Category Archives: Commentary

All written commentary.

Collective

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Massachusetts has historically been at the forefront in the United States on worker safety and labor rights, compensation, activism, and organizing. Organized labor has been and must remain a fundamental component of our economic structure. Without it, there is no significant force representing our workers on an equal level with management and owners.

Our courts must uphold the rights of workers – including state and municipal workers – to organize themselves and bargain collectively and cooperatively for compensation and benefits proportionate to their productive work, as well as safe workplaces and fair scheduling.

Our courts must uphold contracts signed with workers’ unions, particularly by the state or municipal governments. It is the responsibility of employers to negotiate contracts they can actually execute.

We cannot achieve economic justice without securing the rights of organized labor to fight for fair and living wages in our society.

Humphrey For Massachusetts: Organized Labor

Representation

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Millennials are seriously underrepresented in our government at every level. We’re the largest generation alive right now and we’re going to deal the longest with the consequences – positive and negative – of the policies set today. My campaign for Governor’s Council is to represent all of us, but it is especially to help represent my generation. That’s why so many people our age are excited about this campaign.

Burundi: Political mass murder or ethnic mass murder?

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2015 Burundian Constitutional Crisis

Flag of Burundi

Flag of Burundi

Cold comfort from Human Rights Watch — France 24 – “Burundi’s worsening crisis ‘is political, not ethnic’”:

“It’s a different situation from the 1990s,” she said. “This is not an ethnic conflict but a political one, pitting a president who is clinging on to power against a variety of opponents.”

Tertsakian said a handful of politicians had indulged in some sort of ethnic rhetoric to whip up support, but that they had largely failed to ethnicise the crisis.

She added that people targeted by security forces included both Tutsis and Hutus opposed to Nkurunziza.

 
Nearly a hundred people were killed on a single day in capital clashes with security forces last week.

Last month:
“Burundi appears to be sliding into full-blown meltdown”

120.8 million American adults

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“The Middle Class Is No Longer America’s Economic Majority” – HuffPost Business:

There are now more low-income and high-income Americans combined than there are people in the middle class, a study released Wednesday found.

According to a Pew Research Center report, there were 120.8 million adults living in middle-income households and 121.3 million in lower- and upper-income households combined in early 2015, marking the first time in the center’s four decades of tracking this data that the size of the latter groups has transcended that of the first.

The study defines middle income as adults earning two-thirds to double the national median, which translates today to somewhere between $42,000 and $126,000 a year for a three-person household.

 
One caveat to the narrative is that while the low-income grew 4 points since 1971, the high income share grew by 7. So off the 11 points lost from the middle class, a majority actually exited the top (oddly enough), rather than sinking below:

Since 1971, the percentage of adults living in the low income bracket has increased from 25 percent to 29 percent, and the percentage of adults living in the highest income bracket has shot up from 14 percent to 21 percent. The middle class, meanwhile, has shrunk from 61 percent to about 50.

 
Of course, mostly the story is that the existing rich just got way richer, very fast.

Generation without representation

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Arsenal Bolt: Quick updates on the news stories we’re following.

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“Millennials Outnumber Baby Boomers and Are Far More Diverse, Census Bureau Reports”

Millennials, or America’s youth born between 1982 and 2000, now number 83.1 million and represent more than one quarter of the nation’s population. Their size exceeds that of the 75.4 million baby boomers, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today [June 25, 2015].

The nation’s 65-and-older population grew from 44.7 million in 2013 to 46.2 million in 2014. This group…now contains the oldest four years of the baby boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964).

 

Liberty and inclusion for all

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In the face of a fresh round of disturbing attacks against Muslims and Muslim immigrants (or people perceived to be) across our nation, we need to re-affirm some core principles.

First, non-citizens and people of all faiths have constitutionally guaranteed rights and civil liberties in the United States, and these rights and liberties must be upheld and protected.

Second, all immigrants, whether permanent residents, asylum-seekers, refugees, or undocumented immigrants are all deserving of the same dignity as everyone else in our society. They play a vital role in all aspects of our communities and our economies, and they have made this nation great. No one should be discriminated against by the state, by employers, by public accommodations, or by their fellow residents because of their lack of citizenship. No one should be physically attacked or threatened because of their religion (or for any other reason, of course).

Third, we should strive to promote full integration, socially and legally, for all non-citizens in our nation at every opportunity, rather than seeking to exclude or partition people because of their origins. This mission we undertake for the stability of our communities, as well as to meet our moral obligation to our fellow men, women, and children – wherever they were born and whatever brought them to our shores.

statue-of-liberty-Daniel-Schwen

Opposition Leadership

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We need someone speaking every single day to the media and other party members, without apology, for progress and for our values. This is important in any context, but it is of even greater importance with a conservative Republican governor and with Democrats taking on an opposing role.

We, the progressive core of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, are not merely right on the issues in idealistic terms; our solutions are actually more realistic and more grounded than the other side’s solutions. And when the other side occupies part of the space of our party and blurs the lines on critical issues, it becomes harder to win elections than it should be, rather than helping to retain seats in swing districts. While there is room for disagreement on policy specifics, there should be a broad alignment of values on the major and contentious issues of our time.

Voters want bold, clear, and courageous leadership in their officials. Leadership sometimes means leading the voters toward one’s point of view on the issues. We have to make our case, in plain terms, as to why we are correct on those issues.

We can only offer the voters an informed choice in making their decisions at the ballot box if we argue our case to them for our preferred positions on the issues.