Dems show pre-existing condition: compulsion for disastrous concessions
The Democratic healthcare reform effort has been gasping for air, as Art Levine suggested in his recent post.
But healthcare reform certainly won't be resuscitated if ...
wrokinginthesetimes.com post for Jan. 26, 2010
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5474/corporate_unionbusting_continues_even_as_unionized_workforce_shrinks/
From workinginthesetimes.com. LINK:http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5355/one_year_after_republic_why_didnt_occupation_bring_revolt_to_u.s/
Part II of reflections of the impact of the Republic Doors and Windows sit-down
Workinginthestimes.com blog on the role of Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, his obstructionist role on healthcare, and labor's efforts to gain accountability from "pro-labor" elected officials.
Part I : workinginthesetimes.com piece on severe inadequacies of Dems' health bills and their message, and how they may affect the 2010 mid-term elections
Review of Covering for the Bosses: media, Southern labor, and applying the slavocracy model to globalization (Z, March 2010)
Midwest Apocalypse: The Katrina of All Recessions Dec. 2009
Two chapters in forthcoming book, Real World Labor edited by Emmanuel Ness, Amy Offner, and Chris Sturr http://www.dollarsandsense.org/bookstore/
EMAIL: winterbybee@gmail.com
FACEBOOK: RogerD.Bybee
LABOR BLOG Tuesdays and Fridaydays for In These Times at
www.workinginthesetimes.com
/working.
Barrier to reform
"The free-market system blunders into recession; its victims flock to the free-market banner. And here we go again...
"The answer to the riddle is as plain as the caviar on a lobbyist's spoon. Democrats don't speak to angry, working-class people because a lot of them can't speak to angry, working-class people. They don't know how. Many of the party's resident geniuses gave up on that constituency long ago, preferring instead to remodel their organization as the vanguard of enlightened professionals and the shrine of purest globaloney. They worked hard to convince Wall Street that new-style Democrats could be trusted. They accepted, for the most part, the deregulatory agenda of the Reagan administration; in fact, in some fields—banking, telecommunications, free trade—they went farther than Ronald Reagan dared. " Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 24, 2010
I've recently been invited to write a twice-weekly blog in In Thesse Times, appearing Tuesd... more
I've recently been invited to write a twice-weekly blog in In Thesse Times, appearing Tuesdays and Thursdays (go to www.inthesetimes.com and flick the In These Times Working link at the top of the page)
I'm now a full-time freelance writer, with my immediate aim complete a book on corporate media coverage of globalization (tentatively titled The Giant Sucking Sound: How Corporate Media Swallowed the Myth of Free Trade.) I write frequently for Z, Extra!, The Progressive Populist, Madison's Isthmus alternative weekly, and a variety of publications including Yes!, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus, and several websites. My work specializes in corporate globalization, labor, and healthcare reform...
I've been a progressive activist since the age of about 17, when I became deeply affected by the anti-war and civil rights movements. I entered college at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee just days after watching the Chicago police brutalize anti-war demonstrators at the Democratic Convention of 1968. I was active in a variety of "student power" and anti-war activities, highlighted by the May, 1970 strike after the Nixon's invastion of Cambodia and the massacres at Kent State and Jackson State. My senior year was capped by Nixon's bombing of Haiphong Harbor and the occupation of a university building, all in the same week I needed to finish 5-6 term papers to graduate, which I managed somehow.
My wife Carolyn Winter, whom I met in the Wisconsin Alliance, and I have been together since 1975, getting officially married 10/11/81. Carolyn, a native New Yorker, has also been active for social justice since her youth (she attended the famous 1963 Civil Rights march where Dr. King gave his "I have a dream speech"). We have two grown children, Lane (with wife Elaine and 6-year-old grandson Zachary) living in Chicago and Rachel (who with her husband Michael just had a new baby girl Talia Ruth on June 30) living in Asbury Park, NJ. My sister Francie lives down the block from me.
I'm a native of the once-heavily unionized industrial city of Racine, Wis. (which right-wingers sneeringly labeled "Little Moscow" during the upheavals of the 1930's), and both my grandfathers were industrial workers and Socialists. On my father's side, my grandfather was fired three times for Socialist or union activity. His family lost their home at one point during the Depression. My mom's father was a long-time member of UAW Local 72 at American Motors, where he worked for more than 30 years. Coming from impoverished families, my parents met through a very low-cost form of recreation: Racine's Hiking Club.
Writing, softball (although each season brings on more torn muscles and tendons), traveling, gard... more
Writing, softball (although each season brings on more torn muscles and tendons), traveling, gardening, and having fun with my wife Carolyn Winter and our grown kids Lane (Elaine) and Rachel (Michael)and especially the two grandchildren Zachary, 7, of Chicago ("It's my world, and me and Mayor Daley make the rules!")and the little Jersey Girl, Talia Ruth, born June 30, 2008 to Rachel and Mike in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where Bruce Springsteen and his homeboys still rule. ("Baby She Was Born to Run!") less
