Reject the Generals

I was initially ambivalent about the Egyptian coup.  On the one hand, the military was overthrowing a legitimate, democratically elected government after only one year in office.  On the other hand, the Muslim Brotherhood voices extreme right-wing fundamentalist views on just about everything and are arguably fighting against the very conditions (freedom of speech, a secular state, women’s rights) which make democracy possible.  However, there was another massacre in Egypt on Saturday.  The army opened fire on supporters of overthrown ex-president Mohammed Morsi on Saturday, killing more than 65 civilians.  This comes after 30 Egyptians lost their lives in clashes on July 5th and the army shot down another 54 Islamist protestors on July 8th.  There have also been suspicious changes since the coup – police restoring order to the streets after being absent for months, sudden improvements in energy shortages – that suggest a concerted effort to prepare the ground for the military takeover.  At this point, I think it’s clear that there’s no room for ambivalence.  The Egyptian coup was an illegitimate military takeover, backed by elements of the old regime, which will deeply damage democracy and prospects for positive social change in Egypt.

The emperor has no clothes

The coup’s aftermath highlights an important lesson – process matters.  For all the anti-abortion, pro-robber baron, militarist nuttiness emanating from modern right-wing politicians, I would never argue that their election was illegitimate, or that the laws they pass are non-binding.  Egyptian protesters had every right to mass in the streets, to conduct general strikes, to use every tool in the civil society/dissident/peaceful revolutionary arsenal to pressure Morsi to step down.  But by resorting to force, backers of the coup rejected the legitimacy of the democratic system itself.  That legitimacy is hard to restore, and it’s difficult to see how the military-backed government can navigate its way out of this crisis and back to democracy.  They’ve got to either 1) ban the Brotherhood (i.e. the most democratically popular party) and establish a technocratic government supported by an elite minority (risking a civil war) or 2) allow the Brotherhood to run in elections it will likely win, and then anti-democratically limit what the elected Brotherhood representatives can do.  Either way, by violently rejecting democratic governance and institutions, the military and its backers have set Egypt on an inevitable path towards autocracy and dictatorship.

Actions Inspire in the Immigrant Rights Movement

I read this Los Angeles Times piece about a bold anti-deportation protest by young immigrant rights activists and couldn’t help but deeply admire their courage and give greater consideration to their message.  Three highly educated young people, brought to and raised in the United States without papers, flew back to Mexico and attempted to cross the border back to their American home.  They were detained, along with six other former Mexican emigres who joined them, at the Nogales border facility and sent to a holding center in Florence, A.Z.  Luis Leon, a compatriot of the trio, said “they are insane, but my respect is with them.  Nobody throws away 20 years of their lives for someone else.”  These young people did just that though – Lizbeth Mateo is set to begin law school at Santa Clara, Marco Saavedra is a Kenyon College grad and Lulu Martinez is a student at University of Illinois – to highlight the injustice they see in the U.S. immigration system.

They join a growing number of immigrant youth activist who have put their liberty on the line for their communities, risking banishment and exile to draw attention to their cause.  Activists like 27 year-old Claudia Munoz, who recently infiltrated a correctional facility in Michigan to document the stories of undocumented immigrant women thrown in with the general population.  Or Mohammad Abdollahi, a 24 year-old undocumented Iranian immigrant who joined two others in an occupation of Senator John McCain’s office hoping to pressure him to co-sponsor the DREAM Act.  Or organizer Carlos Garcia, who led four undocumented immigrants to reveal their status and protest outside a legal hearing for notorious anti-Latino Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

This is the type of political courage and determination that allows a small group of people to change the minds of millions.  There are a lot of policy issues involved here – citizenship by birth is in the Constitution, the U.S. needs better control of its borders etc… – but it’s viscerally and clearly wrong that these undocumented Americans, who are very much American, are constantly threatened with exile and separation from their family.  The bravery amongst these young people, standing up for their families and older members in their community, commands respect and demands that Americans consider what would drive them to such extremes.  I’m something of a moderate on immigration, but these are the types of action that will pull me and millions like me towards the position of the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, Dream Activist, Puente Arizona and others fighting for immigrant rights.

A Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Republican Anarchists…

The New Yorker ran a piece yesterday chronicling the “Anarchists of the House,” a profile of the hardcore conservative House Republicans who drop bombs into the wheels of government.  The article is (not surprisingly) very unfavorable, arguing that the congressional Right’s ideological extremism has created “an inscrutable void of paranoia and formless rage… twisting the Republican Party into a band of anarchists.”  The latest right-wing innovations include withholding support from any Obama initiative, including those based on Republican principles (like Obamacare); procedural sabotage, like refusing to appoint NRLB commissioners or “block[ing] the appointment of the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for three years”; and hostage-taking around the once routine vote to pay the country’s creditors, where Republicans “extract[ed] over a trillion dollars in spending cuts” from Obama.  The results have been fiscal austerity, the emasculation of many regulatory agencies, an historic slowdown in the passage of legislation, defeat of new gun control measures, the downing of a bipartisan immigration bill and lags in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Is Anarchy the new Birchism?

Has this strategy been successful?  The New Yorker argues that “the rational way to view these events is that Republicans have marginalized themselves.”  But is this really true?  I would argue that on issue after issue, Republicans have punched well above their weight in the face of a sometimes overwhelming Democratic majority.  Ever since the brief period of pseudo-bipartisan accord ended in mid-2009, the Right has been able to limit or cut discretionary spending (debt ceiling concessions, sequester), incapacitate or slow key regulatory agencies (CFPB, NLRB, DOL), kill any public option and delay Obamacare and generally cripple the Federal government’s ability to create new programs and laws.  All of these achievements are central objectives of the anti-government Right, and all have been accomplished while Democrats control the presidency and one or both houses of Congress.  This is in addition to the Republican wave at the state level passing all kinds of crazy socially conservative and anti-worker shit now that they control 27 legislatures and 30 governorships.  And the machinations of the most pro-elite Supreme Court since the 1930’s.  Obstructionist Republicans have suffered few setbacks at the polls, and are actually predicted by many to take back the Senate while retaining the House in 2014.

How did the Right pull it off?

How the fuck have these kooks been able to accomplish so much from a minority national position?  How is the Right even relevant after the Bush debacle and incredible economic collapse brought on by greedy capitalists on Wall Street?   I would argue that the Right propagates a clear ideological worldview that, although basically incoherent and lacking any real factual basis, they’ve stuck to and been able to clearly convey (that, that and boatloads of money…. like ruptured Titantic hulls filled with gold bars type money).  Slow job growth?  Government spending/Unions.  Economic sluggishness?  Government spending.  Poor education?  Unions.  Municipal decay?  Government spending/unions.  Basically everything boils down to government spending and unions destroy freedom and kill jobs.  The Right is also well organized at the state and local level, utilizing one of the last organized groups in America as foot soldiers (churchgoers).  And, conservative politicians, as anti-government legislation government legislators, are in the weirdly unique position of being able to enact their favored agenda just by showing up and not doing shit – kind of like anti-death penalty executioners or pacifist soldiers.

A tepid progressive response

The mainstream progressive response has been to assume the mantle of technocratic centrism and rail against these extremists and ideologues.  This is a tremendous mistake.  There is a bubbling anger in America, caused by 40 years of stagnating incomes, vanishing opportunities to climb the ladder and widespread industrial decay, which deserves a full-throated response.  Proposing “sensible,” centrist policies which fail to solve the problem even in their purest form, before they’re fed through the congressional sausage works (see: stimulus, healthcare, financial regulation), makes you look like you don’t have answers (which, in the case of national Democrats, you don’t).  At some point, voters will assess your record and realize that none of your proposals will help them much, the opposition won’t even allow these weak proposals through anyway, and you are therefore unable to govern.  At that point, voters will hand power to your ideologically driven foes who, although they may be headed into uncharted waters, are at least going somewhere.  The only answer for the Left is crafting a potent ideology of it own based on freedom, equal opportunity and democratic revival that can tap into the legitimate anger of Americans and become the alternative that people look to as they become increasingly disaffected with Washington politics.

Bathroom Solidarity

There’s been a worker vs. worker dust-up at the Port of Seattle over, of all things, access to bathrooms.  Short haul truckers who deliver goods to the Port are forced to piss in two port-o-potties, while the local Longshoremen have the kingly privilege of shitting on porcelain.  Longshoremen (ILWU) local president Cam Williams argues that having the truckers walk to the restroom creates “a situation where someone could get run over and possibly killed.”  However, the real issue is worker on worker friction.  The dock owner cites a desire to “avoid potentially volatile confrontations between the truckers and longshoremen” as reason for the separate bathrooms.  An ILWU member has twice physically prevented truckers, who are largely East African immigrants, from using the john, resulting in misdemeanor fourth-degree assault charges.  The incident highlights the continuing need for solidarity in the face of working class internecine conflict over scraps handed down by management.

Turf wars bloody all workers

All unions have to deal with external and internal turf wars.  The California Nurses Association (CNA) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) raid each other in Nevada and California.  The SEIU International takes over Locals, and Locals rebel against the International.  God help you if you’re trying to organize RNs in a hospital and you want to have the janitors or tech workers (represented by a different union) support your nurse organizing campaign.  It would take 50 conversations and the ghost of Eugene Debs to get that shit off the ground.

Workers must overcome a sometimes myopic focus on small advantages to see the larger picture

In this instance, the beef pits short-haul truck drivers, who are “independent contractors” barred from creating a union and earning $30,000/year, against ILWU members.  What’s particularly unfortunate about this situation is that ILWU is one of the strongest displayers of solidarity in the labor movement.  ILWU stood in solidarity with SEIU clerical workers in December 2012 and shut down all 29 west coast ports in May 2008 to protest the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (good luck reading about that in the MSM btw).  Although these incidences are often overblown by a media intent on promoting worker competition, the lack of working class solidarity is a real issue.  Why not force management to build additional bathrooms, or let your trucking brothers just use the bathroom?  Until workers, and the unions elected to represent them, view their parochial interests as part of a broader national struggle, corporations will be able to exploit privileges as petty as bathroom access to drive a thousand wedges through the Left.

The Emergence of Emergency Managers

On Thursday, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder appointed Washington, D.C. bankruptcy lawyer Kevyn “I guess it’s better than Kyevn” Orr as the emergency manager of Detroit.  Under Michigan law, the governor can appoint a quasi-dictatorial local government or school district “emergency manager” who has the power to cancel contracts, sell off public property, strip elected officials of pay or their position, and violate collective bargaining agreements.  Governor Snyder cited Detroit’s large fiscal deficit and long term debt load as triggers for the move, making Detroit Michigan’s eighth governing body to be usurped by the state.

Governor Snyder Goes Corleone

The takeover builds on a ballsy political strategy taken by Snyder, whose brazen power moves make Tony Montana look like a TIAA-CREF Roth IRA salesman plotting his COLA pitch.  Swept into power by the Republican wave of 2010, Snyder and Michigan’s Republicans have managed to vastly expand the state’s emergency manager law to include union-smashing capabilities, re-pass a slightly revised version of the same law a month after voters rejected it in a statewide referendum, gerrymander the shit out of Michigan’s congressional districts to give Republicans a 9-5 House advantage in a state that Obama won by 16 points, and pass union-defunding right to work for less money legislation in the birthplace of the UAW… in two years.  That would be like Democrats winning the state house in Alabama for one random congressional cycle and promptly collectivizing all farmland, establishing a 50% quota for female representatives and planting a giant rainbow flag on top of the statehouse.

Right Wing Governors Have Their Balls and Their Word

Snyder’s gangsteritis is shared by rust-belt contemporaries Scott Walker and Mitch Daniels.  The success of these governors in typically pro-labor, populist Midwest states demonstrates that voters in this time of crisis want decisiveness and a clear narrative from politicians.  Walker didn’t fret about pushing his agenda too hard and he didn’t worry about reflecting the stated views of his constituency.  He went rich-guy HAM, gutting worker rights for public employees and sticking to his guns.  Voters facing an anxiety-producing recession rewarded this decisiveness with a nearly 10 point reelection in 2012.  The right-wing narrative ascribing the region’s economic decline to overpaid government workers, job-killing regulations/unions and corrupt local officials may not reflect reality, but it’s repeated hundreds of times a day by hundreds of Republican officials who also conveniently provide policy solutions.

Detroit’s Real Problem is Running Rich People and Industrial Decline

In order to take back power in Detroit and the greater Midwest, the Left must accurately assess the problem and provide relevant answers.  Detroit is in trouble because of a combination of white/rich flight, de-industrialization and a huge drop in the tax base.  Although Detroit city’s population has plummeted by 61% since 1950, the greater Detroit region actually added hundreds of thousands of people over the same period.  In effect, most of the region’s poor people have been penned off in the city.  At the same time, the big three automakers and other regional manufacturers began their long decline, leading to a big drop in jobs.  No rich people + no jobs = no taxes, and thus was sired Sir Kevyn Orr, Czar of Motor City.

Source: Southeast Michigan Council of Governments and Census Bureau

The Answer is Redistribution, Democracy and Industrial Growth

The answer to industrial decline and suburban population shift is a redefinition of polity boundaries, re-commitment to democracy and introduction of vigorous industrial policies.  Detroit is poor because most of the region’s poor people have been left in Detroit.  The state of Michigan and federal government should redistribute tax revenue from the burbs to the city to prevent the rich from carving local regions into an increasingly segregated system of economic bantustans.  In addition, Michigan should recommit to democracy.  Local corruption is not the main issue (It’s not like the mayor was banging his chief of staff, lying in court and running criminal enterprises out of his office or anything… oh wait) and elections are not responsible for Detroit’s problems.  Instead of the state government throwing in with the leader principle, why improve governance by putting state funds to use for civic education, voter registration, revitalization of civil society or support of watchdog media groups?  Democracy provides checks and balances, accountability and representation, and it’s rejection during a period of economic decline is extremely dangerous.  Finally, the rust-belt needs an effective national industrial policy to bounce back from the decline of manufacturing.  This entails government investment in new technologies, subsidies for cutting edge industries and massive vocational training, not tax giveaways to circling corporate vultures.

Kevyn Orr may prove Kevyn Oro or he may prove Kevyn Mierdapequena, but unless progressives galvanize behind a program of democracy and industrial expansion for the Midwest, the region is in for a lot less say at the ballot box, a lot less pay in the workplace and a continued decline into economic stagnation.

Demographics Aren’t Destiny

Since the 2012 election, there has been a lot of discussion of demographic shifts cementing the rising power of “liberals” and consigning conservatives to historical dustbins. The crudest (and most offensive) form of this argument assumes that Latinos in America only give a shit about their immigrant brethren, and that Democrats own the immigration issue. The more sophisticated version points to a new Democratic coalition of BEBOAC (Basically Everybody but Old Ass Crackers) voters ushering in a new multi-cultural, socially tolerant America. The problem with “demographics as destiny” exponents is that they falsely argue that demographic changes necessarily lead to policy changes, and that the new “majority coalition” signifies a major victory for the left.

American history is littered with examples of successful social movements that have no relation to changes in population. The Civil Rights movement didn’t happen because of a sudden influx of black people, Feminism didn’t rely on a jump in the female birthrate and today’s gay rights movement doesn’t rely on more gays. Movements live and die because of dedicated organizations of people successfully challenging status quo ideology and motivating large groups to support their struggle. Even the widespread working class unrest during the depression, which was fed by millions of newly poor people, was instigated by the labor unions, social democrats and communists.

Additionally, although the background of politicians certainly influences their voting, changing the face of a politician is not a way to challenge entrenched power structures. Alan Keyes, Marco Rubio, Margaret Thatcher and the history of post-colonial Africa aptly demonstrate that economic and political power can adapt to a rapid evolution in racial and gender norms/dynamics without fundamentally changing.

Multiculturalists, civil rights activists, feminists, gay rights activists and BEBOAC voters have made significant gains in the last few decades, but this leftist coalition has not succeeded at challenging entrenched financial and political elites. The traditional stream of progress has been forced to flow around these powerful interests, leading to increased economic inequality, declining worker power in the workplace, increased revolving door political corruption, greater influence of money on politics, an expansive surveillance state and a decline in economic opportunity for most Americans. A fall in the population share of white Americans will not change that.

Gini Source: Census Dept
Union Membership: BLS

Replacing white bankers with Latino bankers, or multimillionaire old whiteys with multimillionaire old black ladies won’t fundamentally change American power dynamics. The goal can’t be to just provide access to the existing system for everyone – the goal must be to change that system for everyone. What will signal a revival and potential victory for the Left is a mass movement led by popular organizations demanding freedom, opportunity and democracy for all in America’s workplaces, communities and corridors of political power.

The Pravda President

Civil liberties and transparency advocates have long observed that Obama’s White House has been extremely secretive and selective about releasing national security information. The government refuses to acknowledge the existence of the CIA’s drone assassination program in court even as senior administration officials leak favorable classified info that all but claims Obama flew into Yemen on rocket boosters himself and fired a pinpoint strike right into al-Awlaki’s ass. The administration followed a similar strategy with the Stuxnet cyber-attack and worked extensively with Zero Dark Thirty filmmakers to create a propaganda movie while remaining publicly opaque about the Bin Laden raid.

Politico recently expanded this analysis of the administration’s lack of transparency to include the White House’s day-to-day stonewalling of media. It labeled President Obama “the puppet master” after exhaustingly detailing the White House’s continuous attempts to contain and strictly control press coverage. Administration officials frequently call reporters to try to influence coverage, have refused interviews from any major newspaper in years and select press conference questioners based on the favorability of their reporting on the President. Obama’s also given only one-third as many post-announcement or photo-op talks with the media as President Bush.

Executive branch recalcitrance and manipulation of the media is nothing new, but it’s been getting worse in recent years. George W. Bush famously captured the mainstream press in the run-up to the attack on Iraq, using selective leaks and misinformation to push the nation to war.  He also successfully pressured news outlets to suppress major stories about his domestic spying program for a year. During the 2012 campaign, both Mitt Romney and President Obama requested and received veto power for all quotes from senior campaign officials, family members and candidates used by many MSM outlets including Bloomberg, The Washington Post and the New York Times. According to Politico, the Obama administration has also pioneered the production of its own media content (photos, videos, blog posts etc…) which it can directly release to the public or offer to the media. Given this recent history, is it a stretch to envision a near future where the White House demands that, in exchange for access to government created media (i.e. propaganda), newspapers and TV stations must run the content unedited? Does that differ at all from the state-controlled media in an authoritarian regime?

Access-hungry reporters have no idea how to push back against White House restrictions, choosing to accept their diminished role and play ball rather than risk a further diminution in access. But what if instead of throwing up their hands and growing more obedient, they played their FUCKING ROLE and acted ADVERSARIALLY!? If administration officials refuse to comment on the drone program, interview Yemeni tribesman who’ve lost family members; interview angry congressmen tired of being sidelined; interview international legal scholars who question the legality and ethics of incinerating young foreign men. Similar approaches could be taken to political events like sequestration, Medicare cuts, Obama’s pre-K push etc… If the executive branch refuses to offer anything substantial or on the record, then don’t quote anyone from the fucking executive branch and rely exclusively on other interested parties.

The sad truth is that mainstream outlets have become so subservient to government interests that publishing genuinely critical articles, without copious and lengthy anonymous rebuttals from government officials, is basically unthinkable. So the White House will continue to restrict access, administration staffers will continue to use the press for favorable leaking and the American media will continue its gradual transformation into an official mouthpiece of the government.

Stand Up Fight Back Old-Timers!

With the sequester looming, some Democrats have joined conservatives in calling for changes to Medicare, an alarming political strategy for those who care about that program, which could lead down the slippery slope to privatization.  Yuval Levin from the right-wing (and beautifully inane sounding) Ethics and Public Policy Center presented the typical conservative position in the New York Times Tuesday when he argued that raising Medicare’s eligibility age to 70 and means-testing benefits for wealthy Americans is a wonderfully reasonable “compromise” position that will “[target] benefits to those who most need them.”   Funny how that targeting always involves cutting benefits rather than increasing them.

Amazingly, some leading Democrats have offered similar opinions.  In his State of the Union address, President Obama suggested the nation “ask more from the wealthiest seniors,” echoing his earlier statements of support for means-testing Medicare benefits.   Obama also tentatively agreed to an increase in the Medicare retirement age for wealthier seniors during “grand bargain” negotiations in 2011.  Senators Max Baucus, Richard Durbin and James Clyburn have also signaled they’d be open to means-testing Medicare as part of a broader deficit reduction deal.

Strategies of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and National Organization for Women (NOW) prove that allowing seemingly incremental and innocuous concessions like these would be a major strategic setback for supporters of universal social programs.  The NRA is fucking nuts.  The organization has effectively silenced any federal research on the effects of guns on mortality by using their political influence to reduce Center for Disease Control firearms safety research by 96 percent since the mid-1990s.   It vigorously opposed Clinton’s assault weapons ban, opposes the current effort to ban a few types of assault weapons, and even opposes the modest background checks recently proposed by the president.   In short, the NRA refuses to support any new gun regulations, even if they make sense on the surface and would save lives.

The National Organization for Women is also unrelenting in pushing their agenda.  NOW strongly opposes mandatory ultrasounds, fights against any restrictions to Planned Parenthood funding, strongly went after proponents of a proposed DC abortion ban for women after the 20th week of pregnancy, has weighed in against parental notification laws and opposed “partial-birth” abortion restrictions.   NOW fights back extremely hard against all attempts to restrict abortion rights, using its full rhetorical and financial arsenal to fight its enemies.

The NRA and NOW recognize that, although some proponents of gun control and abortion restrictions really do want to take a small number of limited and arguably sensible policy steps, many other gun control activists and pro-lifers want to drastically restrict gun and abortion rights.  Uncontested assault weapon bans and background checks would embolden many gun control activists to push further, just like unopposed late-term abortion restrictions and parental notification laws would encourage pro-life activists to advocate for even stronger anti-abortion laws.

The NRA and NOW use full force, with no compromise, and have been largely successful.  If believers in keeping our “entitlement” programs universal and democratic hope to replicate this success, they should be deeply disturbed by the signals emanating from Democratic leadership, and should be doing everything within their means to kill any changes in the retirement age or introduction of means-testing.

Get My Taxes Cut or You’re Fired

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz recently enlisted hundreds of DC-area Starbucks workers to fight for the Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid cutting mission of billionaire-backed Fix the Debt.  Fix the Debt is a lobbying group composed of over 100 CEOs and executives from corporate giants like GE, Honeywell, and Goldman Sachs that aims to lower corporate taxes and protect defense spending, while cutting Social Security benefit growth, slashing Medicare funding and reducing expenditures on Medicaid for the poor.  Starbucks “partners” (which along with “member,” “associate,” “teammate” and “crew member” is just another bullshit Orwellian term intended to make you feel way more empowered at work than you actually are) were encouraged to write the phrase “Come Together [to cut my benefits and lower my boss’ taxes]” on patrons’ cups to send a “respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials” to lower the debt.

Schultz’ effort, which commenced the day after Christmas, follows a growing number of CEO attempts to influence the political positions of employees and harness worker manpower to push pro-rich, pro-business agendas.  No longer content to simply buy politicians, CEOs are now intent on directly coercing voters by threatening their livelihoods.

• In the run-up to the Presidential election, Westgate Resorts CEO David Siegel told his employees that if President Obama was reelected and implemented new taxes, “I will have no choice but to reduce the size of this company” which “means fewer jobs, less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone.”
• ASG Software Solutions CEO Arthur Allen warned that if President Obama was reelected, ASG would “lose our independence as a company” resulting in the potential elimination of “about 60 percent of the salaries of the employees of [the] company.”
• Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray allegedly conditioned promotions and bonuses on political donations, and pushed workers to attend Romney campaign events without pay.

Similar examples can be found with the Koch brothers and a number of other executives.

This continuation and strengthening of corporate influence on the body politic is clearly disturbing.  In most states, your boss has the right to fire or discipline you based on how you vote, who you donate money to or which political policies you advocate.  While CEOs used to use this power sparingly for fear of facing public ire, the gloves are increasingly coming off.  It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to envision a near-future world where political beliefs are screened in interviews, employee contributions are tracked by HR and dissenters are slow-tracked or fired.  Employment contracts already restrict workers’ dress, speech, movement, rights to association and many other behaviors, so why not political beliefs?

The other important part of this story is to highlight methods of resistance.  In California, state law restricts employers from terminating or threatening to fire employees based on their political beliefs.  Oregon has laws banning captive political meetings by employers and threats/actualization of dismissal based on voting.  Union contracts, which typically require “just cause” for discipline or termination, are also an effective way to stop corporate meddling.  Then there’s always the possibility that progressives will put down their Quinoa-infused organic enemas and double skinny vanilla lattes for a half-second and actually start to boycott anti-worker companies like Whole Foods and Starbucks.  Unless the left begins to strongly push for freedom of speech at work, collective bargaining for workers and public fight-backs against these modern barons, we’re all in for a darkly corporate-dominated political future.