Helen Keller on the $10

Part of the reason for redesigning our paper currency is to make it accessible to people with difficulty seeing (also, to make it harder to counterfeit). We are one of only two nations whose bills are the same size no matter what the denomination; most countries also vary the colors to make bills more detectable to people who are sight-impaired but not totally blind.

The next bill due for a redo is the $10, and the Treasury has announced that it intends to replace the current occupant, Alexander Hamilton, with a woman.

That being the case, although the women on the front page of today's New York Times -- Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt and Rosa Parks -- are all admirable, it seems to me that there is one stand-out candidate: Helen Keller (1880–1968).

Struck totally deaf and blind by a childhood illness when she was 19 months old, before she'd learned to speak, she overcame the adversity of being unable hear or see anything to become one of the 20th century's leading humanitarians, an international champion for the disabled, a feminist, a socialist, a teacher and lecturer, a journalist, the first deaf-blind person to earn a BA, and a co-founder of the ACLU.

Parenthetically, it's not too late to erase autocratic, slave-trading, Indian-relocating, populist Andrew Jackson from our currency, instead of Hamilton who, as founder of the nation's financial system (not to mention a far better human being), has a more direct connection to our currency.

The rest of the story:
A Woman on the $10 Bill, and Everyone Has 2 Cents to Put In by Jackie Calmes (New York Times).

Reading list:
What Helen Keller Saw: The making of a writer by Cynthia Ozick (The New Yorker).

Three Days to See by Hellen Keller (1933; The Atlantic Monthly).

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller (Amazon).

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (Amazon).

Extra credit:
The Water Scene and the Breakfast Scene from The Miracle Worker (Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke; directed by Arthur Penn; written by William Gibson)(YouTube).
Buy The Miracle Worker (Amazon).

Helen Keller Speaks Out (YouTube)

Hamilton - Original Broadway Cast Recording: book, music and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award-winning composer Lin Manuel Miranda, who also plays the title role; directed by Thomas Kail; choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler; music direction and orchestrations by Alex Lacamoire. The show was inspired by Chernow's biography (Amazon).

Just Curious #27,632

So you've tweeted, "Bernie Sanders is a do-nothing failure."

Mayor. Member of the House of Representatives. U.S. Senator.

What have you done lately? Just curious.

The nation’s largest private-sector employer is told to obey the law

A federal administrative law judge has ordered

Wal-Mart to offer 16 former workers their previous jobs and to make them "whole for any loss of earnings and other benefits suffered as a result of the discrimination against them." The company must also hold meetings in more than two dozen stores to inform workers of their rights to organize under U.S. labor law.

The rest of the story:
Wal-Mart strikes lawful, must reinstate workers: NLRB judge by Nathan Layne (Reuters).

Further reading:
How Walmart Keeps an Eye on Its Massive Workforce: The retail giant is always watching by Susan Berfield (Bloomberg Businessweek).

Life as a Wal-Mart worker -- and how its employees are monitored at all times: America’s real-life dystopia: Wal-Mart is straight out of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley by Aaron R. Hanlon (Salon).

“We are not anti-union; we are pro-associate”: A Manager's Toolbox To Remaining Union Free ("CONFIDENTIAL" Wal-Mart document) (source: ReclaimDemocracy.org).

The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works--and How It's Transforming the American Economy by Charles Fishman (Amazon). "[T]he story of Wal-Mart is really the story of the transformation of the American economy over the past 20 years." Fishman is "careful to present the consumer benefits of Wal-Mart's staggering growth and to place Wal-Mart in the larger context of globalization and the rise of mega-corporations. But he also presents the case against Wal-Mart in arresting detail, and his carefully balanced approach only makes the downside of Wal-Mart's market dominance more vivid." -- Publisher's Weekly

The discount giant is closing 269 stores worldwide—and not even bothering to build stores it promised in poor neighborhoods: Can Cities Afford to Trust Walmart? by Kriston Capps (CityLab)

Extra credit:
This video is shown to all "associates" at on-boarding: it's imperative that everyone working for Wal-Mart understands that s/he is "better off" without a union.


The parody t-shirt at the top of this post and other merchandise is available from Reclaim Democracy!: "Reclaim Democracy! is dedicated to restoring democratic authority over corporations, reviving grassroots democracy, and establishing appropriate limits on corporate influence. We work for systemic change, instead of reacting to corporate agendas."

On the Democratic candidates and the credibility gap

"Having learned from 2008, she's got the best ground operation in the history of Iowa caucuses that still may rescue her there. But she's sinking rapidly against a 73-year-old political maverick who is still just introducing himself to the American people."

The question is: Why is that so?

The rest of the story:
As Panic Grips Clinton Campaign, The Real Question: What's Wrong with Hillary? by Robert Borosage (Common Dreams)

"The Best, uh, Person"

Is it too late to pitch a remake, no, I'm sorry, a re-imagination of Frank Schaffner's great movie The Best Man -- screenplay by Gore Vidal, starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson -- in time for this year's election? In the 1964 film, as IMDb puts it, "[t]he two front runners for their party's Presidential nomination, one principled and the other ruthless, vie for the ex-President's endorsement." Actually, the story's a lot more complicated and interesting than that, including the presence in the race of one Gov. John Merwin, a being so spectral even the actor who played him (William R. Ebersol) (or is it Eberson?) has vanished into the mists of time.

In the new version, the front runner, a seasoned center-right politician (Meryl Streep), is challenged from her left by an idealistic, small-state U.S. Senator (Larry David, because Sam Elliott or Tom Selleck wouldn't be believable). The race has its ups and downs -- shifting poll numbers, primaries won and lost, petty scandals, social-media hits and misses, staff screw-ups, family embarrassments, yada yada, but as we open act three, the major candidates arrive at the convention unexpectedly neck and neck.

The President (Will Smith), busy with drone targets and blueprints for his presidential library and frankly not really very interested, dithers until the day of the vote, then makes a brilliant address to convention delegates that leaves the decision up to them. The surging enthusiasm of the challengers' supporters seems to be tipping the balance his way.

The former front runner, sensing the tide has turned against her, realizing she must concede, is unable to forgive the competitor who has exposed her feet of clay. In the final moment, she throws her delegates to the third candidate in the race, the chimerical governor (Tim Daly) who is last seen for a heart-stopping ten seconds -- the mood: a new day? a perilous future? the loneliness of power? "Happy Days Are Here Again"? "Gonna Fly Now"? a lot is going to depend on the soundtrack here -- on an escalator to the convention floor to accept the nomination.

Reading list:
Eleven populist points about the Bernie blizzard: Berserk Clinton Bigwigs Launch Nixonian Attack Against Surging Sanders by Brent Budowsky (Observer)

Further viewing:
Theater Talk: Playwright Gore Vidal on "The Best Man" (YouTube).

Homework:
Buy The Best Man by Gore Vidal, directed by Franklin Schaffner, with Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson (Amazon).

Old Man Trump

You may know that Woody Guthrie despised Donald Trump's father for his racist real estate practices and wrote bitterly about them in some unpublished work.

Before he lived in a Trump-owned apartment in Brooklyn, however, Guthrie spent many years between the wars in Los Angeles. He wrote songs about those whose voices too often went unheard: the working people, the Dust Bowl refugees, the poor, the homeless, and the people of Skid Row.

The rest of the story:
Woody Guthrie and Skid Row in Los Angeles by Darryl Holter (KCET)

The New New Deal

"Sanders' populist surge naturally intrigues a wide range of free-thinking, truth-seeking voters, but we are being warned by the Democratic hierarchy that the only way to ward off the Halloween horror of a Donald Trump-Ted Cruz presidency is to set aside our populist idealism this year and stick with Barack Obama-style, don't-rock-the-corporate-boat liberalism offering small-step reforms. That's not exactly a turn-on for the majority of people fed up with business-as-usual politics — which is why so many Americans are hitching their populist hopes to Sanders' people-powered movement."

The rest of the story:
Something Is Happening by Jim Hightower (Common Dreams)

This was fun for a while

"What [the liberal establishment] argument really amounts to is an argument that Democratic Party politicians and the operatives who run their campaigns would be uncomfortable with talking openly about socialism because that would alienate the corporate interests they have cozied up to in order to win elections."

The rest of the story:
Liberals No Longer Amused by Bernie Sanders’ Presidential Campaign by Kevin Gosztola (Common Dreams)

Resource

From the early hours of the morning until late in the evening, politicians are breaking bread and sipping cocktails with donors. Political Party Time* lets you know who’s fundraising with whom, and where.

*Political Party Time is a project of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for open government globally and uses technology to make government more accountable to all.

Flushing the PACs is not enough

We need to look no further than the current political dysfunction in the U.S. to see that without equality democracy is not viable.

But the problem with the effort to place a limit on campaign spending by moneyed interests is that it doesn't take us nearly far enough toward restoring equality of access to our political system. The 1% is buying power by stuffing dollars into PACs, yes; but wealth also acquires power in many other ways, direct, through bribes (contributions to individual campaigns, padded honorariums for speeches, make-work consultancies, donations to pet foundations, etc.) and indirect, through influential fronts (funding think tanks, academic studies, laboratory research, academic chairs, and so on), corporate advertising, and control of the mainstream media.

By itself, overturning Citizens United will not check the influence of money on politics.

In the past, political organizing helped the majority to defend its interests, but organizing is a long and difficult process, and in the last 40 years many of the mechanisms that were depended on to generate, accumulate and deploy the power of communities have either atrophied or been systematically destroyed (labor unions, to take one example). Somehow we must restore organizing to its central place in the political landscape if the many are ever again effectively to counter the power of the few.

The foremost reason to support Sen. Sanders for president is that he is the only major candidate in the race who recognizes that political inequality and economic injustice are major obstacles to further progress for this nation. Win or lose, Sen. Sanders' campaign, with its millions of donors and its fired-up activists, could be the beginning of a new era of people power.

Reading list:
Forty-three percent of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers self-identify as socialist -- to be very clear, the question is not whether they would vote for a socialist or sympathize with socialism; it's whether they consider themselves socialist -- more, actually, than the number who identify themselves as capitalist (38 %). This number proves Bernie Sanders can win Iowa by Aaron Blake (The Washington Post).

Extra credit:

via GIPHY

The Bernie Beat Goes On

In 2008, the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign was moved to share this picture of young Barack Obama with the voting public.

In 1987, while serving as Burlington’s mayor, Bernie Sanders recorded an album of folk classics for the defunct BurlingTown Recordings label. Vermont's Seven Days found it in an archive search for Bernie Beat, its digital guide to Sanders' colorful political career. Sen. Sanders better watch out; if the Clinton campaign decides to go after the folk music vote, you can bet this will be everywhere: Sanders sings The Banks Are Made of Marble, and it ain't pretty.

The leaders of both parties are underestimating Bernie Sanders

Now that the worried Clinton campaign has turned its guns on a surging Bernie Sanders, Clinton's supporters have begun to express concern that the Vermont senator will be especially vulnerable to attacks from the right (so vulnerable, in fact, that the Clinton campaign itself is using them).

What the Republicans will do, of course, is try to slime the Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is.

Barack Obama, who gave his enemies nothing to work with beyond the color of his skin, was vilified as an alien, Muslim, Socialist Pawn of Wall Street, and tyrant -- a weak one at that, but they rarely bothered to question his ethics, because no one would believe that he was personally corrupt. In Sanders' case, too, they have little to work with, now that it has become apparent that "socialism" is no longer frightening the horses, although the GOP will probably attempt to have the voters take notice of his age, as one Clinton surrogate is already trying to do, and his ethnicity.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is the best Democratic opponent you could wish for, if your only hope of winning is a smear campaign.

Reading list:
Democrats can't hold the White House forever. Losing in 2016 might make more strategic sense than losing in 2020. Fine, give the GOP four years: The liberal case for either Bernie Sanders, or electing a Republican president by Walker Bragman (Salon).

What kind of experience does Bernie Sanders have? Let's take a look. Bernie Gets It Done: Sanders' Record of Pushing Through Major Reforms Will Surprise You by Zaid Jilani (AlterNet).

Want specifics?: Bernie Sanders Releases Details on Health Plan That Would Raise Taxes but, He Argues, Save on Costs by Yamiche Alcindor and Alan Rappeport (The New York Times).

The Clinton camp is lambasting Bernie Sanders' health care plan, but its critique is blatantly dishonest. Clinton's Health Care Attack Makes No Sense by Pat Garofalo (U.S.News).

Extra credit:
Rant o' the Day: How the Democratic Establishment Manipulates Us by JosephK74 (Daily Kos).

quote unquote: James Madison on war

"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” – James Madison

(Political Observations (1795-04-20); also in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1865), Vol. IV, p. 491.)

Robert Reich: Six Responses to Bernie Skeptics

1. “He’d never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.”

Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical matchups. (The latest Real Clear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.)

2. “He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.”

If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged.

3. “America would never elect a socialist.”

P-l-e-a-s-e. America’s most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance – Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) – all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent.

4. “His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class.”

This is a duplicitous argument. Single-payer systems in other rich nations have proven cheaper than private for-profit health insurers because they don’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. So even if the Sanders single-payer plan did require some higher taxes, Americans would come out way ahead because they’d save far more than that on health insurance.

5. “His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.”

Baloney. Three-quarters of college students today already attend public universities financed largely by state governments, and they’re not run by government rules. The real problem is too many young people still can’t afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and extended into the 1960s came to an abrupt stop in the 1980s. We must restart it.

6. “He’s too old.”

Untrue. He’s in great health. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? These days, 70s are the new 60s. (He’s younger than four of the nine Supreme Court justices.) In any event, the issue isn't age; it's having the right values. FDR was paralyzed and JFK had Crohn's disease, but they were great presidents because they fought adamantly for social and economic justice.

What do you think?

Six Responses to Bernie Skeptics by Robert Reich (RobertReich.org)

Here's hoping.

Beyond economic justice and affordable universal health care and the rest, the most compelling reason to vote for Bernie Sanders is hope, hope born of the belief that more good will rise from people's dreams and aspirations than can ever come from cold-hearted electoral calculation.

Essay question

Compare the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the Great Society with the records and policy proposals of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders: Who's the "real" Democrat? Discuss.

At the flicks

"The movie shows why Bernie Sanders’s plan to break up the biggest banks and reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act (separating investment from commercial banking) is necessary – and why Hillary Clinton’s more modest plan is inadequate." — Robert Reich
The rest of the story:
'The Big Short' and Bernie Sanders' Plan to Bust Up Wall Street by Robert Reich (TruthDig)

If the U.S. was to take in its fair share of Syrian refugees, say something proportional to Germany's 300,000, we would be helping not only the particular families who came to us but also all our European friends and allies.

Fish Story

I'd bet the word I use most often in political discussions is "infrastructure." Along with education, it was infrastructure that gave us our biggest advantage over economic rivals in the 20th century. Natural resources are abundant in North America, of course, but it was government infrastructure spending in the form of railroads, electric grids, highways, port facilities, and so on (and a workforce trained and educated in publicly financed schools) that enabled us to convert resources into wealth. Forty years of feckless leadership has squandered this advantage; a succession of Democratic and Republican regimes has presided over the transfer of public wealth into private hands, leaving virtually nothing to spend on the commons.

The penalty for allowing our government to devolve into kleptocracy is coming due, however.

Take water as an example. Even though it is more important to life than any other factor, we treat it with about as much consciousness as goldfish in a bowl. Even now, with two-thirds of the country in severe drought, with aquifers, lakes, reservoirs and rivers drying up -- even the Mississippi is close to being unnavigable for lack of water -- we routinely waste unconscionable quantities of H2O. And the crumbling infrastructure is making a bad situation worse. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, we "lose" 1.7 trillion gallons of water each year -- enough to supply 68 million people -- to aging, leaky pipes (650 water mains burst on the average day). As the population grows and the supply of water declines, we will be forced to make changes in everything from agriculture to personal hygiene. And security planners say international tensions caused by water disputes will be a further burden on our ability to be the World's Policeman. Upgrading our water infrastructure will cost a bundle, at least $1 trillion, probably a lot more, but the costs of not doing anything -- in disease, productivity, unrest, and so on, are sure to be far greater. If we fail to act, and access to clean water dries up, we won't last much longer than goldfish flopping next to a broken bowl.

Like all our infrastructure problems, we have to resources to set this right, but doing so would require two seemingly impossible changes in our politics: we would need to raise taxes significantly and we would have to reorient our national priorities away from militarism and corporate welfare and toward spending for the common good. Neither of these outcomes is possible unless there is a radical updating of our political system to make it more democratic.

Constitution 2.0 is long past due.

Bike Way or the Highway

The only proposal I've seen for the Lincoln Blvd redesign (I hope there are others) has no bike lane, isolated or not.

One mainstay of anti-bike arguments holds that converting general road space into a bike lane is bad for traffic. But location after location proves this isn't true.

A better plan

New York City recently installed bike lanes on Columbus and Eighth avenues that, by reducing the width of car lanes from 12 to 10 feet -- a well-documented safer width anyway -- and adding protected left turns, not only preserved vehicle volume, but actually reduced travel times by 35 and 14 percent, respectively.