Caught in the Web: Oh, California!

There’s always been a dearth of progressive voices in the mainstream media, and with the closing of so many newspapers in recent years, there’s also too little reliable political reporting in many regions, especially California—a huge state economy in a huge crisis, and one that is tremendously important to the labor movement. Several blogs are valiantly helping to fill the gap. The California Progress Report (www.californiaprogressreport.com) aggregates news about the state that matters to progressives, from other sources. But even more valuably, it runs its own articles authored by professional journalists—including the venerable Peter Schrag, formerly of the Sacramento Bee—as well as some advocates. Highlights include a provocative column by Schrag on the possibility that California Democrats will force Republican districts to bear the brunt of the state’s coming tax cuts—on the premise that perhaps people who don’t want to pay for government should bear the consequences of their ideology. Other excellent online sources on California and its budget politics include California Budget Bites (http://californiabudgetbites.org)—the blog of the California Budget Project, an advocacy group for the economic policy interests of low-and middle-income Californians—and the more rabidly pro-Democratic California Majority Report (http://camajorityreport.com).

Media Watchdog

The mainstream media is feeding us some sorry misinformation on economic issues. For a lucid corrective, bookmark the “Beat the Press” blog (www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press), written by economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C. Despite a dry style, zero entertainment value (no jokes, pictures, or videos), and few links, Baker’s interventions are politically invaluable and deserve more attention. For example, his May Day post, “Is NPR Unable to Get Access to Data on Health Care Costs?,” showed that if National Public Radio reporters had been looking at any trusted sources of data, they would have broadcast quite different information on Medicare costs. NPR had reported that Medicare’s costs were unsustainable because patients don’t see the costs of their treatment—a right-wing talking point—but, in fact, OECD data shows that the U.K. and the Netherlands, where patients see much less of their health care costs than we do, spend less than half as much money per person on health care than the U.S. does. Nearly a month later, Baker was beating up New York Times columnist Joe Nocera for failing to understand the same issue, asking “Does Joe Nocera Know Nothing about U.S. Health Care Costs?”

If I Had a Song…

But we cannot, of course, be inspired by data and facts alone. The labor movement needs more and better music. Too often, bad folk music —part of the “popular front” tradition, reinforced by the sixties folk revival—provides the background to our events and protests. But several years ago, Yahoo Music blogger Rob O’Connor compiled a list of the Top Twenty-Five Best Work Songs (http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/listoftheday/92240/the-25-best-work-songs-for-labor-day), proof that there is more to the tradition of the work song than “Joe Hill.” Some of O’Connor’s choices were obvious yet tremendous (Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” and John Lennon’s “Working-Class Hero”), others just plain tremendous (The Replacements’ “God Damn Job”).

More recently, others on the web have been revisiting that other (sometimes rightly) vilified relic of left-wing culture: the protest song. Dorian Lynskey, author of a new book on the subject—33 Revolutions Per Minute (released earlier this year by Faber and Faber)—has a blog (http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com) about current political music that deftly deploys his vast knowledge of music history. It’s also an audiovisual treat, letting us hear, for instance, the reggae song (“Police and Thieves,” by Junior Murvin) that a “peace tank” in a London anti-austerity protest played this year.

Inspired by Lynskey’s new book, the Nation’s Peter Rothberg made a Top Ten list on the magazine’s website, with audio...