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Michael Alan Dover, PhD's avatar

Max speak, I listen: https://sawicky.substack.com

In response to Max‘s discussion of the Abundance book, one way in which liberals do produce inequality is that we are often advocates mainly for services to the poor including mental health and substance abuse services and what I call programitization rather than the institutionalization of benefit programs that could prevent or respond to poverty, such as the right to a job at a living wage and earned income tax credit child, tax credit, expansion of short term disability to Social Security, restoration of a true minimum Social Security benefit, increase of the minimum SSI payment to about double what it is now for people with schizophrenia and other significant disabilities, and so forth.

Even in states which liberals control and counties which they control no serious efforts have been made for instance to guarantee the right to a job with a living wage.

And yet guess who it is that has the jobs serving the poor? Liberals and even radicals in social work and other helping professions who are guilty of not adequately promoting benefits because we are so busy defending services.

In any case, we need a much broader and pragmatic progressive movement and left if we want to turn things around. Feel good left politics around the three candidates you mentioned is great, but it may not play in Peoria.

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Owen Paine's avatar

Yes. Fuss budget

corporate financed Democrat

Professiona

l vote and money hounds

Are the correct targets for

progressive-populist rangers

Use to call themselves

cultural liberals

fiscal conservatives

They come in several varieties

Of course

Progressive front builders

Constantly face the class divide

Between

merit pyramid worshiping PCs

And the wagery

In their coats of many colors

Attack the corporate saddle riders

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