Reasons for Popular Skepticism
on Politics and Politicians
By Marta Harnecker
translated by Federico Fuentes
for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
[This is the seventh in a series of regular articles.]
1. In one of my previous articles, I stated that in order to wage an effective struggle against neoliberalism, it is necessary to unite all those suffering its consequences, and to achieve this objective we must start with the left itself, which in our countries tends to be very dispersed. But, there are many obstacles that impede this task. The first step to overcoming them is to be aware of them and be prepared to face them.
2. One of these obstacles is the growing popular skepticism regarding politics and politicians.
3. This has to do, among other things, with the great constraints that exist today in our democratic systems, which are very different to those that existed prior to the military dictatorships.
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The 2006 Elections and the Rightward Shift
by Robert Brenner
How should the Democrats’ 2006 recapture of Congress be interpreted in the context of the broader trends in American politics over the last decades? In what follows, I will examine the development of the two parties against the background of underlying shifts in the balance of class forces in America, to read the conjuncture of 2006 against the deeper structural movements of the American polity—from the labour struggles of the 1930s and construction of the New Deal Democrats, through the Great Society reforms of the postwar boom, to the political paradigms of the capitalist offensive with the onset of the long downturn. Within this framework, I will argue that the rise of the Republican right, building from bases in an expanding, non-unionized South, 
by Glen Ford
"Barack Obama is our son and he deserves our support," declared Illinois Senate President Emil Jones Jr., speaking to a gathering of Black Democrats at the party's winter meeting, in Washington, earlier this month. By Jones' logic, Condoleezza Rice deserves automatic African American support as "our daughter," and Colin Powell, her predecessor as George Bush's Secretary of State, was due fealty as "our brother."
Jones' embrace of the entire African American family tree must also, therefore, extend to U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, the most reactionary, anti-Black member of the High Court; and to "our brother" J. Kenneth Blackwell, the former Ohio Secretary of State whose consuming mission in 2004 was to deny the franchise to as many fellow Blacks as possible. 
by Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
At an October fundraiser in Topeka, the Republican faithful lined up to shake hands with the headliner, Dick Cheney. But before getting to the Veep, they had to get past the wife of the local Congress critter. She was standing adjacent to Cheney, holding a big bottle of Purell, a hand sanitizer that claims to kill "99.99% of most common germs." Each person waiting to get their grip-and-grin with the honoree first had to accept a squirt of the goop from this lady to purify their hands! After the meet-and-greet was over, Cheney ducked backstage and rubbed a generous dollop of the antiseptic onto his own hands, cleansing him of the human contact he had just endured. 
. Teachers buy ports
The Ontario Teacher’s Pension Fund bought four container terminals for $2.4B from Hong Kong’s Orient Overseas International. Two ports are in New York/New Jersey and the other two in Vancouver. The Pension fund specializes in infrastructure assets.
. China: the rich get richer the poor get poorer
The real income of China’s poorest ten percent fell by 2.4 percent in the last two years. Incomes increased for the other 90 percent, but China, which had relatively even income distribution in 1980 is now less equal 
Vermont's junior senator-elect has a modest proposal for Ted Kennedy's committee: Investigate "power and wealth in America."
by James Ridgeway
Money in America — who owns and controls wealth — has been a dead issue in Congress since the New Deal petered out in the 1960s. But the growing gap between rich and poor has put the topic back on the agenda for the new Democratic majority, and Vermont Senator-elect Bernie Sanders says he will propose an investigation of money and power when he joins Ted Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in January.
Though technically an independent, Sanders will caucus with the Democrats in the Senate, as he has in the House since he was first elected as Vermont's single representative in 1990. The Dems' one-vote margin should give him considerable leverage: Nobody seriously thinks he would routinely vote with the GOP, as fellow independent Joe Lieberman might well do on some issues, but Sanders is also not a party-line man and in the past has joined Republicans on votes against NAFTA, trade with China, and other issues.
When I stopped by his office last week — still his old digs in the Rayburn House Office Building — Sanders, in his standard sport coat and slacks, first excused himself to make a quick phone call: "Hello," he said, "this is Senator-elect Bernie 
By Ted Glick
When I first began hearing CNN journalist and news anchor Lou Dobbs being interviewed a month or so ago on radio and TV about his new book, "War on the Middle Class," I was interested in learning more. I've never been a fan of Dobbs given what I've picked up were his racially-discriminatory-racist-views on illegal immigration of Latinos from Mexico and Central America. But I was intrigued when, in the media interviews, I heard him castigate the Democrats and Republicans as parties bought and controlled by big business. He called for action to address the health care crisis and took other generally progressive positions.
So I bought and read his book.
There's a lot in it that is positive. Some examples:
-"I strongly reject unfettered capitalism and those forces that now rampant corporatism has arrayed against our middle class and those who aspire to be part of it." 
by Jessica Holzer, Forbes
Despite having a hardscrabble farmer and an avowed socialist in their ranks, the incoming class of senators does little to shake the Senate's image as a millionaires' club.
Bob Corker, senator-elect from Tennessee, boasts an estimated $64 million to $236 million fortune, according to the financial disclosure he filed to the Senate. Claire McCaskill, the senator-to-be from Missouri, has a portfolio worth roughly $13 million to $29 million.
And Sheldon Whitehouse, who ousted the fifth-richest member of the Senate, Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, is hardly hurting for cash himself: He has $4 million to $14 million parked in various trusts and funds.
All told, at least half of the ten men and women joining the Senate next year are millionaires, with Corker and McCaskill shoo-ins to number among the ten richest senators. That rarefied club includes Sen. John Kerry, 
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
by Karen Dolan
Red state, blue state? That is SO last week.
As Democrats have swept into power, shamelessly ignoring the once-sacred red state–blue state divide, one more aspect of this blurring of the nation's political divide remains underreported. This story more fully illustrates the passionate energy of anti-war sentiment in America and it’s a lesson former red-staters would do well to heed.
This election, 162 communities in Wisconsin, Illinois and Massachusetts voted on ballot measures calling for the U.S. to end the Iraq War. In every one of those communities, the measures swept to victory.
Thursday 16 November 2006
On Election Day, the American people weighed in at the ballot box: They want to get our troops out of Iraq. Voters rejected the president's failed Iraq policy, putting Democrats in charge of Congress and responsible for setting a new direction for Iraq, and, most importantly, for our national security.
Democrats agree that we should begin redeploying troops, but some do not want to set a target deadline for the majority of troops to be withdrawn. That is a mistake. Without a target date, redeployment could drag on indefinitely. The president consistently refused to set a target date for withdrawal, and Democrats shouldn't follow in his footsteps. Democrats should move forward with a new Iraq policy that includes a target date for the redeployment of U.S. troops so that we can refocus on defeating global terrorist networks.
As Democrats celebrate their victory in the House and Senate this week, there is talk in Washington of a new plan for Iraq, an increase in the minimum wage, a new era of accountability and responsibility in government. On one issue, however, the Democrats are oddly quiet. There is little, if any, talk of immigration reform. For many immigrant rights activists the silence isn't surprising. Of the six issues Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., listed in July as immediate priorities for the party if it took control in the midterm elections, immigration reform was not on the list.
Still, this week many immigrant rights activists expressed a cautious optimism that reasonable immigration reform might be on its way. In elections across the country, many anti-immigrant hardliners -- both incumbents and new candidates -- were defeated. At the same time, Democratic candidates who campaigned against undocumented immigration were elected. 
To Change Dramatically
By Katrina Vanden Heuvel
The Nation
Nov. 20, 2006 Issue
Former President Jimmy Carter, who is arguably more identified with the struggle to guarantee free and fair elections than anyone in the world, gets an interesting response these days when he talks about observing voting overseas. "The Carter Center has monitored more than fifty elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions," he says. "When I describe these activities, either in the US or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are Why don't you observe the election in Florida? and How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?"
The American people are waking up and realizing that for all the Bush Administration's talk of promoting democracy abroad, the US electoral system fails to do the same at home. With the approach of the midterm elections, there is justified alarm about how easy it is to hack electronic voting machines and that in many states these machines have no paper trail.
