Hugh J. Campbell Archive

The bottom line of Adam Serwer’s The Guardrails Have Failed is: “As for Kavanaugh, every opinion he writes, every decision he joins, and every day he sits on the bench will be tainted with illegitimacy.” Senators who represent a shrinking portion of the population confirmed a justice more Americans oppose than support. He was nominated by a president for whom most of the electorate did not vote. Republican control of the three branches of government is countermajoritarian. With the guardrails of separated powers broken, the last remaining defense for American democracy and the rule of law is the electorate itself.

Since April 8, 2017, when Neil Gorsuch became Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the United States Government has been controlled by one political party. Why is this important?

In his Oct. 15, 2011 Senate Judiciary Committee testimony on separation of powers, Justice Antonin Scalia tells us: The real constitution of the Soviet Union, that constitution did not prevent the centralization of power in one person or in one party. And when that happens, the game is over, the Bill of Rights is just what our Framers would call a “parchment guarantee.”

Unless the Republican party ceases to control the legislative branch of the U.S. government in January, 2019, centralization of power will continue in one party, the Republican Party, for another 24 months, and if Donald Trump has his way, that centralization of power will be in one person.

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The American Sustainable Business Council’s Senior Tax Analyst, John O'Neill asks supporters to immediately target the following seven “on the fence” Republican Senators a very close vote, on the vitally important tax bill with long-term repercussions:

Sen. James Lankford (R, OK) – Concerned about the federal debt.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R, WI) – Concerned that the tax bill does too little to help small business.

Sen. Susan Collins (R, ME) – Concerned about the wealthy getting most benefit.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R, AZ) – Concerned about how the bill will affect the sick and grow the debt.

Sen. John McCain (R, AZ) – Concerned that the bill’s not following regular order and does too much for the rich.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R, FL) and Sen. Mike Lee (R, UT) – Concerned that the tax bill does too little for working families while cutting the top corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent.

As the top 10 perent now owns 77 percent of U.S. wealth, the lion's share of defense spending to protect their wealth has ballooned, with defense appropriation reaching $700 billion. This is $81 billion greater than last year, defying “sequestration” spending caps set in the 2011 Budget Control Act.

Among the top two priorities of the super donor class are free trade and robust defense spending, with this spending appearing to be the third rail for these super donors as the Senate votes 89 to 9 for the Pentagon bill. In addition, 45 has back-peddled on his campaign promise to label China a currency manipulator in the name of national security. This panders to the super donor class by prioritizing both of their highly valued issues.

At a time when most Americans feel less safe because of lack of adequate gun-control and climate change denial in the beltway, we have 45 proposing huge tax cuts for himself, his family and the top 10 percent. With ever-increasing wealth inequity and related defense spending, combined with tax-cuts for the rich, the rational response is a wealth tax on the top percenters to pay for the lion's share of defense spending, which goes toward protecting their assets worldwide.                                                            

We often hear the wealthy should pay their fair share of taxes, but without specific rationale. With defense spending viewed as protecting assets, as well as life and limb, it is easy to justify a specific tax on the top percenters for the huge cost of protecting their assets here and abroad.

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Bill Haschke’s Neil Gorsuch is the wrong choice for U.S. Supreme Court provides an historical framework for the U.S. Senate to reject confirm Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court

Our founding fathers knew that only government could protect the rights of all citizens, because it would be large enough to challenge all other economic powers who wanted to exploit peoples’ rights for their own greedy pursuit of wealth and power. The declaration states “…that to protect these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The Declaration of Independence informs us of exactly what governments should be, whom they serve and the values that should be applied to form valid governments; it codified the natural rights of man. After our “slavery issue” was resolved, the court began interpreting the constitution more in the light of the Declaration of Independence, in keeping with the exceptional ideals put forth in our founding document.

However, since January 7, 1972 when Justices Powell and Rehnquist were sworn-in, the SCOTUS began ignoring the Declaration of Independence with more and more power over our elections, and therefore our government, being granted to powerful economic interest, including corporations, culminating with the Citizens United case.

The Washington Post article Why it’s time to get serious about Supreme Court term limits focuses on the politicization resulting from the open SCOTUS seat after Antonin Scalia's death and that nearly every other country in the world subjects their high court justices to limited terms or mandatory retirement ages.

There is widespread support for term limits among the general public. In 2015, two-thirds of Americans supported a 10-year term limit on Supreme Court justices, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll. Only 17 percent said they supported life tenure. Sixty-six percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans supported the proposal - a strong, and rare, show of bipartisanship.

"The Constitution was written at a time when life tenure meant living into your 50s because that's what life expectancy was," legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, author of two books on the Supreme Court, has noted. "Thirty-year tenures are not what the framers had in mind."

Term Limits would mean a court that more accurately reflects the changes and judgments of the society.

Forcing Trump to make recess appointments would create SCOTUS term limits of as short as less than one year, thereby putting the proverbial “gun to the head” of the establishment to seriously consider a constitutional amendment which is necessary for supreme court justice term limits.

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Our political parties left to their exclusionary desires get to set the agendas which all American voters must live with during the general election process. Is there little wonder that the United States has such low voter turnout rates and low trust in Congress? One antidote to the stranglehold the political parties have over Democracy is to open the primaries. Please click the petition Incoming Chairs of the DNC & RNC: Open the Primaries, NOW!

A patchwork of restrictive registration rules prevented 26.3 million independent voters from participating in the Presidential Primaries/Caucuses in 2016. The same restrictive rules prevented millions more registered Democrats and Republicans from voting for the candidate of their choice. Voters from New York to Arizona, whose tax dollars fund the primary process -- were denied the right to fully participate. It’s not hard to understand why voter turnout has hit a 20-year low, and 70% of all Americans now support open primaries.

By signing the petition Incoming Chairs of the DNC & RNC: Open the Primaries, NOW! you are sending a message to new DNC and RNC Chairs to break with the likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz who was the poster-chair for closed primaries in every state!

In Global economic forces conspire to stymie U.S. manufacturing, Brookings’ David Dollar contends that job loss in manufacturing derives primarily from technological change, not from trade. If this were truly the sole cause, why have virtually all our trading partner been able to better deal with these technological changes and avoid the increasing trade deficit that the U.S. political elite have inflicted on America’s working class?

The answer is our trading partners have domestic friendly trade and tax policies that enable them to better deal with the technological changes that have occurred.

Donald Trump achieved his Electoral College victory, in no small part, by vilifying the United States’ increasing trade deficit, just as progressives have for decade. The appointment of Dr. Peter Navarro to head the White House National Trade Council, which is welcomed by United Steelworkers (USW) International President Leo W. Gerard and other American labor leaders, is intended to reshape U.S. Trade Policy to promote domestic production and job creation, rather than as a foreign policy tool as it has been in the past.

Progressives should be on the lookout for and support Navarro’s initiatives to mitigate currency manipulation, border taxes on U.S. exports by our trading partners and tax benefits to corporations that incentivize the offshoring of U.S. jobs.

Expect both the mainstream media and think tanks like Brookings to be critical of Dr. Peter Navarro’s initiatives, since they can’t help being influenced by their advertisers and donors, who have been beneficiaries of the U.S. trade deficit.

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The DNC needs Leadership that understands the causes of the “Learned Helplessness” that has resulted in ineffective Democratic voter turnout in the mid-terms, the primaries and now in the 2016 General Election.

From 1934 thru 1978 Republican losses in mid-term elections averaged 28% and 79% more than Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate, respectively. Beginning in 1982 Democratic losses averaged 152% and 140% more than Republican losses in the U.S. House and Senate, respectively.

It was in 1982 that the DNC instituted the Superdelegate Scheme and ever since Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters have failed to turnout in mid-term elections in effective numbers. The Superdelegate Scheme appears to give Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters a case of “Learned Helplessness.”

AFL-CIO’s Endorsement of Keith Ellison to Lead DNC

VOTE NOW: Who should Democracy for America endorse for DNC Chair?

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President Obama is petitioned in We the People Appoint Garland Now (Senate Has Waived Its Rights) to act now and make his Supreme Court appointment as a recess appointment, since the Senate’s inaction is a waiver of it right to consent. The legal basis for this petition is outlined in the Washington Post Op-Ed Obama can appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court if the Senate does nothing.

Right-wing obstructionists are desperately trying to dissuade Americans from signing this petition by questioning the legal grounds of the waiver of rights argument, but their bias on this issue is indisputable.

Even though the We the People Appoint Garland Now (Senate Has Waived Its Rights) petition has the minimum 100,000 signatures to get an official update from the White House within 60 days, please sign the petition anyway, to communicate to the White House the urgency of this matter to the American People.

A 2016 SCOTUS recess appointment by President Obama should be effective through the end of the 115^th Congress ending January 3, 2019 and will, in all likelihood, result in a case brought before our current eight member Supreme Court. The waiver of rights and other legal arguments including prior Supreme Court rulings on the substance over form doctrine can be put forth when and if this case is heard.

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The Sept. 21, 2014 article Dems turn on Wasserman Schultz reports that the perception of critics is that Debbie Wasserman Schultz spends more energy tending to her own political ambitions than helping Democrats win. This includes using meetings with DNC donors to solicit contributions for her own PAC and campaign committee, traveling to uncompetitive districts to court House colleagues for her potential leadership bid and having DNC-paid staff focus on her personal political agenda.

The 2014 mid-term election resulted in a loss of 13 Democratic House seats and 9 Democratic Senate seats. As disconcerting as this appeared to the Obama White House, the Republican representatives and Senators who gained these seats more than provided President Obama with the margin of victory necessary to pass Fast Track in June 2015, which improved his chances to get  the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal passed. 

In the article, “In Pushing TPP, President Obama Says He Has 'Better Argument' Than Trump or Clinton” the President offered several arguments for the trade scheme.

He warned that “trying to pull up a draw bridge on trade” would hurt the U.S. economy and American workers, and said that “if we don’t establish rules -- norms -- for how trade and commerce are conducted in the Asia-Pacific region, then China will.”

Since the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) currently excludes China, as a country China has no obligation to honor the new standards for labor, environmental responsibility, and other objectives – a huge plus for China. However, Chinese subsidiaries in TPP countries such as Vietnam benefit from the extraordinary advantages bestowed on corporations doing business in TPP counties. As a result, China has no obligations as a country under TPP but receives all of the corporate benefits that they choose to take advantage of through their subsidiaries. For China, TPP is a heads we win (as crony capitalist); but tails you lose (as a TPP country).

President Obama vilified Donald Trump’s lifelong behavior of leaving people with the feeling of being cheated. President Obama, what about your signing TPP into law after passage during the lame-duck session? Candidates Clinton, Trump and Stein all oppose TPP versus Johnson who recently flipped to favor TPP.

President Obama squarely placed Trump’s status as a “homegrown demagogue” in a lineup of other threats to the American democratic experiment. However, based on following quote Trump’s rise can be squarely placed on the shoulders of Presidents Clinton, Bush-43 and Obama:

“One thing I don't like about the consequences of sustained large trade deficits is I think it makes the potential for demagoguery and really foolish policies more likely over time.” – Warren Buffett

The article Voters Aren’t Happy with NAFTA, Other Free Trade Deals based on a recent Rasmussen Reports Poll states unaffiliated voters by a 52% to 24% margin think NAFTA needs to be renegotiated and voters overall are more critical of U.S. free trade agreements than voters eight years ago.

In general, men and those 40 and over are more critical of free trade agreements than women and younger voters. Under 40 voters, Bernie Sanders’ most enthusiastic supporters, are the most likely to be undecided.

Since 2008 the percentage of U.S. voters registered Independent has increased by approximately 23 percent, primarily as a result of defections from the Democratic Party.

Critical for Hillary Clinton, the perceived establishment candidate in 2016, to win are the independent voters that believe more than 2 to 1 that NAFTA needs to be renegotiated and the undecided under 40 voters.

In addition to the challenge Hillary Clinton faces in defending NAFTA, her halfhearted opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) put her at odds with the red hot opposition by  virtually every labor union, environmental group, and even major religious groups, on trade.

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In June 2015, the vast majority of Democratic senators and representatives voted against the enabling legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), namely, Fast Track. Because of dwindling pre-general election support, the GOP congressional leadership is conspiring to pass TPP during a lame duck session after the general election, shielding their candidates from accountability for TPP votes.

Here is what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said about votes on the TPP: “Unless you make a strong statement [about the TPP], the American public is going to be confused by the opposite side who is very sharp and clear on trade. . .If we simply muddle through the issue, we’ll lose votes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan … every state that’s seen a failed trade agreement work to their disadvantage. I think we have to be crystal clear and sharp on the issue, otherwise we lose to a Republican Party coming from the left.”

President Barack Obama should not be exempt from sacrifice to keep presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump out of the White House and to foster party unity. Compromising with fellow Democrats who oppose the TPP instead of supporting the GOP position favoring the TPP is common sense. If the President doesn’t veto a lame duck session passage of TPP, his legacy will be conspiring with the GOP in an end-run to prevent accountability by incumbents.

Please reply to the DFA SURVEY: What do you want in the Democratic platform? Please include a request that President Obama pledge to veto the TPP if passed in the lame duck session.

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 To submit a blog to Union Matters, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again!

Heist: A Who Done It On The Economy? is a 28 minute documentary the establishment don’t want you and your friends to see before voting in the upcoming primaries/caucuses.

See how corporate overreach orchestrated the dismantling of middle-class prosperity through rampant deregulation, the outsourcing of jobs, tax policies favoring businesses and the wealthy and money in politics. The collapse of the U.S. economy was the result of conscious choices made over 35 years prior by a small group: corporate leaders and their elected allies, and the biggest lobbying interest in Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. To these individuals, the collapse was not a catastrophe, but rather the planned outcome of their long, patient work.

Heist traces the 2008 worldwide economic collapse to the August, 1971 Powell Memo that called for a money-driven makeover of the U.S. government by big business through corporate control of the media, academia and the pulpit, arts/sciences and the destruction of organized labor and consumer protection groups.

Frances Chiu writes in Modern Prometheus: Thomas Paine and Our New American Revolution: It is time to feel the “democratic impulse and aspiration that he [Paine] inscribed in American experience,” to use Harvey Kaye’s words from his wonderful book, Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.

Like Paine, Bernie Sanders is aware that something is terribly wrong when the wealthiest and most advanced nation in the world harbors dire pockets of poverty–not to mention high rates of child poverty and hunger, “when 20 percent of the children in this country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, are living in poverty” and “40 percent of African American children are living in poverty.”

Like Paine who drew attention to the numbers of poor youth sent to the gallows, Sanders knows it’s terribly wrong when “51 percent of African American high school graduates between the ages of 17 and 20 are unemployed or underemployed” and “the United States has more people in jail than China; a communist authoritarian country.”

Like Paine, Sanders knows that our system of taxation is anything but fair or equitable as the wealthiest pay a smaller proportion of taxes than those in the middle classes. For just as the 18th-century British economy was a rigged economy, designed to protect the interests of the landed elites, our economy is an equally rigged one, and according to Sanders, one “designed by the wealthiest people in this country to benefit the wealthiest people in this country at the expense of everybody else.”

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According to The New Yorker article ECONOMIC POPULISM AT THE PRIMARIES, Trump and Sanders are popular not just because they’re expressing people’s anger but because they offer timely critiques of American capitalism. Surface parallels between these two men had attracted lots of comment: both are insurgents, channeling widespread political disaffection. Less apparent, but more interesting, is the fact that they’re also channeling profound disaffection with three decades of American economic policy.

In his most recent debate Sanders called America’s trade policies “disastrous,” a way for businesses to drive wages down and profits up. He’s voted against every trade agreement that has come before Congress since he’s been in office, opposed normalizing trade relations with China and most recently opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

By focusing on trade, Sanders and Trump are acknowledging something important: what has happened to U.S. labor was not a natural disaster but, in a large part, is the product of government policies designed to accelerate globalization and expose American workers to foreign competition. That admission is more than working-class Americans have got from most Presidential candidates.

If either Sanders or Trump is the only populist nominee in the General Election, in theory, that nominee could reach across and win over some the other’s supporters. Even if neither candidate wins the nomination the basic anxiety they’re responding to is here to stay. American workers used to believe that a rising tide lifted all boats. But in the past thirty years it has sunk a whole lot of them.

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To submit a blog to Union Matters, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again!

If the primary purpose of Democratic super delegates is to direct the nomination to the most electable candidate, then they should give great weight to the candidate who attracts the most independent voters in the approximately 20 open primaries. Independent voters can cast ballots in either the Democratic or Republican races.

Because these results reflect the views of unaffiliated voters, as opposed to closed primaries, open primaries are a microcosm for the 2016 general election.

According to this Washington Times article, Anti-Clinton Backlash Palpable in N.H., independent voters dominate New Hampshire's electorate, with those that took a Democratic ballot voting heavily for Bernie Sanders. He attracted more than 70 percent of the bloc. On the Republican side, the independents broke heavily for Donald Trump, according to exit polling.

It's a devastating evaluation from a state that has been kind in the past to Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, delivering a victory to her in the 2008 primary and rescuing his 1992 campaign with a surprise second-place showing.

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To submit a blog to Union Matters, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again!

In his article Is Bernie Sanders the ‘Star Wars’ of politics? David J Adams compares Bernie Sanders to Star Wars’ Obi Wan who awakens Luke to his own potential. Sanders is demonstrating that the common folk, the everyday working families, the farmhands in remote parts of the political galaxy, actually do have power, that they can influence the political system and bring about change, that they can liberate themselves from perceived oppressors and have the better world they want.

As with Star Wars, the Sanders’ brand, his story, taps into our deepest longings. We want to believe the promise of ‘a new hope.’ We want to believe a better world is possible. We want to believe that by uniting together as a people we can awaken a force that can defeat the dark side.

As in 2008, a high percentage Americans don't believe in their leaders. Highlights from CoveyLink, LLC’s February 4, 2008 Press Release Covey Tells You How to Vote!, follow:

How can we fix it? What do voters want? America's CEO of Trust, Stephen M. R. Covey, knows the answers and will show you the way.

According to a survey conducted by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, 97% of Americans agree that the next president should possess honesty and integrity, intelligence, a strong prior track record, and the ability to communicate well. Without trust and ethical behavior, communication will fail, intelligence will fall under suspicion, and honesty and integrity will not exist. In short, the American people want and need trust.

To answer the question, "How do I determine whom to trust with my vote," voters should ask themselves:

-- What is my leading candidate's motive and intent for seeking office, and can they communicate effectively enough to work across party lines AND connect with voters?

-- Does my leading candidate inspire confidence and have the credentials and capability to be President?

Can only “Outside-in Thinking” Provide the first Back-to-Back Democratic Presidents, since Kennedy-Johnson?

Looking at polling data from the point of view of an Independent plurality favors Bernie Sanders by 36% over Clinton, making him in turn a likely winner against any Republican in November. It is risky for a party that shares only 30% of the electorate to ignore the decisive role that Independents play in choosing Presidents.

The article Who's Spoiling Now? Polling Indicates That Democrats Underrate Sanders' Electability at Their Peril warns that Democratic voters flirt at their peril with using their control over primaries at the front end of a defective run-off process to deny victory in November to the nation's preferred choice, Sanders.

To win in 2016, Democratic primary voters need to vote strategically, based upon reliable information, in favor of the alliance with Independents that Sanders offers them.

Zephyr Teachout’s Bernie Sanders for President: 10 Reasons weaves the elements of Sanders’ character, namely integrity and intent, side by side with those of his competency which are reflected in his capabilities and his track record.

Teachout’s pride in endorsing Sanders is rooted in his opposition to NAFTA in November 1993 because it would undermine workers rights’ and American democracy, making him years ahead of his time.

She describes Sanders as a fearless, experienced leader capable of seeing the truth and standing up to big private power, even when its almost impossibly hard. President Sanders would always keep the humble, struggling, proud citizen at the center of what he does.

The article Sanders Blasts Republicans for Corporate-Funded Climate Denialism highlights how Sen. Bernie Sanders shines a spotlight on the GOP’s priority to pander to trans-national corporate overreach. He said: “Science-denying Republicans—intent on derailing local, national, and global attempts to avert a looming climate crisis—have their priorities all wrong. I find it unacceptable that many of my Republican colleagues are more worried about campaign contributions they're getting from the Koch brothers and others in the fossil fuel industry than they are about preserving the planet for our children and grandchildren."

Recent studies have shown how corporations, led by ExxonMobil and the Koch family foundations, drive such anti-science ideology through the creation of climate disinformation think tanks and dissemination of coordinated contrarian messaging in the mainstream media and in public discourse.

"The evidence is overwhelming," Sanders declared. "Droughts, floods, and severe storms already are impacting the planet, and the situation will only become worse in years to come."

Chris Hedges’ article The Age of the Demagogues begins with the symptoms of the collapse of our political and cultural institutions, which once made possible piecemeal and incremental reform, which sought to protect the weak from the tyranny of the majority and give them a voice, acted as a safety valve to ameliorate the excesses of capitalism and address the grievances of the underclass.

In his book “The End of Utopia,” Russell Jacoby points out: The liberal class failed for decades to decry neoliberalism’s assault on the poor and on working men and women. It busied itself with a boutique activism. It is not that cultural diversity is bad. It isn’t. It is that cultural diversity when divorced from economic and political justice, from the empowerment of the oppressed, is elitist. And this is why these liberal values are being rejected by a disenfranchised white underclass. They are seen as serving the elites, and marginalized groups, at the expense of that underclass.

The Gospel According to RFK - Why It Matters Now highlights how Robert Kennedy tirelessly, before the kinds of vast crowds reserved for rock stars, articulated with passionate eloquence the disasters of a misguided war, the pain of the dispossessed, and the way out of war and poverty.

“Isn't it really, really offensive that our president is simply not telling us the truth about what's happening in Iraq? For me, that was one of the most offensive things about the entire convention. There was no truth-telling there. It was all a complete masquerade. Both about Iraq and about the domestic economy. . .The problem is not that the people think the Democratic Party is not sufficiently hawkish; it's the problem that they are not sufficiently bold and sufficiently visionary. They need to go back to Bobby Kennedy and 1968. That was the last time that a Democrat truly inspired red states and blue states and everybody and the millions of people out there,” Arianna Huffington said on the show “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Sept. 3, 2004.

Bernie Sanders is the only 2016 presidential candidate with the character and competence to truly inspire red states and blue states and everybody, as Robert F. Kennedy did in 1968.

Sanders’ character is demonstrated by his Integrity (honesty, congruency, humility and courage) and intent (motive, agenda, behavior).

Sanders competence is demonstrated by his capabilities (talents, attitude, skills, knowledge, and style) and results (past results, current results and potential results).

 The re-enserfment of Western peoples is taking place on several levels:

-The offshoring of jobs. Americans, for example, have a shrinking participation in the production of the goods and services that are marketed to them

-The financialization of the Western economy about which Michael Hudson is the leading expert (Killing The Host). Financialization is the process of removing any public presence in the economy and converting the economic surplus into interest payments to the financial sector.

-Depriving We-The-People of political rights. The Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic Partnerships eliminate political sovereignty and turn governance over to global corporations.

These so called “trade partnerships” have nothing to do with trade. These agreements negotiated in secrecy grant immunity to corporations from the laws of the countries in which they do business. This is achieved by declaring any interference by existing and prospective laws and regulations on corporate profits as restraints on trade for which corporations can sue and fine “sovereign” governments.

The article Bill Gates: Only Socialism Can Save the Climate, ‘The Private Sector is Inept’ highlights a recent interview titled ‘We Need an Energy Miracle’ published in the 2015 issue of The Atlantic, in which billionaire tech magnate Bill Gates announced his game plan to spend $2 billion of his own wealth on green energy investments, and called on his fellow private sector billionaires to help make the U.S. fossil-free by 2050. But in doing so, Gates admitted that the private sector is too selfish and inefficient to do the work on its own, and that mitigating climate change would be impossible without the help of government research and development.

Gates even tacked to the left and uttered words that few other billionaire investors would dare to say: government R&D is far more effective and efficient than anything the private sector could do.

“Since World War II, U.S.-government R&D has defined the state of the art in almost every area,” Gates said. “The private sector is in general inept.” In making his case for public sector excellence, the Microsoft founder mentioned the success of the internet.

As evidence around the world shows, the United States doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to be a green energy juggernaut — it can simply look to existing examples in countries with socialist policies — like Germany and China, for instance — on how to become a leader in green energy. And according to Bill Gates, the rest of the world will follow the lead if the biggest countries set the bar.

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To submit a blog to Union Matters, e-mail it to bstack@usw.org. Keep it to 250 words or fewer. You MUST include your full name, hometown, and state. You may attach a photograph of yourself. Please include a phone number. This WILL NOT be published. Posting any given blog is within the discretion of the USW. No blog using foul language (this is a family site), false information (we don’t want to get sued), or unnecessary personal attacks (again, we don’t want to get sued) will be used. Wait a reasonable period of time, then blog again!

According to the article Hillary Clinton was Never Going to Support TPP: For labor unions and the base of the Democratic Party, TPP is not just one issue among many. It is the issue.

Hillary Clinton is now running in a Democratic primary in which the most motivated voters are virulently opposed to this deal, and labor unions, an indispensable source of money and organizing for any Democratic nominee, have made it their number one issue.

There is virtually no political downside to her opposition to TPP. There is no constituency in the Democratic party that is rabidly in favor of the deal (just try to find someone who says she lost his or her vote over this decision), and Republican presidential hopefuls who are dead set against ObamaTrade will have a hard time attacking her for it.

In other words, there was no way Hillary Clinton could ever support it. It would be like a Republican presidential candidate endorsing Obamacare.

Pope Francis and Bernie Sanders have been speaking the language of the people -- expressing concerns about the environment and the economy and calling for solutions -- and their approval ratings are soaring.... while the US Congress has been ignoring these concerns and they are lucky if they can raise their collective approval rating above single digits.

Pope Francis is standing up against the Jesus-with-a-gun "Patriot" soldier Christian image that was branded by George W. Bush in his run to become the 43rd president of the United States -- an election he won with overwhelming support from "Evangelical Christians."

There is no doubt that the #GOP - Republican Party a.k.a. "Greed Over People" is fully bought-and-paid for by the #Billionaires and their multinational corporations... then here's a Pope in their face in 2013 --- Taking back Jesus!

The Article Expanding Democracy by Amending the Constitution highlights that seven of the 17 constitutional amendments adopted since the Bill of Rights have reversed damaging Supreme Court decisions that threatened popular democracy and features the women's suffrage amendment (19th) that women fought for, tooth and nail, for more than 70 years in every state across the country.

The 19^th was the fourth amendment to be ratified of the 11 both adopted and ratified between July 12, 1909 and July 1, 1971, the last cluster of populist amendments in our history. The truth be told, most if not all of our constitutional amendments were the result of populist activism. No constitutional amendment has been both adopted and ratified since the Aug. 23, 1971 Powell Memo that has ushered in more than four decades of both crony capitalist and anti-populist officeholders, as well as thwarting the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

Restarting a similar 60+ year period of constitutional amendments that ended in 1971 within the next half-dozen or so years necessitates retaking control of the U.S. House/Senate, enough state legislature/governorships and the White House at least by January 2021. This is no small task, but is realistic since the U.S. House turns over three times, the White House twice, all governorships at least once and the U.S. Senate once by January 2021.

As an optimist, I believe it is the darkest before the dawn, the U.S. political system of is at a tipping-point and that wide spread populism can reverse the political pendulum’s 44 years crony capitalist/anti-populist journey.