May 29, 2016

Things that are conservative now according to Berners

https://www.reddit.com/r/enoughsandersspam/comments/4lirdk/number_of_people_no_longer_considered_liberal/d3nx36k

Things that are conservative now:

Planned Parenthood

Human Rights Campaign

Hillary Clinton

Gay rights activists

Black people

Math

Logic

I dunno how many of y'all do Reddit but you might like that sub

May 27, 2016

t h i s.

Progressive political economy was Southern Strategied into lazy n***** welfare queen economics by Nixon and Reagan and the Clintons had to deal with that reality. People don't understand how powerful the RW propaganda is. Imo, the right-wing propaganda apparatus starting in the 70s is the most onerous, insidious propaganda campaign in modern history, excepting that of North Korea and certain periods like the Cultural Revolution. Even the Nazis couldn't fully brainwash the German population, many of them really were following orders, on pain of a bullet in the brain, but "obey or i shoot you in the head" isn't an example of the propaganda working. Stalinism only worked on a minority of hardcore tankies and bureaucrats. I'm not being hyperbolic, right-wing ideology is that mind-warping. And with so many of this country's voters warped by this, they had to make concessions or risk a total defeat.

Like you said, we are AT a point where we can finally put Reagan in his coffin and nail the lid shut forever. But it's not going to happen without a massive, grassroots, intersectional movement, and Bernie couldn't do it. I actually don't think he's *personally* unelectable (certainly not against Trump, I don't think he's stronger than Hillary but if Hillary has a 95% chance of beating Trump, Bernie has an 85% chance) but he's not the right guy to build the movement to push and cement that progressive change.

May 27, 2016

I get what you're trying to say, racially insensitive as it is

You want what white people (specifically white males) had in the 50s, except presumably extended to everyone. And that's a nice ideal. That was as close to socialism as we were going to get and we tried to build on it in the 60s. That is a laudable goal. BUT you are ignoring the fact that white people themselves threw it away. They killed the goose laying the golden egg because they would have to share the eggs with non-whites, non-males, non-straights, as well as peaceniks and other non-conformists and they couldn't get over their own bigotry because they traded the real wages to feed their children for the psychological wage of feeling high, mighty and superior over "those people".

We must defeat and destroy racism and oppression in this country before we can ever have socialism. Socialism cannot win until the white working class and black working class and the Hispanic working class and the gay and the straight and the trans and the working class of every single identity join hands to remake society, and that won't happen as long as white workers are willing to trade real wages for psychological ones.

May 26, 2016

I've come to believe Hillary is far more progressive than she may appear

But she (and Bill for that matter) has had to play the game to get to this point, because if she doesn't then the Republican wins and we get more fascism. How much of her failings from a progressive view are the result of that? I'd daresay a lot. Nevertheless, she's certainly advocating a lot of progressive things right now, both socially and economically. Is she sincere? I'd like to think so. Yes, she does engage in a lot of noncommittal lawyerspeak which can be frustrating as hell, and i don't think very many of her supporters think she's perfect, and a lot of us would like to see her evolve further on several issues, but again that is part of the game and the only way to change that is to change the game, and not electing her over Trump might change the game...to something even worse.

The key thing is that Hillary is *persuadable*. Yes she evolves on issues when it's politically expedient (or rather, she takes public stands on issues when it's politically safe/ expedient, I'm sure the woman who marched in a Pride Parade in the 90s had no real issue with marriage equality at any point). But what is she evolving in response to? The people. Triangulation works both ways, after all. If she seems too friendly with neoliberalism (which I think she is), it's because the forces combating neoliberalism are too weak. Yes, it's more satisfying to say you are not compromising on certain progressive stands, but if you end up being stuck at 8.75 because you wouldn't budge from 15, how many workers have you really helped?

Furthermore, a lot of my support for Hillary is based on her intersectional coalition, which I'm actually impressed with seeing her starkly opposite 2008 campaign (which was naked white identity politics). Revolutions aren't made by individual leaders but by grassroots coalitions. And in America, nearly EVERY single revolutionary movement since this country's founding was spearheaded by people of color. And the latest one? By LGBT people. Progressive unions are getting behind her. Organizations that have fought for progress for decades are getting behind her. The fact that Hillary isn't as progressive as I'd like her to be is not as relevant in the face of this reality. Yes, I am all about class struggle but dismissing this coalition's needs and concerns as "identity politics" and then claiming the mantle of socialism and progressivism is a blind spot at best and an insult at worst. And keep in mind, her coalition is WELL to the left of where she's generally been. Support for socialism and progressivism scales with how black and brown and non-straight people are. So if Hillary betrays this coalition, she'll lose.

Does it matter that she needed vocal opposition before she came out against the TPP? Does it matter she flip-flopped in the right direction? Maybe. After all, there is the threat she can always flip flop back. But she does still want to win 2 terms, and i assume she does want a legacy. Does it matter her husband signed NAFTA? Yes. Does it matter that she praised Kissinger? Hell yes it does. Does it matter what happened overseas? Yes, I oppose those aspects of her policy and I think those are what we should pressure her the most to change; her hawkish inclinations are a product of the 90s and a product of possibly needing to overcompensate for sexism. At the same time though, you can't lionize Franklin Delano "Internment and Strategic Bombing" Roosevelt, John F "Bay of Pigs" Kennedy, and Lyndon Baines "Vietnam" Johnson and then have Hillary's comparatively lesser moral failings be dealbreakers for you. I understand why it's easy to think she's a neoliberal shill, because to be relevant in American politics, you sort of have at least make a few neoliberal shill noises. The question is, what are you going to do about it? We have a politician that is clearly willing to compromise and change her views based on the political winds. But that means the task falls to us to direct those political winds, rather than wait for a savior. Hillary is not a savior either, but she is ultracompetent, intelligent, and even though it often gets masked by the insanity of traditional American foreign policy, she has a strong sense of empathy and caring, which shows in the reaction of people who work with her, i.e "I'd crawl over broken glass for her", paraphrased". And as of today she's promoting and campaigning on progressive policy (far beyond even 2008, when she was to the left of Obama on many issues). It's up to us to keep her that way.

May 26, 2016

So we have a mostly white group of disgruntled voters

Alleging that the candidate who won a vast majority of POC votes won by voter fraud and is thus illegitimate.

Wasn't this the far-right conservative position in 2012? And now its the"progressive" position in 2016?

May 24, 2016

West made an arguable criticsm of Obama which is one thing

The terms he used were absolutely vile dogwhistle politics that he thought he could get away with because he's black, especially since his primary audience is white people.

Especially since it betrays a complete lack of understanding of the system that we live in, let alone any program for changing it. Obama fighting basically alone against the American deep state (as opposed to not being a pure neocon like Bush?) At BEST he's marginalized. At worst, well, I won't say but you know what I'm trying to say.

May 19, 2016

Bernie Sanders is doing severe damage to Leftist politics.

Expecting to get flamed by the usual suspects but riddle me this, after the shitshow of the past few months, how the hell do you sell a leftist candidate now? How do you push a quasi-socialist or socialist candidate without them being associated with the last "socialist" candidate? How close are we to having left-wing politics associated with chaos and anarchy and misogyny?

Remember when we were saying that "Sanders has rehabilitated the word socialism"? I'm not sure about that anymore, now that the Sanders movement has spent the past few months reenacting the worst stereotypes and smears of the Right. Everything that conservatives have said about left-wingers for years is being acted out by the BernieBros, from immaturity to excuse-making to laziness. How are not just conservatives but moderate Dems (the people we have to move leftwing to even have a shot) gonna look at this and say "See, this is what socialism is really about!"?

This is what happened in 68 where a lot of people looked at the radicals then and said "Nope, not for me" and pulled the lever for Nixon. Now,Trump is no Nixon, Nixon wasn't crazy and he was a very competent politician, evil as he was. But the parallels are there.

Believe it or not, you can't just declare victory just because everyone in your bubble agrees with you, you have to convince people outside said bubble, and that has become that much harder.

May 15, 2016

Even Nader thinks Bernie is terrible at politics

http://images.politico.com/global/2014/03/06/2014_-_3_6_-_letter_to_bernie_sanders.html

Read it.
Read it all.
This is Ralph fucking Nader talking.
Ralph "I helped elect Dubya" Nader.

If only I had known this shit before supporting him in the first place. He's a fraud. All he does is make a lot of noise about saying the right things, but he does nothing about it.

May 11, 2016

Think incrementalism is bad? Try outcrementalism

Where you stay outside the systems where power is distributed and achieve absolutely nothing.

May 8, 2016

I'm way to Obama's left but I appreciate and admire him.

But I've always appreciated even in my more emoprog moments the historic level of opposition and hatred he's faced, and how much he's gotten done in the face of said opposition. There are a few things I could certainly nitpick on, because I'm a far lefty and he's not. There are things I wish he could have done more aggressively or faster but that doesn't stop me from being able to appreciate how great a leader he's been on every level.

Hell, I use his speeches and cadence to improve my public speaking and I try to emulate how he tries to get across complex issues to the public. I'll never be the kind of orator he is and I'll probably never be speaking on the big stages he does, but that's one way he's managed to inspire me.

I am going to miss him. Greatest president in the last 50 years, easily. Top 10 all time at a minimum.