Sanders Has Already Won

By Justin Akers / socialistworker.org

Bernie Sanders does not have to become president in order to win. Just by getting in the ring, he has already scored a major victory for the American working class. His campaign is blazing a new trail to the left in the American political system. In the coming years, we will probably see the development of a Democratic Socialist Party in the U.S.

Win or lose, his campaign will lay the foundation for a new American left. His candidacy has opened the door to socialism in the U.S. The debate about America's economic future will no longer be a debate between the center and the right. Finally, the real left will be heard.

The people who will be galvanized by the Sanders campaign have no reason to consider socialism a dirty word. We have witnessed in our lifetime the epic, miserable failure of unrestrained capital. We can see the devastation global capital is inflicting on the environment. Our generation has trillions in student loan debt. We have no health care. Our wages are stagnant. We feel these truths to be self-evident.

The steel door that capital bolted shut on the working class, locking socialism away from the debate, has been blown off its hinges by Bernie Sanders, allowing socialism in America to finally breath again.

There is a real possibility now for a sustained assault on capital. For too long, radicals have felt completely shut out of the mainstream debate. For too long, we have felt apathetic about the political process in this country because we were relegated to the fringes of society. We had to Occupy in order to be heard. We were totally shut out of the system. All we could do was occupy, protest, or riot.

Now we have the ultimate, mainstream option available: Taking over the White House.

It's only been a few days since Sanders announced his candidacy, but already, the left is beginning to realize how hugely significant a moment this is for American politics. You can hear the first rumblings of an enormous grassroots movement developing. One hundred seventy-five thousand people have already signed up to volunteer for the Sanders campaign.

Hillary Clinton is not a foregone conclusion in 2016, any more than she was in 2008. She can be beat, again. She is not entitled to the presidency. And neither is Jeb Bush.

Americans do not necessarily want to hand over the future of this country to another Bush or another Clinton. We do have the ability to chart a different path. We are capable of another revolution in America: a socialist revolution.

Justin Akers, McMurdo Station, Antarctica

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Koch Brothers EXPOSED: 2014 • FULL DOCUMENTARY FILM • BRAVE NEW FILMS

Koch Brothers EXPOSED: 

2014 • FULL DOCUMENTARY FILM
• BRAVE NEW FILMS

Published on Jan 21, 2015

Billionaires David and Charles Koch have been handed the ability to buy our democracy in the form of giant checks to the House, Senate, and soon, possibly even the Presidency. SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy1U... GET INVOLVED! Sign up: http://bit.ly/1wFXujJHost a FREE screening: http://bravenewfilms.org/screenings

The last time we exposed the Koch Brothers' dealings to the world we here at Brave New Films wound up in their crosshairs. They produced online ad campaigns attacking us, but, it takes more than a banner ad to slow us down.

We've reissued Koch Brothers Exposed in an updated version, Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition, to shine a light on them. We've delved even deeper into where their money is going, who their money is hurting, and how much they are making during this whole process leading up to the 2014 Elections.

Two years ago when we made this film very few people knew who the Koch Brothers were or what the Koch Brothers were doing. But now, we so strongly believe that everyone should know what is happening that with your help and donations we are able to offer the film for free. We want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to see the truth.

(5:11) How the Koch Brothers use Citizens United to corrupt democracy

(7:11) The Koch plan to re-segregate public schools

(17:11) Koch University: Rewriting your Education
Is your school on the list http://www.bravenewfilms.org/koch_get...

(21:02) Kochs VS The Minimum Wage

(25:09) Kochs & Voter Suppression

(31:26) Koch Attacks on Unions

(34:54) The Koch plan to dismantle Social Security

(38:20) Kochs & The Environment

(40:52) How the Koch Brothers Cause Cancer by dumping their toxic waste everywhere

(50:08) FIGHTING BACK

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  • News & Politics

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KAMALA HARRIS #TOO BIG TO FAIL

At #CDP2012 we told the world that the American middle class is #TooBigToFail. #TBT #CDP2015 instagram.com/p/2qzmk7rv6O/
Posted by Kamala Harris on Thursday, May 14, 2015

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Perfect explanation of why we need to expand Social Security benefits

My Friend, Nationally acclaimed economist and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is producing a series of short, smart videos on how to make the American economy work for ordinary Americans, not just the wealthy few. His most recent video, just out today, provides a perfect explanation of why we need to expand Social Security benefits. Check out Robert Reich’s short video where he explains why expanding Social Security benefits is the right thing for seniors and the right thing for the American economy.

Reich explains how expanding benefits will help address the retirement security crisis and he dismantles the right-wing argument that we have to cut Social Security in order to save it.

Right now, Social Security has a $2.8 trillion surplus, can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 18 years and approximately 80% of benefits owed after that. All we need to do is ask the wealthy to start paying their fair share and we not only extend the lifespan of the Social Security trust fund, we can increase benefits for the majority of Americans.
Watch Robert Reich’s video on expanding Social Security today!

Thanks,
Michael Phelan
Social Security Works 

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Commonsense ideas to save the economy

Dear Friend,

If you want MoveOn to campaign on expanding Social Security, I need you to vote now.

Watch Expand Social Security, the powerful new video in our Big Picture series, and click "share" if you want MoveOn to make this idea a priority: 

Over the next few weeks, MoveOn and I will roll out ten short, powerful videos explaining commonsense ideas to save the economy. As you can imagine, these ideas aren't popular with the corporate media—so I'm relying on you to get them in front of millions of people.

MoveOn will also campaign in solidarity with organizations doing important work every day on the idea that gets the most shares. So by hitting "share" right now, you're voting to make expanding Social Security a priority. 

Thanks for all you do.

–Robert Reich

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HEALTH, JUSTICE AND SUSTAINABILITY NEWS FROM ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION

ESSAY OF THE WEEK Make Noise If you don’t take any other action this week, please take one of these. Call your Congress member, especially if he or she is a member of the House Committee on Agriculture or the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Or, write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, post on your Congress member’s Facebook page, or organize a rally outside your Congress member’s home office on May 26, 27 or 28. Do something. Make noise. Because if we don’t, Congress could take away our right to know about GMOs in our food. Forever. We’re talking about HR 1599, "The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act," introduced by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) Ironic. Pompeo’s bill proposes nothing if not inaccurate labeling of foods—by preventing you from ever learning which foods may contain GMOs. Critics of the bill have dubbed it the DARK Act, aka "Deny Americans the Right-to-Know" Act. Because that’s exactly what it does. HR 1599 now has 31 Republican and 11 Democrat co-sponsors, representing 28 states. With Vermont’s GMO labeling law set to take effect July 1, 2016, Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association are desperate to pass the DARK Act. Our job is to stop them. But we need you. Read the essay Find out if your Congress member is on the Agriculture or Energy and CommerceCommittee Find out if your Congress member is a co-sponsor of the DARK Act Organize a Day of Action against the DARK Act ACTION ALERT Toxic Law What do you get when you let the chemical industry write a “chemical safety” bill? A bill that protects chemical companies, not consumers. Almost 40 years after Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Americans are being exposed to tens of thousands of chemicals that have never been safety tested by the EPA. These chemicals, more than 80,000 of them, are in the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the homes we live in. It’s time for reform. But unfortunately, the bill before the U.S. Senate right now—S.697—falls far short of accomplishing real reform. That could have something to do with the fact that the chemical industry has spent $190 million lobbying for this bill. Democratic Sponsor Tom Udall’s (D-N.M.) campaign received $49,050 from the Chemical industry in the 2014 cycle, plus $23,500 from lobbyists employed by the American Chemistry Council. Republican sponsor David Vitter’s (R-La.) campaign received $20,600 in the 2014 cycle, and $14,300 from American Chemistry Council lobbyists. We need your voice to stop this bill. Tell Congress: We Need Real Chemical Safety Standards. Oppose S.697! SUPPORT THE OCA & OCF Web-Fed Hysteria? “The court’s opinion in denying our request to block the Vermont law opens the door to states creating mandatory labeling requirements based on pseudo-science and web-fed hysteria. If this law is allowed to go into effect, it will disrupt food supply chains, confuse consumers, and lead to higher food costs.” – Pamela Bailey, president, Grocery Manufacturers Association Well, there you go. You—all of us—are just a bunch of hysterical know-nothings who need the courts to keep labels off our GMO foods, for our own good. Because we might not buy foods made with ingredients created in a lab, drenched in carcinogenic chemicals, and allowed into the market without adequate, long-term safety testing—if we knew what we were buying. We’re just a bunch of luddites, foolish enough to believe the best cancer researchers at the World Health Organization when they say that Monsanto’s Roundup probably causes cancer. We react irrationally when we learn that a type of toxin contained in a variety of GMO corn, engineered to produce its own pesticide, is showing up in pregnant women and their fetuses. It’s just a lot of silly pseudo-science, after all. And it’s making us hysterical. Blame it on the Internet. Statements like the one (above) by the president of the multi-billion dollar lobbying group which represents the likes of Monsanto and Dow, Coca-Cola and General Mills, may sound ridiculous to you. But the media gobbles them up. It’s our job to raise the volume of voices like yours—until the media listens, and the truth comes out. Your donation today will help. Thank you. Donate to the Organic Consumers Association (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education) Donate to the Organic Consumers Fund (non-tax-deductible, but necessary for our GMO labeling legislative efforts) MARCH AGAINST MONSANTO May 23: Break Out the Boots! Photo Credit: notarim via Compfight cc It’s almost time to march. In case you’ve forgotten why the world marches against Monsanto every year, here are a few reminders. Monsanto’s Agent Orange was responsiblefor 400,000 deaths and disfigurements and birth defects in 500,000 babies. The company paid out $180 million in a lawsuit, but never took responsibility. Monsanto has spent (and is still spending) millions of dollars to defeat GMO labeling laws. When the state of Vermont finally passed one, Monsanto sued. The company is determined to drag out that court case, despite a recent ruling suggesting Monsanto doesn’t have much of a case. Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, the most widely used herbicide in the world, wasrecently declared a probable carcinogen. The company’s response? Demand a retraction (a move that so far has been unsuccessful). There are so many more reasons we need to keep the pressure on this corporation. So while it might be tempting to think, “Another March against Monsanto? Been there, done that,” think again! This year’s march will be every bit, if not more important than last year’s. Join the Social Media March! Can’t take to the streets on May 23? A group of creative and passionate activists in Georgia have organized a month-long Social Media March against Monsanto. Find out how here. Organize a Day of Action against the DARK Act OCA is asking everyone, but especially everyone whose representatives serve on either the House Agriculture orEnergy and Commerce Committees, to organize a Day of Action against HR 1599 (The DARK Act) during the week immediately following the May 23 March against Monsanto. March Against Monsanto events list here Organize a Day of Action against the DARK Act Create a media advisory for your local press Submit a letter to the editor about stopping the DARK Act here COOK ORGANIC NOT THE PLANET Beefing Up the Argument Last week we told you about Ridge Shinn, a farmer who raises 100-percent grass-fed beef using regenerative grazing practices. Shinn wrote a letter, signed by 100 fellow farmers and ranchers, to the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) asking them to acknowledge 100-percent grass-fed beef as a healthy, sustainable, and readily available alternative to beef produced by conventional factory farms. The letter was in response to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s (DGAC) recent, and controversial, recommendation that Americans eat less red meat. Controversial because, as you can imagine, groups like the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the North American Meat Institute aren’t keen on consumers eating less of their highly profitable, highly polluting, unhealthy factory-farm meat. We wondered if the argument about grass-fed beef would be heard over the roar of Big Meat’s objections to the new recommendations, objections that predictably reignited the same old conversation about meat vs. no meat. It was. According to an article on the password-protected site PoliticoPro, titled, “Grass-fed beef ranchers say dietary panel got it right,” Wayne Campbell, a member of the advisory panel and a nutrition science professor at Purdue University, admitted that the committee hadn’t reviewed evidence about the quality of grass-fed beef over conventionally raised beef, but didn’t dismiss the argument made by the grass-fed producers. Good to know. And good to know that efforts by OCA, farmers who raise grass-fed beef, and other groups, to draw attention to the difference between 100-percent grass-fed beef and red meat from factory farms, have at least begun to change the conversation. Read the letter VIDEO OF THE WEEK The Organic Effect There’s a video making the rounds on social media right now that’s attracting a lot of attention. It seems the Swedish Environmental Research Institute conducted a study that shows what happens when a typical family stops eating conventional, non-organic food and switches to eating only organic. What happens is this. The parents’ and kids’ bodies, before the switch to organic, test high for pesticides. After the switch to organic? Pesticide levels drop to, well, almost nothing. If you have friends and family who wonder why you insist on organic (or organically grown, as in pesticide-free), share this video. And remember, children pay the highest price for pesticide exposure. Watch the video Read the report LITTLE BYTES Essential Reading for the Week US Government Admits Americans Have Been Overdosed on Fluoride Health Disaster in the Making: Hundreds of Schools Are Next to Fields Doused by Monsanto's Toxic Weed Killers Pork Chops, Pig Smarts & Muckraking: An Interview with Barry Estabrook Soil Is the Stomach of the Plant German States Call for Ban on Monsanto's Glyphosate Local Food Is Not Enough. We Need Resilient Agriculture.

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Austerity and the Amtrak Crash

Austerity and the Amtrak Crash Larry Wines: Amtrak is arguably the best-run company in America, always finding a way to upgrade or replace the ancient equipment they inherited, while maintaining a unionized work force and keeping the emphasis on customer service. READ MORE SHARED FROM

THURSDAY, 14 MAY 2015 Austerity and the Amtrak Crash Larry Wines: Amtrak is arguably the best-run company in America, always finding a way to upgrade or replace the ancient equipment they inherited, while maintaining a unionized work force and keeping the emphasis on customer service. READ MORE Friend on Facebook Follow on Twitter Forward to a Friend Know the Point of Origin of Your Food June Pagan: Do you really want to serve your child a product that may contain chicken that was processed in a country that known to have high pollution levels of heavy metals and chemicals in their water and soil? READ HERE Capital Punishment’s Loyal Officer Jonathan Simon: The real guerilla war is being waged by death states that continue to pursue executions even as crime remains at historic lows and public opinion turns against this archaic ritual. READ MORE Why Teachers Teach Marla Kilfoyle and Melissa Tomlinson:When I first became a teacher, I went into shock when I realized that not all schools were like the school that I had grown up with, that not all children were given the same opportunities that I was. READ MORE Two Paths for Social Security RJ Eskow: In short: Republicans are determined to gut Social Security, while Democrats have yet to flatly reject budget cuts or endorse its expansion as part of the party platform. READ MORE

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Shell considers small North America energy deals even after BG

Shell considers small North America energy deals even after BG

May 14th, 2015 

by John Donovan. 

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Shell considers small North America energy deals even after BG

Deals | Thu May 14, 2015 12:58am BST

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) will consider small additions to its North America oil and gas business, despite ruling out large acquisitions after its deal to buy BG Group Plc (BG.L), Marvin Odum, director of Shell’s Americas exploration and production business, said in an interview Wednesday.

Shell has said its cash reserves are limited after the $70 billion deal announced on April 8, the first major energy industry merger in more than a decade that will bolster Shell’s global presence and increase its proven oil and gas reserves by 20 percent.

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Posted in: BG Group, Gas, Marvin Odum, Oil, Oil Prices, Reuters, Royal Dutch Shell Plc,Shell, United States.
Tagged: BG Group · Gas · Oil · Oil Prices · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell

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Shell BG £55bn merger could still fall apart.

Shell BG £55bn merger could still fall apart.

May 14th, 2015 

by John Donovan. 

No comments yet

By Rupert Hargreaves – Wednesday, 13 May, 2015

BG (LSE: BG) and Royal Dutch Shell’s (LSE: RDSB) mega-merger is the largest deal the oil & gas sector has seen for some time. However, the combination isn’t a done deal just yet. 

There are still many kinks to iron out, and the deal has to get the green light from regulators. What’s more, Shell could decide to walk away if the numbers don’t stack up

Poor results 

BG has been struggling for some time, and the group’s recent set of results highlighted the company’s troubles. Specifically, BG’s first-quarter net profit fell 51% to £366m and revenue slumped by 21% to £2.6bn as weak oil prices weighed on group profits.

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Posted in: BG Group, Brazil, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Gas, Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Tagged: BG Group · Gas · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · The Motley Fool

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