Here in Chicago, laid-off workers are standing up for themselves, and the solidarity is growing. The United Electrical Workers at Republic Window and Door were notified on Wednesday that as of Friday, they were jobless. No severance. No vacation pay-out, as per their union contract. Nothing. Why? Because the business is plunging towards dissolution, unable to get a line of credit, and Bank of America was instructing them not to honor their obligations--no line of credit to honor obligations.

The Obama Presidency approaches. Senator Clinton's admirably pugnacious effort to win the nomination has milked the opposition of the succor that would have nourished their autumn offensive. Republicans and conservatives may be adopting an aloof posture, as though the heated competition for the nomination is helping them, but it is not. Senator Obama's few "issues" have been discussed, dissected, and deliberated ad infinitum.

He will win the nomination, after a heated primary (as FDR did in 1932); he will win the Presidency in a surprising blowout (as FDR did in 1932); but FDR instituted the New Deal not because he had planned for it, but to capitalize on electoral success and address growing class rage.

If President Obama feels no pressure to push the country leftward, he will have no incentive to do so, because moving to the Left is by definition the riskiest thing a modern American politician can do: it activates the forces of organized money and unifies the geographically and ideologically disparate forces of conservatism.

I am going to criticize some candidates. Please understand these are criticisms from the Left, and not meant to boost any candidate over any other. For the record, I voted for Senator Obama in the Illinois primary.

This is a criticism of us in the netroots, however, not the candidates.