9/21/11 7 PM - GPNYC Presents Rick Wolff Major Speech: "Why We Need A Powerful Left Party - Now"

Why We Need A New Left Party - Now

Hosted by the Green Party New York City
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - 7:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M.
Location: Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center,
The Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies building, ground floor,
291 Park Ave. South, at the southeast corner of 22 Street, New York, New York
(1 block from 6 train -23rd St. Station, near N, R trains -23rd St. Station)

Has Capitalism finally hit the fan? And, if so, why do we need a powerful Left third party to deal with the mess?
Professor Rick Wolff will discuss some of the reasons why we need a new left party in the United States, including the Democratic Party’s dependence on Wall Street and other big business interests; how this dependence has silenced the voices of the poor and middle class in our current political debates; and how left parties in Europe have contributed both to a stronger safety net and more egalitarian society, and to more widespread and militant resistance to corporate power.

(Prof. Wolff has written a book, Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It (Olive Branch Press, 2009)
and a DVD, Capitalism Hits the Fan: Richard Wolff on the Economic Meltdown (Media Education Foundation, 2009).)

(Review of Wolff's DVD.)

This event is sponsored by Green Party New York City, consisting of members of the Green Party of the United States.

States' redistricting: brace yourselves for the 2010s as a Republican decade

The coming Republican decade derives from state level Republican lawmakers' self-serving redistricting.

This will make the task of progressives' pushing for electoral victories much more difficult.

The November 2, 2010 Republican sweep of the elections handed state-level Republicans great redistricting power.
Mother Jones explains. Read: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/republican-decade-congressional-redistricting

Not a fan of your new GOP-dominated House of Representatives? You'd better get used to it. After winning almost unprecedented power over the congressional redistricting process, Republicans are poised to lock in their gains for a decade or more. And there's very little the Democrats can do to stop them. This year, the Dems could draw less than half the districts the GOP does.

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The Republican wave couldn't have come at a worse time for Dems. America's once-a-decade census has wrapped up, and many states are due to change the boundaries of their congressional districts. Population-based adjustments mean that slower-growing states (like Ohio) will lose seats, while faster-growing states (like Florida) will gain them.

The only solace is that rising Hispanic populations in Sun Belt states will lead to realignment of states to blue state or purple state status. Witness the strong Latino support for Democratic candidates in this week's elections in California and Nevada.

Rep. Frank points out Repub. hypocrisy on one-party government

Republicans want to have their cake and eat it too.

Through most of Pres. George W. Bush's tenure (six years) Republicans controlled the White House, the House, the Senate. As Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.) said on Meet the Press, the Republicans had no reservations about governing with one-party government.

Now that the Democrats won their greatest presidential victory in over 40 years, and have secured both houses, now they rant, along with their Rush Limbaugh / Bill O'Reilly allies, against Democratic one party government.

Labor and our democratic party

Democratic --connoting the people-- Party ... how well is this party representing working people? To the point, how well is the party mobilizing on the issues relating to trade unions, as trade unions are the instruments of working people's democratic self-expression and self-defense on the job. There is plenty of talk about the diversity of the Democratic Party. Is the labor movement under the party's tent?

We should be looking to the Democratic Party's platform in the Denver convention this week. First, will the party put the new check-off party vote on the platform; and secondly, will the party put overall labor law reform on the platform?

More crucially, will Barack Obama campaign on these issues, even if they get into the platform? And will party candidates in general, campaign on these issues?

The first reform (check off) is needed to allow workers to join unions, unintimidated by owners and management.

We should remember that things that we take for granted, such as the 40 hour work week and worker's compensation, and the weekend, we owe to the hard labor of the organized labor movement of this country.

CORRECTION on: Clinton to Covention: don't nominate me

The New York "Daily News" and Raw Story report this morning that Senator Hillary Clinton (New York) will not submit the petition asking to be nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month. Clinton has been urging her 1,886 delegates to support presumptive nominee Senator Barack Obama (Illinois).

Democratic Party rules require candidates to submit petitions, asking to be place in nomination. Observers are seeing Clinton's move as an indication of party unity with Obama. However, some Clinton insiders fear that an actual vote count on the floor might embarrass Clinton, as many Clinton delegates have announced their allegiance to Obama.

The Convention will be held from August 25 to August 28. Clinton is scheduled to speak on August 26.

CORRECTION:It is an open question, once again, as to whether Clinton will allow her name to be placed in nomination. Reports in the last hour on an online webchat that Clinton had today, Thursday, August 7, reinstate the mystery as to whether she might allow this her name to be placed in nomination, particularly this Associated Press report, "Obama rejects talk of trouble from Clinton backers."

Neither this article, nor others posted in the last hour address the question of a petition-to-be-nominated. Additionally, there are words of concern in the AP story on Clinton's role in the convention:

"As is true in all conventions, we're still working out the mechanics, the coordination," Obama said. One such issue is whether there will be a convention roll call on Clinton's nomination, he said.

"I'm letting our respective teams work out details," he said. Asked if that meant he wouldn't object to her name being placed in nomination and a vote taken, Obama said: "I didn't say that. I said that they're working it out."

And from Clinton, from the August 7 webchat:

In the Web chat, one person asked Clinton directly: "Are you truly supporting Sen. Obama and encouraging your supporters to do the same or are you just saying what you have to?" Clinton insisted she was sincerely behind Obama.

Another questioner wanted to know if there was "any possibility" her name would be placed in nomination, arguing that doing so "would at least give your supporters a voice in the choice for the party's nominee." She was noncommittal.

Blue Republic of America

What this page is about: Promoting the values and the cause of the Democratic Party of the United States, and in a progressive direction. --And pursuing the question and the quest: how do we convert more voters and more states in the blue (Democratic of course) direction.

As to the word, Republic, our country is a republic, not a democracy. Let's go back to middle school or high school, or in case you learned it later . . . a democracy is a government in which the people directly rule, legislate (pass laws). A republic is a government in which the laws are made by a separate government, and in other definitions, the government is made of elected representatives, representing the will of the people.

Before I lose you, we --Democrats-- stand a risk of losing this election (2008 presidential election) again. For, as in the case of the 2000 election, the Electoral College potentially could play the breaking role in the election. Let's just review, in the 2000 election, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman decisively defeated George W. Bush and Dick Cheney by over 540,000 votes in the popular vote.

Who are the electors of the Electoral College? Article II of the U.S. Constitution established the Electoral College as the body that would elect our President. (It was amended by the 12th Amendment, 1803, to correct problems in the first two Presidential Elections, 1796 and 1800.) The electors, not the national electorate, are the people that elect our president. The electors are individuals that are presented by the political parties in each state to act as representatives of the state in the Electoral College when it meets. The electors are obliged to vote for the political party's nominee for president at the Electoral College's meeting in mid-December.

(Are you still with me? Do you think that we have a democratic republic for our government? Are we selecting our president?)

How do some Electoral College votes result in victories for the losers of the Popular vote? The number of electors is not proportional to the number of people voting or living in each state. I'm getting bored already; how does this affect the elections?

Each state gets its electors by the number of Senators (2 -since each state, no matter its population, gets two Senators) and the number of Representatives that it has. (The Representatives are assigned to each state on the basis of their population.)

SO, here's how the system can give lop-sided victories:

A small state like, Wyoming, our least populous state, with only 515,000 (per infoplease.com), gets two Senators. Meanwhile, California, our most populous state, with a population of 36 million, also gets two Senators.

This means that the weight of one person's vote from a small state, like Wyoming, carries greater strength in the Senate and in the Electoral College than that of a voter from a larger state like California, Texas or New York.

In the 2000 election, Bush and Cheney sewed up the less-populous-state vote with Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, the Dakotas, and so on. Basically, look at election maps, and look west of the 95 degree longitude. Notice how the states to the west (excepting the Pacific Coast states) are solidly Republican.

So, we are at risk, again, of an Electoral College loss to the Republicans.

If this becomes the situation again in 2008, we should show our disdain for this arcane impediment toward a democratic selection of our president. We should have mass protests, as in the "Orange Revolution" of the Ukraine and as in the pro-Lopez Obrador protests in the 2006 Mexican presidential election. We should agitate to reform this method of electing our president. On the other hand, we should not be naive: changing this would require amending the Constitution. And amending the Constitution will require the cooperation of small states.

In the short run then, we must agitate for ensuring the integrity of the vote, especially in marginal, or swing states, such as Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Florida.