“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Frances Fox Priven: Occupy’s Protest Is Not Over. It Has Barely Begun
A good many observers wonder, is Occupy over? After all, the encampments that announced the movement a year ago have largely disappeared, and no obviously similar protest demonstrations of young people have taken their place, at least not in the United States.
Nevertheless, I think the ready conclusion that the protests have fizzled is based on a misconception of the nature of movements, a misconception influenced by the metaphors we rely on. We think of these eruptions as something like explosions, Fourth of July fireworks perhaps that shoot into the sky, dazzle us for a moment, and then quickly fade away. The metaphor leads us to think of protest movements as bursts of energy and anger that rise in a great arc and then, exhausted, disappear.
In fact, no major American movement of the past fits that description. The great protest movements of history lasted not for a moment but for decades. And they did not expand in the shape of a simple rising arc of popular defiance. Rather, they began in a particular place, sputtered and subsided, only to re-emerge elsewhere in perhaps a different form, influenced by local particularities of circumstance and culture.
Ilyse Hogue: It’s the 1 Percent, Stupid (the Case Against the 47 Percent)
The news of Mitt Romney’s remarks at a closed-door fundraiser that were leaked by Mother Jones has been dominating since it broke yesterday. The scandalous content appears plentiful enough to keep pundits and political junkies glued to Twitter for the remainder of the cycle. And let’s be clear: between Romney’s callous “wait-and see” approach to the Middle East peace process, his instrumental view of Latino voters and his parasitic characterization of those who are too poor to pay income tax, he painted a devastating picture of himself as a leader and a person.
The line from the video that is the source of the most fascination is when Romney claims that he cares not at all for the 47 percent of Americans who pay no income taxes and freeload off the government, since they are sure to be Obama voters anyway. The statement is a window into the cynical and meanspirited worldview that would guide this candidate’s policies and priorities were he to win in November. This alone should give every voter pause, regardless of partisan affiliation.
This month, in a speech at his country’s stock exchange, British Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband embraced a big new idea: predistribution.
The term was coined here in the US, by political scientist Jacob Hacker (you may know him as the man who came up with the public option). In a 2011 paper, Hacker noted that our discussions of government responses to inequality often begin and end with redistribution-taxing the rich to provide benefits for the rest. But Hacker argued that’s only half the equation (maybe less). He urged his fellow progressives to pay more attention to predistribution: “the way in which the market distributes its rewards in the first place.” That includes regulations that protect consumers and empower workers. “The regulation of markets to limit extremes and give the middle class more voice is hardly easy-witness the fight over financial reform in the United States,” wrote Hacker. “But it is both more popular and more effective than after-the-fact mopping up.” [..]
Much of the British story is all too familiar. Failed austerity, political resistance to taxes and a left-of-center party that spent much of the 1990s proving its willingness to get out of the market’s way. An upsurge in grassroots activism against inequality. And an awful human toll.
“We want a market economy,” says Miliband, “not a market society.” That’s true on both sides of the pond.
Leslie Savan: The GOP’s Self-Mutilating Panic
The Republican Party is counting down its own “127 Hours,” and it’s getting ready to cut off one of its arms with a dull blade. As poll numbers rise for Obama and other Democrats down-ballot, it’s sinking in that the victory the GOP thought it would achieve with obstruction and falsehoods will probably turn into a defeat for both the presidency and the Senate.
Here are three headlines from just this morning that sound to me like desperate self-mutilation (and none of this is to even mention the Romney campaign’s complete meltdown over events in the Mideast):
“Kansas Goes Birther: State Board Considers Removing Obama From Ballot”
“House GOP Bill Would Actually End Welfare Reform Work Requirements”
“Romney predicts Obama will lie in debates”
Each of these actions is more likely to hurt than help the politicians in question. But it’s panic time for the GOP and they can’t help it.
Ruth Coniff: How Obama Trapped Himself in Chicago Teachers’ Strike
The Chicago teachers’ strike put President Obama in an awkward position. Caught between his own former chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and his base of support in the teachers’ union, he was easy prey for Mitt Romney, who declared that the President had taken the teachers’ side (not true) and that Democrats and unionized teachers are the enemies of parents, school children, and quality educatio
Romney’s attack was dumb and misleading.
But the big problem for Obama was that he was trying to play both sides of this highly charged issue.
Obama wanted no part of the Chicago teachers’ fight. He didn’t want to antagonize Emanuel–a major campaign fundraiser and political ally. Nor did he want to alienate labor as he heads into the homestretch in this Presidential election.
But what tripped up Obama the most is that he has essentially adopted George W. Bush’s free-market, live-and-let-die education policies–but is running with the support of people who desperately want him to defend public schools against increasingly aggressive rightwing attacks.
Wenonah hauter: Obama Administration Backwards On Food Safety
Recently, with Obama re-election posters blanketing the audience at the Democratic National Convention and Republicans mocking Obama’s campaign slogan, the word of the moment was Forward. But when it comes to food safety, this Administration is stuck in reverse. The 56-page 2012 Democratic Party Platform included no mention of food safety or the President’s monumental signing of the Food Safety Modernization Act.
Even more alarming are the Administration’s proposed set of rules for the inspection of poultry that would take us back to the days of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” That proposal would turn over key inspection duties to the poultry companies so that they can police themselves and allow them to increase line speeds in chicken plants from the current 35 birds-per-minute to to 175 birds-per-minute. That’s right – one USDA inspector will have ONE THIRD OF A SECOND to inspect each bird to make sure that it did not have an animal disease, fecal contamination, tumors, improperly removed intestines or feathers before it is dipped in a chemical soup meant to kill microbial pathogens such as salmonella and campylobacter. A Food & Water Watch analysis of the proposal’s pilot program reveals large numbers of defects – including feathers, bile and feces – were routinely missed when company employees instead of USDA inspectors performed inspection tasks.
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