Re: [Marxism] To A Locomotive In Winter

[DW via Marxism]

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Every time I am reminded of a Locomotive in winter, I think of this passage
from Trotsky's "1905". He writes about the railroad strike that year, part
of the Revolution. He writes about the strike as a 'thing' with it's own
dynamic and personality:

"Only for its own purposes did the strike allow itself to break the vow of
immobility. When it needed news bulletins of the revolution it opened a
printing works; it used the telegraph to send out strike instructions; it
let trains carrying strikers’ delegates pass"

"From time to time its attention wearied and its vigilance slackened, now
here, now there. Sometimes a reckless train would break through the strike
barrier: then the strike would set off in pursuit of it. The guilty train,
like a criminal on the run, raced through dark and empty stations,
unannounced by the telegraph, leaving a wake of fear and uncertainty behind
it. But in the end the strike would catch up with the train, stop the
engine, immobilize the driver, let off the steam."


David Walters
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Re: [Marxism] Alerting developments on Syria

[Chris Slee via Marxism]

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Omar Sabbour says:

"In combination with what appears to be Turkey's selling out of the rebellion, 
this is essentially merely a "publicisation" of the undeclared 
US-Russian-Turkish arrangement aimed at ending the armed resistance to Assad 
which had begun with the fall of Aleppo (when the US actually bombed rebel 
areas of the city during the siege and US officials [were] even justifying the 
Russian bombardment - whilst Turkey blocked arms supplies going in during the 
siege).  Supporters of Turkey need to understand that whilst Turkey did indeed 
want to empower the rebels militarily to overthrow Assad (unlike Jordan), it 
has never been brave enough to cross the US red-lines which were explicitly 
against this policy".

This account misses a key point - Turkey's desire to crush the Rojava 
revolution.

This Kurdish-led revolutionary movement is seen as a threat to the Turkish 
state, which oppresses Kurds.  

But the increasing involvement of other ethnic groups in the movement does not 
lessen Turkey's hostility.  Its democratic, feminist and secular character 
makes it a threat to Erdogan's reactionary and repressive regime.

Suppressing the Rojava revolution was always one of Turkey's goals.  But for a 
time this was combined with an anti-Assad policy.  Turkey gave weapons and 
other aid to anti-Assad rebels.  Probably Erdogan hoped that an Islamist 
government would come to power in Syria.

But Russian intervention made the overthrow of Assad much more difficult.  
Turkey therefore abandoned this policy and now focuses solely on attacking 
Rojava and the broader Democratic Federation of Northern Syria.  Some rebel 
groups have been coopted to participate in this attack.

This change of policy by Turkey led to what Sabbour calls the "selling out of 
the rebellion".  There was an "arrangement" berween Turkey and Russia.  Turkey 
would stop trying to overthrow Assad.  In return Turkey would be allowed to 
send troops into northern Syria to prevent the spread of the Rojava revolution.

Chris Slee



From: Marxism  on behalf of Louis Proyect 
via Marxism 
Sent: Friday, 21 July 2017 12:06:10 PM
To: Chris Slee
Subject: [Marxism] Alerting developments on Syria

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(Posted by Omar Sabbour on FB.)

Alerting developments on Syria - Warning for Syria groups

1) The end of the CIA "vetting" program of "arming rebels".

For those who have closely followed Syria over the years, they will know
of course that the CIA programme has not been dictated by actually
providing weapons to the rebels directly (groups which received weapons
directly from the US tended to have agreed not to use them against
Assad, such as the SDF, New Syrian Army, Mou'tasem Brigade, Hamza
Division), but in "co-coordinating" (i.e. controlling) the arms supply
to them coming from other parties (i.e. Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and
private parties - references for this can be found at the bottom [1]).
This control has been exercised via two main "Operation Centres" - the
MOC in Jordan and the MOM in Turkey - and has taken the form of
determining the quantity and quality of weapons which are allowed to go
in (for instance advanced weaponry are either restricted - such as
anti-tank missiles - or altogether blockaded - such as anti-aircraft
missiles; whilst the flow of regular weaponry and ammunition varies
according to events and strategic interests on the ground) and which
groups receive them.

Of course the CIA and Jordanian intelligence had already been banning
(the already previously restricted [2]) arms going into the South for
the purpose of anti-Assad operations for years
(https://mkaradjis.wordpress.com/…/us-and-jordan-demand-sou…/), whilst
in the North the CIA had restricted allowing arms to rebel operations
even against ISIS [3] - though the degree of US control here had been
much less than in the south, as the US had been circumvented more by
Turkey (whilst Turkey always pressured the US to allow in an effective
supply of weaponry to the rebels, by contrast Jordan had an effectively
identical position to the US vis a vis Syria: i.e. supporting the
survival of the opposition but not empowering it to overthrow Assad).

What this news piece means, in other words, is that the US is going to
try and institute a total 

[Marxism] Herbert L. Needleman, pediatrician who exposed dangers of lead poisoning, dies at 89 - The Washington Post

[Richard Sprout via Marxism]

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/herbert-l-needleman-pediatrician-who-exposed-dangers-of-lead-poisoning-dies-at-89/2017/07/20/3bc644ba-6d53-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html?utm_term=.1e386e4296a3


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] THIS → Meet the man tackling the over-incarceration of Indigenous people in Canadian prisons

[Richard Sprout via Marxism]

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https://this.org/2017/07/17/meet-the-man-tackling-the-over-incarceration-of-indigenous-people-in-canadian-prisons/


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[Marxism] To A Locomotive In Winter

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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To A Locomotive In Winter
by Walt Whitman

THEE for my recitative!
Thee in the driving storm, even as now--the snow--the winter-day
declining;
Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat
convulsive;
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel;
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating,
shuttling at thy sides;
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar--now tapering in the
distance;
Thy great protruding head-light, fix'd in front;
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple;
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack;
Thy knitted frame--thy springs and valves--the tremulous twinkle of
thy wheels;
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily-following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering:
Type of the modern! emblem of motion and power! pulse of the
continent!
For once, come serve the Muse, and merge in verse, even as here I see
thee,
With storm, and buffeting gusts of wind, and falling snow;
By day, thy warning, ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night, thy silent signal lamps to swing.

Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through my chant, with all thy lawless music! thy swinging lamps
at night;
Thy piercing, madly-whistled laughter! thy echoes, rumbling like an
earthquake, rousing all!
Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding;
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
Launch'd o'er the prairies wide--across the lakes,
To the free skies, unpent, and glad, and strong.
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[Marxism] Fwd: Red State, Blue State; Green State, Deep State

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Jeff St. Clair:

It took the election of Trump to achieve the potential 
“intersectionality” of these two disparate branches of Deep  State 
Theory. Here at last was a JFK-like figure of the nationalist right, a 
man who was ready to smash NATO to pieces, revoke global trade pacts, 
retreat from interventionist wars, make nice with the Russians and chase 
all the little Hitlers out of the CIA. Then it all began unravel under 
the weight of RussiaGate©, a faux-scandal concocted by the Deep State to 
serve as a slo-motion coup d’etat. The tragedy of Trump makes for 
compelling reading, including dozens of articles probing similar veins 
that have appeared here on CounterPunch.


https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/21/red-state-blue-state-green-state-deep-state/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Bernie Sanders Obamacare Rally: Not Socialist | Fortune.com

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Good stuff.
Love the part about banks.
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[Marxism] Fwd: Bernie Sanders Obamacare Rally: Not Socialist | Fortune.com

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Odd to see this in Fortune.

http://fortune.com/2017/07/11/bernie-sanders-obamacare-socialism/
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[Marxism] Fwd: The Revolutionary Imagination: Rosa for Our Times

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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What does Luxemburg’s life and legacy have to say to the realities of 
modern politics? First, Luxemburg had no illusions that capitalism could 
meet the long-term needs of society. She was no Bernie Sanders-style 
reformer who expressed abstract sympathy for socialism while embracing 
the practical reform of capitalism as her actual end goal. While still 
in her 20s, she wrote her famous pamphlet, Reform or Revolution, taking 
on those in the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) who saw the party’s 
steady growth in influence leading to the gradual emergence of a 
socialist society.


Certainly, Luxemburg did not reject political campaigns for social 
reforms, as the SPD championed, only the idea that they were an end in 
themselves. Political action for social reform legislation could not be 
a “long-drawn out revolution” in disguise, as many in the SPD hoped. She 
argued that the ruling business owners, financiers, and manufacturers 
would never allow their power to be gradually taken from them.


Writing at the dawn of the 20th century, Luxemburg concluded that 
“people who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative 
reform in place and in contradistinction to the conquest of political 
power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, 
calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead 
of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a 
stand for surface modifications of the old society.”


full: 
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/21/the-revolutionary-imagination-rosa-for-our-times/

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[Marxism] Fwd: TrumpWatch, Day 182: Trump Looks at Pardons for Himself and His Family - EA WorldView

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://eaworldview.com/2017/07/trumpwatch-day-182-trump-i-might-pardon-myself-and-my-family/
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[Marxism] Fwd: Caitlin Johnstone and David Cobb Respond to Counterpunch

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/caitlin-johnstone-and-david-cobb-respond-to-counterpunch-9ca0d74183c7
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[Marxism] Fwd: An Elusive Cold War Star | by Tim Page | The New York Review of Books

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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In some ways, Cliburn’s life was similar to that of Charles A. 
Lindbergh. Both men were gangly young loners from small middle-American 
towns who followed their own stars and became spectacularly and 
enduringly famous before they knew what had happened. They both carried 
heavy geopolitical baggage: Lindbergh’s flight across the Atlantic was 
hailed as uniting the Old World with the New, while Cliburn was credited 
with helping calm near-apocalyptic global tensions. Both men earned 
their eventual front-page obituaries with a few extraordinary days in 
their mid-twenties: for all of Lindbergh’s activities after the Spirit 
of St. Louis bobbed and shook its way from New York to Paris in 1927, 
everything pales when set beside the thirty-three hours of that solo 
flight. Cliburn at his death was eulogized as though he were still a 
beautiful young pianist who had somehow come out of time to die at the 
age of seventy-eight.


The contradictions within Cliburn’s personality, combined with his 
enormous fame, must have been difficult to reconcile.1 His public image 
was not an act: he really did live with his mother until her death in 
1994 at the age of ninety-seven; he was a devoted Baptist who attended 
services at least once a week; he voted Republican, played for all the 
presidents from Eisenhower to Obama, and usually began his concerts with 
“The Star-Spangled Banner.”


But he was also a gay man at a time when public knowledge of his 
homosexuality might have ruined not only his image, but also his career. 
Under such pressures, his playing suffered: “From the mid-1960s it 
seemed that he could not cope with the loss of freshness,” Michael 
Steinberg wrote in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. “His 
repertory was restricted; his playing, always guided primarily by 
intuition, took on affectations; and the sound itself became harsher.”


full: 
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/07/13/van-cliburn-elusive-cold-war-star/

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[Marxism] Fwd: Taxi Searchers | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Paraphrasing Norman Mailer, after reading Andrew Stewart’s 
“Advertisement for Himself” in last weekend’s CounterPunch, I 
immediately downloaded his “Taxi Searchers: John Wayne, Robert DeNiro, 
and the Meaning of America”  and found it completely absorbing. Although 
I have a particular interest in the work of John Ford, I can strongly 
recommend Stewart’s book to everybody as a successful multidisciplinary 
work that is so hard to find in scholarly treatments of film. With so 
many film scholars focusing narrowly on auteur theory, mise-en-scène, 
tracking shots and camera angles, it is a relief to read a young film 
scholar who makes the connection between film and politics. Since the 
two films under consideration are deeply immersed in the big questions 
of race and violence, it is almost impossible to analyze them out of 
their historical and social context.


I had never made the connection between John Ford’s “The Searchers” and 
Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” but found myself saying “of course” 
after Stewart pointed out that both involve anti-heroes trying to 
“rescue” women who don’t really feel any such need. Another important 
insight found in Taxi Searchers is their proximity in time to two 
important reversals of imperial fortune. Ford’s film was made just two 
years after the French were defeated in Vietnam and Scorsese’s came out 
just a year after the Vietnamese kicked the imperialists out once again.


full: https://louisproyect.org/2017/07/21/taxi-searchers/
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Just one correction to David: Joanne Landy and her Campaign for Peace and
Democracy have been wonderful at all points and on all questions since the
regional revolution broke out.
p.s. Speaking of that revolution, its flashpoint at this very moment is in
Morocco, where revolutionary socialists are organizing amidst a mass
uprising. See internationalviewpoint.org and my Facebook shares.
p.p.s. The response to the Zionist attack on Al-Aqsa mosque in recent days
would in the abstract be another flashpoint were it not for the fact that
we know the Palestinian "leadership" will piss away this opportunity as
well.

On Fri, Jul 21, 2017 at 9:48 AM, David McDonald via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> Michael writes:
>
>
>There are good reasons why the big majority
>of leftists from Trotskyist, semi-Trot (eg state-caps) and anarchist
>backgrounds have been fairly good on Syria.
>
> I'm not so sure, and I would like to hear what you think those reasons are.
>
> My research on Trotskyist groups on this question, which I admit is not
> exhaustive even in the English-writing world, leads me to believe that this
> poisonous trend crosses all sect boundaries.
>
> Among the US Trot & semi-Trot groups only the ISO is actually good and
> covers Syria consistently. Socialist Alternative, the sister group of the
> Socialist Party (UK) has a crappy position and does not cover the issue.
> Socialist Action is by far the worst I have come across, and it is the
> sentimental favorite of numerous former SWP-US members because it seems to
> resemble the pre-Barnes-cult SWP. SA's position is based on an extremely
> narrow reading of Permanent Revolution that goes more or less along the
> lines of "get a real working class and we'll talk."
>
> On the other hand, as Marxmail subscribers know, the Oakland Socialists
> have an excellent take on Syria despite having come from a Hoxhaite
> background. Hoxha, you may remember, attacked both China and Russia (then
> the Soviet Union) for insufficient Stalinism.
>
> On the third hand is the intermediate position of like Joanne Landy and Sam
> Farber who are clear on the crimes of Assad but cannot find anyone to
> support and would not send a pen knife to Syria.
>
> It is possible that I have mis-characterized something here, and, if so, my
> apologies. I'm not really up for this sort of excavation anymore unless it
> yields some immediate results.
>
> I would say "Go figure" except there is no one but us and a large bunch of
> Arabs who get this. Of the Not-Trotskyist type formations, I think that a
> history of looking for or at least accepting the idea of "Third Camp" makes
> it easier to see through to the actual Syrian Revolution.
>
> The Arab Spring has altered the world. It requires revolutionaries in the
> West to do more than try to apply lessons from the past. I am re-reading
> "Orientalism" to try to get a handle.
>
> Reading Wendy Pearlman's "We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled -- Voices
> from Syria" I was struck by the first-hand accounts from different cities,
> towns, and villages in Syria of the moment when the dam broke. In numerous
> cases people gathered tensely and silently until finally someone broke the
> spell and unleashed the fervor brimming up in everyone's heart with a cry
> of -- not "freedom", that was the second utterance -- but "Allahu Akbar."
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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: As Trump shores up Assad's genocidal regime, America's hard left is cheering him on - Opinion - Israel News | Haaretz.com

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Michael writes:


   There are good reasons why the big majority
   of leftists from Trotskyist, semi-Trot (eg state-caps) and anarchist
   backgrounds have been fairly good on Syria.

I'm not so sure, and I would like to hear what you think those reasons are.

My research on Trotskyist groups on this question, which I admit is not
exhaustive even in the English-writing world, leads me to believe that this
poisonous trend crosses all sect boundaries.

Among the US Trot & semi-Trot groups only the ISO is actually good and
covers Syria consistently. Socialist Alternative, the sister group of the
Socialist Party (UK) has a crappy position and does not cover the issue.
Socialist Action is by far the worst I have come across, and it is the
sentimental favorite of numerous former SWP-US members because it seems to
resemble the pre-Barnes-cult SWP. SA's position is based on an extremely
narrow reading of Permanent Revolution that goes more or less along the
lines of "get a real working class and we'll talk."

On the other hand, as Marxmail subscribers know, the Oakland Socialists
have an excellent take on Syria despite having come from a Hoxhaite
background. Hoxha, you may remember, attacked both China and Russia (then
the Soviet Union) for insufficient Stalinism.

On the third hand is the intermediate position of like Joanne Landy and Sam
Farber who are clear on the crimes of Assad but cannot find anyone to
support and would not send a pen knife to Syria.

It is possible that I have mis-characterized something here, and, if so, my
apologies. I'm not really up for this sort of excavation anymore unless it
yields some immediate results.

I would say "Go figure" except there is no one but us and a large bunch of
Arabs who get this. Of the Not-Trotskyist type formations, I think that a
history of looking for or at least accepting the idea of "Third Camp" makes
it easier to see through to the actual Syrian Revolution.

The Arab Spring has altered the world. It requires revolutionaries in the
West to do more than try to apply lessons from the past. I am re-reading
"Orientalism" to try to get a handle.

Reading Wendy Pearlman's "We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled -- Voices
from Syria" I was struck by the first-hand accounts from different cities,
towns, and villages in Syria of the moment when the dam broke. In numerous
cases people gathered tensely and silently until finally someone broke the
spell and unleashed the fervor brimming up in everyone's heart with a cry
of -- not "freedom", that was the second utterance -- but "Allahu Akbar."
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[Marxism] These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In.

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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("Voters have besieged their representatives with emotional telephone 
calls and rallies, urging them not to repeal, one big reason Republicans 
have had surprising trouble in fulfilling their promise despite 
controlling both Congress and the White House." Okay, so does this sound 
anything like Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini's first year in power? 
Corey Robin has likened Trump to Jimmy Carter in terms of his weakness. 
I think a better analogy is Bill Clinton after Ken Starr began 
investigating Whitewater. In a bourgeois democracy that has existed for 
over 200 years, it is not that easy to impose dictatorship.)



NY Times, July 21 2017
These Americans Hated the Health Law. Until the Idea of Repeal Sank In.
By KATE ZERNIKE and ABBY GOODNOUGH

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — Five years ago, the Affordable Care Act had yet to 
begin its expansion of health insurance to millions of Americans, but 
Jeff Brahin was already stewing about it.


“It’s going to cost a fortune,” he said in an interview at the time.

This week, as Republican efforts to repeal the law known as Obamacare 
appeared all but dead, Mr. Brahin, a 58-year-old lawyer and 
self-described fiscal hawk, said his feelings had evolved.


“As much as I was against it,” he said, “at this point I’m against the 
repeal.”


“Now that you’ve insured an additional 20 million people, you can’t just 
take the insurance away from these people,” he added. “It’s just not the 
right thing to do.”


As Mr. Brahin goes, so goes the nation.

When President Trump was elected, his party’s long-cherished goal of 
dismantling the Affordable Care Act seemed all but assured. But eight 
months later, Republicans seem to have done what the Democrats who 
passed the law never could: make it popular among a majority of Americans.


Support for the Affordable Care Act has risen since the election — in 
some polls, sharply — with more people now viewing the law favorably 
than unfavorably. Voters have besieged their representatives with 
emotional telephone calls and rallies, urging them not to repeal, one 
big reason Republicans have had surprising trouble in fulfilling their 
promise despite controlling both Congress and the White House.


The change in public opinion may not denote newfound love of the 
Affordable Care Act so much as dread of what might replace it. The 
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that both the House 
and Senate proposals to replace the law would result in over 20 million 
more uninsured Americans. The shift in mood also reflects a strong 
increase in support for Medicaid, the health insurance program for the 
poor that the law expanded to cover far more people, and which faces the 
deepest cuts in its 52-year history under the Republican plans.


Most profound, though, is this: After years of Tea Party demands for 
smaller government, Republicans are now pushing up against a growing 
consensus that the government should guarantee health insurance. A Pew 
survey in January found that 60 percent of Americans believe the federal 
government should be responsible for ensuring that all Americans have 
health coverage. That was up from 51 percent last year, and the highest 
in nearly a decade.


The belief held even among many Republicans: 52 percent of those making 
below $30,000 a year said the federal government has a responsibility to 
ensure health coverage, a huge jump from 31 percent last year. And 34 
percent of Republicans who make between $30,000 and about $75,000 
endorsed that view, up from 14 percent last year.


“The idea that you shouldn’t take coverage away really captured a large 
share of people who weren’t even helped by this bill,” said Robert 
Blendon, a health policy expert at Harvard who has closely followed 
public opinion of the Affordable Care Act.


In 2012, when The New York Times talked to Mr. Brahin and others here in 
Bucks County, Pa., a perennial swing district outside Philadelphia, 
their attitudes on the law tracked with national polls that showed most 
Americans viewed it unfavorably.


But now, too, sentiment here reflects the polls — and how they have 
shifted. Many people still have little understanding of how the law 
works. But Democrats and independents have rallied around it, and many 
of those who opposed it now accept the law, unwilling to see millions of 
Americans stripped of the coverage that it extended to them.


“I can’t even remember why I opposed it,” said Patrick Murphy, who owns 
Bagel Barrel, on a quaint and bustling street near Mr. Brahin’s law 
office here in Doylestown.


He thought Democrats “jammed it down our throats,” and like Mr. Brahin, 
he worried about the growing 

[Marxism] Fwd: The Hall-Monitor's Tale: The Center's War on Chapo Trap House :: Politics :: Features :: Chapo Trap House :: Paste

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[Marxism] Fwd: Poor Whites and the Labor Crisis in the Slave South | LAWCHA

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[Marxism] Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism | AeonIdeas

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[Marxism] Fwd: The Dirtbag Left can prevent the liberal elite bubble that brought us Donald Trump - Salon.com

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More on Chapo Trap House. Unbelievable.

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