support of UK nurses. See http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/solidarity-messages-from-the-us-to-the-uk-nov.-30-2011/...

Economists with their models could predict the values of economic variables but did not foresee the greatest worldwide economic crisis in 80 years. Mechanical-deterministic neoclassicism is a self-contained theoretical model offering simple answers. Neoclassicism serves the interests of capital and big corporations, interests that are well-organized and financed....

Christian Wulff, president of Germany, spoke at an economics conference in Lindau, Germany, August 24, 2011. The mild-mannered president deplored the violations of the coming generation and urged regulation of the financial sector. Angela Merkel also speaks with passion about the banks' stranglehold over politics....

The Occupy Movement couldn't have come along at a worse time, from the viewpoint of the Democrats. Election season is just getting started and Occupy has thrown a giant wrench into the political machinery. Some labor leaders too are sensing “politics as usual” shifting under their feet; the “get out the vote” for the Democrats may elicit blank stares from the rank and file. Occupy has the potential to create earthquakes within the labor movement and labor’s relationship to the Democrats, if...