Mediaboss Marketing

On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden and leading NATO powers escalated the war provocations against Russia by announcing the imposition of substantial economic sanctions in response to Russian President Vladimir Putins recognition of the independence of Donetsk and Lugansk from Ukraine.

In the United States, a bipartisan consensus is emerging for even greater military and economic pressure to be brought to bear against Russia, increasing the risk of a war between nuclear-armed powers. This consensus has brought together a broad spectrum of the political establishment, from the Republican right to the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

This ruling class consensus is part of an attempt by the Biden administration to effect a new national unity aimed at securing American imperialisms interests abroad, controlling the domestic political crisis and distracting from growing inflation and a daily US COVID-19 death toll of over 2,000 people.

Democrats and Republicans alike are expressing criticism that the Biden administration had been insufficiently ruthless in measures taken against Russia.

Ultra-right Republican Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) declared, Biden-Harris officials are to an enormous extent directly responsible for this crisis. He and his administration instead settled for an endlessly deferred and wholly uncredible strategy of responding to Putins aggression after an invasion.

A leading Trump supporter in the House, Representative Jim Banks (R-Indiana), said that he is still hopeful that President Biden will show the backbone thats been missing all along and well hit Putin where it counts, by restoring the Trump sanctions on Nord Stream 2.

Anti-Trump Republicans were less critical of Biden and equally enthusiastic about a belligerent policy towards Russia. MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell welcomed former Trump national security advisor John Bolton on her program yesterday, providing him a chance to demand Biden take an even more aggressive stance toward Russia.

NBC wrote that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) has been on the phone all morning working with Democrats on an emergency supplemental funding package aimed at expanding sanctions, as well as military aid for the Ukrainian government.

Biden faces substantial pressure from within the Democratic Party as well. Representative Jim Hines (D-Connecticut) stated that Biden was wrong for not immediately calling Russias actions in Donetsk and Lugansk an invasion, tweeting, If you know the history of aggressive dictators, you know its critical not to lose clarity. Putin is invading Ukraine. Full stop. Hes done it before, and he will do it again if we dont impose full sanctions.

Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) similarly declared, I think we can stop equivocating as to whether we have an invasion or not. I think the West, the United States has to make it very clear to Putin that the consequences begin now.

Three of the Democrats who were part of the official congressional delegation to the Munich Security Council last weekend were former CIA, military and State Department officials, including Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Jason Crow of Colorado and Tom Malinowski of New Jersey. Slotkin, a longtime CIA and National Security Council official, emphasized the broader geopolitical issues in the Ukraine confrontation, tweeting, Make no mistake: this is about more than just Russia and Ukraine. China is watching our every move to see if the international community will stand up against Putins aggression. This is a moment to show that we wont let them rewrite the next century.

Democrats and Republicans are working together to force the Biden administration to launch more aggressive sanctions. In an article titled Biden faces bipartisan calls for more punishing Russian sanctions, NBC reported yesterday that lawmakers across the political spectrum called on President Biden to impose crushing new sanctions, including Bidens Democratic allies in Congress, as well as the Republican minority.

In the House, Democrats and Republicans are introducing the SUPPORT Act to assess how American imperialism can provide weapons to a Ukrainian military. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Illinois) said, We need to get ready to assist our Ukrainian friends secure their sovereignty if the Russians invade, and second, we need to send a strong message to the Russians and others that the costs of invading Ukraine will be prohibitive. The Ukrainian military includes neo-Nazi outfits like the Azov Battalion.

In the Senate, a similar bill introduced by Senator Menendez is sponsored by 80 percent of Senate Democrats, including self-described progressives like Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

The bipartisan delegation of Democratic and Republican senators and representatives returned from the Munich Security Conference this weekend and issued a joint statement calling for emergency legislation to further fund Ukraines military. The statement, signed by 21 legislators, reads:

It now appears increasingly likely that Russian forces will initiate hostilities against a free and peaceful Ukraine. We as a bipartisan delegation will bring home the same unity and resolve we have seen among our Atlantic allies against Russian aggression. We pledge to work toward whatever emergency supplemental legislation will best support our NATO allies and the people of Ukraine and support freedom and safety around the world. No matter what happens in the coming days, we must assure that the dictator Putin and his corrupt oligarchs pay a devastating price for their decisions.

The delegations emphasis on the unity of the Republican and Democratic delegations underscores a fundamental purpose of the present drive to war. Racked by immense internal divisions that are exacerbated by the worsening coronavirus pandemic, spiraling inflation and the ongoing threat of fascist coup plotting at home, the American ruling class is attempting to use a foreign conflict to suppress social discontent at home.

As Representative Betty McCollum (D-Minnesota) said at a press conference held by the Munich congressional delegation: Were bicameral, were bipartisan, were united. NATOs united, the EUs united and were ready to do what it takes if Russia walks away.

A particularly important role in the bipartisan warmongering is being played by the self-styled progressive Democrats.

Senator Bernie Sanders issued a belligerent statement yesterday in support of Bidens sanctions against Russia, placing blame entirely on Russia for the present crisis and making no reference to the role of NATO and the United States:

Vladimir Putins latest invasion of Ukraine is an indefensible violation of international law, regardless of whatever false pretext he offers. There has always been a diplomatic solution to this situation. Tragically, Putin appears intent on rejecting it. The United States must now work with our allies and the international community to impose serious sanctions on Putin and his oligarchs.

Sanders himself voted to support the 1999 US war against Serbia, which was also an indefensible violation of international law, and the Clinton administrations claims of genocide were also false. The same is true of the US invasion of Afghanistan, which Sanders also voted to support.

In the House, Democratic Socialists of America member Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) shared a tweet from former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul comparing Putin to Hitler, denouncing Russia for taking territory from smaller powers, and calling for the US to respond now. Right now. Declaring his support for these threats, Bowman stated, Absolutely devastating. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has not issued a single tweet opposing Bidens war provocations.

On Saturday, February 26, the World Socialist Web Site is hosting an international online webinar to oppose the US-NATO drive to war against Russia. In this webinar, an international panel of leading members of the International Committee of the Fourth International and WSWS writers will review the causes and consequences of the US-NATO war drive and present the political basis for a fight against war. Register here.

Read the original here:
Bipartisan congressional war consensus emerges, bringing together progressive left and Republican right - WSWS

There is a tension between strong employment rights, a supportive welfare state, equal rights for migrants and locals, and an open, non-selective immigration policy that creates hard decisions for progressive politicians but the quandary should not be avoided, says Alan Manning.

Those on the progressive side of politics tend to be in favour of strong employment rights for workers and a generous welfare state for those unable to work, whether because of unemployment or sickness/disability. And when it comes to migration policy, they tend to be in favour of equal rights for locals and migrants and an immigration policy that is relatively open and non-selective.

There are ways in which one can use the academic literature on the impacts of immigration to argue that one can have all the above:the studies that find that, at worst, migration only slightly depresses the wages of locals; and that migrants, taken as a whole, often pay slightly more in taxes than they receive in benefits and public services.

While these studies show that immigration does not necessarily reduce wages or worsen the public finances, there are risks in using this research to draw universal conclusions about the impact of immigration, regardless of the level, or type, of immigration. There are reasons to think their findings apply mostly to the situation under the current restrictions on immigration, restrictions which are designed to limit the impact on wages and the public finances.

To see that there are circumstances where immigration may reduce wages, consider the Gulf and Singapore where full-time live-in domestic help can be hired for very low salaries, perhaps 8,000 a year. Many local households take advantage of this and this migration benefits locals. But it comes at the cost of these migrants having fewer rights than locals with, for example, no prospect of ever becoming a citizen. As Philip Martin and Martin Ruhs have written, there seems to a trade-off between the number of migrants and the rights those migrants have.

In the UK, hiring live-in domestic help costs so much that very few households can afford it. It is not that the migrants going to the Gulf or Singapore want to go there and not to the UK. But the combination of UK labour laws (like the minimum wage or collective bargaining) and the immigration rules (which would not allow migrants into the country) prevent them from migrating to the UK. These rules protect locals from the possibility that migrants might depress wages but have the impact of limiting the demand for work permits from employers, making the immigration system more restrictive as a result. The greater the protections for locals, the lower the level of immigration is likely to be.

To keep immigration open, one could expand the types of immigration that do not require a job offer. Some of these migrants might end up not working at all and what happens then is important. If there are no recourse to public funds policies, migrants will have fewer rights than locals but there is little cost to the locals of sustaining the migrants without work. However, these migrants will end up among the poorest people in our society. Their children could be in extreme poverty yet will go on to become citizens. This can all be mitigated by giving migrants the same access to the welfare state as locals, but then one risks a negative effect on the public finances. Most studies find that the impact of migrants, taken as a whole, on the public finances is small (sometimes positive, sometimes negative) but there are huge differences in the net contribution at the individual level, largely based around whether someone is in work or not. Expand immigration routes that do not require a job offer, prevent very low wages, and give equal access to the welfare state and it is quite possible that this will worsen the public finances.

In 2004, David Goodhart formulated the progressive dilemma that immigration leads to increased diversity that threatens the sense of solidarity within the community which sustains the welfare state. One can debate whether one can create a common identity to avoid this, but some types of immigration can undermine the welfare states fiscal sustainability. Ensuring this does not happen leads us down the path of a more restrictive, selective immigration policy.

Taken individually, the objectives of (1) strong employment rights, (2) a supportive welfare state, (3) equal rights for locals and migrants, (4) a relatively open, non-selective immigration policy all seem achievable. There are often policies that can improve outcomes in one dimension without harming the others. But, deep down, there are tensions between them. For progressives who see all the objectives as laudable, there is then a very uncomfortable decision to make about how to balance them. A decision so uncomfortable that it is very tempting to convince oneself there is no tension at all. But this does not make the tension go away and risks leaving the immigration policy space to those with a less progressive vision of the good society, who are more than happy to sacrifice one of these objectives for others. How to design an immigration policy with an appropriate balance between the competing objectives is the progressive quandary.

____________________

About the Author

Alan Manning is Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at LSE, and co-director of the community wellbeing programme at LSE CEP. His research generally covers labour markets, with a focus on imperfect competition (monopsony), minimum wages, job polarisation, immigration, and gender. On immigration, his interests expand beyond the economy to issues such as social housing, minority groups, and identity.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash.

Here is the original post:
The progressive quandary: how to design an immigration policy that balances competing objectives - British Politics and Policy at LSE

Those making bids for office include Boston NAACP President Tanisha Sullivan, who is running against longtime Secretary of State Bill Galvin; former ACLU attorney Rahsaan Hall, who is making a bid against longtime Plymouth County DA Timothy Cruz; and Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, who is running for DA in Suffolk County, where newly-appointed interim Kevin Hayden hasnt said whether he will be a candidate.

Thats a stark change from the electoral slates of not many years ago, when entrenched white male candidates were regarded as so unbeatable that many candidates were reluctant to even take their chances.

The shift leftward is visible in other contests as well. Even as Attorney General Maura Healey seems established as the early front-runner for governor, both Sonia Chang-Diaz and Danielle Allen have staked out positions clearly intended to outflank the attorney general on her left.

Not that Healey is any kind of moderate, at least not by the standards of any state but this one. But in Democratic politics, the ground is shifting. And the faces of those running this year are a clear reflection of that.

* As Boston begins the search for its next schools superintendent, one intriguing subplot is what this will mean for the future of the appointed School Committee.

Following a resounding vote in a nonbinding referendum, the notion of scrapping the current panel for an elected one has never had more momentum than it does now.

Thats a potential political problem for Mayor Michelle Wu, who opposes a return to an elected School Committee. (She says she favors a hybrid, with some members elected and some appointed by the mayor.)

Politically, an elected School Committee is an easy sell to voters, just by virtue of being more democratic. Given the choice, who wouldnt opt for electing their government?

But Boston has had an elected School Committee it was abolished in 1991 by Mayor Ray Flynn and its latter years were nothing the city needs or should want again. With every decision deeply politicized, it spent most of its time in gridlock. Running the schools had become nearly impossible. Troubled as the School Department may be now, it bears little resemblance to that old, broken version.

Then, and maybe now, the strongest proponents of an elected School Committee were politicians, not parents or educators. They liked the idea of more offices for political ingenues to run for, and they liked being able to exert more direct influence on decisions, including budgets and promotions. Nearly every appointment of a principal back then prompted a low-key political campaign.

Lets just say educational quality was not always front and center.

People have forgotten what a disaster it was, said former city councilor Michael McCormack, who first proposed replacing it with an appointed committee and got Flynn on board. I hope Mayor Wu sticks to her guns in not going back to that, and I think she will.

Flynn, and Mayor Tom Menino after him, argued that the appointed committee made the mayor squarely responsible for the schools. That hasnt fueled sufficient progress, but accountability has not been a bad thing.

Ultimately, what we desperately need is to improve the schools. If Wu can be an effective driver for the changes that are needed which I believe she can be I dont really care whos on the School Committee, or who picks them. Just somebody, please, fix the schools.

* Under the leadership of Mayor Carlo DeMaria, Everett is a city where weird stuff happens routinely.

The latest is that Schools Superintendent Priya Tahiliani who is currently pursuing a complaint against the city for racial and gender discrimination says through her attorney that surveillance cameras were recently found in her office. The devices were reportedly discovered last month.

Tahiliani, whose contract runs until 2024, maintains that DeMaria has been trying to push her out of her job for some time. The School Committee recently shelved plans to undercut her authority, in the wake of her complaint.

Its anyones guess what anyone thought they might uncover by planting a camera in the superintendents office.

Only in Everett.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at adrian.walker@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Adrian_Walker.

See the original post here:
Will this be a big year for progressives, and other thoughts - The Boston Globe

Progressives activists including elected officials gathered at the Florida Capitol Tuesday to complain that the Legislature isnt addressing the problems that average people need help with.

We are tired of a state that continues to demolish the capability of local officials trying to address the needs of their constituents; we are tired of coming year after year to file lawsuits against these bills that are chipping away at our basic human rights, said Francesca Menes, deputy organizing director for Local Progress, during a news conference.

The group represents a collection of progressive public officials.

Jack Porter, who sits on the Tallahassee City Commission, cited one example: Floridas housing crisis. She pointed to trailer park in her community where the owner doubled rents and pushed residents out of their homes.

It breaks my heart to get email after email that people are struggling and they have been removed from their house illegally, Porter said.

One bill pending before the Legislature HB 537 would allow landlords to charge monthly fees instead of security deposits. That would reduce up-front costs but hook renters with monthly fees that they wouldnt get back, unlike a refundable security deposit, according to critics.

Porter argued that policy decision should be left to local government.

Rep. Angie Nixon, a Black Democrat from Duval County, urged repeal of HB1, the anti-riot legislation passed last year. The bill toughens criminal penalties against organizers and participants in demonstrations that get out of hand, even if counter-protesters started the trouble.

A federal judge has ruled the law violates the Constitution.

Nixon has filed her own bill (HB 857), which would repeal the old law.

Our governor keeps saying this is a free state and I say, Free for who? Its not a free state for people who look like me, who are a part of LGBTQ community, and not a free state for women, Nixon said.

Read the rest here:
Progressives claim FL Legislature is ignoring real people's needs this session - Florida Phoenix

I spend a lot of my time yelling at my former progressive comrades hoping that they will come to their senses. But it also occurs to me that I speak the language and I could just explain how progressives should be responding to this crisis if they were still progressive. And then they can choose to uphold their purported values or confess that theyve embraced a new ideology. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, I believe that the points below about framing are useful and important.

George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist at UC Berkeley, is the intellectual godfather of progressive messaging. Lakoffs books, Metaphors We Live By (with Mark Johnson), Moral Politics, and Dont Think of an Elephant are the sacred texts of progressive framing and are read and used by nearly all Democratic political strategists. After reading his books and using them to design messaging campaigns for over a decade, I took a class in graduate school from Dr. Lakoff in 2012. I continue to use his work today.

Lakoffs key insight is that understanding is inherently metaphorical. We process complex ideas in terms of other, simpler, more primal experiences (spatial and tactile sensations, pictures, basic family relations). Choosing the most advantageous metaphor to describe a problem and its solutions is the art of framing.

1. Every word evokes a frame.

So for example, arguments are often described in terms of war. Choosing that metaphor will lead one to think of attacks and defenses, winners and losers, domination and surrender. Some of the examples he gives are:

He shot down all my arguments.

Her criticisms were right on target.

If you use that strategy, hell wipe you out.

But there is nothing inherent in arguing that leads us to liken it to war. Its just a metaphor that people use to understand it. But imagine a culture where an argument is viewed as a dance, the participants are seen as performers, and the goal is to perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way. (Metaphors We Live By, p. 5).

2: Words defined within a frame evoke the frame.

In the examples above, the words shot down, right on target, and wipe you out all evoke the war metaphor.

3. Negating a frame evokes the frame.

This is the most important rule of all. Every time you try to debunk your opponents frame you just end up evoking it which activates the neurological circuits associated with that frame in peoples minds. So it is always better to reframe and go on offense.

4. Evoking a frame reinforces that frame.

Every frame is realized in the brain by neural circuitry. Every time a neural circuit is activated, it is strengthened. At the most fundamental level, messaging is an attempt to literally build certain neural pathways in the brain. As Lakoff writes,

Framing is the process of choosing words and phrases to communicate an idea in a way that invokes certain metaphorical associations and rules out others. Frames set the vocabulary and metaphors through which an issue can be comprehended and discussed. By consistently invoking a resonant frame, the framing party sets the terms of the debate, shapes the perceptions of the issue, and provides a narrative for possible solutions.

Lakoff argues that most of us think metaphorically of the nation as family.

But what kind of family?

Progressives and conservatives think differently:

Progressives tend to invoke a nurturant parent frame.

The nurturant parent model is gender-neutral and envisions a family where both parents are equally responsible for raising the children.

Children develop best through their positive relationships to others. The obedience of children comes out of their love and respect for their parents, not out of the fear of punishment.

If you empathize with your child, you will provide protection. This comes into politics in many ways. What do you protect your child from? Crime and drugs, certainly. You also protect your child from cars without seat belts, pollution, lead paint, pesticides in food, unscrupulous businessmen, and so on. So progressive politics focuses on environmental protection, worker protection, consumer protection, etc. Dont Think of An Elephant, p.12.

This is where it all falls apart. Lakoff is on record as supporting vaccine mandates because apparently hes never read a vaccine safety study and he mistakenly assumes that captured government bureaucrats and the pharmaceutical industry are being truthful about the data (when in fact they are not).

If we lived in a sane world, the progressive response to mandatory vaccines would look like this:

Nurturant parents do NOT allow felons to perform medical experiments on their kids.

Nurturant parents do NOT allow regulators who are captured by industry to make decisions about their familys health.

Nurturant parents do NOT allow school officials to deprive their children of oxygen and require injections as a condition of school entry.

Nurturant parents do NOT gaslight other parents for their medical decisions.

Nurturant parents do NOT get their medical information from news sources that are captured by industry.

Nurturant parents have a responsibility to read vaccine safety inserts and vaccine safety studies for themselves.

Nurturant parents have a responsibility to read the Nuremberg Code and understand the reasons why The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential.

Nurturant parents have a responsibility to listen to the mothers and fathers of vaccine-injured children and learn from their experience.

Nurturant parents have a responsibility to engage in critical thinking and unbiased due diligence and have realized that independent doctors understand prevention and treatment of Covid better than captured regulators.

Nurturant parents have a responsibility to oppose show-me-your-papers and vaccine passports because they do not want their children to grow up in a fascist country.

See thats not difficult. If progressives were still progressives they would be fighting bio-fascism with every cell in their body. Some are, but most are not.

Heres the very real problem and Im not sure what to do about it there is no such thing as progressivism anymore. It has evaporated over the last two years. Its now a memory carried by the elders but it does not exist in the real world anymore. Adherents of the ideology became robots, embraced censorship and cancel culture, and mindlessly repeat and obey diktats. So I write this article as a bedside whisper to a friend who is in a coma hoping that the remembrance of the old ways might help him to wake up.

Adapted from the authors Substack

Toby Rogers has a Ph.D. in political economy from the University of Sydney in Australia and a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley. His research focus is on regulatory capture and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Rogers does grassroots political organizing with medical freedom groups across the country working to stop the epidemic of chronic illness in children. He writes about the political economy of public health on Substack.

READ MORE

More here:
What Happened to Progressivism? - Brownstone Institute