Class War Update

Corporate Profits at All-Time High; Wages at All-Time Low: Can We Call it Class War Yet? | | AlterNet

Banks Making Money off Taxpayers & Backdoor Bailouts

Number of People in Extreme Poverty Up 50% Since 2000

Profits Hit All Time High, Wages Hit All Time Low (connection?)

Stiglitz: The Price of Inequality

Why The Economy Has Only Recovered for the Top 1%

Low-Wage Nation: Poverty and Inequality are Threatening Democracy

Class War and the Supreme Court

DSA Statement on SCOTUS Decision on the Affordable Care Act

Democratic Socialists of America
Statement on the Supreme Court Decision on the Affordable Care Act (aka, “Obamacare”)


The DSA National Political Committee (NPC) welcomes the 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”). The decision affirms the right of Congress to legislate in the interest of the general welfare of the American people.
We applaud the gains for ordinary American families that will come with the ACA. Over ten million members of moderate income families will gain coverage under Medicaid; millions of young Americans between the age of 21 and 26 will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance; children and adults with pre-existing conditions will now be covered by the same policies as those deemed by insurers to be “healthy”; and over one hundred million Americans will now be free of lifetime expenditure limits on their coverage.


DSA also recognizes, however, that the ACA will fail to curtail ever-rising health care costs driven by the profit-seeking of private insurers and private health-care providers. Only a single-payer or “Medicare for All” system would provide truly affordable universal coverage by granting a single public insurer bargaining leverage over private providers.
Therefore, DSA will work with the health care activist community to transition the ACA towards a single-payer system. We will join the fight for single-payer at the state level and for the reintroduction of a public option at the federal level.


Progressives, in the short run, must also pressure Congress to appropriate sufficient subsidies to enable uninsured moderate income families to purchase affordable insurance. Otherwise, the anti-“free rider” mandated fee will become a resented burden on those families that still cannot afford to purchase private insurance. We must also organize in favor of Congressional regulations that would prevent corporations from dropping existing health insurance coverage for their employees (in order to switch the course of coverage onto the general public).


DSA also worries that the Court’s rejection of the commerce clause as a justification for national health care legislation may be part of the conservative court’s effort to whittle away at the commerce clause’s use to justify the momentous labor rights legislation of the 1930s and the civil rights laws of the 1960s. Democratic socialists recognize that only strong federal regulation of corporate behavior can insure that the economy serves the people rather than the people serving the interests of corporate masters.
Even though Justice Roberts may have made his “switch in time” on the ACA to refute the charge that he presides over an ideological, political, and conservative Supreme Court, DSA recognizes that the overall direction of the Court (as manifested by the other decisions handed down this week in the Arizona immigration, Montana corporate contributions, and the SEIU union assessment cases) threatens to overturn  80 years of jurisprudence and declare almost all social legislation unconstitutional, including minimum wage and child labor laws. 


--adopted by the Democratic Socialists of America National Political Committee, June 29, 2012


Democratic Socialists of America

DSA Flyer: Healthcare for Everyone

Healthcare-Now!

Action Alert! Healthcare for All Rally (THURSDAY)

Healthcare for All Rally
Healthcare-Now! Will be joining Tennessee Health Care Campaign and Physicians for a National Healthcare Program and other activists at a rally/press conference the day the Supreme Court releases their veridict on the Affordable Health Act ("Obamacare")--supporting a single-payer (Medicare for All) universal healthcare plan... We expect the decision will be released THURSDAY morning, if so, meet us at the Federal Building on N. Main downtown Memphis at 5 PM
If the decision is not released on monday, check back for new day!

What: Rally/Press Conference
When: THURSDAY (June 28) 5 PM
Where: Federal Building, Downtown Memphis

Healthcare-Now!
http://www.healthcare-now.org/
Contact: Jim Maynard
jmaynard1963@earthlink.net
(901) 619-2679

Physicians for a National Healthcare Program
http://www.pnhp.org/
Contact: Dr. Arthur Sutherland, III, MD, FACC
901 237-6440

Tennessee Health Care Campaign
Brad Palmertree
Director of Communications
Tennessee Health Care Campaign
www.thcc2.org
Office: 615.227.7500 Ext. 8
Progressive Democrats of America
http://pdamerica.org/

Memphis DSA (Democratic Socialists of America)
http://www.memphisdsa.org/

Class War Update: Corporate Profits UP, Wages Down

Class War Update: Guess Who's winning...
Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low - Business Insider

Number of People in Extreme Poverty Up 50% Since 2000

Top 10% Got 90% of Income Growth 1997-2007 (Bottom 90% got 10%)

Can Vermonters Win Single Payer?

Can Vermonters Win Single Payer? | Common Dreams

Low-Wage Nation: Poverty and Inequality Are Threatening Our Democracy

Low-Wage Nation: Poverty and Inequality Are Threatening Our Democracy | Common Dreams

Another Occupy is Possible- and Neccessary

Another Occupy is Possible - and Neccesary

Great article on the state and future of the Occupy movement by DSA activist Chris Maisano

Memphis DSA Presents: Michael Harrington and Todays Other America June 16

In commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of The Other America


Memphis DSA and Memphis YDS Presents:

Michael Harrington and Todays Other America-

Corporate Power and Inequality

Sat. June 16th, 2 PM

First Congregational Church

1000 S. Cooper

(Convention Center)

Memphis DSA  

www.memphisdsa.org

Democratic Socialists of America

Memphis YDS

www.ydsmemphis.org

Young Democratic Socialists of America

Big Money Thwarts People Power in Wisconsin Recall

'Big Money' Thwarts 'People Power' in Wisconsin Recall | Common Dreams

In Wisconsin, An Ominous Crucible of U.S. Politics

What Scott Walker's Survival in WI Means for Us

Wisconsin Gives Progressives Something to Build On

Four Reasons Why the Left Lost in Wisconsin

Rachel Maddow: The Lasting Impact of the WI Recall

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Citizens United is to Blame

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Verizon To Lay Off 1,700 Workers After Paying CEO $22 Million Last Year

Verizon To Lay Off 1,700 Workers After Paying CEO $22 Million Last Year | ThinkProgress

Do We Need a Poor People's Coming-Out Movement?

Do We Need a Poor People's Coming-Out Movement? | The Nation

The Failure of Austerity

The Failure of Austerity: Soup Kitchens in the Birthplace of Democracy | Common Dreams

The Facts are Clear: This Cruel Austerity Experiment has Failed

Krugman: The Austerity Agenda

DSA Honorary Chair Dolores Huerta Receives Presidential Medal of Free...

DSA Honorary Chair Dolores Huerta Receives Presidential Medal

President Obama presented  Dolores Huerta with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Cesar Chavez once described Dolores Huerta as “completely fearless, both mentally and physically.”

Over six decades, Dolores Huerta put the nonviolent fight for civil and labor rights ahead of her personal interests, and sometimes before her personal safety. Like all the farm worker strikers and boycotters, she accepted a life of voluntary poverty for many decades. Her dynamic and inspiring leadership through the most difficult and turbulent times in the farm worker movement’s history established her not only as a leader of farm workers but as a role model for women and men across this nation and beyond.

Dolores is an Honorary Chair of Democratic Socialists of America.