The progressive movement is on the march in America and this accessible book points toward a destination. Sixteen for '16 offers a new agenda for the 2016 US election crafted around sixteen core principles that all progressives can believe in, from securing jobs to saving the Earth. Decades of destructive social, economic, and political policies have devastated poor, working, and even middle class American communities. It is now clear to everyone that the emperor has no clothes, that harsh austerity does not bring prosperity, and that the wealthy have no intention to see their wealth trickle down. Each generation is no longer better off than the ones that came before. America now needs jobs, infrastructure, a rededication to public education, universal healthcare, higher taxes on higher incomes, a more secure Social Security, an end to the rule of the bankers, stronger unions, a living minimum wage, better working conditions, an end to the prison state, secure reproductive rights, voter equality, a more moral foreign policy, a more sane environmental policy, and action on global warming. Sixteen for '16 is a manifesto which makes the argument for each of these positions, clearly, concisely, and supported by hard data. As ambitious as these policies are, they represent a beginning, not an end. The progressive agenda laid out in Sixteen for '16 charts a realistic path toward a better tomorrow.
Salvatore Babones is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Sydney. He is the author or editor of ten books and more than two dozen academic research articles. His research covers the macro-level structure of the global economy with a particular focus on China. Babones writes extensively on international affairs and is a member of Foreign Affairs magazine's "China Brain Trust." He writes a monthly column on China for Al Jazeera English and is a frequent contributor to The National Interest and the Asian Review of Books.
Table of Contents
Create Jobs; Build America's Human Infrastructure; Support Public Education; Extend Medicare to Everyone; Raise Taxes on Top Incomes; Refinance Social Security; Make the Bankers Pay; Make It Easy to Join a Union; Set a Living Minimum Wage; Upgrade to 10-10-10; Put an End to the Prison State; Pass a National Abortion Law; Let People Vote; Stop Torturing, Stop Assassinating, and Close Down the NSA; Suffer the Refugee Children; Save the Earth.
What People are Saying About This
From the Publisher
"Babones has distilled the ocean of progressive policy ideas into specific proposals for a progressive policy agenda in the 2016 elections and beyond." Library Journal
"Distills policy ideas into proposals for a progressive agenda in the 2016 elections and beyond....highlights areas in which current policies are not working then lays out a common-sense solution that has proven popular support...uplifting" Library Journal
"Salvatore Babones' new book provides useful insights on many of the most important issues facing the country. The political picture will be far brighter if his list of priorities were at the top of the national agenda." Dean Baker, Co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
“This book brilliantly critiques and offers concrete practices and policy suggestions about how to move from calls for empty reform to real change. A must read.” Professor Henry A Giroux, McMaster UniversityChair for Scholarship in the Public Interest
"If you can't bear the thought of still another Presidential election campaign that offers no real answers to the problems we face, read this book—and share it with your friends—and with your favorite Presidential candidate." Steve Cobble, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington
